She was so young, I thought. I wasn’t ready to lose her.
‘Arina tells us that you’re a musician, Ralph,’ Zoya said as we ate the kind of dinner we usually only ate on Sundays. Roast beef and potatoes. Two different types of vegetables. Gravy. ‘What do you play?’
‘The clarinet,’ he replied quickly. ‘My father was a wonderful clarinettist. He insisted that my brother and sisters and I took lessons from the time we were very small. I used to hate it when I was a child, of course, but things change.’
‘Why did you hate it?’ I asked.
‘I think it was the teacher,’ he said. ‘She was about a hundred and fifty years old and every time I played badly she would beat me at the end of my lesson. When I played well, she would hum along to accompany Mozart or Brahms or Tchaikovsky or whoever.’
‘You like Tchaikovsky?’ I asked.
‘Yes, very much.’
‘I see.’
‘But your attitude must have changed eventually,’ said Zoya. ‘If you play for a living, I mean.’
‘Oh, I wish I could say that I do,’ he said, interrupting her quickly. ‘Forgive me, Mrs Jachmenev, but I’m not a professional musician. Not yet, anyway. I’m still studying. I take my classes at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, just off the Embankment.’
‘Yes,’ she said, nodding her head. ‘Yes, I know of it.’
‘A little old to be still studying, aren’t you?’ I asked.
‘It’s an advanced course,’ he explained. ‘So that I can teach as well as play, should the need arise. I’m in my final year now.’
‘Ralph plays with an orchestra outside of class too,’ said Arina quickly. ‘He’s performed at the Christmas service in St Paul’s for the last three years; last year he was even given a solo, weren’t you, Ralph?’
‘Really?’ said Zoya, sounding impressed as the boy smiled and blushed to be the centre of so much attention. ‘Then you must be very good.’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, frowning as he considered this. ‘I’m improving anyway, I hope.’
‘You should have brought your clarinet with you,’ she continued. ‘Then you could have played for us. I played piano, you know, when I was a child. I’ve often wished we had the space here for one.’
‘Did you enjoy it?’
‘Yes,’ she said and opened her mouth to say more, but then seemed to think better of it and became immediately silent.
‘I never learned an instrument,’ I said, filling the silence. ‘I always wanted to, though. Had I been offered the opportunity, I might have studied the violin. I’ve always considered it to be the most elegant of musical instruments.’
‘Well you’re never too old to learn, sir,’ said Ralph and the moment the line was out of his mouth he flushed scarlet with embarrassment, which was not helped by the fact that I was staring directly at him with the most serious expression I could muster, as if he had just insulted me terribly. ‘I’m awfully sorry,’ he said, spluttering out the words. ‘I didn’t mean to imply that—’
‘That I’m old?’ I asked. ‘Well, what of it? I am old. I was only thinking about it earlier. You’ll be old yourself one day. See how you like it then.’
‘I simply meant that one can take up an instrument at any age.’
‘It would be a comfort to me in my dotage, perhaps,’ I suggested.
‘No, not at all. I mean—’
‘Georgy, don’t tease the poor boy,’ said Zoya, reaching across and taking my hand for a moment. Our fingers interlaced and I looked down at them, noticing how the skin on either side of her knuckles was starting to become a little more taut with age; for a moment I imagined I could see the blood and phalanges beneath, as if her hand was being made translucent by the passing years. We were both growing older and it was a depressing thought. I squeezed her fingers tightly and she turned to look at me, a little surprised, perhaps wondering whether I was trying to offer her reassurance or hurt her. The truth was that at that moment I wanted to tell her how much I loved her, how nothing else mattered, not the nightmares, not the memories, not even Henry, but it was impossible to speak such words. And not because Ralph and Arina were there. It was just impossible.
‘Did your father attend the same school?’ Zoya asked a moment later. ‘When he was learning the clarinet, I mean?’
‘Oh no,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘No, he never took any lessons in England after he arrived here. His father taught him when he was a child and he simply practised on his own after that.’
‘After he arrived here?’ I asked, picking up on the phrase. ‘What do you mean by that? He isn’t English, then?’
‘No, sir,’ he said. ‘No, my father was born in Hamburg.’
Arina had told us quite a lot about her young man but this was something she had not mentioned before, and Zoya and I immediately looked up from our plates to stare at him, entirely surprised by this news. ‘Hamburg?’ I said a few moments later. ‘Hamburg, Germany?’
‘Ralph’s father came to England in 1920,’ explained Arina, her expression betraying a little nervousness, I thought.
‘Really?’ I said, considering it. ‘After the Great War?’
‘Yes,’ said Ralph quietly.
‘And during the other war, the one that followed it, he returned to the Fatherland, I suppose?’
‘No, sir,’ he replied. ‘My father was vehemently opposed to the Nazis. He never returned to Germany, not since the day he left.’
‘But the army?’ I asked. ‘Wouldn’t they have—’
‘He was interned for the duration of the conflict,’ he explained. ‘In a camp on the Isle of Man. We all were. My father and mother, our whole family.’
‘I see,’ I replied, considering this. ‘And your mother, she’s from Germany too?’
‘No, sir, she’s Irish.’
‘Irish,’ I said, laughing and turning to Zoya as I shook my head in disbelief. ‘Well, this just gets better and better. I suppose that would explain the red hair.’
‘I suppose,’ he replied, but there was a resilience in his voice now which I admired. Zoya and I knew only too well what it had been like to be in England during the war with an accent that did not fit with our neighbours. We had been insulted and abused; I had found myself on the receiving end of violence. The work that I had done during those years had been conducted, in part, to affirm my solidarity with the Allied cause. But still, we were Russians. We were émigrés. And while this was difficult enough, I could scarcely imagine what it might have been like to have been a German family in England at the same time. I suspected that young Ralph had more steel in his bones than his nervousness around his girlfriend’s parents implied. I imagined that he knew very well how to defend himself.
‘That must have been difficult for you,’ I said, aware of the understatement.
‘It was,’ he said quietly.
‘You have brothers and sisters, I suppose?’
‘One of each.’
‘And did your family suffer?’
He hesitated before looking up and nodding, his eyes staring directly into mine. ‘Very much,’ he said. ‘And not just mine. There were others there too. And there were many who were lost, of course. Those are not days that I like to remember.’
A silence descended on the table. I wanted to know more, but felt that I had asked enough. Telling us this much, I decided, was a testament to how much he cared for my daughter. I decided that I liked this Ralph Adler, that I would be his supporter.