by Emma Davies
There was an intake of breath and an angry silence.
‘And where would you be, Isobel, were it not for those things? Tell me that.’
Her mother was gathering herself for an attack, but Isobel had heard it all before.
‘No? Shall I tell you? You’d be a nothing, a nobody, just the same as the rest of them, with no talent to speak of beyond some pathetic ninth grade certificate stuck on the fridge door. Don’t you realise how special you are, Isobel? Don’t you realise the sacrifices we’ve made on your behalf, just so that you can get where you are today…?’
Isobel held the phone away from her ear, but she could still hear her mother’s strident voice.
‘…And who would look after you, were it not for us. You can’t cope on your own, Isobel, you know that, you never could.’ Her voice softened slightly. ‘Come home, and we can have a chat about all of this. I know it’s only because you’re so anxious that you’ve done this. I know you’re not really trying to make us suffer…’
Isobel swallowed. ‘Mum, I’m not coming home, do you hear me? I’m writing music, I’m doing my practice, I’m eating well, and I’m not coming home. I’m only phoning now so that you know I’m okay. There’s no phone signal at the cottage where I’m staying. In fact, I’m having to stand in the middle of a field to make this call. I won’t be ringing again until I’m ready, so there’s really no point in trying to contact me.’
‘But how long are you going to be away for?’
‘Six weeks.’ Isobel shut her eyes.
‘Six weeks!’ her mother shrieked. ‘Don’t be so absurd. Your composition has to be finished in six weeks, or had you forgotten? And this is your only chance, Isobel, your only chance. Have I made myself clear? You are to come home straight away and we’ll say no more about it. Tell me where you are and I’ll come and pick you up before you make an absolute disaster out of the thing.’
‘No, Mum. I’m staying here.’
‘Then I shall have to see what Dr Mason has to say about it.’ Her voice had dropped dangerously low.
‘Call him. I doubt he’ll be interested, not now I’ve discharged myself from his list. I’m no longer his patient. I’m no longer anyone’s patient…’
‘You ungrateful little—’
Isobel disconnected the call.
Chapter 7
Isobel raised both arms above her head and, linking her fingers together, turned her palms to the ceiling, stretching as high as she could. She waggled her head from side to side and then, dropping her arms, began to roll her shoulders in a circle, forwards and backwards. She had the most unbearable headache and her shoulders and neck felt like they were caught in a vice.
She should have left the phone call until this morning, not made it so late in the day when, inevitably, it had led to a night with very little sleep. Isobel had lain there for hours, alternating between bouts of seething anger and anguish bordering on terror. Now she had spent the morning unable to settle to any meaningful work, remnants of the conversation with her mother working their insidious way into all the gaps between her notes. She needed a break and some fresh air.
Opening the front door, she automatically looked across to her right and to the cottage where Tom was working. He had been there first thing, but now there was no sign of him and she frowned; it was the hottest part of the day and he was quite possibly snoozing somewhere in the shade. A gentle breeze blew across the garden and she lifted her hair away from the back of her neck, enjoying the feeling as the current of air tickled her bare skin. She stood on the path for a few moments feeling the soothing warmth of the paving stones underneath her bare toes, before making her way towards the grassed area and the bench that lay there.
‘Good morning!’
The friendly greeting came from her left and she turned to see Clara hard at work, digging in one of the beds. She hadn’t realised that there was anyone in the garden and her first instinct was to turn away, but the sight of Clara’s friendly face made her recognise that being on her own was the last thing she wanted. She waved tentatively.
Clara’s long blonde hair was wrapped into a messy bun and piled on top of her head, sagging slightly to one side each time she pushed the fork into the soil. She must be boiling – Isobel had been feeling the heat simply sitting still in the cool of the cottage.
‘You must be baking in this weather,’ she said. ‘Can I get you a glass of water or something from the cottage?’
Clara straightened and indicated an empty plastic water bottle standing on the path a little distance away. ‘I actually remembered this morning to bring this out with me,’ she said, grinning, ‘but I'm afraid it didn't last very long. I'd love some more, if you don’t mind?’
Isobel collected the empty bottle, returned to the cottage and filled it with water before taking it back to Clara. She was still digging. Now that Isobel was closer she could see that Clara was not simply turning over the soil, but digging up piles of onions. She handed her the drink, watching as Clara lifted the bottle to her lips and drank almost half of it straight down.
She grinned. ‘That's better. You don't realise how thirsty you are until you stop and think about it, do you? Still, I'm not going to complain about the heat, it's going to do wonderful things for my Allium cepas.’
‘Your what?’
‘Allium cepas,’ repeated Clara. ‘Or onions to you and me.’ She squinted at Isobel. ‘I need the sun to dry this lot out, you see, and the longer it stays hot, the better. The drier they get, the better they'll keep, and Trixie will be needing loads of these over the coming months.’
Isobel frowned. ‘I never knew that,’ she said. ‘I thought you just dug them up and then, hey presto, they’re ready to use.’ She looked around her. ‘There's so much to do here, isn't there?’
