Ardillo nods. “I know, boy … Play me something?”
The young man’s face clouds over. “I can’t.”
“Forgotten how?”
Alex shakes his head slightly and turns to look down at the old guitar.
“The cost was too great.”
Ardillo stands and wipes an imagined stain from the front of his white shirt.
“Everything important costs, Alejandro. It is one of the eternal rules.”
“But it wasn’t me who had to pay. I can’t …” The words dry up, and he sits down on the bed.
“So you make the ultimate sacrifice, yes? A noble gesture, boy. Stupid, but noble just the same. Find the one thing that you love the most, and deny yourself Do you sit alone in your bedroom and whip yourself, too?”
Suddenly the lightness is gone from his voice.
“I loved someone once. And I shut her out, drove her away, until she … For a long time I thought it was because I had lost the one thing that made me who I was. But in the end I realised. It was never the music. It was the guilt.
“I was the leader, the eldest in the family. Their safety was my responsibility, and I failed them. At Ávila … So I punished myself. I shut them out. I shut her out. And I gave up. On life.”
He stretches out a hand and touches the young man. Then he moves across and picks up one of the photos from the window-sill.
“What will you do when you have … exorcised the music? Shut her out?”
He holds out the picture and the young man takes it from him, looking at her face. But he says nothing.
“Why am I here? Why are any of us? Maybe the answer is that there is no answer. Maybe there is no reason, and we just are. We do our best, and if our best is not good enough, and people are hurt, we learn. And we try harder next time.”
His gaze is fixed on the old guitar, where it leans against the wall.
“Music is life … You remember, I told you that? Manuel, he thought I was wrong. But he never understood. Music never stopped a war or put an end to greed or the hunger for power. But it was never supposed to. It has no reason, just as life has no reason. It just is. And what it is, is simply the best that we can hope to be. A part of the common soul. A part that some of us are lucky enough to have the power to share.”
He looks at his brother’s grandson.
“Play for me?”
But the young man shakes his head slowly.
“No, Ardillo. You play for me …”
She allows the car to roll to a stop in front of the house and turns off the engine. It is late and the street is quiet, but from inside the house she hears the sound of music, and a smile grows slowly.
It is unusual music, almost unearthly, unfamiliar, yet strangely soothing. For a long time she stands beside the car, letting the notes flow through her and touch her and move her. Then she reaches in, and from the back seat she carefully lifts the gift that she has brought him.
It is heavy, and she supports it with both hands as she takes it out, being careful not to scratch it.
Outside his room she pauses, then slowly pushes open the door.
And in mid-bar the music ceases.
She freezes.
The room is silent, and a little cold, and on the bed, asleep and smiling, lies its only occupant. While leaning against the wall to the right of the window is a solitary old guitar, shining like polished gold in the dim light.
She looks at the young man on the bed, then at the present in her hand. Then she moves across and places it against the wall, beside the old guitar.
It is taller and thinner, its red sounding board polished to a rich glow, and its gold pick-ups shining.
“The genuine article”, the man at the shop said. “The old S.G. They just don’t make them like this any more.”
“I know,” she replied. “He had one just like it …”
She steps back and looks at them standing there side by side, and she hears again the unfamiliar music.
And with a glance back at the young man on the bed, she leaves the room, closing the door gently behind her.
CODA:
REPRISE
CLAIRE’S STORY
Harry Friedman sat massaging the palm of one arthritic hand with the ball of his thumb, then he looked up.
“You learn a few things working for the Union for that long.” He looked back at his hand, like a sculptor checking the texture of the clay. “In negotiations, you forget about what you want. If the other guy was willing to give it to you, you wouldn’t be there negotiating in the first place. What you have to concentrate on is what he wants. That’s the thing that motivates him, and that’s also his weakness.”
“But Symonds doesn’t have a weakness. He’s in the driver’s seat. The contracts are airtight —”
“You’re not listening, girlie.” Harry was the only one who could ever get away with calling me that. “What does he want?”
“Sometimes I think he just wants to make everyone around him feel like shit.”
“Exactly!”
He spoke as if I’d reached a breakthrough, but for the life of me I couldn’t work out what it was. It must have shown on my face.
