The Forget-Me-Not Sonata

by Santa Montefiore

  Grace was a natural pianist and exasperated the tutor who came every Monday evening because she would begin a piece, following the score punctiliously before suddenly digressing, allowing her fingers to wander off as if they had a mind of their own. She had a talent for playing by ear and it would take the tutor a few moments before she realized that Grace was inventing it as she went along, but in the same key and style as the original. She could imitate Mozart, Bach and Beethoven to perfection then just as quickly change to something all her very own, ‘the music of spirits’ she would call it because she claimed that they danced around the sitting room as she played. The tutor would shake her head with impatience and claim that spirits didn’t exist to which Grace would reply, ‘That, my dear Miss Horner, is because you can’t see them.’ And once she threw her head back and laughed to the horror of poor Miss Horner who simply didn’t understand her strange pupil. ‘There’s a little creature over there in the corner grinning at me now because of my impertinence. Let’s step this up a bit and get his little feet moving!’ Miss Horner only lasted a few months and when the next tutor arrived Audrey took care to tell her daughter to keep her ‘little friends’ to herself, because not everyone understood her like her mother.

  Grace was a happy child. She laughed a lot because nothing seemed to frighten her. She instinctively sensed that unkind people were unhappy people; whether bitter, jealous or full of hate, these emotions were usually bred in misery and self-loathing and she didn’t retaliate with aggression but compassion, which was unusual for a small child. She wasn’t besieged by the normal doubts that trouble children for she always had her angel friends to ask and Audrey was always there. She was self-sufficient and independent, often disappearing for hours just like her mother had done when she was young, returning home with a smile and a carefree toss of her long curly hair.

  At night after her mother had tucked her up in bed and kissed her goodnight a lovely spirit would always appear with long bouncing curls and a smile that was at once tender and mischievous. She would sit on the side of the bed and run her hand down Grace’s little face, all the time gazing upon her with love. Grace adored this time and would relate her thoughts and ideas and the spirit would listen patiently before sending her off to sleep with a soft kiss on her forehead.

  Cecil looked at Grace warily for she seemed to see right through him. He took to hiding the bottles of alcohol and drinking vodka which didn’t linger on his breath, because she would study him with those large, all-seeing eyes of hers and say, ‘Daddy, if you smiled a little more you wouldn’t need that medicine you’re always taking. A smile cures everything.’ Cecil never felt close to Grace because she seemed not to need him. And through his drunken vision she constantly reminded him of Louis.

  Audrey also thought of Louis each time she gazed upon the countenance of their daughter. She wished that he could see the divine being they had created together, and she had to constantly remind herself that she should be grateful for the little part of him that she had been allowed to hold onto and not to wish for more. She cried when she was alone and when she was at the theatre, for in the darkness when no one could see her the tears came readily and willingly. As the orchestra played she remembered Louis and his love of music that Grace had inherited and she felt close to him there, in spite of the fact that they had never visited the Colón together. She bought herself records of sad tango songs that she played when Cecil was out and Mercedes was sleeping. She would close the curtains and dance about the room imagining herself in Louis’ arms beneath the violet jacaranda trees in the spring days of their love.

  Grace grew up accustomed to her mother’s sudden bouts of melancholy. She would hide in the corridor and watch her through the crack in the door or if it was closed, through the keyhole. She loved to observe her solitary dancing. There was something dark and alluring about the secrecy of it for she would go to great lengths to check that she was alone, and the romance of it touched her very deeply, for her mother often cried as she danced and her tears were mysterious, for as much as Grace tried to ask her spirit friends about the cause of such unhappiness they were not forthcoming with an answer.

  Audrey didn’t know she was being watched and she didn’t realize how much of an impression her dancing had on her small child. Grace never asked her why she danced because she knew that if she admitted she had witnessed it her mother would stop dancing altogether and instinctively she knew she had to dance. It was a matter of survival.

