Moon Song (4 page)

Darshan stopped beside a large hotel. ‘It’s an old pub, dates back to the 1700’s’ he told her as he led her into The Globe. ‘The place used to be an inn, does a wonderful selection of home cooked, local food.’

Isoldé looked about her. There were some tourists along with the locals in the small bar by the entrance.

‘I recommend the Doom Bar,’ Darshan said, grinning at her astonished stare. ‘It’s a rare good beer from Sharps Brewery down in Cornwall, you’ll like it.’

‘You lose me on all these beer names.’ Isoldé laughed.

The landlord set a half in front of her.

‘Try that,’ he said. ‘Are you eating tonight, Darshan? We’ve got some fresh sea bass or the Topsham Smokies?’

Darshan looked at Isoldé.

‘What,’ she asked, ‘is a Topsham Smokie?’

‘It’s
the
special local dish.’ Darshan was enjoying her confusion.

‘OK. Why not?’ she said. ‘I’m hungry after all that walking and sea air so I’d better eat the local speciality. I’ve got the appetite for it.’ She laughed.

‘Topsham Smokies twice then, please,’ Darshan said demurely.

‘Right you are.’ The landlord smiled encouragingly to her as he took the order.

‘You know this reprobate then?’ Isoldé turned to him.

‘Aye, he’s here of an evening, now and again. Murders the locals at dominos!’

‘You do?’ Isoldé’s eyebrows scaled her hairline. The weekend was revealing facets of Darshan she’d never even suspected when they were together in Town.

He rolled his eyes and picked up their glasses.

‘Enjoy the beer. I’ll show you to a table.’ The landlord led them through the sitting bar into a large, oak-panelled dining room.

‘The folk club starts up in about an hour, you want to be here for that?’

‘Of course,’ Darshan told him. ‘It’s why we’ve come.’

Isoldé nodded but her expression was abstracted. ‘You really play dominos …?’ She was dubious.

‘I do. I’ve found bits of myself here that had no place when I lived in Town. There’s lots of culture and not just the snottynosed kind you mostly get in London. You wait ‘til you hear the singers and musicians tonight.’

After the folk club was over they walked down to the old harbour quay.

‘It’s good here,’ Darshan told her. ‘I’ve settled in. Interesting, good people and loads of history. For instance, did you know Ted
Hughes lived here for a while,’ he pointed to a tumble-roofed cottage at the back of the quay. He knew Hughes was one of her favourite poets. Her eyes widened.

‘And he lived on a farm up on Dartmoor, too,’ he added. ‘They’ve put up a stone to him on his favourite bit of the moor.’

‘Can you walk up there?’

‘Bit of a hike but you’ll soon be fit enough.’ There was a wicked expression in Darshan’s eyes.

‘You’re assuming I’m coming …’

‘Well, you are, aren’t you?’

Isoldé’s mouth twisted into a grin, ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I am.’

Driving back to London was strange, as though she was leaving home on leaving Exeter rather than returning to it in London. What would Mickey say? He knew her very well, likely he would understand. Mick was from a farming hamlet up by the Giant’s Causeway, not a Belfast man by birth, although he’d lived there for ten years before coming to London. He would understand her needs. And how long would it be before she could move? Would the paper try to hang on to her? She’d have to find someone to take over her lease on Evelyn’s flat, probably Mickey; he’d been in love with the place since she moved in. Yes, the move was good. For once in her life all the ends had come together at the right time. She took hold of them.

The dark before dawn pulled Mark awake. The night had been full of dreams and memories of Exeter, the choir, the organ, his room at school. The darkness of the bedroom here at home was warm, comfortable, but there was a tingling, sizzling feel to the air. He got up.

Embar coiled around his legs purring, near tripping him on the stairs, then reaching his long, black length up the leg of the kitchen table as Mark made coffee. Mark opened a tin of cat food, deposited the plate under Embar’s nose then took his coffee to sit in the hollow of the ash tree by the bridge.

