The Piano Player's Son

by Lindsay Stanberry-Flynn

  'Isabel, my love. I'm so sorry.' His voice crooned close to her ear.

  She rested her head against his shoulder. A tiny curl of hair in the V of his shirt tickled her face. She wanted to scratch it, but she didn't move. Her throat ached. A thread had worked loose on his shirt, and she held it between her fingers as if she might pull it. He stroked her hair, his hand cupping her head.

  *

  Simon made tea and they sat down at the kitchen table. He'd brought a bag of croissants and their warm doughy smell filled the room. Yesterday's sunshine had disappeared and rain clouds hung low. Isabel was glad. She needed to find corners to hide some of the pain away. The fierce sun would have forbidden that.

  She told Simon about Deanna. She told Simon about Dottie Stansfield. She told Simon she was angry with her father. She told Simon she was angry with her mother. She didn't tell Simon about Brian.

  They were still sitting at the kitchen table when the front door slammed. 'Hi, Mum.'

  Isabel jumped up. 'It's Rose!'

  'What's the panic?' Simon pulled a mock-surprise face. 'She's met me before.'

  'You don't understand—'

  Rose appeared in the doorway. 'Oh, he's here.'

  Isabel saw her gaze take in Simon, the mugs, the two croissants left on the plate. 'Simon's popped round,' she said.

  Rose turned her back on Simon and slipped her arm round Isabel's waist. 'Dad told me about Auntie Deanna.'

  'Yes, I rang to ask him to tell you and Josh.' She knew his eyes were on her, but Isabel couldn't look at Simon.

  'It's sad, isn't it?' Rose said. 'She was really cool.'

  'Yes, it's sad.'

  'What's going to happen to Flavia and Camilla?'

  'They've still got Uncle Rick.'

  'There was this girl in my class whose mum died. Her dad couldn't cope and she had to go and live with her granny.'

  Isabel risked a glance at Simon. The petals of the yellow roses in a vase on the table had begun to fall. She saw him pick one up and tear it into tiny pieces. They lay scattered round his hands like specks of golden blood.

  Rose said 'I feel bad because Auntie Deanna's died—'

  'We'll talk about it some more, when Simon—'

  'I mean I feel bad because they must be really miserable, but I'm happy about you and Dad.'

  'Not now, Rose.' Please shut up, Rose. Shut up. Go.

  'Dad told me last night. He said we can see the new house at the weekend. It's going to be ace.'

  'Isabel?'

  She tried to compose her face before she turned to Simon. Expressions came and skittered away: affronted disbelief, misunderstanding, confusion. One of those might have done, but when she turned to face him, she felt her mouth, stupidly, lift in a smile.

  Simon stood up. There was no answering smile. 'What does she mean, Isabel?'

  'I can explain. Rose, give us a minute, will you?'

  Rose muttered and flounced out of the room. Her bedroom door banged shut.

  Isabel took Simon's hands in hers. 'I'm sorry. I was going to tell you.'

  'Go on. You know what a good listener I am.'

  'Don't make this harder than it is.'

  'What is it you've got to tell me?'

  'Simon, you mean so much to me. You've changed my life.'

  He pulled his hands from her grasp. He leaned forward, his palms flat on the table.

  She forced herself to look at his fingers. To look at his left hand. At the two stumps that had destroyed his musical career.

  'You're going back to him, aren't you?' His voice was flat.

  'It's for the children.' She felt weak and futile, but her skin tingled as if she was on top of the big wheel.

  He pushed past her, and she watched him go down the hall and out the front door. He didn't slam it.

  Rose jumped out of her room as if she'd been listening behind the door. 'Wow, Mum. What was all that about?'

  'Leave it for now. I'm tired.'

  'But what did I say? You were only seeing him to make Dad jealous, weren't you?'

  Isabel didn't want to talk to her daughter. She didn't want to go and see the new house. She didn't want to plan a new garden. She didn't want a swimming pool. Simon was walking down the path and along the pavement. He was getting into his car and starting the engine. He was arriving home. He was packing up the clothes and CDs and toiletries she'd left at his flat and putting them in a box. Isabel was going to live with Brian.

  Grace phoned in the afternoon. 'Are you coming over? I could use some help here.'

