La's Orchestra Saves the World (17 page)

Dr. Price looked up from the papers before her on the desk. “Ah, yes. I must wind it. So here you are, Ferguson. Here you are.”

Yes, thought La, I am still Ferguson, I suppose.

“Stone now.”

“Of course. I’m sorry, but it’s hard for me to keep up. I tend to think of people as who they were when they first came up. You’re Mrs. Stone. And Mr. Stone, how is he?”

La looked at the woman she had come to visit. One of the reasons why people like that were the way they were was because people let them get away with it. Well, she would not. Not this time.

“He died, I’m afraid.” She surprised herself in the utterance; surprised that she could talk about Richard so dispassionately.

If Dr. Price was taken aback, she did not show it. “I’m sorry to hear that.” But she went straight on; husbands
died, and sometimes, Dr. Price felt, not prematurely. “You must sit down, Ferguson. Usual chair.”

La looked about her. There was another chair, closer to Dr. Price’s desk. She chose that; and immediately felt petty. There was a war going on for the very soul of civilisation, and she was trying to avoid sitting in a particular chair.

“You must tell me what you’re doing,” said Dr. Price. “The College newsletter lets one down a bit in that department. They’re good on graduations and obituaries, but not all that informative on what happens in between.”

La smiled. “And that’s the important part, isn’t it?”

“Indeed.”

There was a brief silence. Then La said, “But what have you been doing? The usual?”

La looked at Dr. Price, who held her gaze. “I see.”

La knew immediately that Dr. Price had understood her. The chair. The immediate turning of the question back on her.

The tutor waited for a moment. She ignored the question. “It’s good of you to come back. We don’t really change here very much. Universities think in centuries, of course. If you go and stand in some of the older colleges—Peterhouse, I suppose, would be the case
par excellence
—if one stands and contemplates what those buildings have seen, then things are rather put in perspective. Our current difficulties will pass.”

“Our current difficulties?”

“The war. Hostilities. This business between men.”

La thought of her job with the hens. She thought of Tim and his talk of supplies. Petrol. Spare parts. She thought of the navigator who looked out of the window.

“I’m not sure that it’s just between men.”

Dr. Price waved a hand airily. “Men have always fought. It’s what they do. They jockey for position. Puff their chests up and strut around. Then, every so often, they unroll their sleeves and take a swipe at one another, just to establish the pecking order.” She paused. “I find it very entertaining.”

La touched the fabric of her chair with her hand. It was a heavy tapestry. Roses. “I’m not sure if what is happening in France is entertaining for the French.”

“France and Germany are old enemies,” said Dr. Price. “We must expect them to engage in these aggressive charades with one another.”

“And Hitler?”

“He is the worst sort of man, the very worst. And of course we have to do what we can to prevent him from invading this country. I wouldn’t dream of saying otherwise. But he does rather illustrate what I said about male behaviour, does he not?”

Dr. Price allowed a few moments for her observation to be absorbed. She picked up a piece of paper from her desk, folded it and replaced it. In a moment of clarity, La remembered her doing that in their supervisions. She had watched her from the chair, wondering what the action
showed about her reaction to the essay. Boredom, perhaps. Irritation?

“Are you involved?” said Dr. Price after a while. “Remember Thompson? Mathematician—quite a good one, too. She was about your time, was she not? She’s down in Buckinghamshire doing something very hush-hush. Shades of Mata Hari. I met her at the station the other day. She declined to say very much.”

“I remember her very slightly,” said La. “Am I involved? Well, I suppose we’re all involved, aren’t we? I do some work on a farm.”

“Land girl?”

“Not quite. It’s a private arrangement. I look after hens for a farmer. He’s got bad arthritis, you see, and can’t cope any more. I feed the hens.”

Dr. Price nodded. “You’re busy.”

“And I have a village orchestra,” La went on. “We have an RAF base nearby. Some of the men come and play music with us.”

It all sounded so petty. Hens. Village orchestras.

Dr. Price looked at her watch, surreptitiously, but sufficiently overtly for La to see that her visit was over.

