The Song of Hartgrove Hall

by Natasha Solomons

  Clara and Ralph hugged the small figure who stood stiffly, receiving their good wishes with quiet acquiescence.

  ‘Forget everyone,’ I said. ‘No one matters. It’s just you and the piano like at home. Afterwards we’ll go for milkshakes.’

  ‘OK.’

  As we walked away, Clara close to tears – I’m afraid I was for once rather out of sympathy with my daughter – we heard the woman say to Robin, ‘It would be lovely if you could run up and give the presenter a hug before you play.’

  I glanced at Clara and shook my head in exasperation. Robin really wasn’t a casual-hugging kind of child. Demonstrations of affection were rare, spontaneous and limited to immediate family or, after playing Beethoven, his piano teacher.

  We were allocated seats at the front of the raked section. A table for the judges had been set up but the famous people from the television show were not there at all. Instead, three stand-ins sat in the chairs with signs round their necks, stating the names of the celebrities they were supposed to represent. I found the whole thing perfectly ridiculous. Mike, Ellie and Jocasta lurked near the cameras, chatting intensely. Clara sat between Ralph and me, pale with anxiety. Even Ralph appeared tense, his foot tap-tapping on the floor.

  Mike came to the front and spoke to the audience, informing us when to clap. We sat and we waited. Then Robin appeared, blinking against the lights and rubbing his sore eye. He did not hug anyone. Neither did he smile. He looked serious and grim-faced. Clara had slathered some dreadful junk into his hair, supposedly to smooth his curls, but instead it made it appear greasy and unwashed. He walked straight over to the piano, piled up the cushions on the leather stool and sat down. I realised immediately that they were far too slippery. Before he had even started to play, it was quite clear that he was struggling not to fall off. He hopped down, picked up the cushions again, and rearranged the pile as the audience laughed indulgently. The laughter was kind, but Robin was obviously unsettled.

  He sat at the keyboard, shifting and trying not to slide off again, then closed his eyes. I knew that he was trying to shut out the world and will himself back to the hush of the music room at Hartgrove Hall, to conjure the vast mullioned windows with their view of the lawns and the grey lake, and the smell of cedarwood and dust. I watched his shoulders soften. Perhaps he would be all right. He raised his hands to the keys and started to play, more hesitant than usual, but after a few bars he relaxed and Brahms’s Rhapsody in B minor rippled across the audience. I felt the collective intake of breath, the sense of wonder that this small person was producing this sound. In a minute or two they would forget that too and simply listen, lost.

  But then Robin’s sleeves slithered down over his hands. He fumbled with a crash of chords and stopped. The audience giggled. Ralph swore and Clara went so white that I thought she was going to be sick. There was a dreadful silence while Robin sat, fumbling with his cuffs, but while the boy was a marvel at the piano, he couldn’t manage a stiff button under duress. This was simply ghastly. I couldn’t bear it.

  I stood and strode over to the stage. A large man in a black T-shirt tried to block my way.

  ‘Move aside,’ I snapped in my best conductor’s voice.

  The man drew back in surprise. I climbed up onto the stage and stood beside Robin.

  ‘Hello, old chap,’ I said softly. ‘Having a spot of bother?’

  Robin was trying valiantly not to cry. ‘I think I’d like very much to go home.’

  ‘I quite understand. But perhaps we should play something since we’re here.’

  I knew that we couldn’t leave just yet. I wouldn’t allow him to feel that his first appearance was a total failure. Since we were on a stage beneath the lights and before an audience, he needed to experience the pleasure of performance, of weaving a spell over his listeners, even if only for a minute.

  ‘Let’s take your jacket off.’

  Meekly, he allowed me to remove his jacket and roll up his sleeves so that they no longer interfered with his playing.

  ‘Now play a couple of scales, just to be certain that you’re quite comfortable.’

  He did as I suggested and nodded. Mike appeared at my elbow.

  ‘Everything OK, folks?’

  ‘Leave us alone,’ I snapped. ‘We’ll play when we’re ready.’

  He left, muttering something under his breath.

  I succeeded in raising the piano stool and found the least slippery of the cushions.

