Ellie and the Harpmaker

by Hazel Prior

  “No, El, I’m sorry. We just can’t afford to give to any more charities.”

  I stuff the letter into the recycling bin, but the terrible images stay with me. Suddenly I’m weary. I switch on the radio for some light relief, only to be regaled by a story about female genital mutilation. Clive makes a face. I switch the radio off again.

  All those people suffering in the world. And here I am fretting about an overly generous gift.

  I picture the harp, the beautiful harp, my harp. Dan was adamant. He said it would sit there unplayed forever.

  Unless I came back to play it.

  Decisions stress me out. It’s much easier when I’m in a situation where I can just mold myself to somebody else’s will. But now Clive’s will and Dan’s will keep pulling me in opposite directions.

  I think about my parents, whose iron rule dominated my life for so many years. My mother would have disapproved in the days when she understood such things, there’s no doubt about that. She disapproved of pretty much everything. And my father, who died a year ago today? What would he have made of my harp quandary? The earlier version of himself would have been strict and sensible, but the later, iller, more pensive, more lovable version—the version who told me to pick a dream and follow it? I can’t be sure.

  Perhaps it’s not so much the harp as Dan himself who is the issue.

  Because Dan is a man. What manner of man? I ask myself. A startlingly handsome one—I could hardly fail to notice that. But what sort of person is he? Certainly not the sort I’m used to.

  While Dan was busy making sandwiches, I’d taken the chance to nose around the Harp Barn. As well as the harps themselves, the place was overrun with sawdust—mounds of it on the floor and little fragments floating around in the air. Bits of lichen, fir cones and feathers also seemed to be scattered around in random places. Shining pennies were laid out on the windowsills in long, snaking lines. Behind them were glass dishes filled with pebbles. The workbench was stacked with tools and finely penciled diagrams. I’d also noticed, hanging above the workbench, a large corkboard covered with photos. Photos of women. They were all attractive and mostly young. Some were posing with harps; all were very much posing. In the center was a blonde with a low-cut top and stunning blue eyes.

  “Ellie, look at you! You’re miles away! Still fantasizing about becoming a harpist?”

  “Not at all,” I reply, blushing and springing to action. I start opening cupboards, hunting for ingredients. “I think I’ll get straight on with the supper. Spicy Bolognese all right?”

  “Yum! That’ll be great!”

  I manage to find an onion. I cut it in half and start peeling off the skin.

  Can it be that Dan is a very clever actor, a man who seduces vulnerable women—by giving them harps? It seems absurd, but perhaps Clive is right. Perhaps I should be careful.

  “Ahhh, that’s better.” Clive sighs, a smile spreading across his face after a long draft from his beer bottle. “Give me a shout if you need a hand, El. I’ll be in the sitting room.”

  He disappears and I hear the sounds of the telly being switched on, followed by a roar from fans. Bristol City must have scored. When Clive’s finished with them, it’ll be a repeat of Doctor Who. After that, spicy Bolognese cooked by the wife. I hope the Bolognese will turn out all right. The wife is finding it extremely hard to concentrate.

  | 5 |

  Dan

  I’ve been thinking about that song. The one that goes on and on about money. Money, the song purports, must be funny in a rich man’s world. I am not a rich man but, I have to say, I consider money to be funny anyway. I mention this to Thomas when I see him on Monday morning when he stops off on his rounds. Thomas is a Welsh man, a postman, a tall, thin, lanky man and my friend.

  Thomas crosses his long arms in front of him. “Do you mean funny peculiar or funny ha-ha?”

  I say, “Both.”

  He leans against his van. He is wearing blue shorts (he always wears shorts, no matter what the weather is doing; his legs are hairy, very) and a hoodie that is psychedelic green with yellow stripes around the edges.

  The day is bright and clear. Thomas is in no hurry to deliver letters.

  “Why?” he asks.

  I tell him that in my opinion money works in a very upside-down way.

