The Song of Hartgrove Hall (34 page)

When I reached the end of the second movement, I hesitated. I wanted to introduce another theme. As I sat in the dusk, watching the pale underbellies of the poplars' canopies shiver and shake in the wind, I found myself thinking of Edie. She adored those trees, calling them the winter trees; even in summer their silver leaves appeared to be perpetually frosted.

I closed my eyes and, for the first time in many months, I allowed myself to remember her singing. I listened to her sing a Yiddish refrain, a lilting, rhythmic tune of swaying bodies and sliding notes. I pulled out a sheet of manuscript paper and started to sketch the melody, varying it here and there, writing the song for Robin's piano instead of Edie's voice. I knew both instruments so well. They could share this symphony, grandmother and grandson. I'd call it Piano Symphony in G:
Edie and Robin
.

In a year or two, he wouldn't remember her. He'd been so young when she died, but through this music he would discover her. I'd write a breadcrumb trail for him to seek out his grandmother, a song path leading through the hills and barrows of Hartgrove and then eastwards towards the cold, the Russia of long ago. He'd find her there, singing in the snow.

T
he whole nation is eager for music and we spend the year touring, performing to packed houses. At least Marcus is allowing me to conduct. I take several rehearsals and even the odd performance at the lesser venues. He's so exhausted by the regimen that he puts up only a token resistance. Wherever we go it's the same: queues of shining, eager faces. Everyone's caught coronation fever. The entire country has been put through the wash one too many times and is a dreary shade of grey; the exchequer is flat broke, but at last we have something to celebrate. A new Elizabethan age is coming and we're overcome with fervour for Elgar.

The programme varies very little from city to county town: Vaughan Williams, Handel, Elgar, Elgar, Elgar and ‘Jerusalem'. There's something very English about the fact that our national hymn isn't called ‘London' or ‘Hastings' or ‘Cambridge' but ‘Jerusalem'.

Edie is once again at the apex of national sentiment. If Queen Elizabeth is the face of a nation, then Edie Rose is its singing voice. In something of a coup, Edie is touring with us. All the orchestras want her, but inexplicably – to the outside world anyway – she's chosen the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. It's delightful and excruciating to be in such extended proximity to her. After two years of snatched moments in grubby digs and the occasional provincial hotel, here she is with me. But as always, there's Jack. And Sal.

The guilt is monstrous. Each time we tell one another it is for the last time. We shan't meet again. But we do. Sometimes I wonder whether Sal suspects the affair, but in reality I know she doesn't. I'm fooling myself. If I can tell myself that she
knows and hasn't left me, then I can pretend that I have her tacit consent. I know Edie's remorse is as agonising as mine. We both try to buy it off. Edie is making money again, lots of it, and I know without needing to be told that it is all being poured into Hartgrove Hall. My royalties, although less handsome than Edie's fees, are split between my twin shames: Jack and Sal. I send money home and I've bought Sal everything I can. Everything except that which I know she really wants: a wedding ring. It would be the final hypocrisy and I simply can't do it, even when I hear her weeping at night when she thinks I'm asleep. It's a dreadful thing I'm doing. I must stop. I must. I shall.

I don't. I watch as Edie wearily pulls on her stockings. We're in her hotel room. Bristol, I think. It takes me a moment to remember – there have been so many hotels, so many cities. I've told Sal that I'm running errands for Marcus. I'm exhausted with the lies.

‘We have to end this,' I say.

‘Don't,' snaps Edie. ‘We lie about everything else. Let's not lie to each other about this. We're never going to stop. I can't imagine not seeing you, not sleeping with you. Can you?'

I shake my head. I never knew that love was so terrible.

‘Then let's stop pretending. We simply have to live with knowing the kind of people we really are. People who can do this to people they proclaim to love.'

