The Song of Hartgrove Hall by Natasha Solomons Read Free Book Online

a stranger looking at Edie’s things with an uninformed eye. Objects divorced from their stories are downgraded to mere knick-knacks.
    I rejected Clara and Lucy’s suggestion that we find a permanent live-in housekeeper. They were baffled by the vehemence of my refusal. I declined to explain. The truth was that it seemed perilously close to assisted living. One day the housekeeper would no longer simply cook and clean and shop but help me dress and then wash and, before I knew what had happened, I’d have a live-in carer. Even if I lived off microwave meals and suppers at the pub, I would remain independent. I found a pleasant and efficient woman from the village, Mrs Stroud, who agreed to come three times a week to cook and clean.
    It might have been the right choice but I was unprepared for the loneliness. Some days it was worse than the grief. If grief is the thug who punches you in the gut, then loneliness is his goon who holds back your arms and renders you helplessbefore the onslaught. For the first time in my life, silence taunted me. I despise background music, incidental music, music to create ambience – whatever you want to call it. Music must be attended to or there must be silence. However, it had rarely been silent in my head; my mind had filled any quiet with music. Sometimes it would be my own – a piece I’d written or that I was about to write – or perhaps just a little Mozart. Not after Edie. Then the world became horribly quiet. A dismal hush crept through everything like a scourge of damp.
    My thoughts echoed through the house. I heard the shuffle of my footsteps along the hall – when did I start to have the gait of an old man? To my shame, I started to watch the television for company during lunch, and found myself caught in the concocted melodramas of the soaps. I spoke aloud to myself, as otherwise, if the telephone didn’t ring, on the days Mrs Stroud didn’t come, by four or five o’clock I wouldn’t have uttered a word all day. When the postman knocked on the door with a package that needed to be signed for, I talked at him for too long, with too much focus, and he backed down the steps to escape.
    In desperation one night, I reached for the notepad I always left on the bedside table in case musical inspiration appeared in the small hours. Perhaps the GP was right. No one needed to read a blasted word if I didn’t wish them to. Instead of melody, I tried transcribing stray memories and wondered whether by doing so I could store them safely, recall them by choice instead of being assaulted by them in the dark. I discovered that scribbling was better than lying awake fretting. Writing turned one’s own thoughts into a companion of sorts. It helped, only a little, but it was something. I popped down anything that came to mind, bits and pieces about our early years but also details about the last days, weeks and months: my other life, life after Edie.
    After a week or two, I’d nearly forgotten about the girls’ visit and I’d stopped wondering what they were plotting. Even now, I can’t be quite sure that what happened was a scheme. Clara – self-contained, elegant Clara, the girl who used to brush her dolls’ hair before school each morning and set them homework (which she marked with a stern red pen) – was much too upset, too chaotic for me to be certain it had been planned. If it had, then my eldest daughter was a much more accomplished actress than I’d ever given her credit for.
    That morning, shortly before nine o’clock I heard a car tearing along the gravel. The unhappy squeal of brakes. I hurried downstairs in my dressing gown to find Clara already in the kitchen and in tears.
    â€˜Darling, what happened? Is everyone all right?’
    â€˜Yes. No. I need a break. I have to have some time to myself or I’m going to go completely potty. Can you watch him? Just for a couple of