She rose to her feet. “I’ve enjoyed seeing you again, Dr. Price.” She paused. There was so much to say to this woman; so much that she had wanted to say over the years, but had never had the opportunity to do so. And even now, she could not bring herself to do it. But still she said, “Tell me,
Dr. Price, what would happen, do you think, if Hitler came? What would you—and I mean you personally—what would you do?”

Dr. Price uttered a sound that was mid-way between dismissal and irritation. “Strange question,” she said. “But don’t worry, he’s not coming.”

La wanted to say, “Because there are hens and orchestras to stop him?” But Dr. Price gave her no opportunity, even had she found the courage. The tutor stood up, sighed and stretched out her hand for La to shake it. This, La knew, was a farewell that was not just for the moment, nor for the duration of the war, however long that would last.

S
HE WATCHED FELIKS
at work on the drainage scheme. Pott’s Field stretched over several acres, and it would take some time for the channels to be dug all along the edges and then led off downhill to the stank. And there were root systems to contend with—over the centuries the hedgerows and trees had consolidated their grip on the soil, knitting together in places, breaking up stones in the process; dying, renewing, creating a sub-soil through which the spade could cut only with difficulty.

La watched the work progress; it was painfully slow, even though Feliks was always working when she looked across in that direction; a tiny figure from afar, bent over the land. She kept about her business with the hens and then, when she had finished and had washed up in Henry’s kitchen, she took a glass of lemonade to Feliks.

“You’re spoiling him,” said Henry, half joking, half seriously.
He seemed vaguely annoyed, and La suspected that he resented the attention she was giving Feliks. Why? She thought that it was probably not out of any hostility to Feliks himself, whom he appeared to like, but out of jealousy.

“It’s hard work. Really hard. Have you been down there? He gets thirsty.”

“There’s water,” muttered Henry.

“But there’s also lemonade.”

She found a recipe for lemonade that could be made without lemons, which had never been sold in the village store anyway. She made a quantity of this in the kitchen, not asking Henry’s permission but just doing it; if he wanted her to work on his farm, then she would use his kitchen. She tested it: it tasted good enough to her, and Feliks liked it. He smiled when she told him she had made it herself. “You’re so kind to me,” he said. He was always telling her that she was kind to him, and she wanted to stop him, to say this is what she wanted to do.

Which was what? What was it that she wanted to do? She asked herself the question and could not think of any answer other than that she wanted to look after a man; it was as simple as that. Some deep instinct within her had asserted itself: an instinct to cherish another person, a man in particular. What would Dr. Price make of that? She smiled. Dr. Price had never looked after anybody but herself.

She found herself thinking of him a great deal. She thought of him as she cycled to the farm in the morning, wondering whether he would already be out in Pott’s Field when she arrived at the farm. She thought of him in the evenings, when she sat alone in her house and listened to the news and the musical programmes. She tried to stop herself, but could not.

She asked herself whether he would have done this to her had he looked different, had he not had about him that unsettling male beauty, that glowing smoothness and harmony of feature. At first she thought yes, and then she thought no. And it was the no, she imagined, that was more realistic. Human beauty requires of us an intense response. We want to own the beautiful; we want to possess it. We wish that it would somehow rub off on us, simply by being in its presence. That is how she felt about Feliks.

He was polite to her, but that was all. He was a shy man, she decided, and that was why he seemed reserved. That would pass, she thought, when they got to know one another better, but she was not quite sure how to achieve that. There was the flute, of course, sitting there in her house, in its fine leather-covered box, and she wanted to give it to him. But she was nervous; it was a large present, and she did not want to smother him.

It took a week. Then he came into the kitchen when she was stacking eggs in the box that Henry used to transport
them in to Bury. He used straw to prevent them from being broken; the dust from this would tickle her nose, make her eyes run.

She heard his voice behind her. “You do not like that work. I could do it for you.”

She turned round, wiping at her eyes with the back of her hand.

“It’s all right. It passes. The straw …”

He nodded. “When I was a little boy I used to sneeze all the time in the summer. Then suddenly—just like that—it stopped. No longer.”

