Frozen Music (29 page)

‘You've got some nice stuff.' I put my finger out and touched the base of a brass paraffin lamp crowned by a cranberry-coloured glass shade. ‘My grandmother had one very like this,' I said, smiling back, aware with a sudden rush of pride of my own even white teeth.

‘And these are lovely.' I pointed to a little group of carved wooden
animals: a duck, a hedgehog, a fox and cub. ‘I used to carve, but I was nowhere near as good as this person. Where do you get them from?' I looked up at George.

‘What was it you wanted, then?' was his only reply.

‘George was pleased with the job you did in the paper,' Dora said hastily. ‘We've had ever so many calls and letters from people wanting to help. I've saved them all so that you could do something with them. Maybe print some of them.'

George stood with his back slightly turned, paying no attention to his sister and me, but when a man came up to ask the price of a wooden tea caddy, he didn't seem to hear him either. I gave Dora a little nudge. ‘Customer.'

Dora waddled across and the man repeated his question. I took some shots of the stall and of George looking into the distance. A photographer had been down already taking pictures of the Wilsons At Home, but this kind of picture was always worth having. ‘I'm after a kind of “Day in the Life of” thing for the Saturday supplement. I'll just follow you around as you go about your business here at the hall and at home.'

We were back at Rookery Cottage and I looked around the musty-smelling hall where damp made the kind of pattern on the tobacco-yellow walls that people paid a fortune to reproduce. ‘I think Terra Nova Enterprises would be willing to add a substantial sum to the money already offered by the council,' I said as I followed them into the kitchen. ‘You could get a…'

George sat down at the table. ‘You're saying we should accept charity?' His voice was harsh with outrage. ‘A hundred years and more there's been Wilsons at Rookery Cottage and we've never taken charity from no one. Everything we've got we've worked for and earned.' His hands were shaking and his old-man's eyes filled with tears.

‘I'm sorry.' I hung my head. ‘I wasn't thinking.'

Dora waddled across to the stove and put the huge kettle on the hotplate. ‘This is where our roots are.' She gesticulated out across the fields. ‘Other than during the war when I had to go and work in the munitions, that view has been the first thing I've seen every
morning of my life, and the last thing as I draw the curtains at night. This is
our
place. Why should we be made to leave?'

I sighed and shook my head. I'd always felt that the reason ‘For the common good' was less persuasive when you directed it to the sacrificial victim on his way to the altar.

I had left my car outside the village hall a mile or so away. The weather had had a sudden April mood-swing and turned warm, and I was glad of the walk. I breathed in the clean country air and listened to the birds twittering away like the guests in a TV talk show. I was meant to feel a pang of regret for returning to the city, but in fact I couldn't wait to be back in London. I lit a cigarette and inhaled. In the city you had the results of hundreds of years of human endeavour at your fingertips: opera, ballet, theatre, cinemas, restaurants, museums, all-night shopping and ready-made food. In the country progress was represented by tractors and combine harvesters and satellite dishes on the thatched roofs. It was seen in the turkey farms along the road to my right, huts like prison-camp blocks, spreading a rancid smell and a ghostly silence. Whoever heard of a quiet turkey? Whoever heard of two hundred quiet turkeys? Well, I had now. Further on, I passed a small farmhouse to my left and gazed idly into the garden as I went. A rusty old Rover stood parked in the overgrown driveway. A young man was sitting on a seat in the garden. He was busy, bent low over some work. Craning my neck I saw that he was carving. Was this the creator of the little wooden animals on the Wilsons' stall? ‘Afternoon,' I called out. The young man looked up, still frowning with concentration, then his round face split in a grin. ‘Nice day for it,' he called back before bending over his carving once more. I would have liked to have gone over to look closer at his work, but it was getting late and I had an article to write.

Two days after the latest of my articles appeared Stuart Lloyd announced that he was putting the construction of the People's Glyndebourne on hold. Chloe offered me a permanent position back at the
Chronicle
. I looked up Pyrrhic victory in my dictionary. It said,
a victory in which the victor's losses are as great as those of the defeated
.

