Autumn

by Vina Jackson

  Like a tide emerging from prehistoric depths the faint trace of a melody began to break through the din and my brain switched to a higher gear and instinctively focused on the underlying heart of the music. Through the heat haze I watched another dancer, a young girl with a distinctive dimple in her chin as she stretched her arms away from her seemingly convulsing body like a spider. She wore a tight black mini-dress and between the explosions of light I noticed how her under-arm hair was a bush of darkness until the next flash of strobe light blinded me and she vanished into the mass of heaving dancers, leaving that incongruous vision carved at the forefront of my muddled mind.

  Another dancer, a man, all in black leather, shook like a puppet, his bulk stomping the floor like a mastodon. His companion, an ethereal blonde in a white T-shirt and skinny jeans with holes at the knees, towered over him, her spreading shadow enveloping him like a spectre and then they were gone in the blink of the beat and replaced by other couples, dancers, men, women, each one a whole world of particularities, each shaking, twisting, frozen in time, immobile for a nano second then gesticulating wildly like will o’ the wisps on a frenzied rampage. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been so drunk. I laughed.

  I had never been great shakes as a dancer. The last time I had done so in earnest had been after New Year’s in New Orleans when Dominik had ordered me to do so, naked, in that strange club. And my nudity had no doubt compensated for my distinct lack of grace. But ever since, my body had melted into music with uncommon ease, my violin forming an extension of my nerves through which all my feelings travelled. And dancing, right now, evoked similar emotions. My limbs felt loose. I hunted again for the deep-lying melody at the heart of the disco metal inferno unleashed around me until it finally began to communicate with me. And the world, the crowds, the other dancers all retreated and I was left, alone, in a bubble of my own making. My private space. In which I danced, disjointed, liberated, however clumsily I moved in a parody of elegance, in search of beauty and transcendence. I imagined I was playing the Bailly and the sharp dissonances of Stravinsky’s ‘Rite of Spring’ were rushing from the depths and I was controlling them, conducting the shrieks of desolation about to be unleashed.

  On and on I shook, swayed, turned, sang to myself, whispered, danced.

  And danced.

  And danced.

  And became marginally aware that I was finally holding the darkness at bay and I had no need for anything else. Even sex.

  There must have been a break between DJ sets and the music had ground to a shuddering halt, but I had kept on dancing and not even noticed. Eyes closed, gliding along the hard dance floor as if on wheels, an ice skater on a bed of clouds.

  ‘Hey, Summer …’ Fran had called out to me and I peered through the curtains of my own private world and realised I was almost the last one standing. I regained my composure and stepped back to our alcove table and, silently, considered the choice of purple, yellow or brown cocktail next. With accompanying umbrella, of course.

  Prior to our meeting, I’d idly tried to picture what Antony Torgerson might look like from the sound of his voice. So when he walked into Patisserie Valerie on the corner of Charing Cross Road and Great Newport Street, I was not quite expecting the tall, slim dark blond man in navy blue corduroy jacket, open-necked white shirt and impeccably creased designer jeans who stepped past the door and cast an enquiring look at both rooms of the café until he spotted me.

  A broad smile crossed his full lips as he noticed me and walked over. He wore light brown shoes, polished to a tee. I was nursing a creamy cappuccino and biting into a thin slice of cake dotted with wild berries. His handshake was firm.

  ‘I have some of your albums,’ he said. ‘I must confess I’m more of a rock ‘n’ roll person, and not that knowledgeable about classical music, but the sounds you squeeze out of your violin are at times quite extraordinary.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I was unsure whether the compliment was meant as a bit of a backhanded one or not.

  He hailed the waitress and ordered a double espresso and a croissant.

  ‘I’ve been up working most of the night and just had a few hours’ sleep, so this is breakfast time for me,’ he explained. It was early afternoon.

  He looked at me. His hair, cropped short at the sides but combed back with the mere hint of a nascent quiff at the front, sat on the frontier of dark blond and light brown. On anyone else the style would have appeared just a tad pretentious, but it completed his appearance to perfection, adding a necessary touch of foppiness to the carved hardness of his features. I held his gaze, captivated by the ebony black of his eyes, the darkness almost artificial and incandescent. Could he be wearing coloured lenses or was he one of those rare specimens, a genuinely dark-eyed blond? The effect was striking.

  ‘You look different from the photographs on your CDs,’ he said.

  ‘They were taken a long time ago,’ I pointed out. ‘My hair was loose and free in the photos.’ Today it was pulled back and unstyled.

  ‘It’s not the hair,’ he said. ‘Or time. Something else.’ He continued.

  ‘Oh, you know, the miracles of Photoshop …’ I sketched a faint smile.

  He downed his coffee in one hearty gulp and bit into the fluffy croissant.

  ‘So, tell me what you had in mind. For Dominik’s novel?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  He swept the crumbs from the croissant off the table and onto the café floor with the cuff of his jacket, clearing space for a roll of pages he pulled out from his pocket.

  He explained.

