The Novel in the Viola

by Natasha Solomons

  ‘So it’s inside?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you’ve never tried to take it out?’

  ‘I thought about it, but I’d have to break the viola.’

  We huddled in the drawing room, wrapped in horsehair blankets and through an illicit hole in the blackouts watched dawn creep up over the hills. Mr Rivers leant forwards and brushed my face with his fingertips.

  ‘You’ve singed your eyelashes,’ he observed, his voice harbouring only the faintest tinge of accusation.

  ‘They’ll grow back,’ I said with a shrug and edged closer towards him.‘What’s the novel about?’ he asked, gesturing to the viola.

  I smiled. ‘I have no idea. I often wonder. I like to believe that it has a happy ending.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  I live not where I love

  The following day those WAAFs who weren’t on the morning shift bustled around in droves, organised into cleaning battalions by Mrs Ellsworth. They listened with bowed heads to her battery of scolding, none admitting who had disobeyed the neat signs entreating ‘no smoking in the bedrooms’ and tossed a careless cigarette into the wastepaper basket. Hammering came from the roof as Art dangled from a ladder, trying to shore up the new hole. The girls trudged around in filthy overalls, clutching pails of brown water, hardly daring to hum last night’s tunes under their breath. A thin layer of ash and soot like black snow coated the great hall and landing, streaked the panelling and smattered the tops of the dado rails. The paintings in the hallway had aged a hundred years and stared out through Tudor gloom. I didn’t offer to help with the clean-up but closed the door to my bedroom and settled down at the desk.

  Ever since the last night in Vienna I had hoarded Julian’s novel, but after the fire I resolved on telling Margot about it. Nearly losing the viola frightened me. If it had been destroyed, I knew that she would never forgive me.

  I can only say that I’m sorry. I know I’ve been selfish, but perhaps if you are honest you’ll see that you would have done the same thing.

  On my last night in Vienna, Julian gave me the carbon copy of his latest novel, hidden inside your old viola. I’ve kept it safe. I’ve not read it, I promise. I always thought that Julian would take it out and read it to us himself, and it would be like old times. Anna would laugh in the right places, while you and I would laugh a little in the wrong ones, and he’d huff and grumble and nothing would have changed.

  But last night there was a fire. Mr Rivers saved the viola. The novel is still inside. But, if it had gone without either of us reading it, without your knowing about its existence, I knew, well, I knew that you would not forgive me.

  So, I’m telling you now and I hope you will not be too angry. I wanted something that was mine and no one else’s. You have Robert, and whatever you think, he is not my Mr Rivers. Please don’t write straight away but wait a little and try to understand.

  I sealed the envelope and took it downstairs to place on the tray in the hall. I wondered how long it would take for the letter to reach her. Weeks. Months. I might have to wait half a year for her reply. I was apprehensive of her anger. Margot did not rage but nurtured her resentment. When we were children, she had a doll with real hair which I’d trimmed, believing it would grow back. Margot had refused to utter a single word to me for an entire fortnight. As Margot entered adolescence her silences lengthened. When I’d dared describe Robert as ‘a pleasant young man’ (it being our sisterly code for dull) her quiet anger had taken six weeks to subside. She’d only allowed me to be a bridesmaid when Anna intervened. I dreaded to think how long her silence would last over this.

  Despite the fire, more WAAFs arrived to stay at the hall. There was no use in objecting or saying that we had nowhere to put them. Any complaint might lead to the house being requisitioned, and we’d already heard the horror stories from Juno of statues at Lulcombe daubed with lewd graffiti, stucco ceilings ruined by dry rot and pistol shot. The ancient beech avenue had been felled for firewood during the arctic January, despite Lady Vernon’s impassioned pleas. There was even talk of her being made to surrender the Dower House. So we made not a word of complaint, but quietly removed the furniture from the dining room, stored it in the rapidly emptying wine cellar, and turned the room into a makeshift dormitory. The girls who slept there actually felt themselves quite fortunate since, unlike the bedrooms, it possessed a radiator.

