Goodbye, Paris

by Anstey Harris

  “We can just ring another courier, surely? It might cost more.”

  “I’ve already paid for this through the blinking nose,” I say. “There is only one courier they’ll accept packages from. Otherwise it’s hand deliveries only up to a few days before the exhibition.”

  “I’ll deliver it.” He looks so pleased with himself.

  “You’ve been so kind. But I think there has to come a point where we cut off, give up. It’s just not meant to be.” I cannot imagine anything more irresponsible than sending a man in his eighties halfway across Europe on his own, carrying a cello that weighs a ton. The superstrength case I bought for this cello is really heavy. The thought crosses my mind that it’s a shame the cello wasn’t in the case when I kicked it.

  Mr. Williams is rummaging around in the brown leather shoulder bag he always carries. When I next look over, he is concentrating on an iPad, his fingers moving at an amazing speed across the screen. “Could I have your Wi-Fi password?” he asks. “I’ll have a look for flights and hotels.”

  He is unstoppable.

  “You need a second seat for the cello.” I know when I’m beaten. “It’ll cost a fortune.”

  Mr. Williams waves one hand in a dismissive gesture. He is animated and enjoying himself.

  I owe him this. “OK.” I am going to give in. “But two things: first, I’m paying. For you and the cello. For everything. And there will be no discussion on that.”

  He bobs his head around, a smile playing on his lips. He is a handsome old man and these plans are giving him a buoyancy that lights him up. One oiled strand of his white hair falls down from his fringe and he smooths it back into place with his palm.

  “And second,” I say, my voice mock stern. “You have to promise me that you genuinely understand that the whole thing is futile. Even if I make a new front, if that’s even possible, I’ll be up against people who’ve spent years on their varnish and their purfling. Who’ve spent weeks, even, just polishing the thing. Exactly like I did,” I add a little sadly. “Got that?”

  “Absolutely, dear.” He is triumphant. “It’s not about the winning for me, anyway,” he says. “It’s about the Chianti and the spaghetti and the negronis. Divertiamoci!” He claps his hands together and giggles. “That’s Italian for Laissez les bons temps rouler,” he says.

  I know that phrase. It is one of David’s favorites. I wonder who he is “letting the good times roll” with now. I think about him and Marie-Thérèse living the life I loved so much; shopping at the exquisite bakery on Avenue Victor Hugo, buying fruit from the street stand at the corner of Rue Copernic and taking it all back to the apartment, back to bed.

  I imagine the white curtains and the breeze from the balcony, the long waxed floorboards and the simple elegance of it all. It feels like someone else’s life already.

  Mr. Williams is murmuring to himself as he looks for flights on his iPad. I can feel the excitement fizzing off him. He has earned this. It is good to have a way to give him something back.

  I reach for my phone and check it for the tenth time in an hour. Still nothing from Nadia. I have done as Mr. Williams suggested and said sorry. I haven’t given Nadia a cloaked I’m sorry if you were hurt apology; I’ve given her both barrels of the groveling, heartfelt pleading that I know she deserves. It hasn’t moved her.

  I have had a chance now to look at the damage to my cello. It reaches so far, this one stupid act of mine. This instrument is the best thing I have ever made by a mile; it had a real chance of winning, or at least of drawing some admirers from some of the markets I wanted to get into. I push the flapping pieces of the cracked front. A shard of spruce snaps off in my fingers and I press my skin against it until my fingertips hurt.

  There is no other way to do this but to make a new front. I have a piece of cello wood downstairs. It’ll make the cello look like a whole and entire instrument—albeit not a very good one. A repair would have made people ask questions about what had happened to it that I would not want to answer.

  The wood is in the cellar and I leave Mr. Williams to his internet browsing and go and look. I know there is only one piece of cello wood; a choice of one. It is leaning against the shelving alongside at least a half-dozen viola billets and even more for violin. As soon as I take the wood out, I see the knot. It is in a corner of the wood, in a spot that—once I have split and bookended it—will be just below the bridge.

