“But you’re here.” He doesn’t understand why I’m not wearing the ring, why I’ve given it back. David holds me tight, folds me into him and I can feel the muscles in his arm, the strength of his chest. “You’ve come back to me, to us.”
“I’m not staying.” I whisper the words, almost as if I don’t want them to be true. But I do.
“Grace, darling, please. Tomorrow, the children . . .”
“I can’t stay.”
“I’ve told them all about you. They’re coming all this way to meet you.”
“It’s too late, David.” These aren’t my children; they’re not even my children’s siblings. They are David’s responsibility, as is their disappointment, their confusion.
“Gracie, please. I’m so fucking sorry. I’ll do anything.”
He means it, I can tell. David has finally become the person I wanted him to be. He has changed, I can feel it in the way he holds me, I can sense it—almost smell it—from every fiber of him. His longing is real.
But I am not the same person.
“I’ll never stop loving you,” I say. “You’re very special.”
“No. Please.” His voice is cracking. “Please don’t leave me. I need you.”
I run my finger along the line of his chin, trace the smoothness of his cheek. “We had such good times,” I say, and I try to smile even though tears are overwhelming me. It would be wrong to speak about the terrible times; dark days of doubts and failings.
David is crying now, without the drama that I’ve heard him add in the past. This is real; regret and loss and longing. These are sounds I recognize.
“Please. I’ll do anything. I’m seeing a counselor, facing up to myself; I’ll get better.” He holds me a little way away from him, looks right in my eyes. “Why did you come here if you don’t want me?”
I say the words and I am desperately sorry; truly surprised that I am walking away from him.
“David,” I say. “I came to say goodbye to Paris.”
* * *
I know I can’t go back to Paris. Maybe one day, in another life, but not for a very long time. Until then, I hope Paris can forgive me; I know it will. Paris, more than any other city in the world, knows about love.
* * *
My tiny, chocolate-box town is rife with rumor. I’m surprised by how many of my local clients turn out to know Mr. Williams. I am bemused by the number of small repair jobs people have suddenly asked me to do on their instruments, just so they can take the opportunity to find out what I know. Apparently an eighty-six-year-old man they’d assumed was a bachelor, going off to live with his boyfriend in Venice, is even bigger news than the local violin maker appearing in all the national papers.
I only tell them what I know—that Mr. Williams is very, very happy and that, almost more than anyone else I can think of, he deserves it.
* * *
I have promised some sheets and towels to Nadia. Getting them out of the airing cupboard has, as these things do, turned into a longer job; an afternoon of discovering shoe boxes and receipts, throwing away nonsense that I kept last time I tidied.
I reach into the back of the car to drag out the bin bags; I am running out of time. I have a date this afternoon; an unbreakable appointment with a dear friend. My hair is spot-on and a little spiky. I’m wearing my favorite lipstick; one that manages to look like I have no makeup on at all—just fabulous lips.
Nadia’s house is very neat. She rearranges furniture and straightens curtains all day long. I don’t believe it’s a nesting instinct, I think it’s an extension of a game; she has found herself in a giant dollhouse and she intends to make it perfect.
“Where do you want these?” I dump the two sacks on the kitchen floor.
“They’ll be fine there, thanks,” says Nadia. “I’ll go through them and take out what I want. But can you take the rest back with you, drop it off at the charity shop?” She hates clutter.
She bends down and starts to unfold and fold the duvet sets and the towels. She puts them into two perfect piles that already make the way I packed the bags look slovenly.
She bends easily. Her bump began to show within days of her big reveal, but although she is obviously pregnant, it is hard to believe she is going to have a baby in a few weeks’ time.
“It’s the last prenatal class tomorrow,” she says and looks up at me. “You won’t miss it, will you?”
“Why would I?”
“Just checking. That’s all.”
I’m sure everyone at the classes thinks I am her mother and that’s fine. I am thrilled that I will see this baby born, less enthusiastic about being Nadia’s sounding post. She has embraced every holistic and natural birth idea going. She has an app on her phone that will measure contractions and time events. When it does happen, I am sure it will be a tide that even Nadia can’t control and what will be, will be. Shota and Marion’s baby is a week late; refusing to budge. I am convinced they will be born on the same day.
“How’s the writing?” I ask her.
“Good. Really good. It’s easy to think here.” The pile of stuff she doesn’t want is huge. She puts the one duvet set and one towel that she is happy with on the kitchen work surface. “I emailed a new bit to Shota last night; he loves it.”
