The Concert Pianist

by Conrad Williams

  After a moment’s hesitation he sat in one of the easy chairs and bathed his face in his hands. He had no inclination to touch the keys. Instead he swallowed, felt his heart hammering against his chest. Adrenalin seemed to attack him in squirts below the midriff, and then in warm waves of sensation - a diffusion of aches. This was the sickness of his profession. He inhaled and exhaled deeply, rubbed at his fingers and palms.

  There was a knock on the door.

  ‘Come in,’ he said, rising.

  Arthur England bared his teeth in a jovial smile before the two men collided in a hug.

  ‘Traffic’s ghastly.’

  He could smell the old composer’s suit: mothballs and fusty wool.

  ‘Didn’t expect to see you.’

  ‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world. Great Scott, what a journey! There’s absolute blind buggery on the A34 at the moment. You’re looking sharp.’

  Philip smiled as best he could. One was supposed to manage well-wishers through the riot of nerves. He would always make a special effort for Arthur.

  ‘I won’t come backstage afterwards if you don’t mind. I’m too old to stand in a queue.’

  ‘Is someone with you?’

  ‘Oh yes, nurses and doctors and chairlifts and Zimmer frames. I’m fine, actually. Can still hobble about. I’ve got my driver, bless him, one of Oswald’s young swains.’

  ‘You’re looking fantastic!’

  Arthur smiled with doddery pride. ‘Ninety, to be precise.’

  His face had been pink for years. His moustache and eyebrows were well groomed, making up for the gizzardly neck and snaggly teeth. His buoyancy was illimitable.

  ‘Philip, I want you to pay me a visit in the next few days. Three-line whip.’

  ‘Love to.’

  ‘I’m having a shindig for Konstantine Serebriakov end of next week.’

  Philip struggled to concentrate, his nerves surging. ‘I had no idea you were friends.’

  ‘He’s a relatively recent acquisition. Nineteen sixty-four, I think. Pretty good at the ivories, old Konstantine. He gave the world premier of my piano concerto, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘How wonderful!’

  ‘It’s his birthday and he’s not well. But we’ll have an amusing time if you come and see us. Oswald will cook and prattle gaily. Fine wines, stiff walks for the under-eighties. Usual form. The grounds are lovely at the moment. May blossom everywhere. God, but isn’t London diabolical? Suppose I’m too old for this lark. I’ll slip off now. I can see you’re straining at the leash.’ He put a hand on the door. ‘Project my way. Back of the stalls on the right. Bring the house down, as usual.’

  He waved and went out.

  By now the crescent-shaped foyer of the Queen Elizabeth Hall would be thronged with people and smelling of ladies’ scent and filter coffee. Queues at programme kiosks. Last drinks at the bar. Members of the musical middle classes cruising around, spotting friends, snaffling cake. And now the gong at last, yanking up his pulse, the final tolling. A thousand men and women would take their places in the next few minutes, bustling in, getting adjusted to the space, the sense of occasion, the view of a lone piano on the stage.

  His hands were sweaty and freezing cold. He dabbed them with a hanky and stared at the upright and seconds later was groping for the volumes in his case, suddenly convinced that all those notes would fly out of his mind if he didn’t have a look at the score for the millionth time. He sat going over it, like an actor whispering lines backstage.

  Going on to the platform was like dying. No one went with you.

  The stage manager knocked on the door and peeped in.

  Philip’s head cleared as he stood. His hands felt clammy. One had at least to seem confident.

  He got himself ready while the stage manager stood outside, walkie-talkie in hand. He had the thin lips of a men’s-store shop assistant and smiled economically as Philip emerged. He spoke to the auditorium usherettes and to lights, coordinating the final count-down as they went along the corridor and across to the stage door. Philip touched his bow tie and fiddled with his cuffs as he walked, squeezing the hanky in his pocket to dry his palms. They came up to the curtain slowly, waiting for the all-clear. His heart beat faster at the familiar noise of the audience - a muffled din - beyond the curtain. One could tell from the weight of sound that the auditorium was packed. He inhaled deeply against the final crisis of nerves. Suddenly the house lights lowered, and the aery swell of a thousand voices sank in layers to a respectful murmur. They were ready for him.

