Tonight I shall dream of Tyneford House. As I lay down to sleep, I shall see the house as it was that first summer. The dog roses tangled around the back door. The horse in the stable yard. Teeth grinding grinding. The scent of magnolia and salt. And then I shall wake inside my dream. I am Elise again. Alice rests and everybody lives. My hands are white and smooth, unmarked by age spots. I stand on the lawn and listen to the call of the sea, the knock of sailboats in the bay. I run down to the beach. My feet are sinking into the pebbles and the water slaps the shore. The sun shines and there is a boy on the beach. An English man-boy. He stands in the white surf. He waits for me there, smiling always smiling, and he waits to kiss me. I taste saltwater on my tongue. Saltwater – tears and a journey. And above it all, the crash of the sea.
Author’s note
The village of Tyneford is based upon the ghost village of Tyneham on the Dorset coast. People lived in Tyneham and Worbarrow Bay for more than a thousand years, but even during the 1930s it was a remote and secret place, far away from either main roads or rail and its lanes separated from the outside world by a series of wooden gates. The Elizabethan manor was celebrated as one of the most beautiful in England: an exquisite house hewn from golden Purbeck stone. Life in the valley continued virtually unchanged for millennia: men fished for mackerel in the bay, women worked in the fields or the great house owned by the Bond family, who had been in possession of the estate for several hundred years.
Then, in the midst of the Second World War, everything changed. The War Office requisitioned the entire estate for military occupation. A letter was sent on 16th November 1943 informing the villagers that their homes were to be taken and they had one month to leave. Most presumed they’d be back after Christmas and planted up their vegetable gardens in readiness for their return. In any case, Churchill promised that their homes would be returned at the end of the war. The villagers pinned a note on the door of the church as they departed, asking the army: ‘Please treat the church and houses with care; we have given up our homes where many of us lived for generations to help win the war to keep men free. We shall return one day and thank you for treating the village kindly.’
The army (British and American) did not treat the village kindly. They used the cottages as target practice, shelling the walls and firing at the windows. The ancient lime avenue was felled and a fire started in the medieval west wing. But worse was to come. At the end of the war, Churchill reneged on his promise: the village was not returned, but instead requisitioned permanently. The people never came home and the cottages decayed into ruins. The Elizabethan manor was partially demolished during the 1960s and remains in a restricted military area, far away from curious eyes.
Tyneham is now a ‘ghost village’. The army permit access to certain parts of it during the year, and it is a strange and melancholy place – somewhere that has haunted me since childhood. I have always wanted to fill it with people again, even if only in my imagination, and show it as it might have been. While many of the places are real, the people of Tyneford are imaginary – although I am indebted to Lilian Bond’s elegiac account of her childhood in the great house.
Despite the sadness of Tyneham’s history, the place is unique. So many villages along the Dorset coast bear the marks of modern life, while the landscape around Tyneham remains unchanged. It has never been subject to intensive farming methods, either during the ‘dig for Britain’ campaign or afterwards, and remains a period landscape from the 1940s with small, hedged fields. The cottages lie in ruins, but in many ways the army’s occupation has preserved as much as it has destroyed. During a damp August afternoon, I saw a peregrine falcon and a nightingale as well as countless wild flowers. Abandoned by man, it has been reclaimed by nature.
Elise Landau is inspired by my great-aunt Gabi Landau, who, with the help of my grandmother Margot, managed to escape Europe by becoming a ‘mother’s help’ for an English family during the late 1930s. Many refugees, particularly young girls from affluent, bourgeois households, escaped this way on a ‘domestic service visa’ – swapping cosseted and comfortable lives for the harsh existence of English servants. Like Elise, Gabi was desperately homesick and missed her sister Gerda, who emigrated to the United States. The two women did not meet for more than thirty years, and when they were reunited – on the Liverpool docks – they did not recognise one another.
Acknowledgements
I am hugely grateful to everyone at Sceptre: my wonderful editor Jocasta as well as Lucy, Nikki, Alice, Jason, Alix, Charlotte, Ruth, Carole, Sophie and Sarah who designed the gorgeous cover. James went above and beyond, agreeing to be shaved by a Mayfair barber wielding a cut-throat razor in the name of research, while Kate allowed me to stuff her viola full of paper. Sotheby’s kindly helped me establish the value of a Turner in 1939, and Lisa Curzon generously shared her memories of working in service as a young refugee in 1938. Thanks to Jeff Rona who composed the Viola concerto, to Neel Hammond who performed the viola part so beautifully and to Michael Glenn Williams who devised the piano accompaniment (to listen to the music go to www.natashasolomons.com). Thanks always to my agents Stan and Elinor, to my parents, Carol and Clive, and to my husband and collaborator, David.
Natasha’s first novel, Mr Rosenblum’s List, was an international bestseller, was shortlisted for the New Writer of the Year at the Galaxy National Book Awards, and has been translated into ten languages. She and her husband have written the screenplay for Cowboy Films/Film 4.
Table of Contents
The Novel in the Viola
Imprint Page
Dedication
Notice
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Author’s note
Acknowledgements
Concerto in D Minor
About the Author
Table of Contents
The Novel in the Viola
Imprint Page
Dedication
Notice
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Author’s note
Acknowledgements
Concerto in D Minor
About the Author
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