by Meg Buchanan
He rang Adam.
“Hey. Did you lot work on ‘Train Wreck’ at all while I was away?”
“Yeah,” said Adam. “A bit.”
“Did you get anywhere with it?”
“Yeah.”
He could hear the sounds of a dishwasher running in the background, the television, Adam’s baby brother squealing. The way houses sounded when they had people in them. Not like the house he was in. He didn’t realise how much a house needed people in it to make it sound like home.
“Did you record what you did?” It might help if he had some idea where they were taking the thing then he wouldn’t be turning up at the shed this evening with no idea of what they expected.
“Yeah, I’ll send it to you.”
“No, come around and help me learn the bloody thing. The house is empty. We won’t be disturbing anyone.”
He heard Adam laugh. “Luke got you running scared?”
“Just get around here and help me out.”
“Okay, be there in half an hour.”
Adam arrived, and they listened to what the others had done during the week.
Adam switched off his phone. “Isaac played the violin part. What do you think?”
Noah scratched the side of his cheek. “It’s all right, but I was thinking of going for something more intense.”
Adam shrugged. “Like what?”
“The driving sound of a train and maybe a hint of the whistle in the background, but I can’t make it happen yet.”
“Isaac’s not going to be pleased with you playing around with his masterpiece.”
“He’ll live with it if I get it right.”
“What have you got so far?”
“Not a hell of a lot more than Isaac had.” He nodded at Adam’s phone. “You got anything without the violin track on there?”
Adam shook his head. “Nah, you’d need the laptop for that. Play what you’ve got.” He leaned back on the couch and stretched out his legs.
Noah nodded, stood up again and tucked the violin under his chin. “You know what the rest sounds like anyway.”
“Yeah.”
He played what he’d worked out.
Adam listened. At the end he sat up a bit and rubbed his chin. “It’s a start. It should keep Luke happy anyway.”
Noah sat again, elbows on his knees, the bow in one fist, the neck of the violin in the other. “It’s not quite right though is it?”
Adam shook his head. “It’s getting there. It’s better than what Isaac did.” Adam tucked his phone in his pocket. “Want to go to Waihi Beach for a surf?”
That sounded like a bloody good idea. He’d had enough of violins that wouldn’t do as they were told.
On the way out to the beach, he drove past Natalia’s. The blue car was still there. On the way back, late in the afternoon, still a blue car there.
He got his gear together and met the others at the shed at Isaac’s family’s place.
They ran through ‘Train Wreck’.
“What are you doing?” asked Isaac when they’d gone through it the first time.
Noah tucked the violin under his elbow and tightened the bow a bit. “Putting my own spin on it.”
“It doesn’t need your spin.” Isaac sounded annoyed. “Play it straight.”
So, Adam was right. No one could play around with Isaac’s masterpiece. Pity because it could be so much better.
‘Yeah,” said Luke. “Play it the way it’s written.”
He did as he was told, and Isaac recorded the result. They all listened to the recording.
Luke sat on the edge of the pallet stage. “I don’t think it’s ready yet.”
Isaac shook his head. “No. It could still do with work. I’ll send that track to all of you.”
Cole jumped down from the stage. “We’ve got plenty of material for the next few weeks. No need to push it. We’ll wait until we’ve got it perfect.” Isaac nodded.
Noah wandered out of the shed with Adam. “That gives me another couple of weeks.”
“You’re not playing it straight then?”
“Only if I don’t figure out something better. Did you notice nobody said they really liked it this way?”
Adam nodded. “I noticed.”
Noah got into his car. He might swing past Natalia’s on the way home and see if that blue car was still there.
It was. Maybe someone had come with Eva. It made sense they wouldn’t let a little girl travel from New York on her own. Maybe that someone with Eva was who Natalia didn’t want him to meet. Maybe that was what this was all about.
He might go and see Natalia tomorrow after all. He might see if she would help him with ‘Train Wreck’. It would give him a good excuse to meet Eva and see if he had been right about someone else being there.
Chapter Nine
About mid-morning the next day, he stood outside Natalia’s house. He had his doubts about this plan now. She didn’t like being disobeyed, and she wasn’t slow to let him know when he’d annoyed her. Still he’d go mad if he didn’t find out what was going on. He got the violin and the folder with the music out of the back seat and then shut and locked the car door.
He opened the gate and walked around the back passing the little blue car parked in the driveway. Whoever had brought Eva from the airport was still here.
When he knocked on the door, he heard movement inside then someone coming down the passageway. This was it. He swapped the violin case to the other hand as the door opened.
He expected it to be Natalia and had his speech ready. He needed her to work with him on ‘Train Wreck’. He thought she would be able to hear what he was doing wrong.
But when the door swung back, instead of Natalia, a young woman in ripped jeans, a t-shirt and little red leather boots crinkled around her ankles stood there. She looked that much like Natalia she had to be her sister or cousin or something. The same dark eyes and long dark hair, the same slender curviness.
“Hi,” he said, puzzled. Maybe she’d come with Eva from New York. That made sense. “Is Natalia here?”
