The Cellist's Notebook

  The Cellist’s Notebook

  Kittie Lambton

  ‘Don’t ever lose your spark.’

  For my father

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Nana Rose’s house sat upon a hill, with a river at the bottom, trees down along the paddock and a rugged stony road leading to the door. It was miles from anywhere and, in the summer, the front door was permanently open welcoming any number of visitors, cats, birds and wildlife into the hall. The herb garden, pungent with dill and sage was overgrown and as wild as the meadows above the house. The Peters family travelled every year to see Nana but it was Emily who always insisted on staying the whole summer long whilst everyone else wanted to jet off to somewhere hot or exotic sounding. For Emily, seeing the paddock from the main road, was just the first hint of adventures to come and she was brimming with excitement for what lay ahead.

  It was the first day of the summer holidays. As always, ten year old Emily had her rucksack packed the night before. She had her hair brush sticking out of the top of the ruck sack so that it was handy to brush her long brown hair whenever she wanted to. Her full water bottle was neatly tucked into the side pocket ready for the journey ahead. Emily’s sister Lizzie however, who was five years older, was sitting on the floor in her bedroom with what appeared to be her entire wardrobe piled high around her wondering what to pack.

  ‘Do you need a hand?’ Emily asked standing at the door.

  ‘I think I do,’ Lizzie sighed.

  Emily started to extract various items of clothing from the ring around Lizzie. ‘It’s a French exchange you are going on in Paris Lizzie so I’m thinking where will you be going and what will you be doing?’ She held up a dress, ‘Louvre,’ a pair of jeans, ‘Eiffel Tower,’ a pale blue skirt, ‘evening restaurant.’ This process continued amidst lots of giggling and in no time at all, Lizzie’s suitcase was full, zipped and secured with a shiny pink padlock attached. Both girls headed downstairs with their luggage to the front door where their Dad was already packing up the car.

  As the car headed off down the road, Lizzie sat in the back seat and texted Lucille in Paris. Lucille was to be her French host in Paris, and the two had been pen-friends for over a year now. ‘I am on my way. I’m so excited. See you soon.’ Helped along with a snooze, the journey to Nana’s house seemed to go quickly despite the detour to the airport to drop off Lizzie.

  ‘Babu, Babu!’ Emily shouted with glee out through the window as she saw Nana’s beautiful white cat strolling stealthily down towards them as if he knew they were coming and was welcoming them.

  ‘I hope Nana’s got the kettle on,’ Emily’s mother, Mary, murmured to herself somewhat relieved to have reached the house before nightfall.

  ‘If I know Mum, she’ll have more than just the kettle on for us,’ said Bruce, Emily’s father.

  As the car drew up, Emily rushed out and ran very fast around the side of the house hearing classical piano music which was loudly playing from within. She knew exactly where her Nana would be and dashed towards the kitchen shouting, ‘Nana, we’re here,’ before rushing into her arms, all buttered hands, as her Nana Rose was putting the final touches to her yummy apple flan. A huge hug ensued that lasted until Mary arrived into the kitchen carrying gifts from the car.

  The kitchen was by far the busiest room in Nana Rose’s home. It was a big wide room, with washing always drying on the high rack above the racing green Aga. This was definitely the cosiest spot to sit in front of during the winter months. There was an old wooden chair that was placed at the far end of the kitchen table and, as always, Babu was already curled up on it claiming the space as his own. He was quite unfazed by the loud conversation, and clatter from the noisy visiting family.

  ‘So, where are you going to this year?’ Nana asked Mary.

  ‘It’s Greece this year. A small island called Milos. It’s quite a trek I know but we are leaving the car in Manchester and flying on from there.’

  Bruce gave his daughter a gentle squeeze, and whispered into Emily’s ear, ‘There is still time for you to come with us Emily, if you’d like?’

  Emily looked up smiling with her warm big blue eyes and said, ‘Dad, you know I don’t like the heat and I love it here. You and Mum are to go on holiday and have a nice romantic time together on your own. Nana said last year that she would show me how to play the cello this summer.’

  Bruce glanced over at Nana catching her eye, and they both looked up at the shelf beside the sideboard.

  On the shelf, between the cookery books, was a large photograph frame. Emily was the only one to notice their brief glance across to the picture before Nana busily returned to her cooking. Emily strained her neck upward in the seat to look at the large photograph but before she could wriggle out from her father’s arms, dinner was being served and she soon forgot about taking a closer look.

  That night saw the family tucking into the tasty hot stew. The room was filled with chatter and joke telling followed by bed time and lights out. There is something about being in the countryside that just makes for a good night’s slumber; especially that first night which ignited vivid dreams full of wonder for all the Peters family. Not a sound could be heard outside except for the distant call of the barn owl which sounded almost in perfect time with the grandfather clock downstairs in the hall.

  The next day, Emily’s parents headed off early on their travels following breakfast and Emily sat on the front step watching the car trundle down the stony paddock road, before disappearing only to rise again on the winding road going back up towards Carlisle. A tiny Dad’s hand could be seen waving from the car window and Emily jumped up waving back so she could be seen.

