Ellie
“He gave you one?”
“Yes.”
“Just like that?”
“Well, pretty much.”
Clive lowered the motoring magazine and transferred his full attention to my face. His eyebrows drew together and two deep vertical creases appeared between them.
“I presume you’re having me on?”
“No,” I said, and added a “Not” to underline it.
“So he offered, and you just took it?”
“Well, it was . . . it was hard to say no.”
This was going to be tricky. I couldn’t explain it to myself, let alone offer an explanation to anyone else. Which was why I’d been driving around Exmoor for the last half hour—with frequent stops to look in the back of the car and check that it was true—before I finally headed homeward.
Our nice but nosy neighbor Pauline was out in her garden, so I had gone straight in. I had launched myself into the kitchen. I’d swept a brief kiss into my husband’s receding hairline. I’d sought out the kettle, filled it to the brim, spurted myself with water in the process and abandoned it. Then I’d blurted out a tangle of sentences that sounded frothy and ridiculous. I’d blushed, become aware of it, and blushed some more. Now I stood limply grinning by the fridge.
Clive closed the magazine and tugged at the neck of his sweatshirt. “Sorry, El, but I have to ask: Exactly how long have you known this man?”
My mind traveled back to the strange encounter of earlier: the huge open door of the barn that had enticed me in, the warm scent of wood, the light falling on the myriad harps, and there, in the center of them all, the lone figure. There had been some sort of tool in his hand, but already my memory was playing tricks on me and I couldn’t say what it was. He had initially appeared to be an alien. His lower face was covered by some sort of blue mask and he was wearing earmuffs, presumably protection from sawdust and machinery noise. But the minute he’d taken them off, I was struck by the beauty of the man. He was tall and sinewy with dark, disheveled hair. Although his skin looked weather-beaten, there was a strange translucent quality about it. His face was classically sculpted, as if a great deal of thought had gone into every line and curve. But it was his huge, dark eyes that really claimed my curiosity. I’d never seen eyes like that before.
“I only met him the first time this morning.”
Clive was as nonplussed as I’d been an hour earlier. He leaned forward, his expression wavering between amusement and disbelief. “I don’t get it.”
I laughed manically. Explanations swam round in my head, but not one of them was managing to formulate itself into words.
Clive was clearly preparing to escort me to the nearest asylum.
“Come and look,” I tried. Once he saw it, surely he would be as enthusiastic as I was?
I led him outside into the bright chill of the September air. Pauline, I gratefully noticed, had disappeared. The car was still unlocked. I flung open the rear door. Clive’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.
“Ah!” I cried in a voice that was half irony, half relief. “So I wasn’t hallucinating!”
It’s a good thing we have a hatchback and seats that go down. I stood back to allow my husband a thorough examination.
The harp was carved out of red-gold wood (cherry, Dan had told me, to go with my socks). It had a lovely soft sheen and there was a marbled swirl in the graining at the joint where it would rest against my shoulder. A light Celtic pattern was carved along the sweep of the neck, and embedded in the wood at the crest was a shiny blue-black pebble. Apparently Dan always puts an Exmoor pebble into his harps. Each pebble is carefully chosen to complement the style and character of the instrument. This harp—my harp—was a lovely size, just as high as my waistline when it was standing. Now it was lying on one side, nestled cozily on the tartan rug in the back of the car.
Clive knocked at the wood of the soundboard with his knuckles as if to check it was real. “But this is quality craftsmanship!”
“I know,” I said, smug now, almost proud of Dan. “He’s been making them all his life.”
“This would cost—what—two thousand pounds? Three? More, even, if it’s all handmade. Look at the carving along the top.”
“The neck. It’s called the neck. Apparently.”
Clive was scrutinizing as only Clive can scrutinize. “It’s—well, I have to say it’s pretty cool! But, honeybun, there’s no way you can keep it. You do know that, don’t you?”
The voice of logic. It came hurtling through my haze of surreal, heady joy, and it stung. “Of course I do,” I mumbled.
Clive straightened and shook his head. “The guy must be insane.”
I sprang to his defense. “He’s definitely not insane. But he’s a little . . . unusual.”