The young woman nodded. “She’s inside.” She turned and called down the passageway, “Mama, there’s someone here to see you.”
Mama? “Eva?” he asked. This had to be Eva, and she had to be at least his age. He couldn’t believe it. He’d been expecting a little girl.
She turned back and smiled at him. “Yes. Are you one of Mama’s students?”
He nodded, still stunned. She watched him a moment looking puzzled.
That’s right. It was his turn to say something.
He stuck out his hand to shake hers. “Noah. Natalia said you were coming to visit.” Luckily, he didn’t sound as stunned as he felt.
“Pleased to meet you, Noah.” They shook hands. Surreal. Where was the little girl in the picture on the piano?
“Mama never said she had students booked in today.”
He shook his head. “I’m not booked in.”
At that moment Natalia appeared behind Eva.
“Noah?” She looked as shocked as he felt. “Why are you here?”
He held up the violin in its case, as if that answered her question. “I need help to learn Isaac’s thing,” he explained to clear things up.
Her eyebrows lifted. “But you knew I would have a visitor…”
Eva interrupted before Natalia could finish the sentence. “It’s fine, Mama. Lenny will be here any moment, and then we are going to the beach. I don’t mind.”
Natalia sighed and moved away from the doorway. “Come in then, Noah if you must.” The three of them walked to the studio. “Has Isaac changed the score?” Natalia took the folder from him, her movements abrupt. Yep. She was angry. She opened it and put the music on the stand.
“No.” He put the violin case onto the top of the piano and opened the case. The photo of Eva sat there. He glanced at it.
Yep, the same person as the girl curled up on the couch near the window. He could see the likeness.
It must have been taken nearly twenty years ago. Maybe fifteen, but a bloody long time ago.
He took the violin out of the case. “It’s not that. I had an idea, but I can’t make it work.” This might not have been such a good idea. Especially as Eva looked old enough to fly from New York on her own and drive herself here from the airport. No reason to think anyone else might be here.
Natalia sighed and sat on the piano seat. She looked like she wanted to kill him.
“And you thought I could?” He could hear the sarcasm. He’d bet if she could come up with a way to get rid of him she would.
“What are you playing?” Eva asked. The way she’d sat down on the couch looked like she planned on sticking around to listen. Just what he needed, to play the violin in front of a virtuoso. Now he felt nearly as reluctant as Natalia looked.
“Something Isaac wrote,” her mother answered.
“Who’s Isaac?”
Natalia sighed deeply again. “Isaac plays in the same band as Noah. He’s has been writing for them. He’s very talented. This is his latest piece.”
Eva didn’t seem to pick up on her mother’s reluctance to let this go on. She looked over at him. “What is your band called?”
“Stadium,” he said.
“What does Stadium play?” Eva asked in a being polite to a guest way.
“Rock? Though with Isaac writing for us it could be anything.”
“A rock band?” Now Eva sounded interested. “And Isaac’s using violin?” He nodded. “That’s exciting. Play the piece for me.”
He pulled out his phone. He’d play the recording Isaac made of him playing it straight. He didn’t want to risk stumbling through the piece, badly with Eva and Natalia listening. What had he been thinking when he came here?
He scrolled through and found the recording. “There’s still some work to do.
The violin wailed out. It didn’t sound bad. He could have stuck with doing it like Isaac wanted.
The three of them listened. At the end Noah hit pause.
Eva bounced off the couch. “I love it. That’s so clever and so different.”
Natalia rolled her eyes. “It’s fine. Leave it like that.” She still wanted to get rid of him.
But there were a few questions he wanted answered now he’d recovered from the shock of Eva being the same age he was. If someone was coming to pick up Eva soon, he’d wait her out.
“Was that you on the violin?” Eva asked. Noah nodded. “It sounds like you know it.” Eva still bubbled with excitement. “But I know how I’d play it.” She went over to the open violin case.
“Eva, you should be getting ready for your day out,” her mother remonstrated.
Eva ignored her. “May I?” she asked, her hands reaching for the violin. Noah nodded. She picked it and the bow up. “And that’s the sheet music?” She looked at the stand.
“Yeah, that’s the score.” Noah rubbed his chin with the side of his hand. He hadn’t expected Eva to want to play it.
She stood by the stand and studied the music. Then with the violin under her chin she went through the familiar routine of checking the tightness of the bow and the tuning. Easy to see she’d been trained by Natalia. Exactly the way he did it, and for that matter, Isaac and Adam.
She studied the music for a few moments again, stood back from the stand, shut her eyes and drew the bow across the strings. The fingers of her left hand shuddered back and forth creating vibrato. The sound shimmered. Then, with one long sweep oscillating backwards slowly, she created a sound lower in pitch from the main note. The effect was electrifying and close to what he’d imagined with all the eeriness and longing of a train’s whistle in the distance.
She hit the strings with the bow near the frog, fast, again and again, to create a scratching sound all coming in under the vibrato wail to mimic a train on the tracks. A bouncing stroke played on broken chords, some sort of arpeggiato played in a way he hadn’t heard before, but with the dissonance he’d sensed in Isaac’s version.
