The Forget-Me-Not Sonata

by Santa Montefiore

  ‘You will love England. It is a beautiful place. I think we need a new start, Audrey.’ She looked up at him and pulled a thin smile. He was right, they couldn’t go on like this, making each other miserable. Audrey with her memories, Cecil with his drink. ‘I won’t drink another drop from the moment we arrive in England,’ he said.

  Audrey lowered her eyes. ‘And I shall leave my memories behind.’

  They both stared at each other in amazement. That was the first time they had communicated in many years.

  Death often bequeaths a surprising gift to those left behind. An appreciation of life. So it was with Audrey and Cecil. They both sat together at the funeral and thought how many funerals they had been to and how each one had affected them profoundly. Audrey remembered her father whom she had adored and hoped that Grace was right, that there was life after death and that he was with Isla and Aunt Edna’s Sunshine Harry in some wonderful paradise. She flinched when Cecil took her hand. It reminded her of that time, all those years ago, when he had first taken it during the performance of Giselle at the Teatro Colón. This time she didn’t ignore it. She squeezed it, then her eyes glistened with tears. It was time to give Louis up for ever. She would leave the Argentine and all those memories behind. The cherry trees and the station, the Hurlingham Club and the cobbled streets of Palermo, Gaitano’s ranch and his silent understanding that continued to keep Louis’ memory alive. Happiness was up to her and she had a choice. She could either live in the past and be miserable or try to recapture the fondness she had once felt for her husband. Spring always follows winter, she thought and although it was cold outside, spring wasn’t far away.

  It was time she admitted that Cecil’s drinking was her fault. With her help he could stop. She looked across at him, her eyes filled with compassion and squeezed his hand again. How noble he had been. He had remained with her when she had broken her marriage vows and then done what few men would have the courage to do, bring up another man’s child as his own. As far as he was concerned Grace was his third daughter and he had always treated her the same as the twins. How could she fail to appreciate all of that? ‘I’ve hurt you so much,’ she whispered.

  His eyes flickered with emotion, but he put his finger across his lips, ‘Shhhh,’ he cautioned. ‘We’ll be overheard.’

  ‘I want to start again.’ This time he nodded at her then looked away. The alcohol had dulled his senses so that now he wasn’t sure whether he was imagining or hearing those words for real. ‘I want to earn your forgiveness,’ she continued in a loud whisper. Cecil was too moved to reply.

  There was one thing that Audrey had to do before they left for England. Taking Grace with her she boarded the train for the city. ‘Where are we going?’ Grace asked, staring happily out of the window.

  ‘To a very special place that I want you to see before you leave.’

  ‘Will I like it?’

  ‘Yes you will. It’s a nice place, a magical place. I’ll take you for an ice cream afterwards if you like.’

  ‘Yummy,’ she enthused in excitement. ‘I can’t wait to see the gypsies.’

  ‘Well, Daddy’s bought a house very near to Aunt Cicely so you can see them as often as you like.’

  ‘I’m going to like England very much,’ she said. But she kept a fear to herself. For the first time in her life she felt apprehensive. Not about going to live in another country, that was a thrilling prospect, but she worried that the spirits might not go with her. She didn’t ask her mother if there were spirits in England because she knew she wouldn’t know the answer. And she didn’t want to ask her spirit friends in case they said no, for then she would be very sad to leave them. She would just have to wait and see. But the possibility that Isla might not be there at night to kiss her to sleep worried Grace very deeply.

  Audrey and Grace arrived in Palermo. It had changed since the days when she had danced there with Louis. The small tavern was gone and in its place a restaurant now served lunch. The square was still as it was, the same jacaranda trees about to burst into flower with the arrival of spring, the same dilapidated buildings that surrounded it with the same dusty windows. But they stared at her with the eyes of strangers, for many years had passed and they failed to recognize her any more. Only the ghostly music of the tango floated on the air from a gramophone somewhere, or was it just the wind rattling through old memories?