Dawn came late here. The valley faced west, the next stop after the end of the cliffs was America, but from the house you could hear only a whisper of the sea. Light crept up over the trees, a mile away, eastward, at the head of the valley. The rowan trees at the top of the waterfall would be lit already. He waited. The light grew, dripping westward down the valley, bringing colour into the garden. The birds began their morning song. Suddenly the place was full of light and sound and colour.

Black, white and red wings flashed past him. Two swallows dived and swooped over the grass. He squinted at them, it seemed they were chasing a golden thread. The dance continued above the lawn in front of him, the birds coming closer and closer. With a shriek they let fall the thread right into his hands. He was holding a long, fine red-gold hair. His fingers tingled, holding it close to his face he could smell the perfume, flowery, elusive, distinctive. He could see its owner in his mind’s eye, a small, slender, laughing woman, surrounded by green grass and backed by ancient grey stone. A wind blew up the valley, he grasped at the hair but it blew away and the vision was gone.

Later, at breakfast, Mrs Protheroe brought in the post as he lingered over toast and marmalade. There was a letter from Exeter, he slid a buttery knife under the flap and opened it. The Cathedral School headed paper stared back at him.

Mark sat holding the letter after he had read it, memories of tea and musical evenings with the Appleforths crowding his mind from his years at the cathedral school. He shook his head, blinked and smiled. Candlemass was six months away, he pulled the diary to him, turned up the date. He planned to return from Italy in time for Christmas and had promised himself January at home after that. Yes, that would be good, he would like to go, give them a concert and catch up with old friends. And it was only a couple of hours up to Exeter at the most. He picked up the post and headed for his study, he would write to accept straight away. The precentor was right, it was a long time since he had been back to his old school.

Suddenly, a picture of the Cathedral Close formed in his mind,
green grass and the ancient grey stone walls of the cathedral. And the shining, golden-haired woman standing there, laughing.

The cathedral clock struck one. Isoldé looked out across the Close, the rain had lifted, there was blue sky and the pigeons were strutting about on the grass. It was warm for the end of January.

‘I’m off to lunch then,’ she called.

‘I’ll keep an eye on things.’ The girl on the till smiled.

Isoldé went to the brasserie in the alley, got her sandwich. Turning back into the close, she sat down on a bench and opened the ham and brie in ciabatta. The pigeons crowded round her feet, cooing and bonking, no idea of season. A sparrow stood at the edge of the flock. Carefully she aimed some crumbs to him and, quick as a flash, he dived in ahead of the pigeons, succeeding. She shook the last crumbs from the bag onto the grass and went into the cathedral.

‘Hi, Zoldé, coming to the concert?’ One of the vergers recognised her.

‘Absolutely! Jamie’s been on about it for weeks now.’

‘You’d better get some of his CDs in the shop, there’ll be a rush.’

‘Done and dusted!’ She told him as he went off up the side aisle.

For once, the cathedral was quite empty; Isoldé stood sensing into the quiet, the echoes of silence. At moments like this you really got a feel of the place. She stood at the west end. The wide floor of the nave was empty of chairs, the sun sent shadows of colour down through the great window behind her to paint the ancient flags. Huge arches reared up to either side as she walked slowly up the nave, it felt like being in a stone forest. She stopped under the organ, looking up.

A flutter of wings from the minstrel gallery interrupted her. Somehow a sparrow had got in. She looked around for someone to help but the place was empty. The sparrow flew up the nave and landed beside her on the golden gate in the pulpitum. Isoldé
stood watching it as it watched her, wondering what to do.

‘Here, little one,’ a voice spoke beside her.

Isoldé turned. The man put a finger to his lips, eyes smiling, and held out a hand. He called the bird again. The sparrow chirruped, its head on one side, looking. Then it made up its mind and flew down to clutch the finger in tiny claws. The man stroked the grey poll. ‘Come,’ he said, catching the bird’s eye. He turned to walk back down the nave and out the west door. Isoldé followed. In the close he held up his hand. ‘Fly well, little one. In there’s no place for you.’ The bird chirped again and flew off.

