Page 4 of And Then There Was You

Three Merryn

It’s six a.m. My body protests as I cross the flagged floor of the courtyard, carrying the old paint-stained dustsheet I’ve just rescued from the cellar, and an armful of paint pots.

There are a million and one things I should be doing to prepare for the day.

But they can all wait.

Because of this.

In daylight, the piano looks even older and more battle-worn than it did last night. But beneath the dust, dirt and scratches, the nut-brown wood glows. The loveliest pink-gold light is streaming in around me and everything feels fresh and new.

As I settle cross-legged on the dustsheet, I surround myself with paint pots in a palette of shades that capture the colours of St Ives in the summer.

I wonder how many of the crowds of summer tourists will see the colours this morning, will stop to take it all in.

How many heart-stopping sunrises will be missed as they sleep in their holiday cottage beds?

How many subtle shade-shifts of the sea will be ignored in the crush of bodies along Wharf Road or the rush to secure a spot on the town beaches?

How can you come somewhere so beautiful and miss what makes it special?

Not here , I say to myself, facing the piano. We see the magic, despite everything .

It didn’t occur to me to paint the piano until Seth suggested it.

I wonder how his poor head is this morning, whether he’s awake already or whether the hangover has forced him to seek refuge in bed.

I’ll take his coffee later, when the morning is underway and he’s had a chance to ingest painkillers.

The tequila shot last night wasn’t a brilliant idea. But painting the piano is.

So, what do I paint?

I’m grateful for the bright tester pots of colour surrounding me.

I bought them months ago, when I was debating which colour to paint the walls of the courtyard.

In the end, I opted for a soft yellow, the colour of rock samphire flowers that edge the cliff path around the Island in late summer.

Which I love. But the unused tester pots have watched me from their box on the shelf behind the counter ever since, as if seeking their time to shine.

This is their moment.

But what shall I paint?

I have an hour before I have to start the morning jobs in the café, so I need to get started straight away. Seth suggested flowers – in a nod to his beloved Taylor Swift – so that seems as good a place as any to begin. Maybe I’ll add more to the design when I’ve had time to think about it.

I pull a pencil from the messy bun my hair is pinned up in and set to work. I make light strokes on the aged wood back panel of the piano, the marks shining silver where they catch the light. I won’t paint it all today, of course, but if I can get the basic design sketched out I’ll be happy.

So the outlines of blushing roses and tiny daisies, sea pinks and blue agapanthus begin to appear, my heart lifting with the thought of how they’ll look painted in.

I picture where I’ve seen them in St Ives: climbing over walls, covering ancient stones, clinging to wind-tossed cliff paths and leaning against whitewashed cottages.

Flowers I see every day, colours I never want to take for granted.

It’s exuberant and freeing, this act of creation on this lovely instrument that’s arrived in my life and home.

My face aches with the smile I wear. I can’t remember when something so trivial, so unimportant to my everyday life, felt so momentous.

It’s another unexpected blessing in a week I didn’t expect any. And it means so much more than I’ll admit to anyone.

Truth is, I didn’t just want the piano because it had been abandoned, or because I thought it would make a great addition to my home.

I wanted it because of him .

A face from my earliest years, the image faded and cracked with time, like an old photograph passed from pocket to pocket. The person who introduced me to music, to hope, and to the wonder of a piano.

Grant Henderson. The closest person to a father I’ve ever known.

Last night, long after I’d returned to the café, I searched for him again.

It’s been a constant thing since I moved into this place – the search saved on my phone with an ever-dwindling list of websites to try.

On my own again after an acrimonious divorce, I finally felt free to start looking for him again.

My ex always dissuaded me when we were together and the arguments that ensued became too much to risk looking.

But now it’s something I do almost every day.

Problem is, I’m running out of places to look. So instead, I repeat the same searches in soulless monotony, daring to hope that this time I’ll have a breakthrough.

Grant was in my life for just over two years. But the change he made to it was seismic.

I grew up in a succession of rented homes around Penzance, the only child of a mother so caught up in her own eddies that she hardly noticed the storms around me.

