Secret of the Song

by Cathie Hartigan

  ‘That’s very nice for you. Now, will you let me out?’

  ‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘Silvia, please. If I go to Denmark, I will come back a wealthy man. Then you and I … we will be able to live comfortably. I would be my own master. Not in service to the likes of Don Carlo.’ He spat the name with disgust. ‘Wouldn’t you like that?’

  ‘Haven’t you forgotten something?’

  He looked flummoxed. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I don’t actually recall you asking me to marry you, but if you did and I’ve forgotten, I don’t actually recall my accepting.’ I was upsetting myself with being angry and when he opened his mouth to say something, I wouldn’t let him. ‘But if I did actually accept and I’ve forgotten that too, what use is a husband who isn’t at home? How do I know that when you come back from Denmark you won’t go running off to other places – places I’ve never even heard of.’

  I wanted to cry but then two of the guests appeared and as he was obliged to let them go by, I escaped at the same time. Of course, I did not want to walk with strangers so I set off in the opposite direction. The wind did its very best to push me back but I was determined.

  ‘Wait, Silvia.’ Salvo caught me up and, taking hold of my arm he steered me into a doorway out of the gale. ‘You’ve forgotten your cloak. Here.’

  ‘Oh.’ I’d not even noticed the cold but found my teeth were chattering. I took it from his hand. Now, I knew the danger of cloaks; it was best I put it on myself. But as I tied the bow, Salvo pulled the hood from over my head. Holding either side he leaned down to look directly into my eyes.

  ‘Please marry me, Silvia?’ he said. ‘You know I love you dearly.’

  Of course, he proposed. I knew he would. Hadn’t I thought of nothing else while sitting in the chapel all morning? So, now I had my choice. What would I decide?

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  I knew the days of a new Barbie outfit were well and truly over, but on the way home she didn’t even want a hot chocolate in Costa. At least she couldn’t escape into the ether with her bloody phone. Yes, I thoroughly approved of the school’s policy of confiscation, which I discovered when Miss Price beckoned me from the school gate and handed it to me. Could she leave it at home in future?

  You bet.

  It had been found when Jon’s email about Daniela pinged its arrival in class. I should have been cross with him too. It was Jon who backed up Mollie’s insistence she had to have a smartphone.

  ‘The thing is, Mollie,’ I began, but she interrupted.

  ‘I’ll only do it if we can sing Jon’s musical at school.’

  ‘But it’s just not suitable!’

  God. It’s bad enough sounding like Mum, but when did I start to sound like my ghastly grandmother?

  Silence.

  ‘What would your teachers at school think? They’d never let me near the choir again.’

  More silence.

  ‘Are you listening?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Don’t be rude.’

  Silence.

  Exeter High Street had never felt so long. I was even tempted to get the bus.

  ‘I heard you coming up.’ Mum opened the door before I could put the key in the lock. A moment later her beaming smile collapsed. ‘What’s happened?’ she said to me. I felt too pissed off to say anything so she asked Mollie the same thing.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said, with a great sigh while swinging her rucksack off her shoulder and throwing it onto the floor in the middle of the hall. ‘Can I have it back now?’

  That was said to me. I still had her precious phone in my bag but wasn’t ready to give it up.

  ‘I think we have something to resolve first,’ I said in Gran-speak. ‘Put your stuff away and I’ll make tea.’

  ‘Why don’t I do that?’ Mum said, and she slunk away into the kitchen.

  Mollie left her bag where it was and went into the lounge. The next thing I heard was the telly and when I went in she was clutching the remote with both hands.

  I switched it off at the wall. Cue exploding Mollie.

  ‘But you haven’t heard it,’ she yelled, her face puce.

  ‘I don’t need to,’ I said, hideously reasonable. ‘Even if Jon’s musical was wonderful, he’s made a mistake with the subject matter. It’s completely unsuitable.’

  ‘But it isn’t, it isn’t.’

  Her crying came in loud ballooning, end-of-the-world sobs. I couldn’t bear it when she sounded so tragic. Every sob pressed a finger on my tears button too. The memory of Jon’s arms round me was fading. All I could think was that he’d been stupid to write a bloody musical.

