The Novel in the Viola (22 page)

‘And the American visa?’

‘It never comes.’

He stood quite still, unconcerned by the pounding rain and the scream of the wind in the bare trees. I felt impatient, almost ready to stamp my waterlogged shoe. He must know what I wanted.

‘Will you help me? Please.’

He remained silent.

‘Please. I know I’ve behaved dreadfully. But I’ve done my best since then, really I have. And I don’t know what else to do.’

He gave a slight nod to show he was listening. I took a deep breath and continued, meeting his level blue gaze.

‘And if the war starts. And everyone says it must. Even Art and Burt and Mr Wrexham say so. Anna and Julian must be in America or France or here.’

Putting his fingers to his lips, he let out a piercing whistle and, in a flurry of wagging mud, the spaniel reappeared, its pink tongue flopping with happiness.

‘We should return to the house. It’s god-awful weather to be out.’

I stared at him for a moment. Was he going to help? I could not tell.

The whispers of war had built up to a cacophony, as a single leaf blowing in the wind becomes a forest floor spinning in a hurricane. Even Mrs Ellsworth tuned her wireless into the evening news, allowing May and me to sit in her little parlour and listen while we drank our cocoa before bed. I wanted war. I wanted my Austria back, as long as the fighting did not start until Anna and Julian were safely stowed across the sea. I tried to imagine them here in Tyneford: Julian striding across the hills beside Mr Rivers, gun slung over his shoulders, or Anna playing Mendelssohn on the grand piano in the drawing room. The tuning was spoilt from the salt air, but I knew Anna could make it sing. Mrs Ellsworth brought the sinister gas masks out of the basement, anxious despite Mr Rivers’ endless reassurance, and quite certain that war could be declared at any second and German bombs would fall a minute later, gassing the entire household. At night, I had uneasy dreams of Anna playing the piano, her fingers rippling across the keys and her angel voice muffled by her rubber gas mask.

One morning in February, a flock of letters arrived from Margot. The post from America was proving terribly unreliable; there was nothing for weeks and then I would receive a packet of letters all at once. They spilt off Mr Wrexham’s silver tray, and I caught them in my apron before they fluttered to the floor. This was my one afternoon a week off, and I saved the letters until after lunch, stowing them in my pocket to read on the beach. Poppy had promised to take me to Brandy Bay, then all the way past Wagon Rock, and onto the Tilly Whim Caves. At two o’clock she waited for me outside the bungalow, wrapped in oilskins and layers of woollen scarves.

‘Come on. You ready?’ she called, impatient.

I nodded and Poppy took off along the high cliff path, not down to the beach at Worbarrow, but sprinting along the narrow chalk track. It was sopping from the weeks of rain and slippery as ice, and I shrieked, terrified that she would fall down the cliff. The hungry sea smashed against the base of the rocks, foam tufting on the breakers. She laughed and slowed to a jog, so I could catch up. Her hair broke free from its swaddling, and flew around her face in red flames. The dark sea seemed to swallow all the light from the world, so that the sky glowered grey as it hovered over the water. Poppy’s hair was unnaturally bright against the winter seascape. She tried to knot it back into place.

‘I used to hate it,’ she said. ‘I was born with long hair. Not a good head of curls like some babies but long hair all the way down to my shoulders.’

There was a splutter overhead, gaggling and flapping, as a flock of geese, grey-blue with orange bills, skimmed the air above us.

‘Greylag geese. Aren’t they beautiful?’ asked Poppy. ‘Tell Art you saw them, and he’ll get out the shotgun. Roast goose, damson jelly – delicious.’

I stared at the soaring birds, vast and dark as shadows, their pinkish legs drawn up underneath their bellies, neat as the ancient aunts on the sofa, hiding their feet beneath the puff of their skirts. I didn’t want to eat the geese, I wanted to watch them fly. Poppy had raced on, and I ran to find her. My mind echoed with the call and crash of the sea, the wind whipping the swelling waves into an ever-increasing fury. In the distance a small fishing-boat danced and leapt on the water. We ran and walked in fits and bursts for an hour, watching as Brandy Bay appeared below us, the smooth sand lapped by low tide, and then disappeared as we turned the headland. On the horizon stood Lovell’s Tower, a solitary stone folly perched on the cliff top above Kimmeridge Bay.