  He stared at the curtain.

  The stage manager took up position, hand at the curtain’s edge, all set to pull back.

  It condensed inside him.

  ‘Doors closed. OK, thank you. Ready, sir?’

  He pulled the hanky from his pocket, dabbed his forehead.

  He was giddy, not feeling good. Not the right feeling.

  God, he thought.

  The stage manager nodded in confirmation, he nodded back.

  The curtain opened for him and he strode across the threshold, into another dimension, the roof of the hall zooming up, the rear stalls rising way back, and as he strode up the ramp into the spotlight haze he could see a multitude of hands rising to greet him, and he could hear the crackle of applause beginning on the right and rippling across the auditorium sideways, like a wave, rebounding and redoubling into a barrage of acclamation as he reached the edge of the stage. He saw the instrument standing there like an Andalusian bull, rollers glinting, keyboard shining.

  The greeting increased in volume, reaching its enthusiastic maximum as he came centre stage, an outburst of sound, almost violently partisan, and as he turned towards the rising tiers of faces, going all the way to the back of the hall, he sensed the presence of friends, a congregation of fans, an audience very consciously devoted to the sight of him, his live presence. He looked at them all, heart pounding, temples throbbing, and bowed gravely, hand on a corner of the piano. He saw smiling faces, familiar faces, all staring back at him, and still they kept on, frantically clapping, determined to bathe him in a long and demonstrative approbation, and he bowed again, to the right, to the left, to the centre, and nodded in acknowledgement, and felt the din abate, a sudden drop, a steep decline, the spasm over, tension returning, the gap of a few moments in which he would sit down and adjust the stool, and they would watch in readiness, and the noise of welcome would taper to a hush.

  He stepped back, turned to face the instrument, found himself sinking on the stool, flicking his tails, placing his juddering foot by the pedal, taking his hanky from his pocket, clenching it again. There were muffled coughs and throat-clearings to his right.

  He looked at the white keys, felt the attention of the audience as a searing heat on the side of his face, sensed the moment coming at last. He stared swimmingly at the Steinway logo on the keyboard lid and breathed in deeply, seeking a centre. And then he knew, he knew easily. A morbid relief went through his limbs, which gave him a kind of weak will, a weary strength. He looked at the shiny keyboard as if to be dead sure, once again, and then rose.

  He walked dizzily to the edge of the stage, legs weakening. He looked up at the audience, capturing every pair of eyes. The place was packed.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen.’

  The sound of his voice was diffuse, bodiless. He could hardly hear himself.

  Hundreds of people were staring at him.

  ‘For reasons that are impossible to describe, I have decided that I cannot play tonight. I ask your forgiveness and understanding.’

  There was a mass exhalation. He could see the shock in people’s faces.

  He walked across the stage, eyes averted, and as he descended the ramp one man clapped in solidarity. Once through the curtain he ran to his changing room. He needed to be out of the building before anyone caught up with him. He grabbed the music off the upright, chucked things in his case, switched out of his tailcoat and into his jacket. Down the corridor to the right he found a
n escape door, pushed the bar and slipped out. He hesitated on the concourse. He madly feared someone would be pursuing him. He walked swiftly along the esplanade past the doors of the Royal Festival Hall and ran up the steps to the footbridge. He covered the Thames at a brisk pace and was soon breathlessly descending on the Embankment side. He took out his mobile and clicked it off, wound off his bow tie and loosened his shirt button.

  A few minutes later he stood at the bar of a pub, cigarette in a shaking hand, whisky on the counter. There was television laughter and jukebox din and the roar of regulars all around him. He took deep draughts of the cigarette and looked at the backs of his hands hardly knowing what he had done, and then it hit him like a sledge hammer, a drowning tiredness that made his temples pulse and seemed to pack his forehead with cotton wool, so that he no longer cared what had happened, or knew what he was doing, but was content to stand on his own, lost to the world.

