An Equal Music

by Vikram Seth

  "No, I -"

  "The decent thing to do would be to return the violin to the family without making a legal issue of it, which I can assure you I am quite prepared to do."

  "Please, Mr Glover, I loved your aunt. I don't want to cause bitterness -"

  "I would strongly advise you then not to cynically and selfishly hold on to what does not belong to you, either in ethics or in law. It is clear that she was disturbed in her mind in her last days, and suggestible in the extreme."

  "Mr Glover, I suggested nothing. I didn't even know how ill she was. She wrote me a kind and lucid letter. I want to believe the words she wrote."

  "Yes, I have no doubt you do. Did she sign it?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, if the signature on the codicil is anything to go by, you will understand on how weak a footing you stand. It was the scrawl of a feeble-minded child. Why, her mind was so far gone that she gave a carpark as your address. A carpark!"

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  "Please, Mr Glover, don't say these things. She was my friend. How can I give up what she has given me?"

  "Given? Given? I am afraid that you are labouring under a misapprehension. While her mind was sound she did not intend to give you anything. She intended to put the proceeds from the sale of the violin into a trust for me and my daughters, and I know that she told you of this. I am a reasonable man, Mr Holme. I disapprove of what my aunt has done, considering all we did for her, but I forgive her because she did not know what she was doing at the time. However, I may as well tell you that if we cannot come to some sort of compromise on this matter, you will lose both the violin and a large sum of money in legal fees besides."

  His words are more than bluster, and I am filled with terror. And then there are his wretched, wretched daughters: can I really rob them of what is theirs by right and live in peace? What will I feel each time I raise my bow?

  ."What do youjsuggest then, Mr Glover?" I say quietly. "What can I do?"

  "I have drawn up a deed of gift for a half-share in the violin ... It requires your signature. It can then be sold and the proceeds justly and equally divided."

  "But I can't do that - I can't sell my violin."

  "Your violin. I see it has not taken you so very long to assume possession."

  "The violin. Her violin. Whatever you like. I love it. Can't you understand that? It would kill me to give it up for money."

  He is silent for a few seconds, then says, with cold exasperation: "I have one final offer, Mr Holme, and this really is my final offer. You must at the very least return to my family the forty per cent of the violin's value that you have taken from the rest of the estate."

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  ^j

  "Mr Glover - I have taken nothing -"

  "You have indeed taken something, and a great deal at that. Are you aware of what the words 'free of tax' mean? They mean that while most of the estate - whose value is deemed to include that of the violin - is charged inheritance tax at forty per cent you are to be charged no tax at all. No tax at all, none, none! We, in other words, are paying your tax for you. You have a legal and moral duty to return that tax. Can you in your right mind believe - and do you expect any court to believe - that my aunt intended that we should support you?"

  "I don't know - I don't know what to believe. I don't know about these things."

  "Well, I suggest you think about it, but not for long. I am speaking from my late aunt's house. You have her telephone number. If I do not hear from you within twenty-four hours, I will put the matter in the hands of my solicitors. Goodbye, Mr Holme."

  I rest my forehead on my hands. I do not go to the soundproof room where the violin lies. After a while I go to the bedroom and stare at the ceiling. The light plays on the wall; a helicopter clatters past. I am tired now beyond the point of sleep. One way or another I am to lose it after all. Mrs Formby, as you love me, tell me what to do.

  8.24

  I phone Varms and Lunn and speak to Mr Varms, who is more nasal than I expected from the writer of the letter. I thank him, and I tell him how amazed I was to receive his letter.

  "Mrs Formby rather thought you might be," he says.

  "You visited her in hospital. Was she in much pain or difficulty?"

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  "Some difficulty. Not much pain. She insisted on g<?ing home as soon as possible after her first stroke. She was at home when she died - or possibly in the ambulance that was sent to her house to fetch her. As such things go, she went quickly."

  "I'm glad."

  "But not, if you take my point, too quickly. She had time to take stock of things and do something about them."

