As the weeks go by, I find it hard to believe that I have ever lived anywhere else. It seems to have taken me no time at all to settle into my uncles’ way of life, and almost for the first time in my life, I feel truly at home. Even Blossom seems to have accepted me as a member of the household, and while never overtly friendly, she condescends to exchange a few brief words — Blossom’s words are nothing if not brief — when she stops for coffee. Of course, I loved living in my flat, but (unless you count the cat) I have never had anyone to share it with, and living with Eric and Silas has made me realise how much I enjoy being with other people. Even at home with my parents before I went to college, I used to feel lonely, because there was so much about me that they didn’t understand.
‘You’ve already practised once today, Ruth,’ my father would say. ‘Do you really need to start doing it again? That bit sounds fine to me.’
‘I just need to get this phrase right. Just ten more minutes.’
‘If you must,’ he would sigh. ‘But I can’t see what another ten minutes is going to do.’
‘Dad, you’ve never liked Bach, so you wouldn’t understand.’ He wasn’t the only one to get irritated.
‘Too many notes. Far too many notes.’ And thus, arguably the greatest composer who has ever lived would be briskly dismissed.
Here, I feel accepted and perhaps even loved, and my music is actively encouraged. My uncles have no expectations of me, nor I of them, and in the relaxed, comfortable atmosphere of this shambolic house, I believe that I am becoming a nicer person. I enjoy having to consider the needs of other people; to fit in with their routine and their way of life. I like helping around the house and garden, and I have accomplished skills which I could never have dreamed of. Not only have I learnt that it’s perfectly possible to live happily without wanting to tidy up every five minutes, but more usefully, I have learnt to milk a goat, skin a rabbit, and make delicious soups and salads out of ingredients I have hardly ever seen, never mind eaten, before. As for the internet, which I once thought essential to any kind of civilised life, I no longer give it a thought.
‘Just stretch out your middle finger,’ Eric says now. He is measuring my forearm with a rather frayed tape measure. ‘By the way, you’re looking much better.’
‘Am I?’
‘Oh, yes. You looked thin and pasty when you arrived. The fresh air must be doing you good.’ He puts down his tape measure. ‘I make it nineteen inches. Damn. It does seem to vary. Silas’s was twenty inches. And it’s meant to be eighteen. Eighteen doesn’t seem very much somehow.’
‘Very much for what?’
‘A cubit. It’s supposed to be the measurement from the elbow to the middle finger. Noah measured his Ark in cubits.’
‘Why?’
‘God told him to.’
‘God doesn’t seem a measuring sort of person, somehow.’
‘I know what you mean.’ Eric makes notes on a piece of paper and refers to a battered Bible on the kitchen table. ‘I think I’ll make it eighteen inches, which fits nicely into yards. It’s much easier if we can do it all in yards.’
‘We?’
‘Well you’re helping now, aren’t you?’ He makes more notes. ‘The Ark had to be three hundred cubits long, so that’s — let me see — about a hundred and fifty yards. Not nearly big enough. I can see that already.’
‘Wouldn’t it have been easier for you to start with the size of the Ark, rather than the habits of the animals?’ I ask, for Eric has already done some research into the diets of a variety of species.
‘In a way, but the animals are more fun, so I shall alternate.’
‘But if you can see straight away that there isn’t room for them all, then that’s that, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, Ruth, Ruth. We have to prove it. We need proof. Facts, figures, that sort of thing. We’ve got to show him exactly why there isn’t enough room. And we’ve not just got to tell him how impossible it all is, but how ridiculously impossible. We’ve got to blow him — and his Ark — right out of the water.’
‘Oh. I see.’ I hesitate for a moment. ‘Who’s “he”?’
‘Well, as a matter of fact, it’s your father.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘Yes. Oh dear indeed. But I didn’t know you were coming when we had our — discussion, and I don’t want to give up on it now.’
‘I can see that.’
‘If you don’t mind, that is.’
‘Oh, I don’t mind at all. Dad thrives on this sort of thing. And if anyone can provide a successful argument in favour of all those animals living in even the tiniest of Arks, then my father’s your man.’ I watch Eric leafing through his Bible, making notes and chewing his pen. ‘Is it all right if I go now?’
‘My dear girl, of course you may go. I’ve kept you too long as it is.’
He does have a point, for quite apart from routine house and animal duties, I’ve already spent an hour on the phone to the zoo trying to get answers to a list of questions ranging from whether zebras eat hay to the gestation of the rhinoceros. The man at the zoo is kindly and tries to be helpful, but he is bewildered by all these questions.
Upstairs in my room I get out my violin and warm up with some scales. I’m not doing nearly enough practice, but without a goal, much of the incentive has gone. I shall never be a soloist, and now not even an orchestral player. So what (or who) am I playing for? My pupils? Even if I manage to get any, they won’t mind whether I practise or not. My public? Unless you count Eric and Silas, I don’t have a public. Myself? As I watch my fingers moving up and down the fingerboard, I remember practising these same scales for the exams I did as a schoolgirl, and my parents even then questioning the point of all that work. And I can see my small, furious, foot-stamping self trying to explain.
