by Patrick Gale
Quite unexpectedly the doorway gave on to a stage, with a grand piano on it, at one end of a large assembly hall. A plump man with a kind manner was there to greet them. He shook Eustace’s hand and clearly knew Ebrahim already as he said, ‘Ebrahim, what a treat. Now, Eustace, what are you going to play for us, once you’ve tuned up?’
Eustace told him.
‘Excellent. We’ll have the first movement of the Brahms, please, with no repeats. Then your Rachmaninov. Do you like Rachmaninov?’
‘Very much, sir,’ Eustace said, at which the man smiled.
Trained by Carla, Ebrahim didn’t play an A for him to tune to but a D minor triad and, when Eustace was working on his C string, which had lost pitch in the warmth, discreetly explored an F minor one as well. When he was ready, Ebrahim looked across and smiled as though an audition were the most delightful thing and they launched into the Brahms. Eustace was nervous at first, and rushed the semiquavers a little, but Ebrahim held him back and his playing reminded Eustace of what Carla had said about how the Brahms sonatas, like their Beethoven models, were dialogues for two instruments, not showpieces for just one, so he remembered to play softly when the piano had the interest and felt again as he did so the keen pleasure of question and answer. Carla had written in her distinctive italic above some of the phrases. Shall we do this? Or this? then, a little later No. Let’s do this . . . and do it TOGETHER . At the start of the coda she had written, Life is so good and I LOVE my new cello! She must have written it very discreetly after his last lesson with her.
When they finished, he found his heart was racing. She had warned him adrenalin did this sometimes, kicking in late so that it could destabilize a player or make them careless. He remembered her advice to take time to retune, even if the cello didn’t need it, to reassert control. Then he glanced out at the head of music, who called, ‘Whenever you’re ready,’ and then at Ebrahim who, only now, opened the Rachmaninov score, so that Eustace wouldn’t feel he had been holding anything up. And before he began the bars of solo piano introduction he looked at Eustace without smiling this time and discreetly tapped a finger to his chest by way of saying, Play for me, not them.
With great cunning, he began at a fractionally slower tempo than Eustace was used to so that, from the first, Eustace’s playing had an urgency to it, a sense of pressing forwards and, of course, it gave him space in which to let the passionate outbursts in the movement’s middle section break into a tempo that seemed much faster while remaining at a perfectly comfortable speed. Again there was a pencilled message from Carla on the music: You can never taste that happiness again. Never. And then, when the theme was stated again towards the end: But the pain of remembering is a kind of pleasure .
He had absolutely no idea if his performance was good or indifferent; the piece seemed to be over almost as soon as they had begun. The head of music was busy writing notes when Eustace dared look his way. Ebrahim caught his eye and they stood, as though to take a bow, and the school secretary came forward to meet them.
‘That was lovely,’ she said. ‘Always chokes me up, that movement,’ but Eustace felt she was speaking to Ebrahim, not to him, so hurried to put his cello, bow and music back in his case so they could follow her out by another door.
‘Thank you, Ebrahim,’ was all the head of music said as they left.
His father was waiting for them outside. ‘Well?’ he asked.
‘If he doesn’t get it,’ Ebrahim told him, ‘it won’t be because of his playing. Well done,’ he told Eustace. ‘Good luck.’
‘Thanks,’ Eustace said, remembering his manners. ‘And thank you for playing so beautifully. I’ll do my best.’
An embarrassing little conversation followed in which, to his horror, Eustace realized his father was trying to work out if he owed Ebrahim money for having just accompanied the audition and from which Ebrahim backed off with a friendly wave of dismissal.
Insisting on shouldering his cello for him, his father steered them to a little café for lunch, the sort of place where people ate fried breakfasts all day. His father ordered a bowl of tomato soup and Eustace had cheese on toast, which was delicious but which he found he could barely swallow for tension. He wished his father would drive home with the cello and leave him to catch a train, but Dad chattered on obliviously, saying how silly it was still to be nervous of the masters on returning to his old school then reciting from memory what the unvarying lunch menus had been when he was a pupil there. Although their food was long finished, his father somehow still managed to make them nearly late so that they had to hurry back to the school, not quite running. Eustace was delivered back for the written section rather sweaty and red in the face and was the last to take his seat in the classroom but nobody seemed to mind and the boy with terrible hair seemed to have been crying, which stopped Eustace fretting about his own appearance.
It was a short test, delivered by a different music master. They each had a sheet of paper and a sheet of manuscript paper with some examples of chords and key signatures and so on written on it. There were no surprises. He knew all three of the composers and pieces they had to identify, was relieved they had to translate Italian instructions into English and not the other way around, and hoped he had got at least two thirds of the manuscript questions right. Finally, having handed in their papers for marking, they were each summoned in for a brief interview with the head of music.
Quizzed about his musical ambitions, Eustace said he enjoyed playing in an orchestra very much but hoped to play in a string quartet as that repertoire seemed so interesting, and it was not quite as daunting as playing alone. He said he was worried at the thought of learning a second instrument as he felt there was never enough practice time as it was but confessed he would like to be taught to sing better and wondered if his fondness for maths might suit him to learn harmony.
