by Vikram Seth
Why did we call him Carl among ourselves? Because that is what he would most have hated. "Herr Professor. Herr Professor." What did the noble sound he created have to do with such bowing and scraping, such subservience of soul? But why fret about all that when I have the present to address?
December deepens. One morning, early, I am walking along the path just outside Archangel Court when I stop suddenly. Ten yards ahead of me is a fox. He is staring intently at a laurel bush. The light is grey, and a streetlamp makes sharp shadows. I thought it must be a cat at first, but only for a moment. I hold my breath. For a good half minute neither he moves nor I. Then, for some reason - an inadvertent sound, a change of breeze, intuitive caution - the fox turns his head and looks at me. He holds my eyes for several seconds. Then he pads calmly across the road towards the park and is lost in the mist.
Virginie is going to Nyons for a few weeks to spend Christmas with her family, then on a little round of old schoolfriends: Montpellier, Paris, St-Malo. I realise that it is a relief.
I imagine her zipping along the autoroutes in her little black Ka. I don't own a car myself. Piers or Helen or Billy
- my sympathetic strings - usually give me a lift when we play out of town. I like driving; perhaps I should buy something second-hand. But I don't have a great deal by way of savings, and I have too many expenses to think about: actual, like my mortgage; potential, like a good
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violin of my own. My Tononi is borrowed - it has been generously lent, and has been in my hands for years, but there is no piece of paper to back my right to this piece of wood. I love it, and it responds to me, but it belongs to Mrs Formby, and at her wish, it could be taken from me and lie unplayed, unloved, unspeaking in a cupboard for years. Or she could die soon, and the violin be swallowed up into her estate. What has happened to it in the last two hundred and seventy years? Whose hands will follow mine?
The church bell rings out eight o'clock. I lie in bed. My bedroom walls are blank: no painting, no hanging, no pattern in wallpaper: just paint, white and magnolia, and a small window from which, lying thus, I can see only the sky. -...-..-
2.6
Life settles into a bearable aloneness. The return of that record has changed things. I listen to sonatas and trios that I have not heard since Vienna. I listen to Bach's English suites. I sleep better.
Ice begins to form on the Serpentine, but the Water Serpents swim on. The real problem is not the cold, which can't fall below zero anyway, but the sharp little slivers and needles of floating ice.
Nicholas Spare, the music critic, invites me and Piers (but not Helen or Billy) to his pre-Christmas party: mince-pies, strong punch and virulent gossip interspersed with carols thumped out by Nicholas himself on an untuned grand piano.
Nicholas irritates me; why, then, do I go to his annual party? Why, for that matter, does he invite me?
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"My dear boy, I'm absolutely besotted with you," he tells me, although, being just a couple of years younger, I can't very well be Nicholas's dear boy. Also, Nicholas is besotted with everyone. He looks at Piers with unfeigned (but slightly exaggerated) lust.
"I met Erica Cowan at the Barbican last night," says Nicholas. "She told me your quartet is soaring, that you are playing all over the place - Leipzig, Vienna, Chicago, she rattled off the names like a travel agent. 'How terrifying,' I said. 'And how do you manage to get them such wonderful venues?' 'Oh,' she said, 'there are two mafias in music, the Jewish mafia and the gay mafia, and Piers and I between us have both bases covered.' "
Nicholas emits a sort of snorting laugh, then, noticing that Piers is smouldering with unamusement, bites into a mince-pie.
"Erica's exaggerating," I say. "Things are pretty uncertain for us - as for most quartets, I suppose."
"Yes, yes, I know," says Nicholas. "Everything's awful except for the Three Tenors and Nigel Kennedy. Don't tell me. If I hear that once again, I'll scream." His eyes stray across the room. "I've got to listen to you again sometime, I really must. Such a pity you don't have any recordings. Aren't you playing at the Wigmore next month?"
"Why don't you write something about us?" I say. "I'm sure Erica must have suggested it. I don't know how it is we're getting better known. No one ever reviews us."
