The Lost Love Song

by Minnie Darke

  She played the two chords again and again, but Arie wasn’t sure.

  Diana went on, ‘It’s what you hear at church, when they sing the Amen at the end of a hymn. Listen.’

  At first, he couldn’t hear it, but then – as she sang along to the chords, ‘A-men’ – the music came into focus.

  ‘You see? You see?’ she asked.

  ‘I think I do, actually.’

  Diana let her fingers run all over the keyboard, unloosing a waterfall of music that ended up with the sound he now recognised as the plagal cadence.

  ‘Do you know what I mean?’ she asked.

  ‘I am your Amen?’ Arie asked.

  ‘Yes, you are,’ Diana said. ‘And I am yours.’

  And for seven years, this was absolutely true.

  NATURALLY, ARIE AND Diana bought a house with a bay window. It was a terrace house on a narrow street in the city’s historic quarter – a neighbourhood of sandstone cottages, artfully painted weatherboards, beautifully curated vintage stores, tiny street-corner parks and perhaps the world’s highest per-capita concentration of rustic bakery–cafés.

  It was Arie who found the house. After being outbid at two auctions, he went on the offensive, walking the streets on weekends and knocking on doors until at last, in Tavistock Row, he came upon a house with a bay window and an owner who didn’t laugh in his face when he asked if they were interested in selling.

  The place retained every last bit of its shabby, unrenovated charm, and its location gave heft to the price, but Diana declared the bay window to be perfect. It was on the upper storey, in a room with polished floorboards and double doors of frosted glass. Diana painted the walls herself, in a shade of beige that she chose almost entirely because it was called Grand Piano, and she angled the Steinway so that the bay window was at her back and the morning sun fell on the keys while she practised.

  In that house, on the seven-year anniversary of the day Arie and Diana had met, a packed suitcase stood ready at the base of the stairs. In the morning, Diana was going on tour. First stop Singapore, then onwards to the places whose winters made her think of snow domes: Paris and Salzburg, Prague and St Petersburg. She would be overseas for almost a month, so – as was customary on nights before she went away – Richard and Lenka came over for dinner.

  Although Diana and Arie had a snug little dining room, meals with Richard and Lenka never made it out of the kitchen. As Arie loaded toppings onto his homemade pizzas and slid his creations in and out of the oven, Richard gave unsolicited advice from the other side of the bench. Diana, in bare feet and a gingham dress, leaned against the kitchen sink with a half-empty glass in hand, observing that Lenka, who was sitting on the kitchen’s only stool, was yet to take a sip of the wine Diana had poured for her half an hour earlier. Questions were also raised by the width of the purple swing-top Lenka wore, and which Diana was fairly sure was brand new.

  ‘I’m glad you’re going away, actually, Di,’ Richard said, with a grin.

  Richard was the only person alive who was allowed to shorten Diana’s name in this way. That she let him get away with it was a concession to the importance of his friendship with Arie, which dated back to grade eight, when Richard had arrived from the UK, thickly bespectacled, with a mouthful of braces and an accent that was interpreted as insufferably stuck-up. The braces and the accent were long gone, of course, and for some years the spectacles had been a good deal more Dolce & Gabbana than Coke bottle.

  ‘Well, thanks for that charming sentiment, Richie-poo.’ Just because she tolerated him calling her ‘Di’ didn’t mean she wasn’t going to fight back.

  ‘He reckons he gets more work out of me when you’re not here,’ Arie said, sprinkling a pizza with a liberal quantity of sliced jalapeños.

  ‘I do,’ Richard insisted. ‘The only time you log more hours than me is when Di’s overseas. I love it! Get to put my feet up for once.’

  It was five years since Arie had quit his job at the Conservatorium to go into partnership with Richard in their own web development company. Bit by bit, as it had expanded and taken on more employees, Sonder Digital had colonised half the second floor of an old warehouse building in a semi-industrial corner of the city. Giving each other shit was a crucial part of the bond between the two programmers, who often spent their leisure time talking shop in a language that was as impenetrable to Diana and Lenka as computer code itself.

