Ellie and The Harp-Maker

by Hazel Prior

  We can hear Dan clunking about in the kitchen upstairs.

  ‘I didn’t know what to do,’ I explain. ‘I probably should have spoken to Rhoda about it but I just couldn’t. I don’t think she would have taken too kindly to the fact I’d been spying on her parents.’

  ‘She’d kill you!’

  ‘I know,’ I whisper. I can’t pull my eyes away from Jo’s face. I’m terrified about the consequences of my revelation but I can’t take back what I’ve told her. I’ve transferred the responsibility now.

  ‘I thought about just doing nothing, but that seemed wrong, too. I’m sure the boy needs a father in his life. God, I certainly did! And, Jo, I haven’t known Dan for that long but I’m very fond of him,’ I confide. ‘I can’t help feeling that if he’s a father he should know about it. He’d want to know about it, for sure. I know parenthood is no easy task but, from what I gather, it does enrich your life in all sorts of ways.’ I permit myself a little sigh. ‘But there’s no way I could tell him. And, well, as Dan’s sister, I thought you might have the best idea what to do.’

  I gaze at her helplessly.

  ‘Are you certain the boy is Dan’s son?’

  ‘Yes. I am. 99.9 per cent.’

  She stands up, steel in her eyes.

  ‘Well, in that case, I know exactly what to do,’ she says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We tell him.’

  ‘What, now?’

  ‘Now.’

  ‘But … won’t it be rather a shock?’

  ‘It will be a shock, yes. But my brother is strong. Sensitive but very strong. He’ll deal with it in his own way.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we … well, wait a bit? Maybe you want to check it out first?’

  ‘You said you were 99.9 per cent certain. That’s good enough for me. There’s no way you’d come and tell me something like this unless it was true.’

  ‘But for his own sake …?’

  Jo is having none of it. She is filled with righteous indignation. ‘Think about it, Ellie. Hasn’t it been kept from Dan long enough? Isn’t he the first person who should have known? What right have we got to treat him like a mug, hide it from him an instant longer? He’s a father, for God’s sake!’

  27

  Dan

  I made thirty-three sandwiches. This is the same number as my age and also means that we could eat eleven each. I did wonder whether thirty-three might have been on the over-generous side but Ellie and Jo seemed to be talking earnestly in hushed voices and I guessed that they probably weren’t ready to be disturbed yet and they wouldn’t want a male person barging in on them while they were in the middle of discussing lingerie, even if he did have a mountain of triangular, crust-free sandwiches. The fillings of the sandwiches were these: seven with peanut butter, seven with hummus, four with blue cheese and cucumber, four with cheddar and pickle, and eleven with plum jam – the jam that Ellie made from my plums.

  Once the sandwiches were completed and arranged on the plate in tall towers I made coffee for the nice smell. I wafted it around the kitchen a bit, then poured some out for Ellie, who likes to drink it. I also poured out three glasses of my favourite: water.

  Normally when I make sandwiches it is to the strains of harp music, but there was no harp music today. It was a very unusual day.

  My sister Jo marched into the kitchen.

  ‘Aren’t those sandwiches ready yet?’ she thundered. ‘I’m starving!’

  I said that the sandwiches were indeed ready if she and Ellie were ready to receive them.

  ‘Of course we are!’ she cried. ‘And where’s the coffee?’

  I told her I had poured out a mugful for Ellie and, having wafted the rest around the room, I’d tipped it down the sink.

  ‘AAAARGH!’ she screeched. ‘I wish you wouldn’t do that! How many times do I have to tell you, coffee is for drinking. Hang on! How come Ellie gets a mug and I don’t? Here, give me the pot. I’ll make another.’

  While she was wrestling with the coffee I took the sandwiches down to Ellie. She was pacing round and round. Today her socks were navy blue but her jumper was a nice deep shade of russet. It looked good with the walnut-coloured glossiness of her hair, I thought. Her skin was pearly white.

  ‘Dan!’ is what she said.

  ‘Ellie,’ I said back to her. It is reassuring that we know each other’s names so well.

