The Songs
Page 26
I got up and kissed him on the top of his head, where his hair was thick and white. As I went out of the house, I could hear the sound of Carla and Joan practicing. It was a hot day and the sun felt warm on my face. I was not going far, only about fifteen minutes away. When I turned the corner and saw the nice detached house with Virginia creeper all over the front and a little driveway with a garage at the end of it, I suddenly felt frightened. There was no real logic to what I was doing.
I waited in the porch for a moment before I rang the doorbell. I could hear footsteps and then the door opened. I don’t think I have ever seen someone look as surprised as Shirley.
“Rose…” she said.
“I’ve come to see Joseph.”
She nodded. “Come in.”
As she took me through the house, I saw a small photograph in a frame on a table. I stopped and picked it up.
“Is this your daughter? Is this Sally?”
“Yes,” she said.
“She looks just like you.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry about all those things I said about you and Sally. You must think I’m a very foolish woman.”
I shrugged. “In my house, everybody is always certain that the things they believe in are true. I don’t know what’s true and what isn’t anymore. You did those calculations about Muswell Hill the other day: maybe there was a special child born the day Huddie died. I don’t believe it but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like it to be true.”
“You don’t have to believe it. Just don’t let go of Huddie.”
“I’d never let go of Huddie.”
“Then we’re not so different, Rose.” She turned away from me. “Go in,” she said. “Go in and see Joseph.”
I knocked on the door and went in. He was sitting at a desk with his back towards me writing something.
“Hello,” I said. “I’m Rose Herzl.”
He turned round. “I know.”
“I came and saw you when you were in hospital.”
“I remember. Thank you for that. And you came to my trial.”
“Don’t say that. It wasn’t your trial. It was unfair. It was like Stalin’s show trials where innocent people got destroyed. You’d know all about them if you’d been brought up by Iz. He told me that something like that happened to him once but I’m not sure anything he’s said is really true.”
I couldn’t think what to say next, so I pointed at the desk and said, “What are you writing?”
“A song.”
“For one of your musicals?”
“No, it’s not my song. When I’m bored I rewrite other people’s songs. This one’s an old one called ‘Manhattan.’ ”
“Don’t you write songs of your own?”
“I did, yes.”
“What’s the song about?”
“Well, the original song is about how lovely New York was. I’ve added things about nine-eleven to make it more topical.”
“Oh, like a political song. Like Iz’s kind of song.”
“No, I wouldn’t be very good at that. The verse I’m doing now is more about what people did there in the old days, something about sailors meeting girls at the harbor. I’m stuck: I can’t think of anything which rhymes with ‘Girls at Manhattan’s dockside.’ ”
I thought for a moment. “That’s not so difficult. What about: ‘With curls under hat and peroxide’?”
He threw his head back and laughed. “Oh,” he said, “you’re a songwriter, too.”
And then I told him about the choirboy at the school in Godalming in 1947 and the friend called Arthur who was old and dying in Scotland. I told him about the boy who worked on his uncle’s farm in Kent and the boy who drowned there and the boy who went to Israel. I asked him if maybe he would come with me to those places and see what we could find. I told him that without Huddie I did everything on my own but I did not want to do this on my own.
Then, afterwards, I walked with him back to our house. He walked slowly and sometimes I had to take his arm. When we got there I took him into Huddie’s room where Iz was, still by the French windows looking out over the garden. I turned the wheelchair round so he was facing us. I did not know whether he would understand me or not.
“This is Joseph,” I said, “Joe Hill Herzl.”
Thank You
Maria Alvarez Richard Barraclough John Brown
Yvonne Cárdenas Marjorie DeWitt Abraham Elton
Lotte Elton Charles Fox Sue Freathy
Judith Gurewich Emily Heller Lucy Heller
Zoe Heller William Humble Brent Isaacs
Sally Lever Norman North Imogen Parker
Jeremy Pfeffer Stewart Plant Jonathan Powell
John Preston Alexandra Pringle Felicity Rubinstein
Ian Simpson Adrian Smith Sarah Spankie
Gillian Stern Jeremy Treglown Nicholas Underhill
Nina Underhill Naomi Wolf
CHARLES ELTON worked as a designer and editor in publishing before becoming a literary agent. Since 1991 he has worked in television and was an executive producer of drama at ITV in the United Kingdom. Among his productions are the Oscar-nominated short Syrup, The Railway Children, Andrew Davies’s adaptation of Northanger Abbey, produced in association with WGBH Boston’s Masterpiece Theatre. His first novel, Mr. Toppit, was published by Other Press in 2010.
Also by
Charles Elton
MR. TOPPIT
Spanning several decades, from the heyday of the postwar British film industry to today’s cutthroat world of show business in Los Angeles, Mr. Toppit is a riveting debut novel that captures an extraordinary family and their tragic brush with fame to wonderfully funny and painful effect.
“Told in several voices and all of them high-pitched, Mr. Toppit is a high-jinks combination of Harry Potter, Lemony Snicket, Madeline, The Secret Garden, The Simpsons, and Arrested Development.” —Los Angeles Times
“This debut novel examines the unexpected consequences of literary fame…Elton takes a familiar course — dark familial secrets will out — but distinguishes it with a tender, wry treatment of his characters.” —The New Yorker
“A cultural satire encompassing a Harry Potteresque literary empire, a Royal Tenenbaums–style dysfunctional family, and an Oprah-type media figure, the book is both funny and sad.” —Newsday
“Mr. Toppit doesn’t seem to be intended as a cautionary tale…but Elton brilliantly presents the betrayal, the horror, of being used.” —New York Times Book Review
“Brutally comic…a strong debut, darkly funny and richly told, with often surprisingly penetrative emotional moments.” —Associated Press
OTHER PRESS www.otherpress.com
OTHER PRESS
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