The Cleverness Of Ladies [Quick Reads] Read online

  She suddenly became aware that there was somebody in the garden, coming round the side of the house. She heard him first, his footfall on the gravel, a crunching sound, and she stopped dozing. Nobody came that way, at least not in the evening. Sometimes the butcher’s boy would come round and leave his parcel at the kitchen door if there was no reply to the bell, but otherwise nobody.

  In her slightly confused state, she thought: this is something to do with what’s happening; this is something to do with the war. But then she realised that was ridiculous. She rose to her feet as she heard the footsteps again, closer now. When she saw him through the French windows, it took a moment for her to recognise who he was, he was so unexpected. Her first thought was: how does he know that this is where I live? She had not told him.

  Feliks’s eyes met hers through the glass, and then he smiled and made a gesture. He was wearing a cap, a grey cap, which he took off. There was something in his other hand.

  She moved towards the door and opened it to him. The evening air flooded past her, warm on the skin.

  ‘I hope I didn’t frighten you.’ His voice was quiet.

  ‘No. Not really. Surprised me, though. The front door …’ She trailed off. She saw that what he was carrying was the flute in its leather case.

  ‘I knocked at the front door. But then I heard the wireless inside and I knew that you must be in.’

  She gestured for him to enter the room, and he did so, wiping his boots on the mat carefully, taking his time. He looked at her with an expression that she did not know how to interpret, though it seemed to her like apology. He handed the flute to her.

  ‘I’ve brought this back,’ he said. ‘I can’t accept it. I can’t take it from you, and I cannot pay for it. I ask you to understand.’

  The flute was in her hands now, and she stared down at it, uncertain what to do. Of course he had his pride; that was it – she had heard people say that the Poles were proud. She could understand. When your country was taken over, invaded by another, you must hold on to your pride, or the small scraps of it which remain.

  She thought quickly. She wanted him to have the flute. She wanted him to play in the orchestra. Suddenly that seemed so important.

  An idea occurred. He could work in her garden for her. He could earn the flute; it would be a fair exchange.

  9

  She became used to seeing him. He came three days a week, in the evenings, and set about his work in the garden. He knew what he was doing, she discovered; he knew the botanical names of the plants, which was far more than she did, and he seemed to have an understanding of their needs. He harvested lavender – her namesake – for her, and tied it in bundles, upside down, to dry. At the end of the path, where there had been weeds, it was now neat and well tended. He planted new things, moved others to better spots. ‘You must be careful what you plant in the shade,’ he said.

  Afterwards, when he had finished, she watched him walk down the road with that halting gait of his, and felt lonely. But I can never allow myself to fall in love with him, she said to herself. I’m finished with that.

  The orchestra was going through a period of particular energy and enthusiasm. They were working on a programme for a concert they were going to give in December which was ambitious and some of the members found difficult. La attended every rehearsal, and watched Feliks playing his flute. He smiled at her, almost in conspiracy.

  ‘You get on well with your Polish flautist,’ said one of the cellists. ‘A good discovery, from every point of view.’

  La said nothing, but smiled. Orchestras always liked to gossip; people always liked to gossip.

  The conductor said to her, privately, at the end of a session: ‘It was a good idea, La, getting that man along. He has a lovely playing style, doesn’t he? The flutes are a joy now.’

  She felt proud of her discovery. When December came, after the concert, which proved so popular that two performances were arranged, she invited Feliks back to the house for a meal. He accepted, and they sat in the dining room, Feliks somewhat uncomfortable in a suit that she had not seen before, a grey affair with wide lapels.

  ‘When this is all over,’ she said, ‘what are you going to do, Feliks? When you have Poland back?’

  ‘If we have Poland back,’ he said. ‘There are many people who might not want that.’

  She was silent. ‘But it’s going our way. It really is. Look at Sicily. Look at Italy.’

  He looked thoughtful. ‘We can play Italian music again,’ he said, ‘and not feel uncomfortable about it.’

  She laughed. ‘I never felt uncomfortable. Mussolini and his gang don’t belong there. This is not what Italy is about.’

  He smiled. ‘You are British,’ he said. ‘You believe that everybody is good. I’m Polish. We look at things differently.’

  She inclined her head. She was not sure whether he had paid her a compliment, or otherwise. But he had not answered her question, and so she posed it again.

  He shrugged. ‘I shall see how things are. I’m comfortable here, in this country. I like not being frightened of people in uniform. I like warm beer that tastes like …’ he made a face. ‘I like your little orchestra.’

  La listened.

  10

  They knew before it happened. It was clear enough, although there were setbacks, when the Allies met with resistance and things slowed down. But it was obvious now how things were going to end, and people felt a quiet satisfaction – just that. There was no triumphalism – people were too tired, too worn down. But soon it would come to an end, and the nightmare would be over.

  Feliks had long since paid for the flute with his work in the garden, but he insisted on coming still, especially now that it was spring, or almost, and the garden needed a lot of work. La watched him from her sitting room, and took him mugs of tea.

  ‘I’ve been thinking of something,’ she said to him one day. ‘Do you think it’s bad luck to plan for something in advance? Before it happens?’

