The Novel in the Viola (15 page)

‘Look,’ said Burt, pointing to a dark shadow beneath the surface of the water. Above, a flock of gulls circled and swooped. ‘Ready about.’

I squatted down, covering my head with my hands as the boom clattered across. The small boat hurtled towards the dark patch of sea, signalling wildly to the other fishing vessels. I hadn’t realised, but we’d turned around and were heading back into shore, racing alongside the shadow in the sea. Will and Kit ladled stinking bait over the side, and the water writhed with glittering fish.

‘Take the tiller,’ said Burt, and Poppy took over the helm while he began to unfurl a net heaped at the stern. Another fishing-boat was now only twenty yards away, sailing parallel to us. Burt whistled, and a shrill echo came back.

‘Yup.
Brandy Queen
is a comin’.’

The other boat tacked and sailed right towards us, and as it reached us, almost brushing the side, Burt tossed one end of the net to a bearded fisherman. He caught it effortlessly and as
Brandy Queen
turned again, Burt spooled his end of the net into the water, trapping the fish.
Brandy Queen
and
The Lugger
hovered where the bay began to shelve, waiting. Then the other boats swarmed us in a rush, oars thrashing, men shouting, all driving the mackerel into the shallows and the great stretched net, and away from the safety of the deep. The vast net now encircled the black shoal of fish, but they lay motionless in the water as
Brandy Queen
and
The Lugger
dragged them closer and closer to the shore. Waiting on the beach stood the rest of the village, dozens of women and children, all changed from their Sunday best into work clothes, and now poised to help gather in the catch. Along the narrow path leading to the shore, a caravan of wagons trundled down to the sea.

‘Coastguard telegraphed the mackerel dealers,’ said Kit.

‘Won’t be too happy ter be dragged away from Sunday lunch,’ said Burt. ‘But s’ goin’ ter be a goodun, I got a tingle in my toes.’

The Lugger
was almost on the beach when the sea exploded. Rainbow fish leapt out of the water, breaking the surface in a thousand places, turning the shallows into a swirl of white foam. The sunlight caught the shining backs of the mackerel and they glittered red and brown and green and black. The gulls shrieked and dove, catching wriggling fish in their beaks as the women and children beat them away with brooms and sticks. Women surged forward, splashing into the sea in their clothes and grabbing the nets, as men bounded from the boats to help. The sea was alive with dancing, flapping fish, and they soared into the air in high curves before crashing back into the waves. Fifty people lined the shore, clutching the heavy net, and heaving it inch by inch up the pebbles and onto the shelving beach.

The fish sprawled on the strand, twitching in the sunlight, while bare-legged children raced up and down, hurling stones to keep away the gulls and greedy cormorants. Everyone was there: Mr Wrexham and Mrs Ellsworth lobbed pebbles at the birds; May chattered to a fisherman, tugging half-heartedly at the net. Mr Rivers helped haul it into the breakers so that the seawater washed over the fish, keeping them fresh until the dealers could load them into their ice carts. He had removed his tie and rolled up his shirtsleeves, and stood barefoot in the shallows, trousers soaked to the knee. Seeing Burt’s boat, he waded deeper, and grabbed the painter.

‘Shall I pull you to shore?’ he asked.

‘Aye,’ said Burt. ‘Them ladies durst want a soakin’.’

Kit climbed out to help his father, and the two men towed
The
Lugger
through the water away from the mackerel, before dragging her a few yards up the beach. Poppy hopped out with ease and raced back along the beach to the netted fish. Mr Rivers offered me his hand, and helped me clamber onto the pebbled shore.

‘Well, I expect this is something you don’t see every day in Vienna.’

‘No sir.’

‘And, Elise, I shall inform Wrexham that you have permission to read my newspaper.’

Before I could thank him, shouts boomed behind us, as the mackerel dealers swarmed the beach.

‘Excuse me,’ said Mr Rivers. He turned away and jogged along the strand to the cluster of dealers, gesturing to the catch with a broad smile. A moment later, Kit joined him. The two men shook hands with each dealer in turn and appeared to listen patiently, before shaking their heads and pointing back to the haul.

‘Gooduns, them,’ said Burt. ‘Squire Rivers and Master Kit will make sure as a spring tide that we gits a good price. Dealers haggle us ter hell, won’t dare wi’ Squire.’

