The Forget-Me-Not Sonata

by Santa Montefiore

  ‘Have you forgotten how to dance?’ he asked softly. Audrey raised her eyes that were now glistening with tears and her pale lips trembled because suddenly the past confused her. It had once all been so clear.

  ‘I haven’t forgotten,’ she replied and her voice was a whisper that was carried on the wind. ‘I just put my dancing shoes away for a time.’

  He sighed as the years fell away and once more they were united, beneath the red ceibo trees and violet jacarandas in the leafy plazas of Buenos Aires, moving to the internal melodies of their love.

  ‘Hello Louis,’ said Cicely, staggering up to them. ‘From what Grace tells me you don’t shout any more.’ Louis shook his head at the memories that had come alive there and smiled at his sister.

  ‘I’d never shout at Grace,’ he replied, turning to settle his watery eyes on Audrey once again. ‘Grace is special.’ Audrey didn’t avert her eyes, she wanted to tell him by her expression that Grace knew. She had so much to tell him. But Cicely persisted.

  ‘Why don’t you come and stay with me at Holholly Grange?’ she asked. ‘Anthony has never met you.’

  ‘I’m booked into a bed-and-breakfast,’ he replied. ‘There’s plenty of hot water and heating there.’ He grinned mischievously.

  Cicely didn’t take offence. She shrugged her shoulders. ‘As you wish.’ She looked from one to the other. ‘Well, let’s not stand here getting cold. There’s tea back at your house, isn’t there, Audrey?’ Audrey nodded. ‘Well, good. I’ll give you both a lift.’

  Audrey sat in silence while Cicely asked her brother all about Dublin. She watched his profile, barely able to believe that he was sitting there beside her. It didn’t matter that they weren’t alone for they were almost touching. After so many dreams they were once more united but this time it was different. For the first time in their lives, the road ahead was open to them. They had entered the realm of endless possibilities. She knew he was thinking the same thing. That was why he had come.

  When they arrived home Leonora was passing the canapés around and pouring everyone tea. Little Panazel raced about the sitting room with his brother and sister, scrambling between the legs of the guests, unaware that a funeral was a solemn occasion. To him, death was like the changing of the seasons and not worth questioning. He’d miss his grandfather like he missed the summer, but he was too young to know about mourning. Alicia stood smoking beside the fire, her face still half hidden behind the veil, her eyes watching Florien without wavering, like the eyes of an old lioness who watches her prey longingly but knows she can no longer run fast enough to catch it.

  Grace had been waiting for her Uncle Louis. She had barely been able to concentrate on anything else. She had watched the door, shrinking in disappointment each time it opened for someone else. When finally he entered she rushed up to him with unrestrained enthusiasm. She was about to throw her arms around his neck when something pulled inside her – a sudden feeling of unease as her instincts told her it was not appropriate in her father’s house on the occasion of his funeral. He sensed her retreat and placed a hand on her arm instead. ‘It’s good to see you, Grace,’ he said. She smiled at him warmly, grateful that he understood.

  ‘I hoped you would come,’ she said.

  ‘We had our differences, but Cecil was my brother.’

  ‘I know. I’m sure he’s pleased that you’ve come too. Nothing brings people together like death.’

  Louis nodded and removed his coat and hat, placing them on a chair. ‘I wish I had known about his illness earlier.’ He sighed, flicking his fingers nervously.

  ‘He didn’t want that,’ Grace replied. ‘He wanted to die with dignity.’

  ‘Cecil was a man of huge dignity.’

  ‘He was.’

  ‘Were you with him when he passed away?’

  ‘Yes, I was,’ she said, looking at him steadily with her deep, knowing eyes. ‘He tied up loose ends as dying people do.’ He nodded again with understanding. Then his face unfolded like a sunflower that is turned towards the sun. They stared at each other as if suddenly seeing their own reflection for the first time. For a brief moment the world about them seemed to move in slow motion as they hung suspended in time, gazing into the other’s features in astonishment. Neither knew what to say because not only did such a revelation open the cobwebbed box that contained the secret past, but because their real relationship was unmentionable in that house. Finally Louis spoke in a deep voice that was barely audible, even to Grace.

  ‘He was a good man,’ he said and no one but Grace, Louis and Audrey knew how good he had been.

  When the house was finally emptied of guests and Aunt Cicely had been helped out by her husband, wobbling on her heels because of her sprain and because she had consumed far too much wine, Audrey asked Louis to stay for dinner. ‘It will just be you, me and Grace,’ she said. ‘Alicia has returned to London, she finds the countryside suffocating and Leonora has gone home to put the children to bed.’

  ‘I would like that very much,’ he said, gazing deeply into her troubled eyes.

