An Equal Music

by Vikram Seth

  _ .-.:•! ;i? .. •- .„ 4.15 - :-.:• •-.:• .

  I fear the phone. Nothing good can come to me over it. Julia cannot speak to me. All it can yield are the upbraidings of a young woman who sees herself as wronged, or a request from an old woman who, though she has done nothing but good to me, has it in her power to part me from what I love.

  AN EQUAL MUSIC | 2.13

  Virginie does not call. Mrs Formby does not call. Often there are no messages on my answering machine, and I am thankful. Sometimes there are several. Occasionally I am pestered by the customers of the London Bait Company. I should do something about this, I suppose.

  I look at myself in the mirror. A fortnight past the equinox, I will be 38. At my temples, near the edge of my ears, there are flecks of white. Where am I now, with my life half gone? Where will I be when I am my father's age?

  Who ever saw a banker with a moustache? What was so remarkable about his shaving it off ?

  Julia and I cannot spend much time together. What we have is snatched from the day. We have not - except for that first meeting - met in the evening, nor can we hope to. Thus the night is given to me unshared: to my work, to my reading, to walking with no aim around the neighbourhood. Once I walk past her street. There are cracks of light at_the edges of drawn blinds. Are they in those rooms or* the rooms facing the gardens of the crescent?

  She has told me of her evenings. They are a template of domesticity: Luke, James, the piano, books, television with the subtitles turned on, Buzby. They do not often go out.

  Though I know what it is she does, I have no sense of the pace of it, the rhythm of it. That is beyond my reach. Yet what we share in daylight is more than I could have foreseen, in the drizzle of winter, as ever being part of my life at all.

  Magnolia; forsythia; clematis. It is as if the weather has gone awry these last few years, and everything has jumbled and merged.

  I wonder if I should call Mrs Formby, but do not. Our instruments are the other quartet; each has its parallel

  2.Z4 I VIKRAM SETH

  life. Helen has been getting used to the restrung viola she has borrowed. On it she wanders over the lower reaches of the tenor voice of the "Art of Fugue", while playing everything else on her own viola. Does the huge, borrowed instrument rebel at its curious tuning? What does it think of the low, slow tones of its remade voice? Does it look at its smaller, often-played colleague with envy of its repertoire or disdain at its puriiness?

  Piers's violin, I suppose, is insecure. It knows he is looking for another one, that he plans to sell it off.

  Billy's cello, well-loved, has an interesting existence. Apart from playing his own unperformed creations, it gets experimented on stylistically and technically. Lately Billy has taken to a slightly greater flexibility in timing. Without increasing the volume of his sound or detracting from his rhythm-setting beat, this brings out his own voice to subtler effect and enlivens whatever we are playing. His cello has, after all the confusion, managed to get a seat on the same flight as us to Vienna.

  I think of my old life in that city and this unimagined recapitulation. I sense in Julia, now that she has nothing to hide, an ease that I can hardly credit or understand. When what is happening has run its course, will all she hears be in her mind?

  We play a couple of Vivaldi's Manchester Sonatas together. My Tononi sings them ecstatically, as if to say it remembers these well from the days when it played in Vivaldi's own concerts. What she plays at the keyboard she plays clearly and finely. Only now I do notice that very rarely, at the end of the arc of a phrase, her finger touches a key visibly enough but so softly that I cannot hear the sound she doubtless hears.

  The daylight we now share merges with the evenings we shared once in that city, half dreaded, half loved. I will be there soon: lilac in bloom, chestnut in noisy leaf.

  AN EQUAL MUSIC | Z2-5

  Strange to think of her mother living there now, and she herself in London.

  The Maggiore runs through the Schubert string quintet without the fifth player: full rehearsals will have to wait till we meet our second cellist in Vienna. It is a curious exercise but a necessary one; we often have to rehearse with an imagined partner. Billy is subdued at first, then plays the first cello in his usual masterly way. At one point he makes us laugh by hamming out one particularly lush tune to show us he is not aggrieved.

  The Austrian pianist who will be playing the Trout with us was due to come to London last week for a concert. We were supposed to fit in a pre-Vienna rehearsal, but it did not work out. For some reason his concert was cancelled, and he did not come to London at all.