He moved past her and began to place the eggs in the box.

“Do you like your work?” he asked.

La sat down on one of Henry’s rickety kitchen chairs. “I’ve got used to it. I suppose that the hens and I have become friends, in a way.” She looked up at him, noticing for the first time that there was a scar under his chin, a thin line that had been neatly sliced into the skin, as if by a flourish of a pencil.

He fumbled with an egg.

“Careful. Henry gets very upset if I drop one. He shouted at me once. He said, ‘The Germans want you to drop those eggs.’”

Feliks smiled. “You could tell him it was me.” He paused. “I’m not sure that he likes me anyway. It would be one more thing for him, maybe.”

La frowned. “You think that he doesn’t like you? Why?”

“The way he speaks to me.”

She thought about this. Henry had a grudging manner, but he was like that with everyone, La thought.

“I don’t think he dislikes you,” she said. “It’s the way he is. Maybe it’s something to do with his illness. He has a lot of pain, you know.”

Feliks nodded. “Maybe. It can’t be easy to be like that. His hands … I think that they must be very painful. But even so, I think that he does not like me because I am a foreigner.”

La was about to reassure him that this was not true, but she realised that it might be exactly the reason; that, or he was jealous of the attention that she gave to Feliks. But she could not mention that.

“I have something for you,” she said.

He placed an egg on the straw and turned to her. “For me?”

“Yes. I’ve bought you a present. I think that you’ll like it.”

He looked puzzled. “But why? Why have you bought me a present?”

La shrugged. “You’re far from home. Who else is there to buy you a present?”

“But just because I’m far from home does not mean that you need to …”

La interrupted him. “No. Of course I don’t need to. But I have. It’s at the house. My house. Perhaps you will come and fetch it.”

• • •

HE CAME THE NEXT DAY.
She was in her garden when he arrived, riding the old bicycle from the farm. She saw him from her bedroom window upstairs and she watched him as he walked across the gravel to knock at her door.

She had put tea in the pot and there was a small plate of freshly baked scones.

He gestured to the scones. “You should not have bothered … just for me.”

“I had some flour. If you don’t use it, it gets weevils.”

He looked confused, and she explained. His English was good, but there were words now and then that defeated him. One would not learn
weevils
.

She went out of the room to get the flute. When she came back in, he sprang to his feet.

“This is for you.”

She handed him the box.

He looked at her.

“Go on. Open it. Please.”

He eased back the catch and pushed open the lid. She noticed that his hands were trembling slightly.

“Oh. Oh.”

He looked up at her again. She found it hard to read his expression.

She smiled. “You did say that you played the flute, didn’t you? Well, there you are. A flute. Try it.”

He shook his head while he eased the flute joints into
place. He muttered something, which she thought was in Polish. She hardly heard it.

“I believe it’s a good one,” said La. “Not that I’m the best judge of these things.”

He raised the flute to his lips. La saw the concentration, and she knew, even before he drew breath, that he would play it well.

After a few notes, a scale, he lowered the flute and shook his head. “It is so kind of you,” he said. “But I cannot pay for this. I do not have the money.”

He began to disassemble the flute.

“No,” La protested. “Don’t do that. You don’t have to pay for it. Don’t be so silly. It’s a present. I told you.”

“But I can’t accept a big present like this. A small present, perhaps … but this is a very big thing. It’s a good flute. And I can’t pay.”

It was not going well. She had anticipated some awkwardness over her gift, but not this. She had not thought he would insist on paying for it.

“Listen, Feliks. This is a present from me to you. I’m giving it to you because you are far away from your home. Maybe you have a flute back in Poland—I don’t know. But I want you to have this because we are in the same war together.” She sighed. She did not think that she was convincing him. “All right. When the war is over, pay me then.”

He stopped disassembling the flute. “At the end?”

“Yes. Whatever will make you happy.”

He thought. “All right. But in the meantime, you must let me do something for you.” He gestured behind him, out of the window. “Your garden. I could help you with your garden.”