Page 16 of And Then There Was You

Eleven Merryn

Everything is ready.

Flyers have gone out, Seth has delivered posters to as many businesses in the town as he could manage in his lunch break and Ruthie painted the blackboard sign so that I could fix it to the wall of the café beside the courtyard entrance.

I have two new members of staff starting with us for tomorrow’s opening night, who will then share the shifts Ruthie can’t do.

Jenna Tilson, a local teenager who’s on a year out before she goes to university in Cambridge next September, is a total sweetheart.

She’s a trainee lifeboat volunteer, too, so we have an agreement that if the alarm is raised, she’s free to race to the lifeboat station on the harbour.

And then there’s Arthur Murphy, known to everyone as Murph.

He’s one of the Penwith Lifeguards serving on Porthmeor Beach during the day and wanted evening work to supplement his summer income.

They’re both lifesavers in every sense of the word – and I’m delighted to have them on the team.

My team .

The word both thrills and terrifies me.

I’m nervous about more livelihoods depending on Sweet Reverie for support. Seth assures me my nerves are natural but unnecessary.

‘You’ve just reached an upward step, bird. It happens with every business, mine included. You’re nervous because it’ll change what you’re comfortable with. But remember, that was uncomfortable at the beginnin’.’

I know he’s right. But the butterflies that have laid siege to my stomach for the last week refuse to be pacified.

I’ve planned as much as I can. I’ve covered every eventuality, imagined every scenario we might encounter.

There’s just one thing I haven’t done.

‘You’ve not played it yet?’ Ruthie demands, hands on hips.

‘No,’ I reply, avoiding her incredulous stare.

I won’t go into the reasons why with her, no matter how hard she pushes.

But I know it must sound ridiculous. I was the one who wanted the piano, the one who cajoled a rather drunk Seth to help me rescue it from North Terrace.

I’m the person who has built a whole new section of her business around it being in the courtyard, and the one who lovingly painted its exterior to give it maximum appeal.

Working on Merlin has kept memories of Grant Henderson close in my thoughts.

Ruthie doesn’t know about him, or the searches I continue in vain most nights.

I’m not going to explain it all now. But I had hoped that the piano finding its place might finally unlock my fear of playing the keys.

That it might be easier to let him go, now Merlin is here.

I tried to play, last night. Hours after closing, I unlocked the back door, switched on the string of lights over the courtyard and approached the piano bathed in their soft white glow.

I settled myself on the faded red velvet seat of the piano stool, and gently rested my hands on Merlin’s lid.

The newly painted wood felt cool and smooth beneath my palms. Inviting.

Welcoming. I cast my mind back to the first time I sat at a piano, recalling the thrill of being allowed to lift the lid to reveal the black and white keys beneath.

The creak of the hinges. The rush of scent – dust and old wood – and memories of discovering music written years before I was born.

The lid creaked open as Grant’s piano had all those years ago. A startlingly similar sound that caused my breath to catch. And the keys, the white ones yellowed with age and use, the black ones faded to a deep, dark brown at their edges, just as inviting as they had been then.

And I thought I was going to do it. To break the jinx of too many years of hurt and loss and fear. My fingers found the keys . . . but sprang back again.

Even this piano – this serendipitous entity that arrived so magnificently in my life and made the next stage of my business dream possible – was too much to touch. And the worst thing is that I don’t know why.

I waited for Grant’s return, firm in the belief that he would come back one day: that the brief period of stability and happiness I’d enjoyed in my young life was just a precursor to more. I dreamed of seeing him wheeling his piano back down our street. Of Mum welcoming him home for good.

It never happened. Mum lurched from one disastrous relationship to the next, her chosen beaus a depressing procession of losers, thugs and wastes of space.

If I ever dared to question her choice of partners she’d fly into a rage that bruised and stung for days, grudges being the only consistent thing Mum could hold in her life.

I’m not that kid now, waiting for the fairy-tale ending that never arrives.

I know I’ll never see Grant Henderson again.

If the last three years have taught me anything, it’s to pursue my own happiness, not place all my hopes on someone else making it happen.

So I should be able to play Merlin, finally letting Grant go in peace.

But the little girl in me is still watching, waiting to see him again.

Knowing Luke is back in St Ives has brought it all back to the surface. I’ve been on shaky ground since the beach clean, and no amount of throwing myself into preparations for the evening openings has been able to take it away.

Maybe it’s nerves about the next big step for my business agitating the waters, dredging up old rubbish from deep beneath the surface, exposing my vulnerabilities. Maybe, once the evening openings are under way, everything will settle again.

