If his own mother had been devoted, Nina was many times more so to their children. He recalled how she’d tended to them through their childhood illnesses, staying up all night, strong as a rock, fiercely loving. She never asked him to help, perhaps, as she said, because he needed his sleep and had to work. She had flung herself into maternity, so it hardly mattered if he was away or busy or up to some escapade. He only really noticed this had happened afterwards, when it was too late for him to rethink his approach to fatherhood.
Nina evidently told the children something, as they each made contact, showing signs of mild concern. Jason called from Madrid and made Sydney (now four) come and say ‘Hello to Grandpa’. Ralph loved his grandchildren, but wished they could avoid calling him this name; he still felt too youthful for it. Lucia caught the train up from Brighton for a flying visit with her little girl Bee, who looked almost identical to her mother at that age, with her solid step, pouting mouth and surprising, green-flecked eyes.
He had doted on Lucia when she was young. He remembered lying on her bed at night and telling her stories or singing songs while she snuggled against him, her breath slowing as she fell asleep. Somehow, they had drifted apart. He was away so much, and then she grew up and was suddenly a teenager who couldn’t be bothered. Or perhaps they were never as close as he had thought. There was one evening where he had offered to take over the children so that Nina could paint. She was very grateful and it was all going fine until the phone rang once, then stopped – the signal he’d arranged with Daphne if she needed him. He called her back at Barnabas Road: he couldn’t even remember now what the reason was for her distress – nothing significant – but he’d abandoned Lucia’s story halfway through, hurried downstairs and given Nina some half-baked excuse about a conductor needing a pre-rehearsal drink. She hadn’t complained, just washed her brushes, and picked up the tearful Lucia at the top of the stairs. His last sight as he slunk out of the front door was of his wife and daughter’s hair mingled like a tawny forest animal.
Lucia brought a bag of turmeric roots with her from Brighton, and a pair of smooth crystals.
‘I could give you a bit of reiki if you like? It’s such a powerful treatment, you know. We’re finding it’s the most popular therapy at the centre these days. If it works for you we could even do some sessions by phone.’ He tried to appear grateful. Bee sang him ‘Greensleeves’, which she’d performed in a school concert. ‘My Honey Bee’, he called her, and crooned a bit of Louis Armstrong’s ‘Honeysuckle Rose’. He’d sung it to other people, including Daphne, in rather different circumstances.
Alexander sent an email from Seattle, where he’d been doing something complicated in cyber technology for the last five years. Take it easy, Dad. Look after yourself. He was still the baby, even if he was thirty-four. He had been born in America, during the excruciating year when Ralph accepted a residency at Columbia University.
He’d done it when he realised he could no longer contain his feelings for Daphne. Daff was fourteen. Or perhaps a bit older – he couldn’t remember. Certainly, Nina had two babies and another on the way. How on earth had they managed that? What about the pill? Well they had managed it. The offer of composer-in-residence looked like a solution to a desperate situation. His composition work was overwhelming, his family needed him and yet he was hanging around Putney train-bridge in the hope of glimpsing a schoolgirl. It was beginning to feel like an addiction.
He hoped the distance would be like medicine for him. And for Daphne, of course. ‘You should spend more time with your young friends,’ he told her, though the idea of other boyfriends tormented him to the extent of a physical ache. He imagined spotty youths pawing over her perfect body and felt murderous.
They left England in 1977, crossing the Atlantic on a jumbo jet. He drank five brandies with ginger ale, which left Nina in charge of three-year-old Jason – already a flirt, running up and down the aisles, stopping to speak to the prettiest women. Little Lucia, milky and soft, ringlets in her hair, snuggled against the modest protrusion from Nina’s abdomen that would one day be Alexander.
The family moved into a spacious apartment provided by the university and Ralph was not expected to teach or commit to much, apart from an occasional seminar and a few social events. It should have been a dream, yet looking back he remembered it as one of the saddest times in his life. There was an excellent crèche for the children, Nina was filled with new energy and looked spectacular. He saw her through American eyes – exotic and different, with her yard of flowing hair, colourful robes and burgeoning body. She was painting huge canvases (now he thought of it, they’d been getting gradually smaller ever since) and even had a show on the Lower East Side. Together, they were treated like a golden couple – feted as beautiful young artists, fresh from Europe, embracing the new world and at the height of their powers. He felt dejected and bereft.
Dearest Daff,
I keep writing long, boring letters to you trying to analyse why and wherefore and then give up – my mind is too fuzzy. Why do I love you when it’s so obviously hopeless? Hopeless? Maybe it’s not, in the sense that it’s not about hope or lack of it, it’s about loving you. You’re a great strong wilful force in my life. Even when I’m not with you, you are with me every minute. How would I have survived without you? I wrote that damn violin concerto for you – all for you.
I think I’m still drunk from last night. Or at least so hung-over it’s hard to tell the difference. Nina had some paintings in a gallery on a road called the Bowery. I got slaughtered – pissed as a rat, a dirty dog in the gutter. There was a rumour that Andy Warhol was going to come so everyone was overexcited. He didn’t. I hardly noticed. I was picturing your dark eyes with those long lashes, your hair growing back into its old tangles, your breasts. Christ. It’s much worse here than I imagined.
I hear your derisive laugh – if I do put you on a pedestal it’s because you’re worth it. You inspire all my work. Ridiculous? Am I mad, foolish, or just childlike? I love my family and I love you. Love you differently. You are like a stove that my fire must warm – see, I cannot express myself in words. The fact is I cannot explain it. I cannot stop my passion. As you have grown older it has only increased. Does it hurt you? I don’t believe it. All I know for certain is that I love you – that you make my life possible.
Meanwhile, I surround you with love like a great cloak.
I love you.
Later, he regretted sending her a letter so soaked in self-pity and, the next day, wrote another, more jaunty one.
Dear lovely old Daff, how are you, my Strawberry?
Sorry about raving like a lunatic in that last dispatch. Destroy it at once!
I’ve been working all day on my Three Songs, sitting in my new study in the university. I miss you so much sometimes I think I’ll just jump on a plane and come back to see you, even if it’s only for a day. Maybe I will.
America still feels like a very foreign country and they find me rather quaint – ye olde England bollocks, and making a fuss about my accent. The only solution will be to work as hard as possible and write so much music that this time away from you will at least be productive. You are at the centre of my creativity – like afire that is always alight.
Please write and tell me how you are. Do you ever think about me or have you completely forgotten your loyal Dog, you fickle little monkey? How is Lady Jane? How are the snogging parties? Do I want to know the answer? Have you had more trouble at school?