"It's these editors," says Nicholas shiftily. "All they want us to cover is opera and modern music. They think that chamber music is a sort of backwater - the standard repertoire, I mean. You should commission something from a really good composer. That's the way to get reviews. Let me introduce you to Zensyne Church. That's
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him over there. He's just written a marvellous piece for baritone and vacuum cleaner."
"Editors?" says Piers with contempt. "It's not the
editors. It's people like you, who're only interested in
what's glamorous or trendy. You'd rather go to the
world première of some trash than a great performance
; of something that you'd find boring because it's good."
Nicholas Spare basks in the attack. "I do so love it when you get passionate, Piers," he says provocatively. "What would you say if I came to the Wig and reviewed you? And put it in my weekly highlights of future concerts?"
"I'd be speechless," says Piers.
"Well, I promise to. That's my word of honour. What are you playing?"
"Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven," says Piers. "And there's a thematic connection between them that you might find interesting. Each quartet has a fugal movement."
"Fugal? Marvellous," says Nicholas, his attention wandering. "And in Vienna?"
"All Schubert: Quartettsatz, Trout Quintet, string quintet. "
"Oh, the Trout," says Nicholas, sighing. "How sweet. All that tedious charm. I hate the Trout. It's so county."
"Fuck you, Nicholas," says Piers.
"Yes!" says Nicholas, brightening up. "I hate it. I loathe it. It makes me ill. It's so kitsch. It knows exactly what the right moves are, and it makes them all. It's light and it's trite. I'm astonished that anyone still plays it. No, on second thoughts, I'm not astonished. Some people should have their ears tested. Actually, Piers, do you know, your ears are far too big. Well, as I was saying, I'm not a snob - I like a lot of light music - but ..."
Piers, livid, pours a glass of warm punch on his host's head.
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We have a rehearsal the next day at Helen's house. Brother and sister are both looking subdued. Piers's behaviour has made the rounds. Helen has been ticking him off for antagonising Nicholas Spare, especially after he had promised to review us. But, as Piers says, Nicholas has made the same promises several times in the past, always backed up by his sacred honour, has avoided Piers for a month or two after the unreviewed concert, and then dear-boyed him as if nothing had happened.
"I didn't know you liked the Trout so much," I say to him.
"Well, I do," says Piers. "Everyone treats it as if it's a sort of divertimento - or worse."
"I do feel it's one movement too long," I say.
"Helen, could I have a cup of tea, please," mutters Piers. "The hotter the better."
"I take it back," I say quickly. "Looks like Billy's late as usual. What is it this time? The wife, the kids or the Central Line?"
"He did call," says Helen. "He couldn't get his cello into its case. The spike was stuck. But he's on his way now. Should be here any minute."
"That's an original one," says Piers.
When Billy arrives, he apologises profusely, then announces that he has something very important to discuss. It's something structural to do with our Wigmore Hall programme. He's been thinking about it all day. He looks very troubled.
"Tell us, Billy," says Piers in a patient tone. "There's nothing I enjoy more than a good structural di
scussion."
"Well, that's it, you see, Piers, you're determined to be sceptical."
"Come on, Billy, don't let Piers put you off," I say.
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"Well, you know," says Billy, "that by doing the Haydn, the Mozart and the Beethoven, in that order, we're getting the key relations all mixed up. It's total confusion. First three sharps, then one sharp, then four. There's no sense of progression, no sense of progression at all, and the audience is bound to feel structural stress." "Oh, no!" says Piers. "How terrible. Now if we could get Mozart to write a piece in three-and-a-half sharps ..."
Helen and I laugh, and Billy joins in weakly. "Well?" says Piers.
"Just change the order of the Mozart and the Haydn," says Billy. "That solves the problem. Ascending order of sharps, sense of perceived structure, no problem."
"But, Billy, the Mozart was written after the Haydn," says Helen.
"Yes," says Piers. "What about the audience's chronological stress?"