  If I’m to continue, I have to use this flawed piece. I wonder about the rules of the competition; it’s possible it might not even be admitted. There are lots of things I could do to disguise a knot in a cello front, tricks with fillers and varnish and smoothing, but none of them could fool the trained eyes at the competition and all of them would take time I don’t have.

  A billet of wood is a wedge shape, rough-hewn. The longest side of the wedge is the length of the cello back and it is exactly half the width of a cello front. I will split the wedge of wood laterally on the band saw, going clean through its middle to produce two identical pieces, half the thickness of the original. This convoluted practice makes sure that, when the two pieces are stuck together, the parallel lines that run through it will be the same on both sides of the cello front. This wood has good reed lines, they plow up and down the wedge, showing every winter that the tree endured and every summer that saw it grow.

  Before I switch the band saw on I check my phone once more. Still nothing. I warn Mr. Williams about the noise before I push the screaming wood through the saw. Cello spruce is hard and the blade grinds against it as I push it. The smoke that comes off is not as pleasant as burning wood; it singes rather than catches. I’m fond of the smell, even though it’s odd; an acrid vapor of resistance.

  The two pieces have to be joined together down what will be the centerline of the cello. The edges must be impeccably prepared; there can’t be any nicks or gaps between the two surfaces or the seam will come apart.

  Mr. Williams is watching me very quietly. I can tell he wants to be an impartial observer to the magic, to watch as the new cello front begins its journey. It’s quite comforting.

  I take a number five plane, sharp enough to flay skin if I rubbed it across my arm or leg. I run it along the wide side of the wedge. It is too narrow by half a centimeter. I clean the curl of wood from it and put it back in its exact place, in the right order. I take a five and a half instead and it fits beautifully. I start to clean away the excess wood so that the two flat surfaces will be identical. It is a rhythmic task and hypnotic. I lose myself to it in seconds.

  “You have a message.” Mr. Williams holds up my phone. I hadn’t heard it. It must have come in while I was using the band saw.

  It is from Nadia. I offer up a tiny prayer.

  i’m coming to get my book. are you there?

  There is no kiss, no hope that she might let me back in. Of course she wants the diary back; I hadn’t even thought about it. I let Mr. Williams clear the glass from the shelf inside the counter while I get on with clearing the bench.

  come whenever you want. i’ll wait. I hold my breath.

  driving lesson at 3. will get dropped off at shop after.

  Mr. Williams looks at me; a nonverbal question. I nod my head with relief.

  I put the hide glue on the tiny stove to start melting. The smell of the softening glue is not as awful as it could be, given what it’s made of. When it’s warm enough, I wipe it across the two cleaned edges of the split billet and stick the two sides together. It opens the wedge out like a butterfly.

  “This is called bookending,” I tell Mr. Williams. “It’s a bookend joint.”

  I start the process of fixing clamps along the length of the seam to hold the wood in place until the glue dries. I can do this mechanically and I use the empty time to think about Nadia. I am putty in her hands and will do anything I can to restore our friendship. I am utterly to blame.

  I run my fingers over the small knot in the center of the wood. It isn’t terrible and if it were a cello to
sell or a cello for a customer, this sort of blemish would probably give the instrument an extra character, a little bit of individuality. But this is for a competition that requires anonymity, uniformness, and convention. The swirling fingerprint in the wood isn’t big enough to mean the cello would be thrown out of the competition. It will still make it into the Cremona exhibition of entered instruments, but the knot is more reason, if any were needed, that it can’t possibly win.

  “Do you want me to go when Nadia comes?” Mr. Williams asks.

  “I don’t know. I suppose so.” I’ll be sad to see him leave.

  “It’s for the best. You girls need to be able to talk freely.”

  I agree with him. He tidies up the last of the glass he’s swept up, wraps it in newspaper, and puts it in the bin. “I’ve booked myself a flight in five days’ time.” He looks at me with a challenge. “And a seat for the cello.”