  The sun was out and fluffy white clouds moved in slow motion across the sky. The house was surrounded by a mature, somewhat rugged garden. At the top of the garden, towards the back of the house, stood an old oak tree, under which Emily liked to read in the afternoon. Emily walked along the dry-stone wall, which she thought was getting very over-grown. This year, the apples on the trees were small but plentiful.

  ‘By the looks of things, we are going to have a bumper harvest this year Emily,’ Nana said coming out into the garden to join her. ‘I still have some jars of apple chutney from last year to be given away to some of my friends when they come to the house. Please remind me to take the jars from the larder when someone comes round.’

  ‘Yes, will do,’ Emily replied, always happy to help out.

  ‘Gardener Bill is coming round this week to fix the lawnmower, it’s making a clunking noise. Can you give me a hand to do some cutting back in the herb garden?’ Nana Rose turned and reached up for an apple and examined it closely for a moment pushing up her glasses as she did so. She looked funny when she squinted never sure whether she could see things better up close or at a distance.

  ‘You’ll find some secateurs on the shelf at the back of the barn.’

  Emily wandered over to the barn.

  ‘I have a hoe and a basket for the weeding,’ her Nana shouted out in her soft lyrical voice.

  The earthy dank air in the barn, with old rusty bikes and bags of soil and soot in the corner, housed all sorts of equipment. Those bikes must have been Dad’s, Emily thought, slowl
y shaking her head trying to imagine anyone being able to even attempt to cycle up all the high fells close to the house. Dad liked his sailing though and it was a pity to see his old Dart 18 dinghy sitting unused on a trailer with the tyres long deflated at the far end of the barn.

  After a short spell of work in the garden, Emily ventured off towards the oak tree behind the house to see the two horses, Molly and Milly, she had not seen since last year. She fed them with lots of long grass from Nana’s garden, seeing as the horses had munched their own grass down to the very tiniest of shoots. It felt so good to be back and to savour the long afternoon outside in the meadow accompanied by Babu who was happy to tag along. Emily sat down at the foot of the old oak tree, which was a peaceful place to read. She loved the sound of the birds that nested high in the branches. Babu, who had been curled up asleep beside her, yawned and stretched before getting to his feet at dusk. Emily closed her book and followed the cat back through the orchard.

  Chapter 2

  The next morning, it was a bit chilly inside the house. Emily looked out of her bedroom window and noticed that it had been raining overnight. Nana had spent the morning upstairs in her study and Emily could hear the soft classical music playing from her room.

  Nana taught piano lessons and her pupils came from far and wide in the local community for their weekly tuition. Nana Rose had decided to cut back on having so many pupils to just teaching two days a week so that she could spend more time reading in her study and working on her research and studies. Emily was never quite sure what these studies were but Nana had obtained a number of degrees at university in her younger days. She was always working on some project or other with her love of English and History.

  Heading downstairs and to the kitchen, Babu was sitting on his chair sleeping and Emily decided to make herself some toast from the freshly baked bread cooling on the rack. ‘Oh Babu,’ she sighed, ‘What are we going to do this afternoon?’ The cat’s tail moved from side to side lightly on the cushion. ‘I thought I could do some drawing and maybe draw you, if you stay seated in that chair of yours,’ she smiled. Whilst carving the bread, Emily’s eye caught the reflection of the photograph on the shelf, which she had seen her Nana glancing at the night she had arrived.

  Taking a bite of toast, Emily reached up to bring the frame closer. In the picture was a man standing with a cello. It must have been a very old photo because it was black and white and had gone slightly yellowish around the edges. The man was young, tall and very handsome. She did not recognise, nor had she seen this man in any of the other photographs around the house. Puzzled, she slumped down at the kitchen table with Babu loudly purring from his chair. ‘A cello,’ Emily said out loud to herself. ‘Where is the cello? I’m sure Nana promised me she would teach me an instrument and I’m sure she said a cello.’ Emily went to the music room with this thought in her mind.

  The room was blue and white in colour with white porcelain vases and what Nana had said was William Morris wallpaper. There were two huge sash windows which flooded the room in daylight, ideal for her Nana’s practice each day and piano lessons. She looked around and, apart from the baby grand piano, there were no other instruments in there. Curious, but not wanting to disturb her Nana’s studies, she pondered whether she had seen a cello or case anywhere else in the house. As she stood there, Babu walked past the door and she followed him into the hall and up the staircase to the landing. He led her further up yet more stairs which she had not really noticed before at the back of the house and she walked quietly along the carpeted creaky floor.

  At the end of the landing, a small white handle was teased open gently and with one tiny jolt, the narrow door opened revealing a steep staircase which led up to what appeared to be the attic. Babu and Emily climbed the staircase on all fours. A small roof window meant that there was no need to switch on the light and heavy raindrops could be heard clattering against the glass. The door closed behind them startling them both and Babu sped across the attic floor and meowed. ‘Shhh,’ she said, knowing her Nana would not mind her exploring the house; but somehow creeping about a room she had never been in or knew about felt a bit strange. Babu hopped up on an old wooden chest of drawers and curled his tail about his paws. Across from the cat, two large black cases lay on the floor. Both cases, although similar in shape, differed in size. Other than the two cases, the room was empty except for an old wobbly kitchen chair and some old velvet curtains Nana had removed some time back when decorating the sitting room.