  ‘Will you stay with me, Grandpa?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And will you do the pedals?’

  ‘All right.’

  His legs were too short to reach the pedals, and he liked it sometimes when I sat beside him and managed them on his behalf. I squeezed in beside him and waited for him to begin.

  He played well – remarkably well for a child of his age – but usually he played well for anyone and no caveats mentioning his tender years were necessary. His playing was extraordinary, not so much for his technical skill but for the emotion he conveyed. I always felt that Robin played from inside the music. But that afternoon, in the television studio, he did not. His performance was self-contained and inhibited. Before the audience he neither felt the same emotions nor conveyed anything much to his listeners beyond the bare notes. The audience was appreciative and applauded with abandon – but I knew that they were clapping a circus act. They would have done the same if a dog had thumped out ‘Twinkle, Twinkle’ with its paws – they could not tell Robin was an astounding musician. I understood the problem. Robin usually played for himself alone. Until that excruciating afternoon he’d had no interest in communicating his music to anyone else. He had never experienced an audience before, only eavesdroppers, and he was not ready to let anyone else in.

  As the applause faded, Robin was led back to his dressing room. I followed but, after his parents arrived, I returned to the studio and hovered at the back behind the cameras. The young girl from yesterday was waiting to perform. She looked terribly pretty, a nodding peony in a flouncy pink frock, her black hair plaited into pigtails. In one hand she clutched her teddy bear – dressed in an outfit matching her own. As she was given her cue, she rushed over to the stand-in presenter, hugging her tightly.

  ‘Would you like to see me play the piano backwards?’ she asked the pretend judges, smiling, two perfect dimples appearing in the middle of each rosy cheek like a clever magic trick.

  ‘Yes, please,’ said one of the judges at the table. Mike and Jocasta gave a thumbs-up.

  I noticed that a special raised piano stool had been brought in – no tumbling off cushions for this child – and she perched carefully with her back to the keyboard. Reaching around, she played a ditty. It was a neat trick. Silly but the audience roared its approval.

  ‘How about upside down?’ she asked.

  The audience applauded as she lay on the piano stool and stretched up to tinkle on the keys. It was the sort of thing I’d have done in years gone by to entertain my own brothers, but it was a trick for other children, not a display for adults. But again the audience whooped. I felt unutterably drained. This was not my world.

  Mike stepped forward, clapping. ‘That was great fun, Keira. Now, will you play us something?’

  ‘I’d love to,’ she replied, dimples reappearing like cherries on a Belgian bun.

  This I was interested to witness. She sat down carefully at the piano and, after a studied pause, launched into Chopin. Her teacher had chosen well. The piece was fast and her technical ability was reasonably good, masking the coldness of her playing. Everything lay in neat rows, tidy and characterless. At the end of the first movement, I had no more knowledge of her personality than I had at the start. Yet her performance was accomplished. She smiled and swayed as she played, creating an elaborate illusion of engagement. She chattered sweetly at the end of the piece and, when she dropped her music dur
ing her curtsey, let out a little ‘Oops-a-daisy’ and giggled, to the audience’s delight. She wasn’t half the musician that I knew Robin to be, but she was a consummate performer.

  As she made her teddy bear bow to the judges’ table, I knew with quiet certainty that the producers would not choose Robin to be on their television show.

  —

  I was correct in my assessment. After an hour Mike popped by the dressing room to inform us. Robin was devastated.

  ‘But I’m better than her,’ he sobbed after Mike had left. ‘I heard her before and I’m better.’

  ‘You are better,’ I said. ‘But you don’t want to play on a silly television show.’

  ‘I do want to play on a silly show. I do. I do.’

  He lapsed into hiccuping sobs as Clara rubbed his back. Ralph sat at the dressing table in the corner, saying nothing at all.

  ‘You play the piano wonderfully, Robin,’ I said. ‘But you don’t know how to play the audience.’

  He gazed at me blankly through a fog of snot and tears. His swollen eye streamed.

  ‘Will you teach me?’ he asked.

  ‘No, I won’t,’ I said and he began to cry again.