  We both look at the piece of wood clamped and drying on the workbench.

  “Bloody hell,” I say.

  “I’m going to fly to Turin and take a train on to Cremona. I’m staying there for a night and then I’ll drop the cello off the next morning. There’s a week, then, until you arrive.”

  “Are you going to stay there for a week? It’s a small town.”

  He shakes his head. “I have good friends in Venice. Friend—Paulo has expired, but Laurence is still there. Leslie and I used to stay with them whenever we could. It’ll be lovely to catch up.” He grins. “Laurence has already said he’ll be there and glad to have me. That’s all us oldsters do, you know. Sit by our email all day, hoping someone will write.”

  “Are the trains manageable?”

  “It’s how we always used to get around,” he says and shrugs.

  I suppose I should trust him—at his age—to sort out a short train ride, even if it is in another country.

  “I’ll visit with Laurence and then come back up to join you, if I may. If you could bear to show me around?”

  “Of course I can. I have two tickets for the finale concert too—one for me and one for David. We’ll go together, shall we?”

  Mr. Williams is thrilled at the idea. By the time he’s got his iPad back out to look up the program and we’ve discussed the merits of listening to Italian versus German composers, it is nearly four o’clock.

  He whispers good luck and blows me an expansive kiss as he leaves.

  * * *

  Nadia looks thin and tired. Her anger has blown through and left her hollow.

  I reach down under the broken counter and pick up the sketchbook. I hand it to her instead of speaking. I have nothing left to offer her.

  “Thanks,” she says, but her voice holds no clues.

  “How was your driving lesson?” The clumsy words spill into the shop and deserve the silence they’re met with.

  And then she laughs. A loud but real laugh. The sunshine side of her comes out and the cloud is gone. “ ‘How was your fucking driving lesson?’ ”

  “I don’t know what else to say. I assume you’re bored with ‘sorry’ and ‘what more can I do?’ ”

  “I’ll never be bored with ‘what more can I do?’ ” She narrows her eyes. “Seriously, though, what did you read? All of it?”

  “Like I said, hardly any. Some stuff about coke. Stuff about Harriet being an arsehole. Then I stopped.”

  “Bet you would have read more if you’d had time.”

  I don’t answer. I don’t know whether she’s right or not.

  “Is Mr. Williams here?”

  I shake my head. “He just left five minutes ago.”

  “OK then, the truth. The coke thing was just a fad; everyone does it at my school. Everyone.” The last word is a warning not to challenge her, not to comment. “And I stopped doing it ages ago—not because I don’t like it but because I’d do it all the time and, you know, I wouldn’t do anything else. And, well, I have stuff to do. Stuff more important than getting off my tits.”

  “Your symphony,” I say, but she just shrugs.

  “And other shit.”

  “Everyone falls out with their friends all the time, Nad, it’s part of life.”

  “You mean you and me?”

  “No.” I feel stupid now. “I meant you and Harriet, but us too if you want. But the Harriet thing, it’s not a reason not to go to school.”

  “Who said it was?” She raises her eyebrows at me, lifts her palms to indicate that I should think of an answer, think of an answer but not bother sharing it. “Taking a year out is nothing to do with Harriet. Literally. She’s not that fucking important.”

  “Sorry, I was trying to help.”

  Just when I least expect it, she softens. “I’ve done some stupid shit. But it’s done now and it’s time to move on.”

  I open my mouth to speak, to claim the “stupid shit” title but am struck dumb by the tide of things I have done that Nadia might term “stupid shit,” by the years I have spent racking up more and more mistakes.

  “Let’s do it. Let’s move on.” I smile at her. I would love to hug her, but she just isn’t that kind of girl. Her prickles are invisible, but they are real and sharp.

  “Cool. I need to. And I need my job.” She steps towards the counter at last, leaves her escape route behind her. “I need you a bit too, actually.”

  And she hugs me, pinning my arms to my sides.