  "Yes. I see ... Mr Varms, I don't know how to say this. I have just had a phone-call . . ."

  "Yes?" Mr Varms's nasal voice becomes almost oboelike with alertness.

  "From her nephew, a Mr ..."

  "Glover. Yes. I've met the gentleman."

  "In which he told me I had no right to the instrument. He said a number of things ..."

  "Mr Holme, I was a little concerned that he might be tempted to do something of the sort, which is why I phrased my letter to you as I did. Let me assure you - er, reassure you that there is no substance whatever to his threats and claims, which he made at some length before me, and which I dissuaded him with difficulty from presenting to the Court. He wanted to contest the codicil, which had, in the usual way, been witnessed by two independent witnesses, one of whom was Mrs Formby's doctor. I explained to Mr Glover how expensive the exercise would be for him, how likely it was to bring other parts of his late aunt's will into question and thus delay probate on the whole, how vigorously the witnesses and I would confute his contentions, and how little chance he had of succeeding in his object. I took the liberty of, er, apprising him that Mrs Formby's intentions were restated in no ambiguous terms in her note to you, though I assure you I did not let him read that note,

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  whose contents I was privy to only because she could not write it herself."

  "Mr Varms, I had no idea of all this. You have been very kind . . ."

  "Not kind at all, I assure you. Just carrying out my duty as Mrs Formby's executor - and as the recipient of her instructions in drafting her will. Did he have anything else to say?"

  "He said I should at least return the tax he's paid. He said I had a legal and moral duty ..."

  "Mr Holme, no legal duty exists. I cannot advise you on the moral issue, if you can call it that, but I can inform you that the estate was not a small one. Mr Glover, as residuary beneficiary, will receive a good deal of money, tax or no tax; and I understand from his rather, er, selfconfident conversation that he is no pauper anyway."

  I begin to laugh, and Mr Varms joins in.

  "So you didn't take to Mr Glover," I say.

  "Well, he spoke rather slightingly of his benefactress, hardly an endearing thing to do."

  "I hope he wasn't rude to you."

  "He was more than polite after our first meeting. Ingratiating, in fact, as I have often found to be the case with threatening people whose threats don't work. Oh, there is one more thing I should tell you. It was not Mrs Formby's intention to give you fifty per cent or sixty per cent or some other proportion of the violin. She was, if I may say so, quite an astute lady, and recognised that any loan you might have to take out would run counter to her purpose, which was, if you will forgive my speaking in these terms, to give you happiness, not anxiety. Well, I was rather expecting your call, Mr Holme, though I hope you can see why I couldn't warn you of his. If he pursues his stated intention, I could not of course advise you

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  myself in a legal capacity, but I would be happy to put you in touch with another firm of solicitors. However, I do not think that will be necessary. I suspect that a firm answer will put an end to these vexatious claims. Mrs Formby was determined to add that codicil, and she understood every word of it. I hope you enjoy the violin."
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  "Thank you, Mr Varms. I don't know what to say. Thank you very much."

  "Not in the least."

  "Are you fond of music, Mr Varms?" I ask, I don't know why.

  "Oh yes, I am rather fond of music." Mr Varms suddenly sounds flustered and eager to close the conversation. "Er, is there anything else? Please do get in touch if there is."

  "There's nothing else. Once again, thank you."

  "Goodbye, Mr Holme."

  : ' 8.25 v, ..;.. /.-.<;.. f . .-...•

  Mrs Formby:

  I know you are dead and cannot read this. I wish I had known of your stroke.

  My life had shelved towards desolation. Thank you for not forgetting me and for assuming, though I did not visit, that I had not forgotten you.

  I will drive to Blackstone Edge at the right time each year. I will take your violin with me whenever I come up north.

  I never asked you where or from whom you bought it. That history has ended with you.

  What little I ever did for you is over, but what you have done for me will last till I too go.

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  May something of your memory advise me, when I come to die, into whose hands I should deliver it.

  Both your friend and your fiddle thank you from soul and soundpost respectively.