  By summer the house teemed with WAAFs and Mrs Ellsworth was forced to surrender a portion of her kitchen to a forces cook, while the ancient servants’ hall was brought into use as a cafeteria. Mrs Ellsworth wandered through the house for several days clucking miserably, ‘I don’t know if I’m living in a boarding school or a barracks.’ Yet the girls were in general so gay and good-natured that they soon won her round – sharing homemade cures for dressing corns, or lighting the kitchen boiler at four on their way out for the early shift, so that for the first time in years Mrs Ellsworth could laze till dawn. They even lent her a spare tin hat to use as a most effective bathing cap. Gaggles of them marching down to Lulcombe camp for duty was a thrice-daily sight. Burt left shining mackerel in baskets for two dozen breakfasts, and Mr Wrexham offered tips on the buffing of endless black shoes. Soon we were perfectly accustomed to their presence, and could not imagine life being different.

  I watched the weeks and then the months slip by without a letter from Margot. Every morning and afternoon I checked the tray in the hall for letters. It was always overflowing with post for the WAAFs but there was never anything for me. My unease steadily grew. Was she too irate to even write? Was she punishing me with silence? Then, one day in early June, just as the buttercups were starting to spill across the meadows, a letter arrived from California. Sitting on the terrace in the morning sunshine, I tore open the envelope and for a moment my heart soared – she was not angry – and then I saw the date, ‘6th March, 1941’. My own letter could not have reached her before she had written this. I closed my eyes and saw two ships pass in the Atlantic, each carrying a letter across the sea.

  I am expecting a baby. You must write and suggest some names. I don’t know what to call him, if he’s a boy. I always thought I’d call my son Wolfgang. But when I gave up hoping for a baby, I called the dog Wolfie, instead.

  I hate being so far away from all of you. Shall you like being an aunt? I suppose it shan’t make much difference since you won’t even see the baby for years, maybe. I’m sorry for being so miserable. Or at least I’m sorry for writing about it. I know I ought to keep it to myself especially with such a ‘happy event’ on the way, but I am a little frightened and I never thought Anna wouldn’t be with me and now . . .

  Oh Elise, I can’t imagine her as a grandmother. She isn’t nearly old enough. Julian could growl like a proper grandpa but Anna would be more like a fairy godmother than a grandmama. Sometimes I worry that she will never even see the baby and that I can’t imagine her old because . . . but no. Robert tells me I’m not to say such things, that it’s bad for the baby but how can I stop when years go by and we hear nothing?

  I felt the sunshine warm upon my cheeks. So, I was to be an aunt. I experienced a tug of excitement. Perhaps I could knit the baby something – I was rather tired of making socks for soldiers. I remembered soon after Margot and Robert married, Anna and I lingering over breakfast on the balcony. I can see it now: the table laid with a white cloth, a scattering of crumbs from our bread rolls, the red geraniums in the flowerpot. ‘I don’t mind whether it’s a boy or a girl,’ said Anna, ‘as long as the child’s musical.’ I frowned, hurt, and Anna reached out, catching my hand. ‘Oh my darling, I couldn’t care less about your prowess. It’s simply that music is all Margot really understands. I think having her for a mother will be easier, if the child is also a musician.’ She gave me an arch smile. ‘Naughtiness, baby will learn from her aunt.’ I said nothing, sipped my coffee and pictured the baby belonging to Margot and Anna’s coterie of musicians, sharing in that language from which I was
inevitably excluded.

  Reading Margot’s letter all those years later, nothing was how we’d imagined it to be. A goldfinch alighted on the garden wall, the sunlight catching the bright feathers on his head, and started to warble. I wondered if the baby would be able to sing, or if she’d be like me. It didn’t matter. Anna was wrong. Margot wouldn’t mind if the baby wasn’t even a music lover. Though she’d probably still name him Amadeus if he were a boy or Constanze for a girl.

