by Hazel Prior
As I was drilling holes into the soundboard I was not thinking about the Fifi harp though. What I was thinking about was my son Ed. Him and his train and his rabbit and the things he said to me.
In the middle of those thoughts there came a very quiet knock at the door. I was surprised because it was dark and frosty outside and people do not normally come out here to buy harps in such conditions. So I assumed it was just a twig that had blown against the door in the wind. But then the knock came again. I went over and opened the door. And there in front of me was Ellie Jacobs, the Exmoor Housewife.
‘Ellie!’ I cried, seizing her hand. I was feeling enthusiastic and excited with all the things I had been thinking about Ed my son, which is the reason I did this. Also because I was glad to see her. But Ellie’s hand was rather cold and limp. Her face looked cold and limp too.
‘Hi, Dan,’ she said in a voice drained of colour. She moved to one side slightly and I saw there was a man standing in the gloom behind her. He was large. He had a square sort of face and not very much in the way of hair. He was in a big, dark coat.
‘This is Clive, my husband,’ said Ellie. ‘He wanted to meet you and to see the Harp Barn. Sorry, I, er, hope it’s not too late in the evening …’
I assured her that it wasn’t, not at all. I put on my biggest smile because that was the way I was feeling and, besides, she seemed to need cheering up. I put out my hand again and shook the hand of her husband, even though the hand had a bit of a lacklustre feel to it, as if it did not want to be shaken much. I said I was pleased to meet him, as that is what you are supposed to say. I then invited them both to come inside where it was warm – well, warmer.
They came in.
Clive the husband of Ellie turned his head round and round to look at the barn and all the harps. He stuck his lacklustre hands into his big black pockets.
Phineas is not too keen on meeting people he doesn’t know. He got out of bed, flapped his wings and made a hasty exit out through the pheasant flap. Clive the husband of Ellie stared after him.
I offered my guests a drink. I offered coffee even though I’d just recently made some and tipped it down the sink, because I know Ellie likes to drink coffee and maybe her husband does too. I also offered sandwiches. I mentioned the fact that the sandwiches I was offering would be good ones. The sandwiches that I was offering would be filled with excellent jam, the jam Ellie made from my plums, as there was still a bit of it left.
The Clive man swivelled on the spot and looked at Ellie. His eyebrows were very close together and his mouth was a straight line.
I repeated my offer.
‘Not for me, thank you,’ Ellie then replied very quickly. A little lump was moving down her throat.
I asked Clive if he would like some sandwiches made with the jam that Ellie his wife had made with my plums.
There was silence.
‘Would you like coffee or sandwiches, Clive?’ Ellie said to him. She seemed to be acting as an interpreter, even though I had spoken in plain English.
‘Yes, a cup of coffee would be nice,’ he said finally. ‘And a sandwich with some of the jam Ellie made from your plums, Mr Hollis. Funnily enough I’ve never tried it. I never even knew Ellie was capable of making jam.’
I told him she was certainly very capable. Just as she was with so many things.
I then told Ellie to make herself at home as she always did, and to show her husband around everything as she liked, and I bounded off up the seventeen steps to make coffee and sandwiches. I was still thinking about my son Ed.
From the kitchen I heard that Ellie and Clive had also ascended the seventeen steps and were now in the little room where Ellie practises. They were not talking very much though.
I spread the jam thick, as it is such good jam. Today the bread was granary, with seeds. Cut into rectangles. I’m not sure Clive would like triangles.
When I came into the room and handed the sandwiches (there were six) and the coffee (it was strong) to Clive Ellie’s husband, he was standing by the window. He was scrutinizing Ellie’s harp from a distance.
‘You remember it from before, don’t you, Clive? Lovely, isn’t it?’ said Ellie in a mouse-like voice.
‘So this is where you play every day?’ he asked.
‘Um, yes, often I do,’ she said. ‘While Dan makes harps downstairs in the workshop.’ She said the words ‘downstairs’ and ‘workshop’ louder than the rest of the sentence.
