Take Nothing With You

by Patrick Gale

  They went directly to the string dealer’s, a rambling shop on Park Street. Carla knew the owner of old and said he was one of the best luthiers in the region – he made and repaired string instruments as well as selling them. There were racks of violins, violas and cellos, each with a little paper label tied to one of the pegs, not giving the price but a number by which it could be looked up in a ledger that showed who was selling it, what was known about it and how much the seller was asking.

  ‘You’ll need a bow as well,’ Carla said.

  ‘Really?’ his mother asked, sounding briefly like his father.

  ‘Afraid so. Well the bow he’s been using really goes with that cello and it’s a bit short and light for his arm length now. You’re going to be tall, like your father,’ she added to Eustace. ‘And I think we need to allow some room for growth.’

  It was bewildering to face so much choice but Carla said they could discount a lot of them as being professional and therefore out of his price range.

  ‘But he needs a good instrument with a full tone and some welly to bring on his technique,’ she told his mother. ‘Some so-called student instruments are a bit blah. So . . . I think we need a couple of brand-new ones for comparison and a few older ones with a bit of soul and character to them.’

  She found him a quiet corner in one of the small rooms at the back of the building, where she brought him a chair. Then she conferred with the owner and found him six cellos to try out and some bows she thought would suit. Curiously she made him choose a bow first. He had no idea how much bows varied.

  ‘If you end up taking this seriously,’ she said, ‘you’ll want two or three for the different weights. One for orchestra work, say, and one for chamber music and one for disasters. But don’t worry,’ she added with a grin at his mother, ‘just the one for now.’

  His mother had found a chair as well and sat in the corner, beneath a shelf of violas, much as she had sat in a department store chair while he was fitted for his St Chad’s uniform. He hoped she was enjoying as much as he was this visit to a world where art, headily, was everything.

  Carla made him play a slurred C minor scale on one of the modern cellos with each bow. He disliked the cello, whose sound was bright to the point of metallic, but there were two clear candidates among the bows, whose balance and length felt just right.

  ‘I’d better take whichever’s less expensive,’ he said and was pleased that this turned out to be his favourite of the two.

  Knowing he would feel self-conscious about playing in a shop, Carla had thought to bring along a music stand and a piece he’d been learning, the Fauré Sicilienne , and she set these up before him much as though he was having a lesson. She tuned each instrument with expert rapidity and passed them to him to try, suggesting he play both the opening phrase and a passage from the piece’s curious middle section, which would test an instrument’s higher range.

  The variety astonished him. The first instrument was heavy. The second was lighter and had a sweeter tone but sounded harsh in fifth position. He decided at once that he wanted an old instrument, one with a few dents and scratches – what Carla called dings – so that he wouldn’t worry about its being perfect. And he knew from his mother that old was often better than new and liked the idea of being able to say that his cello was an antique. But deciding between the older instruments was hard. There was a very red French one, which Carla said had been restored by Guivier’s in London, which was good, and had a bright tone. He preferred the look of an almost honey-coloured English instrument she said was from about 1820 but then she passed him a German one, very battered because it had spent time in a boys’ boarding school, but which was structurally sound and had such a strong tone that his mother stopped searching in her handbag for something and said,

  ‘That’s nice. I like that.’

  And finally there was what Carla said was a clever fake Stradivarius, provenance unknown but probably French again. That was undoubtedly the prettiest, with a handsome scroll and elegant back. But when he played a C minor scale on it, he found a bad wolf-note on the C string’s A flat, which no variation in bowing pressure seemed to relieve. So the choice was between the red French and the boy-battered German.

  ‘Would you like me to try?’ Carla offered.

  He nodded and they swapped places. She played the French one first, thrilling him by playing the first solo passage of the C major Haydn concerto on it so loudly that people started to gather in the doorway behind her to listen. Then she took the German instrument and played exactly the same bars.

