He had no doubt that everything would be restored to order after he was gone. Beth wasn’t ready to let go of Scott even if such a thing were possible; in fact, by her own account she was hanging on to him for as long as sanity would permit.
The smell of toast and coffee wafted into the room. He sat on the edge of the bed and closed his eyes. A train rumbled in the distance, a car with its radio blaring passed in the street, a dog was barking. A normal Sunday, but not normal for him, although hard to know what constituted normal any more. It had been only a few weeks, yet long enough for him to know a different life.
He would miss Beth and he would miss being here.
He gathered himself up and made his way to the kitchen. Not wanting to leave he knew it was better to go immediately, a quick goodbye before reason or unreason had a chance to trip him up. But Beth had made them a last breakfast and he did not want to upset her. He ate with neither taste nor relish and refused a second cup of coffee.
‘If ever you need me,’ he said at the front door, ‘you know how to contact me.’
She did not return the offer, just reached up, put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him.
‘I expect your wife needs you,’ she said.
His voice was muffled in her hair, the words came slowly. ‘I’m not sure I need her any more.’
Beth stepped back, her hands on his arms were pushing him away. ‘So, Elliot, for the first time in your long marriage you’re in a position to make a choice.’
He went to touch her, then thought better of it, and without glancing back, strode to the gate. Beth watched him leave and when he turned into the street she re-entered the house. She stood in the silent still air. The smell of toast lingered, the house felt harshly empty.
Slowly she walked down the passage to the living room, to the photographs, the fossils, the small stone animals, the octopus fridge magnet Scott had given her after a trip to the Great Barrier Reef, a scarf that had hung on the back of a chair since last winter. It was not yet eight.
She made fresh coffee, and walked over to the shelf of books that held Scott’s favourites, books he had read and reread over the years and annotated heavily. She had collected these from other shelves around the house in those first dull desperate days without him. Now she selected Peter Watson’s A Terrible Beauty, a romp through modern intellectual history that Scott had loved, a book she had not read. She settled on the blue sofa, her coffee on the table, her feet tucked beneath her and Watson’s big book balanced in her lap. She fanned the pages, selected one of the more heavily marked sections and began to read – not Watson, but Scott, his marginalia, his conversation with the book which was at the same time an idiosyncratic diary of his days. He had read this book several times and had made multiple annotations, each carefully dated. A reference to Turing had him reflecting both on the mystery of numbers and the date of his reading: B’s birthday, he writes. Turing so alone, crushed in the end. How lucky am I. She read all his words, eager for those entries that referred to her. An hour passed in this way, before she roused herself, replaced the book on the shelf, so many of his books still to read, and prepared herself for the remainder of the day.
When Sunday morning dawned, Zoe had not been to bed. In fact, she had not slept for two nights. On Friday she had stayed up late with Callum watching movies, desperate to shift her thoughts away from the cottage and all she had witnessed there. When Callum went to bed she, too, had gone to her room, there to remain swinging between hope and despair until morning. Last night she had forced herself to go out with friends, and when she returned home, had settled in front of the TV to wait for Callum and Hayley. She must have dozed, for when she next checked it was past midnight and neither Hayley nor Callum was home. When there was still no sign of them at one, she started to worry. By half past one she was seriously anxious. Neither had left a note, and while reason said it was Saturday night and young people stayed out late on Saturday night, it did nothing to quell her anxiety. She tried their phones several times – no success – had no idea where they were, where to start looking. They had different friends, different interests, four years separated them, so she assumed they were not together, and that made her worry even more. As the night moved forward she tolled through accidents, attacks, injury and violence. By the time they arrived home she was hysterical.
‘Where’ve you been? It’s four in the morning. Where’ve you been?’
She saw a perplexed look pass between Hayley and Callum.
‘It’s four in the morning.’ She was shouting. ‘What happened to you?’
They assured her they were fine, nothing had happened.
‘So where’ve you been?’ She was shouting and crying as well.
Callum suggested a brandy to calm her.
Zoe lit a cigarette.