After the interview several of the boys left with their parents, either in despair or because they had long journeys and were content to receive any news by letter.
‘I think we might as well wait, don’t you?’ his father said. ‘Get it over with here and now?’
So they sat on with Eustace’s cello beside them as the last few boys went in for their interviews. Eustace became aware of his father’s heavy breathing beside him and wondered if the others could hear it but reflected that at least he wasn’t cracking jokes. As with the auditions, they were called in by one door and sent out through another, presumably to spare anyone witnessing sorrow or glee. They were the very last to be called, by which point Eustace had decided that a letter would have been easier to bear.
The school secretary ushered them into the head of music’s presence and he immediately came out from behind his desk saying very well done and they were happy to offer him the number two music scholarship, subject, of course, to his passing Common Entrance in the summer.
Eustace was so happy and relieved that he found he could show neither feeling on his face. He just glanced at his father, who clapped him on the shoulder and quipped, ‘Told you so,’ and also shook the head of music by the hand. They then had a quick manly chat about his father being an old boy and the assumption that Eustace would be applying to the same boarding house, interviews and so on. And just when it all seemed to be over and Eustace was starting to shiver with the relief of tension lifted, his father said, ‘And just to be clear, and I hope you don’t mind discussing the matter so frankly, but needs must, I fear. The scholarship doesn’t just cover his cello lessons, does it? I’m right in assuming it covers the fees?’
The teacher’s genial manner cooled and he suggested it might be appropriate if Eustace went out and waited for his father in the quad.
The bench outside was a bit damp so Eustace stood on the path with his cello. There were swifts swooping and calling overhead and, from several open windows in the high Victorian walls, he could hear the murmur of lessons in progress. Someone was playing the organ in the chapel. There were pianos playing and a flute. None of the sou
nds went together and yet they seemed to make a perfect springtime harmony. A soberly dressed older woman walked by on the path with a clutch of files under one arm and a very pretty dachshund clipping along beside her on a scarlet leather lead.
He must have been looking unhappy because she paused, with a look of unmixed kindness, and asked, ‘Are you lost?’
He told her no, that he was waiting for his father and she smiled again and walked on. But he imagined telling her, ‘No. I’m found!’ That this was a place, like Ebrahim and Louis’ house nearby, that he knew could pick him up and save him from everything in his life that was odd or wrong or eccentric or did not work.
His father’s mood had altered entirely when he emerged. ‘Come on, then,’ he said and walked swiftly ahead of him back to their car, no longer offering to carry the cello. He drove in silence, then, as if the silence had become too much for him, with the radio intermittently tuned to some discussion programme of which Eustace’s mind could make no sense. It was only when they were queuing in rush-hour traffic on the outskirts of Weston that his father abruptly turned the radio off and, still focusing on the traffic, said, ‘I feel so stupid. I’d just assumed the scholarship covered everything, so had your mother, or we’d never have let you go through all that for nothing. I’m so sorry, old man.’
‘Are the fees so high? Why am I doing Common Entrance if . . . ?’ Eustace’s response tailed off.
Traffic began to move again and his father, who was not good at talking and driving simultaneously, again fell silent and merely sighed once, heavily. When they parked and he cut the ignition he spoke again.
‘You did so well today. It was a splendid performance.’
‘Yes, but . . .’
‘Times haven’t been good. I’ve lost a lot of value from our savings. The cost of oil to heat this place is ruinous. And we’ve yet to find new guests since the last three departures.’
He always spoke of guests and departures , never residents or death.
‘Will you rent out Grandpa’s room as well now?’
‘If we can. We need all the money we can get.’
‘Should I stop my cello lessons, then?’ Eustace could not believe he was making such an offer. It would be like stopping his own heart.
His mother had seen the car pull up and come out excitedly to hear the news. The car was becoming hot. Eustace felt he would soon be having trouble breathing. He could smell his father’s Old Spice too strongly and tried not to picture the air in his father’s lungs then going into his own. As in a silent film, he saw his mother’s posture change and a furrow of concern replace the happy expectation on her face. She had been tidying the garden – actual gardening was left to Mr Willis, who came once a month – and had on her gloves and was clutching secateurs in one hand and a little fork in the other.
‘Let me tell her, I should,’ his father said, letting Eustace’s question hang disturbingly.
‘All right.’
His mother reached the car and opened Eustace’s door. ‘Well?’ she asked. ‘How’d you get on? What’s wrong?’
‘I got it,’ Eustace told her, then worried he might be about to cry so got briskly out and pushed past her to open the rear door to slide the cello case out.
‘But that’s marvellous! Well done, darling! We must celeb— Eustace?’
He hurried into the house, careful not to hit Mr Palmer, an ancient, wordless resident, who was loitering on the porch on his Zimmer frame. He went directly up to his bedroom, stood the cello in its corner and lay on his bed. His window was slightly open, as the heat from downstairs made the attic stifling if not allowed to escape.