Clive walked up to the harp. In one rapid movement he raised a hand over the harp. I saw Ellie flinch. Clive then moved his hand down again and rested it for a second on the curve of the harp’s neck.
‘Very lovely,’ he said. His voice somehow did not seem to echo the sentiment, though. His voice was all snagged up with brambles.
Ellie made a little noise at the back of her throat. I informed Clive that Ellie’s harp was one of the best harps I’d ever made. I told him I had made it out of cherry wood. I had selected it especially for Ellie because, although cherry was not her favourite tree (that was birch) she sometimes wore cherry-coloured socks and I thought she had an affinity with the wood. Also because the harp had a very lovely and unique voice and resonance that seemed to fit Ellie particularly well. As had been proved by her learning to play it so fast.
Clive fixed his eyes on Ellie.
‘Play it!’ he said.
These are the exact words I had said to Ellie to persuade her to keep the harp when I first gave it to her. However, I had not said the words in the way that Clive Ellie’s husband said them now.
Ellie pulled up the chair behind the harp and perched on it. She took a deep breath. Then she started to play ‘Scarborough Fair’. Normally she can play it pretty well, but she was having some problems with her fingers. They seemed to be shaking violently and hitting all the wrong strings.
Clive stood with his arms crossed over his chest and listened. ‘Very good. Very lovely,’ he said when she had finished. ‘I am proud of you.’ He took a bite out of a sandwich. ‘The jam is good too. You have so many hidden talents.’
I smiled at him. I did not feel 100 per cent comfortable in his presence but it is good that he appreciates Ellie.
Ellie looked at her husband with shiny eyes. ‘I – er – the jam was to … I wanted to say thank you to Dan for letting me play his harp here so often.’
‘Your harp,’ I corrected.
‘Your harp,’ Clive repeated, licking the jam off his fingers one by one. Ellie looked down at her socks. Today they were black.
Clive seemed to be enjoying the jam, so I offered him the rest of the pot to take home.
‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ he said.
Ellie then turned to me and asked, ‘How’s Ed?’
Ellie only asked me about Ed this morning so I was a little surprised at this question. But before I had a chance to reply she said to her husband: ‘Ed is Dan’s son.’
Clive turned to me. ‘Your son?’ he said.
‘My son,’ I confirmed. ‘Ed.’ I like to say these words. They are becoming my very favourite words to say.
I told them my son Ed was very well and was going to come out and visit me here at the Harp Barn soon, which was a fact that made me very glad indeed.
‘With his mother?’ Ellie asked quickly. ‘His mother is my harp teacher, Clive; the very beautiful and accomplished Rhoda – the lady who you spoke to on the phone.’
Clive grunted. ‘She’s your wife?’ he asked.
I presumed this last question was addressed to me, although he was looking at Ellie. I explained that Roe Deer was not and nor had she ever been my wife, but she had once been my girlfriend. However, she was not my girlfriend at present. She had in fact not been my girlfriend for five whole years.
‘I see,’ he said. ‘Not for five years.’
Ellie looked as if she was about to say something because her mouth opened just a little, but nothing came out of it. Her husband was still looking at her. I expect he likes looking at her a
lot.
‘Well, Ellie,’ he said at last. ‘It’s getting late. And I have to be up early to go to work tomorrow. I think we had better leave your – friend – to his harp-making.’ He paused, and then added: ‘Unless, of course, you want to stay?’
‘No, no, of course not!’ She shook her head and puckered up her face in a peculiar way. ‘Dan, we’ll leave you to it. Thank you so much for your hospitality, and so sorry for the intrusion.’
I said not at all and what a delight it had been to see them.
34
Ellie
I got out of bed slowly. Clive had just left the house for work. He hadn’t said goodbye.
I was feeling slightly sick. I wandered to the bedroom window in my dressing gown and looked out. He was still in the driveway, busily squirting de-icer on to his car windscreen, his breath a white plume in the cold air. His face had a yellowish tinge to it and, even from here, I could see the big bags under his eyes. He had silently poured himself out a whisky when we got back home the night before. Then another. Then another.
