Sixteen
On Grace's first evening back in London, she and Eva went out to dinner with Deanna and Flavia. They were combining Flavia's interview at Cambridge with a couple of days' shopping in London. Grace was glad to get out of the house. Her mother had followed her round from the minute she arrived, even waiting on the landing while she went to the loo.
They met at the hotel where they'd had dinner before. Grace was shocked at Deanna's appearance. In the weeks since Henry's funeral, she'd lost a huge amount of weight. When Flavia started telling Eva about the art history course, and how it would mean spending six months in Florence, Grace got the chance to ask Deanna how things were going.
'Not so well.'
Grace had never heard the normally upbeat Deanna so pessimistic.
'They think there's secondaries, probably in the lungs, as I've been kinda breathless lately.' Deanna glanced across the table to Eva and Flavia. 'The girls don't know.'
'How's Rick taking it?'
'I haven't told him.'
'But you can't carry this on your own.'
Deanna shrugged. The bones of her shoulders jutted out under the silky material of her red tunic top. 'He'll be devastated. He hasn't come to terms with the whole cancer thing yet.'
'You need his support, Deanna.' Grace pulled her chair closer to her sister-in-law. Deanna had the most beautiful blue eyes she had ever seen. Now they were ringed with dark circles.
'Things are not good for him at work right now. I call my mom every day. She sees me okay.'
'When will you tell him?'
'Not till after Christmas. Eva and Isabel are coming up and I want everything to be perfect. It might be the last Christmas we get together.'
'Oh, Deanna.' Grace felt helpless. 'I wish I wasn't so far away.'
Deanna smiled. It was easy to see why Rick was so in love with her.
When Eva and Flavia got up to go to the Ladies, Deanna turned immediately to Grace again.
'I didn't want to keep whispering while they were here. I'm sure Flavia suspects something as it is.' She sipped from her iced water. 'I think you should know Rick's not gonna back down over Henry's piano.'
'Not that wretched piano!' Grace stirred her coffee angrily and it splashed on to the tablecloth. 'I'd like to bang my brothers' heads together. They're both pig stubborn. Dad always said so.' The coffee seeped into the white fabric.
'Perhaps you could warn George off.'
'I don't know what makes either of them think they can have it,' Grace said. 'The piano belongs to Mum, and it means everything now Dad's gone.'
Deanna patted the stain with a tissue. 'I'm afraid Rick's got plans for your mom, as well.'
'What do you mean?'
Deanna shook her head, indicating Eva and Flavia who were coming back to the table. 'Not now.'
Eva and Deanna left the hotel restaurant first. They walked towards the waiting taxi. Eva had her arm in Deanna's and was leaning on her. It should be the other way round, Grace thought, as she fell into step beside Flavia.
'I'm glad of the chance for a quick word,' she began. 'I wanted to talk to you about that time I saw you and Alicia in the ladies.' They were almost at the taxi and Grace stopped.
Flavia fiddled with the strap of her handbag.
'I need you to promise that whatever was going on has stopped. Otherwise I'll tell your father.'
Flavia let out a big sigh, as if she'd been holding her breath since that night. 'I feel terrible about it, Auntie Grace. Thanks for not saying anything to Mum and Dad.'
'I don't want to upset Deanna, when she needs to concentrate on getting well.'
'It was a one-off, I promise.'
'And what about Alicia?' Grace tried to keep her tone casual.
'I'm sure it was that once for her as well.'
'But you don't know?'
'I don't see all that much of her. I've got so much homework and she's either working or out with Gary.'
Gary. Grace had overheard a row between Rick and Alicia about Gary the night of the funeral. 'What's he like?' she asked.
'Really cool. He's got tattoos of snakes up his arms, and he and Alicia are going to get each other's names done across their backs.'