I know that Edie still loves Jack. I don't know what kind of love it is and how it differs from her love for me. I don't ask. She doesn't ask about Sal. It's harder for Edie, I suppose, since she has to see Sal. Eat luncheon with her and see her in the theatre and chat about pleasantries, all the time knowing. At least I don't have to face Jack. It's much easier to betray him in the abstract. Every now and again, I have unconscionable fantasies, where he's killed in a car crash or in some desperate, tragic accident, and I can weep and mourn for him and recite
a heartfelt eulogy, and then, quietly, respectably, marry Edie and everyone will admire our fortitude, and he will never discover our betrayal.

But even that still leaves Sal. I'm terribly fond of Sal. It's a quieter affection born of familiarity and habit. I like her. I'm grateful to her and I don't wish to hurt her and that cowardice propels me further into moral stagnation.

I anticipate my liaisons with Edie as much for the moments after making love as for the act itself. Ordinarily she remains so guarded, but during those minutes or hours as we lie together in damp sheets, staring at the tattered hotel wallpaper in Brighton or Didsbury or Stratford, I find that she will grant me scraps of herself. Perhaps it is simply that she finds talking easier than contemplating the rottenness of what we're doing.

I run a finger along the hollow curve of her back. She shivers and reaches for her slip.

‘We'd better not. You should go.'

‘In a minute. Don't get dressed yet, darling.'

She nestles her face into the pillow and allows me to trace the fine down at the base of her spine. She shivers again, but not from desire.

‘Are you worrying about the concert tonight? You'll be splendid,' I say, lying down beside her, trying to make her face me.

She gives a wan smile, but she looks drawn.

‘I can't help it. I think I might be sick.'

She clambers out of bed and vomits in the wastepaper basket.

‘It never gets any better.'

‘Are you sure it's jitters? You're not pregnant, are you?'

She shakes her head, momentarily stricken. ‘No. It hasn't happened after all these years with Jack. Or with you. I think I must be barren. Never mind. It's probably for the best.'

With that, she's sick again. I gaze at her, dizzy with love, and think: so this is how our affair has progressed – from making love to watching her stark naked and vomiting into a wastepaper bin.

‘Can I get you something? Water? A dry biscuit?'

She shakes her head. ‘No. I'll be all right after the performance. Talk to me. Distract me. It's the only thing that helps.'

‘Has it always been like this?'

‘Talking about stage fright isn't really a distraction, Harry.'

‘Tell me anyway. I want to know.'

She sighs, resigned. ‘You know that my parents were poor?'

‘I know.'

‘There was nothing picturesque about it. We lived in a grubby and nasty little flat near Brick Lane. There's this idea amongst the English that one doesn't talk about money. That's true only if one has it. When one doesn't have money, that's simply all one talks about. How we don't have enough. Where we can get some. What we'd do if we had it. My mother worked in a kosher bakery but it didn't pay much. My father, well, he dabbled in schemes. I remember one summer he made soap until the flat reeked foully of animal fat and violets, and the walls and floors were constantly sloppy with grease. Eventually my mother put a stop to it. Other times, he cycled around the suburbs with a trailer, buying up tat for a penny, tarting it up somewhat ineffectually and trying to sell it on for twopence. Anyway, it was never enough. We were always fretting about rent and worrying about the coal bill and trying to find out which stores might give us credit.'

I don't want to interrupt her, fearful that she'll stop, so I say nothing while she reaches for her robe, knotting it loosely around her waist. She fumbles in her bag for a packet of gum, which she has taken to chewing in an attempt to give up cigarettes. She settles back on the bed, picking at the chipped crimson nail polish on her toes.

‘My parents went out during the day and I stayed at home with my grandmother,' she says. ‘I adored her. You would have loved her, Fox. She sang and cooked and told me terrifying stories about life in Russia that utterly thrilled me. I dreamed of beetroot and Cossacks. The two always seemed to go together in my mind. I used to sing with her all the old tunes she could remember. One afternoon my father came home early – I must have been nearly six – and found us singing together while doing the laundry. He started to cry—'

‘He must have been terribly moved by your voice, darling.'

‘No. Not really. He proceeded to shout at my grandmother, swearing and berating her furiously in Yiddish and Russian.'