  “I still don’t get you, boyo,” he says. “What do you mean, upside down?”

  So I start at the beginning and explain to him in detail. A one-p piece is clearly a thing of beauty, right? He looks unsure, so I explain this to him too. A penny is a highly desirable item. Its size is small, delicate, perfect. Its color is like a setting sun, bronze, bright, burnished. It has a raised rim around the edge, charming. The engraving on the reverse is a portcullis, interesting. Or else the top half of a harp, even more interesting. I never tire of looking at pennies. I keep all my one-p pieces and shine them up with vinegar and put them on the windowsill of the barn, where they catch the light. Each penny is a work of art. No other coin is as beautiful.

  Thomas pulls his mouth to one side.

  The two-p, I point out, shares the nice coppery brightness of the penny but is not as satisfactory sizewise. The other coins (surely he must agree?) are not nearly as good colorwise. Pound coins and two-pound coins are always trying to be flashy but failing. Pennies outshine them all. Pennies are by far the best. Yet nobody seems to appreciate them.

  Thomas looks at his watch. I go on.

  Five- and ten- and twenty-pound notes are ridiculous. How can they be worth hundreds of times more than coins? I like paper, of course—paper is great, made from trees, and who can question the greatness of trees? But paper money is only in very thin strips and is not good quality. And the new notes are made of vile and slippery stuff. Why on earth are they considered more important than the strong and shining coin?

  Thomas opens the door of his van and gets in. His dogs, who are Alsatians, very large and drooly, start barking from the back of the van. I carry on explaining to Thomas through the open window.

  Even more ludicrous than paper money is the small card made of the ugliest substance known to man: plastic. People seem to value it above almost everything else.

  Here Thomas shakes his head at me out of the van window. “The credit card,” he says, “is a fabulous invention!”

  I ask him why.

  “Well, mate,” he says, “basically because you can use it to buy fabulous things.”

  I ask him what fabulous things.

  “Like fabulous big houses, and, er, fabulous holidays abroad.”

  But why, I ask him, would I want a big house? Big houses are difficult to clean and difficult to heat and difficult to find your way around. If I had a big house I’d spend far too much of my life walking from one end of it to the other and I don’t want to walk inside, we have outside for walking. And why would I want a holiday abroad? Holidays abroad produce hassle, jet lag, sunburn and diarrhea. So much more fun is to be had from staying at home in a barn, making harps and polishing pennies.

  “Whatever makes you happy, mate,” is what Thomas replies, and he turns his van around and drives off down the lane.

  My sister Jo says that I should worry about money. She says everyone worries about money, especially people who don’t have any. She says I make her scream and tear her hair out, although I do not think this is true; her hair looks perfectly intact to me. Jo has big ideas about what I am supposed to (and not supposed to) do. She has taken over where my mother left off.

  Still, Jo is kind. Jo has put a website in the computer for me. I saw it once, when she brought over her laptop. My website is called “The Exmoor Harpmaker” and it begins with the sentence: “Welcome to the Harp Barn.” There are twenty-five pictures of my harps, which Jo has taken with her very good and very large camera, and each picture has a price written beside it. There is also a picture of me in profile bend
ing over a half-made harp with a lathe in my hands. And there is another of me with a sheepish expression all over my face, which she insisted on putting in there because she said I look dead good and that will make women buy my harps. Women, apparently, like harps made by a sheepish-looking harpmaker.

  Jo said initially that I should make a wooden notice to hang at the end of the lane that said: The Harp Barn. Exmoor Harpmaker. Harps of distinction and quality, locally made. So that is what I did. I made it out of pinewood and I carved the letters in fine, curling script.

  The next day seven people came and stopped in at the barn. They bought four harps off me. This was a good thing, I thought. But Jo said later that she saw two of the harps for sale on eBay. Jo then said if I didn’t know how to charge proper money it would be better that people didn’t know I was here. She said I had to take the sign down again. So that is what I did. There’s no point in arguing with Jo.