‘That definitely won’t help,’ Hayley said.
In the end, Hayley made a pot of tea and the three of them sat together in the living room and talked. Zoe insisted they tell her what they’d been up to. They insisted they be told what she had been up to. What then ensued were shocking revelations about bands, pubs, Hayley’s hopes and ambitions and Callum’s new thoughts about a career in jazz – or rather shocking to Zoe, Hayley and Callum couldn’t be happier with their plans. And then came hard talk about marriage, humiliating talk about Ramsay, distressed responses to Elliot’s disappearance, Zoe’s fears he was gone for good.
‘Dad’s put up with you for so long,’ Hayley said. ‘I can’t imagine he’d toss in the towel at the very moment you’ve come to your senses.’
At sixteen, Hayley did not subscribe to subtlety.
The sun was shining when Hayley and Callum went to bed. Zoe lit a cigarette and went out to the garden. Six o’clock and the birds were shrieking, it was peak hour for insects too, and overnight a huge spider web had appeared between the patio’s canvas awning and the wind chimes. She gave it a wide berth. The garden was mostly shaded at this hour, although in two or three places a shard of sun hit the ground in a bright white slash. Underfoot the dry leaf litter snapped and crackled.
There was something about her, something she’d known since early childhood, as if her joints were poorly sealed, and like a house put together with glue she’d collapse when things became too heated or too cool or too blustery. These days she reinforced her joints with home-made soups and visits to sick friends but now, when she had toppled over, it felt as if nothing would get her going again.
At the end of the garden stood an ancient apricot tree. About ten years ago the tree was visibly failing. Elliot had consulted a tree doctor who advised it would be best put out of its misery. When the tree loppers had finished, all that remained was a sawn-off stump rooted to the ground. But a year later a new branch had sprouted from the stump – Elliot said it was a miracle – and now the branch itself had grown into a whole new tree. This tree was lush and thriving, this tree was far tougher than she was.
Zoe turned and walked back to the house, dragged herself to the bedroom and lay down on the bed. She rolled on to Elliot’s side, her head hugged by his pillow, and there she remained, convinced that sleep was out of the question. The neighbouring children were playing ball in the garden, their dogs were barking, their mother calling and then all became quiet as she passed out with exhaustion.
2.
Seven weeks after Nina’s pilgrimage to Raleigh Court, Sean, too, made a visit. He drove slowly down the court and parked outside the Blake family home. His emotions were quiet, all of him was quiet as he passed through the gate and walked up the path.
A man, sixty, maybe a little older, was painting the wooden uprights on the front verandah. He looked up as Sean approached. More guard-dog than welcoming committee, he uttered a single unencouraging ‘Yes?’ Both his facial expression and tone of voice would put off all but the most tenacious door-to-door salesperson, charity collector or music fan.
‘I’m Sean Blake.’ Sean sounded equally tough and even more proprietorial. ‘Ramsay’s
brother.’
‘He’s expecting you?’ The man’s tone was already in retreat.
Sean walked past him to the front door, he heard music from inside the house. ‘I’m his brother. No appointment necessary.’ He was surprised at the condescension in his voice. It was, he suspected, a pre-emptive strike against the nervousness he expected to be feeling but wasn’t.
The man shrugged and returned to his painting. Sean entered the house. The place was thrumming with music, exhilarating, discordant, acrobatic music, a type of music better appreciated if you could watch it being played. Yet rather than move directly to the music room, Sean lingered in the hallway. This was the first time since leaving for Sydney as a teenager that he’d been inside the house.
He stood in the hallway pelted by his brother’s music and felt as if he had walked into a film from his childhood. There was the same ugly light overhead, the same orange and green carpet underfoot, the hall table with the life-sized alabaster birds that had belonged to his grandmother, the mirror now speckled with age in which his mother would check her lipstick before leaving the house. It was eerie and fascinating, nothing had changed. He walked into the living room – the same furniture, the same prints on the walls, the same photos on the sideboard including old shots of him as a boy, and then to the kitchen, the cream and green kitchen clock on the wall still counting out the seconds, the huge sink with old-fashioned double taps, the same chocolate-coloured lino with the brightly coloured squares, the orange laminex benches; only the fridge had moved into the current era. He stood in the middle of the room taking it all in.