  The book traced the history of a violin, from the time it had been carved out of wood, crafted, through a couple of centuries and outlined the way it had, seemingly in a supernatural manner, affected the lives of its successive owners. Sometimes it appeared to cast a curse on the characters, affecting their passions, ruining their relationships and destroying the course of their lives. It was almost like a ghost story in which the ghost happened to be a musical instrument rather than some fearful entity from the depths of hell.

  As a result the book was episodic and as soon as you became captivated by a given protagonist, the storyline would move on to another, never allowing the reader to sympathise long enough or develop sufficient empathy with anyone. It was something that Dominik had been acutely aware of but couldn’t find a way of addressing without undermining the whole concept behind the book.

  And on a stage, such an episodic structure wouldn’t pan out any better, Antony concluded.

  ‘So why is the project of interest to you, then?’ I asked him.

  ‘Ah,’ he waved his hands around to strengthen his point. ‘That’s just it.’

  I must have looked puzzled.

  ‘Apart from the violin, what’s the main thread of the story?’ Antony quizzed me, as if I was a schoolchild in a classroom.

  I remained silent, unable to catch his drift, watching in fascination an unseen fire rise inside him, his features growing in animation.

  ‘The music,’ he said triumphantly.

  ‘The music?’

  ‘Yes. That’s the whole rationale for the violin, isn’t it?’

  I nodded politely.

  ‘So, instead of concentrating on one of the random characters who come across the violin along the tide of years and bringing them artificially to the forefront and slowing down the whole plot,’ Antony pointed out, ‘we make the music the main character. The thread that holds everything together. And the play becomes as much music as it is words …’

  He was beaming.

  ‘Not quite an opera,’ he said. ‘Or a musical …’

  I was beginning to intuit what he was thinking of.

  His enthusiasm was contagious. He unrolled some of the loose sheets of paper and showed me a series of rough sketches for the possible sets. One for each historical period covered by the vio
lin’s story.

  ‘And each era is represented by a different kind of music …’

  It was a seductive concept.

  I pondered over it.

  ‘It could work well,’ I admitted. ‘But what music? Whichever classical pieces you happen to select it wouldn’t be …’ I struggled for the right words to translate my thoughts. ‘Organic. That’s it, organic enough. If the music is actually the play’s main actor, it must have some unity from set to set, from character to character, the violin’s successive owners, it can’t be just a ‘‘Best Of’’ the classical canon.’

  ‘Of course.’ He was smiling. ‘I knew you’d understand me.’

  ‘Have I?’

  ‘I read somewhere that the book was inspired by a violin you actually own, Summer. Is that true?’

  ‘Partly,’ I admitted. ‘Dominik did some research into its history, but I must confess that when he wrote the book he improvised a lot, to make things more dramatic. That’s what writers do.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘But I do like your concept,’ I said.

  ‘It’s ambitious,’ Antony conceded.

  Silence fell. At the table next to us, two elderly German tourists were arguing between themselves as to which particular patisserie they should try before opting to share all three they had set their sights on between them.

  Out of the blue, Antony took hold of my hand.

  His was remarkably warm.

  ‘Summer, would you be willing to become involved in the project?’

  ‘Advising on the music?’

  ‘No. More … Only you could do it, I believe.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Write the music for the play. I think you’d be perfect.’

  His hand still gripped mine.

  I could feel his hunger, his fire.

  It had an edgy familiarity.

  6

  Two-Hearted Spider

  Even though his heart belonged to the stage, Antony had directed a bunch of movies some years before. A play he had set up on the South Bank had proved a major hit with critics and public alike and he had been asked to adapt it for the big screen, which had led to a couple of further lucrative Hollywood assignments. The two movies that had then followed had performed adequately, but working on them he had found himself increasingly frustrated by the formulaic nature of the material he had a limited opportunity to shape to his liking and the countless interference by studio executives holding him back and restraining most of his more innovative ideas.

  As a result, he had since been systematically turning down further movie opportunities, preferring to devote his time and energy to the theatre.

  ‘Soon, they will learn to leave me in peace and stop offering me bad scripts and I will gladly become the cinema’s forgotten man,’ he explained.

  But the money he had made had helped him acquire an expensive apartment on the penthouse floor of an imposing development on the Isle of Dogs, overlooking the Thames and much of London’s most coveted horizons.

  This was now our third meeting since his initial approach at Patisserie Valerie, but the first time I had been invited to where he lived and worked. The view through the vast bay windows was vertiginous and so unlike the vistas I’d once enjoyed over Hampstead Heath or, more recently, from my first floor maisonette overlooking Clapham Common into which I had moved after selling the Hampstead house as all my friends had advised me to. Much to my surprise, Dominik had actually made a will and left it to me, as well as most of his belongings. I had barely held on to a few cartons of his books as there was no way they would fit into my new flat, and at Viggo’s recommendation, had donated the rest of his collections to a university library who had expressed interest in his papers.

  It was a grey autumn day as I sipped coffee after coffee and faced Antony across the low glass table over which he had spread his notes, and sections of the script in progress.