‘It’s for me, me, me! I do it for me! I love it. Can’t you see? Can’t you hear?’
But all they could see was that their daughter was wasting hours of her time (and quite a lot of their money) doing something which they saw as trivial; a hobby perhaps, a pastime, but certainly not a career which would earn any kind of living. They didn’t like the sound that I made and couldn’t fathom why I enjoyed making it, and even the high marks I achieved in my examinations (invariably with distinction) failed to impress them. It was as though I had burst into another language and expected them to converse with me. It was totally foreign. I was totally foreign.
I put down my violin and sit on the bed. Over the years, I have devoted thousands of hours to my music; hours of scales and exercises, of pieces and studies, and once, gloriously, a violin concerto with a full orchestra. They have been hours of toil, hours of weeping frustration but also moments of indescribable pleasure. Am I going let all that hard work go, just because I have no immediate goal? I told Eric and Silas that I love what I do, and of course it’s true. But like every love affair, my relationship with the violin is going through a rough patch; a period when it might be tempting to let it go, at least for the time being. Is that what I really want?
I pick up my violin again, running my fingers along the grain of the wood, feeling the smooth polished back, stroking its familiar ribs and surfaces. I bought it with money left to me by a godfather, and it’s old and quite valuable. Far better musicians than I shall ever be have owned and played this instrument, and I often wonder who they were, how they came by it and how or why they passed it on. Maybe one day it will pass into the hands of my own child — my son, if Blossom is to be believed — and he in his turn will give it to one of his own children. Or perhaps he will sell it. Who knows? But one thing is certain. So long as I can play, I will. Not for audiences or even for money, but, as I told my parents all those years ago, for me. Because I have to. Because, quite simply, it’s what I do. I stand up and riffle through a pile of music, then I take out one of the Bach unaccompanied suites and painstakingly start to practise the first movement.
‘Any phone calls?’ I ask, when much later I come downstairs for a cup of tea (with no mobile signal, I’m now dependent on the landline).
‘None for you,’ Silas says. ‘Don’t worry. Someone will reply sooner or later.’
‘But I really need to be earning now,’ I say, getting milk from the fridge. ‘I put the advertisement in ten days ago.’
‘It’s probably the wrong time of year, August. Who needs violin lessons in August?’
He’s right, of course. I should wait until the autumn and the new school year. But my savings are beginning to dip alarmingly, and while I’ve long since said goodbye to any hope of a gap year, I’m going to need things for the baby. Eric and Silas have said they’re quite happy to keep me, but I value my independence. Besides, it would be wrong to take advantage of their generosity.
‘I shall busk,’ I say, pouring boiling water onto a teabag. ‘I shall take my fiddle and go into town and busk. Someone’s bound to throw me a coin or two if I wait long enough. I did it on the underground when I was at college. There were three of us together at the bottom of the escalator at Paddington Station.’ Oh, happy days. ‘I did all my Christmas shopping one year out of my busking money.’
‘What on earth did your parents say?’ Silas asks. He is examining his latest acquisition, a dead squirrel, on the draining board.
‘I didn’t tell them. They would have been appalled. They would have considered it to be no better than begging, and the thought of their daughter begging on the streets would probably have finished them off. But they got very nice presents that year.’
‘Good for you.’ Silas sounds abstracted. ‘This is amazing.’ Tenderly, he lifts up his squirrel to show us. The squirrel doesn’t look dead at all, merely surprised (as well it might). ‘Not a mark on it, and it must have been knocked down. I shall enjoy doing this.’
‘Is busking legal?’ Eric asks.
‘I’m not sure now. I’ll phone the police and find out.’
Ten minutes later, after an interesting telephone conversation with someone official at the police station, I have discovered that busking comes under the Vagrancy Act of 1824.
‘Very old-fashioned. Like being hanged for sheep-stealing,’ I tell Eric (Silas is still preoccupied with his squirrel).
‘Does that mean you can’t do it?’
‘Apparently I might get by on the grounds of providing “street entertainment”.’
‘Does that mean you have to have an audition?’
‘Heavens, no. But I might be inspected by someone from the Town Centre Management Team, whatever that is. I could take Mr. Darcy with me, if you’ll let me. People might be able to resist me, but they’ll melt when Mr. Darcy does that reproachful thing with his eyebrows.’
‘Are you fit to hang around street corners with your violin?’
‘Perfectly fit,’ I assure him. ‘It’ll do me good.’
‘And the baby?’
‘It’ll do him good, too. It’s never too early to start enjoying music.’
And while I’ve no idea whether the seahorse/rabbit has developed anything in the way of ears yet, I’m sure that I’m right. Bring on the council official and the generous, music-loving punters. I can’t wait to begin.