Shota is staggered by Nadia’s symphony and has every faith in it being her key to fame and fortune.
“And the last bit? Is it finished?” I ask her.
“For fuck’s sake, Grace, how many times?” She pats her small bump. “I have to meet this crazy little person first.”
* * *
I have three minutes to spare when I unlock the shop door. I rush through to the back, past the double basses upright in their rows, past the cellos, straight and polished. There is nothing in here to fix now; all the instruments have been repaired and a peace has settled over everything. It looks as magical as it ever did.
In the window, on the music stand, I have left the score of Elgar’s “Nimrod” open. It is almost November and, in so many ways, everything is about remembering, about listening to the lessons we have learnt.
There is one more cello in the rack than there was. The cello David bought me many years ago is now shop stock. I still love it dearly and it is a beautiful instrument, but I will never part with my beautiful spotted Cremona cello and I can’t play two.
The violins proudly hang from their shelf, the violas as backup behind them. They all face towards the door, the outside world, and the whole shop looks ready to meet the future.
In the workshop, my iPad begins to buzz. It is three o’clock.
Mr. Williams beams at me when the connection is made. He is tanned and happy, the air obviously suits him. We wave at each other frantically for the first ten seconds, even though we have the option of speech.
“You look fabulous, dear,” he says, “very glamorous.”
“I didn’t want to let you down. This is the highlight of my week. Thought I’d better dress up for it.”
“I’m assuming there’s no baby news,” he says.
“Nothing yet. But your house is so tidy.”
“Has she told you what she’s going to call him?” He is grinning from ear to ear.
I nod vigorously. Nadia’s baby is a boy; she found out at the scan as soon as we got back to England. She asked me what Mr. Williams’s first name was and I told her that, unfortunately, it was Maurice.
“Little Mo,” she said straightaway. And that seems to be it; Little Mo he is.
“Her father’s father is Mohammed,” Mr. Williams says from the screen. “So it works all ways round. Little Mo.” He shakes his head as if he can’t quite believe it.
“How’s Laurence?” I ask although I don’t need to. I can see from Mr. Williams’s face that everything is wonderful. I have “met” Laurence through the magic of the internet and he is not at all what I expected. He is larger than Mr. Williams and hearty. His voice booms around the shop from the screen and he laughs at the end of almost ever
y sentence.
Rather than looking like someone who has lived in Venice for thirty years, Laurence looks like he’s just jumped off his tractor. He needs a frenetic spaniel beside him, and to be marching off across the fields with a cocked gun in the crook of his arm. There is no denying that he and Mr. Williams are in clover.
“You must come, dear, Venice is so perfect at this time of year.”
“There’s not going to be much traveling for me for a bit. And my first trip is going to be to Hamburg to see Shota’s new baby when it arrives. I might take Nadia and Little Mo.”
“You know where we are, Grace, when you need some R and R.”
The purpose of this call is to check every detail of Laurence’s address. We check the post codes and building number and I write them on the brown paper package in front of me with a fat marker pen. This parcel will be picked up by courier tomorrow and, the very next day, will be in Mr. Williams’s hands in Venice.
Inside the parcel is Alan’s violin. It is completely restored; it is ten times the violin it was before. Because of the terrible damage I inflicted on that poor instrument, I had to look long and hard at the construction. The wood of the neck—once it was cracked and I could see the inside of it—was unseasoned; it hadn’t had the three years it needed after harvest to stop growing and to lose its suppleness.
The job was, for all Alan’s skill as an amateur, a bodged one and the violin would never have been strong enough to survive a few journeys to orchestra in its case, never mind the next couple of hundred years in various players’ hands.
Although I will never tell Mr. Williams, and he will never find out, the violin has little left of Alan’s original work. On the outside it looks just like Alan made it, just as it always did, but inside it has been completely rebuilt by—I am reliably told—one of the best violin makers in the world. It is robust and firm, and it will hold for a long time. As a result of everything that happened to it, it is an instrument Mr. Williams can trust.
“I’ve put loads of clippings in there too for you. Telegraph, Guardian, Times. There’s a ton of glossies as well, but they won’t come out till next month.” I have been interviewed by—it seems like—every journalist in Britain. It has been a long time since a Brit won a prize at Cremona, and everyone wants to talk about it.
“And the Revelation Strings? Have you signed up yet?”