  ‘He is so full of it,’ Lenka said in her lightly accented English, although she didn’t need to. The truth was that both Richard and Arie worked ridiculously long hours and cared equally deeply about the success of their business. To keep the staff happy and fulfilled, they’d instituted daily pep talks, regular team bonding activities and a monthly Hack Day, as well as fitting the office out with a table tennis set-up and a large fridge that was always generously stocked with kombucha.

  Diana moved to Arie’s side and swiped a slice of mozzarella from one of his pizzas.

  ‘Pest,’ he said, although he kissed her hair.

  ‘You’ll take care of him for me, won’t you?’ Diana asked Lenka. ‘Make sure he doesn’t get worked into the ground while I’m gone.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll feed him and water him. Make sure he occasionally gets fresh air and sunlight,’ Lenka said. ‘I promise.’

  It wasn’t always a done deal that the partners of long-standing best friends like Arie and Richard ended up being close friends themselves, but Diana and Lenka were among the lucky ones, despite being about as different as two women could be. Diana, as a rule, did not cook. Neither did she fold laundry, put out garbage, clean ovens or scrub bathrooms. Lenka, on the other hand, was unable to leave her house until she had wiped the sink, straightened her already straight doona cover and plumped her couch cushions. Diana knew it wasn’t fair to have been blessed with the ability to eat anything she wanted and remain stick thin, while Lenka had to restrict herself to a regimented diet in order to remain only as round as she already was.

  Lenka was a psychologist, and Diana could imagine how reassuring her clients would find her forthright practicality. Lenka wasn’t the slightest bit musical; instead she played several sports, the rougher the better. Although, tonight Diana found herself wondering for how much longer this would be true. She watched Richard take a slug of his boutique beer and run a hand through his close-cropped hair.

  ‘So, um,’ he said, ‘we have news. It isn’t really public yet, but that’ll probably happen when you’re away, Di, and . . . well, we wanted to tell you in person.’

  Diana looked to Lenka.

  ‘We’re pregnant,’ she announced.

  In the cramped kitchen, there was an explosion of hugging, squealing and delight, along with all the usual questions. How far along? (Almost twelve weeks.) Will you find out the sex? (Absolutely.) How much leave will you take? (As much as I can get away with.) Diana poured Lenka’s wine down the sink and fetched her a glass of sparkling mineral water.

  ‘We were hoping,’ Lenka said, ‘that you two would be the baby’s godparents.’

  ‘Of course,’ Arie said, glancing over at Diana. In the fleeting look that passed between them, Arie sensed some kind of uncertainty. But before he could study it, and before Richard or Lenka had noticed her reservation, Diana was once again bubbling over with happiness for her friends.

  ‘Holy shit,’ she said, clinking her glass against Lenka’s, Arie’s and Richard’s. ‘You guys are having a freaking baby!’

  ‘Aren’t you two celebrating tonight as well?’ Lenka asked, trying to deflect some of the attention.

  ‘We are,’ Diana said, slipping her arm around Arie’s waist. ‘Seven years together. Seven years.’

  ‘Is there a particular reason for that?’ Diana asked.

  It was past eleven, and for the last quarter of an hour Arie had been sitting shirtless against the pillows in the summer warmth of their bedroom. He was aware of every move Diana made as she padded around the bedroom in a pale pink wisp of a nightgown, di
thering with her hand luggage and setting the alarm.

  ‘A reason for what?’ Arie asked.

  Although there was a book open on his lap, Diana was fairly sure that in all the time it had taken her to check and double-check she had packed all her important things . . . passport, credit card, phone charger . . . he hadn’t turned a single page. She sat beside him on the bed.

  ‘For that little thundercloud over your head.’

  ‘There’s no thundercloud,’ he said, without looking up from his page.

  ‘Arie, it’s right there,’ Diana said, poking at the air just above his head. ‘I can see it.’

  ‘You’re imagining it.’

  ‘I don’t think I am.’

  Now he did look up. He closed his book, and sighed. ‘Do you really want to do this? Right now? Tonight?’