  'Sorry. I took a headache tablet and I fell asleep.' Isabel had been lying on her bed, dry-eyed and awake. She ached all over—she must be getting flu.

  When she arrived at her mother's house, Grace was sitting at the dining room table. She looked as if she was writing a letter but she turned the sheet of paper over when Isabel came in. Her face was pale and her eyes were puffy.

  Isabel sat down opposite her. 'Where's Mum?'

  'In bed.'

  'How is she today?'

  'Weepy.'

  'Have you spoken to Rick?'

  Grace was doodling on the paper in front of her. Intricate shapes of circles and interlocking triangles filled the page. 'No, but Flavia phoned.'

  'How are they all? Did she say when the funeral is?'

  'End of the week.'

  'Only gives us three days to make arrangements.'

  The circles and triangles darkened as Grace traced over them again. 'Rick doesn't want us there.'

  'He can't stop us going.'

  'Flavia said it would be better if we didn't. She's afraid it might tip him over the edge.'

  'What do you think we ought to do?'

  'I don't know. Even Deanna's parents aren't going to be there. Poor things, they'd only just flown back to the States, and her father's had a heart attack.'

  'All the more reason for us to go,' Isabel insisted. 'I've always loved Deanna.'

  'I didn't get much sleep last night.' Grace pen wavered and aimless lines spattered the page. 'I'm too tired to think.'

  Isabel caught hold of Grace's hand, squashing the pen between their fingers. 'Please stop doing that.' She pointed to the web of doodling. 'It's making me feel queasy.'

  Grace threw the pen down. 'It's making me feel better!'

  Isabel wondered what was going on in her sister's mind. Sometimes you knew. You looked at a face and it smiled at you and you knew the person inside the face was happy. Simple. But other times, that inner world was a thicket, dense and unyielding.

  'What's wrong?' she asked. 'It's not only Deanna, is it?'

  'I've left Franco.'

  Isabel thought back to her time in Ischia. She remembered Grace telling Franco that she and Isabel were visiting the castello, remembered his comment that his wife was innamorata di Vittoria. It was a light, teasing moment, something any man might have said. But afterwards something like hatred had flickered across Franco's face: there and then gone.

  'I'm sorry, Grace,' she said. 'I know how much it hurts.'

  'I was the one who left and now I keep worrying about him.'

  'I thought you were crazy about each other.'

  Grace shrugged. 'Things change.' She picked up the pen again and drew in more lines, each one blacker than the last.

  Isabel watched her sister's intense concentration. 'I was always jealous of you, you know,' she said.

  'Why?' Grace took a second sheet of paper and the circles and triangles continued.

  'You were the beautiful one. You were clever. Then you met Franco and it was all so romantic…'

  'Romantic? You try working in a restaurant sixteen hours a day.'

  'But your whole life is more glamorous than mine. Solid, dependable Isabel.'

  Grace began to sob. Isabel looked at her dark head where her forehead rested on the table. Her arms were crossed and she was clutching her shoulders. Isabel stretched out her hand to touch Grace's hair. She knew it would feel soft and springy. She'd washed it for her, combe
d the tangles, helped her put it up for her wedding. She knew the feel of her sister's hair as well as her own. But the gulf between her hand and that black hair was wide. Despair is solitary and seals us from others. Isabel drew her hand back and waited.

  'Sorry about that.' Grace blew her nose on the tissue Isabel offered.

  'Did I set you off?' Isabel asked.

  'No, I've needed to cry since I got on the ferry in Ischia. It wouldn't stay in any longer.'

  'Do you want to talk about it?'

  'I'm sick of thinking about it, never mind talking. I'll tell you another time.' The skin around Grace's eyes was the colour of bruises. 'Sorry, Bel. You don't need this. Especially with all the trouble you've had yourself.' She blew her nose again. 'I haven't even asked you what happened with Brian the other day.'

  'We're getting back together.'

  Grace put her arms round Isabel and hugged her. 'I'm pleased for you. I know how much you wanted it.'

  'Yes.'

  'You don't sound very excited.'

  Isabel managed a little lift of her lips. 'It's complicated. Like you said—I'll tell you sometime.'

