But the place beside the curb was empty.
He had forgotten to buy the Jaguar.
Everyone was waiting for the conductor—Andrew Davis—to make his entrance and begin The Consecration of the House. This music was—it so happened—one of Morrison’s favourite compositions. Cynthia, even with the programme staring her in the face, insisted on calling it The Conservation of the House, as if it might be about a new coat of paint and a shingle roof. Nonetheless, whether its hymns and trumpet calls were odes to dedication or to cedar shakes, Cynthia genuinely shared her husband’s enthusiasm—happily tapping out the rhythms with her fingernails—scratching whatever surface happened to be handy.
Morrison had been looking forward to this concert for weeks. His taste and his love of music were devoid of social pretensions and, although he played no instrument himself, Alexis and her cello had been brought together more at his urging than Cynthia’s. Cynthia would have been satisfied with a flute or a piccolo—something more transportable and chic. But wasn’t it wonderful, Morrison thought, to have a red-headed daughter bent above the cherrywood veneer of the world’s most beautiful instrument. For it was the world’s most beautiful instrument—the violoncello; its shape was as lush and perfect as a figure carved by Michelangelo.
For the first time that week, Morrison was relaxed. Almost relaxed. His fingers were playing with the crease in his trousers—fidgeting with his knees—but meanwhile his neck, his shoulders and his feet were at ease and he felt no strain as he waited for the music.
All the while Cynthia had been driving them downtown in her newly acquired BMW, Morrison had tried to stave off his apprehension. Somehow, it seemed imperative that nothing fall from the sky in Cynthia’s presence. A sky bolt crashing through the roof of the BMW could only prove Morrison had been chosen by the gods to pay for his sins in public; a marked man, whose wife was unaware he had ever wronged society at large, or her, or their children by any deed or word. And he hadn’t. Nevertheless, he had convinced himself the gods—or God—believed he had. He felt like a prisoner, wrongfully accused—standing before a judge who refused to name his crime.
What if another pigeon came hurtling through the windshield right there on University Avenue? What would Cynthia say? Perhaps he could pass it off as the act of terrorists. I happen to know, he could say, the Irish ambassador drives a BMW just like this—and the Protestants are out to get him…
With a pigeon?
No.
Even Cynthia would not believe such a thing. He would have to think of something else. An earthquake, perhaps—or the faulty architecture of the 1920s revealing its flaws at last, casting down stones that had been improperly aligned and balanced.
Maybe he could get away with that.
But Morrison had no need for explanations. Nothing fell. The fact was, everything was going rather well. They even found a spot for the car on King Street and thus avoided having to pay the parking lot attendant the usual ten dollars.
Dinner had been exemplary: Chateaubriand for two and a bottle of 1983 Moulin-a-Vent, followed by one of the best Napoleons Morrison had ever encountered. He had worn his new John Bulloch suit—the first time ever—in honour of Beethoven, and all through dinner he hadn’t dropped a single piece of food in his lap. He hadn’t even dipped his sleeve in the salad.
As they crossed the street under the full light of the moon—as well as all the lights that winked and shone like stars on the Royal Alexandra Theatre—there had not been a single incident to mar their progress. Now, here they were in their lifetime seats and the concert was about to begin.
Morrison eased himself down into the grey plush and focused on the red-headed violinist in the orchestra. There she was—the star of his childhood, the love of his youth, the unbroached subject of his fantasies—tuning her violin, wearing her black velvet dress and pretending with evident success that Morrison wasn’t there. It didn’t matter to him that she was unaware of his existence. Somewhere, deep in his past, he had assigned himself the role of the secret lover from afar He knew that in every woman’s dreams a lover such as he existed and he knew that, because of this, she must—at least from time to time—have sensed his presence in the audience. Once, a dozen years ago, she had looked up straight into his eyes and blushed and smiled. This had happened back in the time when the orchestra was housed at Massey Hall, and the rake of the balconies was steeper and more revealing. Tonight, she ignored him—but that didn’t mean he did not exist.
