Rough Music

by Patrick Gale

  “HIGHLY INTELLIGENT

  AND BEAUTIFULLY CRAFTED …

  Gale is an English novelist with a particular gift for family dynamics. Cleverly structured and sophisticated in its treatment of time, his latest novel is an alternately sweet, touching, and somber tale.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “I envy the lucky souls about to read Patrick Gale for the first time. I’ll never forget the exhilaration I felt upon discovering his wryly elegant narratives, so full of compassion and contradiction. And Rough Music is Gale’s most graceful and gripping work yet: a sort of omnisexual family mystery that reveals itself over the course of two far-apart seaside summers. I was torn between a reader’s urge to devour it on the spot and a writer’s instinct to dissect and analyze every splendid sentence.”

  —ARMISTEAD MAUPIN

  “Gale shows abundant skill in differentiating between Julian’s childish and grown-up voices and in maintaining control over his busy, crowded, and ultimately quite poignant narrative.”

  —The Baltimore Sun

  “The novel tells parallel stories by alternating chapters set in the past and in the present; each is a gripping tale, all the more so because the reader knows that one presupposes the other. Gale’s rich prose captures nervous energy, impatience, and suspense remarkably well.”

  —Booklist

  “An emotionally satisfying novel … Rich characterizations … The effects of the past, the frustrations of family, and the uncertainty of the future are examined in subtle detail…. Rough Music is a touching examination of modern life. It movingly delineates the daily dangers of living and the absolute necessity of ‘carrying on.’”

  —The Anniston Star

  International acclaim for Rough Music

  “Gale’s skill at evoking well-meaning yet complex characters; his faultlessly vivid eye for geography, weather, household detail; and his ability to swing easily between two fractured timescales while making both matter—all of these prove him to be a real craftsman, a master storyteller. Quite simply, you believe every word he tells you.”

  —The Independent on Sunday

  “Finely written … Gale’s tenderness for his characters comes over strongly and he is excellent at the telling detail and description.”

  —Daily Mail

  “An endearingly old-fashioned, generational saga … Gale unravels the details through dialogue as convincing as it is plentiful, while examining containment, fidelity, and identity within a child’s universe and the years beyond.”

  —The Observer

  “A marvelous, page-turning, edge-of-your seat story … Gale’s ability to evoke the emotional onslaught of love, the subtle awakening of sexual passion, and the encroaching terrors of old age and illness are extraordinary—there are no false notes in this book.”

  —Marie Claire

  “[Rough Music] belongs to a broad canon of works by English rural moralists. Think Austen, Hardy, or Murdoch. Like Austen, Gale tempers judgment with humour and comprehension. His plots—seemingly effortless, but closely structured—resemble Iris Murdoch’s…. Gripping, elegant, and wise, it is Gale’s best book to date and should not be missed.”

  —The Independent

  “FULL OF SURPRISES AND REVERSALS …

  The structure of Rough Music is a masterstroke…. Gale is one of the few male novelists I have read who draws with sympathy and intelligence the contradictions and confusions of women in conventional relationships…. Rough Music is, like all family histories, by turns disturbing and funny.”

  —New Statesman

  “In all his fiction, and nowhere more triumphantly than in this latest novel, Gale gets under the skins of his characters…. The dignity [Gale] gives individuals’ stories is remarkable and compelling. Also impressive is the mirroring of events, echoing throughout with an almost prophetic resonance.”

  —Sunday Herald (Glasgow)

  “Secrets lurking close to the surface which culminate in emotional chaos and erotic clandestine trysts make this such a compelling read. Four stars.”

  —Eve Magazine

  “[Gale] weaves a stunning tapestry on which is portrayed the treasons, deceptions, selfishness, tricks of memory, wounds, and mercies that comprise family life.”

  —The Gold Coast Bulletin

  “Gale excels at writing about families, and his new book is no exception…. Gale’s treatment of ethical questions and sexual morality is startling in showing how families will absorb even the most treacherous acts.”