  ‘How can you say that, Mollie? It’s the story of a horrible man murdering his wife and her … friend, in a very horrible way. It isn’t a fairy story. There isn’t a happy ending.’

  A corner of the madrigal stuck out from the bottom of the heap on the table. Hateful thing. I kicked it.

  ‘Goodness, look at you two.’ Mum came in with the tea. ‘Should I buy shares in Kleenex? Now then,’ she said, putting down the tray and making herself comfortable on the sofa. ‘Which one of you is going to tell me what the matter is? Mollie? Come and sit next to me, dear. Look. I bought these for you.’

  She held one out and I realised, as Mollie dumped herself on the sofa, just how a pink wafer biscuit might resemble a carrot.

  ‘Now then, what’s your mum done that’s so terrible?’

  ‘It’s what she hasn’t done,’ said Mollie. ‘What she won’t let me do.’

  ‘I can’t …’ I began, but Mollie would have none of it.

  ‘You can, you can.’

  Mum patted her knee. ‘Now, now.’

  Then she turned to me. ‘What is all this about, Lisa?’

  I explained briefly. She frowned a lot.

  ‘But do you mean,’ she said, when I’d finished, ‘that you haven’t heard any of Jon’s musical?’

  ‘She hasn’t,’ Mollie sniffed. ‘She hasn’t heard a single note.’

  Their faces had the same look about them.

  ‘Lisa,’ said Mum, ‘I’m surprised at you.’

  What do you do when everyone is against you? Behave like an adult and consider carefully why this may be the case? Or be a toddler and storm off into your room to beat the pillow?

  I stripped the whole bed afterwards, carried the bundle through to the kitchen and stuffed it in the washing machine. They were still sitting there and while Mum was managing a bland expression quite well, Mollie’s quivered with suppressed triumph.

  ‘It’s on my phone,’ she squeaked.

  Of course it was, I should have realised. Oh Lord. She’d probably played it to half the school choir already. Would there be complaints from parents? Like that time in the Nativity play when an aggrieved Joseph piped up that he’d always worn a condom.

  My pathetic siege was over, but at least I’d be proved right when we heard it.

  When I handed her phone back, Mollie burst into action. ‘Let’s hear it through the speakers,’ she said, shifting various bits of media kit with lightning skill. Was this part of the national curriculum for primary schools? Or had evolution hot-wired twenty-first century babies in the womb?

  Mollie was far too wriggly to sit down so I made myself as comfortable as I could next to Mum.

  ‘I’m sure it’ll be all right, dear,’ she whispered, patting my knee in exactly the same way she’d patted Mollie’s. ‘Jon wouldn’t have done anything bad.’

  ‘It isn’t anything Jon’s done,’ I said. ‘I’ve no doubt the music will be wonderful. It might even be a brilliant musical worthy of the West End or Broadway – God knows, he’s talented enough – but we’re talking a primary school choir, Mum. Gesualdo committed a gruesome murder—’

  ‘Ready?’ Mollie interrupted. She held out her phone. We nodded and she pressed Go.

  Immediately, there was silence but then we heard the sort of familiar rustlings and coughs that home recordings always have. A note on the keyboar
d sounded and Ready, Mollie? Jon’s voice took me by surprise and I stiffened. Repeated chords in a minor key followed, reminiscent of Greensleeves, but more miserable.

  Singing along with the recording was soon irresistible to Mollie. She started by humming but whole lungfuls of air and words quickly followed and then, when she was completely carried away, actual actions.

  Sad am I, she lamented, waving a Kleenex like a Morris dancer’s hankie. Then she fell to her knees and sang in her best tragic voice:

  My father died when I was small

  And now my mother weeps all day

  She had to wed a Prince who’s cruel

  They wouldn’t let her have a say.

  The castle where we live is cold

  And I am forced to hide away.

  My bedroom walls are thick with mould.

  I have no friends with whom to play.

  Oh, Mollie, I thought, already captivated by how she embraced the part, you are brilliant. The accompaniment was understated broken chords, the simplest of supports for such a strong melody. I sighed and Mum dug me in the side with her elbow.

  The Prince writes lots of ghastly songs

  His playing of the lute is bad

  We have to listen all day long

  I think that he is really mad.