  On a cool afternoon in early October, I decided to take a walk along the bluffs. Harvest and haymaking were finished and I was savouring a brief lull before the ploughing started. It was one of those days when the sea battled against the wind and the roar and crash of waves smashing into the black rocks was drowned out by the wind screaming along the cliff path. My ears ached with cold, and blown by the gale I lurched and stuttered towards the precipice like a drunkard. It was safer low to the ground so I crouched, fingers grasping at the hawthorn and thistles to steady myself. The earth smelt of loam and heather. From this height, the curve of the bay below appeared as if it had been scooped out of the land, the honeyed cliffs as smooth as the inside of a clay cup spinning on a potter’s wheel. The sea washed the beach, white sheets of water rolling up and down, coating the pebbles with layer after layer of rushing white foam. It was wild up on the cliff, and as the light began to fade I was almost frightened. When I looked back down at the beach, I saw the figure of Mr Rivers standing in the surf.

  I scrambled down the steep path to the beach and hesitated, watching him from a distance, before calling out, ‘Mr Rivers! Daniel.’

  He turned and waved, and I ran across the strand towards him, my feet grinding into the pebbles. As I approached, I saw to my surprise that he was not dressed in his usual outdoor work clothes but one of his pre-war suits. His brogues were sluiced by the tide and I frowned at the spoiling of good shoe leather.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked, catching his elbow and drawing him further up the beach.

  ‘It’s finished,’ he said.

  I frowned. ‘What’s finished?’

  ‘Tyneford.’

  His face was pale and dark circles shadowed his eyes. Between clenched fingers, he clasped a letter. ‘They’re taking over the house. The village. Everything. We have to leave by Christmas.’

  He stepped back from the shore and walked a few paces up the beach. The wind roared through the trees and made the dune grass sing. I chased after him, easing the letter from his hand.

  Dear Mr Rivers,

  In order to give our troops the fullest opportunity to perfect their training in the use of modern weapons of war, the army must have an area of land particularly suited to their special needs and in which they can use live shells. For this reason you will realise the chosen area must be cleared of all civilians.

  It is regretted that, in the National Interest, it is necessary to move you from your home. Everything possible will be done to help you, both by payment of compensation, and by finding other accommodation for you if you are unable to do so yourself.

  The date on which the military will take over this area is 19th December, and all civilians must be out of the area by that date.

  The Government appreciate that this is no small sacrifice which you are asked to make, but they are sure that you will give this further help towards winning the war with a good heart.

  C. H. MILLER Major-General i/c Administration

  Southern Command

  I read it through twice and then, hands shaking, returned it to Mr Rivers.

  ‘They gave it to me first,’ he said tonelessly. ‘A day’s courtesy. The rest of the village will get theirs tomorrow.’

  I started to speak but he shook his head.

  ‘There’s nothing to be done. I’ve been to see the Major-General. It’s quite decided. Everywhere from East Lulcombe to Kimmeridge is to be cleared of civilians.’

  I felt myself reel. The sound of the sea crashed through me, drawing out my breath with the tide.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No.’

  I loved this place. I loved the wildness and the saltwater cracking against the black rocks and the greylag geese crying overhead and the sea pinks reaching over the cliff tops and the adders basking on the heath, the song of the fishermen and the rainbow bellies of the mackerel, the silent church and the glimpse of Portland in the mist and the way the weather was as changeable as a Mozart opera – one moment sunny and warm, gulls laughing in the bay, and the next rain pockmarking the waves. I loved the wooden fishing-boats dawdling in the bay and the sweep and rush of water in the dark. Here, I had loved Kit. I loved him swimming among these rocks and filching cockles in that tide pool and running along Flower’s Barrow. Here we met and fell in love. He stays in Tyneford in the echo of the sea upon the shore and–

  ‘How can we leave him?’ I pleaded.

  Mr Rivers sighed. ‘He’s gone, Alice. He left us first.’

  I shook my head. ‘No. Kit is in Tyneford. This is the only place we’ve known together. We shared these pebbles and this sea.’

  Mr Rivers took my hand and drew me down beside him. ‘Then it’s right you should leave. That we should both go. Each of us needs to start somewhere new. Try to live a little again. He died. We didn’t.’

  He reached his arm around me and pulled me tight into his side.

  ‘You’re young, Alice. You should have a sweetheart. Those wretched WAAFs have endless boyfriends. You should too.’