As we rounded the next bend, the cliff path split, one continuing up and over the headland on towards Kimmeridge, and the other leading to a rocky shelf and several black square caverns. I hurried after Poppy to the flat limestone shelf. The caves loomed dark and ominous, and I stifled a delicious shudder. Poppy disappeared into one and I followed. The cave smelt damp and the walls were coated with green mould the colour of spinach. They were hewn with square strokes, and vast slabs of rock lay strewn across the ground. Poppy selected one for a seat, and I chose another beside her. While Poppy lounged and smoked, I drew out Margot’s packet, choosing her most recent letter to read first.

Have you heard from the parents? I get almost no letters from them anymore. But, I have discovered from Hildegard the problem with the visa – Julian and Anna cannot afford the exit tax. There is a bribe to pay, exactly how large I don’t know, but they have run out of money. They cannot get a proper price for anything they sell. Robert has been trying to find a way to send them money from America but it is almost impossible – everyone comes here from Europe, there is no one going back. Please, Bean, please ask Mr Rivers to find a way to help.

Then, when they are safe with you, I shall persuade Robert that we must come to England. I don’t think it can be so different from America. It is so quiet with the two of us. Who would have thought that I could miss your noise and untidiness (I think of you every time I pick up Robert’s clothes off the floor)? I even miss the stink of Julian’s cigar and Hilde’s huffing when he stained the sideboard with dribbles of burgundy. And Anna . . . how do you bear missing Anna?

I thought California was full of sunshine. Here, it rains all the time. I have umbrellas in every colour – I take my rainbow out into the rain. Robert’s English is getting better. Though, it doesn’t really matter as half the department is from Strasbourg or Vienna or Berlin, and mostly they speak Scientist anyhow.

I have joined a quartet at the University. Women play in public here, in actual concerts in halls with people paying money to hear them. I wonder if I dare? The aunts would never approve. Can you imagine their faces? A great niece who is a professional musician in a proper orchestra! Only harlots perform for money. But do you know, Bean – I think I should rather like to be a harlot. It has always rather suited Anna.

I knew nothing about exit taxes. Julian used to have plenty of money. I remembered the large, flat banknotes in his wallet, but now no one would take his books. I thought of the stash of gold chains, hidden in the stocking in my attic bedroom and felt a ripple of guilt. I resolved to speak once again to Mr Rivers. I kicked at a pebble and it flew against the cave wall, causing a tiny avalanche to rain down.

‘Careful,’ said Poppy. ‘It’s not very safe in here. Bits of roof are always falling in.’

She studied me for a minute, her feet tapping against the rock. ‘I am sorry about your family. I’d help if I could. And I might, you know. I’m off to London. For something secret.’ She glanced over her shoulder as if someone might be eavesdropping and whispered, ‘For the government – in case there is a war.’

‘You are?’

I was torn between curiosity and misery that she was leaving.

‘Yes. I decided not to take up my place at Cambridge. I really don’t see the point for girls – all that work and then not allowed to collect your degree. It’s like being in an egg and spoon race only you aren’t allowed to win or even eat your egg at the end, if you know what I mean.’

‘Yes. I think I do.’

‘And if there is a war, I’m sure they won’t let girls fight. They never do, you know, it’s most unfair. But in this job I shall have to be discreet. I think I shall find that part rather hard. Oh, can you tell me something very secret, and then I can practise?’

Poppy fixed me with those grass green eyes, eager as a cuckoo on the first day of spring. I tried to think both of a secret, and one I wouldn’t mind sharing. My only secret was Kit’s dawn kiss and I didn’t want to share that. It belonged to me alone – telling Poppy would dilute it somehow.

‘Oh well,’ she said with a shrug. ‘Never mind. But if you think of something, be sure to let me know. I shall be gone three or four months.’

‘So long?’ I grimaced and looked away. First Kit, now Poppy. I felt rather sorry for myself.

‘Oh yes. Will is sure to miss me dreadfully,’ she said happily. ‘I feel quite desolate whenever I think about it. Do you think he’ll weep and lose his appetite? I shall have to write him very passionate and very short letters.’

She was quiet for a few minutes and it took me a while to realise that she was staring at me with an intense expression.

‘Elise, what do you know about sexual intercourse?’

I looked at her in surprise, absurdly flattered that she considered me so worldly. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘I thought I might make it with Will. Before I go away.’