Grace stood at the front door while Mrs Flanagan helped her mother into the car. She waved goodbye as they pulled away from the kerb. Bliss. A few hours' reprieve from her mother's saturating emotion. She had insisted on speaking only Italian, recounting memory after memory of her brothers and sisters and the life they'd shared back on the farm when they were young. Uncle Eduardo had phoned yesterday afternoon, and Grace heard the continual rise and fall of her mother's voice from upstairs for almost an hour. After that she cried all the more. When Mrs Flanagan from church had telephoned this morning and suggested taking her to an Advent lunch, Grace had urged Eva to go.
It wasn't only the peace she was looking forward to. There was an oak bureau in the sitting room where her father had kept photos and letters. With her mother safely out of the way, she was going to have a rummage to see if there was anything that related to Archie Stansfield.
But first Grace went into the dining room and sat down at the piano. She opened the lid and ran her fingers along the keys. It certainly had a beautiful tone. She loved the sound of the piano, especially this one, which had so many associations with her father. Grandpa used to relate the story of Elgar playing on it when he was a young man, but her father said that Grandpa was inclined to tell tall stories.
The third drawer of the bureau was deeper than the first two and it was this one she'd often seen her father open. It looked remarkably tidy and she wondered if her mother had already been through it and sorted out the contents. She felt like an intruder as she lifted up papers, trying to place them back exactly where they'd been. There was a heap of envelopes with her grandmother's forward-sloping writing, and underneath a smaller pile with her mother's elaborate script. She flicked through a few, noticing the Italian postmark and stamp on some. She hesitated but couldn't bring herself to read any. Her hand hovered over bundles of cards, each held together with a rubber band. They were birthday cards sent over the years from the four of them to their father. Grace checked for the ones with her signature in them, from the five-year-old's scrawl to the neat handwriting she had today. Funny to think she could hardly remember any of those birthdays now.
She started to replace the cards when her fingers touched something wedged in the back of the drawer. It was an old black and white photo. It had faded to a soft brown and a crease ran diagonally across the middle. The photo showed three people, a young woman with a man on either side of her. Each had an arm around her waist. They were smartly dressed and all stared into the camera with broad smiles. Grace recognised the man on the left of the picture as a very young version of her father. She'd seen other photos in which he looked similar and knew they were taken when he was still at school. She didn't know who the other two people were. She turned over the photo. Across the top were the names, Henry, Dottie, Archie, followed by the date—23rd August 1948. Underneath was the inscription—For Henry, In memory of a wonderful day. All my love, Dottie.
Seventeen
Rick couldn't believe he'd overslept. He stumbled about the bedroom looking for his running clothes. He hated Deanna being away and the night before he'd sat up drinking whisky. Alicia and Camilla were staying in Newcastle, and the house was lonely. Deanna usually put his freshly-washed track suit and running vest ready for him before she went to bed, but this morning, it was a good twenty minutes before he discovered his things in the laundry room. He was way behind schedule. It was getting light as he let himself out of the house and turned down the hill towards the village.
The morning was bitterly cold and he was glad of the woolly hat and gloves Camilla had bought him for his birthday. His legs felt wooden as he forced them into action. He had barely run half a mile before waves of pain sliced into his chest. He gasped for air, puffs of white issuing from his mouth like smoke signals. A
s the road sloped upward, his pace got slower and slower. His trainers felt as if they had weights in them. But as he left the village behind him, power surged through his legs. His breathing settled into a steady rhythm. Mentally he timed his strides—one a second, sixty in a minute. That was his goal.
There were few cars about at that hour on a December morning. He ran with the River Coquet on his right and he always felt better once the dark looming trees of Cragside fell away and a gentler landscape to his left opened up. He was making good time as he reached Pauperhaugh, turned right over the old bridge and headed back up to Rothbury along the disused railway track.
Barely a few strides into the return journey, an agonising pain stabbed at his left side. He bent double, hands on his knees. When he first started running, he had often abandoned a run because of just such a pain, but as he got fitter, it had happened less. Now, the pain defeated his attempts to breathe through it. He sank to his knees, curling over in a ball so that his forehead touched the wet grass.
He felt something nudging at him from behind. A heavy weight landed on his back, while the sound of breathing, even louder than his own gasps, echoed in his ears. He raised his head to find the face of a red setter inches from his own. Its foul smelling breath blasted his senses. He forced himself upright and struggled to his feet. He looked round to see if the dog was on its own.