An agreement appeared to be reached, hands were shaken once more, and as Kit whistled, men, women and children rushed to the mackerel and began piling them onto stretchers, into buckets and barrels and ferrying them onto the dealers’ carts. The sound of the gulls was deafening. I soon lost count of the number of loads I helped to carry. Poppy and Will sprinted up and down with endless hauls, never seeming to tire. Among the dozens of bobbing heads, Poppy stood out like a single holly berry in a basket of hazelnuts. I felt brown and dull with my cropped hair. Some of the carts were able to edge down onto the pebbles, and as the net became emptier, the fish could be deposited directly from the net into the wagons and trucks. The process took several hours, and it was nearly three o’clock before the last cart rolled away up the stone road. Stray fish lay scattered along the beach and Mrs Ellsworth directed the children into the final clear-up, plopping them into a vast steel saucepan. I lay down on the strand and closed my eyes, exhausted. Kit collapsed beside me.

‘I hope you like mackerel,’ he said.

His arm brushed mine but I was too tired to obey decent etiquette and did not push him away. His skin felt so warm and I wondered that in all her lectures upon proper behaviour, Anna had failed to mention that behaving improperly was much more fun.

Later that evening the village held a feast upon the beach. The air grew cool but the dappled stones retained the heat of the day, and even as the light dimmed we walked barefoot across the warm pebbles. Small boys pelted to and fro gathering armfuls of wood and piles of dry sea-grass and, under Kit’s direction, built a vast bonfire on the shore. In the darkling light, he lit the fire, pushing a discarded cigarette into a cocoon of dead leaves. Within a few minutes, orange flames licked the sky and sparks flew into the waves, like vermillion fireflies.

‘Don’t dawdle, Elise; come and help,’ called Mrs Ellsworth.

I padded across the stones to the edge of the dunes, where she and a small army of women had set up a field kitchen. Red coals glowed in the rocks, and resting directly on top of them were dozens of cast-iron pans filled with mackerel. The fish had been scaled and gutted, but that was all. They squeezed together, eyes unseeing, sizzling in spoonfuls of butter, handfuls of dark green samphire and hunks of peppered fennel. I knelt down between Poppy and Mrs Ellsworth and took over a frying pan, turning the gleaming fish as the sun sank into the sea. A crowd gathered around the bonfire, several of the children clutching bunches of flowers: ragged robin, honeysuckle, lavender, rosemary, ladies bedstraw and burnet rose. Burt and Art helped them decorate
The
Lugger
with the flowers, until the battered fishing-boat was transformed into a fairy tale craft, more suited to Tennyson’s Lady of Shalott than a stubbled fisherman with mismatched boots. Art, Will and Kit bore
The
Lugger
down to the shore and out into the shallows. Burt picked up a small girl, not older than seven or eight, and carried her in his arms, placing her tenderly on the sail covers in the bow. As we all watched, they sailed towards the mouth of the bay.

‘It’s an old custom,’ said Poppy, leaning over and turning my fish with a fork. ‘We must give thanks to the sea. After the first catch, we make a sacrifice of flowers. Though, personally, I’d be quite happy to see Sally Hopkins go overboard as well. That child’s a menace.’

‘Don’t say such a thing,’ scolded Mrs Ellsworth.

‘Sorry, Aunt Florence,’ said Poppy.

I looked up at them in surprise.

‘Oh, she’s not my real aunt. She’s from Bristol. I grew up in the bungalow on the cliff.’

She pointed with her fork to where a yellow light twinkled on the headland.

‘Aunt Florence has known me all my life, that’s all. Tyneford’s an odd place, you know. It’s not like anywhere else.’

We ate the fish with our fingers, picking out the bones and discarding them onto the strand, where they would be eaten by gulls or washed away by the tide. Poppy, Will, Kit and I all sat together on a large driftwood log, eating in contented silence. I realised that for the first time since I’d left Vienna, I was happy. The fishermen drank beer and sang dirty songs to the moon, while the children shouted and played in the dunes.

‘Have you ever seen a saltwater log burn?’ asked Kit.

I shook my head and instantly he jumped to his feet and jiggled our log, knocking the rest of us onto the ground in a tangle of limbs.

‘Stop it.’ Poppy tried to sit back down, holding fast to her fish.

‘Wretched dung-squab,’ said Will, sending a pebble whizzing past Kit’s ear.

‘Elise needs to see,’ said Kit, apparently unconcerned that he had nearly lost a piece of his ear.

