My parents’ decision to only have one child was none of my business or my responsibility, but I didn’t know that then. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I understood that people do what they want to do, regardless of whether they later blame someone else. My parents were long dead by then and I couldn’t ever talk to them about it. They would have been so sad if they’d known how I felt that day or that I’d heard the conversation at all. It hadn’t been meant for me. At that age, at nineteen, I just felt a stinging guilt.
I went back to my room and my scales. I added consecutive octaves to my major, melodic minor, and harmonics; just to keep me in my bedroom a little longer.
Chapter Eighteen
I turn the key in the door. The alarm trips through its four long beeps and I punch in the code on the panel by the door.
Everything is shrouded in a half-light; where Mr. Williams has pulled the blinds down, the light falls on the fractured wood like dust.
The floor of the shop looks like a graveyard. Brittle bones of snapped necks, unstuck shoulders, and splintered ribs are motionless on the floor. The room is silent and the atmosphere bristling with recrimination, with sorrow, with regret.
Some of the instruments are still on the racks, looming over the chaos on the floor and holding on by the barest thread of balance. I push them back into the slots and mentally catalog which ones are still standing.
A double bass has fallen—been pushed—onto its side. It lies on the floor like a tree across a path.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
I double lock the door behind me so that no one could get in even if they had a key. Nadia has a key and I remember with a punch that she won’t be trying to get in.
I need to check the most important instrument. I can start to plan once I know what has happened to it and how desperately it has been hurt—I have hurt it. I have to start thinking in terms of responsibility; this was no casual act, this was no accident. I did this. I caused all of this horrible mess. Me, me, me.
The broken glass of the countertop glistens like frost across everything.
I pick up the double bass by its neck and right it. It has a crack through the ribs down one side and has lost the points of its bouts, otherwise it is pretty much unhurt—bar its pride. I can fix the double bass.
Hidden underneath it, as if it were trying to protect them, cluster them under its own frightened wings, are the fragments of three violins. I am fairly sure I have stomped on one, the other two are less damaged but still close to irreparable. It wasn’t for me to make these decisions about the destiny of these instruments, whatever state of mind I was in. I have to make this right. Only by making it right can I begin to forgive myself.
I walk through to the workshop.
There it is.
The speed at which I can recover from this, the journey towards bringing myself back, starts with this one instrument. I have to do this first. Only when it is restored to its former glory, to more than its original self, can I start to grieve for my own lost years, my own broken heart.
I have barely given myself a chance to think about David, to examine the raw pain that exists there, but I know I am going to have to before too long. I am purposefully avoiding silence and a space to think; I reach forward to turn on the radio.
Alan’s violin is still on the bench. Its neck is still attached to its body, but its ribs are in tatters. The front of the violin was already off before this happened—before I did this. I had been working on the belly. I walk across to my other bench where the front of the violin was in a box. It is still here; still in one piece. I had already started thinning out the belly, and the stripes of fresh wood I’ve shaved into it look like wounds now that everything else is so injured.
The ribs of the violin are staved in. They stick out like hillbilly teeth, all odd angles and dysfunction. What should run as a smooth line around the edge of the violin is a crazed and crackled roller coaster of danger and sharp points.
It’s not impossible. Perhaps if fixing Alan’s violin is not impossible, then I can start to climb this mountain. At the top will be a level space; a place to think.
Behind me is the Cremona cello on its stand. It has lurched slightly sideways but is still upright. It maintains its position like a martyr who has taken every unkindness, every act of spite or betrayal, but refused to buckle, refused to let go of its last dignity. The hole through its front is a monument to the last week; a testament to the tornado that has ripped through everything I am.
I will fix the Cremona cello in time. Alan’s violin must come first.
I check carefully around the broken violin on the bench. I am looking for pieces of the broken ribs; if there are enough of them, I can look at patching them back together. It’s the most difficult way to fix it, but it keeps the majority of the wood as Alan’s work. At the same time, I have to take into account that this violin didn’t really work very well, didn’t have much of a voice. If I take these ribs off completely and remake a whole new set, it will give the instrument a far better chance to sing.
While I decide, I start to clear up. I’m not sure where to start so I flick on the coffee machine.
Next to it is the answerphone and the red light flashing a steady beat, a warning of waiting messages. My heart skips a beat with reality.
I know instantly that I would give anything for this message to be some kind of time lapse, a slip that will bring me out—kicking and spluttering—in a new world. In the world that was supposed to be here, on this date, in this shop and free of all the nightmares the last few days have brought.
My finger hovers over the play button. The options of what will be there run through my head. I try frantically to add consequences to all the possibility of messages. I know with certainty that there will be one from David; not a hope, not a wish, just certainty.
I don’t know what I want it to say.
The coffee machine beeps and I jump.
I press the button.
“You have four messages.”
I press stop. I’m not ready to hear them. David would not leave four messages; that’s not his style. He will leave one crisp and clear recording, his voice deep and resonant. His words will be carefully chosen; David never panics. There will be feeling in his delivery, but I don’t know what that feeling will be. I know that he will be missing me.
