The Novel in the Viola

by Natasha Solomons

  My stomach growled. I had eaten the meagre breakfast provided by the hostel, but had no money for lunch, except for the remaining coins in the envelope. I shuddered as I recalled her threat – I couldn’t possibly spend a halfpenny of that money on a bread roll. I wasn’t sure what would happen if I ended up in prison – I rather doubted Julian could help me here. I regretted having eaten all of Margot’s chocolate.

  A young man in a cheap suit smelling of cologne and cigarettes climbed onto the train and, slamming the carriage door, settled opposite me. He gave me a little smile and a nod before unfolding his newspaper. I tried to read the headlines. In my quiet cocoon of unhappiness I had forgotten the outside world for a day or two and had heard no news. London smog reaches record level . . . Royal Family embark on voyage to America . . . Is Czechoslovakia next? I tried to read more, but the print was too small.

  ‘Miss, you want to read?’

  I looked up, and saw that the young man proffered the newspaper. I hadn’t realised, but I was perched on the edge of my seat.

  ‘Thank you. Please. Yes. I would like very much.’

  I took the paper and began to read the article, slowly and yet fairly fluently. I could understand written English quite easily. I felt him watching me.

  ‘Your mouth moves when you read.’

  I blinked, startled by such an intimate observation.

  ‘I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to be rude. I’m Andy. Andy Turnbull.’

  I wasn’t sure whether this was usual or not, strangers telling one another their familiar names on trains. Perhaps it only occurred on the Waterloo to Weymouth line. I neither wanted to cause offence nor encourage his attentions.

  ‘Elise Landau,’ I said curtly, returning to the paper.

  ‘Is you from Czechoslovakia then, Miss Landau?’

  I lowered the Daily Mail in surprise. ‘No, Austria. Vienna.’

  ‘Ah Vi-enna. I’ve heard of that. Beautiful canals. The Doodge Palace.’

  I sighed – the English were as ignorant as Margot had claimed. ‘No, that is Venice. In Italy.’

  From his expression, I could see that this meant nothing. I tried again. ‘I am from Vienna. Austria?’

  He stared at me, smiling blankly, and it was quite apparent that he hadn’t the slightest idea about Vienna. I didn’t know why I should care, and yet it irked me that this overly familiar young man in a shiny suit with a dried egg stain on his left trouser leg knew nothing of my city.

  ‘Vienna is a city where you can see the sky. There are a thousand cafés lining the pavements, where we sit and drink coffee and chatter and the old men argue over chess and cards. In spring there are balls, and we dance till three in the morning, the ladies a swirl of white dresses like apple blossoms spiralling to earth in the night. We eat ice creams in the summer by the Danube watching boats hung with lanterns drift along the water. Even the wind waltzes. It is a city of music and light.’

  ‘Beg your pardon?’

  I blinked at him again, realising that I’d been speaking in German. ‘Please excusing me. My English language is not so good. Vienna is best city in all world.’

  He gave me an odd look. ‘Why you here then?’

  I had neither the words nor the inclination to answer. I racked my brains for a suitable phrase. ‘I am explorer. In-tepid.’

  I raised the paper, and he did not speak to me again for a full half hour. I studied the stories closely, trying to understand the nuance. I suspected that one or two of them were intended to be mildly humorous but the detail was beyond me.

  ‘May I fetch you something from the buffet?’ asked Andy, interrupting my lesson.

  I was dreadfully hungry, and thought guiltily of the envelope of cash in my pocket. Anna insisted that one should never accept offers of refreshment from unknown gentlemen. On reflection, I decided I must be cautious.

  ‘No, thank you.’

  He tipped his hat and ambled along the carriage, bouncing against the benches on either side of the aisle as the train clattered and rocked. A few minutes later he returned with two bottles of milk and two paper bags filled with chocolate biscuits. He pushed one of each into my hands.

  ‘Sorry, miss. Felt awful uncomfortable munching across from you,’ he said, holding up his own bag of biscuits. ‘Scuse the impertinence.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said and sipped at the milk. It was slightly sour, just on the turn, but I didn’t care. I drank greedily in gulps and tried not to cram the biscuits into my mouth. It was the first time in two days that someone had been kind to me.