  Diana was surprised by the note of irritation in his tone. ‘Well, it seems like you have something to say.’ She set her jaw. ‘So, let’s hear it.’

  ‘Okay then,’ Arie said. ‘Look at your hand. The left.’

  Diana did as she was asked.

  ‘What do you see?’

  She saw freckles, two fine parallel scars from a rabbit scratch she’d sustained as a child, and short, slim fingers that right now had stored inside them one half of Prokofiev’s Concerto No. 2, the one she would soon play with the Orchestre de Paris.

  ‘I don’t see anything.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Arie said.

  ‘O-o-oh. I get it. You’re mad I’m not wearing my engagement ring.’ The thing was, Diana never wore rings. Or bracelets, or a watch; they got in the way while she was playing. ‘I hate wearing rings. You know that.’

  Arie sat forward so that Diana could see every detail of the unmarked olive skin of his chest, the vulnerable dips on the insides of his collarbones, the smooth curves of his shoulders. She wished she had not taken his bait. If she’d just taken the book out of his hands, switched off the lamp and slid into bed beside him, by now they’d be making love the way they always did right before she went away – with an edge of sadness that gave it a delicious little bite.

  ‘How long have you had the engagement ring that you hate wearing?’ he asked.

  ‘It must be . . . what? Three years?’

  Arie had proposed to Diana in New York, on a blue-sky day in August, in a rowboat in Central Park. With its bolted-on oars, the blunt-nosed little vessel hadn’t been easy to manoeuvre, but somehow Arie had managed to paddle across the busy lake to the place where a jazz trio was playing under a pergola that jutted out into the water. He’d had high hopes for the ring in his pocket, having asked the jeweller to make it small enough, delicate enough, for a pianist to wear. But although Diana had received it – and his proposal – with nothing but joy and excitement, the ring had spent almost all of its life inside a velvet box. And no wedding had ever ensued.

  ‘We’ve been engaged for nearly four and a half years,’ Arie said.

  ‘Well, that’s pretty good going, isn’t it?’ Diana replied with brittle humour, hoping to get a laugh out of him. None came.

  ‘Why aren’t we married?’

  Diana sighed. ‘You know why. We just haven’t got around to it yet. We never know when I’m going to be . . .’

  ‘Actually, you’re in control of your schedule. So why aren’t we married?’

  ‘Why do we have to be?’

  ‘I hate it when you answer questions with questions.’

  ‘I like being Diana Clare,’ she said, aware of the pouty tone in her voice.

  ‘Who says you’d have to change your name?’

  ‘I like being Miss Clare. I hate Ms. It’s clunky.’

  ‘When you said yes, did you ever have any intention of marrying me?’

  ‘Yes,’ Diana said, without conviction.

  ‘So are you ever going to marry me?’

  ‘I’m never going to leave you,’ Diana said.

  ‘That’s not what I asked.’

  ‘Oh, Arie, I don’t know.’

  Arie heard the frustration in her voice and wished he hadn’t bothered with the conversation. After seven years, he ought to have known better than to go head to head with Diana over an issue like this one; being challenged only made her obstinate.

  ‘Well, I want you to think about it. While you’re away. I want you to come home with a decision.’

  Diana felt a chill ripple down her spine. ‘Or what?’

  ‘It isn’t an ultimatum.’

  ‘Feels like one.’

  ‘It’s time, Diana. It’s time we took that step.’

  ‘Weddings are tacky,’ Diana said, in a way that was both dismissive and an invitation for Arie to disagree.

  ‘It could be however you wanted it to be,’ he said gently.

  ‘But why is it necessary? You know I love you. I do. I love you. I’ve already said I want to be with you forever. We bought this house together. I’m not going anywhere.’

  ‘Except, of course, you are,’ Arie said.

  There was a silence, in which Diana felt every mile of the distance she was about to travel, and every minute of all the hours that would pass before she would be home again.

  ‘And, what was that thing you did? When Richard and Lenka asked us to be godparents?’ Arie asked.

