The Novel in the Viola (40 page)

When I reached the house, Mr Rivers was prowling the terrace.

‘Good God,’ he said, hastening towards me. ‘Are you hurt?’

I was too exhausted to receive his concern with any grace. ‘No. Just in need of a bath.’

He tried to take my arm as I passed. ‘Alice, I heard gunfire.’

I shook him off. ‘Please. Leave me be. I’m quite all right. Tell Mr Stickland one of his sheep is dead.’

I hurried into the house and up the stairs before anyone else could accost me. My terror had subsided. I was angry and exhausted and helpless. They’d shot at me and there was nothing I could do. In a few hours they would be back and the darkness would growl with enemies, metallic and sinister. Soon the horizon would simmer red, as Swanage or Portland or Dorchester burnt. I unbuttoned my frock and paced the room in my underwear. I waited for the stillness to be torn apart by an aeroplane’s roar. I didn’t really rest anymore. Not since Kit died. I saw him in my dreams; he was exactly the same as before, but even in my sleep I knew he was dead. In the mornings, when I woke, my grief choked me, thick as smoke. When I was a child, I imagined that if my parents died, or Margot, that I would die of grief; I’d cleave in two like an elm tree in a lightning strike. But I didn’t die. I was hollowed out, scraped clean inside. I imagined myself to be like an empty Russian doll, filled with black nothing. Sometimes when I paced beside the sea, the shingles washed as the waves rushed and withdrew, I wondered whether I ought to slip into the tide. I could fill my pockets with pebbles and wade out beyond the black rocks, beyond the peak of Worbarrow Tout, until the saltwater trickled down my throat. It seemed a quiet, easeful death. Perhaps Kit waited for me beneath the waves, as he did in my dreams. It was an idle thought, brought on by misery and the sad call of the sea. That afternoon, when the Messerschmitts had chased me, I only wanted to live. I had not thought for a second that I ought to embrace death and join Kit. As I ran, sweating and feral with terror, I discovered that I was greedy for life. My instinct to live was as desperate as that of a bloodied rat caught in a dog’s jaws.

Mr Rivers and I ate dinner in the kitchen, while Mr Wrexham waited upon us, resplendent in his white cotton gloves and pristine tails. Behind us, the ancient stove smoked and grumbled. I liked the kitchen; its warmth and the smells of simmering fat and carbolic soap, the clatter and bustle of Mrs Ellsworth, all reminded me of home. I sipped at my wine and toyed with the mashed potato. Mr Rivers frowned.

‘Alice, what happened this afternoon? Are you all right?’

I recalled Mr Rivers mad with rage firing his gun. Determined not to incense him again, I spoke with studied calm. ‘There was a Messerschmitt. It let off a few rounds in the valley.’

‘Was it shooting at you?’

His voice was low, but contained a coldness that I did not like. I reached across the table for his hand.

‘I am fine. Please. If you get cross, then I shall be upset.’

A muscle pulsed in his jaw, but he said nothing more on the topic.

After dinner, Mr Rivers and I remained in the kitchen by silent consent, reluctant to return to the muffled stillness of the drawing room. The decay had been creeping in, year on year, but in the sunshine of Kit’s presence we had not noticed. We’d revelled in the faded grandeur, like children enjoying the romance of a dustsheeted castle in a story. Now, in our unhappiness, Mr Rivers and I winced at the house’s shabbiness, like a husband who realises his bride has grown fat. I imagined the house to be mortified by her present state and spent hours attempting to restore her beauty, but there were not enough maids to keep her properly clean, and even with my help the skirting boards and dado rails were grey with dust, the parquet scratched and unpolished.

Mrs Ellsworth placed candles on the scrubbed oak table and, after securing the blackouts, vanished into the housekeeper’s room. Mr Wrexham poured his master’s port and withdrew, leaving us alone listening to the gurgle and tick of the stove. Mr Rivers had not dressed for dinner, understandable now that we dined in the whitewashed cosiness of the kitchen, but it nonetheless marked a final alteration in the customs of the household. He’d removed his outdoor boots but that was his only concession. He leant back on the wooden chair, stretching out his legs, workman’s shirt unbuttoned at the throat. His clothes were stained with dirt and he smelt of hay and sweat. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a box of matches and lit a cigar. The incongruity made me laugh.