  ‘You was hungry,’ he observed.

  I swallowed my mouthful of crumbs, suddenly self-conscious. I folded up the newspaper and returned it to him. ‘I thank you, Mr Turnbull. Most kindly.’

  He grinned. ‘You’re funny, you are.’

  I turned back to the window – perhaps in England I was funny. I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure when, but we had left London and rushed through a verdant land. It began to rain and drops hammered against the windows. We hurtled past cows sheltering beneath clumps of trees and wool-soaked sheep and brimming rivers slopping against their banks. The stations became smaller and the time between them lengthened. The metalled roads winding beside the railway were replaced by dirt tracks, turning to muddy soup in the deluge. I wished I had not packed my raincoat at the bottom of my trunk. The carriage began to empty; Andy clambered out at Salisbury, tipping his hat.

  The train travelled more slowly. I could see vast country houses, each the size of an entire apartment building, marooned in swathes of meadow like ocean liners. After the drab squalor of the city, I felt I was not gazing upon reality but a stage set daubed in make-believe colours. The grass was too green, and the banks of primroses beside the tracks bright as fresh butter. The rain vanished as suddenly as it had arrived, and the sun slunk out from behind a cloud, so that the sky was streaked with blue and the green ground glistened. I listened to the strange place names called by the guard: ‘Next stop Brockenhurst . . . Change here for Blandford Forum and the slow train to Sturminster Newton . . . Next stop Christchurch . . .’

  I felt drowsy, and my limbs were stiff, while my temples pulsed with the rhythm of the train. It was stuffy inside the carriage and I wrenched open the window and leant out, enjoying the wind rushing against my cheeks and tearing at the pins fastening my hair. I opened my mouth and tasted salt. The air was clean and heather-scented, and I scoured the horizon for a glimpse of the sea. We hurtled along wild heath tangled with scrub and black swathes of forest. The trees stretched endlessly into the distance, a mass of swaying green, rippling up and down the sloping hills.

  ‘Next stop Wareham. Wareham next stop,’ called the guard, hurrying through the train.

  I stood in a rush, heart beating in my ears, and snatched up my satchel and the viola case. I wobbled on my feet as the train shuddered to a halt, fumbled with the door, hands shaking, and climbed out onto the platform. Frightened that the train would leave with my belongings, I shouted for the guard and ran to the luggage car.

  ‘Which one is it, miss? Hurry up now. Train needs to be off.’

  Thirty seconds later, I was standing alone on the station platform. A torn poster commanding the reader to DRINK ELDRIDGE POPE’S INDIA PALE ALE flapped in the breeze, and far away a dog barked. I watched as the train became snail-sized and disappeared into the woods, sat down on my trunk and waited.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Seventeen gates

  ‘Elise Landau?’

  ‘Yes?’

  I looked up and saw a lean man of at least seventy years, shoulders slightly stooped, standing at the end of the platform and chewing on a pipe with extreme concentration. He ambled across to me in no particular hurry and glanced at my luggage.

  ‘Yorn?’

  I stared at him, uncomprehending. He spat the pipe out of his mouth and enunciated with exaggerated clarity.

  ‘Them baggages is what be belongin’ ter you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Muttering s
omething under his breath, he disappeared down the platform again at the same slow lope, reappearing a few minutes later with a trolley. With surprising ease he heaved on the bags and trundled it towards the front of the station.

  ‘Mr Bobbin don’t like ter be kept waitin’,’ he said gruffly.

  I attempted to smooth my dress and hair, while scurrying to keep up. In my experience chauffeurs were invariably impatient. The old man led the way to a cobbled yard, where a smart motorcar waited, engine running, but my companion walked past it, stopping instead beside a ramshackle wooden cart attached to a massive carriage-horse, nose buried in a stash of hay.

  ‘Ah. Mr Bobbin,’ he said, letting out a small, satisfied sigh.

  In those days, carriages and carts were still a common sight in Vienna, but they belonged to tinkers and coal-merchants, or farmers bringing goods to market. I had understood Mr Rivers to be a wealthy man and presumed him the owner of at least one motorcar. I experienced a strange feeling in my belly, as I realised that Mr Rivers may indeed have a smart motorcar and simply did not choose to send it and his chauffeur to collect the new housemaid. As I idled, my luggage was unceremoniously tossed in the back of the cart and after clambering onto the driving seat, the old man reached down and hauled me up with a strong arm.

