by Hazel Prior
Phineas disappears for longer and longer. I suspect that now the sap is rising he has decided he needs a lady love and so off he goes, searching for one. Thomas says it is a miracle he didn’t end up in a pie. I tell him I will not come out for a drink with him again if he says such things. He says sorry to upset you, mate. Only kidding. He says he has actually gone quite soft himself. He says he has told his wife Linda not to cook any pheasants for dinner any more. Out of respect. He and his wife had a flaming row about it apparently. Then afterwards she said she was sorry and said he did have a heart after all and she was glad of it, then they went to bed together. We toast that and Phineas’s health with a fresh round of beers. Thomas says he’s sorry it didn’t work out for you with Ellie J, boyo. I drink deep of my beer and try not to think about it. But I do think about it. All the time.
The little birch saplings that Ellie and I planted for Ellie’s birthday have begun to sprout in the seed tray. They are tiny and vulnerable, so I keep them sheltered. Weeds often grow in among them, so I keep them weeded. They get thirsty on dry days so I keep them watered. They will need to be planted out one day, but they are not ready yet. You can’t rush birch trees.
Roe Deer has been to visit. She said she is extremely tired what with trying to organize her harp tour and having to put off the honeymoon and everything. She said her professional life as a harpist does keep her so busy. She said that she has talked it over with her parents and her new guitar man husband and if Ed really wants to come and live here with me, we could try it out for a while. I am, after all, his father. And her parents, although they love Ed very much, are getting rather too old and creaky to cope with his levels of energy. As long as I promise to feed him properly (not just sandwiches) and make sure he gets to school (which is a long way, so we’d have to get up very early and I’d take him in the Land Rover) and do up the little room for him so that it’s comfortable for a five-year-old boy (I could certainly make it train-trackable) and other such things, then that’s all right with her. But she and her parents still want to see him. Perhaps he could go to their house in Taunton at weekends and stay with me during the week – in fact, exactly the opposite of what it has been up until now. I said this seemed a very good plan to me.
I made the little room train-trackable and Ed moved in the following week. His grandparents brought him and a car stacked high with stuff. It was too much stuff to cram into the little room, so Ed and I made some decisions about how to simplify his life, and he gave his grandparents permission to take half of it away again. He will have an abundance of things when he goes to visit them at weekends, but while he is with me he will have Exmoor trees and fields and streams and pheasants and pebbles and not a lot more. His grandparents tutted and raised their eyebrows at this but Ed seems to be happy with the idea, and so am I.
We go for lots of walks together now the days are getting longer. There are lady’s smocks growing in the marsh, hundreds of them, white with just the faintest hint of purple. The orange-tip butterflies love them. They flutter round or else sit on the petals, happily sunning their wings. The woods have turned green again. The meadows are studded with bright yellow celandines.
Ed and I climbed the hill the other day and counted sheep. Ed said it would make us fall asleep if we did that, but actually it didn’t. We counted two hundred and seventeen.
‘Don’t you feel even a little bit sleepy?’ he asked me on the two hundred and seventeenth.
I told him no.
‘Nor me,’ he said. ‘Maybe it only works if you’re lying down.’
I told him we’d have to try that some time.
As we were coming to the highest part of the hill (the part where there’s a row of beech trees growing out of an ancient stone wall) I looked back over the view and what I saw was this: a woman. She was quite a way down the valley, on the banks of the stream. The woman was stooping down among the young fronds to pick something up. The woman had walnut-coloured hair and I knew, even though I could not at all see them from this distance, that she had eyes the colour of bracken in October. She was wearing long boots and a cornflower-blue skirt and a white top. She had over one shoulder an enormous bag, canvas.
As soon as I saw her my two feet started running. They couldn’t and wouldn’t stop. They took me stumbling, tumbling, leaping and bounding, round the gorse bushes, over the rocks and through the bracken. They took me at full speed all the way down the hill. Ed took off too and ran after me.
Ed’s legs are quite a bit shorter than mine. Because of this I arrived at the stream a long time before him.
I stopped just before I reached her. ‘Ellie,’ I panted. ‘Ellie.’
‘Dan,’ is what she said.
I wasn’t entirely sure what I was supposed to do, but she knew exactly what to do. She took three swift paces towards me. She put both her arms around me and hugged tight, like she never wanted to let go. It hurt a bit but at the same time was nice, very, very, very and even more verys than that. The stream trickled and giggled beside us.
We only stopped hugging when Ed caught up with us and gave a loud ‘Ahem!’
‘Ed,’ said Ellie, turning towards him. ‘I’m so happy to see you again.’ She stuck out her hand to him. He shook it up and down lots of times.
‘Me too,’ he said.
Then she asked after Phineas and we told her Phineas was well and she said she was glad.
‘I can’t believe I’ve found you two,’ she said next, laughing (she always did have a problem believing things). ‘I was in Italy this morning. I’ve just arrived back in Exmoor. I came out here to the stream on impulse. I haven’t even been to the Harp Barn yet.’
I told her that when she did she would find her harp waiting for her. But it was not in the little room now because that was Ed’s room and full of Ed’s bed and other things. Ed likes to run around in his room a lot, knocking everything over. So to keep it safe I had moved the harp into my bedroom.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I see. Ed lives with you now?’
I confirmed that this was indeed the happy case. Ed nodded vigorously and said, ‘I have my train in there and everything.’