As he was giving the windows a final wipe I saw Pauline come out of the house next door with a shopping bag. She shuffled towards her own car, calling out a good morning to him, then something else. He walked across and handed the canister of de-icer to her over the fence. They exchanged a word or two. She shook the canister, gave her windscreen a good spray and then walked back towards him. As she returned it she cocked her head to one side and said something. He seemed to ask her a question. I watched her giving a very full answer. As she was speaking, she pointed up the hill in the direction of the Harp Barn, waggling her head from side to side. Clive suddenly glanced up at our bedroom window and saw me there, watching. I lifted my hand to wave but he didn’t wave back. He scowled, threw another comment to Pauline then got into his car, slamming the door. He revved up the engine and shot down the road at a ridiculous speed.
There are days and days of frosty silence. The only conversations we have are laced with snubs and cutting comments. I do all that I can. I cook all Clive’s favourite meals. I make an effort with my appearance, applying lipstick and mascara, and wearing the prettiest clothes that cold weather will allow. I attempt the few seduction techniques I know about, but they fail totally. Even Sunday-afternoon sex has been frozen out.
I have stopped going to the Harp Barn – to prove a point, I suppose – but that is making me even more miserable. Clive never asks about it, so it seems a vain sacrifice. In the end I decide to tell him.
‘Just in case you’re interested, I haven’t been to the Harp Barn all week.’
‘Why?’ he asks, as if it wasn’t obvious.
‘Because … well, because I thought you didn’t like me going there.’
He won’t look at me. ‘Why should I care? You can do what you want. You do anyway.’
‘Look, I’m doing my best to make things right between us. I’ve said I’m sorry a million times. I’ve stopped playing the harp, even though I love it’ – this is a mistake and I realize it the moment it has slipped out of my mouth, so I rush on – ‘and I’m trying to make up for everything because I know I was in the wrong. I do know it. I’m so unhappy when we’re like this. But what more can I do?’
‘If you love playing the harp, why don’t you go and play it? You’re being a martyr now as well as an angel, I suppose.’
‘No!’ I cry. Being a traitor is quite enough for me. ‘Clive, please. I love you so much! Let’s just go back to being the way we were before.’
The ‘I love you so much’ sounds high and false, more like desperation than affection. Clive raises his eyes and looks me in the face at last, but it is a look of disgust.
It’s easy to see what he is thinking. The idea was planted in his head by Rhoda and fed by Pauline’s insinuations and the wild whirrings of his brain. My own guilty behaviour, my blushes, my picking at my eyebrows, my every word and move is interpreted as further confirmation. Our one joint visit to the barn made matters worse. Clive did not see what I wanted him to see – all Dan’s peculiarities and eccentricities, his self-sufficiency, his other-worldliness. He saw only what he dreaded most – that Dan is devastatingly attractive and that he knows me inside-out.
Clive has suffered betrayal before, from my friend Jayne all those years ago. He trusted her and loved her absolutely, and she walked all over him. She took delight in sleeping with another man whenever his back was turned. When he finally found out, he was wounded to the core. The scars are deep.
Now he thinks it is happening all over again. On the one hand I’m appalled that he could suspect me of such a thing, but on the other I feel for him. If only he would let me reach out to him, if only he would believe me! I can’t think of any way to convince him of the innocent truth. It is tearing us both to pieces.
‘Clive, I swear to you on whatever you like – on the Bible, on my father’s grave, on all that is holy – I am not having an affair with the harp-maker.’
He turns away. ‘Isn’t it time for supper?’
The cold went on and on, inside and out. It was hard to bear. Part of me just wanted to die.
I rang Christina. ‘Can I come over?’
‘Of course!’ she said. ‘Still being horrible, is he?’
‘Yes. It’s his way of dealing with pain. I don’t know what to do,’ I confessed. ‘Where will it end?’
‘He’ll come round. He adores you, Ellie. Always has done, always will.’
I wasn’t so sure.
‘We’ll talk it over. I’ll see you in twenty. I’ll get the kettle on!’
