The Song of Hartgrove Hall by Natasha Solomons Page B

‘What you want to hear that stuff fer?’
    Edie leans forward. ‘I’d like to hear something. I’d like it very much.’
    He pauses, scratches his nose. ‘All righty. Fer the lady then.’ He refolds his legs and then sings in a clear baritone.
    The notes flutter out of the open window and I hear the goldcrests fall silent for a moment as though they’re listening too. There’s a dignity to him as he sings. He nods once to Edie and then seemingly forgets her, forgets there is any audience at all; he’s alone with his song. It’s unmistakably English, like the scurry of oak leaves shaking in the rain. As the sound floods the gloomy little parlour I’m filled with a sense of rightness as though he is singing my own thoughtsback to me. I’ve heard variations on this song before. However, it’s not its familiarity that is raising the hairs along the back of my neck, but the shiver of loss and longing, and the knowledge that I’m listening to a melody sung down the generations. In his voice I hear a score of other voices converge and there is a shining moment when I can see both forwards and backwards, when time rocks to and fro upon the empty hearth.
    â€”
    Afterwards we stroll outside. I’m as tickled as anything. I have two new songs for my collection. I expect they’re probably variants of other more common songs but it doesn’t matter. I like the tune of one in particular and I know it will rattle around inside me for the rest of the day. I experience a supine contentment as if I’d eaten a meaty dinner. I want to sit down and have a cold glass of something and smoke a fag. I also want to look over Edie’s notes – she’s been dashing off pages like a schoolgirl in an exam – but it seems impolite in front of the old chap.
    We dawdle through the garden. Lodder lives alone and it’s a man’s patch – thoroughly practical, stocked solely with things to eat, the only flowers permitted to bloom here being repellents to discourage pests from devouring the vegetables. There’s a village of sheds, ugly but useful. Lodder picks slugs off his lettuces between a stout forefinger and thumb, and flings them at the hawthorn hedge with some precision, where they hang on the prickles like wet grey baubles. A skinny and lonesome goat watches us from its tether in a circle of dirt. Edie makes towards it with a coo, but Lodder grunts a warning.
    â€˜I wouldn’t, if I were yoos. She’ll git you something nasty.’
    Edie stops short and the goat strains at its tether, horns down.
    â€˜Lil bitch,’ says Lodder with a fond chuckle. ‘If only I could ’ave kept the wife out here. ’Ere, ’ave a tomato. Lovely ’n’ sweet.’
    Edie eats her tomato in silence, her eyes wide, and I want to laugh. Lodder’s hamming it up for her benefit and I wonder whether she can tell.
    â€˜Miserable buggers, them songs. They’re all ’bout lost things – sweethearts, youth, maidenhead—’
    I shrug, conscious of the late hour and recognising that, although I’m pleased with the songs I’ve heard, the pleasure is starting to wear off and I’m already wanting something else but I can’t properly explain to Lodder what it is since I don’t know myself what I’m hunting for. Perhaps it’s simply the desire for another song; there’s always one more to be found.
    Lodder grinds a snail under his boot and then with a grin points to the compost heap. ‘Slowworm,’ he says with some satisfaction.
    The tiny snake snoozes in the last of the afternoon sunshine, a perfect silver coil.
    â€”
    Edie strides along, her cardigan draped around her shoulders. I fall into step beside her, relieved she doesn’t seem tired – I feel guilty about making her walk so far. The sun slinks behind the hill and it becomes abruptly cool, as if all the doors