  When he is cross it’s very frightening

  Mummy hurries me to bed

  But I lie and hear her pleading

  Then I wish that he was …

  Mollie left us in no doubt what she wished for as she put her hands together in prayer. The music finished with an interrupted cadence, unresolved, like the line, and ready to lead into the next scene. But Mollie switched it off.

  ‘See?’ she said. ‘What’s the matter with that?’

  ‘Nothing, darling,’ said Mum, before I could get a word in. ‘That was really lovely. Let’s hear the next one.’

  I wasn’t going to say anything anyway, but I did smile and nod even if both were on the weak side. The song was lovely; Mollie’s singing was lovely. No one could fail to be affected by it. What affected me was that Jon had chosen an entirely unexpected angle of approach. Maria d’Avalos did have a daughter called Margarita. If the whole story was from the her point of view then perhaps the more gruesome elements would be left out.

  ‘Sure you’re ready again?’ Mollie said, looking at me.

  ‘Yes, yes.’

  She pressed Go and we heard applause. Clearly Jon and Mollie weren’t the only people present. The next thing I heard was Daniela’s voice congratulating Mollie. I could feel myself stiffen but then Mum put her arm round me. Something she hadn’t done for ages.

  In the next song, Margarita is playing by herself in the castle courtyard. She watches as guests arrive for a party, which she cannot attend. Only one of them speaks to her and it is Fabrizio, the handsome duke. The Princess comes to wish her daughter goodnight and when she and Fabrizio meet it’s love at first sight.

  When that song ended, Mollie didn’t stop the recording and we went straight into a love duet that she sang with Daniela. About halfway through, Mum reached for the tissues and we both took one. At first I thought I’d sniff a bit, that’s all. Music has peaks and troughs of emotion in the same way as it has ups and downs in terms of volume, pitch and intensity. That’s how it all works; variety makes for interest. But I wasn’t experiencing any let up in what I felt.

  One tissue wasn’t enough. Over the next couple of numbers, I got through half the box even though they were rather upbeat and cheerful. Eventually, the Princess tells Fabrizio that even though she is being buried alive in her marriage to the mad Prince Carlo, it would be wrong to run away.

  But then, just when we think it is all going to end unhappily with the lovers parting, in a reprieve of the opening number, Margarita overhears Don Carlo saying he is going to murder Princess Maria. Oh no! She warns Fabrizio and he rushes to save his true love. But would he get there in time?

  After a rustling and footsteps the recording clicked off.

  ‘That’s all there is on here,’ said Mollie. ‘So? What do you think?’

  I couldn’t speak, but Mum said all the right things. Well done, Mollie. Well done, Jon. How marvellous.

  ‘Mummy?’

  That did it. Mollie calling me mummy. She hadn’t done that for ages. I nodded and kept on nodding.

  ‘Yes,’ I managed to feebly croak.

  I didn’t feel like crying anymore, but something was going on. Another demon was making itself known to me. I may have faced down Sneery and capitulated briefly to the Toddler Tantrum demon that beat up innocent pillows, but here was the sly Worm of Shame, and what it wanted me to do, was blame someone else for my folly. In my mind’s eye, Daniela was first in line, then Jon. Even Mollie was presented as a candidate. But I had seen it, and although it tried to slither out of sight, I caught it by the tail. Never would I let it go underground again.

  Both Mollie and Mum were looking at me, mystified. And I was mystified too. Where had all this emotional stuff come from? Wasn’t I a rather calm and restrained individual? Once perhaps, but not any more.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, gasping from the effort of subduing a worm, bent on becoming a snake. ‘I’ve been such an idiot,’ I began.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Mollie, brightly. ‘We know that.’

  She came and sat between us, wriggling her little bottom to make room. She beamed and patted both our knees.

  ‘So we can do it at school then?’ she said to me.

  What could I say? ‘I’ll have to run it past Miss Price, but I’m sure we can.’

  ‘Yeaaay!’ she squealed loud enough for Mum and me to cover our ears.

  ‘But wait a minute,’ I said, so taken with the music and Mollie’s singing, I’d forgotten the central issue, ‘what happens in the end?’

  Mollie shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It wasn’t written when we did the recording.’