Cynthia, beside him, was sliding out of her furs and draping them over her shoulders. Her perfume, agitated and warmed by this activity, gave off a burst of scent that was overwhelmingly sexual. A man behind Morrison leaned forward suddenly and offered his assistance in Cynthia’s struggle with her sable.
“Thank you, kind sir,” she said, rather too much the way Debbie Reynolds might have said it in a musical. Perky Morrison, turning only slightly, noted the man had let his finger stray over Cynthia’s bared neck, lingering unnecessarily as he withdrew it up behind her ear. Morrison also noted how deep the cleavage was of Cynthia’s dress and how lush her breasts appeared to be (and were) beneath the velvet.
Oh, he thought, when will it ever end? And he wished that she would wither and be ninety.
Sighing, Morrison made the mistake of casting his eyes at heaven.
There above him was all that glass that adorns the upper reaches of Roy Thomson Hall—its mass of acoustic chandeliers—its dome of brilliant lights. Its bombs.
Morrison was on his feet at once.
Cynthia said: “what is it?”
“Uhm,” said Morrison. “Nothing. Don’t move. Goodbye.”
Against his will—and against all reason—he fled two steps at a time towards the rear of the balcony, all the while holding his programme over his head.
Cynthia, leaving her sable behind her, followed him—though not two steps at a time. Her heels and her sense of dignity refused to accommodate her urge to run. What could be wrong?
Clutching her little silver bag, she reached her husband and beseeched him not unlike a child.
“Tell me,” she said. “What is happening? Are you ill?”
“No,” said Morrison. “Yes.”
“Are you going to have a heart attack?” she said. Cynthia could say such things without imputing their likelihood. She might have said are you going to have a headache?
“No,” said Morrison. Yes, he said in his mind.
Then, aloud—and because the lights were flashing and the concert was about to begin—he said to Cynthia: “please. I’ll be all right. It was just a sudden twitch. A spasm. I was afraid I was going to have a cramp. Go back. Sit down. I’ll join you later.”
“Are you sure?” said Cynthia.
“Yes,” said Morrison. “Positive. Here comes Andrew Davis. Hurry.”
Cynthia shrugged and said: “okay,” and walked down, moving sideways—holding her breasts discreetly in place with a hand across her heart.
Andrew Davis had indeed arrived, and once the lights had dimmed, he raised both arms in the air and, after a suitable pause in which he silently gained control of time and all the expectations in the auditorium, he flung his hands out into the orchestra. Or so it seemed. His fingers flew through the air and the first of the five mighty chords with which The Consecration of the House begins sounded as his fingers struck the instruments: the trumpets and the drums, the violins—the cellos…
Morrison fished out his handkerchief and dabbed it over his forehead.
He regained his breath by force of will, and he told himself not to think about all the sky bolts falling from the sky and all the glass above his head. Nothing is going to happen, he said, inside. We live in a civilized, ordered world and the shy doesn’t fall except in fairy tales and no chandelier has fallen since the nineteenth century…
Here was the hymn of The Consecration of the House. How could he be afraid in the presence of such assurance and such nobility? Morrison watched his violinist—arm an
d shoulder, wrist and fingers—and the bow moving in and out of the lights. Her body had become a sounding box and the music was visible, written on her face.
All the people straining forward, all the people and all their ghosts were being lifted upward—enlivened in their seats. And all the glass above them and all the glass around them was shaking silently—quivering with what appeared to be the desire to sing—throwing back the music, just as it had been designed to do, with all its baffling shapes and all its angled and refracted light.
And underneath that light, those shapes, he could see the back of Cynthia’s head, its red hair delicately waved, its angle of repose decidedly intent upon the scene before it—and though he could not see her eyes, Morrison knew they would be full of tears. And there, beyond her—just beyond her, so it seemed—and touchable if only Morrison had ever achieved the courage, was the object of his spiritual lust: a woman with a violin.
