The Forget-Me-Not Sonata(154)

Audrey looked at him with eyes that revealed in their gentle expression the admiration she felt for him. It never ceased to astound her that he truly loved Grace as his own child. ‘You’ve put my mind at rest. I shall sleep well tonight.’

‘And so shall I. Because, my dear, if you’re happy, I’m happy.’ She kissed him on his weathered old cheek and knew that he meant it.

But that night she dreamed about Louis for the first time in many years and awoke with the ‘Forget-Me-Not Sonata’ ringing in her ears.

Grace settled into her college with the ease of someone who considers life a wonderful adventure. With childlike curiosity she searched for the good in everyone, disarming her fellow students and tutors with her directness and the unique quality that made her stand apart from the others, what her mother called her ‘otherworldliness’. She floated about the university with the same air of detachment that had isolated her from fellow classmates at school and although she was well liked she didn’t make close friends. She seemed not to need anyone. Grace thrived at Trinity College. She had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, soaking up new information with the enthusiasm of someone who’s been deprived of education all their life. She found university so stimulating that at night she could barely sleep, not because of her spirit friends, who often kept her up with their games, but because her mind was whirring with all the questions she wanted to ask and she could barely restrain her impatience. She joined the Don Juan Society who met every Thursday evening in a pub to discuss poetry over beer and cottage pies and the Olivier Society where she discovered a natural talent for acting. Her parents weren’t surprised, she had acted all her life. But her gift earned her more notoriety than her stage performances. After astonishing a few students with the accuracy of her readings she was besieged wherever she went by people thrusting their watches and bracelets at her so that she was forced to limit herself to two readings a day. She refused to look into the future, having learned a sharp lesson from her cousin Nelly.

After a few weeks in Dublin Grace decided to go and pay a visit on her reclusive Uncle Louis. It wasn’t hard to find him. Everyone seemed to know of him. ‘You’re his niece?’ they laughed in astonishment when she asked after him. ‘He’s as nutty as a fruit cake. Except when he plays the piano, then he’s a god.’ Their comments made her all the more curious.

Following their directions she found his flat situated in an old courtyard of great beauty that probably hadn’t changed for over one hundred years. The door was small, built into a weathered brick wall and surrounded by an abundance of late roses that seemed to grow better there than anywhere else. She held her breath and knocked. No reply. She waited, put her nose to one of the roses and sniffed it. It had an extraordinarily sweet fragrance. Finally she heard a shuffling noise, then the sound of feet and the unbolting of the door. She envisaged an ogre but what she found was an old man with long grey hair that fell about his shouders in unruly rats’ tails and the softest blue eyes. He didn’t look mad at all.

‘What can I do for you?’ he asked in a deep voice that crunched like gravel. He looked at her quizzically as if he had met her somewhere before and was trying to place her.

‘I’m your niece, Grace Forrester,’ she said confidently. ‘Audrey and Cecil’s daughter.’ He stared at her as if he were seeing one of her spirits for the first time and his pale cheeks glowed as if suddenly bruised.

‘Cicely told me they had had another daughter,’ he mumbled, shaking his head in astonishment and rubbing his chin with his fingers. ‘You had better come in then.’ All the while he led her up the narrow wooden staircase he kept turning around to look at her again. ‘You’re the image of your mother,’ he said wistfully when they reached the sitting room on the first floor. It was small and dark with a thin layer of dust that covered everything. He seemed nervous for he flicked his long fingers on his knees and his mouth twitched at one corner.

‘Am I?’ she replied, noticing how his eyes suddenly looked sad. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’

‘Oh, I mean it as a compliment. The greatest compliment a man can give. I admire your mother. More than you’ll ever know.’ Grace removed some loose bits of manuscript from the sofa and sat down. ‘Excuse the mess, I don’t often receive visitors these days.’

‘Why not? I hear you play the piano beautifully. You should share your gift.’

‘Do you play?’

‘Yes,’ she replied brightly. Anyone else would have been unsettled by the intense way that he looked at her, but Grace wasn’t afraid of anyone. She found him compelling for she sensed a deep unrest in his soul and knew instinctively that she could somehow make it better.