Ellie and the Harpmaker

by Hazel Prior

  I didn’t know how to answer her.

  Then there was another voice, a more welcome voice: Dan’s, winging up to me through the night.

  “Ellie! Ivy! To your left.”

  I turned my head the other way and could just make out a tangled mass of something darker against the darkness. It was within reach. I pulled one hand away from the window ledge and moved my palm over the rough knots of ivy. It felt strong. I grasped it and transferred my weight slowly. The matted stems provided a foothold, then another. I lowered myself over the edge of the roof, knocking off icicles as I went, and arrived at a vertical drop of stone wall. Bit by bit, scrabbling and breaking my nails, I inched my way down the ropes of ivy.

  “Ellie, you can jump now. I’m here!”

  I trusted. I closed my eyes and jumped. Strong arms caught me. Strong arms held me. Tightly, oh so tightly. There was warmth and there was protection. There was a heart beating against my own heart.

  “Ellie, Ellie!”

  I let out a wail of relief.

  “Are you all right?” It was asked with fierce urgency.

  “Yes, I think so,” I whispered.

  The strong arms levered me gently to the ground and tucked me round with a soft padded jacket that smelled of pinewood.

  I don’t know how long I lay there before I realized. Three things. First, the barn was still burning. Second, Dan was no longer with me. Third, where was Clive?

  | 43 |

  Dan

  After I had made sure my Ellie was all right, I set about saving my harps. I didn’t stop to do any thinking. Thinking would have done them no good at all. Thinking uses up far too much time. Desire is quicker. I had one desire and that was enough to make me do what I had to do. This: go back into the barn and get the harps out of there. At once.

  Grainy gray clouds were billowing out from the barn door and escaping up into the black sky. Inside everything was a-flicker. I launched myself back through the entrance. I was met with a blast of red and yellow fury, hot, violent, brutal. There was a hissing and a roaring in my face, a belching out of strong odors: scents of smoky pine, oak and beech wood mixed with the reek of hot oil, tar, wax and metal. Fiery tentacles were flailing about everywhere I looked. They wrapped around the drawers where I kept my harp strings. They slid along the surface of my workbench and snatched at my tools. They snaked their way up to the cork notice board. The photos of the harpists curled and blackened one by one, the face of Roe Deer among them. I jolted to a halt for a split second to watch. She was looking angrier and angrier as she disintegrated.

  Above the roar I could hear clear drops of sound, notes of desperation and despair. The harps needed me. The harps. The poor harps. I pressed on.

  I hoisted my Harbinger under my arm and carried it to the doorway. It felt heavy, almost as heavy as my heart. It clung to me, its ribs shuddering against my own. Once the two of us had got outside, there was a wild retching that came from me and a pinging sound that came from a string as it succumbed to the sudden temperature change. I stooped and laid the Harbinger on its side on the frozen lane. It would survive. But there were so many more. Thirty-six more.

  I plunged back into the inferno that was my home. It was hard to see. Sparks flew at my eyes and flames kept trying to dive down my throat and smoke thrashed and tingled in my nose. I ignored them. Something crashed to my right. Something bit into the flesh of my arm. Something spat in my face. There was a cascade of color at the back of my eyes. I directed myself through the choking fumes to the end of the room where I knew the harps were waiting for me. My outstretched arms banged into a familiar-shaped frame. The wood was red-hot, dry, thirsty. I couldn’t tell which harp it was, but it was a large one. I clutched it with blistering fingers and heaved it along with me, back to safety. I laid it on the ground in the darkness next to its companion. The stars shone down. Shadows twisted and leaped across the lane from the rectangle of the doorway: amber, black, amber, black.

  There were still thirty-five harps to save.

  A third time I rushed in. A third time I fought through the brightness and the darkness and the blindness and the obliterating heat, and my hands found the curved neck of another harp. I pulled it out from the dazzle and into the chill of night. Laying it down, I touched the iced prickle of grass blades and my body longed to collapse and lie there on the ground next to the three harps. All I wanted was to splutter the smoke out of my system and rest there in the cold quietness. But there were still thirty-four harps to save. I straightened up, dizzy, my lungs gasping for air.