  Chapter Eight

  The light in his bedroom was extremely beautiful. Wind played in the curtains, which gently swelled, manipulating the influx of sunshine. He lay awake for an hour, staring at the ceiling.

  He ate breakfast at the small table in the kitchen: egg and bacon, a mug of coffee. He went through the food quickly, con brio, and it was only after a certain fullness set in and he was looking at the yolky residue on the plate that he realised he had come to the end of his life. He stared through the kitchen window at the tree outside, and felt the coffee lift him into an empty trance.

  Later, he stood still in the music room, registering the quiet emptiness of his house and the hollow cheerfulness of morning light on bookshelves. He picked up the telephone and listened to his messages: three calls from John, a message from Laura, kindly reassurances from Derek and Arthur, neither of whom could conceal his alarm. Someone from the surgery asked him to fix an appointment.

  He trailed through Regent’s Park under the tresses of weeping willows. His legs carried him across football pitches and over ornamental bridges and all the while his thoughts became thinner and vaguer and his head airier, as if the sight of pendulous planes and fluorescent tulips syphoned all sense from his mind. He stared at strolling Arab families, at Japanese tourists taking photos, at pinging joggers evangelically perspiring. The day was violently bright and colourful with sharp outlines and resolute shadows. He would not be found out here.

  In the afternoon he ambled around the West End, aware hazily of Dorothy Perkins and Liberty. He had no idea where he was going or what he was doing but needed to keep moving. He looked in a trance through the windows of jewellers, stared in fascination at lingerie mannequins, halted abstractly at the corners of roads, wondering where to go next. Busy hordes milled past him. Traffic thundered by. On roads and pavements everything was bustle and purpose. Existence without energetic direction, he realised, was a kind of sleep. Simply to breathe, to walk, to drift, was hardly to live at all.

  Around four-thirty he came to, and found himself sitting in a side-street cafe. His mind was working furiously now, breaking down the waves of guilt, marshalling arguments, trying to find some thread of justification. Explanations were required, apologies. He had done the worst thing, for himself and everyone else. All that he could say was that suddenly on stage he knew it was impossible. What those pieces cost he could not pay. His life had been parasitised by an unsustainable perfectionism and enough was enough. The old Philip Morahan had made an executive decision not to be mediocre and now, as he sat with his teaspoon and a crumbling Amoretti between fingers, the bravery of that decision amazed him.

  The pressure of thoughts was suddenly unbearable. Grand gestures begat new crises. He was alone with his music, but more alone without it. How could a man reconstruct his life at fifty-two? What remained but drift and boredom when obsession failed? A failed artist had nowhere to go. Music, already, was a kind of last resort.

  He wondered in a panic how quickly he could clear this up. All kinds of prostrations and grovelling were imperative to get John back on side. Bulmanion was a write-off but, if he could just pull himself together and do the next two concerts, he would have a life. The Royal Academy would let him off. Pupils would understand. He could return to routine at a lower level of ambition, holding on to what he had and not expecting much. The past would lead to the future and this episode might soon be forgotten.

  He ached. His feet ached. His head throbbed. He sat at the metal table breathing the trafficky air, listening to the warble of city pigeons, and it seemed to him then as he lit another cigarette that thinking itself was pointless. Thinking would not contribute.

  Mid-evening he was back in Chiswick. Walking along the pavement to his house he felt like going to bed and sleeping for ever. Reaching for the keys in his pocket, he pushed through the front garden gate and rose up the step to his porch. He worked the key in the lock and was about to go in when somebody called his name. He looked over his shoulder.

  ‘Philip!’

  Ursula stood on the pavement. She stared at him timidly.

  He looked at her in astonishment.

  She came closer, almost cradling herself.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  His heart beat hard. He had not banked on seeing anyone.

  ‘Sorry to . . . I’ve been waiting for hours.’

  ‘Waiting?’