Yet Cynthia, for all her tears, was cheating on him with his brother—dusting the secret places of her body with perfumes attractive to strangers—courting the world at large on her telephone (using his number!)—deserting him with all his unspoken needs, for others whose up-market boldness she could now entice from behind the wheel of her BMW.
Still, it was true that none of this was apparent—none of this was more than a passive reflection, here in the presence of the music. If only The Consecration of the House need not ever draw to a close.
There they all sat, the lawyers and the brokers and the psychiatrists; the university students and the university professors, the dreamers and the doers, each with a secret vice and each with a secret activity—each with a secret vocabulary of lust and provocation. Duplicity. Duplicity. If only, Morrison thought, he could join in their duplicity—then maybe he could join in their ignorance of…
What?
Of falling sky bolts; of crashing chandeliers and pigeons in the gutter?
Now, The Consecration of the House was nearing its end. The music had begun to dance around the orchestra, leaping from instrument to instrument. Morrison listened to its well-known and beloved patterns edging their way to resolution and he felt, all at once, a resurgence of terror.
What if, once the music ended, the applause should bring down the roof?
Surely no such thing had ever happened. And yet—if he was present, it might. After all, the sky had fallen only at his feet, not at the feet, so far, of any others.
“Run,” he said out loud. And then again. “Run!”
The music all but drowned his cry and only a few heads turned.
“I beg your pardon,” said the usher, who had been watching him suspiciously, wondering what to do about this man who seemed so nervous and unsure of himself. “If you speak again, I shall have to ask you to leave,” he said.
But the usher need not have worried. Morrison relieved him of all responsibility by leaving of his own accord.
Out through the doors and along the corridor and down the multiple flights of stairs he fled—only praying he could reach the street before the applause began. God knew, if he could do this—run this race and win—Morrison might be able to save a thousand lives. And one. Not his own, but a toss-up between the lives of a red-haired violinist and his wife.
Later that night—much later—Morrison explained to Cynthia that some people’s nervous breakdowns are best left alone, allowed to expand until the meaning of the crisis has announced itself in some definitive act.
“You mean that yelling run! and racing out of Roy Thomson Hall in the middle of Beethoven isn’t definitive?” Cynthia shouted at him, hoarsely. She had been shouting at him ever since she had found him standing in the street. “I’ve never been so mortified in all my life!” she shouted. “Surely you could have waited until the piece was over!”
“No,” he said. “I couldn’t wait. I’m sorry.” How could he explain this?
“Well, if it hadn’t been for that nice, considerate man behind us, I might not have survived my walk up those stairs in the dark. He came with me all the way. And you didn’t even wait in the lobby. How could you embarrass me like that? How could you do that? Why?”
“I can’t explain,” said Morrison. “But I will explain, if I find the answer.”
“Where will you find the answer? Where? You expect to find it lying in the street?”
“Well…yes, as a matter of fact. Or, maybe.”
“You’re not even talking sense,” said Cynthia. “And if you don’t start talking sense by morning, I’m going to call Doctor Pollard. After all, we have the children to think of.”
“Yes,” said Morrison—weary of it all. “We have the children to think about.”
Then, just as Cynthia was leaving the living-room, taking with her a tall glass of iced brandy and a box of du Maurier cigarettes, Morrison stopped her in her tracks by saying: “Who says the sky is falling?”
“What?” said Cynthia. “What did you say?” And she turned. The expression on her face was one of genuine bewilderment—as if she could not fathom his vocabulary.
“I said,” said Morrison, “who says the sky is falling?”
“Nobody,” said Cynthia.
“Yes, they do,” said Morrison. “Somebody says that, somewhere.”
Cynthia looked at him sideways and carefully. The wording of his question had begun to make some sense—although what kind of sense she could not yet tell.
“Somebody says it,” Morrison continued, pouring himself a glass of scotch. He was just beginning to realize she thought he was crazy. In order to survive, he would have to take on the appearance and the tone of someone sane. And so he poured himself a drink and smiled and said to her: “I thought you might remember who it was.”
