The Forget-Me-Not Sonata(127)

So Grace grew up in the rarefied air of Hurlingham where her mother took her for picnics beneath the fragrant eucalyptus trees, rode out over the plains and chased ostriches at Gaitano’s ranch, La Magdalena. She taught her about the wild prairie hares and the plants and flowers that grew on the fertile plains of the pampa and listened while her daughter told her of the spirits that accompanied her along her path of life. ‘We all have an angel who looks after us,’ she told her mother. ‘Mine is tall with brown skin and feathers in his hair. He’s called Totem. I have many friends in the spirit world and am never lonely.’ Audrey believed her for if she ever lost something about the house she only had to consult Grace who would ask her angel and the missing object would be found immediately. She would hear her talking in her bedroom after she had been tucked up in bed, her voice recounting the day’s events and her opinions as if she were sharing her room with a friend. But Grace didn’t have any friends, only her mother and the spirits that seemed to occupy her imagination.

Grace was a natural pianist and exasperated the tutor who came every Monday evening because she would begin a piece, following the score punctiliously before suddenly digressing, allowing her fingers to wander off as if they had a mind of their own. She had a talent for playing by ear and it would take the tutor a few moments before she realized that Grace was inventing it as she went along, but in the same key and style as the original. She could imitate Mozart, Bach and Beethoven to perfection then just as quickly change to something all her very own, ‘the music of spirits’ she would call it because she claimed that they danced around the sitting room as she played. The tutor would shake her head with impatience and claim that spirits didn’t exist to which Grace would reply, ‘That, my dear Miss Horner, is because you can’t see them.’ And once she threw her head back and laughed to the horror of poor Miss Horner who simply didn’t understand her strange pupil. ‘There’s a little creature over there in the corner grinning at me now because of my impertinence. Let’s step this up a bit and get his little feet moving!’ Miss Horner only lasted a few months and when the next tutor arrived Audrey took care to tell her daughter to keep her ‘little friends’ to herself, because not everyone understood her like her mother.

Grace was a happy child. She laughed a lot because nothing seemed to frighten her. She instinctively sensed that unkind people were unhappy people; whether bitter, jealous or full of hate, these emotions were usually bred in misery and self-loathing and she didn’t retaliate with aggression but compassion, which was unusual for a small child. She wasn’t besieged by the normal doubts that trouble children for she always had her angel friends to ask and Audrey was always there. She was self-sufficient and independent, often disappearing for hours just like her mother had done when she was young, returning home with a smile and a carefree toss of her long curly hair.

At night after her mother had tucked her up in bed and kissed her goodnight a lovely spirit would always appear with long bouncing curls and a smile that was at once tender and mischievous. She would sit on the side of the bed and run her hand down Grace’s little face, all the time gazing upon her with love. Grace adored this time and would relate her thoughts and ideas and the spirit would listen patiently before sending her off to sleep with a soft kiss on her forehead.

Cecil looked at Grace warily for she seemed to see right through him. He took to hiding the bottles of alcohol and drinking vodka which didn’t linger on his breath, because she would study him with those large, all-seeing eyes of hers and say, ‘Daddy, if you smiled a little more you wouldn’t need that medicine you’re always taking. A smile cures everything.’ Cecil never felt close to Grace because she seemed not to need him. And through his drunken vision she constantly reminded him of Louis.

Audrey also thought of Louis each time she gazed upon the countenance of their daughter. She wished that he could see the divine being they had created together, and she had to constantly remind herself that she should be grateful for the little part of him that she had been allowed to hold onto and not to wish for more. She cried when she was alone and when she was at the theatre, for in the darkness when no one could see her the tears came readily and willingly. As the orchestra played she remembered Louis and his love of music that Grace had inherited and she felt close to him there, in spite of the fact that they had never visited the Colón together. She bought herself records of sad tango songs that she played when Cecil was out and Mercedes was sleeping. She would close the curtains and dance about the room imagining herself in Louis’ arms beneath the violet jacaranda trees in the spring days of their love.