  Grace didn’t speak while her mother stood in the middle of the square, her thoughts lost in another era. She looked about her and wondered what was so special about this part of the city. It was old and worn and sad. She sensed the vibrations and her heart flooded with melancholy. The square was draped in a mist of nostalgia and Grace knew intuitively that it had something to do with her mother’s dance of tears. She looked up at her and saw that she was crying once again. But she still didn’t want to ruin the moment. Crying was very healing, that’s what her grandmother often told her. So she let her cry and wandered off to puff like a train into the cold winter air and watch her breath rise up in a cloud of steam.

  Audrey stood very still and remembered. For the last time she recalled what it had felt like to dance in his arms in this very square. To feel the bristle of his skin tickling her forehead and temple, to hug him close and live in the moment. Not in the past or in the future but in the now. ‘Oh, Louis,’ she sighed out loud. ‘I will never stop loving you but in order to live I must let you go.’ There followed a heavy silence and then the elusive music of the tango began to play again. ‘Grace, can you hear the music?’ she asked her. Grace came skipping back and cocked her head to one side. She frowned.

  ‘What music?’

  ‘That music? Can’t you hear it?’

  ‘There’s no music playing, Mummy,’ said Grace and she laughed, skipping about the square once more, puffing like a train. Audrey smiled for she still heard it and later when she went to bed she heard it again. Only when she arrived in England did it stop and she knew an old life had ended and a new one begun. It was time to start again.

  The moment Grace set foot in England she searched around the airport for spirits. She saw none and her heart stumbled. She was suddenly overcome with a pain she had never experienced before, panic. Like a dog chasing its tail Grace spun around and around desperate to see some sort of smoky being. She saw nothing but people with suitcases and they looked very real indeed. Cecil waved at Aunt Cicely who was waiting for them behind the barrier to drive them down to Dorset. Grace was now quite tearful. She blinked hard, trying to disguise her misery. She wished she had had the courage to ask them; at least then she would have been prepared. She would have had the opportunity to say goodbye.

  ‘Hello, Grace, I’m Aunt Cicely,’ said Cicely, bending down. The child extended her hand. Audrey frowned. It was most unlike Grace to look so sad.

  ‘Are you all right, my love?’ she asked in a concerned voice. Grace’s mouth turned down and she looked past Aunt Cicely and extended her hand to the man who was now smiling at her. Aunt Cicely looked beside her then back at Grace.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Uncle Hugh,’ said Grace without smiling.

  ‘Hugh?’ Cicely gasped and looked at Cecil.

  ‘My dear, who are you greeting?’ Cecil asked. Suddenly Grace’s face was transformed into a wide, excited smile.

  ‘You’re a spirit!’ she exclaimed, laughing at Hugh. Hugh just smiled back then disappeared. Grace looked about her. ‘Totem!’ she cried, clapping her hands together. ‘Oh, Mummy, I thought I’d left them all behind. I’m so happy.’

  Audrey put her arm around her daughter and smiled down at her. ‘I’ll explain later,’ she said, winking at her sister-in-law.

  ‘I think you had better,’ she replied, a little shaken. ‘If she’s seen Hugh I dread to think who else she’s going to see in my rickety old house.’

  That night, Audrey kissed her youngest goodnight and ran a hand down her soft cheek. ‘We’ll move into our new house the moment it’s ready, my love, then you’ll have your own be
droom.’ She smiled tenderly at the little girl who had brought her so much happiness and felt her body glow with love.

  ‘I’m so glad the spirits have come with me,’ she said, grinning up at her mother.

  ‘But of course they have. They fly about the place with no difficulty at all, crossing an ocean is nothing for them.’

  ‘I know. But I still worried about it.’

  ‘You should have told me.’

  ‘I will next time I have a worry.’

  ‘Good, because that’s what I’m here for.’

  ‘I really love you, Mummy,’ she said suddenly, looking straight into her mother’s eyes. Audrey caught her breath for Grace wasn’t a sentimental child. She bent over and wrapped her little girl in her arms.

  ‘Oh darling, that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said. I love you too, very much.’ They held each other for a moment while Audrey silently thanked God for the gift of Grace and Grace enjoyed the warm cocoon of her mother’s embrace. Then Grace laid her head back down upon the pillow.