  He seemed to read her thoughts. ‘Like victory?’

  ‘Yes. In particular, a victory concert. It might happen at any time, you see, and the orchestra must be ready.’

  He brushed some soil off his fingers and wiped his hands on his trousers. ‘A very good idea. We should plan it. But I have one request. Can we play something Polish? Please. I know it’s your victory, but for us, too, we have struggled …’

  She readily accepted his suggestion. They started to practise, although nobody said what it was for. They all knew, though, that this concert would be a special one. When the day came, suddenly, dramatically, they made posters and put them up within hours. The orchestra was ready.

  The programme was a long one, because La knew that nobody would want it to end. The hall was packed; people stood at the back, their arms on each other’s shoulders. They embraced, and at the end instruments were laid down and the members of the orchestra shook hands with each other. They smiled at each other.

  Feliks walked with La back to her house. She stopped outside the door. He smiled at her and held out his hand. ‘You have been so kind to me,’ he said.

  They shook hands.

  ‘What will happen to the orchestra?’ he said. ‘Now that this … this is all over?’

  They had not spoken about this before. She knew, though, that it would be difficult. People would leave, would move on. The orchestra would probably not continue. The conductor was too old now and would not want to carry on, now that the country was at peace, or almost at peace.

  ‘I’m afraid that it will probably fold up,’ she said. ‘It’s had its day. Sad, but there we are.’

  ‘It could carry on,’ he said. ‘Life will go on.’

  She smiled at him. ‘Yes, life will go on. But I have to be realistic about the orchestra. We’ve had a good time. We really have.’

  He sighed. ‘Oh, well.’ Then he turned and walked down the road. He did not see her expression.

  11

  It had been so diffic
ult to travel, but now she could. She decided that she would go down to Cornwall, where her cousin lived. They had not seen one another for some years, and in that time her cousin had married. She wanted to meet the man whom she had only seen in photographs.

  She spent three weeks in Cornwall, staying in the house that her cousin and the new husband lived in at the edge of a village. Her cousin grew vegetables and kept hens; La ate large mushroom omelettes for breakfast, making up for the years when it had been difficult to buy eggs. In the mornings, when she woke up, her cousin’s husband brought a tea tray and put it beside her bed.

  ‘You’re spoiling me,’ she said.

  ‘You deserve it,’ he replied. ‘You’ve been working so hard.’

  Have I? she asked herself. Hardly. Not hard compared with others, with people on convoys, in the mines, in factories. The cousin’s husband himself was a doctor. He worked in a hospital nearby, and had done so through the war.

  ‘And your orchestra, La?’ said her cousin. ‘Tell us about your orchestra.’

  ‘It does its best,’ she said. ‘Some of the players are very good. Others are, well, enthusiastic.’ She paused. ‘I think that we probably won’t continue. People are leaving. Giving up. I suppose they’ve had enough.’

  The cousin looked sympathetic. ‘Understandable.’

  On the way back, on the train, she found herself thinking of him, of Feliks, and looking forward to seeing him again. She had brought some cheese for him from Cornwall because she knew that he had a weakness for cheese.

  She let herself into the house. There was a pile of mail on the floor, and she saw his handwriting on one of the envelopes. She knew immediately what it would say; that it was his goodbye note. She opened it quickly, tearing the top of the cheap notepaper inside. ‘I have had to go immediately,’ he wrote. ‘There are not many jobs for us now, but I have been given one up in Glasgow. There is a Pole there who has a senior position in a fertiliser firm. He has offered me a job. It’s too good a chance to miss, and I have to take it up immediately. So I have left without saying goodbye, in person, without thanking you for everything – for your friendship to a stranger, for the flute, for your orchestra. Yes, thank you for your orchestra. Maybe people don’t say thank you for orchestras, but I do. Thank you.’

  She put the note down on a table and walked through to her sitting room. The air was stale, the air of a house that had been closed up. She went to the French windows and opened them. She remembered the evening that she had opened the doors to him, and how the air had flowed into the room at that moment, so warm.

  12

  La was right about the orchestra. The conductor called off the next rehearsal – he wanted a break, and she understood. Perhaps they would start again in the autumn, or even the winter, he said, but she knew that this would not happen.

  She missed Feliks to begin with; she missed the war, in an odd sort of way. It had given her purpose, something to do. Now there was no ambulance to drive and no call for volunteers. Nor was there much work for her. She began to help out at a riding stable nearby, although she did not really like horses very much. It gave her something to do, and she became involved in the affairs of the stable.

  The years passed. She went to concerts, in Cambridge and sometimes in London. But she did not like the grime of the city, the secondhand feel of the air, and so the trips to London became fewer and fewer. She looked in the mirror. She was now in her fifties, although she looked younger. I could still get married, she thought, but there were no men, and she was not prepared to look for one. I am destined to live my life here, in this quiet corner, not doing anything in particular. If we each have a moment in our lives, a time when we count for something, mine was when I had my orchestra. La’s Orchestra. How many people can claim to have an orchestra named after them? That was an achievement – that was something.