  ‘I’d like to have a bath and change, the cold has penetrated right through to my bones.’

  ‘Of course. Grace will keep me company.’

  Audrey left him in the sitting room and climbed the stairs. She felt heavy as if her legs were made of something more solid than bones and her joints ached. But nothing ached as much as her heart. She rubbed her forehead in confusion. Louis had come for her. It was what she had dreamed of and no one knew better than she the power of dreams. Without knowing why she wandered into Cecil’s dressing room. His smell lingered as if he were still alive. It clung to the walls and fabrics and conjured up in her mind the face of the man she had struggled against for so many years until, by the very force of her will and perhaps something much greater than herself, she had grown to love him as she had never believed possible. It wasn’t the obsessive love that she had felt for Louis, but a quieter love born out of respect. He was gone but his presence was so strong she had to sit on the bed and savour it. Such an intense reminiscence might not last forever, even memory fades.

  Then she began to go through his things. Cecil kept everything. Boxes of coins, drawers of old letters, piles of leaflets, books and souvenirs all tidy and orderly according to his nature. This room had been his nest and she had never disturbed it. Now she picked each item up, turned it over lovingly, remembering him in all the odd things he collected for his vibration was alive on even the smallest coin. There were peso notes from the Argentine, his ticket from their first date at the Colón, a map of the city of Buenos Aires, the silver pen her father had given him on the morning of their wedding and old newspapers, all worn and creased as if he had handled them a hundred times. She smiled with tenderness as her fingers traced them with nostalgia, brushing off the dust and the years, reliving the past all over again. Then she came across a polished walnut box. It was solid and heavy and shining as if new. This was obviously something of great importance because it was on the chest where he could reach it with ease. She tried to open it but it was locked. Her curiosity was now aroused and she searched for the key. Cecil, being a military man, kept everything in its place and sure enough, in the small drawer at the base of the large oval mirror, not far from the box, lay a silver key. With trembling hands she now opened it to find an old piece of yellowing paper folded neatly inside. Excited by what was without doubt a secret she put the box down and unfolded the note. When she saw what was written on it her heart stumbled and her body was gripped by an icy chill. It was written in Louis’ unmistakeable hand and dated 24 June 1948, the day of Isla’s funeral.

  Cecil, why do women torture us so? I gave my heart to Audrey and she took it. We loved with the abandon of two people whose destinies are prewritten in the stars. We sailed against the tide hoping that the winds would change and we would be free to love one another openly, but who would have predicted such cruel winds of change? Isla has died and taken Audrey’s heart with her. Shame on me tha
t I resent Isla for such an untimely departure. I cannot be in Argentina if Audrey is unwilling to belong to me. The pain is too much to bear. I will throw my dreams into the waters and return when the tides change to favour me once again. Until that blessed time I shall wait restlessly in some Mexican city where Audrey’s loveliness is unknown. Forgive us that we led you such a merciless dance, we never meant to hurt, only to disguise. You and I are both victims of love. Louis.

  Audrey’s feverish eyes were then drawn to the phrase that Cecil had written beneath:

  And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses

  Mark II v25.

  She stared at it as a hot feeling of shame crept up her spine and soon her vision was so blurred that she could no longer read. Cecil had known about their love affair right from the beginning. He must have known too, when she returned from settling the twins into boarding school and Louis was waiting for her playing the piano. He must have accepted it but never given up. What caused her the most pain, however, was the fact that he had chosen to forgive. Her husband’s nobility touched her once again but this time it left an indelible print.

  It was at that moment of awakening that ‘The Forget-Me-Not Sonata’ resounded through the house from the piano downstairs. With its haunting undulations and hypnotic repetitions the notes penetrated Audrey’s spirit and caused her head to spin. She put her hands to her ears to block out the melody that had been a musical expression of their love but now had no place in their lives. It only insulted Cecil’s memory. Cecil who had never stopped loving her, even during the months, years, when she had dreamed of his brother, conceived his child and planned to leave him and start a new life on the other side of the world. ‘The Forget-Me-Not Sonata’ now accentuated his goodness, his patience and his pain and tears of regret burned her cheeks. Yes, he had deserved such a magnificent sky, such flamingo pink and slashes of red and gold. The soul of Cecil Forrester was more than deserving. Yet, he deserved more. He deserved her faithfulness. She hadn’t honoured him in life, but she could honour him in death. Louis’ self-indulgent love suddenly seemed pale compared to the deep love of her husband.

  With faltering steps she hurried down the stairs as the music got louder and louder, the notes ringing in her ears like a scream. When he saw her livid face and flaming eyes he stopped playing and a frown darkened his face. She handed him the note. Grace watched from the sofa, barely daring to breathe. He read it and the silence was as loud as the music had been. Then he raised his eyes, at once heavy with a dreadful sadness. He understood. Cecil’s death hadn’t liberated them, it had set them apart for ever. How could they resume in the shadow of such self-sacrifice?