  ‘I hope Isla kisses me goodnight too,’ she said. ‘You once had long hair like hers, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I did. But I’m too old for hair like that now.’

  ‘You’re beautiful.’

  ‘So are you. But you’ve got a rare gift, my love, because you’re even more beautiful on the inside.’ She hesitated a moment, remembering that that was what Cecil used to say to her.

  When she left the room and closed the door she hovered a moment until she heard Grace’s voice greet her spirit friend. ‘I knew you’d come,’ she said. ‘Because you know I need you.’ She smiled to herself and sighed. She loved all her three children and yet, there was something about Grace that made her love her more intensely. Alicia and Leonora were young women now, but Grace was still a child and would always be childlike. That she had inherited from her father. She wasn’t made for the material world and Audrey felt it was her duty to protect her from it, for as long as she was able.

  She went downstairs to where Leonora and Alicia were talking to Aunt Cicely and their father in the kitchen. Leonora was lying on a beanbag with Barley, who gazed up at her with the opaque eyes of an old man. He had even grown white around the nose and eyebrows. Alicia slouched in the armchair by the Aga, drinking Coca-Cola and eating a packet of crisps. She looked up at her mother when she entered the room and suddenly remembered Mercedes. ‘Mummy, was Merchi sad to say goodbye?’ she asked.

  ‘You know Mercedes,’ Audrey replied, raising her eyebrows. ‘She never liked to show emotion. But I think she was sad. Mind you, she was old and it was time for her to retire and rest a little. You know she’s living with Oscar now.’

  Alicia laughed heartily. ‘That doesn’t surprise me. He always had the hots for her. What happened to that hideous parrot?’

  ‘Oh, Loro.’ Audrey chuckled. ‘I’m afraid he died.’

  ‘How did he die?’ Leonora asked from the beanbag. She paused her hand over Barley’s head and he began to nudge it with his wet nose.

  ‘He fell into a pot of boiling water.’

  The girls both stared at their mother with shock. Cicely stopped stirring the Bolognese sauce and turned around. ‘What a hideous way to go,’ she said. ‘Reminds me of the pheasant that flew in here one evening. I found him roasting with the chicken. Of course, it would have been a bonus had he been plucked first.’ Cecil looked at his sister quizzically. Cicely never used to be this fanciful. When he later met Marcel, who deigned to descend from his attic studio for supper, he understood why she had changed. Later when he looked at himself in the mirror he realized that he had changed too, and not for the better.

  He climbed into bed with his wife and they both lay staring out into the darkness and into their future, which now seemed suddenly frighteningly uncertain. ‘I was brought up in an old house like this,’ he said. ‘We used to play hide and seek, though Papa used to call it “Cocky Ollie” for some reason. The house was a labyrinth of corridors and little rooms here and there, it was a magical place for Cocky Ollie. You could disappear for hours and never be found.’ He wanted to add that Louis often hid somewhere so brilliant that they were still searching for him long after the game had finished. Then they stopped bothering and just left him until he came out on his own, hungry and sleepy, having missed supper and his bedtime. But he didn’t want Audrey to think of Louis. That was behind them now. He took her hand and remembered what she had said in the church. She didn’t withdraw it.

  ‘Tell me more about your childhood, Cecil,’ she whispered. While he began to paint a vivid picture he felt her edge closer until their bodies were pressed tightly together like they had often been in the early days of their marriage. As she revealed the quiet stirring of her affection, Cecil’s confidence began to grow. He was suddenly reminded of the man he had once been and with a fiery determination he vowed to find that man again. He was still there somewhere, beneath the broken pieces of a once formidable soldier. He could hear the distant echo of the accolades heaped upon him after his glorious successes in the war and he began to emerge from a long and wintry hibernation.