  -- _; ' •;.;.. ••• Ï.* 8.26

  One night I wake up in a cold sweat, with the pulse of my heart in my ears.

  I had a dream. I was in an underground station, Holborn, I think. I was standing at the bottom of an escalator, busking with my Tononi. On the descending staircase were clumps of strangers, interspersed with people I recognised, who travelled down two by two. Billy's son Jango passed by hand in hand with Mrs Formby. She dropped a coin into my cap, and continued to talk to him. I knew in advance that Carl would be there, and he was, with his protégée, Virginie. He nodded at me and said something through bluish lips. She looked happy, and passed by unspeaking.

  I was playing long slow chords on the open strings. When I tired of one fifth I moved to another. Julia's mother, wearing a tiara and holding Carpaccio's little dog under her left arm, descended, handcuffed to the Holland Park policewoman. Had she breached some quarantine regulation? I knew that all this was a passing show, that I could turn it off at any moment. I was in, not of, the dream.

  But as the couples passed, sometimes with many strangers in between, I grew more anxious. I was racked between hope and dread, because I thought I might see Julia herself, and I did not know who would be standing with her. Yet among the many tedious people from my

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  past who floated down, cousins and maths teachers and orchestral colleagues, she did not appear, and my heart sank.

  I got onto the ascending escalator to find her. At the top it halted, then turned back downwards. But as I descended, the escalator shaft grew narrower and darker and I was alone. Everyone else had disappeared and except for my violin, which I had been ceaselessly playing, there was silence. Deeper into the earth the escalator descended, far past where it had previously stopped; and I could do nothing to stop it. I was no longer playing the three calm open chords, but a line of compelling, terrifying music that I only gradually recognised as my single, unsupported line of the "Art of Fugue".

  I half choked, half cried aloud. But I could not escape from its grip or my descent. The violin, like some bewitched broom, played on and on, obsessed, and if it had not been for.,a car alarm, far below on the real street, chipping through the casing of my dream, I would have descended for ever into endless night. ',«, B , -, ,'

  8.27 -

  Do not dramatise this. It's just love, it's not a limb. How far does this indulgence, this sensitisation extend? It will not stop you from making a living. Is all this worthy of your violin? As for those lost to you, consider where their happiness lies. "For God's sake, Michael, haven't you hurt her enough?"

  Let your body stir, if your mind is still becalmed. Swim. No, now, like her, I can't cope with a crowd. But you do, don't you, when you play as an extra fiddle in an

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  orchestra? How about walking? Walk to what you can walk to. Walk around if you have nowhere to go. It is five in the morning, but this is wintry London, there is no Venetian dawn. The drifters out of the night pass those who are drifting into the day. There are footsteps behind me, but I do not turn my head, and they dissolve.

  Consider your students again. But I do. I spend hours mulling before and during and after their lessons: Elizabeth's wrist action, Jamie's arpeggios, Clive's sightreading skills. I have no will to be impatient.

  "Why don't I see that pretty lady, Michael?" snickers the brat, who has grown fond of the violin, who knows why. "Jessica, yeah, see, I remember her name."

  "She doesn't come here every day, you know, Jamie." "Must I prepare this by the next lesson?" "Yes," I say, thinking of Carl. "You must." I smile at him, and he, surprised, smiles back. On those evenings that I am not working, I read, since I have nothing to prepare with my fellows, or for them. This is another life, one with north-facing windows. The light is blank and does not burn.

  I come across these lines I half recall from my schooldays, it must be twenty years ago:

  But never either found another

  To free the hollow heart from paining -

  They stood aloof, the scars remaining,

  Like cliffs which had been rent asunder; ,

  A dreary sea now flows between; -

  But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder,

  Shall wholly do away, I ween,

  The marks of that which once hath been.

  I do not visit Tricia again. A sexless calm: to this favour have I come.

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  .t:^> ,j,- - . •. 8.28 • • -.: "'••;.