‘Mr Rivers, you look like you ought to be packing your pipe with ha’penny tobacco, not smoking cigars from Jermyn Street.’

He ignored my teasing and exhaled smoke, which drifted in blue curls up to the rafters. ‘Why do you call me Mr Rivers?’

‘Why shouldn’t I?’ I asked, with a smile. ‘You want to change your name too?’

‘No. It’s an old name. One of England’s best,’ he said with a touch of the old pride. He reached for a saucer and let the ash fall from his cigar. ‘Why won’t you call me by my Christian name? Why won’t you call me Christopher?’

I studied the table. ‘I can’t,’ I said, unable to look at him. ‘Kit was Christopher. I can’t call you by his name.’

He inhaled sharply. ‘He was named after me. I was Christopher first.’ His voice held a note of anger.

I knew I hurt him, but I could not help it. ‘Not to me.’ I met his gaze, unblinking. ‘I don’t want to think of him when I speak your name.’

He glanced up at the high window where a strand of honeysuckle tap-tapped against the glass, and sighed.

‘My second name is Daniel. Can you call me Daniel?’

He strode over to the range, opening the furnace and poking the coals so that crimson sparks flew out into the room. He had not shaved for several days now, and even in the firelight, I could see a thick layer of bristles covering his jaw.

‘Daniel, are you intending to grow a beard?’ I asked.

He turned round in surprise, running a hand across his chin.

‘No. Just haven’t had Wrexham shave me for a day or two.’

‘Well, tomorrow, you must let him.’

He turned away from me and gave the furnace another vicious prod, so that a nugget fell out of the grate and landed on the flagstone where it smouldered. He stared at the glowing coal, complaining under his breath about ‘wretched, bloody women’.

‘Yes, well you should be grateful. It is I who keep you civilised.’

He smiled and sat down. ‘Do you want a cigar? Kit once told me that you smoked. He was mighty impressed.’

I laughed. ‘Good. That was why I did it.’

He took the cigar from his mouth and passed it to me. I sucked, trying not to cough. He watched me steadily, and did not look away. I noticed his eyes were a remarkably bright shade of blue, and that one was darker than the other. No one else knew this. It was the kind of information that only mothers or lovers cherished, and his mother was dead; so was his wife, and his son. So this little detail belonged solely to me.

‘You’re thinking of Kit,’ said Mr Rivers, interrupting my reverie.

I flushed. ‘Yes,’ I lied.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Red flags

The following morning a letter arrived from Margot, the first since Kit’s death.

I don’t know what to say. Everything I try sounds clumsy and useless . . . I wish I could find you a
sachertorte
like the ones from the Sacher Hotel. I used to get a slice for you when you cried when you were small and I know it can’t possibly help you now but I want to get it for you all the same.

They sell them here in ‘continental bakeries’ but they’re nothing like the real thing which I suppose we shan’t have again – not unless they exile the pastry chef with the secret recipe. Do you remember when you were little and you used to think that the hotel was named after the cake and not the other way round? Hotel Chocolate Cake . . . I imagine sometimes that we are still sitting there, younger versions of ourselves after an opera or concert, eating
sachertorte
with cream and chattering about the sharp soprano and the sweating tenor with his droll pocket-handkerchief.

I shall write a letter to ‘Margot and Elise c/o Hotel Chocolate Cake, Vienna’ and it will reach that Elise and another Margot and none of this will have happened. One day after the war we’ll go back there and we’ll talk about how the second violins got away from the rest of the orchestra in the scherzo and think of nothing but music.

A year ago, Anna sent me the recipe for a horrible tea which the aunts made for her when she wanted a family (though I am slightly at a loss as to why she sought this kind of advice from three maiden aunts). It tastes awful and yet I drink it every morning – not because I believe it will do me any good but because it was the last piece of advice that she gave me. I find myself hoarding all my memories of Anna and Julian, reciting them again and again, terrified in case I forget something.

Reading my sister’s letter, I saw my own fears reflected. Our parents had disappeared. Were they hiding in the French countryside, Anna disguised as a pink-cheeked peasant, or concealed by friends in Amsterdam? I preferred to imagine cheerful adventures for them than voice the other possibility.