"I thought you'd say that," says Billy with a guileful look - as guileful as Billy is ever capable of. "So I have a solution. Change the Haydn A major. Do a later Haydn, one that was written after the Mozart." "No," I say.
"Which one?" asks Helen. "Just out of curiosity." "The one in opus 50 that's in F sharp minor," says Billy. "It's also got three sharps, so nothing else changes. It's terribly interesting. It's got all sorts of - oh, yes, and it too has a fugal last movement, so that doesn't disturb the overall theme of the concert."
"No, no, no!" I say. "Really, Billy, audiences don't give a damn about the order of sharps." "But I do," says Billy. "We all should." "Doesn't it have a movement which goes into six sharps?" asks Piers a little dubiously. "I remember playing it through once as a student. It was a nightmare."
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"And in any case I'm sure it's too late to get the Wigmore to change the programme," I say quickly. "It's probably all printed up."
"Well, let's call them and find out," says Billy.
"No, no!" I say. "No. Let's get on with the rehearsal. All this is a complete waste of time."
* The other three look at me, surprised.
"I love the A major," I say. "I won't give it up."
"Uh," says Billy.
"Oh," says Piers.
"Ah," says Helen.
"No, I won't. As far as I'm concerned, that Haydn's the highlight of the concert. In fact, it's my favourite string quartet of all time."
"Oh, OK, it was just an idea," says Billy, gently backing off, as one would from a lunatic.
"Really, Michael?" says Helen. "Really?"
"Of all time?" asks Piers. "The greatest string quartet of all time?"
"I didn't claim it was the greatest," I say. "I know it's not the greatest - whatever the greatest means, and I don't really care what it means. It's my favourite, and that's all that matters to me. So let's get rid of the Mozart and the Beethoven if you like, and let's play the Haydn three times over. Then there won't be any structural or chronological stress at all - and no need for an encore either."
There is silence for a few seconds. -; "Oh," says Billy again.
"Well," says Piers. "There we have it. No change in the programme - Michael's vetoed it. Sorry, Billy. Well, actually, I'm not all that sorry."
"Talking of the encore," says Helen, "do we stick to our mystery plan? It'll be a bit of a shocker for the
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audience, but, Billy, that's one of your ideas that really is brilliant."
"Yes, brilliant, Billy," I say. "After a concert like that, what else would be right?"
Billy is mollified.
"Well," says Piers, "Michael's the one who's got the '••*•/' toughest job in that encore, and if he likes the idea, let's go ahead. But I don't know if we really can bring it off. Assuming the audience likes us enough to want an encore." He pauses for a few seconds. "Let's start by working on that today. All except that one problem note that Michael has. That way we'll get a sense of what we're aiming for before we weigh him down."
Billy looks as if he's about to say something, but thinks better of it and nods.
And so, having tuned up and played our ritual scale, we practise the four-minute encore for more than an hour. We sink into its strange, tangled, unearthly beauty. At times I cease to breathe. It is unlike anything we as a quartet have ever played before.
2.8
It is three days before Christmas. I am going north.
The train is packed. Faulty points outside Euston station have caused half an hour's delay. People sit patiently, reading, talking, or looking out of the window at the wall opposite.
The train moves. Crossword squares fill up. Plastic stirrers agitate cups of tea. A child starts crying loudly and purposefully. Mobile phones beep. Paper napkins crumple. Outside the window the grey day darkens.
Stoke-on-Trent, Macclesfield, Stockport; and, at last, Manchester. It is a windless but freezing day. I am not
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going to linger here. I pick up the car I have booked to drive out towards Rochdale. It is a bit of an extravagance, but gives me the chance to wander off around the moors whenever I want and to take Mrs Formby for a ride.
"All our cars are alarmed," the girl says in broad Mancunian. She glances down at my address as she hands me my keys. Already I can feel a bit of my own accent returning.