  'I don't know about you, Bel, but I could do with a glass of something.'

  'It's only five o'clock!'

  'I'm going to raid Dad's wine—if George has left any. Desperate times, desperate measures.'

  She came back with a bottle of merlot and some cheese crackers. She poured two glasses. 'I think you're right. We should go up for Deanna's funeral.'

  'What about Rick?'

  'He'll have enough to do coping with his own feelings. The girls need people to support them as well.'

  'I feel so sad for them. They adored Deanna.'

  Grace bit into a cracker. 'Rick says Alicia isn't allowed to go to the funeral.'

  'He can't do that.'

  'Flavia said he's blaming her for Deanna's death.'

  'That's madness!' The scene at Rick's on Christmas Day reared up in Isabel's mind: all of them frozen in that tableau of horror. 'I didn't tell you,' she said. 'Rick and Alicia had a terrible row at Christmas when Mum and I were up there. He hates her boyfriend.'

  'He still can't keep her from her own mother's funeral.'

  Footsteps sounded overhead. They heard the loo flushing.

  'She's up,' Isabel said. 'I'd better go and see her.'

  'Hang on. I want to tell you this first.'

  'If you're going to drop another bombshell, I don't want to know!'

  Grace sipped her wine.

  'Go on,' Isabel said. Her mother would start calling in a minute and she'd have to go.

  'You said you didn't want to know.'

  'Get on with it.'

  'I got her to tell me some more about Eduardo this morning.'

  'That goat! We've heard enough about him already.'

  'It's worse than we thought.' Grace finished her wine and poured some more. 'Apparently, Mum and Eduardo were childhood sweethearts. Her brothers thought he was no good, so they sent her to London. To get her away from him.'

  'But she told me they sent her here because there was no money. It was after the war, and her father had died. Her brothers said she'd have a better life in England. So, she came over to Great Aunt Rosa's.'

  'And there was Dad waiting—like a lamb to the slaughter.'

  'Grace!' They heard their mother calling from upstairs. 'Grace!'

  'Oh no!' Grace covered her face with her hands.

  'It's okay. I'll go,' Isabel said. 'But I've remembered something Mum said to me about Brian.'

  'What was that?'

  'She said he'd come back. "Make him pay a little and then forgive him".'

  'And?'

  'Grace! Are you there?' Eva's voice was more insistent.

  'Suppose she found out about Dottie and the baby,' Isabel said. 'Perhaps she stayed on in Italy after Nonna died to punish him.'

  Grace laughed. 'And Eduardo and George were the thumbscrews!'

  Thirty-three

  Grace and Isabel checked into the hotel in Newcastle. It had been a long drive and Grace was glad she'd insisted on a hire car—Isabel's old Volvo would never have made it. Brian wanted to drive them, but Isabel said he needed to stay with Rose and Josh. That was one relief. The thought of being trapped with Brian for all those hours had filled Grace with dread. Eva cried off too: 'I couldn't face another funeral—not after my Henry.'

  Their room was bright and spacious with a view over the river. Isabel went to have a shower and Grace stood at the window looking down at the water. Bridges spanned the river on each side. She'd seen pictures of the Millennium Bridge and was sure that must be it up on the left. She remembered Alicia telling her she worked nearby. She looked at her watch—Alicia should be here soon.

  Grace had never been to Newcastle, and she couldn't have imagined her first visit would be for Deanna's funeral. She swung her bag on to the bed and took out her new dress. She hung it from the wardrobe door and smoothed the creases. It was dark green with long sleeves and a straight skirt. She'd bought it the day before, as she'd only packed the essentials when she left Ischia. Flavia said Deanna had wanted everyone to wear bright colours, but Rick would be sure to have different ideas, so she was playing safe with dark green. 'Don't say anything to your dad, but Isabel and I are coming,' she told Flavia. 'Thank you, Auntie Grace. Mum would be pleased.'

  Isabel came out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped round her head. She'd hardly spoken on the journey up and was really annoying, checking her phone every five minutes.

  'Did Brian say he'd call you?' Grace had eventually asked.

  Isabel had shoved the mobile in her bag. 'It's not him I'm looking for.'

  Grace looked up from unpacking. 'Good shower?'