  This coming trip to Vienna would have been a hard one. I would have wanted to lock myself in the hotel, but my mind would have taken me round the city: the parks, the cafés, the reaches of the Danube, the hills of the northern districts. Now we have met again, I fear no grief in that spent habitat.

  Lilacs, certainly, in May. And that white flower that I have seen only in Vienna, on all those acacia-like trees.

  - ' . '-f Y - ; 4-l6 ^i-C- •• -.-I"-'- . : '. ,>' -

  The doorbell rings. I pull on my 'dressing gown, and get

  to the door. i : n .- .',.- :/;V

  "Who is it?" •.....- > f x

  Silence.

  I look through the peep-hole. It is Julia, standing in the corridor with an amused expression. I suppose Rob let her in. She would only have had to smile at him.

  2.2.6 I VIKRAM SETH

  -ft.- «f-

  "Oh, how dingy!" says Julia as she enters. "It's too dark. Roll up the blinds. I can't see anything. And I can't hear anything. Not that it's such a nice day anyway. Michael, it's past nine o'clock. You can't just have got out of bed. We're going shopping."

  "Don't bully me," I protest. "We got back late from '•-€' Norwich last night. I'm catching up on sleep."

  But Julia is drawing up the blinds and does not respond. "Ah, that's better," she says.

  "Let's go to bed. Back to bed," I say.

  "No time for that. Don't bother about shaving. Have a shower. I'll make the coffee. Stop yawning. Seize the day."

  Still yawning, I try to do as she says. In the shower a question occurs to me, and I shout, "Why shopping?" though even as I do so, I realise that her answer will be garbled by the sound of running water. Then it strikes me that there won't be an answer at all. But why shopping? I'd rather just stay home with her.

  "Because it's your birthday in a week," says Julia over coffee.

  "Oh," I say, pleased. '

  "So you're in my hands." '

  "Yes, I see I am." -

  "You have horrible dowdy sweaters, Michael."

  "But it's almost April. I don't need another sweater."

  "You need a light summer sweater. Let's see what you have . . . What were you doing last night? You look tired."

  "I went up to Norwich for a concert with the Camerata Anglica and only got back at three."

  "At three?"

  "I got a lift with someone - his car-key snapped, and we had to call the AA . . . you don't want to hear the details. It's good to see you."

  AN EQUAL MUSIC | 1ZJ

  "Likewise."

  "Likewise - is that a Jamesism?"

  "A Jamesism, did you say? It is not! "

  "I'm sure it is. You never used to say 'likewise'."

  "Well, I must have picked that up in the States . . . Finish up now, Michael. We haven't got all day."

  "What a day! I just want to lie in bed with a teddybear and a thriller."

  Julia looks out of the window. It's drizzling. The clouds, covering the entire sky, are smoky cotton-wool, and grey buildings mark the skyline. Even the raindrops trickle sluggishly down the window-panes.

  "It's a rather Viennese day," says Julia. "I like it."

  "Where are we going?" ; "To Harvey Nichols."

  "That's not my sort of place."

  "It isn't mine either. But that's where we're going."

  "Why?"

  "A
friend's husband was wearing a sweater the other day. I coveted if, and I want to buy one for you. That's where he got it from."

  Half an hour later we are in the basement, in the men's section, looking not just at sweaters but at ties and shirts as well. A girl from the shop smiles at us: a couple out shopping together. I feel a momentary elation and then anxiety.

  "We're going to bump into one of your husband's colleagues," I say to Julia.

  "Of course not, Michael, they're all sitting in Canary Wharf advising the world about pharmaceutical mergers. What do you think of this one?"

  "It's really nice."

  She holds a maroon sweater up against me and looks serious. "No, it's not. No, you want something more in

  22.8 I VIKRAM SETH

  green or blue. Russets and reds and pinks and so on have never suited you."

  She extracts something in dark green with a polo neck. "I don't know," I say. "It reminds me of the carpet in the green room of the Wigmore Hall."

  Julia laughs. "So it does. And it isn't all that summery. But I like the feel of it. It's chenille."

  "I'll take your word for it."

  "You're hopeless."

  "Actually, I'm feeling a bit strange, Julia, a bit dizzy."