‘Pyrrhic, schmyrrhic,' Posy said. ‘What are
you
supposed to have lost?' She was getting ready to go out for a job interview with a large PR company, looking like a pre-Raphaelite who had been told by her mother to smarten up.

‘D'you know,' I said, nodding in the direction of her short black skirt, ‘I think this is the first time I've seen your legs since school.'

‘What have you lost?' Posy insisted. ‘You're getting your old job back and it looks as if the Wilsons are going to be allowed to stay on at Rookery Cottage.' She pushed a black beret down on her thick dark hair.

I handed her the briefcase. ‘Where did you get that from?' I asked.

‘Oxfam.'

‘Ah.' I scuffed the toe of my heavy black shoe against the carpet. ‘It's my old insecurities rearing their wobbly little heads,' I explained. ‘And you know how it is when you're in the heat of battle? You're all fired up by the cause. Then the battle is done and there's calm and in that calm the sound of doubting voices can be heard. And I kind of liked Linus. He was passionate about this thing. The opera house, this People's Glyndebourne, it wasn't a bad idea, they just went about it the wrong way. Audrey is furious with me. What with her best friend being his stepmother and all that.'

‘Since when did you care what Audrey thought?'

I sighed and shrugged my shoulders. Then I looked up at her with a smile. ‘Winning is always scary. I know I did the right thing. We all know that there are times when the rights of the individual have to be sacrificed for progress, for the good of the community, but the day we just accept it as a matter of course, with a shrug and a “That's life”, that's when we, as a society, are in danger of losing our humanity.'

‘You're a bit pompous for a journalist,' Posy said.

‘Certainly,' I agreed.

Audrey announced that she was going on a trip.

‘They don't take beds on aeroplanes,' I said. ‘Not unless you go in the hold.'

Audrey frowned at me and reached out for a chocolate doughnut. ‘Don't be silly.'

‘Ah, you're going by train.'

‘I said, don't be silly. I'll get up, of course.'

‘You're getting up?'

‘That's what I said. Why do you look so surprised?'

‘Oh, no reason. Well, all right then, it hasn't escaped my notice that you've barely left your bed in the last couple of years. Anyway, where are you thinking of going?'

‘To Sweden to visit Olivia's island. It's ages since I've been. And you're coming with me.' She bit into the doughnut.

‘You must be joking.'

‘I never joke.' This was true.

But I said, ‘Why should I want to go there? I've just scuppered darling Linus's dream project.'

‘That's precisely why we're going. Olivia is my oldest and dearest friend. She's the sister I never had. Neither of us can stand the bad blood that has developed between the families over this opera house business. You and I are going across to mend fences. And you could do with a holiday. I know you don't start work again full-time until September.'

I shook my head. ‘I'm sorry. It's a dreadful idea. Linus did what he thought was right. So did I. We were both doing our jobs, that's that. Either they accept that or they don't. I can't see that forcing myself on them at this stage is at all a good idea. But you go, you like it there, just leave me out of it.'

‘Maybe you're right,' my mother said thoughtfully. ‘Maybe letting them get to know you better isn't such a good idea.'

The phone rang just as I was about to get into bed. ‘Esther, this is Olivia.'

‘Hi, Olivia,' I said.

‘I'm afraid your mother has had an accident. She's in hospital.'

Audrey, unused to walking, had slipped on a wet paving stone in the Stendals' garden and, as well as suffering a broken hip, had severe concussion. She was comfortable, but as Olivia said, at her age and at her weight you couldn't be sure. ‘I think you should come over. She could be in hospital for some time. She can't be moved, flying right now is out of the question. And although I don't want to worry you unnecessarily, as I said, at her age you never know.' There was a pause. ‘She's frightened.'

‘You don't think Audrey did this deliberately, do you?' I wished I hadn't said that, but it just slipped out.

‘I'll pretend you never said that, Esther.'

‘Thank you,' I said meekly. ‘I'll book my ticket first thing tomorrow morning and ring you back. Oh, and Olivia…'

‘Yes, Esther.'

