The Song of Hartgrove Hall (35 page)

The concert goes off well. Despite her fears, Edie's marvellous. I wonder whether Jack knows about Iskra Rozanov. I suppose he must. It's her maiden name after all. Thinking about Jack causes my guilt to break out, itching like a rash that has flared up in the heat. I find it hard to concentrate on anything else.

Marcus offers to let me conduct Edie's popular wartime songs, knowing perfectly well that I will decline. My love for Edie has not extended to her hits. Instead, I'm given Delius's
On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring
. It's the music of hope and fresh green shoots but all I can think is that the cuckoo is the lying bird, pretending to be something it is not.

Afterwards, Marcus slaps me roundly on the shoulders. ‘Jolly good show, old thing. Didn't think you had it in you. You found something in there that I'd not heard before. Clever you.'

I should be proud, but I'm not.

Marcus carouses with the string section in the bar. I slip over and join them. Drinking with Marcus and some rowdy violins seems like a good method of forgetting. Marcus has a copy of the vocal score of
Messiah
and is calling out the orchestration from memory, conducting a ghost orchestra with a fury. He hums the tune loudly and wields a paper straw as a baton.

‘Brass!' he yells. ‘Violas!'

Each time that he brings in a section correctly, the string players take a drink.

‘Oboe solo!'

‘No!' shouts one of the viola players, pointing at the score. ‘You're a bar early. Drink! Drink!'

Gamely, after confirming his mistake, Marcus drains his glass.

I wonder how Handel would feel – his masterpiece as the basis of a drinking game. I feel a hand on my back and, turning, see Sal beside me.

‘May I tempt you away?'

‘Of course, darling.'

I order her a ‘gin and it', and we begin one of our usual discussions about when we will go to America and see her family. The unspoken agreement is that we must be married before we depart.

‘I don't see how it can possibly be before next summer,' I say. ‘Our touring commitments are absurd. We're booked up for months and months.'

‘We could take a leave of absence. I'm sure Marcus would hire you back afterwards if that's really what you want.'

I know she's right and I'm searching for a reason why it can't possibly work when I hear Edie calling my name. She rarely speaks to me in front of Sal. We keep a friendly distance. Not too cold – that would be strange – but reserved.

‘Fox,' she calls again.

I turn around and see her arm in arm with Jack.

—

We're sitting in the bar with a bottle of champagne between the four of us. Jack's arm is around Edie and mine is draped around Sal. I wish I were drunk. I feel sick. To my surprise, I'm also overwhelmingly glad to see Jack. I have missed him hugely. His feelings are simpler. After an initial hesitation, he embraces me.

‘Good God, Fox. It's bloody good to see you. Do come home. Even just for a visit. It simply isn't the same without you.'

‘I'm sorry. So terribly sorry. I wish that—'

My apology is heartfelt, but it is for something other than leaving in a hurry and a lack of letters, and I want the relief of saying it aloud. Edie is staring at me, pale and wary, but he's already forgiven me or believes he has, and cuts me off before I've hardly started.

‘Never think of it, old chap. Things are different for you now, I can see,' he says, smiling warmly at Sal. ‘It's splendid to see you again. You're looking perfectly charming, Sal. When are you two young things getting married? You must do it at Hartgrove church. Edie and I didn't, just sloped off to a damned registry office, and I've always regretted it. I simply won't allow you to make the same mistake. We can have a nice party at the Hall afterwards.'

While Jack gets carried away with the jollity of his plans, Sal's face is suffused with pleasure and she squeezes my hand. I feel perfectly vile.

We return home the following week. The roof has collapsed on the Winter Gardens concert hall and while Marcus disappears back to Bournemouth to survey the damage, the four of us retreat to Hartgrove. Jack drives, Edie in the front beside him, his hand resting on her knee. I'm tense with dread. I also want to remove his hand and clout him one, hard, but I keep reminding myself, it's he who has the right. He's the cuckold.

The closer we get, the more despicable I feel. I can hardly bear it and there's a queer pain in my stomach. I can see Edie's face in the mirror. Behind the enormous Bette Davis sunglasses she's pale and a tiny muscle at the corner of her eye is starting to tick. Sal and Jack are oblivious. In their happiness they chatter on and on, hardly seeming to pause for breath. I'm irritated and relieved in equal measure.

We stop for lunch at a little pub in Somerset, and as we carry glasses of shandy back to the girls, Jack places his hand on my arm, reassuring me.

‘Don't worry, old chap. I know you feel pretty grotty about the whole thing. It will be all right. You know George
can't hold a grudge for long. The General's already quite forgiven you. He thinks your running off was quite our fault.'

His kindness, if it's possible, makes me feel even worse. I can't look at Edie through lunch. She barely eats, only smokes, sitting as far as she can from me, her face turned away. It's a perfect June day, the sky a painter's rich blue, the sun blisteringly hot. Dog roses speckle the hedgerows, while the verges foam with cow parsley, flecked with the bright pink of ragged robin and red campion. High scribbles of birds mark the sky, while a woodpecker rattles on an elm for his lunch, his scarlet plume like a party hat. It's idyllic and beautiful, and Sal is smiling with delight, and I feel an utter cad.