  I put the sandwiches on the table and I told her about the different flavours, adding that there were thirty-three in total.

  She accepted one without seeming to give much consideration as to which flavour it was, and took a bite out of it.

  ‘Don’t say anything!’ Jo called from the kitchen. ‘I’ll be with you in two shakes of a lamb’s tail!’

  Ellie and I did not say anything. When Jo issues a command, you follow it. However, she did take a long while. I would estimate that a lamb could have shaken its tail possibly up to four hundred times before she came in with the brimming coffee pot. I thought of explaining to Ellie that my sister Jo is given to such exaggerations, but I didn’t because I was forbidden to say anything.

  When Jo came back in she poured out two more coffees, even though she knows I don’t drink it.

  ‘You may actually want something stronger,’ she said.

  I asked her why.

  ‘Ellie and I have … news. Stop dithering around, now. Stop twitching your hands, sit down and pay attention.’ Her voice was even louder than usual and set off a bit of an echo effect in all the harps.

  I did what I was told.

  ‘Now, this is all about Rhoda.’

  ‘Roe Deer?’

  ‘Rhoda,’ she confirmed. Jo always looks as though she is having her teeth extracted when she talks about Roe Deer. I waited. Over these last days I’ve been experiencing a sore, raw feeling whenever I think about Roe Deer, but today the feeling was neither quite so sore nor quite so raw.

  ‘Six years ago you and Rhoda were very involved, right? I mean, not like now, but on an intimate level. Right?’

  I studied my sandwich. It was peanut butter, with rather too much peanut butter in it. The bread was nice and thin though, the corners of the triangles good and pointy.

  ‘Right?’ she urged.

  I told her yes, even though I had a feeling it was the wrong answer. I do pretty much always tell the truth, even though I know you’re not supposed to. I can’t seem to help it.

  ‘And then, soon after you got together, she disappeared out of your life for quite a long time, didn’t she?’

  I told her yes again.

  She fixed her eyes on me. ‘Dan, listen. We’ve got something very important to tell you, something that you ought to know. Ellie here has made a discovery. In that time that you didn’t see her, Rhoda was having a baby.’

  I heard the words but the meaning slipped right past my brain and scuttled out of reach.

  ‘Your baby,’ said Jo.

  Something started yanking deep down inside me. The yank was strong, very, as if my heart was on the end of a bit of string and somebody had tugged the string and hauled my heart right up through my ribcage. It made it difficult to breathe. The two faces were swimming before my eyes.

  ‘Do you understand me?’

  I told her yes, then added no.

  ‘Listen, Dan. Rhoda has been keeping it a secret from you all this time, but Ellie has found out and we think it’s time you knew.’

  My mouth moved but words wouldn’t come out.

  ‘You have a five-year-old son,’ she said.

  I don’t know how long I sat there or what they said after that. But I know that at some point Jo left because she had to go to work. And some time after that I took myself outside to feed Phineas. And some time later I came back in and picked up various harp-making tools one after the other, but my hands were shaking so much I couldn’t hold them. There was a mug of cold coffee and a great heap of untouched sandwiches on the table.

  Ellie was still there, pulling her hair and eyebrows i
nto tufts. When she saw I was back inside, she went into the kitchen and emerged again with a fresh cup of tea. ‘Drink this,’ she said.

  My hands couldn’t get a grip of it and I spilt it down my trousers. My bandage and everything was tea-soaked. I sprung to the tap and sloshed water everywhere.

  ‘Stop, Dan!’ cried Ellie. ‘That’s way too much water! You’ll drown yourself!’

  My hands were flapping and weaving patterns in the air. My eyes wouldn’t stop blinking. Strangulated noises were coming from my mouth. I had no control over any of it.

  Ellie put her arms around me and held me close. She was very warm and I could feel her heart beating through her russet-coloured jumper. ‘It’s all right, it’s all right,’ she repeated. ‘Dan, calm down! Everything’s going to be all right.’

  Phineas has eaten lots today. He had all the leftover sandwiches. I will have to put him on a diet next week.