‘That’s wonderful,’ she said. Then she looked at the wind rustling the trees, then she looked back at me. ‘I was hoping to stay on your floor again for a bit, but I expect I could stay with Christina instead.’
I told her that on no account must she stay with Christina. She must take whichever bit of my floor would be best and most suited to her needs. Although Ed should really have a room to himself and the kitchen was unpractical and the downstairs was draughty and full of sawdust, so thinking about it there weren’t that many options. Perhaps, as her harp was now in my bedroom, she would like to sleep on my bedroom floor?
‘On your bedroom floor?’ she echoed.
I said yes, unless she wanted to use my actual bed. As she already knew, it was in fact a very warm, soft and nice bed.
‘That’s true,’ she said.
She turned her head towards Ed, who was now paddling in the stream.
‘I almost didn’t come back,’ she murmured, and a tiny noise like a sob came from her throat. ‘It was so close. If it wasn’t for Ed’s drawing …’ She turned her eyes back full on me. They were large, shining like the sea.
I didn’t know what drawing she was talking about and I didn’t know at all what I was supposed to feel. But I did know what I did feel, and it was strong. Very strong indeed.
The breeze caught a little wisp of her hair and blew it over her face. I reached out and rearranged it beside her cheek, which is where it was before and where it looked best.
‘Dan,’ she said, and the sunlight fell on her face, making it look all pink and blossomy. ‘I’ve got a little something for you.’
‘A something?’ I said.
‘Yes. I want to give it to you now. Just before you came here I found it in the stream and … well, call me sentimental, call me romantic, call me a dreamer but I couldn’t resist. Dan, I …’ She
stopped for a second and shrugged her shoulders. ‘This says everything. Everything I want to say.’
She put the something into the palm of my hand. It was a small, flat pebble, with two rounds at the top and a point at the bottom. It was almost exactly in the shape of a heart.
‘Do you understand?’ she whispered.
I looked into her eyes.
I was too happy to speak, but yes, I understood.
Acknowledgements
My huge and heartfelt thanks go to everyone who has helped this book come into existence. Particularly I would like to thank:
My incredible agent Darley Anderson, along with Mary, Kristina, Pippa and the whole team. What a wonderful thing that I stumbled across your website when I was at my lowest ebb! How happy I was when you took me on! What a difference you have made in every way imaginable!
My brilliant editor Francesca Best, and everyone at Transworld. It is a privilege to work with you. Your dedication, vision and enthusiasm are legendary. I couldn’t have dreamed of a better home for my novel.
Danielle Perez and the amazing people at Berkley. Many thanks for all your help, dynamism and inspiration from America.
Sally Bellingham, for reading my initial attempts at novel-writing and saying lovely things about them. Who knows if I would have continued writing without your encouragement?
Writing Magazine and Mslexia for all the writing tips and competitions that have spurred me on. Special thanks go to Mslexia for shortlisting an early version of this novel for the Women’s Novel Competition in 2015 and inviting me to a rather important party at Foyles.
Literature Works for supporting writers in south-west England.
The Literary Consultancy for the Free Reads scheme, which gave me my first professional editorial assistance.
Tim Hampson. Thank you, Tim, for answering all my questions about harp-making and taking time to show me your beautiful harps and your workshop.
My harp. (Is it a little odd to thank my harp? I’ll risk it. It was, after all, the primary inspiration for this novel.) Harp-playing has enriched my life a hundredfold. Who could not fall in love with such a sound? Music is vital to Dan and Ellie in this story and (because music evokes a spectrum of emotions, lifts lives every day and has been my own motivator) I’d like to thank all music-makers, especially my friends from Foxwillow and The Hummingbirds.
Exmoor. (Is it a little odd to thank Exmoor? I’ll risk that, too.) Exmoor is at the heart of this book and I owe so much to my beloved walks – to heather, hawthorns, bracken and beech trees, the streams, the slopes and the sea – which have all somehow filtered their way into the story. Of course I must also pay tribute to Phineas, a visiting pheasant who gave me the idea for a slightly off-beat fictional character.
Swanwick Writers’ Summer School and Winchester Writers’ Festival. Both have propelled me forward. Many thanks to those hard-working committees for the wealth of opportunities you give to budding writers. It was winning my way to Swanwick in 2014 that made me start writing seriously. Swanwick is a place where magic happens. It will always be special to me.
My fellow scribblers, who have helped me more than I can say. Simon Hall, thank you so much for your guidance, your belief in me and your endless, much-needed encouragement. Thank you also to Nia Williams for your continual cheerleading, to Rebecca Tinnelly for your companionship through numerous ups and downs on the road to publication, and to Richard Hewitt, Val Penny, Sarah Vilensky and Angie Sage for your invaluable support.
Purrsy and Tommy (The Guys), who were constantly with me – at my side/on my lap/usurping my writing chair/blocking the computer screen – during the creative process; who have been helpful in all sorts of ways I cannot explain.
My husband and best friend, Jonathan, whose kindness has kept me going through so much. Elephantine quantities of love and thanks for everything. This book would never have been written without you.
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First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Bantam Press
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Copyright © Hazel Prior 2019
Design and illustration by Jo Thomson/TW
Hazel Prior has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Lyrics on p. 20 from ‘Money, Money, Money’ by ABBA, written by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus
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