Once I start to defrost, to feel, I know that I will miss him too.
I wish fervently that I was the kind of person who could delete the messages without listening to them; I never will be. A flutter of hope stays inside me, a thin light of optimism that isn’t ready to let me go yet. Maybe, the buoyancy tells me, David will have changed his mind, maybe the whole thing was the result of some sort of breakdown.
It would make no difference. Too much is broken. I look at the pieces of wood around me.
I press play.
His is the first message.
“Sweetheart, I’ve tried your mobile. I need to know that you’re safe. That’s all. Just text me and tell me that, even if you can’t bear to talk to me properly at the moment. We’ll speak soon, darling girl, sort stuff out. I’m sorry it’s all so difficult right now.”
And that’s it. That’s his whole message. By the timbre of his voice you might think he had missed a dinner date, an opera booking. I look around at the dust, the dirt, the pandemonium of the workshop—my choice, my actions, not his. Perhaps this mess is vital in my believing what has happened. David’s message is unreliable evidence. The other three messages are no more convincing: salespeople and customers talking as if the world is still the same.
I pick up a cardboard box that I had dismantled and folded, ready to put out for recycling. I reassemble it and stick tape across the join. I carry the box through to the front of the shop with me and start to pick up pieces of injured instruments.
* * *
It takes a long time to collect the poor broken pieces. On one or two instruments, I am surprised that seeing them
from another angle reveals their secrets. There is a Mirecourt cello with cracked bouts; I can see now that the fault in it was down to the set of the shoulders and the neck, nothing to do with the bridge as I’ve thought for months. I wondered why it wouldn’t sell, why no one totally believed in the sound.
I am surprised to hear myself humming. I don’t immediately recognize the tune, but as it develops, I realize that it’s Nadia’s symphony. I hum more loudly.
A Berlin school viola has revealed a pattern of woodworm in the neck; a line of telltale dots that mean the beetles may or may not still be resident in the wood. I take the two bits of the viola—its neck has come loose from its shoulders—and put it straight in a bin bag. I scrunch the neck of the bin bag up and squirt most of a can of fly spray inside and all over the viola. I tie the bag up tightly and put it downstairs in the cellar. An outbreak of woodworm would be catastrophic; the irony embarrasses me and I feel my cheeks flush.
The phone is ringing upstairs. I take the stone steps two at a time and get there before the answerphone.
“Grace? It’s Maurice Williams.”
I am a little short of breath.
“You said you’d text when you got in. Are you all right, dear?”
“Oh God, sorry. I haven’t plugged my phone in.”
He makes a clucking sound, an approval that I haven’t been looking for messages from David. I won’t tell him that there was one here and, if truth be told, I have simply forgotten thus far to charge my mobile.
“Are you making progress?”
I look around. It isn’t anywhere near as bad as it looked. I have saved all the fragments of each instrument and I have started to brush up corners of the workshop. I resisted opening all my bottles and jars of varnishes and pigments. I have no idea why, but I’m very grateful. Glue, powders, and chemicals would have made this an impossible task. They would have caused far more damage.
“I am making progress.” I haven’t called David back. This only occurs to me now that I am speaking to another human being. This is progress. “I’m doing well.”
“Have you eaten?”
“I’ve had coffee.” I smile as I say it and I know he is smiling back at me on the other end of the phone.
“Do you mind if I come down? Bring little eats?”
“I don’t mind at all,” I say. “I can fix Alan’s violin, Mr. Williams. I can fix it very easily and it will play beautifully.”
“We’ll talk about that.”
He promises to pop down shortly with some late lunch. I could do with it.
I concentrate on getting the shop as close to a semblance of normality as I can. I want Mr. Williams to be impressed with what I’ve achieved and, more than anything, I don’t want him to worry about Alan’s violin.
I take the end off the vacuum cleaner tube and get down on my hands and knees to get the tiniest pieces of glass out of the carpet. A couple of minuscule fragments burrow under my skin and even though I rub them they won’t budge; a temporary tattooed punishment for the things I have broken.
I phone an antiques dealer I know and ask him who he thinks might repair the countertop. The glass top needs replacing and the leather, the beautifully marked leather with its tales of history and commerce, has been torn where the shards of the top went through it. He has some good ideas and, within three phone calls, I have someone who will come out tomorrow to have a look.
When Mr. Williams comes he brings a basket; not quite a picnic hamper but not far off. He has wrapped the contents in a white tea towel.
“Where can we eat, dear?” he asks as if there is nothing unusual, as if the blinds are flung up to the sun, as if the instruments are ordered and settled in their racks.
“It’ll have to be my workbench, I think.” I move some things around to make room and Mr. Williams puts the tablecloth down as best he can. I pick up Alan’s violin to show him.
“I’m going to make new ribs. I can start them tomorrow. It’ll be done in no time.”
Mr. Williams is taking little plastic takeaway tubs out of the basket. He has obviously been busy and intended to come here all along. There are salads and small pastry parcels, cold meats and tiny pots of homemade pickle.
“Oh wow, this looks amazing. You’ve worked hard.”