  Then a shaft of white light fell across my shoulders. It was coming from two round centers, the headlamps of a car. The car door opened. Out of the side of the car came the figure of a man, the man who had sprung out of my armchair when the fire began. The man who had lumbered to the door while I was shouting to Ellie through the flames. Ellie’s husband Clive.

  “Fire brigade . . . I’ve called them. On their way!” His words were slow and slurred, like great heavy blocks falling from his mouth. Didn’t he understand that nothing could be slow now? Harps were burning. Harps were needing help.

  I propelled my clumsy limbs back into the barn. My skin bubbled. The air was full of so many things now it was almost impossible to force myself forward, but I stumbled into another harp. I grabbed it and lumped and bumped it over the floor and outside.

  The car headlamps were still on, floodlighting the row of injured harps as they lay on the ground. And now another figure was tumbling toward me, barefoot, wearing my jacket over her pajamas. Her hair was wild, her eyes wide. Ellie the Exmoor Housewife.

  I turned away from her and I pulled together all of my reluctant bones and joints and half-melted flesh and I ran back to the entrance of the barn.

  “Dan, stop!”

  I did not stop. I had thirty-three harps to save.

  Her shriek echoed behind me. “Clive! Please! Stop him!”

  That was when I was bulldozed for a second time that night by her husband. His full weight knocked me down. I was dragged by my feet backward, facedown, through the sawdust, the dirt, the ash and the ice. I was weak. I could do no more.

  | 44 |

  Ellie

  “One drunk, one burned, one fainted . . .”

  The voices ebb and flow. They seem far away, like spirits from a different world. I feel as if I’m hovering on the edge of that world, eavesdropping on someone else’s life. I pull back inward and try to focus on myself.

  I am lying on my back. But it isn’t in my bed at home—no, I’ve left all that behind, haven’t I, at Christmas, after a tearing up of poems? But there’s been more destruction since then, I believe, or was it all a horribly vivid nightmare? Weren’t there flames? Flames threatening to eat up everything I loved?

  I recognize the worn touch of my winter pajamas. Didn’t I climb out of a window onto an icy roof? In these very pajamas?

  I listen. The voices are blending into a babble. There are background noises too, a siren warbling and an engine. I sense a steady movement. I open my eyes. I am in a confined space filled with medical equipment. There is a body lying beside me, wrapped in bandages.

  * * *

  • • •

  “How are you feeling?”

  A nurse is bending over me. She is the motherly type. Her blue tunic is pristine, her hair is looped neatly on top of her head, her smile is warm and comforting.

  “I’m fine now!” I tell her, not that convincingly. It seems I’ve been awake for hours, but it must only be minutes. I don’t want any fuss. “I think it was just shock. I’m ready to go home now.”

  The words just slipped out.

  Home?

  I sit up. The world spins, then slowly settles. A band of sunlight is shining into the ward. There’s a background hum of machinery. People in white coats are coming and going.

  The night’s events are
seeping back into my consciousness now with hideous clarity. I remember what happened, but I can’t be sure of the end results.

  “Do you know anything about a man called Dan Hollis? He was with me, at the barn. He— I think he was hurt?”

  “Yes, dear,” the nurse replies. “I thought you’d ask. He’s in the burn unit.”

  My heart feels as if it is about to explode. “Will he be . . . ?” I gulp. My throat is so choked up with dread I can’t finish the question. All I can do is look at her pleadingly.

  “He’ll be all right. The flesh on his arms and hands is damaged, but it’ll heal in time. Just some scarring.”

  I could weep with relief.

  “Can I see him?”

  “Not yet, dear. They’re still patching him up.”

  I’m remembering more and more. A host of harps went up in flames. It must have been nearly all of them. Not to mention the workshop. Everything Dan loved and lived for, reduced to ashes. Because of me.