About thirty yards away a man was coming towards him. He walked with a pronounced limp and wore an overcoat and a trilby hat pulled down low over his forehead. He whistled and the dog turned and bounded back towards him. Rick straightened up and made himself breathe as normally as possible. He didn't want anyone to see him looking so helpless. The dog circled the man a couple of times before trotting back to Rick, its tongue lolling from its mouth. It sniffed at his track-suit bottoms. Rick felt obliged to bend down and stroke its head.
As the owner approached, Rick prepared to greet him. He didn't recognise the man, but Deanna was always telling him he should be friendlier to the locals. The man raised his hat.
'Cold morning,' Rick said.
'It is an all.' The man didn't pause. He returned his hat to his head and limped past Rick without glancing in his direction. The dog galloped after him. But before he'd taken more than half a dozen paces, the man looked back. 'I should be careful with yon jogging,' he said. 'You don't want to drop down dead from a heart attack like your dad.'
The drawing room ran the length of the house. Deep bay windows at the front looked out on to a gravelled drive, while French doors at the back opened on to lawns, which sloped down to the river. It was the room that had first sold the house to him and he loved the pale green Deanna had picked for the walls. Three enormous sofas in rich cream brocade were grouped in the centre around the fireplace. Rick liked to sit in one of the armchairs at the garden end, especially on a Sunday morning when he allocated forty minutes to reading the papers. When it was sunny he timed himself by the patch of sunlight which edged across the carpet. It would start in the far corner and when it had reached his feet, Rick knew it was time to go and choose a bottle of wine to put in the fridge for lunch.
Their previous house in Newcastle had been spacious but modern and when they moved to Rothbury, he'd spent a considerable sum on antiques. The house dated from the 1860s and Deanna was always on the lookout for furniture to suit the period. A Victorian kneehole desk filled the space between the two bay windows. This was the spot Rick had earmarked for his father's piano. His original plan had been to wait until the piano arrived to begin lessons, but the row with George had made him realise it wouldn't go his way so smoothly. His mother was bound to support George. He'd win in the end, but in the meantime he'd bought another piano. It was being delivered this morning and his first lesson was in the afternoon. It was going to be a surprise for Deanna when she got home. But it meant he had to find another place for the mahogany desk.
When Mrs Crosby, the cleaning lady, arrived, the drawing room was in chaos. Rick had tried the desk in three different places, but none suited as well as its original home. Mrs Crosby stood in the doorway with her hands on her hips. 'It's a fine mess you've got here,' she pronounced.
'I'm changing the furniture round.' Rick was at a critical moment in a manoeuvre with a bureau.
'I can see that, but what will your good lady say? She's particular about what goes where.'
'If you could take this drawer from me for a moment Mrs Crosby, before I drop the lot…'
Rick would never have admitted it, but the room started to look better once he followed Mrs Crosby's suggestions. She had Deanna's knack of placing a chair or a vase of dried flowers so that you couldn't imagine the object ever being anywhere else. Soon order was restored and although the room didn't look as pleasing as it had, Mrs Crosby couldn't find too much to criticise. Rick cringed as he heard himself profusely thanking her.
She was always full of tittle-tattle about village goings-on and normally Rick couldn't stand to be in the same room, but whenever he complained, Deanna said she enjoyed gossiping. It reminded her of home and her mother's circle. This never failed to shut Rick up. He was paranoid that one day Deanna would say she'd had enough of him and of England and she was returning to the States. He would do anything to stop that happening. Now, he felt forced to offer Mrs Crosby a cup of tea.'It was bad news about your dad,' she said as she dunked a ginger nut in her tea. She twisted her head to allow the sloppy mess to plop into her mouth. 'So sudden as well.'
He was usually at work at this time, so he hadn't seen Mrs Crosby since his father's death. 'It was a shock,' he admitted, hardly able to believe he was having this conversation with a cleaning lady.