  ‘In the car. Over there.’

  ‘Did John send you?’

  She was distressed by the idea. ‘You’re not answering calls.’

  He stared at her.

  She looked at him almost bravely, as if to show the depth of her concern. She was flushed with agitation and a kind of embarrassment.

  ‘I wanted to see that you were OK,’ she said.

  He nodded vacantly.

  She smiled with painful relief.

  He was not at ease with her concern.

  ‘I’m OK.’

  ‘Can we talk?’

  ‘Don’t worry.’

  ‘Philip!’

  ‘I can’t talk, really.’

  ‘Of course.’ She stepped towards him. ‘Of course.’

  She was tall, almost precarious, her neck willowy under the weight of thick hair, tucked inside her collar.

  ‘I’m not here because I’m your agent.’

  He stared at her.

  She came even closer.

  They exchanged a look.

  ‘Please!’ she said.

  He tried saying something but had no will to resist her. He turned, twisting the key in the lock, and let her into the house. Once inside, he gestured her into the front room, catching the smell of her leather jacket as she passed. He followed her in, almost as if this were her home now.

  Ursula came into the drawing room with a kind of reverent watchfulness. He circulated behind her, switching on lamps and pulling curtains, and she stood by the piano as he fetched a wine bottle and glasses from the kitchen. She gazed thoughtfully at his Steinway and then took herself across the room to consider a landscape painting. Her arms were folded protectively.

  Philip glanced at her as he opened the wine bottle. Both of them knew she had exceeded her brief and that their professional relationship could help neither of them. Not that he wanted help. He wanted to lie down and go to sleep. He gave her a glass and crossed the room to a seat. After a moment she followed his example and took herself to the end of the recamier, where she perched.

  They sat across from each other silently for some moments. He regarded her expressionlessly. Her being in his room was not his doing. He felt he was staring at a stranger whose solicitations he was too exhausted to repel. For a while the anomaly of her presence was strangely absorbing. Behind the mask of his face he was sinking. Ursula’s unexpected manifestation held him at least to the moment. He was prepared to stare at her indefinitely.

  She sipped her wine, waiting for him. She was not exactly at ease. Whatever she thought she was doing, she was doing it for the first time.

  ‘I intended to play,’ he said, monotonally.

&n
bsp; She shook her head, signifying an automatic acceptance of whatever he would say, the matter being absolutely beyond accountability.

  ‘Till the last second.’

  She nodded carefully, acknowledging the sentiment, the reality of his feelings.

  There was a pause.

  ‘I wasn’t really surprised,’ she said.

  He made no reply.

  ‘After Saturday.’

  Philip rubbed his eyes and then stared at her without expression.

  ‘The moment I met you I knew something was wrong.’

  He took a sip of his wine. He was shattered.

  She looked away. ‘I know you think I’m inexperienced, but I’ve been listening to your CDs for years. I went to your concerts as a teenager. Apart from the fact that I love your playing’ - her colour rose - ‘ I feel I know you quite well. In fact, when we met the other day you were exactly as I imagined.’ She glanced at him sincerely. ‘When you said you wanted to cancel I was so struck.’

  She took his silence as permission to continue.

  ‘I noticed . . .’

  Her gaze was intense. She had been working up to this.

  ‘When you looked at me . . .’

  She blinked and glanced away.

  He watched her in silence.

  Ursula moistened her lips, smiled apologetically. ‘A frightened boy. The look of a distressed child.’

  Philip could only raise his eyebrows in mild amazement at this declaration. He had no idea how to respond. Her sympathy was undeserved, uninvited. He had not expected to reckon with the piercing concern of a young woman at this hour of the day.

  ‘You reminded me of my brother Paul,’ she continued.

  He stared at her.

  ‘Paul was eight when my mother died. I was fourteen. It was terrible for me, but for him . . . He lost something of himself.’

  Strangers had been intimate with him in this way before. It was as though they believed that he as a pianist could be entrusted with tragic confidences, could purge the woe of the world in his playing.