  ‘No question,’ she told them. ‘This is your baby,’ adding, to his mother, ‘if you don’t buy it, I will. It’s a steal. The only reason it’s been in stock so long is the state of the varnish but that’s purely cosmetic. How on earth did a boarding school end up with such a good instrument? Maybe they had no idea what they had.’

  ‘What’s wrong with the French one?’ he asked, for hearing her play it, he had decided it was rather glamorous and heard himself telling people, ‘Oh, do you like it? It’s French, early nineteenth century and restored by Guivier’s.’

  She glanced dismissively back at the French one, which he was still holding. ‘Bit woolly in fourth position,’ she said, wrinkling her nose prettily. ‘I think that gloopy varnish may be hiding a repair that didn’t quite work. We can always get this chap tidied up for you but looks really aren’t everything. And the back is perfect, look!’ And she swung the instrument back to front between her long legs to that he could admire the unscratched butterfly symmetry of the wood on its back. He liked that it was obviously old and that it was unshowy. He also liked the rich clear tone emerging from such an unpromising-looking front.

  He had no idea what it would cost, he realized, or how much of her savings his father was allowing his mother to spend. He looked to her for guidance.

  ‘What do you think?’ he asked and she shrugged.

  ‘It has to be your decision,’ she said.

  ‘But you liked this one’s sound?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘I had no idea until Carla played them both how much a difference the choice of instrument made.’

  ‘I’d like that one,’ he said. ‘Yes please.’

  ‘Good choice,’ Carla said. ‘And there’s an approval period, so if for some reason it doesn’t work out, we can bring it back and change it within the month for a small fee. Now . . .’ She stood again, the heels on her boots making her seem suddenly extra tall in the confined space. ‘Brace yourself.’

  She glanced at his mother, who said sharply, ‘I thought you said this was a steal.’

  ‘It is but . . . Don’t look like that. Well within budget. But it’ll need a good hard case. We can’t trust this to a child’s fabric one, not if he’s carrying it through the streets.’

  He had quite forgotten about the need for a case. Happily the dealer also sold second-hand ones, no doubt those in which the second-hand instruments arrived. They found a sober black case with crimson velvet cushioning inside. There was a leather strap to hold the cello in place by its neck, cushioned pockets for rosin and spare strings and a holder for a second bow, should he ever reach that stage. Nestling the new cello into it felt extremely grown-up after the childish soft case in which he had been carrying Ivan around until now.

  ‘Isn’t it awfully heavy?’ his mother asked.

  ‘No,’ he lied. It was quite heavy but the weightiness was part of the adult burden he was to take on, like responsibility, like scales every day and not just pieces, like passion. ‘I can cope.’

  ‘He’ll soon get used to it,’ Miss Gold said.

  And so a cheque was written, with one of his mother’s customary girlish muddles: did she have her cheque card, should she write her address on the back too and had she remembered to fill out the stub so she didn’t get told off later? And minutes later they were back out on Park Street and he was carrying a new cello.

  Although it was well into the afternoon, it
was decided they needed lunch. After persuading a taxi driver he could take the cello as well as three passengers, they rode to a proper Italian restaurant with real Italian waiters who knew Miss Gold. Eustace was bought a pizza that completely hid the plate beneath it and his mother and Miss Gold had spaghetti with clams and a big carafe of white wine. He had special water with minerals and bubbles which he thought tasted a bit salty but made him feel as grown-up as the new cello, and the olives and anchovies on his pizza.

  After a curt reprimand from his mother, while Miss Gold was in the lavatory, he made a special effort not to show off. In practice this meant being largely silent and listening to the grown-ups, which was no great hardship.

  His mother encouraged Miss Gold to talk about herself. Inspired by his mother’s story of growing up in the shadow of a prima ballerina, she described how her talent and interest in music had startled her parents; she thrilled Eustace by describing them as utterly unambitious, three-piece-suite suburbanites , a phrase he stored up to tell Vernon later.