It was a bleak day. The trees were skeletal and dripped dankness and greyness. The hills were shrouded in mist. The car radio wasn’t working so I couldn’t put on any upbeat music to try and cheer myself up. I drove past a pheasant corpse on the road, bloodied and half-eaten by buzzards. It made me think of Phineas. God, I was even missing the pheasant!
What was going on up there, up at the barn? Dan and Ed were bonding … but what of Dan and Rhoda? I couldn’t bear to think of it.
I’d had a short spell of happiness, of dazzling, uplifting joy to the soundtrack of harp music. I’d experienced the miracle of creativity. I’d started to see the world through new eyes. But now my own clumsiness had robbed me of it all. Not only that; I’d lost Clive’s trust for ever.
I drove through the villages and drew into Christina’s lane. What a relief! I felt cheered seeing her little cottage ahead of me. There were fairy lights strung round the windows and a home-made Christmas wreath hanging on the door. I stepped up and rang the bell. My heart lifted at the prospect of some proper human interaction. But it sank again the minute I saw her. Her face was blotchy and tear-stained. She grasped me in a tight hug.
‘Christina, what’s wrong?’
She wailed into my shoulder. ‘I’m so glad you’re here, Ellie! I feel totally wretched. Alex has just rung and told me he isn’t bringing his girlfriend home for Christmas after all! I won’t even see him! They’re going off to Switzerland, to her parents instead. I can’t believe he’s being so selfish! And he knows how I get. He knows how low I always feel at this time of year.’
I gave her another squeeze. ‘Maybe he’ll change his mind.’ It was the only comforting thing I could think of to say.
‘He won’t,’ she sobbed. ‘I know he won’t. He’s in her clutches and that’s what she wants so that’s what he does! Mum doesn’t matter any more. Anyway, come in.’
I stepped into the hall and took off my coat. At least it felt snug inside. Christina’s central heating is far more generous than ours, and she has an Aga too.
‘It looks nice in here,’ I told her. She’d got up a huge Christmas tree, twinkling with lights and her special red and gold hand-made baubles.
‘Thank you,’ she sniffed. ‘But what’s the point? There’s only me who’ll ever see it.’
‘I’m seeing it,’ I said.
‘OK, two people then.’
I prodded one of the baubles. �
��I’d bring Clive round, but I don’t think you’d enjoy his company very much at the moment.’
She gave me another hug, both of us crying now.
She pulled away, wiping her eyes. ‘Look at us!’
‘Pathetic, isn’t it,’ I agreed, wiping mine.
‘Tea, tea, tea!’ she said, heading for the kitchen. I followed her. Jewellery-making oddments were scattered across the table. Miaow was curled up on the chair nearest the Aga.
Christina grabbed mugs and biscuits. ‘It’s bound to get us down. Seasonal Affective Disorder, Christmas and men behaving badly all at the same time.’
I sank into a chair and started playing with a length of silver chain. ‘So Alex must be serious about this girlfriend?’
‘I suppose so. He won’t tell me anything about her though. Apart from the fact she likes horse-riding.’
‘Tell him to bring her down here to show off the Exmoor ponies.’
‘I’ve tried that. No good. Her parents obviously have something I haven’t got. So I’ll be here all by myself.’
I wished I could do something to help. ‘Why don’t you go away somewhere?’ I suggested. ‘You could get one of those cheapo last-minute flights. You could get a bit of winter sun. If Alex is going to be in Switzerland, why don’t you beat him at his own game? Go somewhere better, brighter, sunnier.’
She lifted the lid of the teapot to examine the colour of what was inside. She gave it a vigorous stir. ‘I like your way of thinking, Ellie,’ she said. ‘Do you know, I think I might just do that.’ She glanced across at her cat. ‘Cattery for you, Miaow! Sun, sea and sex for me!’
‘I think I’ll come too,’ I said, without thinking.
‘Hey, do!’
I shook my head.
‘I’m serious!’ she cried. ‘Let’s just take off somewhere and leave our troubles behind. I need sunshine and can’t bear to be alone at Christmas. You need sunshine and can’t bear to be with your husband at Christmas!’
I prodded her jewellery about the table. ‘Well … it’s not quite as simple as that.’