  He rolled over and kissed her. At first Audrey was stunned. She lay a moment without moving, her body frozen with panic. But little by little she warmed to his attentions until she finally surrendered the long war of resistance. She wound her arms around his neck and became his wife once again. And with his gentle loving she was reminded of all the reasons she had married him in the first place and why she had grown so fond of him. He held her with reverence and made love to her with the tenderness of a man who, in spite of all the pain and humiliation, had never allowed resentment to destroy his love. He had always hoped that if he resisted acknowledging her affair it might go away. His instincts had been right.

  Chapter 29

  ‘I don’t love you any more,’ said Alicia to Florien. She watched his face turn grey with disbelief, leaving only his ears to throb as the blood from his cheeks drained into them, betraying his anguish. He was speechless. He had been on the verge of asking her to marry him.

  Since leaving school Leonora had taken up employment with Aunt Cicely. In exchange for gardening she boarded and lodged for free. Although her parents had bought a house only twenty minutes away in a small village by the sea, it was more convenient for her to continue living with her aunt. Alicia had spent one year at finishing school in Switzerland, learning how to ski, speak French and the fine art of seduction, of which she had had no little experience with Florien in the barn in Dorset. Rich, handsome men from all over the globe came to study at Le Rosay in Morges and there was more on their minds too than algebra.

  Florien waited. He sulked behind his fringe, spoke little and barely smiled at all. Even Leonora was unable to reach him. Each day her heart bled. Drop by drop as she watched his dark gypsy eyes gaze through her to Alicia, who was constantly in his thoughts, mesmerizing him with her dark allure. She pretended she didn’t notice when he ignored her or when he snapped at her but later she curled into a ball on her bed and licked her wounds like a dog. She knew she should leave and go somewhere else where she wasn’t reminded every day of his rejection, but she couldn’t. She might not have his love but she had his company and that was better than not having him at all.

  She wanted so much to talk to her mother about her aching soul, but she knew she wouldn’t understand. She had never loved like this nor longed like this and besides, it had been years since she had confided in her. The lines of communication between them were no longer as open as they had once been. Grace had taken her place.

  When Alicia returned, tanned and more beautiful than before, she picked Florien up as if he were a pet she had left with the neighbours. They made love once again in the barn and in the pool house until Alicia bored of the tedium of those places and preferred to take him into the woods or the fields and make love there beneath the sky. Once again Florien emerged from his sulk, his eyes blinked away the dust and shone and his smile lit up his face and turned his
cheeks a healthy pink. He noticed Leonora because his spirits lifted and he suddenly noticed everything around him. But he wasn’t thinking of her when he talked to her or when he laughed with her. He was drunk with love and his happiness was because of Alicia.

  But Leonora’s spirits lifted too. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t because of her that he now chatted jovially and chuckled for no reason. If he was happy then she was happy too.

  The countryside bored Alicia. There was nothing to do. So she moved to London where she stayed with her friend Mattie, in her parents’ spacious apartment in Kensington. Mattie didn’t dare ask for rent, she knew her friend would baulk at the suggestion. Alicia was used to being given whatever she wanted. She had that effect on people. Even shopkeepers found it hard to take money from such a beautiful young woman and often gave her discounts. She knew when to be gracious but the rest of the time she didn’t bother trying. Her moods swung from excitement to irritability with no prior warning. There was no reason for her petulance. She lived off her adrenaline. Without thrill she sunk into boredom and lashed out at the people closest to her.

  It would have been easy for Alicia to finish with Florien. She saw him only at weekends or for a little longer in the summertime when the weather was too stifling to remain in the city. London was brimming with eligible young men in search of beautiful wives and Alicia was entertained like a princess. She toyed with them all, taking her pleasure when she wanted it, avoiding their calls when she had tired of them. But Florien remained a constant fixture in her changeable life. She began to grow fond of him in spite of herself. The more his confidence grew the bigger his personality became. She discovered that there was more to him than the smouldering dark looks of his gypsy heritage. He was witty and playful, intelligent and perceptive. Alicia’s love was all used up on herself so she didn’t have much left for anyone else, even Florien. But there was something about him that drew her to him so that she found herself returning to Dorset most weekends like a homing pigeon. While in the arms of her more sophisticated city lovers she always resolved to leave her country friend. Yet, she had never seemed able to. Until now.