Yet as Jack turns along the drive to Hartgrove, even my melancholy lifts. There, at last, is the hill, spotted with sheep, and then the Hall itself, elegant and serene, nestled beneath the ridge. I remember that other homecoming at the end of the war, which seems now so simple and unsullied. I don't think the house has ever looked more charming than it does today. Wisteria clothes the façade, its leaves softening the stonework, while around the windows white roses unfurl, blowzy and heavy, half obscuring the panes. Peonies droop in the borders like drunken girls in upside-down taffeta dresses. Daisies and yellow buttercups spread thickly across the unkempt lawn, climbing here and there into the flower beds with spurts of yellow. Battalions of foxgloves stand to attention on the fringe of the garden, where, in a deckchair, the General is asleep.

‘Hello, Father,' I say, walking over.

He starts and then rises, looking pleased and cross at once. He detests being discovered asleep at his post, which he sees as a weakness, implying age and infirmity. I observe that the General, like the house, has gone to seed. There are sagging
pouches beneath his eyes, which, although blue as ever, are bloodshot.

‘Yes. Good. About time,' he says, which is as close as he can manage to saying that he too is bloody glad to see me.

—

Chivers serves us all drinks on the lawn. He looks so frail that I wonder he can carry the tray. We stand and wait as he edges towards us, glasses rattling horribly, convention forbidding us from helping – he'd view any attempt as a dreadful insult. He greets me with excruciating politeness, indicating that he at least has not forgiven my absence. The gin is warm and there isn't any ice. Our chit-chat is awkward and subdued. I try not to catch Edie's eye. She looks perfectly miserable.

After an age, George appears. He's in his overalls, and my first thought is that he's vast. He can't have grown taller but his shoulders and chest are broad and strong, his arms ridged with muscle. When he shakes my hand, his fingers feel as rough as dried grass. I find that I'm nervous around him; we're as polite as strangers at a cocktail party.

We all move to the loggia, half of which has further collapsed so that we huddle at one end, as though on the lone, dry stretch of deck on a sinking ship, carefully ignoring the inevitable. When I slip into the house, desperate to escape for a minute or two, the symptoms of decay are worse. Pieces of plaster have fallen from the ceiling, exposing the horsehair beneath, so that when I look up, the flaking ceilings seem to be suffering from some grotesque skin disease. On the outside, the true state of the Hall has been masked by the cacophony of summer flowers, its dilapidation transmuted into picturesque dishevelment, but once on the inside, I see that it is teetering on the verge of ruin. I can't imagine how they manage with any comfort during the winter. Then,
ruefully, I consider that Edie's eagerness to come on tour might have been less to do with my charms than those of hot water and a warm bed.

In the evening Jack and I walk through the orchards. Tiny green apples are forming on the trees, and as I peer closer I notice something lodged in the hollow of a trunk. Reaching up, I retrieve a piece of toast. How on earth did it get there? Glancing around the other trees, I spot that each one has a piece of burned toast in the same place.

‘George,' says Jack. ‘George does it.'

‘Whatever for?'

‘He read it in some old farming almanac. Apparently in the Middle Ages they put toast in the trees to scare away fairies. And I've not seen any, so I suppose that makes it a triumph.'

Beneath the easy smile, Jack looks troubled. I've been too preoccupied with my own discomfort to notice his.

‘The house isn't in tip-top condition,' I say at last.

‘It's ghastly. If it weren't for Edie we'd have gone under ages ago. And you of course,' he adds politely. ‘I'm afraid after you left things went from pretty bad to absolutely rotten.'

‘I'm not sure that they would have been any better if I'd stayed. I wasn't much help.'

‘That's true.' He grins, and he's the old Jack once more. ‘At least the General's stopped threatening to blow the place up. I expect he thinks that if he just waits a bit, it will simply fall down and he can save the expense of demolition. In any case, we can't go on as we are. Even with the money from you and Edie, it's not enough.'

We've reached the edge of the orchard where the grass grows thickly, a deep glossy green as it slopes down to the
lake. On its smooth surface a swan drifts, its neck a white question mark. I sit on the edge of the bank. Jack settles beside me, picking at a blade of grass.

‘George is determined not to use anything modern. None of the chemical fertilisers that would make things so much damned easier. If it were up to him, we'd be using bloody horses instead of a tractor. He just says that he wants to listen to the land and do what it's telling him. But it's sure as hell not saying anything to me.' He's nearly shouting and looks close to tears. ‘You have to talk to him, Fox. George is going to ruin us all. That means something to me, even if it doesn't to you.'

‘Of course it bloody does,' I say, cross.

‘Then you'll make him see sense,' says Jack, lying back and closing his eyes, his face serene now that he's safely passed the buck.