  How the hell am I ever going to live with this?

  And also . . .

  Oh my God, Clive. Another tide of guilt sweeps through me. Clive trusted me and treasured me, but I repaid him with nothing but willfulness and deceit. Yet still he loved me enough to come to the barn to bring me back. And it was Clive who saved the day by calling the fire brigade after my stupid accident with the candle. After I’d nearly destroyed us all. He’s done more than that too. In spite of his extreme jealous suspicions he threw himself forward to drag Dan out of the flames. He saved Dan’s life.

  Clive saved Dan’s life. Clive is a hero.

  I have misjudged again, made a mess of everything again, just as my mother said I always did. I feel weighted, as though I am being pulled downward, as though I am filled with massive blocks of stone.

  The nurse looks at me anxiously. “You’ve been through a lot. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Yes,” I lie.

  Clive must be at home now. He’ll be recovering from the shock too. If he still loves me he’ll come here soon, to pick me up and take me back with him.

  Do I want to go home with him? Well, where else can I go? Perhaps Clive and I can sort things out together now. Perhaps things will be different between us. I close my eyes. I can’t bear to think of anything anymore.

  “Mrs. Jacobs, the doctor’s here to see you!”

  I open my eyes and try to look a picture of health. The doctor, a short, stumpy, earnest sort of man, peers at me through his glasses and asks the standard questions. Aside from a few bruises I am fine, it transpires, and am free to go.

  I wonder exactly how I’m supposed to do that, with no car, no money and no clothes apart from pajamas and Dan’s jacket.

  “Have you got anyone who can pick you up?” the doctor asks.

  Yes, but only one person. He must know I’m here. He must come soon.

  I wait for my husband at reception. I wait two hours. During this time I repeatedly ask the woman behind the desk if I can go and see Dan. But he is still in recovery and they won’t allow visitors.

  I think about ringing Clive. But I want it to be him who makes the effort, him who strives toward a reconciliation.

  Is that what I want? Is it? Is it?

  | 45 |

  Dan

  “What the hell did you think you were doing?”

  My sister’s voice is frosty, but I observe quivery little drips of water hanging from her eyes. She brushes them away and furrows up her brow. She is perched on the edge of the hospital bed, where I’m propped against the pillows. A bunch of grapes is on her lap, purple ones, large, in a plastic bag. She pushes the bag toward me.

  I don’t take one because it is painful to move. Everything is painful. I am bandaged in lots of places.

  She selects a grape and puts it in her mouth. She chews it. I wonder when she’s going to spit out the pips, but she never does. I surmise they must be seedless grapes.

  She repeats her question.

  I inform her that what I was doing was saving Ellie from the fire. After that I was saving harps from the fire. I managed to save four harps. It wasn’t as many as I’d wanted to save, though, because after that Ellie’s husband had taken it upon himself to save me.

  “Ellie’s husband? What the blue blazes was he doing there?”

  I look down. I’m not sure if it’s a good idea for her to know this information. Not at all. She repeats her second question, however, and I know she’ll keep on repeating it until I answer, so I tell her.

  “Here it is, then,” is what I say. “Ellie’s husband was in the workshop last night because he had a plan. His plan was this: to set fire to the Harp Barn.”

  She gapes. “But I thought it was an accident!”

  I tell her that it both was and wasn’t.

  “Please, Dan! Start at the beginning. Tell me everything.”

  So I do. I tell her how Ellie had asked me to move her car, which I had done, and how I’d come back from Thomas’s to the smell of paraffin and the loud cawing of Phineas. How I’d found Ellie’s husband Clive in the woodshed and how he’d attacked me. How, after he had been hit twice (not by me, I hastened to add; first with a pile of logs and then with the floor), he had proffered me the box of matches. How he lay there for a long while.

  “It was a problem,” I tell Jo, remembering. “I had no idea at all what I was supposed to do. To be honest, I don’t think he knew what he was supposed to do either. Which surprised me, as he’d struck me as the sort of person who always knows these things. Maybe I got that wrong. I took the matches away from him anyway. And I said he’d better come inside out of the cold.”