  But the most fascinating of all was the little silk-bound book that her mother kept hidden in her underwear drawer. When she took it out and opened it, her pen poised above the page, Grace would strain her eyes to read what she wrote there. Her mother’s face would turn pale and her eyes would often glisten like they did during her dance of tears. She would sit thinking for a long while and Grace would watch her until she could barely contain her curiosity.

  Then one day, while her mother was out and Mercedes was baking a cake in the kitchen, she crept into her bedroom and opened the drawer which contained the secret book. There it lay beneath satin camisoles and stockings. With trembling fingers Grace picked it up. She felt at once the heavy vibrations of sadness and disappointment that clung to it and sent her own spirit spiralling into a decline. She breathed deeply and tried to detach herself; sometimes her gift ran away with itself. It was an exquisite little book. The silk was luxurious reds and greens woven into pictures of blue flowers and shone in the light like the hair of angels. It was soft to the touch and bound with a green cord that was knotted at the ends before spraying out into silky tassels. She sat down on the window seat and slowly untied it. For a moment she almost lost her courage. She knew she shouldn’t be prying into her mother’s private world. If she had wanted Grace to see the book she would have shown her herself. But her curiosity spurred her on. She opened it to find that the first page contained a strange title that she was unable to comprehend. ‘The Forget-Me-Not Sonata.’ She frowned and stared at the words written neatly in her mother’s hand, but they still meant nothing to her. Of course she knew that a forget-me-not was a flower and the flowers woven into the silk on the cover of the book could well have been forget-me-nots. But she instinctively felt there was a deeper significance that was hidden from her. She turned the page, hoping that the following words would enlighten her, but all she saw were the dots where her mother had attempted various times to start a sentence and a smudge from a tear. She sighed in disappointment and turned back to the peculiar title. ‘The Forget-Me-Not Sonata,’ she read. What did it mean?

  PART THREE

  Chapter 27

  England

  1971

  Florien sat beneath one of the apple trees in the orchard, watching the evening sun bathe the top of the wall with bright golden light. The rumble of the combines in the distance was carried on the wind bringing with it the smell of smouldering fields and decaying foliage and the pale watery sky reminded him of winter and the colourless months to come. He chose an apple out of the basket beside him, full of the fruits he had picked for Mrs Weatherby’s larder, and bit into it. His father always said that the apples already nibbled by wasps and bees were the best of all and he was right, for this apple tasted sweeter than any he had ever eaten and it was riddled with little holes from hungry insects. His mind wandered lazily to Leonora and Alicia Forrester.

  Leonora had helped him all day. He liked her. She was now a somewhat buxom seventeen year old with a small waist and large swollen breasts and bottom. Her face had lost some of its plainness and now began to reflect her gentle nature in a wide, disarming smile and soft blue eyes. She didn’t seem to care very much how she looked. She tied her brown hair into a ponytail and hid her figure beneath loose shirts and jumpers, preferring to dirty her hands in the mud of the garden than waste time applying makeup and painting her nails. He could talk to Leonora. She was kind and sympathetic. He could tell she admired him. He saw it in her shiny eyes and in her cheeks that blushed easily. Alicia was
entirely different. It was she who now dominated his thoughts night and day. With the allure of the devil she enchanted him with her mocking grin and sharp wit, putting him down one moment, encouraging him the next so that he didn’t know what to make of her.

  At night he lay in a sticky sweat, her angular features branded on his mind so that it fumed with frustration and love and hate and all the conflicting emotions she managed to stir up in his heart, leaving him confused and ashamed for caring for her like he did. He wanted to throw her up against a wall and make violent love to her so that she no longer smiled with conceit or looked at him through the narrowed eyes of a temptress sure of the power she wielded, quite able to turn him to stone with a flash of her lively blue eyes. Then he wanted to make love to her with tenderness, to melt her steely spirit and discover a compassionate and gentle human being beneath her hard outer coating. He longed to hear her sigh in wonder at her own capacity to love and share pleasure. He dreamed of discovering a vulnerable young woman with fears and hopes like any other. But Alicia wasn’t like anyone else. She appeared not to feel.

