The Song of Hartgrove Hall (38 page)

‘That was very rude of him.'

It was also true. Clara did have stupid ears. It wasn't her fault but there it was.

She bent down to pick up the fragments of china.

‘He's supposed to love me most. He's supposed to want to share things with me. I'm his mother. It's lovely that the two of you are so close. But sometimes it's hard not to be a little jealous.'

She stood up and stared out across the lawns at the sky, fading from red to black, her expression unconscionably sad.

Marcus died in the spring. He sloped off to a hospice to die, surrounded by strangers. He refused to see me. We spoke regularly on the telephone but he did not relent: he would not allow me to visit.

‘No, dear boy, I want you to remember me as I was. Strikingly handsome and debonair.'

I admired him immensely: eighty-three, dying and vain till the end. During our telephone calls we discussed music. Marcus liked to play games, asking me to choose between two pieces: ‘Which should I die listening to if it's a choice between Prokofiev's
War and Peace
or Shostakovich's Fourth? Quick, quick. First answer.'

Invariably, I selected the wrong one.

‘Really? That. Well. Goodness. I thought you were a man of taste. It's a good thing that this friendship is shortly coming to an end.'

I was not permitted to ask whether he was in pain. ‘Dying's not much fun, Fox. Take my advice and don't ever try it yourself.'

We spent a good deal of time planning his funeral. Marcus was terribly concerned about both the turnout and the programme.

‘John Godbolt had better come and he'd better look bloody sad about it, even if the New York Phil have just offered him my old position. I think I'll have the Bach fugue before the first prayer. And at least one of the Beethoven sonatas. They're about death but not too depressing, which is important for a funeral. I'm not sure who should conduct – someone competent, or the audience won't be able to lose themselves in the music and remember me as fondly as they ought. But he mustn't be
too
good, as I want the audience to be reminded of my superior talent. Hello, now that's a thought. Will you do it, Fox?'

‘With such an invitation, how could I refuse? And, technically, they're not an audience, Marcus. They're mourners.'

‘Oh yes, so they are. Jolly good.'

After that we spent a good deal of time considering the selection.

‘I think a little Rachmaninov or would that be too sentimental?' he wondered.

‘One's allowed a little sentiment at a funeral, Marcus. We will all be very sad.'

‘Of course you will. I can hardly bear thinking about it. Now, will Albert play the piano or will he be too overwhelmed by grief?'

‘He'll be terribly upset, but he'll manage – through the tears of course – since it's what you really want.' I could tell by the ensuing silence that he was satisfied.

‘And I do want a little Mozart.
Don Giovanni
, I think. Perhaps Don Pedro's statue coming out of the tomb to cart Giovanni off to the underworld. Playful or too macabre?'

‘It simply isn't you. You should have Don Giovanni's list of lovers.'

‘Of course! Perhaps we could alter the libretto . . . pop in one or two of my
liaisons amoureuses
.'

‘Certainly not. Some secrets must be kept.'

I heard Marcus smiling in the pause.

I said nothing and, after a moment or two, Marcus started adding another half-dozen pieces to his programme until at last I cried out, ‘This is ridiculous. Your funeral's going to require a full symphony orchestra, a choir, two tenors, a pianist and an intermission. It isn't a funeral, it's a concert.'

‘What a splendid idea! A memorial concert.'

I hoped that planning the concert distracted him from the nastiness of those last days. We bickered agreeably over the programme and he insisted on dispensing endless notes as to how he wanted the pieces performed, until I'd had quite enough. I was steeling myself to tell him that if he wanted me to conduct, then I really must do it in my own way, for better or for worse, only to be informed by the duty nurse when I telephoned that he'd died that afternoon.

‘Just slipped away at ten to three, listening to his CD player,' she said.

‘What piece was it?' I asked, when my voice was steady.

‘I'm really not sure. I could try to find out for you.'

‘Yes please, if you would.'

She called me back after a few minutes.

‘It was Mahler's Fifth.'

‘And the conductor?'

‘Sir Marcus Albright.'

Of course. How could it have been anybody else? I wanted to share with someone my sorrow and amusement over the aptness of Marcus Albright, great maestro and egotist, dying while listening to himself conduct, but the two people who'd find it the most diverting – Edie and Marcus himself – were now both gone.

I hung up the telephone, sat down on my bed and cried.

T
he hall table is set with a hundred vases of flowers. The house smells like a florist's shop. We discovered during last year's festival that it's quite remarkable how many allowances will be made for shabbiness and sporadic hot water when every room is filled with flowers. Edie similarly insists upon splendid food – most of the produce coming from the estate itself – starched sheets aired with lavender and fires lit in every grate on chilly days. George tends the flower seedlings in early spring, mixes a special potting mixture and plants them out in May in the cuttings garden, so that now Edie has enough pink and white sweet peas, striped dahlias the size of dinner plates, scented stocks and roses.