  I cannot make harps, I cannot eat and I cannot sleep. I’m already feeling that what I am supposed to do and what I want to do are probably not the same thing. My mother would have very clear ideas on that, but she is not alive now, so she can’t help me. I am sure my sister Jo has very clear ideas too. The phone has been ringing constantly over the last two hours and I know it’s her. I haven’t answered it though.

  Ellie has gone home to cook supper for her husband. Phineas has come in and settled in his bed.

  I’m going out. It’s dark out there. I’ll have to take a torch but luckily a torch is a thing that I have. I will walk among the trees in the dark and have a think because now, suddenly, I have a son and, although I don’t believe it 100 per cent – probably only about 8.5 per cent at the moment – the percentage is rising all the time. When I get to a hundred I will have to decide what to do because you can’t suddenly discover you have a son of five years old and not do anything.

  I put on my boots and tramp down the lane. I walk and I walk and thoughts come and go. Overhead are thousands of stars. There is a wispy fragment of moon and a sharp frost. The air bites into me. An owl hoots, pauses, then hoots again. Something rustles on my right in a hedgerow. The torchlight glints in the frozen puddles on the track. My footfalls thud like a drumbeat in the stillness of the night air. I walk and I walk and eventually I realize my leg is hurting, very, very badly. I ignore it and carry on. There is not much sky now, the branches of the pines are crowding out the stars. A twig snaps underfoot. I keep going uphill until I have a sense of opening as the trees give way to moorland. The breeze is cold on my face.

  I have a son I have a son I have a son.

  I sit on a stone and switch off the torch. How many stars are up there? I start to count, beginning at the left-hand edge of the sky and working my way across inch by inch. Some are nearer and some are further, some are brighter and some are so dim I’m not sure if they’re really there or if I’m imagining them, so it’s tricky. Normally I’m good at counting and don’t lose my concentration before a few thousand, but tonight I can’t seem to keep track.

  I have a son I have a son I have a son.

  An animal, light of foot, rushes across the ground in front of me. It is a deer, a stag. I catch the glow of the eyes, the branching of the antlers against the glimmery sky. The deer senses my presence and gallops off in the darkness. Exmoor is full of deer, but they see you more than you see them.

  I have a son I have a son I have a son.

  I begin counting again, this time starting from over the sea and dividing the sky up into rectangular sections, but it is no good. Stars keep popping up out of nowhere and then vanishing again. They are playing games with me.

  My son is five years old.

  I have missed five years of my son’s life.

  There is a whooshing sound in my ears, like wind in the trees or the sea.

  Why didn’t Roe Deer tell me? I feel anger like I have never felt before, like thunder and lightning hammering inside my skull, trying to get out.

  It is cold and I have been sitting on this stone for too long. I get up. I am stiff and my muscles groan with the effort. I ignore them. I walk and I walk until the first smudges of dawn are beginning to appear and the ghosts of trees are emerging from the gloom.

  I head back for the Harp Barn. I know what I’m going to do.

  28

  Ellie

  ‘El, do leave your eyebrows alone!’

  ‘Sorry!’ I whip my hand away. I hadn’t realized I was doing it. It leaves little bald streaks – not an attractive look. I’m going to have to invest in an eyebrow pencil.

  Clive has lit the fire. It gets dark early now and we both feel the need of that cheerful, chuntering presence. We’ve just consumed vast quantities of pizza. I didn’t leave myself time to cook properly because I stayed so long at the Harp Barn. I cut the pizza into slices so we could eat it with our fingers, plates balanced on laps in front of the warm blaze. Now we’re sprawling on the sofa, toasting our toes.

  I wish I could have stayed with Dan longer. His level of shock has left me shocked too. And I feel scared. Scared about what he might do short-term. Scared about the consequences long-term.

  Why did I go and spill the beans? Was it because I believe in honesty and transparency, because I support a father’s rights? Or was it because I secretly hoped Dan would hate Rhoda for her deception? And (possibly, just possibly) transfer his love to me because I’d discovered his beautiful son …

  It seemed a good idea at the time but now I’m terrified it’s all backfired.