  I can’t remember how much money I got for those four harps. I wasn’t that interested. I make harps because I love making harps, not because I love making money. Jo does not understand this. She has put her email address into my website so that people who want to buy harps will have to do it through her. I don’t mind. Not at all. So long as I am allowed to make harps.

  I haven’t told my sister Jo about giving a harp to a cherry-socked woman I have only just met. I have a feeling my sister Jo would not appreciate that.

  * * *

  • • •

  Today I went to the woods and counted toadstools. I was out for some time and counted a sum total of three hundred and seventeen. They were mostly whitish, flesh colored or inky. Some were like saucers and some were like pudding bowls. It was a damp day, but they didn’t mind that and neither did I. After I’d finished counting them I sat on a mossy stump and listened to Exmoor sounds for a while. The sounds I heard were these: a squirrel rustling, a woodpecker pecking, an acorn dropping to the ground, a wood pigeon cooing, a buzzard mewing, a bee humming, the distant bleating of a sheep, the distant rumble of a combine, the not-so-distant rumble of my tummy.

  When I came back to the Harp Barn, the cherry-sock woman, who is the Housewife of Exmoor and who is called Ellie Jacobs, was there. She was standing motionless outside the door. When she turned round and saw me her face said lots of things, but her voice said, “Ah, hello, Mr. Hollis! Good to see you again. I was just about to go home. I’m sorry to intrude. I wasn’t sure if you meant what you said about the harp . . . when you said it was OK if I came here to practice?”

  I always mean what I say. I told her this.

  “Oh, good! What a relief! May I come in? If it’s not too inconvenient right now?”

  I told her it was never too inconvenient. I got out my keys and unlocked the Harp Barn. You are supposed to always keep a building locked when there are thirty-seven precious harps inside and you go out to count toadstools for an hour or two.

  “It’s so lovely to be here again!” she cried. Her socks were not cherry colored today. They were blue. She had on a blue scarf to match, cotton. It fluttered as she walked around. I watched it flutter as she walked from harp to harp for a bit, then she stopped in front of my corkboard with the photos and took a good look at it. I thought she was about to ask a question, but she didn’t. I waited.

  Eventually she turned round and said: “So, er . . . the harp that I took home the other day . . . ? Um . . . where is it?”

  I said I had moved it to the little upstairs room, which is now her practice room, and would she like me to accompany her upstairs to visit it?

  “Yes, please,” is what she said.

  I led her up the wooden staircase (seventeen stairs) to her new practice room, which used to be my storeroom. If you go through it you get to my bedroom and next to that is my bathroom. Next to the practice room on the other side is my kitchen, where I make sandwiches and other things. It is all up the seventeen steps of the wooden staircase. I asked her if she minded going up the seventeen steps and she said no. Then she said she was worried that she’d never played a harp before and she would never be able to do justice to such a beautiful instrument. I told her balderdash, she’d played the harp six days ago when she first came to the Harp Barn. She said yes, but that was only plucking a couple of notes and she really had no idea how it was supposed to be done. I understand all about having no idea how things are supposed to be done so I felt sympathetic and told her so. Then she said she felt that, as harp playing had been on her list and I’d been so kind as to offer her this opportunity, it was only fair to herself and to me to at least give it a try. I said I absolutely agreed with her. And she replied that if she never made it as a harpist, she hoped I would not be devastated. I assured her that I would not be devastated at all, so long as she would come here sometimes and pluck strings. By this time we had reached the top of the seventeen steps.

  “Oh, Dan!” is what she said. She added, “I may call you Dan, may I?”

  I said that she may and she said, “Oh, Dan!” again, and, “It’s more beautiful than ever!”

  She was talking about the harp. I’d placed it by the window on a little cherrywood harp stool so that it would be the right height when she sat and played it.