I hear the grind of tyres on the gravel outside.

‘The first lot are here,' I say.

Minutes later, members of the Bournemouth Symphony assemble for lemonade and gin on the front lawn, yawning and stretching and picking clean the plates of sandwiches that have been set out for twice their number – it's always a marvel how much an orchestra can eat. I don't think the biblical plague was one of locusts, merely a symphony orchestra.

It's the first performance of the festival and the première of the heavily revised
Song of Hartgrove Hall.
I'm all a-fidget with excitement. I've rewritten the second movement for a solo piano and to my delight (and Edie's, who's in charge of the box office receipts) Albert Shields has accepted our invitation to perform. The chaps from Decca fiddle with cables and microphones, ready to record the performance for release as an LP. My first recording contract. The advance
and any royalties will inevitably be ploughed back into the estate. It's peculiar how a piece of music imagining the loss and destruction of Hartgrove Hall has ended up helping to save it instead. I suppose that now, rather than a farewell, it's become a portrait. I picture the notes seeping into the soil, rich as dung.

The General and Chivers retreat to the library and close the door against the gaiety of the musicians, put out by all the noise and kerfuffle. The two old men are perfect curmudgeons, profoundly annoyed by the invasion of strangers and conveniently ignoring the fact that those strangers are enabling us to keep possession of the house.

—

Two hundred concert-goers picnic upon the lawns, eating cold salmon and strawberries and drinking champagne. I notice the General and Chivers peeking out from the library, barricaded inside against the evening sunshine and the onslaught of other people's pleasure. I meander amongst the picnickers, nodding greetings but avoiding conversation. I spot Edie in the flower garden, cutting yet more sweet peas, a basket brimming with candy-coloured blooms resting on her hip. She smiles to see me.

‘Hello, darling.'

We have few moments alone during festival season, so those we do share are heavenly. I no longer ask her when or if we can confess to Jack. I suppose that this is to be our lives – a furtive
ménage à trois
.

‘I'm looking forward to tonight. The rehearsal sounded wonderful,' she says.

‘It wasn't bad. Albert's a super pianist but' – I reach for the words, trying to explain – ‘it doesn't sound right. It sounds good. Very good, but somehow it's not quite how I imagined it.'

Edie glances over her shoulder, then draws me into the shadow of the greenhouse and kisses me slowly. She smells of garden flowers and sunshine.

‘I ought to go,' I say at last, reluctantly.

‘Give Marcus my love. Tell him I'll see him after the concert.'

‘I will. And have you met that new chap, John something or other? Wants to come to the festival and conduct next year. Frightfully pushy. Keeps cornering me to talk about Bach.'

Edie laughs and brushes a leaf from my shoulder. ‘I'll keep an eye out for him. Is he any good?'

‘Marcus can't stand him, which is always a good sign.'

We edge towards the lawns and see Jack move easily amongst the guests, as handsome as a film star. Even the young girls watch him, eyes wide. He's the perfect host – friendly but dusting glamour upon the evening.

‘Righto. I'm going. I need to talk to Albert,' I say.

‘Good luck,' says Edie.

The concert has started – Brahms – conducted by Marcus. We still need the draw of his name to pull in the crowds. I'm not on until after the interval. I see George walking through the orchard, tending to the beehives. He wears only the lightest of masks and long gloves, insisting the bees know him too well to sting. As he moves amongst the hives he croons in a pleasant baritone. The tunes are familiar folk songs, ones I've heard all across the country. I sit on the gate and watch him. He reaches into one hive, and I'm concerned that he'll be stung, but I stay silent and watch. He sings a song that I've not come across during my travels and yet it is familiar to me, one I so nearly remember, that I feel he's singing back to me a piece of myself. The bees drift about him, as though drugged by the music, allowing him to retrieve a piece of honeycomb and place it in a bowl. He spots me and stops singing.

‘Do carry on, George,' I say. ‘Sing me the chorus.'

‘I don't remember any more,' he says, and for some reason I think he's fibbing.

I worry about George. He remains on the edge of things, uncomfortable amongst so many people. Out of obligation he attended last year's concerts but, seeing how ill at ease it made him, we quietly suggested that he was much too busy with the farm and the bees to be distracted with such trifles and he retreated, relieved.

‘Sit there and keep quiet and still or you'll upset the bees,' he says.

I do as he says and listen while he sings again. This time he chooses a German Lied from Brahms and the bees grow sleepy once again, as though his voice is smoke. I'm intrigued. He reaches into the hive and pulls out another slab of dripping honeycomb, never ceasing his song.

‘I know that one,' I say.

‘Didn't I tell you to be quiet?' he says.

‘I thought you'd finished thieving.'

‘Yes, well. I suppose I have.'

He busies himself around the hive. ‘The profusion of flowers have made the honey particularly good this year. The bees are blissful.'

‘How can you tell?'