  Dan will find a new love in his son and will be too busy to think about me at all. And what about Rhoda? Jo said he doted on Rhoda. Envy is coiling around my heart. The image of them in the plum orchard keeps flashing before my eyes. I add a small, stubby, black-haired little boy to the picture and see them at once as a gorgeous, happy family. Isn’t that something Dan will strive for?

  I’m struggling. It’s hard to imagine how he must feel. One good thing about being a woman is that at least you can’t have a baby without knowing about it.

  Rhoda must have gone through a lot those five years ago. Presumably the baby was what people call ‘an accident’. What were her feelings when she realized? Horror or delight? Surely she must have wanted the child? Or maybe it was just that she didn’t like the idea of getting rid of it. There’s a difference. I think I know Rhoda well enough to know which it was. I can see why she didn’t say anything to Dan at the time. But now that he knows, they’ll have to work something out together. I remember Dan’s hurt when he realized she wasn’t his girlfriend. I remember how tetchy he was the day he told me about it and I attempted to soothe him.

  Dan has incredible powers of persuasion, as I well know! If he is still keen on her …

  Rhoda will want to go back to him and make a go of things, won’t she? Won’t she? I would in her shoes.

  I hate myself sometimes. I shouldn’t have spied on Rhoda’s parents. I shouldn’t have said anything to Jo. I shouldn’t have let Jo tell Dan. But then … then Dan would never have known he had a son. How could I have kept that from him?

  ‘Penny for your thoughts.’

  I scowl and throw my hands into my lap. ‘Oh, I was just thinking about Mum.’

  Clive’s expression changes from amusement to sympathy. ‘Oh, poor old Honey-pun! Never mind. You’ll be seeing her soon.’

  It is small comfort. But he means well. I force myself back into the role of concerned daughter.

  ‘I have no idea what to get her for Christmas. Chocolates, I suppose.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ he says. ‘We’ll have to buy lots of expensive rubbish for all your nephews and nieces as well, I suppose?’

  I nod. ‘Yup. I’ll have to ring Vic again and find out what gimmicks they’re into this year.’

  ‘Why don’t you give her a ring now?’

  I sigh and stroke my tummy. ‘Too full to move. Later.’

  He picks up the TV remote and starts channel-hopping. I watch the screen, retreating back into my thoughts. />
  29

  Dan

  I rang Roe Deer.

  I said that I was now possessed of the fact that we had a son and, this being the case (I paused to give her an opportunity to deny it, but she didn’t) I thought it was high time I met him. Ideally this would have happened at his birth and I couldn’t pretend to understand why she’d kept it from me all these years but still, that was then and now is now. You can’t do anything about then, but you can do something about now. And the thing I was proposing to do was to come and see him.

  What she said was this: ‘Who told you?’

  I told her that my sister Jo had told me, but the person who told her was Ellie Jacobs, the Exmoor Housewife.

  ‘I thought as much,’ was what she said, and her voice sounded short and hot.

  I gathered (because I can sometimes gather things) that Roe Deer had not wanted her secret to come out. She had wanted it to stay in the bag, like a cat. But, like the cat, the secret was getting extremely cramped and uncomfortable in the bag and wanted very, very badly to get out. And now that it had got itself out, there was nothing Roe Deer could do about it.

  I also gathered that Roe Deer was cross with Ellie. She was so cross with Ellie that she couldn’t find the words to express it. She was so cross with Ellie that her crossness was seething and bubbling inside her. Her crossness with Ellie was volcanic.

  30

  Ellie

  The phone made me jump.

  I was propelled into sudden panicky action but Clive, who was sitting right beside it, picked up the receiver first.

  ‘Hello …?’

  He smiled across at me. ‘Yes, I’m Ellie’s husband. Would you like to speak with her? Who’s calling please? Her – excuse me, what did you say? Her harp teacher?’ His eyes bore holes in me across the room. ‘I wasn’t aware she was having harp lessons.’

  I waited, transfixed, heat rising up my neck and into my face.

  ‘No, not at all. It’s not your fault. What did you say your name was …? Rhoda …’