“You need feeding up.”
I look down at myself; he’s not wrong. The past days have taken their toll. My jeans are loose and my T-shirt is crumpled and old; I’ve dressed without any regard to who might see me or what I might be doing. “I’m a bit of a tramp, aren’t I?”
He nods his head slowly. “I’ve seen you looking better. But what do you expect? You don’t eat.”
“I am now.” I really am. His cooking is excellent. I have filled my plate and am eating his creations with gusto. Flakes of cheesy pastry drop onto my plate and I blot them up with a finger. “Did you make this pastry?”
“I did. I haven’t got much else to do these days and it’s a terrific pleasure to have someone to cook for. I love cooking.” His voice is wistful and I can tell he is looking into the past.
“Have you spoken to Nadia?” I ask him.
“I’ve exchanged a few texts with her. Not about the diary business, though.”
I resist asking him what Nadia might be thinking. It’s not his problem. It’s a reason to charge my phone, though, and I dig it out of my bag. There is a charger already plugged into the wall.
As soon as the phone wakes, it buzzes with messages. I reach over with one hand and look at the home screen to see who they’re from. There is nothing from Nadia; I hadn’t really thought there would be, but I am still disappointed.
There is a text from David, just a question along the same lines as his phone message.
There are voice mail messages, too, but I flick through the numbers and none are from Nadia. One is from David, but I’m sure it will be the same untroubled voice from my work answerphone.
“I’ll call her later.” I hope she will answer. “And leave her text messages if she doesn’t want to speak to me. All I can do is say sorry; I can’t undo what’s done.” How I wish I could.
“Sorry can move mountains, I find.” Mr. Williams smiles sympathetically.
“And I’ve got a lovely strip of maple for the ribs of your violin.” I reach over onto the shelf beside the workbench. The thin piece of wood is a golden color, its grain shimmers orange along its whole length like the skin of a fish. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? I was going to use it for a violin I’m—”
“Grace,” Mr. Williams interrupts me. “I don’t want you to fix Alan’s violin. Not yet.”
“I have to, I’m sorry—it’s not even up for discussion. It’s the very least I can do.”
He holds his hand up in a gesture of defiance. “No. Seriously, no. It’s not what I want.” His hand is perpendicular to his arm. The palm is a soft, clean pink and wrinkled. The lines across it are grooved and deep; his love line and lifeline clearly defined.
“Like I said,” he continues, “sorry can move mountains. And you are sorry—anyone can see that. Alan’s violin will wait. I’m an old man and”—he twinkles at me—“let’s face it, my playing’s not going to get any better.”
“I don’t know.” I join in with his joke. “You might sound great on the right instrument. And that’ll be the right instrument by the time I’ve finished it.”
He shakes his head. “It’s not what I want.”
I shrug. I will have to hear him out at least. I concentrate on the last of the salad, pushing the thin slices of tomatoes around my plate in a slur of vinaigrette.
“I want you to fix the Cremona cello.”
We both turn and look at it. I haven’t had the heart to straighten the cello, and it stares back at us as if its head is cocked to one side and it is listening.
“It’s too late for that, I’m afraid.” I am kind to him; it is a very sweet thought. “I could repair it to near perfection, but it couldn’t win now. This cello—even if I spent months on i
t—will always look like someone stoved in the front and then repaired it. The only way to solve that would be to make a new front. And that would take months. Literally.”
Mr. Williams doesn’t drop his gaze. “When Leslie died, it was only projects like this that kept me going. Things that had a beginning and an end, things I could measure. Mending the Cremona cello is therapy.”
“Therapy for me?”
“Yes. You’ve still got your hotel room and everything booked, haven’t you?”
I nod. “I have but I can’t enter the cello. It would be a huge waste of time and money even if I could fix it. It can’t win.” I start clearing away the lunch.
“Dear, it’s not always about winning. This is just an exercise in bouncing back, taking part. I want to know that you can do it. I want to see that you’re on the mend.” He stands up and looks me right in the eye. “And it’s my choice. It’s my violin that’s suffered.”
“Is that blackmail?” I’m surprised at him, surprised and touched.
“Do you know, my dear, that’s exactly what it is!” He is delighted to have been found out. “I will forgive and forget—I’m actually awfully good at both—if you promise to get that cello ready for the competition. To the best of your ability.”
“Even though it won’t even be placed?”
“Yes.” He is adamant, and I am in his debt.
“But why? Alan’s violin is just as important. That could be my therapy.” It’s a last-ditch attempt.
“No,” he says emphatically. “It has to be the cello because I want to go to Cremona with you. I haven’t been to Italy in years.” He puts the lid back onto one of the plastic pots with a loud snap.
Chapter Nineteen
It doesn’t dawn on me until Mr. Williams and I start planning logistics that I have missed the date to get the cello to Cremona by courier. The whole plan is moot before it has even got off the ground.
“It should have been picked up this week.” I look at the calendar hanging on the wall of the shop. It is a violin calendar and this month’s maker is Guarneri. “Two days ago.”
Goodbye, Paris Page 17