His parents had differences of opinion regularly, but it was an article of their marital faith always to present a united front to him at difficult moments, and to others always, and to air any differences out of his presence. She might say to him, ‘Let me talk to your father about it,’ and later claim to have changed her mind on a matter. Or he might say, ‘Your mother and I came to a conclusion,’ and in either case Eustace would know there had been a frank exchange of views and that one of them had won. His mother had once told him that Maman, being an artist, had a passionate nature and was known for her temper before she married but upon marriage had put her temper aside as one might fold up a pair of crimson evening gloves, because arguing with one’s husband just wasn’t done.
That evening, however, they argued loudly enough for even the deafest residents to hear. He couldn’t make out their words and wasn’t sure he wanted to – it was too mortifying – but he could tell they were moving from room to room. Just the occasional word or phrase reached him: his mother saying, ‘Typical. Just typical!’
His father saying, ‘So get a bloody job, woman.’ Then, later, him shouting, ‘I am not made of money,’ and her lashing back with, ‘That was pretty clear from the off, making us live in this godawful place with your mother.’
But then the volume of their disagreement dropped as abruptly as if an intervening door had closed and, instead of snatched phrases, he could make out only tones of voice: his mother’s unhappy, quite possibly tearful, his father’s low and emollient.
Relieved the crisis seemed to have passed, Eustace stared at a damp patch on his bedroom ceiling he had long thought of as a map to the island of Privacy. It was hard to believe that, after such a long preparation, the elation of his triumph had been so swiftly replaced by this odd mixture of disappointment and mortification. He had been encouraged to reach for something that was never his for the grasping. They had been reading Coriolanus in class recently and been taught the concept of hubris and how such fatal over-reaching could never go without punishment: it was the order of things.
How bad could Broadelm be? It had lain beyond his prospects for so long, been the place where only other people and the less fortunate went, that it was difficult suddenly to picture himself there. Although the revelation that Vernon was going had been a kind of rehearsal. And at least he would have a friend there, his only friend, if he was brutally frank about himself, and it was surely easier to start at a new school with one friend than with none? But then there was the humiliation of people in his class at St Chad’s learning that he was no longer headed in the same direction as they were. Might he even be demoted from the Common Entrance class to A3, to be with other boys like Vernon, who were marking time until the end of the summer term?
He drifted from imagining the worst that could happen in his last few months at St Chad’s to thinking guiltily about the cello. He knew how much lessons with Carla cost, knew from a glance at his mother’s chequebook stubs that they cost more than Mr Buck’s had. He hardly dared to add up what they had cost his parents to date and what it would save them for fuel bills and so on were lessons to stop and the cello be sold. He tried to be brave. He tried to imagine a future without his cello or Carla, glowing from the heart of it, and the prospect was unbearably bleak. But plenty of boys survived perfectly well without music in their lives. He could learn to draw. Pencils and paper were cheap, and he had seen books in the town library with names like How to Draw Horses and How to Draw Ships . Or he could read more, lose himself in long, inches-thick novels the way Vernon did. Or he could work much harder in school, not only at maths. At least for his last term and a half. He rather suspected there would be no Latin or Greek at the comprehensive.
‘Eustace?’ His mother’s voice surprised him, coming suddenly from the landing outside his bedroom door. She sounded subdued, unlike her; possibly she was ashamed after all the shouting.
‘Yes?’ he said.
‘It’s time for supper.’
‘Actually I’m not terribly hungry.’
‘Nonsense. It’s macaroni cheese. You know you like that.’
He did, and resented the way the savoury smell of it had started to reach in under his bedroom door, making his treacherous stomach gurgle when he had been prepared to be hungry and interesting.
His mother had laid a cheerful cloth on the kitchen t
able to make the meal more celebratory and his father poured a glass of red wine for him as well as for his mother. It was a deep red Hungarian variety he liked because it was cheap and which his mother liked because, she said, it was strong so went further. The meal was actually mercifully short – macaroni cheese followed by trifle made with Swiss roll and tinned mandarins – but seemed to last for ever because of the tension caused by both parents pretending nothing was wrong when they surely realized that he knew they had argued ferociously. The subject of the scholarship and unaffordable school fees went undiscussed apart from a fleeting acknowledgement when they first sat down to eat and his father raised his glass in a toast to Eustace, saying,
‘Jolly well done today, old man.’
His mother, also raising her glass, said, ‘Yes. We’re so proud of you.’
But immediately she had tasted the wine she exclaimed how good it was and how cheap. And then they talked brightly on about nothing. It amazed him how good they were at talking endlessly about nothing at all. Vernon said his father had always maintained it was better to say nothing at all than to say nothing of interest but perhaps mealtimes at Vernon’s were eaten in stony silence, broken only by the scraping of cutlery on plates, which would have been worse than empty chatter. Marginally.
At last, after obliging his mother by accepting a second bowl of the trifle, although Dream Topping always left him a little queasy, Eustace could stand the strain of good behaviour no longer so said, ‘You know, I really don’t mind. I’m fairly sure I won’t have to do Latin or sport at Broadelm and, you know, Vernon is going there, which is nice.’
‘Is he, now?’ his father said and added something about unfortunate circumstances.
‘Well your father’s going to explain to Dr Figgis,’ his mother said, ‘so there’ll be no misunderstandings or awkwardness.’