Past the civic-heroic statuary in Piccadilly Square I drive, past the glass-and-black building that once housed the Daily Express, past the Habib Bank and the Allied Bank of Pakistan, the clothing warehouses, a Jewish museum, a mosque, a church, a McDonald's, sauna, solicitors, pub, video shop, Boots, bakers, sandwich bar, kebab house . . . past a grey telecom tower with its pustules of transmitters and receivers, a devil's delphinium. I drive until the fringes of Manchester give way to daubs of green and against the darkening day I can see a horse in a field, a farmhouse or two, leafless chestnut and plane trees and, soon, the dark Pennine spur that shelters my birthtown.
All my schoolfriends from Rochdale have moved away. Apart from my father and Auntie Joan and Mrs Formby and one old German teacher, Dr Spars, I have no living ties with this town. Yet what has happened to it, its slow evisceration and death, fills me with a cold sadness.
The sky should be swept by a sleety wind. It is too calm a day. But snow is forecast. Tomorrow the three of us will go to Owd Betts for lunch. On Christmas Eve we will go to church. On Boxing Day, as usual, I will drive Mrs Formby out to Blackstone Edge. I do not wish to visit the cemetery. I will sit for a while in this alarmed and centrally-locked white Toyota in the carpark where we once lived and lay a white rose - her favourite flower
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- on the flat and, I hope, snow-covered site of my mother's life.
2.9
^ My father sits with Zsa-Zsa on his lap and dozes off. He has been feeling a bit under the weather the last couple of days. Our plan to go to Owd Betts has been shelved till after Christmas. He doesn't feel up to going to church this evening either. Auntie Joan believes he is slacking.
Holly and mistletoe decorate the small front room, but there has been no Christmas tree since Mum died. The house is full of cards: no longer strung up as they used to be, but distributed over all the flat surfaces of the house. It is difficult to put down one's glass.
A few people drop by: some old friends of my parents or of Auntie Joan, folk who used to know us from the time we had the shop, neighbours. My mind wanders. Our next-door neighbour but one has died of liver cancer. Irene Jackson has got married to a Canadian but it won't last. Mrs Vaizey's niece had a miscarriage in her fourth month. As if it weren't enough that an articulated lorry had crashed through the front of her shop the previous month, Susie Prentice's husband ran off with her best friend, an exceptionally plain woman, and they
were tracked down to a hotel in Scunthorpe.
"Scunthorpe!" exclaims Auntie Joan, delighted and appalled.
For better for worse, unto us a child, ashes to ashes.
Zsa-Zsa and I get restless and walk outside. A robin is hopping about on a patch of gravel below the pebbledash wall. The sharp air clears my head. Zsa-Zsa eyes the robin attentively.
When I was in junior school, I went through a phase
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where I had to have white mice. I managed to buy two. My mother was terrified of them and wouldn't allow them in the house, so their home was an old outdoor toilet near the dustbins. One morning I came across a scene of horror. One mouse had died. The other had then eaten its head.
Zsa-Zsa lowers her shoulders and creeps forward. The neighbour's gnome smiles impassively on.
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When we had the shop, Christmas was a complicated and busy time. Almost everyone wanted to collect their turkeys at the last minute - or have them delivered. As a teenager, I would help with the deliveries. I could manage a couple on my bike at a time (two were always easier to balance than one) but though Dad suggested it often, I refused to fix a wire basket in front. As long as I got the job done somehow, why should I ruin the appearance of my bike, which, next only to my radio, was my most valued possession?
The huge wooden refrigerator - more a wardrobe than a fridge, covering an entire wall of the cellar - was packed full of pink carcasses in December. It clicked shut with a grand mechanical cadence. And when the fierce motor down on the left-hand side, complete with flywheel and metal guard, kicked on, a huge chugging noise juddered into the living room above.
On my sixth birthday, while I was playing a game of hide-and-seek with friends, I decided that the fridge would make a brilliant hiding place. I put on a couple of sweaters, crawled in and, with a bit of effort, managed to pull the door shut. Just a few seconds in that cramped, dark, freezing place, however, and I was ready to quit.
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