I never knew my father, only that when Mum told him she was pregnant, he gave her a wad of banknotes to travel to Truro for an abortion.

Instead she used it to rent a tiny one-bed flat for us.

She tried her best in the beginning, I think.

But, as the years went by, her own thoughts and needs and demons demanded more of her time than she could ever give to me.

In many ways, I had to be the adult in our family, from a very early age. And that’s how it was when Mum met Grant.

He worked in the local bar as a manager, and walked Mum home one night when she’d had too much to drink and his boss wanted her evicted.

Grant’s kindness struck a chord in Mum, in her battered heart so used to tumbling from one careless handler to the next.

They got together very quickly, and Grant moved in three weeks later, bringing two bags, a box of books – and his piano.

That’s when everything changed.

I was seven when he arrived. And it was like all my Christmas and birthday presents turned up at once.

I’d heard kids at school talk about their fathers, about weekends spent on the beach or out on the water, about after-school ice creams in the summer and bright, tinsel-strewn adventures at Christmas. And I never understood what any of those things could mean until Grant arrived in my life.

We’d walk along Penzance promenade, shooting the breeze and spotting tiny fish in the bay at high tide; visit the fishmongers in neighbouring Newlyn to score just-caught mackerel to roast over beach fires; and explore the town looking for pirates in disguise – Grant’s favourite people-watching game, where we’d dream up seaworthy lives for passers-by.

And in the evenings, when Mum went to bed early with a hangover or sadness or just a need to get away from the world, Grant would play lullabies and snippets of classical music on his piano.

It was those times I loved most.

I would sit on the old rag rug that followed us from house to house shedding scraps of colour-worn fabric as it went, caught up in the melodies that filled our small living room.

The music brought colour and life and so much joy into that cramped space.

It transported me to endlessly wide oceans, exciting landscapes and calming vistas.

It opened an escape route I’d never found before.

Grant taught me to play, in the final months he was with us, although I didn’t know then how close his leaving would be.

My favourite of all the pieces he played was ‘Time Wears Awa’, an old Scottish folk song he would return to when he was working through his repertoire.

Loving the tune, I begged him to show me the notes.

Eventually, he relented – as he always did – his broad smile as he taught me the chords and melody still bright whenever I think of him.

But then, without warning, Mum found somebody else.

And Grant had to leave.

He offered to give me the piano, but Mum said she’d hack it to firewood if he did. She wanted him – and all traces of what he’d brought into our lives – gone. And no amount of pleading and tears from me could sway her decision.

On the day he left, I watched from the grubby glass of my bedroom window, knees hugged tight to my chin, world crashing around me, as Grant Henderson wheeled his beloved instrument down the road and out of my life.

It’s why I can’t touch the keys of this piano now; why its presence is immediately soothing, but its melody is too painful to play.

I know exactly why. If I play it without him, I’m saying goodbye.

I didn’t say goodbye when he left, believing, in my own naive way, that not saying it would leave a door open for him to return. To touch the piano keys now feels like slamming that door. I’m not ready to do it – even if the endless dead ends of my ongoing search for Grant suggest it’s all in vain.

I work for almost an hour, not wanting to leave. But the clock above the serving counter marks the minutes with its tick, reverberating around the quiet courtyard through the open door to the café.

Ruthie, my café assistant, will be here soon. I have tasks to complete before she arrives, if we want to be ready in time to open at eight a.m.

Reluctantly, I put down my pencil. The sketched design is as complete as I can make it for now. I smile at the promise of the silvery-grey outlines, at the flowers that will soon bloom over the rescued instrument. Over my rescued piano.

I like how that sounds.

I gather up the paint pots, cover the piano with the dustsheet and pat its lid before I return to the café.

‘You’re going to look wonderful,’ I say. ‘Just you wait and see.’

*

‘ What is that ?’

My assistant’s expression doesn’t mirror mine, when I show her my latest find.

‘ That is a piano,’ I reply, the very word lifting my heart.

Ruthie edges round the instrument, inspecting it as if it’s a dubious relic. ‘Where did you dig it up from?’

‘I didn’t dig it up. Seth and I found it on the street, last night.’