“That’s a cert! What could have possessed him? A woman he doesn’t know from Adam comes waltzing into his workshop one day and, on the spur of the moment, he decides to give her—to give her—nothing less than a harp. A handmade harp that took him God knows how long to construct. Sell, fair enough, I could understand sell, but give? Even the materials must have set him back a bit. Come on, hon, get real! You must have misunderstood. He must have meant you to pay.”
“No, he didn’t. He made that quite clear.”
Clive frowned, unable to comprehend such a concept. “Well then, I guess he gave it to you to try out, hoping for a sale, and you completely got the wrong end of the stick.”
“I didn’t! Look, I told him about fifteen times I couldn’t possibly accept it. He just didn’t get it. He kept asking why not—and he was so . . . I don’t know, so open, so well-meaning, that I felt stupid and couldn’t think of an answer. Then he said, ‘Don’t you like the harp?’ He sounded really hurt.”
“He sounded hurt? El, I think you’re pushing it a bit.”
“No, I swear it’s true! And then he started pacing through the barn, hunting for another, better one to give me! So I had to tell him it was a lovely harp. I had to tell him I loved the harp. And it’s true. How could I not? But I said again and again I’d never be able to play it and it would be wasted on me, and I kept on protesting.” I leaned over and gazed lovingly at my gift. “While I was protesting he just carried it to the car and put it in.”
My mind leaped back again. I had felt so touched by the man’s extraordinary gesture. I had not been able to resist plucking a few strings, as the harp lay there on its side in my car. I did it badly, of course, never having done such a thing in my life before, but the sound was rich, wild and resonant. It had a strange effect, like a shower of golden sparks soaring inside me.
“Good,” Dan had said. “You can cross it off your list now.” He had walked quickly back into the barn and shut the door behind him.
I had stared at the door for a long time.
Today, of all days. After all my wandering and crying and remembering.
Clive’s voice jolted me back to the present. “Look, El, I’m afraid it’s going to have to go back.”
The words bore down on me with their dull weight of common sense. Of course he hadn’t realized what day it was today, and what that meant for me. I probably should have reminded him, but my stubborn streak wouldn’t let me.
“I know. You’re right,” I said, trying to sound as if I didn’t care.
He was rubbing a hand over his brow. “I’d love to buy it for you, hon, really I would. But it would be way too pricey. And you’d get bored of it pretty soon anyway. You’ve never shown any interest in playing a musical instrument before, after all.”
“I suppose not.”
“And we can’t be in this man’s debt. It would be taking advantage.”
I put my hand on his arm. “I know it would. I never should have accepted. I’m sorry I was so stupid. It was one of those crazy moments. I don’t know what came over me.”
“I don’t either!” he said.
Then I made myself say: “Well, do you want to come with me to return it? I think you’d be interested to see the place. It’s a converted barn at the end of a long lane, right out in the wilds, and it’s full, totally full of harps—and bits of harps. You can see them at every stage in their creation. It’s really fascinating.”
Clive scanned my face as if there was something there he didn’t recognize. “How did you find it?”
“I just discovered it by chance. It’s not signposted or anything, but I thought I’d go up the lane and see where it led. I had an idea there might be a nice view or something. I never expected to find a harp workshop. I certainly never dreamed I’d come back home with a harp.”
“The guy’s a nutter!” Clive declared. “Or else he fancies the pants off you. Either way, it would be wrong to keep the thing.”
I promptly removed my hand from his arm. All that remained of the magic had now been shattered.
“I don’t think my pants come into it!” I snapped. “But you’re right, I should return it.” I slammed the rear hatch shut. Clive is a big man and I am used to him towering over me, but at that moment I was feeling exceptionally small. “I’ll take it back now. There’s no point in even getting it out of the car really, is there?” I was struggling to control the bitter twang in my voice. “Are you coming?”
He shook his head again. Sometimes his lack of curiosity amazes me.
“No, I think I’ll leave it to you. If I go with you, it might look as if I forced you to take it back. It’ll make me look like the wicked ogre. You go, hon, and don’t forget to make it clear it’s your choice, and you’ll have nothing more to do with it. OK, love?”
The “OK, love” did not make it any easier. I was in no mood to be OK-loved. But I got into the car and I drove up the hill and back the way I’d come, to the Harp Barn.