  ‘Oh for goodness’ sake, Daddy,’ said Clara, which I thought was a cheek, considering all I’d put up with.

  ‘Let’s go and have some ice cream,’ I said.

  ‘I think you were marvellous,’ insisted Clara, rumpling his hair.

  I took them to Claridge’s. Ralph had a supper meeting, or so he said. I suspected he wished to avoid me and my disapproval. We sat in an elegant salon amongst ladies taking late-afternoon tea. Robin looked happier after his second chocolate ice cream while Clara looked happier after her second glass of Chardonnay. I was exhausted by it all and desperate to go home to Dorset. Clara chattered on soothingly about how it was all good experience and how of course he’d play Carnegie Hall one day. I wished she’d stop. I knew it was all kindly meant – she wanted to comfort him, but she offered promises that were not hers to make. When she declared that she was certain he’d play all the great concert halls and that he would, in time, love playing before an audience, she meant only that she wished it. None of us knew; we merely hoped.

  I remained cantankerous and thoroughly out of sorts. I worried that they’d stolen something from Robin, something that I’d need to work hard to help him recover: the simple and unconscious joy of playing for one’s own pleasure. I watched as Robin shook his head politely: no, he didn’t want more ice cream or any more pop to drink. He didn’t want to stay up late and watch cartoons or any of the cornucopia of treats Clara offered him. I looked at my grandson and understood. He had an ache inside, but ice cream wouldn’t ease it.

  ‘Come,’ I said, standing and holding out my hand.

  Robin took it and trotted out of the room with me. I led him through the glitzy ocean liner of an entrance hall, past the reception desk with its fleet of uniformed staff, and ushered him into the restaurant. It was not quite six o’clock and there were no diners. The glittering room had that empty, expectant air, like a concert hall before the arrival of the audience. Waiters checked place settings. The sommelier sailed towards us.

  ‘My apologies, sir. The dining room is not yet open. If I could make you a reservation for later on?’

  ‘Another time perhaps. May we borrow the piano for a minute or two?’

  He studied us for a moment and then smiled. ‘Of course, please.’

  I led Robin over to the grand piano. I avoided coming here if I could. It reminded me too much of Edie. This was one of our places and it had not altered very much since our first visit. The grand dining room remained an art deco delight; every wall was mirrored so that the room twinkled and glinted. Waiters flitted from table to table, lighting candles so that in the dozens of mirrors each flame became a constellation.

  ‘Sit down at the keyboard and close your eyes.’

  Robin did as I asked.

  ‘Now, pretend we’re at home. It’s only us.’

  He opened his eyes and glanced at the gliding waiters in their black and white.

  ‘Don’t mind them. They’re not in the least bit interested in you.’

  He closed his eyes again.

  ‘Let your mind drift. Let music drift into you like water.’

  Apparently unaware of what he was doing, Robin raised his hands to the keyboard and, after a minute, began to play. He played as if he were in a dream. Beethoven’s Little Appassionata seeped into the room, filling it with drowsy colour. The waiters stopped fussing around the place settings and paused, unable to do anything but listen. The door opened and I saw Clara slip inside. I noticed two guests peer into the room after her, drawn to the music like moths.

  I walked over and said quietly, ‘The dining room opens at seven,’ shooing them away. I did not want them to see that it was a child playing the piano.

  Firmly closing the door behind them, I turned to Clara. ‘One day we’ll open the door and he can hear the applause. One day, but not yet.’

  February 1948

  I want to be in a place where no one knows me, preferably drunk. I can’t bear polite enquiries and sympathetic smiles. Defeated and humiliated, I want to lick my wounds in peace. I end up in London, simply another face in the crowd. I head east because it’s cheap and I’m perilously low on funds. This part of the city, battered and broken, suits my frame of mind. There are no new buildings pushing up amidst the bomb craters and grime. No one here even notices the wreckage any longer. I find a nice old pub near Brick Lane, the only building left standing in a sea of rubble, moored amongst the craters like a lone ship, where the landlord lets me play the piano during opening hours and keep any tips. It’s a rickety, irritable instrument and I like it. The bar was frequented by black American soldiers during the war. When I find drawing pins pressed into all the tiny hammers inside the piano, I realise it must have been used for jazz. I wonder what happened to those Yankee jazz players and shake off my wretchedness long enough to wish I could have heard them.