  —The Age

  Also by Patrick Gale

  THE AERODYNAMICS OF PORK

  KANSAS IN AUGUST

  EASE

  FACING THE TANK

  LITTLE BITS OF BABY

  THE CAT SANCTUARY

  CAESAR’S WIFE (NOVELLA)

  THE FACTS OF LIFE

  DANGEROUS PLEASURES (STORIES)

  TREE SURGERY FOR BEGINNERS

  FOR AIDAN HICKS

  I turn away, yet should I turn back the arbour would be gone and on the frozen ground the birds lie dead.

  (from The Rake’s Progress,

  W. H. AUDEN & CHESTER KALLMAN)

  “I often dream about walking down a Cornish lane in the summertime with high hedges on either side full of butterflies.”

  (Ronnie Biggs, train robber,

  The Daily Telegraph, July 23, 1999)

  “Let us shut it out,” coaxed Elizabeth-Jane, noting that the rigid wildness of Lucetta’s features was growing yet more rigid and wild with the nearing of the noise and laughter. “Let us shut it out!”

  (from The Mayor of Casterbridge,

  THOMAS HARDY)

  She walked across the sand carrying a shoe in either hand, drawn forward as much by the great blue moon up ahead as by the sound of the breaking waves. The moon had a ring around it which promised or threatened something, she forgot what exactly.

  The chill of the foam shocked her skin. She stood still and felt the delicious tug beneath her soles as the water sucked sand out from under them. The water was as cold as death.

  If I stood here long enough, she thought, just stood, the sea would draw out more and more sand from under me and bring more and more back in. Little by little I’d sink, ankles already, knees soon, then waist, then belly.

  She imagined standing up to her tingling breasts in sucking, salty sand. When the first, disarmingly little wave struck her in the face, would she panic? Would she, instead, laugh, as they said, inappropriately?

  She dared herself not to move.

  The moon was nearly full. She could see the headland on the far side of the estuary mouth and its stumpy, striped lighthouse. She could see the foam flung and drawn, flung and drawn about her. He was striding across the little beach behind her; she could tell without turning. Would his hands touch her first or would she merely feel the jacket he draped about her? Would he call out from yards away or would she hear his voice soft and sudden when his lips were only inches from her neck?

  Her resolution not to turn stiffened her spine. Watching weeds and foam rush away from her for long enough made it feel as though the sea and beach were motionless and it was only she who was gliding back and forth on mysterious salty tracks.

  I love you. She felt the words well up. I love you more than words can say. Which was true, of course, because when she felt his steadying hands about her shoulders at last and the brush of his lips on her neck, all that came from her mouth was, “I turn you. Turn my words away?”

  BLUE HOUSE

  “Actually I feel a bit of a fraud being here,” Will told her. “I’m basically a happy man. No. There’s no basically about it. I’m happy. I am a happy man.”

  “Good,” she said, crossing her legs and caressing an ankle as if to smooth out a crease she f
ound there. “What makes you say that?”

  “That I’m happy?”

  She nodded.

  “Well.” He uncrossed his legs, sat back in the sofa and peered out of her study window. He saw the waters of the Bross glittering at the edge of Boniface Gardens, two walkers pausing, briefly allied by the gamboling of their dogs. “I imagine you usually see people at their wit’s end. People with depression or insoluble problems.”

  “Occasionally. Some people come to me merely because they’ve lost their way.”

  He detected a certain sacerdotal smugness in her tone and suspected he hated her. “Well I’m here because a friend bought me a handful of sessions for my birthday. She thinks I need them.”

  “Do you mind?”

  He shrugged, laughed. “Makes a change from socks and book tokens.”

  “But you don’t feel you need to be here.”

  “I … I know it sounds arrogant but no, I don’t. Not especially. It’s just that it would have been rude not to come, even though she’ll be far too discreet to ask how I get on with you. If I didn’t come, I’d be rejecting her present and I’d hate to do that. I love her.”

  “Her being?”

  “Harriet. My best friend. She’s like a second sister but I think of her as a friend first and family second.”

  “You have more loyalty to friends than family?”