  He stood up and slipped into his coat, placing his hat crookedly on his head as was his custom. Then he walked over to her without taking his eyes that were once again distant, but no longer forlorn, off her anguished face. And he took her in his arms and kissed her cheek, savouring for the last time the scent of her skin and the proximity of her body that had once moved with his to the internal melody of a love that they had believed would never die. He caressed her features, though he need not have taken the trouble for hers was a face that he would never forget. Then he departed. They heard the door close and shivered as a cold wind swept in, leaving them alone. All that remained was the tension in the air and an almost tangible sense of loss.

  Grace looked at her mother then at the door, her face solemn and anxious. When she turned back Audrey nodded at her slowly, without saying a word. Grace needed no other encouragement. She sprang up from the sofa and ran out into the road. ‘Louis!’ she shouted after him. ‘Louis!’ Her voice was carried on the wind and he stopped and turned around. He saw her running through the darkness and his face crumpled into a tremulous smile. He looked so grateful to see her that she threw her arms around him. It had begun to drizzle and his coat was wet against her face. ‘This isn’t the end, Louis, but the beginning,’ she said, pressing her cheek against his shoulder. ‘Spring always follows winter, doesn’t it?’

  Louis was too moved to speak. He placed his hand on her head and kissed her forehead, aware that his tears were falling into her hair. Then she pulled away and looked at him with the eyes of a child. ‘What you started with Mummy continues with me. I love you. You’re my father now.’ Louis swallowed the ball of emotion that had caught in his throat. There was so much that he wanted to say, but words eluded him. He ran an unsteady hand down her face, aware that the last time he had cried had been the moment at the airport when he had realized Audrey was lost to him for ever. Now his tears weren’t shed in sadness but in joy. Grace was his child. She would never leave him. They stared at each other for a long moment, unable to find the words to express what they both felt. So Louis began to hum a tune. Grace listened in delight until she was able hum it too. Tentatively at first then with confidence as it became more familiar. In the velvet darkness of the empty street they held each other close and hummed together a new sonata; a sonata for the future that began now with their first deliberate steps across the wet pavement.

  When Grace returned home her mother was sitting on the piano stool, her fingers stroking the keys that still vibrated from the music he had played. She sat down beside her and leant her head against her shoulder.

  ‘The Forget-Me-Not Sonata,’ she said.

  Audrey nodded. ‘How could you know?’ she asked, for the name was hers alone.

  ‘I used to watch you dance through the crack in the door. I called it your dance of tears. I never knew why you danced. But I instinctively knew never to mention it. I was afraid you might stop and I so loved to watch you. Then one day you brought out an exquisite little book bound in silk. You wrote something down then tried to write on the next page, but you were never able to. One day you were out, I could no longer contain my curiosity, so I found your little book and opened it.’

  ‘The Forget-Me-Not Sonata.’ Audrey smiled wistfully.

  ‘A few dots and the smudge of a tear.’

  ‘I never wrote it.’

  ‘But perhaps you will one day.’

  ‘Perhaps I will.’ Then she sighed heavily and softly closed the lid of the piano. She turned to her daughter and looked at her with eyes that brimmed with compassion. ‘But it won’t be Louis’ story. It will be Cecil’s. I will write “The Forget-Me-Not Sonata” for him.’

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to my cousin, Anderly Hardy, and my friend, Sue Nicholas, who both had the good fortune to grow up in Hurlingham, Argentina. Thanks to their lively descriptions and razor-sharp memories, I have been able to bring to life this little corner of Englishness that has changed so dramatically since their childhood. I would also like to thank my mother for her stories, my father for his wisdom and my aunt Naomi for her constant encouragement and interest. Dr Stephen Sebag Montefiore MD and his wife April gave me invaluable help on medical and psychiatric matters that helped bring my characters to life. Without my friend, Kate Rock, I wouldn’t be writing at all, so I owe her an enormous debt of gratitude.

  Thank you to Suzanne Baboneau and her brilliant team at Simon & Schuster for republishing this book with a beautiful new cover, and to my agent, Sheila Crowley for her wise counsel.

  Lastly, but most importantly, I would like to thank my husband, Sebag, for his wisdom and boundless enthusiasm, because whenever my imagination runs dry, he’s always there to water it.

  FIND OUT MORE ABOUT SANTA MONTEFIORE

  Santa Montefiore is the author of eleven sweeping novels. To find out more about her and her writing, visit her website at

  www.santamontefiore.co.uk

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