“Think about it,” he went on. “Power. That’s what this is all about. Money and power. He could have let the boys back into the group, but he has the power not to — and he has the power to force the others to accept the decision. Whether they like it or not.”
“Because he has the contracts.”
Finally he was getting down to the root of the problem.
“Which is what gives him his power. But what does he want?”
I shook my head. He’d lost me again.
“Success. His position in the company is based on his ability to generate profits. For that, he needs the band to produce. On the docks we had a saying, ‘One out, all out’.”
“A strike, you mean? It won’t work. Not with the contracts.” I felt like I was going around in circles. “He’s done everything by the book. We can’t touch him.”
He thought for a moment.
“Funny thing about ‘the book’. It can mean something different to everyone who reads it. We had another phrase that was very popular in tricky negotiations. Ever hear of ‘working to rule’?”
I had, vaguely. I nodded uncertainly.
He stood up awkwardly and shuffled across to the window. When he turned to face me, there was a fire in his eyes that I imagined hadn’t shone there very much since his retirement.
“Can’t play the game unless you know all the rules.” He rubbed his hands slowly together, and looked out of the window towards the distant city, and I knew, in his mind’s eye, he was imagining himself back on the docks.
Without turning back, he continued, “Bring Alex in to see me — and the others. And bring in the contracts. Let’s see what kind of power they give to the good guys …”
MAX’S STORY
“You can’t do this!”
Symonds stood up behind his desk and screamed at me, and I knew I had him.
“I’m not doing anything, Ken.” I walked across to the bar in the comer and poured myself a generous measure of his finest malt. “As their personal manager, I’m just here to let you know what they’ve decided.”
“But I have contracts …”
He loosened his tie and sat back down.
I sipped my drink and let it evaporate on my tongue, savouring the moment.
“And they are perfectly willing to honour them. To the letter. Five more albums in as many years. And live performances. But there is nothing in their contracts which stipulates what kind of music they have to play. And I happen to think that classical sonatas, medieval madrigals and a bit of country and western is an interesting combination. Of course, it probably won’t sell too well, and it will cost a fortune to produce … You know how fussy musicians can be. And the live tours, well …”
He was ready to explode. I let him stew for a minute, then walked across and sat back down.
“Bottom line is, Ken, they can bleed you dry. And if you refuse to record them, they can void the contract after twelve months. Now, you have a choice. You can cut them loose now, no hard feelings, or you can try to tough it out.”
Enough stick, it was time for the carrot.
“Or I have three different companies ready and willing to buy out the contracts, for a sizeable amount, and if you handle the negotiations well, you might just get out with your skin.”
His little piggy eyes stopped darting about for a moment, and I could see the gears working behind them. He was hooked.
I almost didn’t tell him, but then I couldn’t help myself. It ruined the surprise, but how could I resist delivering the sucker-punch in person?
“Of course,” I went on, “that would depend on how New York feels about the whole deal. I’m afraid I went over your head and talked to Zimmerman personally last night. To fill him in on the situation … It appears that he might be keen to match what the other companies are offering, and rewrite the kids’ contracts — all five of them.
“Oh, and I think you might be in for a small … promotion. He mentioned something about ‘running a record store in Little Rock, Arkansas …’ ”
I placed the empty glass on the desk in front of him.
“Would you like me to close the door on the way out?”
27 August 1998
New York City
The stage is dark and the first notes fill the empty silence, washing over the audience as the pencil spot picks out the guitarist’s hands.
The audience cheers and the concert begins.
At the back of the huge auditorium, one man sits on the steps and smiles to himself.
“Nice one, kid,” he whispers, to no one in particular.
First published 1996 by University of Queensland Press
PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia
Reprinted 1999, 2002, 2003, 2007, 2013
www.uqp.com.au
© Brian Caswell 1996
This book is copyright. Except for private study, research, criticism or reviews, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any foram or by any means without prior written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.
Typeset by University of Queensland Press
This project has been assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Cataloguing in Publication Data
National Library of Australia
Caswell, Brian
Asturias
I. Title.
A823.3
ISBN 9780702228773 (pbk)
ISBN 9780702257933 (pdf)
ISBN 9780702257940 (epub)
ISBN 9780702257957 (kindle)
Asturias Page 20