  "I'm sure you are. You've never liked shopping for clothes."

  "No, Julia, really."

  I do feel uneasy, oppressed, dizzy: the bright lights, the large number of people all around, the heat, the colours, the sense of being underground, perhaps even my lack of sleep ... I don't know what it is, but I want to sit down. I feel as if I am in two worlds. This is the ultimate intimacy

  - we are shopping together, and salesgirls smile at us.

  I sit down against a wall and cover my eyes with my palms.

  "Michael - Michael - what's the matter?"

  Somewhere I sense a door closing on me. The sounds merge: customers in several languages, frozen turkeys silent in a morgue, the whirring of the motor that runs the meat fridge, a desperate need to escape from everything around me.

  "Julia-"

  "Are you all right?" she whispers. <

  "Yes, yes - just help me up."

  "Michael, take your hands away from your mouth - I can't hear what you're saying." •

  "Julia, help me up."

  She sets her bag down on the floor, and somehow, with

  AN EQUAL MUSIC | 2.2.9

  her help, I manage to stand upright. I am still leaning against the wall.

  "I'll be all right. I'll be all right. I just have to get out." J "I'll get someone to help us."

  "No, no, let's just get out of here."

  We get to the escalator, then to the door. Julia says: "Oh no - my bag. Michael, just lean here. I'll be back in a second."

  She is back in half a minute; her bag is safe. But I can read in her eyes how terrible I must look. Sweat is trickling down my forehead. Someone from the store is rushing over towards me.

  "I'll be all right." I manage a smile. "I hope it's drizzling. I need some fresh air. I need a coffee."

  "There's a place upstairs ..." says Julia.

  "No. Please. Somewhere else."

  "Yes, you poor darling, of course. Somewhere else."

  I nod and lean against her. "I'm so sorry ..."

  "Shh," says Julia, taking me out into the rain. She cannot use her umbrella, and the rain drenches her hair and spots and stains her dress.

  ••' ••*•* " : -"y?" 4-17 -• _ ' - •.• •- •'

  ; '•*' '-~t :•-•-, ; -•-•:; t* ,7? , -, ::'""; ,i :• , ^ ;- • i • <

  We are sitting upstairs in a café in a small passage a hundred yards away. Julia has seated me facing the window. We have ordered coffee. I look out in silence for a while.

  "That hasn't happened to me for years," I say.

  "How are you feeling now?" she asks. . "Things seemed to be closing in on me," I say, and bow my head.

  Julia reaches out to stroke my cheek gently.

  230 | VIKRAM SETH

  I am quiet for a few minutes. She allows me to recover my breathing.

  "That's why I live where I live," I say, " - way up there in my eyrie. Do you remember how I used to unwind as soon as I got out of the city?"

  "Yes. I remember."

  But the way she says it tells me what she is remembering: the scene of our parting. That too was at the outskirts of that city. It was at Lier's: a jug of white wine on a table beneath chestnut trees, and an exhausted bitterness. She walked down the hill alone. I was not to follow.

  "You've never been up north with me - to Rochdale. I promised, didn't I, to take you to hear the larks on the moor. "

  "Yes," says Julia, looking at her hands. Her slender fingers rest on the ketchup-flecked tablecloth near her stubby coffee cup. Now, as then, she wears no wedding ring.

  "How stupid of me," I say.

  "Well, I could see them," she says.

  "Larks aren't much to look at."

  "I can't come north with you," says Julia. She half smiles. "But I am going to Vienna with you," she adds offhandedly.

  All I can do is stare at her.

  "I thought I was the one with the hearing problem," she murmurs.

  "You're having me on. You can't be - you are serious."

  A minute ago I was in darkness. What is this mad change?

  "Ask Piers," she says.

  "Piers?"

  "And your agent Alicia Cowan." ;

  AN EQUAL MUSIC | 2.31

  "Erica. No! I would have known about this."

  "It all happened yesterday. I'm playing the Trout with you."

  I can feel the blood leaving my face. "You're not."

  "Well, which is more unlikely: that it's true, or that I'd invent something so implausible and expect to be believed?"

  Julia is behaving intolerably coolly: a clear sign of enjoyment.