‘She will be all right, won't she?'

‘I don't know, but the doctors are hopeful. The hospital is a good one and she's getting the best possible care.'

‘And what about Linus?'

‘What about him?'

‘Won't he mind? First I'm instrumental to his project being put on hold, maybe indefinitely, then I appear on his island.'

‘Linus will understand that you'll have to be with your mother. He's always been fond of Audrey.' It was a continuing surprise to hear that other people liked one's mother.

I couldn't sleep that night. When I closed my eyes it wasn't sleep that came, but images of Audrey, frightened in a narrow hospital bed and dressed in an insulting white gown, split at the back, instead of one of her voluminous silk négligés, as rich and colourful as any butterfly's evening dress. Like so many women before me, I had been so busy running from my mother that I hadn't noticed when I had turned a corner and was heading right back.

Posy gave me one of her shawls as a goodbye present. ‘It gets chilly out there,' she said.

‘It gets chilly here,' I argued. ‘But you've never given me a shawl before.'

‘Ah, but you're going away, thank God.'

‘That's not very nice.'

‘No, but it's true. I love you, but you've been an absolute pain lately. It'll be bliss to have the house to myself for a while. Of course I'm desperately sorry it's in these circumstances and all that, but I'm looking on the bright side.'

One of the things that had always annoyed me with Posy was her tendency to dither and not get straight to the point, but just now, a little dithering would have been quite nice. ‘You're not really glad to see me go?' I asked as I dragged the suitcase downstairs.

‘Yes, I am.' She gave me a hug. ‘Now look after yourself and I'll be praying for your mother.' She opened the front door. ‘You're sure you can manage?' she asked.

I was walking to the tube station to catch the train to Heathrow. ‘Yeah, it's got wheels.' I kicked the case with the toe of my canvas shoe.

‘Off you go then.' Posy gave me a little shove out of the door.

Once down the three front-door steps I turned round. ‘Anyone would think you'd like to get rid of me.'

‘Get on with you.' Posy blew me a kiss.

I had brought along my old Swedish books to study on the journey. On the plane to Gothenburg I sat between two silent and unsmiling Swedes, one who asked for, and received, a steady flow of miniature bottles of brandy, which he either drank or hoarded in his attaché case.
Liquor is very expensive in Sweden I had heard. Every time the hostess handed him one he nodded gravely and said ‘
tack
'. That's the Swedish for thank you. Apart from that, the journey was spent in restful silence.

Everyone knows that Swedes are serious-minded, hard-working and very gloomy – we've all seen those Ingmar Bergman films – so I had been confident that I would feel right at home among them. I was ill-prepared, therefore, to find the arrival hall at Gothenburg airport thronged with chatting, laughing people looking like extras in a Kodak ad in their brightly coloured summer clothes. Not one of them seemed an even half-decent candidate for suicide. Never mind, I thought, trying to cheer myself up; from what I had heard of Olivia's family, things were bound to darken.

‘Your mother is doing all right,' Olivia assured me as soon as we had greeted each other. ‘It's done her a power of good, you coming.'

‘And she really has got concussion and a broken hip?' I asked as I pushed my trolley along the polished floor of the arrivals hall towards the exit.

‘Really, Esther, I don't know what you mean. Why should poor Audrey have made something like this up? And there are such things as X-ray machines, even in this northern outpost.'

‘I'm sorry,' I muttered. ‘
Tack, tack
,' I went on, to show willing. ‘It was just that she was so keen for me to come with her… you know after this business with the opera house. She had this bee in her bonnet about bad blood and stuff.'

‘She was keen, but not that keen, believe you me. She's in a great deal of pain.'

That really worried me. Some people withstood physical pain better than others. Audrey, most definitely, belonged to the ‘others' group. ‘Are we going straight to see her?'

Olivia nodded. ‘The hospital is about halfway between here and the island.'

As she manoeuvred her dark-grey Volvo estate out of the car park she asked, ‘So how are you doing, in yourself? Audrey told me you have been having some problems.'