Penniless and Purchased

Behind the frozen mask of her face, as if a searing flame had scorched the ice in her mind, dissolving the chains and padlocks, the bars and bolts she had put around the past, like a dam being breached, memory came drowning in. Unbearable, agonising memory.

The past, pouring through her head like molten lead…

CHAPTER TWO

THE spring sun was warm on her head, even in the early evening, as Sophie walked through Holland Park, up from Kensington High Street, where she’d hopped off the bus. She loved taking this walk, especially at this time of year. Was there ever a time of year more lovely? she thought. Bars of Schumann’s ‘Spring Symphony’ trilled euphonically through her head as she walked lightly through the park, where trees were unfurling their greenery, the air sweet, even for London.

She quickened her pace. She wanted to tell her father the wonderful news, that she’d been chosen as one of the soloists for the college concert next month. Her mind ran through the repertoire. The two Chopin nocturnes were easy enough, but the Liszt was fiendish! Well, practice would make perfect. It was a shame they weren’t going to get the new baby grand that her father had promised her for her birthday earlier in the year, but the existing one was perfectly good enough, and she mustn’t be greedy.

She frowned very slightly. It was unlike her father to stint on anything to do with her music. He’d been her biggest enthusiast, from the moment her primary school music teacher had said she really should have piano lessons. From then on her father had paid willingly for anything and everything that developing her talent, such as it was, required. Oh, she was no musical genius. She knew that, accepted that. So very few musicians were, and, considering how incredibly hard it was even for the exceptionally gifted to make a living, she didn’t envy them. No, she was perfectly content being talented, dedicated—and amateur. Besides, she made rueful the acknowledgement that she was in the highly privileged position of not having to earn a living. Even when she left college she could continue with her music without any thought of having to make it pay in any way. She would play for pleasure—and other people’s, too, she hoped.

Certainly her father loved to listen to her. Again, a rueful smile tugged at her lips. He might be her biggest fan, but his ear was not musical.

‘Oh, Daddy, that’s Handel, not Bach!’

She heard herself laugh affectionately in her memory.

‘Whatever you say, Sophie, pet, whatever you say,’ Edward Granton would reply indulgently.

Yes, indulgence was definitely the word when it came to her, his daughter, Sophie knew. But although she knew she was the apple of his eye she had never taken advantage of it other than to pursue her music. Besides…a tiny glint of sadness shadowed in her eyes…she knew why her father wanted to indulge her so.

She was all he had.

Her memories of her mother were dim, almost non-existent. She could remember her singing, that was all, a low, clear voice, lulling her to sleep as an infant.

‘That’s where you get your music from,’ her father would tell her, over and over again. ‘Your wonderful, wonderful mother.’ Then he would sigh, and Sophie’s heart would squeeze with terrible sadness.

So she let him spoil her, for he loved to do so, and she could not deprive him of what gave him so much pleasure. She tried very hard not to be spoilt, though she knew that compared with many of the other students, she was. Her father could pay the music college fees without blinking, never burdening her with student loans or the like. She could continue to live at home, in the beautiful house in Holland Park, and have a first-class instrument to practise on, and her clothes were always beautiful because her father liked to see her look pretty.

‘You’re so like your mother, pet,’ he would say. ‘She’d be so proud of you. As proud as I am.’

Well, she wanted her father to be proud of her, wanted to see him smiling at her. Another little frown flickered across her brow. Her father’s smiles hadn’t been as forthcoming for the past few months, ever since her birthday, really, she supposed. Oh, he wasn’t cross or grumpy—it was more that he seemed…preoccupied. As if things were on his mind.

She’d asked him once, when his brow had seemed particularly drawn. But all he’d said to her had been, ‘Oh, just the market…the market. Things will pick up again. They always do. They go in cycles.’

For a while she’d been worried about him. But then she’d had exams coming up, and all her focus had been on them. When she’d surfaced on the other side of the exams it had been the vacation, and she’d had a chance to visit Vienna on a college trip. She’d grabbed it with both hands, and, though her father had blinked a moment when she’d said how much it would cost, he’d handed her a cheque to cover it all the same.

The trip had been every bit as wonderful as she’d known it would be, and so had the extra excursion to Salzberg, which she hadn’t been able to resist signing up for, even if had cost a lot. But it had been worth it. She’d brought her father back a huge box of Mozartkugeln to show her appreciation. He’d thanked her with the air of preoccupation that still seemed to be his dominant mood, and listened absently while she’d regaled him with all the wonderful things she’d done and seen. Then he’d headed for his study.

‘I’ve got to make some phone calls, pet,’ he’d said, and she hadn’t seen him again all evening.

It was unlike him not to want her company, and the following day over breakfast she had taken a deep breath and asked him if things were all right.

‘Now, I’m not having you worrying about things that you don’t have to worry about,’ he’d said firmly. ‘Business has its ups and downs, and that’s that. Everyone’s affected at the moment—it’s the recession. That’s all.’

And that was all she had got out of him. But then he never talked business to her. She hardly even knew what exactly Granton plc did. It was property and finance and City things like that, and even though sometimes she felt she ought to be more interested she knew she wasn’t, and she also knew her father didn’t want her to be. He was a doting parent, but old-fashioned, too. He far preferred her to be off doing something artistic, like music, and the closest she ever got to his business life was when he invited business associates to dinner, and Sophie, as she had done since she was in sixth form, played hostess.

Sophie’s mind ran on, pleasantly occupied, until she reached the exit of the park. The roads around here were quiet, and rich with almond blossom, and she caught her breath in delight as she swung homewards along the pavement. She was still gazing upwards into the laden branches as she paused to cross the road to her father’s house. There was very little traffic here, and she was about to step into the road, her hand half reaching upwards to cup a cascade of peach and white blossom, when the throaty throb of a powerful machine prowled down the road. It drew her eye immediately. Low and lean and jet-black, with a world-famous logo on the elongated bonnet. But it wasn’t just the opentopped car that made her pause. It was the driver.

She felt her lips part. Wow! If you wanted an image of Mr Cool, that was it! Hair as jet-black as his motor, one besuited arm crooked casually over the lowered driver’s window, hands curving around the steering wheel, white cuffs, a glimpse of a dark red silk tie, and a face—oh, gulp—a face that had a chiselled profile and—double gulp—dark glasses to die for…

She just stared as he went by. Transfixed.

Too transfixed to see his head shift, very slightly, to bring her into his line of sight in his rearview mirror, which caught her perfectly, standing, poised, long pale hair streaming, blue gypsy skirt wound about her long legs, her hand cupping almond blossoms, petals drifting down over her, caught in a pool of sunlight.

The car seemed to slow a moment, then picked up speed again, turning the corner. With a little sigh, Sophie set off in the same direction. Five minutes later, she was outside their house, her eyes going to the gleaming back monster parked a couple of bays along. There was no sign of the driver.

A new neighbour?