But right now, it all feels precarious, as if one wrong move might bring the lot crashing down around me.

‘It’s easy,’ Ruthie insists now. ‘You lift the piano lid and play it. What’s the problem?’

‘There’s too much to do,’ I lie, keen to escape her questions.

‘We’ve prepped everything. The staff are sorted. The flyers are out. Twenty customers have RSVP’d. What else do we need to do?’

When I don’t answer, she groans and marches out to the courtyard. I follow her, hating the image she must have of me, scurrying in her wake. She goes to the piano, lifts the lid and starts to play.

It’s . . . beautiful .

All I can do is watch, my heart simultaneously full and splintering as the courtyard floods with the voice of my piano. For the first time, I hear its tone – warm and true, despite everything it’s endured in its journey to us. It tugs at my heart, a voice shrouded in the mists of my memory.

Ruthie plays a few more bars, then stops. ‘There. Played. Was that so hard?’

‘Where did you learn to play like that?’

‘Mum forced lessons on me as a kid.’ She shrugs. ‘I don’t miss them.’

I struggle to pack away my shock at both her hidden talent and the sound of the piano. ‘You should play tomorrow night.’

‘No fear! I don’t play in public. Maybe you should do it.’

‘I’ll be busy.’ It’s the truth, but I know it for the deflection it is.

She stares at me, hand on hip, exasperation high. ‘Whatever. Can I go now?’

‘Of course.’ The café is cleaned, all the end-of-day jobs complete. Tomorrow will be a long day and both of us need to prepare for it. ‘Thanks, Ruthie.’

‘Cheers.’ She closes Merlin’s lid and walks back into the café, pausing to pat my shoulder as she passes. She collects her things from behind the counter, raises a hand in farewell, then unlocks the door and leaves.

As end-of-day stillness settles over my café, I hug my arms to myself. Ruthie’s playing was wonderful – effortless and easy, like it used to be for me when Grant was with us. But the starkness of that ease set against my own inability to touch the keys is too much to bear.

I walk to Merlin, its bright, hopeful colours like a beacon.

Merlin the magical piano. Seth’s idea, of course.

And although I found it hilarious at first, the more I thought about it the more perfect the name became.

I don’t know if I believe in magic, but I’m learning to believe in possibility.

Since I made the decision to rebuild my life after my divorce, there have been too many tiny serendipities to ignore.

The piano is the biggest of those, so granting it a magical name seems apt.

And it makes me smile whenever I think of it, which has to be a good thing.

Slowly, I sit beside it and rest my hand on the smooth wood of the lid.

My mind returns to a sunlit moment in a small living room, the shafts of golden light streaming in through the single sash window bleaching out the grubbiness of the nets, the spatter of black mould rising from the skirting boards and the threadbare carpet worn down to its backing cloth.

A rare day at home – my school closed to act as a polling station for local elections – and Grant off work to look after me.

I don’t remember Mum being there. Where was she? Out drinking, maybe? Or holed up in the prison of her room, a headache or a hangover banishing her to her bed . . .

Grant sitting at the piano. Me seated on a cushion on the floor. And music everywhere: sheet music books strewn across the top of the piano and gathered around my feet like elegant resting birds.

‘Find me a tune, Merry.’

My favourite game. Searching through the music books with names of composers I didn’t know and often couldn’t pronounce, following the lines of notes that danced across the staves.

The magic that happened when I passed my chosen piece to Grant and the dancing notes became music beneath his hands.

Classical pieces, ragtime, jazz, Beatles songs, movie music – every one a new adventure, a door opened to worlds so different from my own . . .

I pull my phone from my apron pocket, open the saved search page and run it again. His name, my estimate at his age based on half-remembered conversations and memories. We celebrated his birthday in the spring, but the month and date elude me.

NO MATCHES FOUND

I change the terms slightly: a different year, a different month.

Did you mean GRANT HENSON? GARETH HANSON? GEORGE ENSON?

I close one search window, open another.

My heart sits like rock within me. I already know what the result will be.

What it always has been, ever since I started searching, days after Luke left me.

He’d always dissuaded me when I’d mentioned looking for Grant, insisting it was foolish.

When he left me, searching for Grant was my only form of retaliation.

It’s become a ritual in my day. The hope that summons me to the search window, followed by the heavy hit of another slammed door. I know I should leave this now, but the arrival of Merlin has spurred me to try again.

I stare at the closed lid, the urge to lift it strong. But my fingers falter the moment I try.

It’s too much.

Tears filling my eyes, I hurry upstairs.