She put down the coins with a sigh. It would have meant a lot to have made a connection. To have looked into the face of the woman who had given birth to her, and to have searched for similarities. When she looked at Clover, she could see Sheila in the curl of her eyelashes and the arch of her eyebrow and the fullness of her lips. And Mick in the line of her jaw and the freckles on her skin. She had never seen any of her own features in someone else—
‘Robyn?’
A deep voice startled her, and she looked up. Standing over her was a man, a tall man in a grey mac, his hands in his pockets, silver curls almost to his collar. And in that moment, she saw herself reflected in his grey eyes, saw her smile on his face, heard the timbre of her voice in his.
‘Yes,’ she whispered, half standing, her heart pounding, for she knew what he was going to say before he said it.
‘Jonathan,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘I’m Jonathan.’ For a moment she thought he was going to cry, even though he was smiling. ‘I’m your father.’
36
1987
‘You know, deep down, that I’m right.’ His mother’s voice cooed in his ear. Jonathan was getting to the point where he could no longer bear to listen to her tireless encouragement. He had lived with it day in day out for so long now, from her getting him up first thing in the morning to sending him off to bed so he got a full night’s sleep. She managed every moment of his life. It was exhausting.
Admittedly, there was plenty of praise and adulation in between the chivvying. But that was starting to wear thin. How many times a day could you be told about your gift and your talent and your genius before it became meaningless? Or you became an egotistical monster? He hoped he wasn’t that, and managed to keep a modicum of self-awareness, but it was difficult.
He was good-natured, though, and perhaps that was part of the problem. If he’d been less tolerant of her, he might have nipped it in the bud. But he was well and truly under her thumb, and of course he was beholden to her now. All the sacrifices she’d made. The school fees, the piano lessons, the endless shuttling from audition to rehearsal to concert. Being his mother was, he knew, a full-time job.
He sighed. He was being harsh because he was tired. And because it was Saturday, and he didn’t want to get on a bus and go to his piano lesson on the other side of the city. She meant well, and he loved her for it, and he knew she had to keep on top of him, because he was a lolloping, lazy teenage boy who would stay in bed all day if he could.
And, of course, they shared the same dream. That was the whole reason for her managing behaviour. And it was so close he could reach out and touch it. His teacher was confident. He was too, for he had been putting the practice in, hours and hours every day. It was only a few weeks until the audition for the Royal College, and then they would know.
Only after the summer, he knew he was slightly off his stride. A little distracted. He was constantly daydreaming and finding his thoughts ambling off somewhere else, away from Chopin and Debussy, away from scherzos and études and sonatas.
To Emily.
He’d always found girls easy company. And he’d had his fair share of admirers. But Emily had found her way straight into his heart. Thinking about her gave him a warm feeling, a Ready-Brek glow. His mind constantly strayed to her grave little face, her earnest expression, her mischievous little smile when something amused her. He did not know what to do.
His mother had sensed his disquiet. She had given him three pep talks in the past week about dedication and focus. She was right, of course – if he wanted to get into the Royal College, he had to practise every day without fail.
‘Being good isn’t enough,’ she told him, again and again. ‘Being talented isn’t enough.’
And this morning, she had found Emily’s Snoopy card where he’d left it on the side in the kitchen after reading it.
‘I’m worried about this, darling.’
‘Why?’ Jonathan looked puzzled. ‘It’s Snoopy. When did he ever do anyone any harm?’
‘Not Snoopy. Emily. You seem very distracted by her.’
‘Not really.’
‘You are. You drift off. I’ve seen you daydreaming.’
Jonathan shrugged. He didn’t want to talk about Emily. He just wanted to think about her.
‘You mustn’t sacrifice your future,’ his mother said gently.
He stared at her. ‘You don’t understand, Mum. She’s a good thing.’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t think she’s what you need at the moment. Mr Poynter says you’ve been under par the past couple of weeks.’
‘Have you been spying on me?’ Jonathan felt a ripple of panic. This was news to him. His teacher had always been nothing other than full of praise. Was he really having doubts?
‘Not spying. Caring.’ Maureen’s lips tightened as if someone had pulled an invisible drawstring. He had noticed that about her lately, the stress she carried in her face. He felt a tug of pity. Her laughter lines seemed to have vanished altogether to be replaced by worry lines, even deeper than the ones she got when his father died.
He looked over at the photograph of his dad on the piano. He was doing this for him too. Trying to make a man whose memory was beginning to fade proud of him. It somehow took the sting out of his death.
It had been his dad who’d seen his promise when he was small and started him on lessons. His dad who took him to the music shop and bought him fresh sheet music on a Saturday, which he would have nailed by Sunday. His dad who put records on the turntable and made him listen, really listen, to each note, to each pause.
Fourteen-year-old Jonathan had played Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto number 2 at his father’s funeral. Not brilliantly, but he got through it, the entire congregation holding their breath and each other’s hands until he reached the final note.