  Then, in 1959, she decided to treat herself to a trip to the Edinburgh Festival. It was the most glittering of the festivals, and she had seen the programme. She splashed out on the best tickets for the big concerts; she booked a room at the North British Hotel, a room with its own bath.

  She went to the opening concert in the Usher Hall. She was sitting in the fifth row from the front, among people who were formally dressed: dinner jackets, long dresses. They were elegant people from New York, London, Geneva. She felt out of place; she had stayed in rural Suffolk too long. During the interval she went outside to get some fresh air, and that was when she saw Feliks. He was standing under a light on the steps, reading the programme notes.

  She wanted to embrace him, but did not. They looked at one another, discreetly, assessing the impact of the years. He looked the same: smarter, of course, but otherwise unchanged.

  There was so much to say. He told her that he was in the same job, but more senior. He was a manager now, and had a share in the business. He had done well.

  ‘Any family?’ she asked hesitantly. ‘I am divorced,’ he said. ‘Some Catholic, but there you are. She left me. I have a son. He is six. He stays with me.’

  ‘You must come and see me,’ she said. ‘Come down sometime. Bring your little boy.’

  He gave her his address and a telephone number.

  ‘How about you?’ he said. ‘Same place? Same house?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘The same.’

  13

  She had hoped that he would contact her, that he would at least telephone, but he did not. She almost telephoned him on several occasions, but stopped herself. If he had wanted to be in touch, then he would have been. She should not pester him.

  In 1960 she went to Italy for a month. She travelled as far down as Naples, where she was robbed. Everything was stolen: her passport, her money, her camera. She did not feel bitter; in fact, she was surprised at how calm she felt. That is because nothing happens in my life, she said to herself. This is the most dramatic thing that has happened in years, and so I don’t really mind it. A friend said, ‘You’re very philosophical, La. If that happened to me, I’d be furious. Incandescent.’ La smiled; the word made her think of Vesuvius, the volcano at Naples.

  Then, the following year, something happened. It happened a long way away, across thousands of miles of ocean, but it seemed to La as if it were happening right next door, as if, oddly, it were personal. An American spy plane, cruising high over the Caribbean, photographed a missile installation in Cuba. Suddenly this was in the news; grave words were uttered. She read a front-page article in a newspaper which said: This is very, very serious. This could be the end.

  La read this and thought of what the words the end meant. They meant the end of the trees on her lawn, of her old house, of the lanes that ran into the countryside, of the hedges at their sides, of the innocent air, of the high, empty skies of her part of England. It meant the end of the village pub, of the butcher’s boy with his bicycle, the end of London, of the radio, of music.

  On that first night of the crisis La could not sleep. She lay there in the darkness and looked at the ceiling. It would come quickly, they said. There would only be, what? a four-minute warning. Four minutes. What could we do about it? She reflected on the fact that you couldn’t do anything once the build-up started; you couldn’t come face to face with the people concerned and say stop; or go down on your bended knees and implore them not to continue. You could not, because the people concerned were hidden behind doors and walls; they were deep in bunkers, behind concrete, far away. You could not speak to them.

  She got up at four in the morning, not having slept at all. She had decided, and the decision survived the turning on of her light. She would hold a peace concert, urgently, in a few days’ time. She would gather her orchestra. She would pay their train fares. She would bring the orchestra together – for one last time – in a concert for peace. It didn’t matter if nobody heard it or took any notice. It would have happened. They would have done something. 96

  14

  She wasted no time in telephoning the members of the orchestra.
Some of them could not be traced, of course; some were dead, or had not been heard of for years. But word got out, and one would telephone another. Slowly the sections came together and agreed: yes, they could come and play in the concert. ‘It will be pretty much a scratch performance,’ said La, ‘maybe one rehearsal.’ Nobody minded that. They would be there.

  She telephoned Feliks last because she at least knew exactly how to contact him, and because she had been anxious about it. He was silent for a few moments after she had explained to him what it was about.

  ‘You want me to come, don’t you?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m asking you to come.’ She felt that it was almost as if she was calling in a favour, but she wanted him there, she particularly wanted him there. ‘Bring your little boy with you,’ she said.

  ‘I will,’ he said.

  They arrived. She watched old friends catching up and exchanging addresses. She thought, if it doesn’t work, if there’s no peace this time, then those addresses will simply cease to exist. It’s different this time.

  They managed one rehearsal, a brief one, and then the concert took place. Word had got round, and people came; too many, in fact, with the result that they had to open the doors of the hall and let people listen from outside. La sat at the back of the hall, as she always did, and at her side was Feliks’s little boy, now eight. He behaved well, holding a small toy car that he played with discreetly on his knee, driving it up and down. She glanced down at him and smiled. He smiled back.

  She had forgotten the various performances of her orchestra and so she couldn’t judge whether it was better now than it had been before, but it sounded beautiful to her, so beautiful, very much what she had wanted it to be. At the end of the concert, when the last notes had died away, there was utter silence in the hall. Then, one by one, the orchestra stood up, and so did the audience. They stood up in complete silence. Nobody said a word, nobody coughed or shuffled feet; there was just silence. Then they went out. It seemed that everybody felt it was wrong to break the atmosphere of the moment by applauding, and so there was no clapping. Just silence.