‘They're producing lots of honey and I can hear it in the sound of their hum. It has a purr to it. Like a cat.'

It takes me a moment to realise that he's teasing – he does it so rarely – then he throws back his head and roars with laughter.

‘Gosh, we always could get you to believe anything, Little Fox.'

I smile. I've not been called that for a long time, but, next to the great mountain that is now George, I suppose I am Little Fox.

‘I do know where I've heard that last song,' I say, sliding down from the gate. ‘It's one of the Lieder from the Brahms suite that Marcus has been conducting. I didn't know you'd been going to the rehearsals.'

George flushes. An ungainly red like sunburn splashes across his neck.

‘I didn't. I haven't.'

I'm embarrassing him, but I'm his brother and I want to know. ‘Then where did you hear it?'

‘Marcus taught it to me,' he snaps.

I stare at him. ‘Oh, I didn't know you were friends.'

‘Well, we are,' he says.

George watches me steadily, his colour subsiding. I'm aware of the bees starting to hum all around us.

The hum reaches a crescendo and changes key.

‘I think you should go,' he says. ‘The bees are upset.'

—

I find Marcus during the interval. I ought to be looking through the score, but I'm perturbed. He's holding court on the lawn, a glass of champagne in his hand and laughing loudly.

‘I take it that the first half went well,' I say with a smile.

‘Yes, dear boy, I'm afraid you have a great deal to live up to.' He nods to his admirers. ‘If you'll excuse me, ladies, gentlemen. I must offer some words of wisdom to my protégé.'

He slides his arm into mine and leads me away. ‘You see, I intend to accept compliments for your performance too. But if you cock anything up, you're quite on your own.'

He catches sight of my expression. ‘Oh don't be silly, Fox. The piece is marvellous. You're a distinctly average conductor but a fine composer. And a decent-looking fellow, which helps a good deal.'

I'm sweating a little and I'd like to change my shirt before the performance. If I hurry, I'll just have time. I must be more anxious than I'd thought.

‘Are you all right, Fox?'

I look at him carefully. I've never asked Marcus outright if he's queer. I've simply presumed. There are things one doesn't mention. Until now, it's never really been any of my affair.

We reach the walled garden where a chorus of roses in oranges, yellows and reds fills the air with perfume.

‘Perhaps it's none of my concern. But George—?' I say, hoping that's sufficient.

Marcus's face darkens, but only for a moment. Then he leans forward, catching my shoulder, kisses me hard on the mouth and releases me in an instant, before I even have a chance to shove him away. I'm speechless with cold indignation.

‘You were correct before, Fox. It is none of your concern.'

He smiles serenely at me before turning and walking out of the garden, while I stand amongst the roses, outraged and none the wiser. I'd always believed that George had once loved Edie, and it's possible I was mistaken. Yet, I'm sure that he did love her in his own way. I watch Marcus's upright figure disappear around the corner. I suppose one can never really see into another man's heart.

The flowers wither in their vases, spewing pollen and petals across every surface. The compost heap is piled high with them, the smell of summer's decay. A legion of girls from the village come to help with the great clean-up, supervised nominally by Chivers but really by Edie. They're either too young or too old and mostly they're interested only in having a good nose around the house, but still, we need any help we can find. Every bed must be stripped and the sheets sent to the laundry;
the floors must be washed and swept, the grates emptied, the bathrooms scrubbed. Finally there is the melancholy task of shrouding the guest bedrooms and the principal rooms until next year's festival.

I despise this part. It's thoroughly depressing, imbuing the house with that awful, last-day-of-summer-hols feeling one used to dread as a boy, knowing that the following day one would be packed off to school. That was one of the few times when I was glad not to have a mother. Those first days of each term at prep school, watching my pals pine for their mothers, were frightful, and I'd been profoundly relieved not to have to endure such a thing myself. Being separated from Jack and George at the end of each summer had been torment enough.

Edie and I are the only members of the family to assist in the great clean-up. After several weeks playing host, striding through the house and garden in his dinner jacket with a ‘Black Baccara' rose in his buttonhole, Jack has now declared he's indispensable on the farm and, having changed into his overalls, has disappeared. I long to play the same trick – I can hear the rumble of the tractor making silage on the hill – but I feel bad about leaving Edie alone to face the dreary part. Not that I'm much help. I dodge a broom and narrowly miss slipping on a sopping-wet floor. I suspect that someone has merely upturned a bucket rather than washed the blasted thing.

Yet I can't find Edie anywhere. I scour the house from top to bottom, even asking the less sloppy-looking girls whether they've seen her, and I get nothing but shrugs. She's not in the flower garden – the sweet peas are dropping and turning into pods on the willow wigwams now, and the lilies fade, uncut. I can't see her on the lawn and I'm about to give up when I hear the sound of weeping. It's an ugly sound. Uninhibited, animal grief.

I find her crouched in the potting shed, amidst a citadel of broken flowerpots and last year's mouldering compost.