  ‘They were people with no books or piano. They had me signed up for lessons as my mother had decided it was a pretty, ladylike thing to learn, like flower arranging, and it caught fire in me.’ She laughed, shaking out her hair with a flick of her hand as she gazed at her wine glass, remembering. ‘I took it so seriously, played so loudly, that I think it unsettled them. My teacher put me in for a competition. What they used to call festivals. Lots of children playing endless pieces for a long-suffering, stony-faced judge. Only in this case the judge was Jean Curwen, and she changed my life.’

  ‘And now just look at you,’ his mother said and both women laughed. They had drunk all the wine and had little glasses of something with a burning coffee bean in it, so were possibly rather drunk.

  ‘You know, she runs holiday courses for younger players. It’s recruitment really as it gives a taste of the real thing but it’s inspiring. Jean is incredible. I think she’d like you!’ She turned her attention to Eustace in a way that made him see how much she had been looking at his mother up to that moment. ‘I was going to suggest we send you once you’ve mastered thumb position.’

  ‘When am I learning thumb position?’

  ‘It sounds excruciating,’ his mother said.

  ‘It is when your skin’s young,’ Carla told her, wincing. ‘But you adjust. This term,’ she added to Eustace. And with a smile she handed him a paper bag from the shop, something she must have bought while his mother and her chequebook preoccupied him. It was music: a series of exercises and melodies called Introducing Thumb Position . The notes looked extremely simple until you saw the treble clef and realized how high they were played on a cello’s fingerboard.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thank you very much.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have,’ his mother began but Miss Gold silenced her with a little gesture of her wine glass.

  ‘It’s a treat to have an apt pupil,’ she said. ‘Maybe later we can christen the new cello with a little lesson on this stuff? Would you like that?’

  He nodded, conscious that he was showing off slightly again and wondering if he might be a bit tipsy from the diluted splash of wine his mother had poured for him. ‘Where are we staying?’ he asked.

  ‘Not far,’ his mother said. ‘We can walk from here.’

  ‘Ebrahim – that’s my pianist friend – lives near here with a painter called Louis. It’s a wonderful old house overlooking the gorge. You’ll love it. But first, she’s bought you a cello, so I think we should get your mum to buy herself something.’

  ‘No, I shouldn’t,’ his mother said.

  ‘There’s a lovely boutique in a mews near here. At least come and see. I want something, too. I think we should all have treats today.’

  Insisting again that he call her by her first name, Carla prevailed. His mother had drunk at least one glass more of the wine than she had; he had been keeping count. They strolled up the road to an enticingly gaudy shop presided over by a woman with waist-length platinum hair, a flowing black robe and an array of silver jewellery so that she looked like a kindly sort of priestess. Her shop sold women’s clothes but also pottery and glass, candles and joss sticks. Eustace sat quietly in a chair while his mother and Carla became like girls, swooping and exclaiming, holding things up to the light and each other. They both fell in love with the same dress, a long peacock-blue thing with trailing sleeves and silver embroidery around the neck and cuffs. The woman in black came to the rescue by selling his mother the dress and Carla a matching jacket with a pair of black silk trousers they all agreed would look very dashing when she played the cello. And as she was wrapping the clothes in tissue for them and putting them into pretty bags, the proprietor winked at Eustace and threw in a packet of joss sticks for him as a reward for his patience.

  ‘Not many boys will sit quietly like that while their mother shops for clothes,’ she said.

  Carla smiled back at him and said, ‘Eustace is no ordinary boy.’

  And he felt a shiver of excitement as they returned to the pavement, for he realized the shopkeeper didn’t know which woman was his mother.

  He trailed along behind them, distracted by shop windows and people. He tried to imagine a different history in which Carla, not his mother, had married his father and realized that he couldn’t get beyond the slightly awkward handshake they had exchanged after her concert. They belonged, as Granny said of people sometimes, in quite different parts of the zoo .