“Why do you want to know?” said Cynthia—gravely suspicious.
Morrison widened his smile and said: “because the sky is falling, that’s why.”
“Chicken Little says it.”
Cynthia’s face was a mask of sobriety.
“Ah, yes. Chicken Little. Thank you,” said Morrison.
“What do you mean the sky is falling?
“Just that,” said Morrison. “Boom.” He dropped an ice cube onto the carpet.
Cynthia watched the cube begin to melt.
“Are you trying to tell me something?” she said.
“No,” said Morrison.
“Good,” said Cynthia. “I’m going to bed. Goodnight.” She went and stood at the bottom of the staircase—paused for a moment and then said: “I’m locking my door tonight. I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right,” said Morrison. “I’ll be locking mine, too.”
Cynthia went up the stairs after that, with her ice cubes clicking and her sable dragging behind her: the day’s last kill. Morrison watched her disappear and then he drained his glass.
Afterwards, in the dark, when Cynthia had locked her door and turned out her lights, Morrison slipped on his Aquascutum and went outside and stood on the lawn beside the forsythia bush.
There, in the night, he could smell the Japanese cherry blossoms and the cool, damp earth in the flower beds. Somewhere, way off on Yonge Street, a car gave a short, sharp bark with its horn—and a dog replied. The city rumbled in its sleep and the sky above it was full of stars.
Tomorrow, Morrison was thinking, he must not forget to buy the Jaguar. This was one of the sensible things he could now begin to do: the proof that he was sane. He would buy the Jaguar: he would start the search for a house of immense proportions in Markham, Ontario: he would instruct his broker to sell all the stock he had and he would search out markets he had never dared to broach—the forests of Brazil—the gold mines of South Africa—the shoreline of Madagascar. Cynthia would understand that he was letting go of all the repressions that had driven her away. This thing with David couldn’t possibly last. Let it run its course unchecked entirely. David didn’t love Cynthia; David loved women—period. And there were far too many women in the world to sacrifice them all for his brother’s w
ife. Morrison loved Cynthia. He would have her back, he was certain. Then, he would see if he wanted to keep her.
Another thing he would do tomorrow: he would buy all the papers and he would close the door on Ms Almeda. Then, he would run his fingers up and down the columns and he would choose a number while his eyes were closed—and he would call. Maybe he would call them all.
An aeroplane—heading for Japan—was passing overhead: a jetliner out of Montreal. It was flying ahead of its sound.
Morrison wanted to turn around and run inside, but he stood his ground. It was the bravest thing he had ever done. Everything shook.
The lawn beneath his feet made a noise. The forsythia bush began to wave its arms. The lights of the jet began to disappear amidst the stars and the sound of its engines rolled up over the trees and the roofs around him. Morrison’s ice cubes hit the sides of his glass and he tried to steady it—placing one hand, palm down, on top of it.
He closed his eyes and forced an image of the Jaguar to appear. Inside, his children sat with their instruments—cello—violin—Seiji—Alexis. And a red-headed woman. Oh, he thought. Oh. And he almost had it—purring by the curb—and the roaring of the jet had almost passed, when the sky bolt fell.
It broke a branch of blossoms from the Japanese cherry tree.
Silently—desperately—almost dropping the glass of scotch—Morrison went and sat on the steps before his house. He sat there half an hour and wept. All he could think of was how many sky bolts might have to fall before it all let go.
Well. As he had said himself of breaking down, some events are best left alone—allowed to expand until their meaning has announced itself in some definitive act.
Whatever that might be. Whatever that might mean.
DREAMS
For R.E. Turner
Doctor Menlo was having a problem: he could not sleep and his wife—the other Doctor Menlo—was secretly staying awake in order to keep an eye on him. The trouble was that, in spite of her concern and in spite of all her efforts, Doctor Menlo—whose name was Mimi—was always nodding off because of her exhaustion.
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