  “I didn’t say that. But you know how it is; people move on from family and choose new allies. It’s part of becoming an adult. I feel I’m moving on too. A little late in the day, I suppose.”

  “Your best friend’s a woman.”

  “Is that unusual?” She said nothing, waiting for him to speak. “I suppose it is,” he went on. “I’m just not a bloke’s bloke. I never have been. I find women more congenial, more evolved. I mean I’m perfectly happy being a man, but I find I have more in common with women.”

  “Such as?”

  He did hate her. He hated her royally. “The things we laugh at. The things we do with our free time. And, okay, I suppose you’ll want to talk about this—”

  “I don’t want to talk about anything you don’t want to talk about.”

  “Whatever. We also share sexual interests. I mean we like the same thing.”

  “You’re homosexual?”

  “I’m gay.” He smiled, determined to charm her, but she was impervious and vouchsafed no more than a wintry smile. “I told you. I’m a happy man.”

  “Your sexuality isn’t a problem for you.”

  “It never has been. It’s a constant source of delight. Not a day goes by when I don’t thank God. If anything I’m relieved. Especially now my friends are all having children.”

  “You never wanted children.”

  “Of course. Sometimes. Hats jokes that if she dies I can have hers. But no. The impulse came and went. There are more than enough children in the world and I’m not so obsessed with seeing myself reproduced. Besides, one of my nephews is the spitting image of me, which has taken care of that. I love my own company. I don’t think I’m selfish exactly but I’m self-sufficient.”

  “What about settling down? You’re, what, thirty-five?”

  “Thank you for that. I turned forty earlier this year. I have settled down. I have a satisfying job, a nice flat. I just happen to have settled down alone.”

  “And watching all those girlfriends settled with their partners doesn’t make you want a significant other.”

  “Oh. I have one of those. Sort of, I suppose. He’s really why I’m here. I made a promise to him. It was a joke really, but I told Harriet and—”

  “Tell me about him.”

  He paused. Glanced out at the view again. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s private.”

  “Whatever you tell me—”

  “—is in strictest confidence. Yes. I know. But we’ve barely met, you’re still a stranger to me and I’d rather not talk about him just now. It’s not a painful situation. He’s a lovely man. He makes me happy. But I didn’t come here to talk about him.”

  A slight, attentive raising of her eyebrows asked, So what did you come to talk about?

  “Shouldn’t we start with my childhood?” he said. “Isn’t that the usual thing?”

  “If you like.”

  “I warn you. I wasn’t abused. I wasn’t neglected. I love my parents and I loved my childhood. It was very, very happy.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  BEACHCOMBER

  “You can’t possibly go to bed yet. It’s only four,” Ma sighed. She was packing food, most of it tinned, into a big box. He saw corned beef, grapefruit segments, fruit salad, rice pudding, baked beans, yellow pie filling, red pie filling and the detested steak-in-gravy. She had on his favorite of her summer dresses, very short and covered with enormous daisies, and the white Dr. Scholl sandals he liked to try to walk in sometimes. She looked up from her labors and saw his face. She smiled. “You’re so excited you’re not going to sleep for hours in any case. Have you finished packing?”

  “Yes.”

  “Teddy packed?”

  “Yes, and books and crayons and everything.”

  “Monopoly.”

  “And Totopoly and Scrabble. They’re all in the hall where you told me. But Pa said there’ll be games in the house.”

  “Well, you can never be sure. That dreadful place he rented in Northumberland only had Spin Quiz. Remember how boring that got? Oh, but you’re too young to remember, I suppose. Now …” She sighed and carried on packing things from the larder. “Have an apple to clean your teeth.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Well how about getting your bed all ready, then go and play in the garden for a bit so I can get finished in here?”

  “All right.”

  Secretly delighted, he left the room slowly, pretending she had set him a chore. She called after him.

  “How about Lady Percy?”

  “She’s already in.”