  Alicia had no desire to help in the garden. Nature bored her and so did the gypsies. They were provincial and poor. She was going to marry a duke at the very least and live in an enormous mansion. Aunt Cicely bored her too and made her help in the kitchen, which she hated because she didn’t like getting her hands dirty with flour and chicken flesh. She saw that Marcel was sponging off her aunt, who was still so enraptured by him that she was unable to tell that he was using her. When Cicely wasn’t looking she flirted with him in the hope of proving her theory, but much to her humiliation Marcel, who was closer to her in age than to her aunt, just smiled ironically and dismissed her advances with a fluid wave of one of his paintbrushes. ‘Little girl, if you want to seduce someone, go and seduce a gypsy, they’ll be grateful, after all they only have turnips to talk to,’ he said in his heavily articulated French accent. Alicia vowed that she would have her revenge. How dare anyone speak to me like that? she thought angrily. But perhaps he was right; it would be fun to seduce a gypsy.

  Alicia knew Leonora adored Florien and that made her plan all the more enticing. She watched them planting together, chatting away about the weather, the soil and the harvest, laughing with the ease of old friends and the thought of slipping in between them was just irresistible. She noticed Florien’s desire for her, he was a man after all, and most men were not like Marcel. She knew she could have anyone she wanted. She was confident of her appeal. She lay in the autumn sunshine, biting a bar of chocolate, watching her prey knowing that he knew he was being watched. That in itself was enough to send a tingle of excitement up her beautiful body.

  She had not yet had sex. Virginity was a hideous word, reeking of inexperience and vulnerability. She wanted to get rid of it as soon as possible and Florien was very attractive. He was tall and strong with black shiny hair and dark suspicious eyes that smouldered beneath his fringe. He was sulky and taciturn, quite the moody hero of the Mills & Boon books that got passed around at school, but he was sadly lacking in the most important area. He was poor and unlikely to become rich, even less likely to become famous and simply unable to acquire a title or status of any worth. That made him good for only one thing.

  ‘It’s a magical evening, isn’t it?’ she said, sitting beside him on the grass, taking an apple out of the basket and biting into it. He didn’t reply, just looked at her blankly. ‘Where’s your little helper?’ she asked.

  ‘Leonora?’

  ‘Yes, the garden gnome, where’s she?’

  ‘Gone to the garden centre with Mrs Weatherby,’ he replied, wondering what she wanted, for her eyes glistened with intent.

  ‘Not more bulbs, surely?’ She laughed and noticed to her delight that his sullen expression softened a little. ‘You spend all day on your knees, digging away in the mud. Can’t she ask you to drive a combine or something a little less manual?’

  ‘I like working in the garden best. Driving a combine is very dull.’

  ‘It’s more manly though and you’re a man.’ He averted his eyes. He was used to her flirting with him and then squashing him like a summer fly. He was in no mood to be humiliated. ‘Give me your hand,’ she asked suddenly.

  He chuckled and shook his head.

  ‘What do you want with it?’

  ‘I want to feel it.’ She laughed again. ‘Don’t be shy, I won’t bite it.’ He had no option. He gave her his palm. She took it and ran her fingers lightly over the rough surface. He felt himself grow hot as he couldn’t help but imagine what it would feel like to have her fingers caressing the rest of his body like that. ‘There, you have the hand of a farmer. It’s deliciously coarse. Can you feel my soft skin with it, or is it too hardened to feel?’ His cheeks throbbed with embarrassment and he pulled his hand away, fighting the excitement that strained at his trousers. He took another apple in order to do something with his hands.

  ‘You’re being silly,’ he retaliated, biting into it.

  ‘I’m not. Really, I’m not, Florien. I’m curious. When you make love to a woman, can you feel with those hands of yours?’

  ‘That’s none of your business.’ He was astonished by her boldness and titillated at the same time.