  ‘Yer can sit in the back or yer can sit next ter me.’

  The back of the cart was littered with empty grain sacks, assorted pieces of farming equipment and smashed crates. I saw the glint of a scythe and was almost certain that something was wriggling under a piece of tarpaulin. I chose the seat at the front.

  ‘What is your name?’ I asked, settling on the wooden bench.

  ‘Arthur Tizzard. But yer can call me Art.’

  ‘Like painting?’

  He gave a chuckle, a low sound that started in his chest. ‘Aye. That’s right.’

  We proceeded through the little town of Wareham, my first glimpse of an English village. The buildings were low, mostly faded red brick with tiled roofs, some in peeling lime-wash and here and there a brown thatch. Along the high street, the upper storeys protruded above the pavement, like Frau Schmidt’s overbite. It was afternoon and most of the shutters were drawn, few people were about and those there were seemed in no hurry. A boy pushed a bicycle, his basket filled with dappled eggs. A woman sat on a front step and smoked, a baby playing peek-a-boo beneath her skirts. The wheels of the cart ground along the road, and the horse’s hooves clack-clacked. We crossed a bridge where a dozen sailing boats bobbed on their river moorings, and passed a handsome public house with men dawdling outside, arguing idly over a pack of cards, as though none of them much cared about the outcome but took slow pleasure in the disagreement. In a few minutes we left the town and plodded along a straight road across a marsh; birds swooped in and out of the reeds and the air stank of damp mud. The ground was flat and riddled with small pools of dark water, filled with paddling fowl. I saw a flash of white wing and a black-beaked swan came into land, its cry hollow on the wind. The wetlands were edged by a bank of sloping hills, some covered with swaying meadow grass and others woodland dark.

  At a crossroads, and needing no instruction from Art, Mr Bobbin took a sharp right turn and in a short time the marshland was behind us and we crept up a steep track into hilly country once more. I still could not see the sea and, standing up in my seat, tried to peer beyond the ridge of green hills.

  Art chuckled. ‘Jist you wait. Yerl see soon enough.’

  The banks on either side of the road became tightly wooded, and I only glimpsed flashes of the sloping fields and a blue and white marbled sky. At the top of the rise, I saw a graceful stone manor half concealed by towering rhododendrons studded with crimson flowers.

  ‘Creech Grange,’ said Art.

  Mr Bobbin’s back was steaming with sweat, and saliva bubbled around his bit; Art leant forward and crooned words of encouragement. ‘Com’ on yer ol’ loplolly, jist dawk arn.’

  The track became steeper and steeper, and the horse wheezed and coughed, the cart inching slower and slower, until we reached a passing place hewn out of the hillside, and Art stopped the cart.

  ‘Right, missy, out ’ere. Mr Bobbin needs a breather.’

  I jumped off the cart, grateful to stretch my legs, landed on a damp patch of moss and slipped straight onto my behind, scraping my hands as I tried to break my fall. Art pulled me up and dusted me down like I was five years old, tutting like Hildegard.

  ‘Aw. Yers not wearin’ right shoes. Need some clod’oppers. ’Ere, rub this on them scritches.’

  He handed me a glass bottle and unstuffed the cork. I took a sniff and inhaled whisky fumes.

  ‘Nope, don’t whiff at ’im. Splash it like. Sting like buggery, but stop it gettin’ nasty. Learnt that in the big war.’

  I did as I was told – sprinkling drops all over my grazed palms, and let out a gasp as the alcohol seeped into them, my cuts tingling with fire.

  Art chuckled. ‘An’ now take a gulp, right enuff.’

  Anna was most particular about a lady drinking spirits. They did not. But then Anna was far away. I swallowed and felt my throat tingle like I had swallowed red-hot needles.