  As he ran up the huge spiral of stairs, the hall clock struck four. First he moved the lunar module model, finished that morning, off his bed to the relative obscurity of a bookshelf. It had bored him really. The kit was a present from the same godfather who religiously sent him baffling first-day covers for his nonexistent stamp collection. Julian had only made it up out of politeness and now it felt as out of place in his bedroom as a football or cap-gun would have done. He snatched the pillow off his bed and the sheets and blanket, then, doing his best not to trip, carried the boulder of bedding back downstairs, out of the open front door and across the drive to the car. He laid it carefully on the gravel, which was fairly dry, then opened the hatch at the back with a grunt of effort, standing on the bumper for a better reach. Whistling to himself, he began to make his bed for the journey on the short mattress that lined the shelf at the vehicle’s rear.

  Referred to by Mrs. Coley, the awestruck cleaning lady, as a dormobile it was, strictly speaking, a Volkswagen Devon Caravette. Julian always thought of it as the Height of Extravagance, however, because that was how his father referred to it whenever the subject arose. Ma had bought the gleaming red and white thing on impulse with some money a dead person left her. Ma’s theory was that they could save money by going on camping holidays instead of renting or that they could, at least, spend the occasional night in it instead of stopping at a bed and breakfast. It was beautifully equipped. There was a little gas cooker that smelled funny and a fridge and even a sink with a dribble of running water, which all disappeared into cupboards when you didn’t need them. There was a table with sofas on either side so Julian could do drawings and play games and face forward or backward as they drove and never commit that cardinal childish sin of getting bored. And at bedtime the table sort of dismantled and combined with the sofa cushions into a grown-up bed for Ma and Pa while Julian slept on the shelf behind them. This seemed incredibly intimate, as though they had stopped being people and had become furry nesting animals, like foxes or badgers. The pleasure it gave him was so intense
that he could not understand why they did not sleep in it at least one night of every week. They had only once gone camping as a family, for a disastrously wet weekend on the Isle of Wight, when tempers had run high and Pa had said Bloody Hell Frances a lot and had insisted on frying breakfast on the little stove with the door shut against the wind and rain. When Julian pressed his nose to the curtains or itchy upholstery he could still detect traces of the smell of burning bacon.

  Since then, the Height of Extravagance had rarely served her purpose, although she made Ma popular on the school run. On a few bewitching occasions, Ma had kidnapped Julian, as she put it, bundling him back in as soon as he was changed after school and running away with him for spontaneous nights in a field somewhere without Pa, on the educational pretext of showing him a castle or a battlefield. Otherwise she was merely a car, only bigger; a room on wheels. Her chief justification was on occasions like this one, where Julian could be put to bed in her in Wandsworth and wake up halfway across the country after Ma and Pa had taken turns driving through the night or dozing. He loved the idea that his holidays thus started several hours before theirs. Ma had rightly guessed that a destination was immaterial to him; he would be perfectly happy if they tucked him into bed then merely drove in a large, all-night circle. Woken at regular intervals through the night by the gunning of the throaty engine beneath him or by a food cupboard door which occasionally came loose and struck him on the head, he loved to lie watching the lights flash by overhead and hear his parents talking in low murmurs from the front. Even though the house was protected by dogs and guards and high barbed wire, he never felt so entirely secure in his bedroom as during these nights on the road.

  Bed made after a fashion, Julian checked on Lady Percy, his Abyssinian guinea pig, whose hutch he had stowed beneath the table. He had actually wanted a dog called Shadow, a large black dog that frightened other people, but Pa had said he would have to wait until he was old enough to walk it himself, and how about a guinea pig? Lady Percy was a lush bronze color with exotic whirls in her fur, a pink nose and sharp, pink feet which tickled if you lay on your back, lifted your shirt and put her on your stomach. She would sit quite happily on your lap munching a carrot and did not mind being groomed with a powder-blue baby’s hairbrush and Julian loved her language of squeaks which Caring for your Cavy said was called pinking. But she didn’t do a great deal beyond run in a straight line when one set her on the lawn or run in manic circles when placed inside an old car tire. He had overheard Pa say that the whole point of small pets was to teach children about reproduction and death but Lady Percy remained in robust good health, a resolute spinster, so seemed as wayward of purpose as the Height of Extravagance.