  I feel the odd twinge of guilt about taking the car. I’m careful not to use the word ‘steal’. I did not steal, as it was mine to begin with – at least in part. I estimate that a third of the rattling, decrepit Austin belonged to me. The steering wheel and the broken hubcaps must be mine. In any case, they’ll have bought another by now – there was plenty of money from the concert. A nagging internal voice reminds me that the concert cash was supposed to be George’s cow money.

  I edge away from thoughts of George. Awkward, taciturn, noble George who pines for Edie without complaint. George, who ploughs his unhappiness and longing into furrows along the side of the hill. The muddy ridges and ruts carved into the eastern slopes of Hartgrove Hill are the only sign of George’s sorrow.

  To hell with George and his silent love. I don’t want George as my companion in this. It makes us both ridiculous. And I won’t pity him. I couldn’t bear to be pitied myself and I won’t insult him with sympathy. I tuck away all thoughts of Hartgrove Hall and the green expanse of the hill, the way the field slopes and curves beneath the church like the smooth hollow of a woman’s back. And yet, in my sleep, I walk Ringmoor in the dark. I hear the ring of ancient feet, of boots on stone, the whisper of the larch trees in the rain. I follow Edie’s footprints in the snow but somewhere amongst the rustling woods, I lose her and wake, empty and adrift.

  I have grandiose plans of using my melancholy to fuel my symphony but I’m too miserable to write. I’d always thought that sadness was useful for an artist but either I’m the wrong sort of artist or it’s the wrong sort of misery. A dreary flatness settles over me, thick as fog, and nothing penetrates. Nothing except for gin or whisky, even beer – as long as I drink enough of it, which I do assiduously. My cash runs out and I make no more than pennies playing the piano so I take a job behind the bar. At the end of each week there is precious little
left once my drinks have been taken out of my pay and I take to sleeping in my car. I’m torn between wishing that Edie could see what she’s driven me to and being relieved that she can’t.

  Weeks turn into months. Still I don’t write and tell them where I am. At first I’m too mortified. I’m scraped out and the hollow inside is filled with anger at Edie, at Jack. While the heat goes out of my rage, like a sun-baked stone cooling at dusk, the hurt never disappears. Besides, too much time has passed and now I can’t write. I begin, in my mind at least, a dozen letters but I can’t think of what to say, so I say nothing at all. I alternate between wanting to know how they are battling with the farm and profound relief that I never hear their names.

  Winter sinks into spring, warm and grubby. It is not the same here amongst the grey ruins and smoke-filled skies. There are no curlews nor snowdrops. There is no hawthorn blossom nor crocuses. I feel only the easing of the cold. When I wake one morning my car windows are not smudged with frost. I wake with the first light, which comes later now. I trudge into the pub to wash – the landlady kindly lets me use the outside toilet and allows me to bathe twice a week, all for a few shillings. Afterwards I walk the streets, breakfasting on a bagel and trying not to think of Edie. She’s a wound that I pick at. Even though today was a bath day, already I feel grimy, my skin covered in grit and a sprinkling of smuts.

  On the pavements, hawkers peddle their wares: old clothes, broken or mended kettles, mismatched cutlery, cauliflowers, potatoes, bottles of milk, bottles of nothing, snatches of sheet music, penny-dreadfuls, dried fish, fresh fish, rotten fish. Bare-legged children weave amongst them, dawdling on their way to school or to skip school. Mothers push babies or heave shopping bags or squabble with the traders. I toss my bagel to a gaunt-eyed girl of about seven or eight who snatches it, and clutches it close, uneaten. If I came here believing that it would help me to understand Edie better, to be closer to her, it doesn’t and I’m not.

  I return to the pub in time to open up. The regulars are queuing outside. I pour them drinks and hide my own behind the counter. That’s the landlord’s only rule. I mustn’t be openly drunk and I mustn’t have a drink set out on the bar. A girl walks in. She’s blonde and too nice-looking for a place like this.