The Song of Hartgrove Hall by Natasha Solomons Page B

at it. When he was too tired to pick up a melody instantly, or if a complex sequence of fingering required effort and concentration, he’d lie on the floor and sob. With my own fervour interrupted, to my shame I’d huff with irritation and I’d be ready to tick him off, much as I would have done a third-desk violin during rehearsal, when suddenly I’d catch myself. I’d notice the littleness of the creature prostrate on the carpet, the hiccuping sobs. When he got into such a state, I’d try to persuade him down to the kitchen for a cup of cocoa or a walk around the garden, but he never wanted to come. All he wanted was to play the piano. Once or twice he fell asleep mid-rage. I felt ashamed for pushing so hard and forgetting that he was not some impetuous music student from the academy but my own grandson.

    October was tipping towards November and during our time together I’d kept the poor child inside. I’d told myself it was because the weather had been poor and he liked to spend hours in the music room at the piano but I heard a voice in my mind, Edie’s voice, insisting that children also want to watch hours of television and eat chocolate until they’re sick, and it’s the adult’s task to moderate such excess. Guiltily, I recognised that I’d kept Robin at the piano out of selfishness.During his lessons Edie drifted into the background. Her loss remained a chronic pain, but one blunted by a powerful analgesic. The boy’s talent was a luminescence that rippled outwards, and I followed it like a man overboard grasping at a light in the dark.
    I still could not sleep but in the long hours before dawn, instead of huddling in the cold, feeling the shape of silence beside me, I made lists of pieces to play for Robin. I’d started with the usual children’s tunes – Humperdinck’s
Hansel
and Gretel
or Prokofiev’s
Peter and the Wolf
and the candy-cane waltzes that my own daughters had enjoyed, but like the unusual child who prefers olives to sweeties, Robin preferred Bach to Strauss. As I lay awake, dawn crept in at the windows to the call of a woodlark. I decided to start the day with Vaughan Williams and his
Lark Ascending
.
    Robin listened to the cadences of soaring sound, his mouth ajar and his eyes half closed – an indication of intense pleasure. He had the same expression when eating vanilla ice cream.
    â€˜A lark’s a bird?’ he asked at the end.
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Like a chicken?’
    â€˜No. Not like a chicken.’
    â€˜Like a duck then?’
    â€˜A lark is a wild bird. She’s nothing like a chicken or a duck.’
    He stared at me, puzzled. He didn’t understand the concept of a songbird. I was filled with an energy I hadn’t felt for months.
    â€˜I think we should go out and hunt for a lark this morning.’
    â€˜I want to play on the piano.’
    He stuck out his bottom lip, which trembled, threatening tears.
    â€˜You can’t play a lark until you’ve heard one in our woods.’
    â€˜I’ve been a lion and I didn’t heard one of those in our woods.’
    I was about to argue further when I remembered Edie’s caution – never enter into a debate with a child which you cannot win.
    â€˜Let’s start by listening for a woodlark. You never know, we might get lucky and find a lion too.’
    â€”
    By the time I’d bribed him into his coat (a clear violation of Edie’s rules – but her resolve was always much stronger than mine) and both wellington boots, I was exhausted, almost ready to telephone Clara and ask her to come early to collect him. Sternly, I told myself that I wasn’t being fair to the boy. He must know green woods and lost love and a thousand other things, or his music will be an echo without a soul. I glanced down at Robin with his twin channels of yellow snot beneath his nose and his mis-buttoned red raincoat, and