  ‘If you were to run your hands over my body, would you feel how soft my skin is? I take a lot of trouble with it. I rub oils into it every night after my bath and only wear silk to sleep in. Here,’ she said, thrusting her arm at him. ‘Feel how smooth it is.’

  ‘What are you playing at?’ he retorted angrily, frowning at her with his dark eyebrows. ‘I don’t want to feel your skin. Keep it to yourself.’

  ‘Surely you don’t mean that.’ She looked hurt. ‘I know I’m being foolish, but love does that, doesn’t it? So I’m told. I’ve never been in love before.’

  Florien couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Her words suddenly put a whole different complexion on the situation. He looked at her steadily, disarmed by her apparent vulnerability. She gazed back with limpid eyes and smiled sweetly, like other women smiled and he felt his heart swell with joy. His mind told him to be cautious, but the blood was already pumping through his veins at such a speed that he didn’t hear the small voice of reason. ‘I’ve never been in love before, either,’ he said impulsively, lured into a fragile sense of security.

  ‘I’ve tried to ignore my feelings, Florien, because I know Aunt Cicely would kill me. She would say I’m too young for love. But I want you. I want you now.’ She bit her lip because she knew her little speech was clumsy. From the books she had read, and tired of, women spoke of love like that. Of this ridiculous battle with their feelings. So she had moved a little too swiftly onto sex, she presumed, but Florien was too surprised by her declaration of love to notice.

  ‘I love you too,’ he replied, turning to her swiftly and taking her hands in his. ‘I’ve tried to ignore my feelings as well, but your face torments me as much by day as by night. I can’t seem to get you out of my head. You’re just not like anyone else. You’re wonderful.’ Alicia was amused by this sudden outburst. She only wanted to sleep with him and here he was almost proposing. She had opened the door an inch and he had blown the whole thing off its hinges.

  ‘Where shall we go then?’ she said, suppressing a giggle.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Where shall we go, to be alone?’ she repeated, hoping she wasn’t taking this too fast. How men put up with the tedious rituals of courtship she couldn’t imagine. She was very aware that she was taking the lead and behaving like a man, which Florien probably wouldn’t like so she decided to speak once more of love. ‘I love you, Florien, and only you. I want to be close to you. To feel your heart against mine, your body next to mine. I want to give myself to you. I want you to claim my innocence and make me a woman.’ She was delighted with her speech this time and even more delighted by the gypsy’s response. He jumped to his feet.

  ‘Come with me,’ he said, taking her by the hand. He led her up the orchard
to a door in the wall that opened into the cluster of barns and outhouses. She smothered her laughter and tried with some success to act the part of a vulnerable young girl in the first flush of love. Florien was so astonished by his own good fortune he didn’t notice the cracks in her performance.

  He led her to a barn filled with hay bales. Golden beams of light entered through the holes in the wood and caught the tiny straws of hay, setting them aflame with the red and amber rays of sunset. With a pounding heart he climbed to the top where the flat surface of bales lay beneath the timber roof of the barn, giving them a secret, sweet-smelling bower in which to discover each other undisturbed. Then he turned around and held her by the shoulders. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked, his dark eyes caressing hers with tenderness. Alicia pulled a small, girlish smile and nodded. She tried to imagine how Leonora would reply. Mutely, she deduced unkindly and continued in the same vein.

  Florien knew what he was doing. He had slept with enough girls to know his way around a woman’s body and yet he was nervous. So nervous that if it hadn’t been for the exquisite undulations of Alicia’s pale body he might not have been able to perform. She lay on the hay with her eyes half closed while he kissed her and undressed her, stroked her and admired her and like a cat in sunlight she stretched and sighed and purred with the enjoyment of a woman with a large capacity for pleasure.

  She was sure of her allure and unlike other girls she showed no apprehension or inhibition, but abandoned herself to him with a mouth half twisted with amusement. Florien was too busy feasting on her and his good luck to notice the contemptuous glint in her eyes. He was sure that she loved him, for why else would she give him such a precious gift? Her virginity. She had chosen him and he felt glorious.