The Song of Hartgrove Hall by Solomons Natasha

Author:Solomons, Natasha [Solomons, Natasha]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2015-11-19T08:00:00+00:00

February 1948

I want to be in a place where no one knows me, preferably drunk. I can’t bear polite enquiries and sympathetic smiles. Defeated and humiliated, I want to lick my wounds in peace. I end up in London, simply another face in the crowd. I head east because it’s cheap and I’m perilously low on funds. This part of the city, battered and broken, suits my frame of mind. There are no new buildings pushing up amidst the bomb craters and grime. No one here even notices the wreckage any longer. I find a nice old pub near Brick Lane, the only building left standing in a sea of rubble, moored amongst the craters like a lone ship, where the landlord lets me play the piano during opening hours and keep any tips. It’s a rickety, irritable instrument and I like it. The bar was frequented by black American soldiers during the war. When I find drawing pins pressed into all the tiny hammers inside the piano, I realise it must have been used for jazz. I wonder what happened to those Yankee jazz players and shake off my wretchedness long enough to wish I could have heard them.

I feel the odd twinge of guilt about taking the car. I’m careful not to use the word ‘steal’. I did not steal, as it was mine to begin with – at least in part. I estimate that a third of the rattling, decrepit Austin belonged to me. The steering wheel and the broken hubcaps must be mine. In any case, they’ll have bought another by now – there was plenty of money from the concert. A nagging internal voice reminds me that the concert cash was supposed to be George’s cow money.

I edge away from thoughts of George. Awkward, taciturn, noble George who pines for Edie without complaint. George, who ploughs his unhappiness and longing into furrows along the side of the hill. The muddy ridges and ruts carved into the eastern slopes of Hartgrove Hill are the only sign of George’s sorrow.

To hell with George and his silent love. I don’t want George as my companion in this. It makes us both ridiculous. And I won’t pity him. I couldn’t bear to be pitied myself and I won’t insult him with sympathy. I tuck away all thoughts of Hartgrove Hall and the green expanse of the hill, the way the field slopes and curves beneath the church like the smooth hollow of a woman’s back. And yet, in my sleep, I walk Ringmoor in the dark. I hear the ring of ancient feet, of boots on stone, the whisper of the larch trees in the rain. I follow Edie’s footprints in the snow but somewhere amongst the rustling woods, I lose her and wake, empty and adrift.

I have grandiose plans of using my melancholy to fuel my symphony but I’m too miserable to write. I’d always thought that sadness was useful for an artist but either I’m the wrong sort of artist or it’s the wrong sort of misery.

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