  ‘What thing?’

  ‘You know. That look you gave me.’

  Diana sighed deeply. ‘It was a really big question, and you just said yes, without even thinking about it. Being a godparent is a commitment.’

  ‘So? They’re our closest friends.’

  ‘I don’t like to say yes to anything unless I’m totally sure I’m going to be able to do it properly. Get it right.’

  In this, Arie recognised the perfectionist tendencies that made her the pianist she was.

  ‘Diana, everywhere I look, all around me, there are people going forwards,’ he said. ‘But we’re not.’

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘Is this about having children? Is that what this is really all about?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Arie faltered. ‘That’s a whole other debate. But I’d like to get married. I want to . . . do the next thing. But you . . . it feels like you just want things to go on the way they are, forever.’

  ‘Why is that so terrible?’

  ‘Have you ever thought that maybe it’s not what I want?’

  Diana was not accustomed to Arie telling her what he wanted. The fact was, and Diana knew this, that what Arie usually wanted was to make her happy.

  She got to her feet.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Arie asked, even though – as she walked out the bedroom door – he knew. A moment later he heard the lid of the Steinway being flung open. Then piano scales were coming through the walls – fierce, yet precise.

  If, in one sense, the love song had begun seven years before with a knock at a door, in another sense it began that night in the piano room.

  It was almost midnight by the time Diana had played enough scales to work her way through her annoyance, although quite why she was so annoyed she couldn’t precisely say. Her feelings about weddings were complicated. There was embarrassment in the mix, certainly. The idea of dressing up in a particular kind of dress and saying a particular set of words . . . it all felt mawkish to her. Part of her felt that getting married involved making in public a promise that ought to be completely private. Another part almost, almost, liked the idea. But even if her feelings about weddings were complicated, her feelings about Arie were not. If she’d been better with words, she might have been able to tell him as much.

  She sat at the piano, a sheen of sweat on her skin and the backs of her thighs clinging to the leather-topped stool. The bay window, its angled panes open in the hope of catching a cooling breeze, allowed in the scent of the jasmine that grew wild over the front of the house. As Diana took in the familiar pattern of the white keys and the black, she could feel the shape of the song inside her. Like any good love song, this one had two parts. As her fingers moved over the keys,
they first invented the deeper part, the foundation, which consisted of sequences of chords, arranged in threes, rising and falling. Then they formed the melody, which came in over the top of the lower notes, sweet and sustained, swirling like icing on a cake.

  After a while, Diana opened a manuscript book, black and leather-bound, and took up the pencil that she kept on the music desk of the piano. She played, and stopped, jotted down the notes she had just discovered, then played again. She scrubbed at certain notes with an eraser, wrote other notes in their place, then played again.

  By the time Arie appeared in the doorway, squinting against the light, the song was almost finished. It needed only three or four more bars to be complete, but there could be no fudging, not when it came to an ending. Diana did not like songs to simply fade out. For her, one of the great pleasures of good music was an exquisitely resolved ending, when a final note or chord hung in the air and resonated in her chest so that she felt like crying. Not because she was sad, but because she was moved.

  She looked at him – his chest bare, his pale blue cotton boxer shorts low on his hips. Every part of him, she knew and loved: the top right-hand quarter of his chest where she rested her head when she half woke in the mornings, edged closer and nudged her way into his arms; the ridiculously accentuated arches of his feet; the perfect flat whorl of his navel; the way his facial hair – on the rare occasion he let it grow – was a shade or two darker than the hair on his head; his sculpted lips.

  ‘Come to bed,’ he said, holding out a hand. ‘You’ll be so tired tomorrow.’

  Diana closed the notebook on the piano desk, stood and stretched. Reaching the doorway, she took his hand and put her forehead against his chest.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, her eyes on the floor.

  ‘What was that thing you were playing?’ he asked.

  She looked up at him and shrugged. ‘Just a . . . song.’

  ‘It was beautiful.’

  He was right. It was beautiful, but as Diana got up and went with him back to their bed, she still didn’t know exactly how it ended.