Maureen had buried herself in Jonathan’s musical career to cushion herself from her husband’s sudden death, telling herself he would live on in Jonathan’s success. Jonathan was grateful for her support. He did, after all, love his music with a passion, and had ambition for himself. But it was so relentless. So intense. Maureen had nothing else in her life. With Emily, Jonathan had seen a glimpse of something else.
But the time wasn’t right. His audition loomed. All those years of dedication would go to waste if he didn’t focus. And he didn’t want to let his father down.
‘I’m just very concerned, love,’ his mum was saying. ‘You’ve known her less than a month, but she could destroy your entire future. Cut her off now, and all will be well.’ She put a piece of notepaper and a pen in front of him on the breakfast table. ‘Write to her. You don’t have to be cruel. And if she has any notion of what your future means to you, she’ll understand.’
Jonathan put his head in his arms on the table. There wasn’t much point in arguing with her about them being soulmates. Or about the wonder of what they’d done in bed – he definitely didn’t want to discuss that. And his mum was right. He wasn’t devoting himself to his music, and he had to, or everything they had worked towards would disappear.
‘If you truly mean something to her, she’ll wait. You can get back in touch once you’ve got in.’
He looked up at her, standing over him in her pale pink quilted dressing gown. He felt a flash of hope. That was a good compromise. He would send Emily a letter now, explaining about the Royal College. Then when he was in his mother’s good books, he could get back in touch. Hopefully, she wouldn’t meet anyone else in the meantime. She was at a girls’ school, so she probably wouldn’t get much access to other boys.
He picked up the pen and started to write. His mother patted him on the shoulder approvingly and went off to make his breakfast. So he wrote as nice a letter as he could manage.
Maureen picked it up and read it. She nodded, folded the sheet up and put it in a brown envelope.
‘
Pop her address on. I’m going to get dressed.’
She swept out of the room. For a moment, Jonathan was tempted to take the letter out and write something else, then seal the flap down, hoping to fool his mother. But he couldn’t. He scrawled out Emily’s address. He wavered halfway through, thinking about how she would feel when she got the letter, then looked at the piece he’d been practising propped up on the piano.
He sealed the envelope, tossed it on the breakfast table and strode over to the piano. He banged out Prokofiev’s War Sonatas, bashing at the keys, letting his frustration vent itself through the notes as they got choppier and angrier, hoping that his mother understood the message he was sending her up through the floorboards.
She came back downstairs, dressed in a maroon jumper and flared grey skirt, her feet tucked into brown lace-ups. She stood in the doorway listening for a moment, nodding in approval. Then walked across the room and picked up the envelope.
‘I’m just popping out to the post office. Tea and a custard cream when we get back? Then I’ll give you a lift to your lesson if you like.’
His fingers crashed down on the keys as she closed the door behind her. He hated custard creams. How could she not know that? She had just made him turn his back on the best thing that had happened to him, but she couldn’t remember his favourite biscuit?
He forgave her, though, when she came back from the post office with a packet of chocolate Hobnobs.
‘To cheer you up,’ she said, slicing through the packet with a sharp knife. ‘I know it’s horrid, but it will be worth it.’
Two months later, the day of the audition boasted a cheerful blue sky as he navigated his way from the Tube along the Kensington pavements to the Royal College and ran up the wide stone steps at the front. He had done a trial run of the journey the week before to get his bearings. He wasn’t going to let anything scupper his chances.
Inside, a white marble staircase with a black decorative edge led upwards to his fate. He had the manuscript bag his father had given him for his thirteenth birthday. Inside were his audition pieces: Beethoven’s Appassionata, Chopin’s Scherzo number 3 and Liszt’s Gnomenreigen. They were all technically challenging, but not impossible, and he had perfected them at a speed he felt comfortable with. He felt as confident of his ability as he could.
He had refused to let his mother accompany him. It was the first time he had really stood up to her.
‘You’ll make me nervous. You’ll put me off,’ he told her, and she didn’t argue. She had been more gentle with him of late. He wondered if she felt guilty about Emily. He felt a rush of warmth at the thought of her. He would send her a postcard when he knew he’d got in.
When his turn came, he sat in front of the piano and settled his music on the holder. The panel had welcomed him, politely and warmly. He’d had a chance to warm up in a separate room. This was it, he thought. The moment he had been working towards for the past four years since his father had died. It was almost a memorial to him. He thought he could hear his dad’s voice encouraging him and he smiled. He was ready. He lifted his hands and looked at the notes in front of him.
And he froze. He shut his eyes and clenched his fists for a moment. Of course he was nervous. That was allowed.
‘Take your time.’ A voice floated towards him.
He wiped his hands on the trousers his mother had bought him for the audition. Slightly shiny black polyester. And a short-sleeved white shirt to go with it. She had put one of his father’s ties on for him this morning. Tied it in a knot that was choking him now. He put his hand up to loosen it but it was getting tighter. He took in a breath but there wasn’t any. He had no breath.
All he could see in his mind’s eye was Emily opening the letter his mother had forced him to write, and her dear little face crumpling, and a single tear rolling down her cheek.
He couldn’t do it. He didn’t want to do it. This wasn’t what he wanted at all. He had thought it was, but that was only because he’d been given no other choice.