Needing to be distracted from my own thoughts, I walked down to the bay in search of Poppy. As I approached the shingle, I saw that it teemed with people. Three strange men dressed in labourers’ overalls addressed the fishermen clustered beside the boats outside Burt’s cottage. Wooden boxes littered the beach. The fishermen leant against the boats, arms folded across their chests and eyes narrow with suspicion. A bearded fisherman spat and then slouched off, dismissing the stranger with a curt wave as he tried to pursue him. At the back of the crowd, seated on a lobster pot, I spied Poppy. Easing my way through the throng, I settled beside her.

‘Home Guard,’ she said, pointing to the three strangers, before I’d even had a chance to ask. ‘Mr Rivers asked them to get the fishermen to mine the bay. Stupid idea if you ask me. Excellent way to kill a lot of perfectly good mackerel. Come on.’

She scrambled to her feet and tugging my arm, led me away from the group.

‘Best let them get on with it. Won’t want our interference,’ she said, hauling me off along the strand.

I jogged to keep up with her. The sun warmed the cliffs and they glowed golden brown, tempting as freshly baked biscuits. Crimson poppies studded the coarse sea-grass sprouting in tufts along the top, while sand martins zoomed in and out of tiny holes quarried from the sandstone face. We walked to the far end of the beach, where Flower’s Barrow loomed above the valley and the bay. A steep path crawled up the precipice and, without breaking step, Poppy started to climb. In five minutes we reached the top and she pulled me onto the grass ledge. Sprawled on the ground, I closed my eyes, catching my breath.

‘Come on. No time to nap,’ said Poppy.

Grumbling, I dusted myself off and hurried after her.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Will,’ she replied, as though this were enough of an answer.

We headed along the ridge. Below us the fields were spread in a haphazard patchwork, as though stitched together by a careless seamstress. At the bottom of the coomb, where the hillside flattened into wide meadows, Mr Rivers and the boys were finishing the haymaking. The school had been emptied of children for the last day, and boys in short trousers and girls in wellingtons and faded summer dresses rushed through the meadows gathering up armfuls of dry grass and moulding them into mountainous peaks. Their shouts mingled with the spaniel’s barking and drifted up towards us on the wind. Mr Rivers tossed the dog a stick and it scrambled in pursuit, ears flapping in ecstasy. Under the wide sky, Mr Rivers appeared at ease. Then, as if he sensed me watching, he paused and glanced up at the hill, shielding his eyes from the sun. I hurried on, embarrassed, and hoped he had not seen me.

Poppy waited at the next stile, sitting contentedly on the wooden bar, tap-tapping with her sandal.

‘He won’t be the only one,’ she said. ‘By the end of the war, there will be lots more.’

‘Doesn’t make it any easier.’

‘No,’ she said slowly. ‘I just meant, he will survive this.’

‘What does that even mean?’ I snapped. ‘That he will carry on breathing and spreading butter on his toast and speaking on the telephone. I don’t want him to survive. I want the possibility of happiness. Not moments of pleasure like a square of chocolate or a hot bath. Happiness.’

I stopped talking, no longer sure whether I spoke of Mr Rivers or myself. Poppy watched me.

‘You will. Both of you. It gets easier, and then it gets worse again as you realise it’s getting easier and you feel guilty.’ She paused, seeing my puzzled expression, and smiled. ‘My parents. When I was ten. Why did you think I lived with my aunts? Ma and Pa died in a fire while taking a holiday in a hotel in Blackpool. They went to see the lights. The aunts think holidays are very dangerous. I’ve never been allowed to take one, certainly not to a northern seaside resort.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know.’

Poppy shrugged. ‘’S all right. Long time ago. Let’s go and find Will. He has only two days leave left and he’s spending it fencing.’

When we reached Will he was splitting timber with an axe and wedge, slicing the wood apart so that it lay on the grass, gleaming in the sunshine. Behind him a new fence curled up to the top of the hill, pale struts slotted neatly into round upright posts, like pieces of a giant jigsaw. Two small boys lay stretched out on their stomachs, pinning chicken wire to the base of the post with a hammer. They scarcely looked old enough to be out without their mothers, let alone fixing fences, but they worked steadily, neither glancing up at Poppy or me. Will let his axe fall into the grass and, placing a thick arm around Poppy’s waist, pulled her into him and kissed her. I looked away, suddenly self-conscious, and tried not to think of Kit.