  Eager to find out what was inside the cases, Emily placed her hand across the larger of the two.

  ‘L.T.P.’ she read out under her breath as her hand brushed over the three initials embossed on the top of the dusty case. She opened the latches and to her absolute delight she discovered the most beautiful instrument she had ever seen. The reddish-brown full-size cello had an ornately carved scroll with its four black oval tuning pegs. She touched each of the strings one at a time, with the big one first through to the thinnest one. They were loose so she could not pluck them or hear them make a sound. Not wanting to lift the cello out because it looked so delicate, she rifled through the velvet pockets inside. She found a small glass bottle with an oily yellowish liquid inside, and what looked like a box with something like the amber which her father collected. Her father’s amber contained fossils inside but this piece did not. She didn’t know anything about string instruments but knew there were always lots of parts and bits of things needed to keep the instruments in good working order.

  Emily looked up quizzically at Babu and listened to his loud purring that was now seemingly even louder than the raindrops above them. Emily stood up to stroke him and, as he stretched out in appreciation, he knocked over a small pewter pot that stood upon the drawers. The pot fell down and rolled under the chest of drawers, so Emily knelt down, placing her cheek on the floor and stretched out her hand to retrieve it. As she did so, she noticed that something rectangular was wedged behind the chest.

  Sliding the heavy chest away from the wall with all her strength, she pulled out an old dusty leather satchel. ‘L.T.P.’ she read out loud. These were the same initials embossed on the case, she thought. Emily hesitated to open the satchel, which was not hers to touch. Her hands moved over the catch and it clicked open unexpectedly. Emily hesitantly opened the satchel. Inside was a rather tall book. It was a slender, dark green paper book and when she pulled it out, she realised that it was actually a music manuscript book. Each page was filled with handwritten notes. Notes meaning music notes. She didn’t know then, but they were written as music notation for cello and piano. Beautifully scripted and not one error in the black scrawling ink, she flicked slowly through the pages. Apart from the music notes, there did not appear to be any words or titles or even a signature to provide some clue as to who wrote the music.

  Conscious that she had been up in the room some time, and a little bewildered about the cellos and the music notebook, with many questions flying through her mind to ask Nana, she returned the bottle and amber back into the pocket. She picked up the leather satchel, placed the music notebook back inside and pushed the satchel under the chest of drawers. She knelt down beside the chair, closed up the cello case and clambered back down the steep stairs and onto the landing. Emily carefully closed the door after Babu was safely down. Nana was in the kitchen preparing food and whistling to herself. On the table were drawing pencils and paper ready for Emily to draw fashion costumes which her Nana knew she liked to do as a pastime.

  ‘Nana, who is the man in the photo up there?’ Emily asked, pointing up to the shelf.

  Nana brought the potatoes over to the table to be peeled, and sat down. Drawing in a breath, she smiled warmly at Emily with her kind eyes. ‘That’s my brother Leni and he very sadly left home when I was about three or so years older than you. He was my older brother; I only had the one and that’s the last photo that was taken in this house shortly before he left.’

  Emily listened intently wide eyed a
nd wanting to learn about everything. ‘Why did he leave the house and where did he go; why didn’t you hear from him?’

  ‘Well Emily, you see, it was a mystery for me really. He was very bright, an intellectual, and during World War II he would have enlisted as a soldier and been posted overseas. He was a marvellous mimic who was also bilingual. In the photograph you can see that he was a young man and would have joined the military. We believe he would have spent the war in France due to his linguistic ability, but the circumstances of what happened during the war and his involvement is not something that we were able to find out about as a family.’

  ‘Where in France?’ Emily asked.

  ‘Well, we presumed Paris maybe because this was the capital and this city was under occupation by the Germans in the war. Due to his ability to be able to speak with differing French accents, meant that he could take on a southern French accent or a part of Paris for example that most people couldn’t imitate, and hide his English accent too; he would have blended in as if a Parisian quite easily. Having said that, he could have blended into any number of French cities or towns across France. We simply don’t know. I was very young but I remember my parents explaining that we could get little information about where Leni had gone, and everything seemed to be very secretive. Perhaps he was a spy. I have read books about the war and many spies were chosen due to their linguistic ability which would have been helpful to the British Forces.’

  Emily was transfixed by the story of her Great Uncle Leni and tried to imagine where he would have been and what role he would have played potentially as a British spy. She also wondered why he would not have contacted the family.

  ‘Surely, he wrote to you during the war to tell you how he was?’ Emily asked.

  ‘That is a very astute question, but we did not receive any letters. My parents would have told me if they had. They did not. Again, maybe this was due to Leni having had a special responsibility, or the secrecy of his mission, but I have read about it and again never found there to be any real leads to help me find out what had happened to my brother.’ Emily tried her best to think of a way to research his whereabouts in the hope of tracing him. Her Nana could see her worried facial expression and tried to reassure her.