  'Heaven, especially after the rubbish one at the flat.'

  'Expect you'll soon have a designer bathroom.' Grace caught the frown on Isabel's face. For someone who'd got what they wanted, she didn't seem happy.

  Grace pushed her underwear into a drawer. 'I meant to ask you…' she put her clean bra on top of the pile, '…what happened to that man—Simon, wasn't it—the one you met on the blind date?'

  'It didn't work out.' Isabel's tone was studiously neutral. 'You know how it is.'

  'Yeah, shame though. George said he was nice.'

  'I'll give George his number, shall I?'

  Oh, tetchy. She'd hit a raw nerve.

  Grace left Isabel and Alicia in the bar of the hotel and set out for Rothbury. Up the A1 and then branch off. It looked easy on the map and Alicia said it should take no more than forty-five minutes. Forty-five there, forty-five back, half an hour at the house—she should be able to spend time with Alicia later. The trip was the last thing she needed after the long drive from London, but the thought of Rick's reaction if they turned up tomorrow unannounced urged her on.

  At least it wouldn't be dark for some time. She wouldn't have to cope with the swoop and burn of headlights. She took the left fork and followed the steep curve of the road. Despite its unfamiliarity, it was nothing compared to the precipitous inclines that circled Ischia, some clinging to the island's perimeter. The road that climbed to Fontana was even worse. She remembered the bus chugging up it early one morning, and her gripping Franco's hand. They'd got up at dawn to climb Mount Epomeo before the heat grew too intense. The sky was sharp and clear, its blue stinging her eyes. When they stopped at a bar on the way down and ate a late breakfast of ham and eggs, Franco had toasted her with his cup of strong sweet coffee: 'Non posso vivere senza di te, carissima,' he'd whispered. The words played in her head: it's not possible to live without you, my darling.

  She gripped the steering wheel. Her eyes wanted to close and she turned the radio on. A deep female voice filled the car with the lyrics of lost love. The road ahead narrowed and she had to swerve to avoid a car breasting the hill and coming towards her.

  She reached Rothbury and made her way through the village. Alicia's directions were clear. She turned the car into the drive and the gravel shi
fted under the tyres. Isabel was right—it was a mansion. She parked outside the front door and surveyed the house. A face peered from one of the upstairs windows. Her heart fluttered.

  She crunched over the gravel and the front door was pulled open. Thank goodness. It was Flavia standing there. They hugged. 'I'm so sorry, Flavia,' she said. 'I'm so sorry.' Flavia felt brittle-thin in her arms. She put her finger to her lips and pulled Grace inside, leading her into the kitchen.

  'Dad's in his study. We'll go up in a minute. I haven't said anything.'

  'Where's Camilla?'

  'She's staying the night with her friend, Imogen. It's a bit bleak here and Imogen's mum said she'd look after her.'

  Flavia's face was pinched and tired-looking. Poor child. It was too much for her to carry on her own.

  'How are you feeling?' Grace asked.

  Flavia looked down at the floor. She had on a pair of pink slippers with hearts on the fronts. 'I'm okay,' she said. 'I'm trying to be strong for Dad.'

  'And who's being strong for you?'

  'Mum. I talk to her when I'm in bed and she helps me.'

  Grace followed Flavia up the staircase with its oak banister and pale yellow carpet. Huge, highly-decorated vases stood on the landing. Hand-painted probably. The opulence of the house amazed her. She remembered Franco's outrage when she ordered the quilted cream canopy for the restaurant: 'Are you mad?' he'd yelled. 'That's our income for three months blown!' She'd shut the office door so no one would hear the tirade.

  Flavia led her along the corridor and they stopped at a wood-panelled door on the other side of the landing. Flavia knocked and a laugh bubbled up in Grace's throat. It was like being called to the headmaster's office.

  'Yes.' True to the image, Rick's stern voice came from inside.

  Flavia pushed open the door. 'Dad, Grace is here.'

  This was the moment Grace had dreaded. Rick would be angry. He would shout. He would say he didn't want her here. He would tell her to get out.

  But none of that happened. Rick was sitting behind a desk, the lower half of his face illuminated by the computer's ghostly light, the upper half in shadow. 'Grace,' was all he said.