He dragged the giant piece of driftwood onto the bonfire. It crackled and flared and tongues of bright blue flame rose up hissing. The fire was quite unreal, like a magician’s furnace, and I half expected a fishtailed genie to emerge from the sapphire flames. The blue was almost as bright as Kit’s eyes. He was so different from the boys I had known in Vienna – not that I had known very many. There was little Jan Tibor, small for his age, bespectacled and terribly clever at playing the piano, according to the chorus of great-aunts. Sadly he never gave me the opportunity to marvel at his musical intellect myself, as whenever we met he stammered with nerves, his eyes bulged behind his thick spectacles and he looked like he wanted nothing more than to be sick, let alone play a little Chopin. Great-aunt Gabrielle was quite convinced he was going to be a famous composer one day. Nonetheless, he was too short for romance. Margot’s Robert was handsome enough, but more serious than the dour ancestors on the wall in the Tyneford dining room. And I did not like men who scolded me. Robert, I decided, would make an excellent butler, austere and disapproving. He and Mr Wrexham could have a scintillating afternoon, comparing my shortcomings.

Kit was different. He had confidence, but lacked the preposterous swagger of some of the Austrian boys. I liked it when he laughed. I found myself wanting to do things that would make him laugh again.

‘Are you in love with Kit?’ said Poppy, suddenly appearing at my elbow.

‘I’m begging your pardon.’

‘Oh, it’s all right. Everyone is in love with him. I used to be too. Until I was fourteen and then I grew out of it.’

‘You’re not in love with me anymore?’ said Kit, returning from the bonfire to perch beside her.

‘No,’ she said, turning her back on him and facing me. ‘Well? Are you?’

I stared at her, too shocked to speak. Will fiddled with his boots, suddenly very busy with his laces, while Kit was seemingly mesmerised by two small boys cheerfully toasting snails on sticks in the bonfire flames.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Poppy. ‘He likes it. Kit needs all women to be in love with him. I think it’s because of his mother. She died when he was very young.’

I looked at Kit, who smiled back at me with good-natured ease, apparently unconcerned at Poppy discussing him and his dead mother as though he were not here. I recalled the photograph in Kit’s bedroom of the blonde girl with the shy smile, and wondered how she had died.

‘I am very sorry,’ I said.

Kit smiled. ‘It’s all right. I don’t remember her.’

I wasn’t sure how not remembering her made it all right. To me, that made it worse.

‘That psychoanalyst. Mr Freud. He’s from Vienna. Did you know him?’ asked Poppy.

I exhaled a tiny sigh of relief at the change of topic. ‘No. But once I seeing his daughter Anna in a stationery shop.’

‘Oh, really. What did she buy?’

‘I cannot remember. Envelopes I think.’

‘Oh.’

Poppy did not conceal her disappointment, clearly hoping for some unique insight. She spied an upturned barrel and climbing upon it, sat swinging her legs in the moonlight; her pale skin was speckled with golden freckles, like biscuit crumbs on a white tablecloth. The sea glinted beneath the stars, and lights on a ship far out on the channel blinked in the darkness. The fishermen’s song grew frantic, they stamped and clapped as they chanted, the grind of the pebbles beneath their feet like a growl coming from the earth. I found myself swaying to the rhythm of their melody, and imagined Anna singing with them, a silver song to their chorus. The ship on the horizon disappeared around the curve of the earth, and I waved, pretending it was Margot on her voyage across the sea. Art jumped upon an upturned boat and began to play a melancholy tune on a fiddle to accompany the singers. The strings had a rich dark tone, and in my mind it became Margot playing on the vanishing ship, the sound muted and strange because of Julian’s pages stuffed inside the belly of the rosewood viola.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Diana and Juno

Kit and I sat on the bluff in the cool November dawn. Summer had bloomed and withered into autumn. We huddled side by side on the pinnacle above Flower’s Barrow, staring down at the churning sea. I shivered and wrapped my arms around my waist as the weak sun rose behind the hill.

‘Come on. You’re being mean now. It wasn’t that bad,’ said Kit.

‘No, all right. I still like the
Forsyte Saga
best, though. It’s more elegant.’

Kit snorted. ‘Nonsense. Just your English was so bad then, you didn’t notice how hammy it is.’

‘Perhaps. But, I tell you – I’ll always have a place in my heart for them. They’re the first English family I ever knew.’ I smiled and blew onto my hands. ‘Come on, I’m getting cold and I have a thousand glasses to polish.’