‘Why?'

‘He was outraged that she hadn't told him that I could sing. Here had been his meal ticket all along, sitting idly at home in pigtails, when I could have been out earning. He took me with him that first evening. We traipsed round all the pubs. I'd perch on the bar and sing. We didn't do too badly but my father was cross, feeling we ought to have done better. The thing was, people were charmed by my youth and littleness, but they didn't care much for the songs themselves. Yiddish was too foreign and I seemed too much like a gypsy child. Those songs were all I knew, so my father invested in some sheets of popular songs. He shoved them at me and told me to learn them. Of course, I couldn't read music and didn't know what to do with them. He was furious when he found out.'

‘Did he hurt you, darling?'

She shrugs. ‘Oh, not too much. I'm sure you were given the strap when you misbehaved.'

‘Well, the General never believed in sparing the rod.'

‘No, I can't imagine he did. Neither did my father.'

‘How did you learn to read music? Did he teach you?'

‘No, he couldn't read music either. A neighbour taught me. He had been a violinist. I learned quickly; fear is an efficient sharpener of wits.

‘Anyway, we did better after that. But I hated it. If I did well, then my father was happy and bought me an iced bun or a pretzel on the way home. If we didn't, he sulked or raged. I became more and more anxious about performing, dreading every night. It's better now but it never quite goes away.'

I hold her tightly to me but she wriggles away. ‘I'm fine. Really I am. You asked, so I told you.'

‘I'd like to meet your father, tell him what I think of him.'

‘Well, you can't,' she says. ‘He's dead.'

‘Oh,' I say, taken aback. ‘I'm sorry.'

‘Are you? I thought you wanted to give him a piece of your mind.'

‘Yes, but—' I'm flummoxed and she laughs, kissing my cheek.

‘I'm teasing you, darling. I'm not sad about it. He wasn't all bad but he wasn't a happy man.'

‘And your mother?'

‘Still in Brick Lane. I see her occasionally. We're not close.'

She starts to dress, then sits back on the bed in her slip, one leg dangling over the edge. She chews on her finger and then glances at me. When she speaks again, her voice is shrill and pleading.

‘Do you see now, Fox? Do you see how it was for me when Jack loved me? A man like that?'

She doesn't elucidate on what she means by ‘a man like that' but I understand precisely. Growing up with Jack, I felt rather like one of the shoddy copies of the old master paintings in the great hall, displayed unflatteringly beside the original.

‘I'm sure your mother is extremely proud of you,' I say, wanting to change the subject. I can't bear talking about Jack. Especially when Edie has just risen from my bed.

‘She is. Although she wishes I hadn't changed my name.'

I stare at her, bewildered.

‘What do you mean?'

She laughs. ‘Edie Rose is my stage name, darling. Surely you knew that?'

‘No, stupidly, I'd never thought about it. What was your real name then?'

‘My surname is Rozanov. I couldn't possibly have got along as I have with a name like that. Much too Jewish. And foreign. Simply wouldn't do. If you're going to sing for the troops, they want to know that your soul is red, white and blue all the way back to bloody King Alfred.'

‘Rozanov?' I say, trying it out like a strange new dish.

‘Yes, Rozanov.'

I stare at her. In that moment I feel as if I don't know her at all. To my dismay, it has never occurred to me that before she married Jack her name was anything other than ‘Rose'. Rose is the quintessential English surname; a delightful accident, I've always thought. Edie was clearly destined to become the forces' favourite singer, their sweet English Rose. I understand now that it has not been an accident at all, but a careful arrangement.

‘And “Edie”?' I ask her, my mouth dry. ‘You haven't always been Edie?'

She shakes her head.

‘No. My real name is Iskra.'

‘Iskra?'

She nods and smiles. ‘Iskra Rozanov. A pleasure to meet you.'

She stretches out her hand to shake mine as though it's a game, and I take it, playing along, but it's not funny in the least. My lover is a stranger to me.