He wanted to go out into the world and discover other things. Escape from the bars of music that had been his prison. He didn’t want years of pressure and practice and pianissimo.
He stood up and picked up his sheet music.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and walked out of the room.
He didn’t touch the piano at home again. It sat there, shunned, its lid firmly shut over the keys, gathering dust. The sight of it made him anxious.
‘You must get back on the horse,’ his mother said. ‘All that money, all those lessons, gone to waste.’ She had been beside herself when he’d turned up back at the house and told her he’d walked out. ‘It’s just stage fright. It’s all in the mind.’
He ignored her, shutting down completely and withdrew into himself. It was all he could do to get to school. His teachers expressed concern and suggested he be taken to the doctor, who said he was burned out and had been pushed too far.
‘When did you last have a day off? From practising?’
‘I can’t remember,’ said Jonathan, who honestly couldn’t.
‘He hasn’t touched the piano since the audition!’ his mother protested, and the doctor raised an eyebrow, possibly the first person to recognise the pressure Jonathan had been put under.
He was diagnosed with nervous exhaustion. His mother was limp with remorse and regret, realising that she had pushed him too far. She had lost sight of what was normal in the throes of grief. She didn’t want to lose her son too.
She booked them a holiday, to Normandy, and they both looked out at the grey, flat sea, poking cold frites into the buttery winey juice at the bottom of their moules.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I just wanted …’
‘I know,’ he replied, because there was no point in making her feel guilty, because they both knew that if his father hadn’t died everything would have turned out differently, and maybe he would be going to the Royal College and maybe he wouldn’t, but they wouldn’t have spent the past four years trying to focus on something to help them forget their pain.
It was five years before Jonathan found the courage to reach out to Emily.
In the end, he studied history at Bristol University. He never admitted to himself that he chose it because it was a long way from York, but that was certainly an advantage. And he loved it, grew in confidence and became more worldly wise and won pub quizzes and kissed girls and drank horrible warm beer. And decided, afterwards, that he would stay in Bristol, because he loved the warmth of the West Country accent and the maritime history and the suspension bridge. It suited him. It felt like an easier world. A world he could wear more lightly. He decided to train as a teacher. It was not as dull as it sounded, and he began work as a junior master in a large private school, teaching history and helping with the several orchestras.
And one day he walked past a pub in the centre of the city, a dodgy biker pub in a cobbled back street he never quite dared go into. Led Zeppelin and Golden Virginia trailed out of the door followed by a waft of stale bitter. The music stopped him in his tracks. He was whirled back in time to his room at the summer school, her lying in his arms.
‘Where are you?’ he thought.
The music gave him the courage. The pounding bass was a counterpoint to his heart as he hurried up the road back to his flat. Before he could stop himself he sat and wrote a letter. He could write nothing but the absolute truth.
Dear Em,
I walked past a pub today, and ‘Kashmir’ was playing. And I realised that you were right all along. It is the best track, by a mile. And I miss you. I live in Bristol. I can give you a guided tour. You haven’t lived until you’ve had a half of scrumpy in the sunshine.
Jonathan
It said everything and nothing. It would either do the trick or not. He had nothing to lose, because he’d already lost everything – his dad, his music, h
er … He remembered her address, of course, because you could hardly forget a two-line address when you could remember the whole of Beethoven’s Appassionata – even if you had chosen not to play it at the most crucial moment in your life.
And off it went, with a commemorative first-class stamp depicting The Kiss by Rodin, which seemed perfectly appropriate, although he didn’t care as long as it got there.
It was a week before he got a reply.
I’m not sure what to say, Jonathan. I miss you too. But you cut me off. I understand music school was important to you but that really hurt. You don’t know what I went through afterwards. The most painful thing in my life. Em
He could imagine her face as she was writing. The little frown of concentration. The intensity. The careful choice of words. He had expected her to be guarded after what he had done, but there was a weariness to her tone he hadn’t expected. She couldn’t be with someone else, though. If she was with someone else, surely she wouldn’t have answered? He wasn’t going to give up.
There was no point in holding back. This was his only chance. He had to spell it out to her, on paper. Make it clear it had been a mistake, how sorry he was, how much he wanted to see her again. Now he had seen her writing, her thoughts on a page, his memory of her was even more vivid. The way she stared at him before they kissed. Her hair spread out on his pillow. Her soft voice in his ear.
I don’t blame you for being angry. I was an idiot. And I didn’t get in to the Royal College. I walked out of the audition. So it was all for nothing and I still haven’t forgiven myself. And I’m sorry for causing you so much pain. Please forgive me and give us a chance to try again, if only as friends. Because I haven’t met anyone like you since. And I think of you every day. Every day, Em. I can see your face as if it was yesterday. I need you.
Was it too needy? He didn’t care. He did need her.
Her letter came back. Brief. To the point.
I’m not angry with you. You were not the cause of my pain. OK. Let’s meet. But be gentle with me, Jonathan. I am not the girl I was.
A Wedding at the Beach Hut: The escapist and feel-good read of 2020 from the bestselling author of THE BEACH HUT Page 23