  ‘Surely,’ said Mum. ‘Jon wouldn’t write anything unsuitable, would he?’

  ‘I hope not,’ I said. ‘But the true story doesn’t have a happy ending.’

  ‘Who cares about the true story?’ Mollie scoffed. ‘It was ages ago.’

  ‘Well …’ I was about to say you can’t play fast and loose with the truth, but then I thought, hang on, if you only base your story on something, it doesn’t matter a figgy leaf about the actual truth. ‘That’s right,’ I said, changing my gambit. ‘Jon didn’t mean this to be the definitive story of Gesualdo’s murdering of his wife and her lover. In fact, although he’s named the wicked prince, Carlo, there’s no mention of Gesualdo at all. Why have I got so het-uppity about it?’

  ‘It’s all the stupid frontispiece’s fault,’ said Mollie. ‘And the madrigal that goes with it. I reckon someone put a spell on it.’

  Mum laughed: ‘What? Like the bad fairy at the christening?’

  ‘Or the wicked queen with the mirror,’ Mollie said.

  ‘Or Beauty and the Beast.’

  ‘Or the glass slipper.’

  ‘The glass slipper?’ Mum said. ‘What’s enchanted about that?’

  Mollie thought about it for a bit. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Not the slipper, the pumpkin instead.’

  They batted spells back and forth but I stopped listening. Even if there was a semi-quaver of truth in the existence of some kind of curse, I wasn’t having anything to do with it. Once the concert was over, I’d never have another Gesualdo madrigal in the house.

  ‘Do you think Jon’s written the end?’ I asked Mollie. ‘I didn’t put him off, did I?’

  She looked at me with scorn. ‘I wouldn’t have thought so.’

  ‘Will you ask him?’

  ‘Oh, Lisa,’ said Mum. ‘Why don’t you ask him? You haven’t fallen out again, have you?’

  ‘No. But I’ve had an idea. A good idea, I think.’ I put my arm round Mollie and gave her a big squeeze. ‘Ask him, will you, Mollie? But don’t tell him it’s for me. Now it’s my turn to have a secret.’
/>   Mum sighed. ‘Haven’t we all had enough of secrets? They never seem to come to any good.’

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Napoli 1591

  ‘I love you too, Salvo,’ I whispered. ‘But I don’t think I can marry you.’

  He was so close and his breath warmed my chilly face but I couldn’t look at him.

  ‘What was that?’ he said as if he had not quite heard, as if the wind had taken my words and blown them away. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I can’t marry you, Salvo.’ I said it more firmly.

  He still held the corners of my hood but I felt his grip loosen.

  ‘What do you mean, you can’t?’

  All the reasons I could give rushed into my head at once and I didn’t know where to begin. Had all the threads in my workbox knotted themselves together, I would not have felt more in a tangle.

  ‘I’m too busy,’ I said. ‘There’s the altar—’

  ‘Busy?’ He almost choked on the word. ‘How can you be too busy to get married? Silvia, what are you saying? Are you mad? This is me, Salvo. Remember?’

  I nodded. Maybe I was mad. Certainly I felt sick, and my cloak could not keep out the cold or the fist that seemed to be gripping my insides. I turned away and he let go of my hood. The wind had risen still further and spots of rain began to fall. I didn’t know where to go but set off anyway.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Salvo caught me up.

  ‘Back to San Domenico,’ I said, although it wasn’t in that direction.

  ‘Silvia, wait, please. You can’t go without giving me some sort of an explanation. I always thought—’ We’d reached the corner, where a sudden gust slapped us both about the face. I hesitated and Salvo put his hand on my arm. ‘Look,’ he said, holding up one of the keys that hung from his belt. ‘I have the key to the print shop. We can talk in there and be out of this rain.’

  What would or could I say?

  Salvo lit the lantern and at once tall shadows leapt about the room. There were two presses and between them ran washing lines pegged with many pieces of paper already printed and hung to dry. Title pages, some of them; others were illustrations of trees and flowers. All were beautiful, and I recognised his hand in most of them. The overpowering smell of resin, soot and vinegar stung my eyes. Had I climbed up a kitchen chimney, it would not be so strong. I put my handkerchief to my nose.