Suddenly the music changed. Weightless and mystical, it might be the sound of deep space. He left the kitchen and headed towards the music room, glancing through doorways as he passed. His parents’ bedroom looked as if it was occupied, perhaps Ramsay had moved in there. But no, as he passed the bedroom that used to be his and Ramsay’s, it was clear that Ramsay still slept here. There was only one bed now, a double, Sean’s had been replaced by a desk with a large, late-model computer perched on top. Ramsay’s posters of Liszt and Horowitz still hung above the bed, and the collage of cemeteries he had compiled during his cemetery phase was still on the wall. On the opposite wall, above the desk, was a photo Sean had not seen before. It was a huge vertical shot of himself at about twelve years of age playing the violin. The boy he once was gazed down on Ramsay’s desk; this boy dominated the room.
Before he could make too much of it, Sean moved on. The mystical hiatus was short-lived for as he approached the music room there was an explosion of percussive sounds, all wind and fire and truly marvellous. He stopped in the open doorway. And there he was, his brother, just a few steps away, Ramsay at the piano in a strenuous playing, Ramsay dressed only in singlet and shorts, the ripple of muscles across his shoulders clearly visible as his hands fly up and down the keyboard. Sean approaches in a wide arc so as not to startle him, and comes to stand in the curve of the piano. An old dog sniffs his legs and then leaves him alone. Ramsay’s hands are bounding over the keys in a series of octaves, moving so fast that Sean’s mind leaps to those old cartoons where the speeding roadrunner is reduced to a streak. Ramsay’s gaze is strung to his hands, until the octaves give way to sprinting runs and then his eyes flick up at Sean, just the briefest moment, then back to the keyboard until the piece is finished.
‘There’s another eight movements to go,’ Ramsay says, looking up.
‘What is it?’
‘Messiaen, Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus. That was number XII. A challenging piece if you play it at the speed Messiaen wanted.’
‘And some pianists don’t?’
Ramsay laughs. ‘Not the keyboard cheats.’ He reaches across the piano and grasps Sean’s hand. ‘So little brother, it’s great to see you. And you couldn’t have come at a better time.’
Sean is immediately on his guard. What might Ramsay want? But Ramsay, it turns out, wants for nothing.
‘Yes, the best time. A couple of weeks ago, I was hardly playing at all.’ He speaks in a rush, he speaks as if he and Sean were the brothers they once were. ‘I’d lost the plot – like that time when I was a kid. But everything’s fixed now. I’ve got Mrs and Mr Monday,’ he shakes his head, ‘no, I must remember, I’ve got Vera and her husband Matt to look after me. And an agent, Zoe lined me up with an agent. Three people to do what George did by himself, but it seems to be working.’ Suddenly he looks worried. ‘It did sound all right? The music? Messiaen was very religious, of course. But I’m hoping to produce what he wanted in my own way.’
Sean puts a hand on his brother’s shoulder and smiles. ‘It sounded brilliant, Rams. You’re playing better than ever.’
Ramsay’s face relaxes. ‘Do you want to hear more? Can’t play the whole lot – it takes a couple of hours. But I could continue from the thirteenth movement.’ He passes the music to Sean. ‘Do you want to follow?’
Sean pulls up a chair, leafs through to the thirteenth movement. With hands poised above the keyboard, Ramsay turns to him, he’s smiling. ‘Ready?’ he asks in a hushed voice. His eyes are bright, this will be a fabulous ride.
His hands hit the keys, and with the first notes Sean is seized by the music, his whole body primed for excitement. He follows the score but at the same time he watches Ramsay: the music is marvellous, the pianist is extraordinary. The heavens could open, the mountains could tremble, waves could flood the land, winds could rattle the foundations of time, and Ramsay would still play on. Nothing can stop him. He pauses between movements, but the current is palpable, a force, a magnetism that holds him in the music.