‘There is, but that's what I love – every day brings something different. Once I've got this lot dug up, I'll be pinching out the tips on my tomato plants, feeding my peppers, and if I get that lot done I've got some cabbages to sow for next spring.’
‘Blimey, and I thought I had my work cut out for me.’
Clara reached down and pulled free the onions she had just unearthed, shaking the soil from them before placing them to one side. ‘Well I couldn't do what you do,’ she said. ‘I haven't got a creative bone in my body.’
‘Most people say that.’ Isobel smiled. ‘But you'd be surprised; pretty much everyone likes music, and most people can hold a tune and recognise notes with a little instruction. Although, I'll be the first to admit that this doesn’t apply to all people.’
Clara laughed. ‘I think I may well be that exception,’ she said. ‘But I guess music is like anything – there's lots to learn, but if you get the basics right, you can go from there. Same with gardening. People always tell me they don't know how on earth I remember all the names for things, or how to care for each individual plant’s likes and dislikes, but if you're interested in something it's instinctive to want to learn more. Then it just comes with time, until you don’t even realise it’s become a part of you.’
‘I guess so,’ replied Isobel, thinking. ‘But music is very structured, it has its roots in mathematics, and although there are variations in sound from each particular instrument depending on where you play it, how you play it, and even the instrument itself, by and large you always know what you're going to get out of it.’ She stared at the pile of onions beside Clara. ‘When I play I decide how something is going to sound and that's exactly what I get, but surely when you grow things you can never be that certain of the results. Doesn't mother nature like to stick her oar in from time to time?’
‘Oh, that she does. Sometimes I think she’s the most incredible woman, hugely generous, with an ability to create something from almost nothing. That’s when I’m completely in awe of her.’ She paused, thrusting her fork back into the soil and straightening up. ‘Of course, at other times I could cheerfully strangle her. Too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry, and then just when you thi
nk everything is going to plan she sends vast quantities of some hideous insect to steadily chomp its way through everything you've grown.’
She kicked at the pile of onions beside her and then bent down to pick one up. She grinned. ‘And, of course, there are those times when everything goes exactly to plan and yet you still get some little blighter like this.’ She held out the onion, which was small and shrivelled and nothing like its perfectly formed counterparts. She shrugged. ‘Although, I confess, a part of me likes that too.’ She gave an embarrassed smile. ‘I tend to root for the underdog.’
Isobel winced, looking at the sad little object in Clara's hand. ‘I'm not sure I could cope with that,’ she said. ‘I like everything to turn out the way I want it to; a little regimented perhaps, and there's always nuances of course, but with music the end result is either right or wrong, and if a note is wrong it's not something either you, or your audience, can put up with.’
Clara watched her for a moment. ‘What, even if you’ve played with all your heart?’ she said. ‘That doesn’t sound very forgiving. I think if I were listening I’d much rather hear someone who played with everything they had, even if they missed a few notes, than someone who played perfectly but without any feeling. Imagine how flat that would sound?’
‘I'm not sure I quite understand what you mean.’ Isobel was beginning to feel very uncomfortable. ‘It’s almost as if you’re saying that it doesn't matter how good the music is? But if I play incorrectly the music is just wrong, it doesn't sound the same. How can that possibly be what any audience wants?’
‘No, I didn't quite mean that,’ said Clara, looking a little awkward. ‘And obviously someone who plays to your standard would be technically brilliant as well. But when your audience can see and hear when you've invested every little bit of yourself, all your emotion into the music, I imagine it must make the performance feel even more special. Just like me and my vegetables…’
‘But I don’t… that isn't what I—’ And then Isobel stopped because she really didn't know what else to say. She stared at Clara. She wasn't the first person to say these things to her, and every time someone did, Isobel knew deep down they made absolutely perfect sense. That’s why it was so hard to understand why she had never been told that when she was younger. All her hours of practice, the playing of the same pieces over and over again, had only ever been about her technique. That was what was important. Each note, perfect. Followed by the next note, in the perfect place, at the perfect time. People never realised how hard it was to achieve that. It was never about emotion. How could it be, when emotion was the thing that got in the way? The thing that made her forget what perfect was? And perfection was what she strived for, that was what they always wanted, and what she'd been taught to deliver.
She could feel an ominous chill sweep through the pit of her stomach but she gave Clara a broad smile. ‘Oh yes of course, you're absolutely right.’
‘Perhaps that's why I like my garden so much,’ added Clara. ‘It's full of so many different personalities, just like pieces of music. The sunflowers are so in your face – look at me, I'm amazing, they shout. The Michaelmas daisies are so friendly; they always look to me as if they're smiling, nodding their heads gently in the breeze. The peonies are voluptuous, rich and intoxicating, while the roses are much more demure, like shy debutants.’
Isobel looked at the garden around her. She could see all the flowers that Clara was referring to, and yes, the daisy heads were nodding gently and the colours of the peonies were rich in contrast with the roses, except that they were still flowers. Isobel couldn't see how they had personalities of their own – differences admittedly, but that was just down to size, shape and shading. And she couldn't see how it had anything whatsoever to do with music.