  Then she turned and saw the books I’d put on the table. She picked them up one by one and looked at the titles: How to Play the Celtic Harp: A Step-by-Step Guide; Easy Tunes for New Harpists; The Harper’s Manual; and, finally, Have You Got the Pluck?

  After this she ventured toward the harp and touched a finger on a string so gently that it scarcely whispered.

  I said she must play it now. I added that when I said play I meant play not as in the thing professional musicians do when they are working but as in the thing children do when they are having fun. She nodded and her blue scarf fluttered.

  I went downstairs and left her to it.

  | 6 |

  Ellie

  “Met any more strange men offering you harps?”

  I grant him a faint chuckle. Clive’s convinced that Exmoor is infested with eccentrics, which has perhaps worked in my favor.

  “Nope. Pity, really.” I’m impressed with my acting. It’s just the right balance between regret, irony and nonchalance.

  He shakes his head and rolls his eyes. “It could only happen on Exmoor!”

  Clive has no idea. No idea that the minute he’s disappeared off to work every day I set off on my own trip to indulge in my own clandestine venture.

  When I arrive at the barn Dan is normally working on his current project, a medieval-style harp made of sycamore wood. He welcomes me with enthusiasm, but we don’t exchange many words before I head upstairs. I pluck strings for a bit, propping one of the harp books up against a block of wood where I can see it, frowning at the notes on the page. Sometimes hammering or the noise of machinery from below will cut through my tentative playing.

  Just before twelve Dan comes in with sandwiches. Always sandwiches, always cut into triangles and geometrically arranged on the plate. He never offers me a hot drink, although the scent of coffee often wafts through from the kitchen. Dan seems to follow certain patterns of behavior, yet he’s still a mystery to me. I have no idea what goes on in his head and his odd comments often take me by surprise. But I’ve realized my initial suspicions were completely unjustified. Dan is without guile. I’m sure those pictures on his corkboard are just photos of people he’s sold harps to because he likes to think of each of his harps being played. The fact that the players are all women and all attractive (especially that one in the middle) is hardly his fault.

  It’s been a couple of weeks since I started harp playing and there’s only one person I’ve told about it: my dearest friend, Christina. Christina is one of the people Clive would classify as eccentric. She dresses in long flowing garments that are usually tie-dyed or organic or made from yak’s wool. She owns a little shop in Porlock selling earrings, pendants and other tr
inkets she’s made herself. Her home is a tiny, creaking cottage in a village about five miles away. I visit as often as I can because, despite her cheerfulness, I know she is lonely.

  “Ellie, thank God you’re here!” she cried, pressing me with a cup of tea and a flapjack the minute I arrived on Wednesday. “I’m suffering from Alex-withdrawal symptoms.”

  Christina got herself pregnant at sixteen. The result was the charming but rather irresponsible Alex. After Alex’s birth Christina got through two husbands, neither of whom particularly wanted to be his father. Alex is now a hefty eighteen-year-old and has recently gone to Exeter to sample the joys of university life.

  “How’s he getting on?” I asked.

  “Rude to his tutors and can’t abide essay writing.”

  I listened to her grumbles, ate flapjacks, drank tea, stroked her cat and tried to imagine what it was like to have an eighteen-year-old son. How different life would be if I had a mother’s role to play. I always assumed I’d have children, but they just didn’t materialize and, as it’s not happened so far, it’s unlikely to happen now that I’m nearly thirty-six. Clive doesn’t seem to mind (“So long as you’re happy, hon-bun”). Neither of us is keen to seek medical help, so I suppose that’s that. My sister tells me that children are painful but satisfying. I do feel a raw hole in my life sometimes when I play with my little nephews and nieces. But my dad once told me it’s not helpful pondering what might have been, because you can’t change that. You can only change what will be.

  I shook the sad thoughts from my head and told Christina my news about the harp.

  “Good on you, Ellie! I always knew you were a closet creative.”