  Initially, I had thought my task would mainly consist of choosing relevant pieces of music from the classical repertoire to suit the mood of the respective mini-plays set in specific historical eras through which the cursed violin in the story made an appearance. To my surprise and initial irritation, Antony had quickly dismissed the idea after listening to some of my choices.

  ‘It’s too predictable, Summer,’ he had said. From the look in his eyes, I could see he was actually disappointed in me as if he had expected more. I was stung by his censure.

  ‘I only play the music, you know. I’m an interpreter, that’s all.’

  He rose to his feet. He was wearing a loose white T-shirt and his usual jeans. He had visibly not shaved for a few days and stubble darkened his chin and cheeks. He looked thinner than the first time we had met. Rakish.

  ‘You’re more than that. I’ve heard you play. Actually seen you perform in concert once,’ he confessed.

  This was the first time he had revealed this.

  ‘When?’ I asked him.

  ‘It doesn’t matter where,’ he answered. ‘You were on fire, literally in a trance. It was an incredible thing to see … Actually, very sexy …’

  ‘Oh …’

  ‘Although,’ he added, ‘terribly distracting and, to this day, I don’t even recall what you were actually playing.’ He flashed a wry smile.

  ‘I’m glad you liked it.’

  ‘That’s the Summer Zahova I was hoping I could resurrect.’

  ‘Maybe you expect too much of me?’

  ‘I expect the best, no less.’

  ‘So do you have any suggestions, perhaps?’

  He handed me a few sheets of his papers. A scene where the violin’s second owner comes across the instrument for the first time, together with various sketches about the set against which it might unfold.

  ‘Take this and go home. Read it. Absorb it. Think about it. And call me when you have an idea.’ He looked away from me and buried himself in his other notes. I was dismissed.

  Summarily.

  I hesitated a moment. What was this? Did he think I was at his beck and call?

  I felt insulted.

  I stood up. Leaving the proffered pages behind on the glass table, turned my back on him and walked out of the apartment. I was hoping he would call me back and apologise for his brusqueness. I think he never even looked my way as I departed and slammed the door. I was fuming.

  I rushed down the corridor and called for the elevator. It took its time coming and as the doors opened, a short, curvy young woman with dark flowing hair in a flowery print dress with more cleavage than front, walked out of it. She glanced at me.

  ‘Ah, you’re his violin player,’ she remarked, with a note of impertinence and superiority.

  My mood was darkening. In as sarcastic a tone as I could manage, I responded ‘And you are?’

  She grinned. Her teeth were unnaturally white.

  ‘Alissa.’

  It meant nothing to me. ‘Alissa who?’

  The elevator doors behind her began to close and I rushed forward, blocking the sliding mechanism with my left foot.

  ‘I’m an actress … I might be playing you,’ she shouted out as I took refuge inside.’ The doors finally closed, before I could ask her any further questions.

  I didn’t press the ‘down’ button immediately, just stood there deep in thought.

  I tried to control my anger. I was seething, not just in annoyance at Antony’s conduct but also the presumption of the young actress who thought she could be me in the play, and seemed to find the possibility greatly amusing. Antony had sketched a part for a character based on me, the violin’s final owner.

  If Antony Torgerson wanted me to be involved in the production, I decided, he would have to treat me differently. It would have to be a collaboration. On my terms. But, in order to achieve that, I also knew I would have to impress him, c
ome up with suitable concepts, the perfect music.

  The elevator began its descent.

  Weekend engineering works meant that I was unable to take the tube, and I couldn’t face waiting for a likely overcrowded replacement bus service. It took me ages to find a cab and by the time I reached Clapham, I had calmed down. The weather had turned sunny and the Common was littered with folk hoping to catch what would possibly be the last manifestation of sunshine of the year. Small children gallivanted between the trees, couples lounged on blankets, and an ice-cream van chimed further down the road beckoning for customers young and old, soothing images which all helped me restore some inner peace again.

  Why had Antony’s demands and the appearance of Alissa disturbed me so much?

  I returned to the Isle of Dogs the following morning. Early. I’d rushed from bed to shower to my closet and slipped on the first pair of jeans that came to hand and a jogging sweatshirt that probably should have gone in the wash before being worn next and I cycled all the way down to the river. Dawn was breaking lazily over London. At the door to Antony’s building, an attaché-case wielding executive in a pinstriped suit was leaving just as I arrived, so I slipped in without having to call him on the intercom for admittance. The top floor corridor was a refuge of mute, carpeted silence and I walked over to his door and rang the bell. I had decided overnight to abdicate all involvement with the project and just wish him good luck. I wasn’t right for the job, I had concluded. A mere, if talented interpreter, not a creator.

  At first, there was no reaction from inside the apartment. I stood there, feeling out of place and thinking Antony might not be in and was about to raise my finger to the bell again when I heard stirrings inside. Steps approaching the door. It opened and there was Alissa, her hair in disarray, wearing a man’s shirt that barely reached down to the top of her thighs. Despite her compact size, her shoeless legs appeared endless.

  A triumphant smile crossed her lips.