'They do say it runs in families, heart trouble, that is,' she said.
Rick had a sudden thought. 'Mrs Crosby, do you know a man with a limp who takes his red setter for a walk in the mornings?'
'Know him?' She roared with laughter. 'I should do. Bert and me have been wed forty years come April. Why d'you ask?'
'I met him this morning while I was out running.'
'Aye, he said as he'd seen you. "That one will pop his clogs soon an all, if he's not careful" he said when he came home.'
His first piano lesson wasn't a success. For a start he'd had a job getting rid of Mrs Crosby. She'd followed him round filling him in with the life stories of all the residents of Rothbury. Then the new piano wasn't delivered until two o'clock, so Rick was hot and dishevelled when Mrs Dobson arrived half an hour later. He was proud of himself that he'd managed to find someone to teach him without Deanna's help. He'd called at the heritage centre one Saturday morning and the woman there had recommended her sister who lived at the other end of the village.
He sat down on the piano stool and rested his fingers on the smoothness of the ivory.
Mrs Dobson sat on his left. 'The first thing to remember is—don't lie over the keyboard.'
Rick snatched his hands away.
'Keep your wrists relaxed and hold your fingers just above the keys.'
He tried to let his wrists go floppy.
'Right, let's try the key of C major. Show me middle C.'
He pointed to the appropriate key, relieved that he could remember.
'Good. Starting on middle C, play me the five notes: C, D, E, F, G.' Mrs Dobson broke into a baritone that would have served her well in a male-voice choir.
Rick smiled. Dead easy. He let his fingers ripple up the keyboard.
Mrs Dobson drew in her breath. What was wrong with the old bat? He'd played that with the aplomb of a maestro.
'You'll have to get the tuner in. That middle C's way off.'
Rick started to protest, but she cut him short: 'Play that for me again and this time keep the volume and the rhythm the same for all five notes.'
'I did.'
'No, you banged on the C, and I could hardly hear the G.'
Memories of those childhood lessons jangled in his head like jailer's keys. The rest of the session was a torment as she barked out instruct
ions and he struggled to fulfil them. By the end, he was sweating so much, his fingers skidded across the keyboard. At last she said 'Now if you could practise that scale for next time and don't forget to loosen up your wrists.'
He showed Mrs Dobson out of the front door, promising he'd be more prepared next week. He was following the progress of her pork pie hat as it bobbed down the road, when he saw Alicia strolling up from the village.
'Hi Dad,' she called. She looked round at Mrs Dobson. 'Does Mum know what you get up to when she's not here?'
Rick was furious at being caught out. The last thing he wanted was for Alicia to spill the beans about his piano lessons to Deanna before he got a chance. 'Don't be so stupid!'
She leant forward and kissed him on the cheek. 'Joke, Dad. Joke. Although I know you have little acquaintance with the funny side of life.'
'What are you doing here, anyway?' he asked, pleased that he managed not to make his usual comment about her appearance. She'd recently had her long beautiful hair cut and it was short and spiky.
'I live here, remember?' She pushed past him and dropped her bag on a chair in the hall.
'I meant how did you get here?' He picked up the bag and hung it from a hook on the hallstand. 'I thought I was collecting you from Newcastle later on.'
'I got the bus.'
'Bus? From Newcastle?'
'No, Dad, I got a bus from Newcastle to Morpeth. Then one from Morpeth to Rothbury. It's called public transport. It's how ordinary people get about.'
Rick spent the rest of the afternoon in his study going over figures for the next day's sales meeting. Last month had shown an upturn on the previous six and the signs were that the drop in shares had bottomed out. This was the world where he felt comfortable. You knew where you were with computers. They didn't get cancer; they didn't grow up and turn into strangers, and, most of all, they didn't die on you.
Rick knew his father would have winced at his feeble attempts on the piano. He had been so sure the morning of the funeral that his father would have wanted him to learn. His enthusiasm had seen him through the following weeks. In fact he'd been so preoccupied with arranging lessons and buying the piano that he'd hardly thought about his father at all.
The Piano Player's Son Page 12