  * * *

  I get the leftover bits of Mr. Williams’s picnic out and Nadia eats them as if she hasn’t eaten since we left his house.

  “How are things at home?” I ask her.

  “Same old, same old,” she says. “There’s no one there most of the time and when they are they’re all about locked rooms and mobile calls. I don’t give a fuck. I just play my violin, work on my music.”

  I think about myself when I’d first left college, locked in my room and repetitively practicing. “Are you still going to your violin lessons?”

  “Violin lessons?” she asks, her mouth full of sausage roll. “Definitely. Fuck yes. That’s how I know my parents are still alive; someone’s still paying my teacher. I’m taking a year off the other shit, not violin.”

  I’m relieved to hear it.

  Our chatting becomes easier, more what it was before all this. It has brought us an equality, though, this shift. Something is different. Something, oddly, is better.

  I show her the cello and its terrible damage. I have put it on the bench and started to pop open the hide glue that holds the broken front to the ribs. When I have worked the front off and cleaned away all the fragments of glue and wood, I’ll put my new front on and use the ribs as a template to score around. It is simple except that, at the moment, my new front is a thick chunk of wood held together by some clamps.

  “Mission,” says Nadia, and I have to agree.

  “And then Mr. Williams is taking it to Italy? To the competition?”

  “If it’s humanly possible to get it done.”

  “What can I do? Can I do some of the sanding or something?”

  “It’s not sanding, that’s what you do on tables, chests of drawers. Things that can take a bit of roughhousing. It’s all down to me, I’m afraid.”

  “Can you do it?”

  “If I don’t sleep.”

  “Good.” It seems to mean a lot to her, too. Perhaps it is the focus we all need.

  “You know how you want to make shit up to me and all that?”

  I nod. I’m picking at a curl of glue, peering closely at the Cremona cello.

  “I’m coming to Italy too.”

   Chapter Twenty

  I can breathe in Italy. I suck in the warm night air and it feels like life. Exhaling is such a train of letting go that I almost start to cry.

  I checked into the hotel alone. This was supposed to have been a trip with David; we had been planning it for months. The hotel is the sort he would book; elegant and expensive, of course. I fight down the angry pain that marks his absence. It presses my head like a tight b
and.

  This is a beautiful room, but my losses ricochet around it. My sadness thunders through when I open the bathroom taps; it is everywhere. I catch sight of myself in the mirror; the fact that I am in the frame alone is compounded by the expanse of perfectly ironed white linen behind me; as if nothing has ever gone wrong in this room before.

  The woman in the mirror is someone else, someone emptier. I have to start a new part of my life, but I can’t seem to find the instructions. Inside this matryoshka doll is the bullet I must swallow; wrapped in the layers of the last two weeks is the stony heart betrayed by David.

  We should have been here together, giggling at the funny old receptionist’s bad temper, groaning at each other about the lift not working and having to drag our heavy bags up the old stone stairs, marveling at the room with its tiny balcony and the exquisite bathroom lined—floor to ceiling—with green mosaic tiles.

  Instead, I threw my case on the bed, checked I had the room key, and left as fast as I could.

  * * *

  The place is stunning. A town map came in the welcome pack for the competition and I buried myself in it on the plane over. Everything about Cremona is magical; it is the stuff of my dreams. Stradivari’s house, his birthplace, his gravestone, they’re all marked on the map as if it’s completely normal to be the epicenter of such creativity and invention. The city really values its history; some years ago the city elders gathered all the funding they could and bought the Vesuvius, one of Stradivari’s finest violins, entrusting it to municipal ownership for the rest of time. I can only imagine the uproar if my little Kent town decided to spend its limited resources on something like that instead of dog bins or streetlights or more double yellow lines.

  I’m looking for Stradivari’s grave; it is in a tiny park next to the city square, clearly marked on the map. Cremona doesn’t look like a city and, were it not for the reaching spire of the duomo visible from all the narrow streets, I would just think it was a tiny, quaint town. Unusual for a city, what it has in spades is peace.