She loaded another tape into the video player, this one labelled Bach Suite No. 1 in G Major, Queen Elizabeth Hall, 1984, and then she sat cross-legged on the old velvet armchair.
As the clock ticked over past midnight and the new day slid into position, Elodie pressed play and watched as a beautiful young woman with the world at her feet walked out onto the stage, lifted her hand to acknowledge the applauding audience, and then, taking up her cello, began her magic.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Elodie’s great-uncle lived in a garden flat at the end of Columbia Road. He was eccentric and something of a recluse, but had used to come to lunch at the weekends when her mother was alive. As a child, Elodie had found him somewhat startling; even then he’d seemed old, and she’d been vitally aware of his great tufting eyebrows and runner-bean fingers, and the way he would start to fidget when the lunch conversation turned to topics that didn’t interest him. But where Elodie might have been told off for sticking her fingertips in the warm wax of the lunch-table candle and peeling the prints off once they’d cooled, nobody said a word to great-uncle Tip, who would quietly amass a considerable pile, arranging them in elaborate patterns on the linen cloth, before losing interest and brushing them aside.
Elodie’s mother had been very fond of her uncle. She was an only child and had become close to him when he moved into her family home for a year when she was young. ‘She used to say that he was different from other adults,’ Elodie could remember her father telling her. ‘She said your great-uncle Tip was like Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up.’
Elodie had glimpsed this for herself in the aftermath of her mother’s death. Amidst all the adult well-wishers, there’d been Tip and his pottery charm box, its surface covered with a wondrous array of shells and pebbles, broken tiles and shiny pieces of glass – all the things that children noticed but grownups walked right by.
‘What’s a charm box?’ Elodie had asked him.
‘A little bit of magic,’ he’d replied, with no hint of the indulgent smile adults usually adopted when speaking on such themes. ‘And this one’s just for you. Do you have any treasures?’
Elodie had nodded, thinking of the little gold signet ring her mother had given her for Christmas.
‘Well, now you have a place to keep them safe.’
It had been kind of Tip to make an effort, to seek her out when everyone else was focused on their own grief. They hadn’t had a lot to do with one another since, but Elodie had never forgotten the kindness and hoped that he would come to the wedding.
It was a bright morning and, as she walked along the river path, Elodie was glad to be out in it. She had fallen asleep eventually on the brown velvet chair, and the night had passed in a series of fractured dreams and stirrings until she woke with the dawn birds. Now, as she neared Hammersmith Bridge, she realised that she still hadn’t shaken it off: she had a stiff neck and a haunting cello line stuck in her mind.
A clutch of gulls wheeled above a nearby patch of water and by the distant boathouses, rowers were making the most of the fine weather to get out early. Elodie stopped at one of the bridge’s grey-green pillars and leaned against the railing to watch the swirling Thames below. This was the spot from which Lieutenant Charles Wood had leapt in 1919 to rescue a woman who was drowning. Elodie thought of him every time she crossed the bridge. The woman had survived, but Wood had died from tetanus due to injuries sustained in the rescue. It seemed a particularly cruel fate to survive service with the RAF in the First World War, only to die after an act of bravery in peace time.
By the time she reached the Chelsea Embankment, London was waking up. Elodie walked as far as the Charing Cross railway bridge and then caught the number 26 bus from outside the Royal Courts of Justice. She managed to get a front seat on the top level: it was a childhood pleasure that gladdened her still. The bus route followed Fleet Street all the way into the City of London, past the Old Bailey and St Paul’s, along Threadneedle Street, before turning towards the north at Bishopsgate. Elodie pictured, as she always did, the streets as they must have looked in the nineteenth century, back when London had belonged to James Stratton.
Elodie hopped off at Shoreditch High Street. Beneath the railway bridge a group of kids were having a hip-hop dance lesson while their parents stood around cradling cups of takeaway coffee. She crossed the road and then cut through the back streets, turning the corner into Columbia Road, where the shops were just starting to open.
Columbia Road was one of those vibrant, hidden streets in which London specialised: a run of short brick terraces with colourful shopfronts of turquoise, yellow, red, green and black, in which vintage clothing, artisan jewellery, handcrafted treasures and tastefully distressed miscellanea could be bought. On Sundays, when the flower market took over and fragrance filled the air, it was difficult to move for the abundance of bright blooms and bustle; but today, at this time, the street was almost empty.
There was an iron gate on the side of Tip’s building, behind which a path overgrown with violets led to the back garden. Black letters and a pointed finger had been stencilled on the white brick pillar out front, indicating that the ‘Garden Flat’ was accessed that way. The gate was unlatched and Elodie let herself through. At the end of the path, in the back corner of the garden, was a shed with a carved sign above the door which read, ‘The Studio’.
The studio door was ajar. Elodie pushed it open and was met, as ever, by an incredible collection of intriguing objects. A blue racing bicycle was propped against a Victorian printing press, and a series of wooden work desks braced the walls. Their surfaces were covered with old-fashioned contraptions: lamps and clocks, radios and typewriters, jostling for space with metal trays of vintage typeset letters. The cabinets beneath overflowed with oddly shaped spare parts and mysterious tools, and the walls were hung with an array of oil paints and ink pens that would have put any art shop to shame. ‘Hello?’ she called, as she stepped inside. She spotted her great-uncle at his tall desk at the back of the studio. ‘Tip, hello.’
He glanced over the tops of his glasses but otherwise registered no sign of surprise at the arrival of his great-niece on his doorstep. ‘Good timing. Could you pass me the smallest pfeil tool?’
Elodie fetched it from the wall where he was pointing and handed it across the workbench.
‘That’s better,’ he said, making a fine cut. ‘So … what’s new in your world?’ As if Elodie had just stepped out an hour ago to fetch groceries.
‘I’m getting married.’
‘Married? Aren’t you ten years old?’
‘A little older than that now. I was hoping you could come. I sent you an invitation.’
‘Did you? Did I receive it?’ He gestured towards a pile of papers on the end of the bench nearest the door. Amongst a stack of energy bills and estate agents’ flyers Elodie spotted the cream cotton-thread envelope selected and addressed by Penelope. It had not been opened. ‘Shall I?’ she said, holding it aloft.
‘You’re here now. You might as well give me the highlights in person.’
Elodie sat at the bench, opposite Tip. ‘It’s next month, Saturday the twenty-sixth. Nothing to do but turn up. Dad said he’d be happy to drive you there and back.’
‘Drive?’
‘It’s in a place called Southrop, a village in the Cotswolds.’
‘Southrop.’ Tip focused on a line he was about to cut. ‘How did you settle on Southrop?’
‘My fiancé’s mother knows someone who owns a venue. I’ve never actually been there, but I’m heading out to have a look next weekend. Do you know it?’
‘Pretty place. Haven’t been there for years. Hopefully they haven’t ruined it with progress.’ He sharpened his blade on a Japanese stone, holding it up to the hanging light to inspect his work. ‘Still that same fellow, is it? David, Daniel—’