  We walked up the hill, Art resting his palm on Mr Bobbin’s sodden flank, and me hobbling, feeling the ache of my bruised shins. I wondered what Margot would say if she could see me – bedraggled, mud splattered, hair tumbling down from the pins. Our progress was slow, as every few minutes the way was barred by an ancient wooden gate. The horse halted, standing well back as Art clicked the catch and swung it open. In less than a mile I counted eleven gates leading up the road, and yet I felt quite content at the slowness of our pace. The air was full with unfamiliar smells of damp earth and strange flowers. Insects hummed and crawled, falling from the low branches into my hair and onto my cheeks. I brushed them away, smearing black across my skin. The tree tunnel bathed everything in a green glow, and I slipped and skidded on the broken stones underfoot. It was humid beneath the canopy, and I felt clammy and damp, slightly embarrassed about the dark patches of sweat showing through my blouse. Eventually, a white hole of daylight appeared at the end of the line of trees, blocked by another gate. The horse paused once more, Art unfastened the latch and ushered us into the sunshine. The air changed instantly. Salt wind whipped around me, flinging my hair into my face, and I saw we were perched upon the open backbone of the hill range. The landscape fell down to the sea on both sides. To the right lay a lacework of silver-grey rivers running through small green fields, spotted with the brown and white backs of cattle. Ponds glimmered like ladies’ hand mirrors, growing larger until they rushed into the vast grey sea. The breakers foamed on the distant beaches and I imagined the rush of noise in my ears was not the sound of the hilltop wind but the crash of the sea. On my left, coarse heath grass rolled down into a shaded valley nestled between the banks of hills, which formed the vale like a pair of cupped hands.

  Art chewed on his pipe and the horse huffed and sighed.

  ‘Tyneford valley,’ said Art. ‘Can yer feel it?’

  I looked at him, and then at the yellow beach beyond. I smelt heather and wood smoke and something else, something intangible that I did not yet have the words to express. Art chuckled.

  ‘Aye. Gits everyone. Spell o’ Tyneford.’

  He turned to face me and gave me an odd look. ‘Don’t talk much, do yer? Some of them new maids, won’t stop their rattlin’.’

  I smiled, wondering what Julian would think of this assessment of me – a quiet girl, not chattering on like the others. It had only been a week and already he would not know me. I was not quiet – my lack of English imprisoned me in silence. I was longing to question Art about Mr Rivers and Mrs Ellsworth and Tyneford and the name of the bay that I could see glimmering in the distance, and if it was safe to swim out to those rocks where the gulls rested and the kind of bird with the long tail feather that burst out of the bush, singing a flurry of honeyed song. Questions tumbled over one another in my mind, and yet I c
ould form none of them into sentences. So I walked beside the horse in dumb silence, and allowed Art to believe me a nice, quiet kind of girl.

  He steadied my elbow as I clambered back onto the cart, grateful for the rest. I had been travelling all day, and my head was starting to ache. The track was narrow and tufts of dusty grass or thistle sprouted in the middle in a dull green stripe. Mr Bobbin plodded along as birds soared to and fro, or twittered frantically from the low gorse bushes. The sky stretched vast and open from the hills to where it merged with the sea in a grey-blue line, and I tilted my head back to gaze at the racing clouds, feeling myself reel, dizzy at the thought of my own smallness; I realised I was nothing more than a feather on the wing of one of the brown-backed geese that swooped overhead.

  The horse turned to the left, down an even narrower track leading into the valley of Tyneford itself. The path sloped steeply, and he edged forward, hooves slipping and catching on the loose pebbles. Wild flowers and shrubs brushed the cart on either side, and tiny heads of cow parsley ripped from their stems and lodged in the wheels of the cart and the wooden side slats. A tiny speckled bird hitched a lift on a battered milk crate in the back. Another series of gates barred our descent, and Art leapt down again and again to open them. Cattle and sheep grazed freely beside the road, or dawdled in front of the cart, causing Art to hiss and shout, ‘Git, git. Yer bony good fer nuthins.’

  Art steered us through the final gate and past a pair of low stone cottages, their walls darkly overgrown with ivy and smoke curling from their chimneys. I saw more cottages and a scattering of larger houses all cut from the same rough grey rock, lining a narrow street leading to a water pump and a small church, but the horse, needing no direction from Art, turned to the left and ambled along an avenue of waving lime trees. The leaves sprouted new green, bright and soft, and the trees towered above me, their branches a mass of clasping hands and limbs.