Tom often quotes the well-known dictum that life is not a rehearsal. He’s right. Perhaps you hang on to the past even if it’s painful because it means you don’t have to be responsible for the future. Resentment, envy, jealousy, all these occupy a lot of space, no room to think, no opportunity to evaluate or reconsider. It’s easier to cling to a lost past than throw yourself on life’s uncertain winds.
‘Grow up, little brother,’ Ramsay said to him when the bond between him and George was forming. ‘Grow up, little brother,’ he said.
It’s time he did.
As for Ramsay, beyond the music nothing else matters. The satellites orbit around him, some fade, others sharpen, but Ramsay plays on.
Finally the magnificent piece is finished. Ramsay hovers over the keyboard in the silence, two, three seconds pass, and then he sits back and turns to his brother.
‘This is what I do, Sean,’ he flings out his hands in apology. ‘This is what I do.’
3.
It was blazing hot by the time Nina left the flat. She crossed to the shaded side of the street and a few minutes later entered the Botanic Gardens. She was early, early enough for a slow circuit of the park.
It was cooler here among the trees, and she strolled along, stopping now and then to study some of the more exotic plants. Off to one side in full sun was a huge bed of succulents. She hesitated and then with her hand acting as a sunshade walked across the lawn to the garden. The succulents were thriving here, unlike the poor frozen specimens Daniel kept in London. If their meeting today was untroubled, she could bring him back here and show him these fabulous curiosities that might have come from outer space for all they resembled his cactus collection.
She returned to the path and ambled on. Birds had sought cover from the heat and on the lake the ducks and coots had withdrawn to the shelter of the reeds. People, on the other hand, seemed unconcerned: there were many large groups picnicking in full sun on the lawns. And over near the lake there was a wedding. She stopped to watch. It was an international affair; the bride was fair, the groom was black – from one of the African countries judging by the clothes of the guests. The two attendants, one white the other black, wore flowing gowns of a brilliant multi-coloured zigzag material. A quintessential TIF gathering, she found herself thinking, and with that illogical spontaneity that strikes every now and then she actually found herself lookin
g for TIF committee members in the crowd.
She and Daniel had married outdoors, a small wedding in Shirley Ryman’s back garden. Just before the ceremony it had started to drizzle. They made their vows under umbrellas; their faces were wet with rain for their first married kiss. They didn’t care, kissing and dancing in the rain, and they couldn’t have been happier. What a contrast with today. She was about to meet him in another garden. She was eager as she was then, and nervous, not with excitement as she was the day they married, but a bleary morass of resentment, hope, anger, anticipation and uncertainty.
She had suggested they meet on the oak lawn – for the shade, the numerous park benches, and for her, the solid familiarity of a favourite place when everything else was on quicksand. But she didn’t want to be the first to arrive, so she made her way back to the main path and circled around to approach the oak lawn from the north.
There was some sort of game going on here, she heard it before she saw it, a rendition of ‘Waltzing Matilda’ buoyed by a raucous accompaniment of pipes and percussion. As she came through the trees she saw a grassy slope packed with picnickers, and snaking through the crowd, led by a tall man in a kaftan playing a recorder, was a line of children with cymbals and drums and clackers and whistles singing at the top of their voices. This Pied Piper was skipping through the crowd, gathering toddlers to teens in his wake. The sun was beating down, but neither the man nor the children seemed bothered. They tripped along, skirting rugs and sunshades, down the slope to the gully below. Firstly the Pied Piper disappeared into the bush, and one by one the children followed. The music grew fainter, the last of the children disappeared. Nina wanted to run down the slope. Where are you taking them? Where are you taking the children? And then, moments later, the Pied Piper emerged from the gully via a different path. Her heart was racing. Fear for the children? Or fear for herself transferred to the children? Whatever the reason, her response unnerved her. The children were happy, their parents were happy, everyone was having fun, no cause for concern. She took a few slow calming breaths as she made her way down the slope, past the family groups and on to the oak lawn.
The Memory Trap Page 30