  Ebrahim’s house was just as Carla had described it: a battered Regency showpiece near the end of a row overlooking the gorge and the suspension bridge. It had delicate wrought-iron, covered balconies wrapped around the first floor and the rooms, hall and staircase had the same pleasing proportions as their house in Weston, but without all the old people and with rugs and sanded floorboards instead of fitted carpet. The biggest difference, though, was the art. Their pictures at home were all fairly small, antique prints and engravings, apart from the two posters his mother had put up under Carla’s influence. Here the art was all very new; modern paintings, some recognizably of objects or people but most of them just big shapes and blocks of colour. Very little of it was framed and some of the biggest were simply leaning against walls.

  Carla had him leave his new cello in the hall then gave them a little tour, because his mother said she was dying to look round before the boys came home.

  ‘Where do they go to work?’ Eustace asked. ‘If they’re an artist and pianist?’

  ‘Oh, artists and musicians have to work to pay for all this,’ Carla laughed as she led them upstairs. ‘Ebrahim is rehearsing with his piano trio in some Baptist church they always use and Louis is at work in his studio, which is basically a disused car showroom he rents with a couple of other painters in a really rough part of the city. He used to work at home but Ebrahim said the paint fumes were making them both sick. Ebrahim is sensitive. Like you!’

  There was a big sitting room that took up all the first floor then two bedrooms and a bathroom on the floor above that and a little flight of steps to the sunny roof garden where chimney stacks on two sides and bamboo screens to the front and back gave total privacy.

  ‘Great for parties,’ Carla said. ‘And you can sunbathe up here without a stitch on and no one would know.’ His mother cleared her throat and Carla winked at Eustace. ‘I never said that,’ she murmured.

  On the way back down they glanced into the boys’ room, which was very masculine, with dark brown walls and old mahogany furniture. Eustace was fascinated at the idea that two grown men shared a bed but sensed from the way the women also glanced at the bed, the big, unignorable fact of it, that sleeping arrangements were not a topic for discussion.

  Across the landing lay the spare room, which was a bit smaller but had the same spectacular view as the boys’ room. It seemed to double as the house library. Every wall was filled with bookshelves, even over the window and the door. They were rammed so full that books were now being slotted in on their sides
here and there. There were photographs propped up randomly as well, pictures from holidays, from parties. Eustace itched to be nosy and examine them.

  Every inch of the little bathroom tucked in under the eaves had been wittily papered over with a varnished collage of people and images clipped from magazines, quite a few showing men wearing very little. They were sportsmen and workmen, Olympic swimmers or divers or men in advertisements for pants or bathrooms, but the hand at work had enjoyed pasting them into surprising contexts: a gathering of debutantes, a stiff eighteenth-century group portrait, a flock of sheep, a procession of laughing nuns. Again Eustace wanted to linger, preferably unobserved, but they were being moved on.

  ‘You two can sleep up here,’ Carla said, ‘and I can take the little bed in the basement.’

  ‘I wouldn’t hear of it,’ his mother replied. ‘Eustace is getting a bit grown-up to want to share with his mother any more. Besides, he’s a fidget in his sleep and he’d keep me awake. You could cope with me, couldn’t you?’

  ‘Well. Yes. If you’re sure . . .’

  ‘Actually wine at lunch has wiped me out rather,’ his mother added. ‘As we’re going to be sociable tonight, I might take a nap here while you two play with the new cello.’

  So they all returned to the hall, where his mother gave Eustace his pyjamas and washbag from her overnight case before disappearing for her nap while Carla led Eustace and his cello down to the basement. The bedroom down there was tiny, below street level with no window. But the music room beside it had a grand piano and gave directly on to the ferny area from where steps led up to the pavement.

  ‘You’re well insulated down here, so you can play your heart out without bothering anyone. Ebrahim often plays at night, when he has insomnia or he’s getting over jet lag. So. Come on. Let’s hear this beauty again!’

  She set up the thumb position book on a stand and found him a suitable chair while he rubbed rosin on his new bow and took the cello from its velvety case. Carla sat on the piano stool nearby, played him a D minor triad to tune to then, smiling, said,