  Near the Greek church the trees are evergreen. "Persistent" is what Virginie used to call them.

  The children of Archangel Court press all the buttons in the lift. Giggling, they wait for a reproof from me, and scowl now that it's clear I'm in no hurry.

  The girl at Etienne's, gathering her courage, asks me why I always buy seven, then tells me I should never freeze croissants.

  Rob won ten pounds in Wednesday's lottery draw, and spent his winnings on lottery tickets.

  Mrs Goetz tells me I should accompany her to a homeless shelter one Saturday night when I'm not working.

  Dave the Water Serpent bumps into me on Queensway. "Hey, Mike, where've you vanished?"

  But I have not. I am here, and I observe the world and its doings.

  One morning the phone rings.

  "Michael Holme?"

  "Speaking." ' • "

  "Fisher. Justin Fisher."

  The name - the voice - it is the sticky fan!

  "It was very disturbing yesterday," he plunges in. "Quite hopeless! But what's the point of telling them? Such a hash of the Boccherini. But they said they hadn't thrown you out. It was a young woman - not a patch, I'm afraid, not a patch on you: like suet after soufflé. No, no, no, it won't do. Think what you owe Art. And they say you're spending much of your time with the Camerata Anglica. Really now - even the name, half Italian, half Latin!"

  "Mr Fisher -"

  "In the Emperor Quartet last night they kept tuning

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  and retuning, and it quite broke my mood. Of course, they're unsettled. How can you play with a sore thumb or a sore heart? I spoke to a violin-maker the other day, and he says he's met you. Let him be, he said: quartets last longer than fiddlers, and fiddles last longest of all. Such cynicism. But that's the way of the world nowadays. I kept thinking: is he serious on the surface and mad underneath? Or vice versa? Anyway, I couldn't get much sense out of him. So I thought I'd try the telephone directory. Stop me if I'm holding forth too long. Are you yawning}"

  "Not at all. I've just been -"

  "Well, that's all I have to say," he cuts me off petulantly. "I'm not going to take up any more of your
valuable time. But if I don't see you there instead of that suet, you can be sure I won't be laying any more burnt offerings on the altar of the Maggiore. Return, and forthwith. Goodbye." , , ,

  8.29

  Am I so islanded then? Time has passed: seconds, hours, months. The day I set my eyes on her last year has gone. It is December now. I walk, but note the leafless season less. In the lobby of Archangel Court Mrs Goetz decorates the Christmas tree. Who ties the baubles to the Hansen fir? She? Or she and he? Or both of them and Luke?

  Invited to Nicholas Spare's party, to my own surprise I accept. I can leave without disruption. None of the others will be there. Piers will surely not be invited. Mince-pies and tuneless carols are right for me, and the company of people I do not much know, before my journey north. At

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  least this much is true: where once I scourged myself, I see no point.

  It is not as cold as it should be. I play scales on my violin for an hour or two or more. It makes me concentrate, it gives me comfort, it relieves me of thought. Sometimes faces come to me: among them my mother's, and my first violin teacher other than Mrs Formby, a young man very keen on scales himself.

  I meet my neighbours in the lobby, and I think: What misery lies behind that smiling face? What happiness behind that mournful one? Why should the first be likelier than the second? Will compelled laughter toughen the heart to rubber?

  8.30

  Nicholas Spare has forgiven Piers for last year's delinquency, for why /Ise would he be here at his annual bash? And Piers'*has presumably forgiven Nicholas his violent anti-Troutism.

  We have white wine instead of red fruit-punch this year. Piers looks sloshed already. Before I can think of anything to say, he has crossed the room and almost pinned me to the wall.

  "Michael!"

  "Dear boy!" I mutter in embarrassed mimicry.

  "Now, now, no making fun of our host. He's feeling depressed this year, not aggressive."

  "Oh, why?"

  "He can't find love, not even on Hampstead Heath."

  "Ah, that's serious," I say. "And how have you been? How have all of you been?" H

  "Michael, come back." _ ^ : -