  I began to sob, and he rocked me gently.

  ‘His life was tragic. Yours oughtn’t to be.’

  ‘But I don’t want to leave this place. This valley. This bay.’ I wiped my nose on my sleeve. ‘I was lost and then I was home.’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘It casts a spell over you. There’s something about the place. I was born here, so were my father and my grandfather. I thought my grandchildren would grow up playing in these woods.’ He sighed again. ‘But the war has changed everything. It would have changed eventually – it’s just happening all at once in a rush and we’re not ready for it.’

  He gave a bitter laugh. ‘We were all so worried about the damn invasion and losing the place to the Nazis. I joined the auxiliaries for Christ’s sake. And the invasion came anyway.’

  ‘Even your gun couldn’t keep them out.’

  We both fell silent, remembering the night on the same beach and Mr Rivers shooting at the void. He plucked a golden pebble off the ground and sent it skimming into the waves, where it bounced again and again across the surface before finally sinking into the grey water. As it vanished, sadness overwhelmed me, cold as the October sea.

  ‘Perhaps it’s good for us. It’s not right . . . this . . . you and I,’ he said as I rested my head on his shoulders, and I shuddered, not knowing whether this was a return of the old propriety or a reference to our mutual grief. He continued, ‘Sometimes I feel that it will be a relief to get away from here – from the house, which is, honest to God, falling down about our ears, and away from all the memories. There are so many everywhere that sometimes I choke on them.’

  I was crying silently now, and he wiped away my tears with his thumb.

  ‘Don’t cry, Alice. Please, don’t cry. They say we can return at the end of the war. As soon as it’s all over we can all come back. The old life can start again, if you like.’

  I smiled and stroked his hand but we both knew that this was the end of Tyneford.

  Five hundred years lay in packing boxes. Mrs Ellsworth received the news well, filling only one pocket-handkerchief with her tears. Mr Rivers would not dismiss the staff; they had homes with him, if they wanted them. Art was to tend the garden, and Mrs Ellsworth determined to keep house for the evicted squire – the thought of Mr Rivers boiling his own egg was a travesty too far. Yet to Mr Rivers’ surprise and regret, Mr Wrexham declined. He received the news standing up in the library, refusing the offer of either a brandy or a seat. He was silent for a moment.

  ‘I am much obliged for the g
enerous offer, sir. But I am not in the first flush and perhaps this is a suitable juncture for me to consider my retirement. I think I might live with my brother in a quiet spot by the sea.’

  He crossed to the window and adjusted the curtain sash, which had caught and creased. Once it was smooth, he turned back to Mr Rivers. ‘Is there anything else, sir?’

  Privately, I wondered what had made the old butler choose to leave the Rivers’ family services. I couldn’t imagine that fishing with Burt held such an appeal. Perhaps the servant could not bear to see Mr Rivers in such reduced circumstances, or perhaps he considered that once he left, Mr Rivers was no longer the master of Tyneford House. Or else, it was simply the end of the old world as he had forecast all those years ago, and he chose not to cling to it, but to withdraw with his customary dignity. He would slide out of our lives with the same discretion with which he left the gentlemen to their port after a good dinner.

  The house itself seemed forlorn. Every creak of wood was a reproach and the wind sighed through the eaves at night. Mrs Ellsworth ceased entirely to polish the parquet and dust gathered in drifts behind doors, while Mr Wrexham uttered not a word of complaint. I decided that it was better we left – a sharp goodbye – rather than watch the slow decay increase each year; the guttering fall off the west gable and not be replaced, the attic roof collapse, dry rot in the ancient panelling, the damp steal up from the cellar into the great hall. We could remember the house as she had been, luminous and proud, lights in every window and storm lanterns flickering across the lawns. In memory she remained a great English country house, always ready to receive her guests as their motorcars drew up outside, chauffeurs opening doors and ladies strolling up to the porch in a hurry of fur coats. In our minds it would always be summer as we took tea on the terrace, the scent of bluebells from Rookery Wood drifting like smoke across the lawns.