  “You invited him in!”

  “He was hurting quite badly and had had enough of fighting. So come in is what he did. There wasn’t much else he could do at this point apart from freeze to death.”

  But after he came in, Ellie’s husband Clive had acted most strangely. He had sat in a chair and laughed. He’d told me he knew. He knew all about Ellie and me. Even if she wasn’t here now, Ellie had been here, he’d seen her, he’d seen the look on her face. But really he’d known for weeks. Ellie had changed, she’d been drifting away from him bit by bit, and it tore him apart and there was nothing he could do about it. And it was all because of me and my romantic sodding beautiful bloody harps.

  That was the thought that drove him to it. That filled his head with images. Images of romantic sodding beautiful bloody harps on fire. He’d been thinking of burning harps for weeks on end, he said. He said it in a trancelike sort of way, and to be honest I wasn’t sure if he was talking to himself or to me, but I listened just in case. He might have been a bit confused because of the bang on the head he’d received from the floor of the woodshed. I can’t be sure. Anyway, he went on and on about the burning harps. He said that image had a strange appeal, and the appeal had been growing stronger and stronger every day. All those harps, he said; Ellie probably considered my barn to be like heaven, with all the harps, but he saw it more as hell. At least, he could turn it into hell, with the help of a box of matches. A neat exchange of extremes. He laughed again when he said that. I did not like the fact that he laughed at such a thing.

  After he’d seen with his own eyes that Ellie was at the barn, he’d gone home and steeled himself with whiskey. Then he’d soaked rags in paraffin and put them in a bucket, in readiness. He was prepared to wait, but when he came back to the barn he saw that Ellie’s car was already gone. He assumed she’d taken fright and whisked me away somewhere, perhaps up north to her sister’s. He thought me and Ellie deserved a big surprise when we got back. So he stuffed the rags in all the crevices around the barn and got out the matches.

  When he told me this I went round the barn to see if it was true, and it was. I collected up the rags. There were a lot. Some of them looked like Ellie’s clothes. The cherry-colored socks and her moss-colo
red cardigan and her terra-cotta T-shirt. They were very paraffiny and they were everywhere: under the windows, in the letter box and there was one—it looked like her russet-colored sweater—that was beside Phineas’s pheasant flap. In fact, Ellie’s husband Clive had (he told me) just stooped down to stuff the sweater into the flap prior to lighting a match when Phineas came out of the flap. Phineas is not viciously inclined, but Phineas got a nasty shock when he tried to go out for a midnight stroll and found a man stuffing a paraffin-soaked sweater into his pheasant flap. So bad was the shock of his discovery that he flew into the face of the man.

  I pause. “I would say it was self-defense, wouldn’t you?”

  Jo doesn’t answer. She has stopped chewing grapes and is staring at me.

  “It was not only a shock for Phineas,” I tell her. “It was also a big shock for Ellie’s husband—to have a whirling pheasant in his face just when he was about to set fire to her clothes and the barn and the harps.”

  Jo continues to gape.

  “In fact, the shock was so big that, rather than setting fire to anything, he went and sat in my woodshed instead. Which was where I found him. And where he attacked me.”

  “Sweet Jesus!” Jo mutters under her breath.

  I go on with my narration. “After I’d learned this about Ellie’s husband and his intentions I felt alarmed. I started talking and I told him all about what I was thinking. Which is what I am still thinking. Which is this: that Clive is slightly not quite normal in the head.”

  “Slightly! The man’s a psychopath!” cries Jo.

  I inform her that Clive the psychopath still didn’t know at this point that Ellie was actually lying in my bed feeling queasy. But then Ellie came out of my bedroom and saw him. And she was as surprised as he was and so dropped her candle. And the candle landed slap bang in the middle of the heap of paraffiny clothes that I’d been gathering. Which was a dreadfully unlucky thing and one that had almost cost all our lives.