  "Stay right here," I say. "Don't move."

  "Where are you off to?"

  "To the loo." . . ^r

  "Well, are you pleased?"

  "I'm stunned."

  I go downstairs, and walk to a phone-box. Piers will not be in, I am convinced of it; but he is.

  "What the hell's going on, Piers?"

  "Hey, hey, steady on, what's the matter, Michael?"

  "What's this about the Trout and Vienna and Julia? Is it true?"

  /'Oh, yes, perfectly true. It all boiled up yesterday. I tried to get in touch with you but you weren't in. Where were you?"

  "Norwich."

  "Ah, good. I like that part of the world. Did you go via Newmarket or Ipswich? . . . Oh, I know what I wanted to tell you. I don't know why you had such difficulty getting the music for the C minor quintet we played. There's a perfectly good Henle edition. I was in Chappell's yesterday, and -"

  "Piers," I say threateningly, "I'm talking about Vienna, not about Chappell's."

  "Didn't you get my message?" he asks.

  "I haven't listened to my messages. We got back at three. What was your message?"

  2.32 | VIKRAM SETH

  "That I had to speak to you urgently. That's all. Anyway, it's no big deal. You're not playing in the Trout."

  That, I reflect, is all too true. It has a piano and four strings all right, but a second fiddle isn't one of them.

  "Do you know Julia Hansen?"

  "Do I know her?"

  "Well, you referred to her as Julia, so I assumed you did. Does she play well?"

  "Are you crazy, Piers?"

  "Look, Michael, if you can't be civil..." says Piers, sounding more tired than counter-aggressive.

  "OK, OK," I say. "I'm sorry. Just give me the facts."

  "It was a crisis. Otto Prachner has had a minor heart attack, and can't play for the next few months. That's why he couldn't be in London for his concert. For some unaccountable reason, his agent contacted Lothar only yesterday. And Lothar immediately got in touch with Erica and with the management of the Musikverein and also - rather decently, and I suppose to save time directly with me
, the 'primarius' of the quartet, as he likes to call it. He suggested Julia Hansen, whom he also represents. Apparently she's good, there's a Viennese connection, as with poor old Otto, and she's agreeable. Faxes were flying all over the place yesterday. Are you still there, Michael?"

  "Yes, I'm here all right."

  "Well, I got in touch with the others before I agreed, because they're playing in the Trout. And I did try to get in touch with you. But since you're not directly concerned, I can't see why you're so het up about it. Do you know her personally? I hope to God she's all right. Surely Lothar wouldn't put up someone half-baked to play Schubert before the Viennese."

  I can't take all this in. "Aren't the programmes

  AN EQUAL MUSIC | 2.33

  printed?" I blurt out. "It's only a few weeks before the concert."

  "Oh, no," says Piers in a more relaxed voice. "Apparently, the actual programme is printed just a couple of days before the performance. Anyway, what can you do if someone falls ill? But you haven't answered my question."

  "Yes, that seems to be my problem today. Not answering stupid questions."

  "I'm sorry?"

  "You know bloody well, Piers, that I know Julia."

  "And how would I know that?" retorts Piers angrily.

  "You know Julia. Julia is Julia. Banff, remember? The Wigmore Hall? My trio in Vienna. Christ, Piers!"

  "Oh!" says Piers. "You're not saying it's her."

  "Who else?"

  "But wasn't she Julia Mackenzie or something?"

  "You mean you really didn't know?"

  "That's what I've been saying all along."

  I begin to laugh, a bit maniacally, I suppose. "Michael?" says Piers anxiously.

  "I just can't believe it."

  "Well, if it is that Julia, I seem to recall from Banff that she's pretty good."

  "She's that all right," I reply. ,

  "So it's OK with you?"

  "More than!"

  "Then why were you so annoyed about all this?"

  "I just thought you knew who she was, and didn't bother to talk to me about it."

  "Oh, I see. Good. Good. You had me worried there."

  "Did Lothar say anything else to you and Erica?" I ask. ' . . •'-.-..•••• .-.•..•.•,--,--•

  "Like what?"

  23^ {' VIKRAM SETH

  "Well, that she doesn't play much in ensemble these days."

  "Oh, why's that?"