‘Oh,’ I said, taken aback. When they thought I wasn’t listening, Anna and Julian made a scurrilous joke about the repressed sexual desires of the British. Consequently, I believed that English people only had sex after they were married, and only then on Thursdays. It is funny to think how innocent we girls were in those days. Of course, we believed ourselves to be mighty sophisticated but really we were terribly naïve, however bohemian our parents.

‘Well,’ I said. ‘My mother explained the . . . correct procedures. And according to Anna most operas revolve around sex. And singing. But really they’re all about sex.’

Poppy frowned. A discussion of the finer opera plots was not really the information she wanted.

‘And I read Julian’s copy of Freud. That’s full of sex,’ I added, determined to be helpful.

I’d sneaked into my father’s study and borrowed several volumes of Freud, anticipating a frisson of intrigue, similar to when I’d glimpsed the semi-clothed ladies with come-hither eyes, who were sold for a pfennig on picture postcards at the grimy stalls beside the Danube. I tingled when I imagined myself as one of those corseted beauties, with someone paying their penny to stare at me. The Freud books, on the other hand, were disappointing.

‘And?’ demanded Poppy. ‘What did Mr Freud say? I really do need to know.’

I frowned with the effort of explaining. ‘It’s all about ids and egos and superegos. I think he puts his id, or is it his ego, into your superego and then you both experience sublimation. It’s very complicated. And there were lots of things about the phallus.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Poppy. ‘I’ve seen those before. On horses and dogs. And once on a bull who was making intercourse with a cow. Well, if what cattle do is called intercourse that is. It looked angrier than that. I certainly didn’t notice any ids or egos with the cows. But then, I wouldn’t know what to look for.’

‘No, me neither.’

‘Well,’ said Poppy, ‘I suppose people got along all right before Freud explained things to them, so maybe we’ll be all right.’

‘Perhaps. But I rather wanted to be better than all right.’

Poppy raised an eyebrow.

‘It’s nice to be good at things,’ I said, blushing and trying not to think about Kit. ‘And I don’t think Will would mind if you’re a beginner. After all, everyone has to start somewhere,’ I added kindly, repeating the phrase Mrs Ellsworth used whenever she taught me something new.

‘I suppose if I sleep with Will, I shall be a floozy,’ said Poppy, not unhappy at the prospect.

‘I don’t think so. Not if you love him. And besides, all the best heroines are floozies sooner or later. Eve. Floozy. Anna Karenina. Tragic Floozy.’

‘Would you be one with Kit?’

I knew I ought to say no, I should not dream of it. Anna was rather less bohemian in moral matters affecting her daughters, forbidding Margot to go on holiday with Robert before they were married. I thought of my mother, small and furious, berating my sister,
‘You shall not go gallivanting in Dusseldorf. Think of the poor aunts. They will die of shock.’
I felt a sharp pang. Anna would know exactly what advice to give Poppy.

Outside the cavern the light was fading into evening, dark clouds buffeted the shore. The black sea glittered, a slice of moon bobbing on the waves.

‘Come,’ I said, standing up and reaching for her hand. ‘We should go back.’

The following morning, I slipped into the breakfast room as Mr Rivers lingered over his coffee. He studied his newspaper with a set frown, not noticing as I entered. I reached into my apron pocket, pulling out a handful of gold chains and set them down on his side plate. He glanced up, startled.

‘Mr Rivers. This is to pay for the bribe. To get Anna and Julian out of Austria.’

He said nothing, only stared at the yellow gold spooled on the china, the colour of fresh butter.

‘It was to pay for my ticket to New York. The chains are quite valuable. Please sell them.’

He shook his head and pushed the side plate towards me, knocking over the marmalade.

‘No. Keep your money. I shall do everything I can.’

I folded my arms behind my back.

‘Take the chains, Mr Rivers. The money is not for you, it is for them.’

There must have been a note in my voice, as he gave a sharp nod and, folding the gold into his handkerchief, slid it into his pocket.

That night, as I lay in bed listening to the distant sea rumble against the pebbles on the shore, I worried the money from the chains would not be enough. I thought of the viola hidden beneath my bed. No one would publish Julian in Austria, but what about England? Mr Rivers read all his books, and if I translated them into English, then maybe a publisher would want them. I jumped out of bed, and rummaged through the stack of paperback novels on the chest of drawers. I chose one with an austere grey and black cover, deciding it looked suitably gloomy, and composed a letter to the publisher.