She went to the melody, and he could hear the effect of a train in the distance.
Noah sat on the couch and watched Eva, so like Natalia, so beautiful, but free, moving with the sound, without the stitched-down formality Natalia had. And making this amazing music come out of the instrument.
He had to learn how to do that. He wasn’t letting her out of the room until he could make Isaac’s music sound like longing and ghosts and the promise of freedom all at once the way she did.
Chapter Ten
She finally came to the end and lowered the bow then the violin. The silence echoed in the small room. Natalia had stayed on the piano seat through Eva’s performance. She seemed as stunned as he felt.
He’d bet Eva didn’t learn to play like that with Natalia teaching her. And he’d bet that wasn’t what Natalia had sent her to New York to learn either. He hadn’t heard anything like it before. He didn’t even know what the style would be called. Hip hop maybe? Alternative definitely.
“What do you think?” asked Eva.
“Amazing,” he said.
‘Oh, Eva,” said Natalia. And he couldn’t tell if the sound of tears in her voice was from disappointment at the style of Eva’s playing, or pride and awe at how good her daughter was. He was pretty sure Natalia thought Eva was a classical violinist and that had been anything but classical.
Even if Natalia didn’t know how to react, he was going for awe. He stood up and took the violin and bow off her. “Absolutely brilliant,” he said. He hadn’t ever heard anything like it. A million times better than what he’d been imagining.
He tucked the violin under his chin. “Now, teach me how to play it like that.”
Eva nodded. “We should both play it, then we can work out how it should go together. I’ll get my violin.” She left the lounge, and he guessed her bedroom had to be the one beside the one where he’d been fucking her mother for the last five years. Bloody hell.
As soon as Eva left the room, Natalia stood, took the two steps between him and piano stool and swung at him. Her open hand hit his cheek with enough force to knock him over if he hadn’t been expecting it.
But it would be a wonder if Eva didn’t hear the smack and come running to see what had happened.
“Jesus, Natalia.” He rubbed at the cheek with the back of the hand holding the bow.
“Leave,” she hissed quietly and vehemently.
“No.” He wasn’t leaving. He wanted to learn to do what Eva did, and he wanted a few answers from Natalia. “I’m staying.” He spoke as quietly as she did.
He could hear Eva coming back. Natalia glared at him then gave in. She shrugged, turned, went to the piano stool and was sitting again before her daughter came into the room.
He tucked the violin under his chin. At least Natalia had hit on the side of his face that lay against the violin when he played. Hopefully if Eva noticed the mark she’d put it down to that.
“I can’t wait to see how this works,” said Eva excitedly as she came through the door.
They checked the two violins were tuned the same and made a few adjustments.
“Where do you want to start?” he asked.
“The melody?” Eva stood by the stand ready to play. He nodded and moved beside her so they could both see the music.
Slowly, for the next hour, Eva explained the techniques she’d used while Natalia watched them together. They played then stopped and discussed something that could be made better and tried again. Natalia sat silently as they slowly built the sound they wanted. He had the feeling they were inventing a new style.
After a while, Eva sat on the couch gently cradling her violin. “I think we could try something else too.”
He sat down beside her. “What?” He had started to worry Eva’s friend would turn up before he’d learned enough from her. Natalia seemed peripheral to this.
“If the violin was high strung it could intensify the effect,” said Eva.
“High strung?” he knew so
me guitarists replaced the E, A, D, and G strings with lighter gauge strings than standard, so they could tune an octave higher but hadn’t realised anyone did it with the violin. “Like in ‘Hey You’ and ‘Wild Horses’?” he asked.
Eva nodded. “Almost.” Then glanced at Natalia, aware of her mother’s disapproval finally, she turned back to Noah. “Or Paganini’s First Violin Concerto in E Flat major. The violin part is written in D-major, but the violin is tuned a tone higher,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. “Classical musicians use scordatura too, Mama.”
Noah watched as Natalia sighed again. “Classical musicians who are about to perform with the country’s national orchestra don’t usually play like street musicians in their spare time.”
So, when Eva annoyed her, Natalia would lash out the way she did with him. He decided to deflect whatever Natalia planned to say next. He turned to Eva. “Are you playing with the NZSO?”
Eva nodded. “That is part of the reason I’m here. I’m the guest soloist this season. I’m going to Wellington to rehearse with the orchestra next week, then I’m touring with them. Mama is flying down so she can see the first performance. It is a long time since she has heard me play live.”
“Until today.” He couldn’t resist saying it and then looked over at Natalia. Maybe he should leave before Eva’s friend arrived. The bruise on his cheek would take a week to fade. He didn’t need other injuries.
Eva laughed at the comment, then went back to explaining her idea.
“With a violin it’s difficult to tune a whole octave higher the way you can with a guitar. But a tritone is possible. If you tune the top two strings up a fourth, you’d get a similar effect.”
He nodded. It was a bloody good idea. He could just hear what it might sound like.
“Do we have time to try it?” he asked.
“I don’t have the flexible strings with me.” Eva looked over at Natalia again. “Do you have any here Mama?”