“I actually have. Honestly. I’m going tonight.” Revelation Strings is one of the orchestras Mr. Williams played in—now short one violin player. They’re amateurs but the entry standard is high and most of the musicians are retired professionals or parents on a career break.
I have been to many of the Revelation Strings’ concerts and the shop has sponsored their programs for years, but I didn’t tell any of them that I played. Even just thinking about playing in an orchestra again feels like swimming, fast, to the surface of a sunlit pool. I will explode through the water into the daylight and my lungs will fill with air.
Behind Mr. Williams, Laurence shouts that it’s apéro time and Mr. Williams signs off with a pretend air of irritation at the deep joy of being needed.
* * *
I have just days to finish my project. It is almost done.
When I came back from Paris, the first thing I did was to move the dusty cardboard boxes in the workshop. Behind them, hidden and almost cowering, were the tiny pieces of a cello that was never built.
I took the miniature ribs, the perfect scroll, and carried them gently to my bench. I blew the dust away from them with lips shaped like a moon, and a tear fell onto the wood as I kissed those missing babies goodbye. The salt tear softened the dust and the flame in the wood did its best to shine through the years of being tucked away.
The tiny, hollowed-out belly of this cello is the perfect shape; I am impressed at the job I did so long ago, at the craftsmanship. This wood will withstand being played with, explored; learnt on and leant on.
I have glued all these pieces together now. The tiny cello, smaller even than a violin, is complete. I have varnished and smoothed, I have polished and tuned. The bridge and sound post are in place, and today I shall make the final adjustments to the sound.
This cello will be a companion to Nadia’s baby until he outgrows it, and perhaps, one day, another baby will need it.
For now, his soft fingers will curl around the wood, will explore, will learn. It will be a wonder to watch.
There will be music again.
THE END
Acknowledgments
Top spot goes equally to Phil McIntyre, who gave Grace her stake, and Jacqueline Ward, for her unparalleled nagging and bullying support and encouragement. Enormous debt to each of you.
Thanks to my family: To Colin for all the years of support (financial and otherwise), and to Joe, Ella, Lucy, Georgina, Mike, Lizzy, Charlie, Ruby, and Alba.
My team has been amazing—huge gratitude to all of you, in every territory, but especially to Tara Parsons, Isabella Betita, Isabel, Abby, Cherlynne, and everyone at Touchstone for all their fabulous work. The faith they had in this book, and the work they did to get Grace and her friends out into the world, has been invaluable. Enormous thanks to Jenny Bent in the US, Bastian Schlueck and Aylin Salzmann in Germany, and everyone else involved in my foreign sales. Thanks too to my editor in the UK, Jo Dickinson, and the rest of her brilliant colleagues. There are so many worldwide cheerleaders for Grace and her friends and I’m grateful to all of you.
Most of all, thanks to the BEST AGENT IN ALL THE WORLD, Sarah Manning: Never have the words “without you none of this would be possible” been more apposite. Fact.
About the Author
© ANSTEY HARRIS
Anstey Harris teaches creative writing for Canterbury Christ Church University and in the community with her own company, Writing Matters. She was the winner of the HG Wells Short Story Competition in 2015 and was recently short-listed in the National Gallery short story competition. Her short stories have been widely published in anthologies and online. Anstey lives in Kent, England, and is the mother of singer-songwriter Lucy Spraggan. Goodbye, Paris is her first novel.
FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR:
Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Anstey-Harris
MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT
SimonandSchuster.com
/TouchstoneBooks
@TouchstoneBooks
@TouchstoneBooks
We hope you enjoyed reading this Simon & Schuster ebook.
* * *
Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP
Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.
Touchstone
An Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 by Anstey Spraggan
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Touchstone Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
First Touchstone hardcover edition August 2018
TOUCHSTONE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or [email protected]
The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bure
au can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.
Interior design by Kyle Kabel
Jacket design by Laura Klynstra
Jacket artwork: Paris lettering by Callahan/Shutterstock; Paris illustrations by artnLer/Shutterstock; Storefront illustration by Oleksandr Yershov/Shutterstock; Violoncello by Linda Brotkorb/Shutterstock; Watercolor textures by Yellow Stocking, Solarbird, and R. Mackay Photography, LLC/Shutterstock
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-1-5011-9650-8
ISBN 978-1-5011-9652-2 (ebook)
Goodbye, Paris Page 25