‘How did you do that?’ Isoldé breathed.

He turned to her, ‘Birds come to me.’ The blue eyes were laughing. ‘And animals.’

‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’ She smiled back, eyes questioning.

‘It’s cold.’ He seemed embarrassed now. ‘Shall we go back inside?’

‘I can’t,’ she told him. ‘Lunchtime’s over. I must get back to the shop.’

He raised his brows.

She pointed to the bookshop on the other side of the green.

‘Ah,’ he said, seeing the shop. ‘The bishop tells me you have a good selection of music and CDs.’

‘That’s good to know,’ she said. ‘But I must go. It was wonderful, what you did.’

‘Mark King.’ He held out his hand.

‘Isoldé Labeale,’ she managed in response, realising his CDs were all over the window of the shop and she still hadn’t recognised his face. This was the man giving the concert tonight.

Something happened as they touched hands, both of them stopped still, looking at each other, then Isoldé let go and set off back to the shop. At the door she turned back. He was still there, watching her, smiling.

Isoldé went to the concert on her own. Jamie had fallen foul of a cold and Darshan was with the bishop’s party.

‘No way am I providing a cacophony,’ Jamie told her over the phone, ‘and don’t you come round here either. Don’t want you getting the blasted thing. Go and see what the bloke’s like in real life. We like his disks and he’s got excellent reviews.’

‘Do you want me to do the interview with him as well?’ Isoldé asked.

‘Yes. It’ll be good with a woman’s voice and you’ve always wanted to meet him. Now’s your chance to do a big name radio interview.’ Jamie started to chuckle, it ended in a coughing spasm.

‘OK!’ Isoldé felt herself colouring, glad Jamie couldn’t see her down the phone. It was true, Darshan had told him how entranced she’d been when she’d first heard Mark King, years ago at Lunenburg, and now he was using it. Not that she minded really but she didn’t tell Jamie about the sparrow. That was something precious she would keep for herself. She wanted to know more of the man to whom birds would come and she didn’t want the interview with him to ruin it.

The chairs were back in the nave for the concert. It had been good, earlier in the day, to see the old cathedral as it was originally intended. Isoldé laughed to herself, originality was an issue with all the early music crowd. There would studious, then gradually more drunken, pontifications in the Quart and Pint Pot later. She knew she would go and join the crowd after the concert and the ale bar would have a good supper for her, she never could eat before something important. It was quite a thing for Exeter, having the ale bar instead of a wine bar, although there were a few decent ones of those too. The Pot was next along from Robinson’s antique shop, near the Clarence, on the north side of the close. Just along from herself too. Sometimes the noise
irritated her late at night. But she wouldn’t forgo the daily treat of waking up to the green and the cathedral and the bells.

She found her usual spot, a chair at the central edge of the nave at just the right spot to get the full effect of the magnificent organ, including the thirty-two foot contra-violone pipes in the south transept as well as the little jobs up in the minstrel’s gallery. The programme said Mark King would be using the full works in the concert.

The Exeter Symphony Orchestra was taking its places in the space in front of the pulpitum. Isoldé dumped her cushion on the chair and snuck round behind them to the golden gate. No sparrow tonight but she touched the gate anyway, as a good-luck charm. ‘Play well,’ she whispered, looking up to the huge organ pipes massed above her.

Soft footsteps behind made her turn. Mark King was there.

‘Hello,’ he said.

‘Break a leg!’ She told him.

‘Dancer, eh? Where d’you go afterwards to get over my playing? May I join you?’

‘Isn’t the bishop giving you supper?’

‘He stood me lunch.’ Mark’s eyes twinkled. ‘I managed to escape for tonight.’

‘The crowd goes to the Quart and Pint Pot, if you can bear being lionised?’

Mark rolled his eyes.

‘They do a good supper,’ Isoldé added, ‘and it won’t be too bad. They’ll shut up if you tell them to. But it won’t cost you a penny as they’ll all want to buy you drinks and get you to sign their beer mats.’ She couldn’t help chuckling at his horror-struck face.