It was true that she had favourite pieces to play, some of them fast, some of them slow. Some were technically very difficult, and others less so, and it was usually the case that the more difficult pieces gave her the biggest feeling of accomplishment, but did they really have personalities of their own? She thought for a moment. She supposed they must do. They could certainly change her own mood when she played them, so it stood to reason that her audience would feel the same way when listening to them, but it shocked her to think that she had never been taught to play that way. To her, a good performance was one where she played perfectly, nothing more, nothing less. She had never even given a thought to the moods and emotions of the people listening to her music. The voices of countless critics paraded through her head just as they did during her worst nightmares, and despite the heat of the day, she shivered from the cold inside her.
Isobel had come outside because she thought the break would do her good. It was supposed to give her some respite from the thoughts pressing inside her head, but all it had done was throw up more questions. And they were questions to which she had no answers. It wasn’t Clara’s fault. The garden was lovely, and Isobel could recognise real passion for something when she saw it. On any other occasion, it could have been just the thing she needed, but today, even Clara’s easy conversation couldn’t take away how she was feeling.
She chatted for a few minutes more, both of them wandering back up the path towards the place where Clara had originally been digging. A check on her watch confirmed that Trixie would soon be appearing with lunch, and both this and the amount of work that Clara still had to do gave her a good excuse to head back to the cottage. She waved goodbye, slightly saddened that she found herself glad to be closing the door behind her once more.
She stood in the centre of the living room for a few moments. Her computer screen was lit up with the random movements of her screensaver, but she knew that as soon as she moved the mouse her work would appear just as she had left it. She picked up her headphones and passed them from hand to hand as she walked back and forth across the room. That morning had seen her begin to flesh out the opening movement of the piece she had been working on, and although progress had been hard going, she had put that down to her general distraction. Now she was beginning to wonder if that was not the real problem at all and if all along she had been trying to convince herself that her composition was good, when she knew deep down that it was not. Now her break in the garden had allowed her to see that she hadn’t been distracted at all; she had been deluded. She had been labouring away on something she had known to be flawed. The thought of listening to it again filled her with trepidation. She pulled out her chair and sat down.
Taking a slightly deeper breath, she rested her hand on the mouse and, with a few clicks, set her music playing. She stilled herself, closing her eyes and concentrating on what she could hear: the pattern of notes, the tempo, the rise and fall and fluidity of the sound. It was five minutes long and she listened, scarcely breathing, and instead of interpreting what she heard from the point of view of a musician, she tried to listen as if she was sitting in an auditorium.
Even before the piece was halfway through, she had her answer. She had deliberately written the music to be challenging. It was designed to showcase her skill as a composer and she knew that, when it was eventually played, there were very few musicians apart from her who could do it justice. It was meant to be a piece that would receive a rapturous reception, silencing her critics once and for all. After such a long absence from the music scene people would be clamouring to hear something sublime from her, an original piece of work that transcended all else, and that was what Isobel had been determined to give them. Except she hadn’t. The music carried no story, it had no personality and, in contrast to the vibrant colours in Clara's garden, it was dull and lifeless.
Chapter 8
A beautiful perfume hung on the evening air as Isobel made her way to the bench. She didn’t recognise the particular scent, but the garden was massed with flowers and it could be any number of them. Dusk was just beginning to fall but at the height of summer the air was still warm, even at this time of night. The longest day was behind them though and Isobel registered a slig
ht sadness that the days were already on the wane. All too soon the dark days of autumn and winter would be upon them, and she really had no idea where she would be by then, or what she would be doing. She sighed.
Clara too, she noticed, had made the most of the long day, waiting until the heat of the sun had gone from the garden before watering the crops and flowers which covered every inch of the space. Isobel had seen her from the window, wandering up and down the paths for the last hour or so, but now she was gone and Isobel could see drops of water glistening on the foliage around her. Part of her had wanted to come out and talk to the friendly gardener again, but she hadn’t known what to say, and so she remained inside. Perhaps she might pluck up the courage on another day.
Now, she simply sat and listened to the birdsong. Unusually, her right shoulder was aching, symptomatic of the tension with which she had played during the afternoon. She had set her piece of music to one side and instead gone back to one of her practice pieces, trying to analyse the music, the emotion contained within, but every time she stopped, her thoughts had got the better of her and she had worked herself into a fury, playing far too aggressively which got her nowhere. She had neither played well, nor accomplished what she had set out to do, and now she had wasted a whole day. It was time she could ill afford to lose. To try and soothe her frustration she had taken a long shower after dinner and read for a little while, but now the prospect of a night tossing and turning was ahead of her and she didn’t know what to do with herself.
A loud jangling sounded from behind her and, startled, she twisted around. Tom was making his way across the garden, his mobile phone jammed to his ear. From the way he was walking she could tell he had no idea she was sitting there.