by Angela Huth
Once there, instead of taking out his violin and drowning himself in the music he loved, as Grace imagined, he slumped into the low armchair, legs slung apart in a matter he would not have considered adopting downstairs. He picked up a pencil and began to tap his teeth in time to a passage from the Siciliana in the Mozart D minor they had played last night. Sometimes he hummed a little, but the tuneless noise depressed him–so far, it was, from the pure sound in his head.
In all honesty, he reflected, last night had been much better than he had expected. Really rather good. A full house and lively applause. Bonnie Morse, he had to admit, had made no mistakes. She had been a little hesitant, perhaps, and a fraction late with one cue–but damn it, the girl must have been terribly nervous, first time playing with such a well-known quartet. She did very well, as Grant and Rufus acknowledged in a brief meeting in the car park, after she had driven off in a small red car, waving cheerfully. Of course, he’d have to coach her a bit, introduce her to the Elmtree’s special ways. But that should be no problem. He sensed she would be quick to learn. A bright girl: no budding genius, but a nice touch, an infectious energy which–and here William was reluctant to admit it even to himself–was something the Elmtree String Quartet, after so many years, could well benefit from if it was to keep its impeccable reputation intact.
A worry William tried hard to ignore was in fact not the Elmtree’s reputation but its future. He was well aware a quartet with its original members could not continue for ever. They had had a pretty good innings. William often remembered the day he and Rufus, after a village cricket match, sat in the shade of an elm tree with their pints of bitter, and made their plans. At that time Rufus was a keen cricket player–in the village team, he had something of a reputation as a fast bowler. He liked the whole business of English afternoon cricket–the village green, the whites, the teas, the camaraderie. Most of all he liked the fact that his frail wife Iris, slung low in a deckchair, brim of straw hat cutting across her fine cheekbones, cheered him on so enthusiastically. Often he invited William to matches. It was on a day Iris had not felt up to joining them that the two of them had lingered into the late afternoon, and come up with the idea of their own quartet. Rufus already knew of Andrew, who eagerly joined them. It was only a matter of weeks before, through musical friends, they found Grant. There had been no change of cast, since then, till now. Shortly after they had established themselves, played a few lowly concerts, Rufus strained his shoulder by some overconfident bowling. It hurt to play thereafter, so he gave up cricket, declared he had no regrets. Instead, he took up the gentler occupation of Saving the Skylark. A keen ornithologist as a boy, he was horrified by the decline of so many British birds–particularly the skylark, for he was a Shelley man as well as a musical one.
Rufus, William knew, was a better judge of a musician than himself. He had an acute ear. He also knew instinctively how to match players–how well one would balance another. It was he who had assured William–initially reluctant for the wrong reasons–of Bonnie’s potential for fitting in with the tone of the other three. It was Rufus, at the audition, who had urged William not only to cast aside his prejudice, but also to think that a change of direction (i.e. the inclusion of a girl) would give the Elmtree the boost it might one day need. At the end of the Slough concert, as the players left the stage, William had touched Rufus on the arm and whispered that he had been right as usual. Rufus had merely given his old friend a curt nod: he was not one who found appreciation easy to accept.
After the concert the members of the Quartet had lingered in the breeze-block Green Room, sipping at glasses of third-rate wine provided by the cat food sponsors. Although they were eager to be off as soon as possible, in appreciation of Bonnie’s commendable first performance they stayed a while. It was during this half-hour gathering that Bonnie Morse took her first tentative–and rather charming–steps in getting to know her fellow players. First she admired Grant’s cello. She asked permission to run a finger over its strings, which she was readily granted. Then she and Grant discovered that, despite the ten-year difference in their ages, they had shared a music master whom they both admired. William also heard them conversing about a subject that he himself had no interest in at all–foreign food. Grant was an excellent cook, though how he managed in the chaos of his kitchen was hard to imagine. William saw Bonnie revealing a peculiar interest in Grant’s descriptions of variations on chilli con carne, and felt that he, as leader of the Quartet, should have his fair share of her attention before it was time to go. When he gave her a light tap on the elbow she willingly broke away from Grant, and cast all her attention on William. Her conversation with him was one that he had had with more people than he could remember over the years but which, the evening in the Green Room on the Slough Trading Estate, was endowed with a curious freshness.
‘And you, Mr Handle: are you by any chance a descendant…?’
When confronted with this familiar question, William never liked to disappoint. He would therefore give a small nod that could be taken for acquiescence, though if pressed further he would of course explain the discrepancy in the spelling. For some reason, faced with Bonnie’s intrigued eyes, he launched without hesitation into the truth of the matter.
‘I’m afraid … we’re spelt differently. No relation.’
‘Still, it must be an asset as a musician to be called any kind of Handle.’ Bonnie smiled understandingly, showing no sign of disappointment. That was gratifying. William was used to people’s interest flagging as soon as they learned he was an le rather than an el. ‘Like contemporary writers who happen to be called Shakespeare,’ Bonnie went on. ‘I know there’s at least one good modern novelist called Shakespeare. Bet that’s not a disadvantage.’
William agreed with a silent nod. He was not acquainted with the writer Bonnie referred to, but found himself making a note that the next time he was in a bookshop …
Bonnie was leaving by then, tucking her viola case under her arm in a way none of the other players ever did. She smiled round at all of them, thanking them for being so kind–she’d been pretty terrified, she said, but they’d given her courage. Her smile was engaging, pushing dimples into her cheeks. But William found himself more in awe of her mouth in repose, the top lip tipped up in the kind of delicate arc that would have bewitched Michelangelo. All the way home, struggling once more against the rain, William’s thoughts had been divided between the mouth, and the fringe that all but obscured the eyes. He imagined that one day–trying to read an obscure score, perhaps–she would flick it back, and a pair of eyes to match the mouth would be revealed.
It was past ten o’clock. William stirred. He had intended to get down to the business of deciding on the Manchester Christmas programme before he started to practise. Instead, his mind turned to the Northampton recital on Friday. Bonnie had said she was quite happy with the proposed programme, but William felt it would only be fair to check her knowledge of the third Britten quartet. It wasn’t the easiest piece. He and the others would be prepared to change it for something else–although the programmes had been printed long ago–if she had any doubts.
Secure in the knowledge that Grace, bent over her buttercups downstairs, would never know of this break in his routine–a morning telephone call–William pulled from his pocket the number Bonnie had given him the night before. Somewhere in the muddle of his desk was her official letter of acceptance of the job with the Quartet, with her CV, address and number. But in his impatience William could not be bothered to go through the papers. Instead, he studied the figures written in red pencil on the scrap of paper, trying to determine some clue to her character from the boldness of the figures.
William let the telephone ring for two minutes. No answer. He returned to his chair, wondering at his faintly restless state. Then he rose again, guilty, and took up his violin. Mercifully, his normal calm returned. He carried on practising till mid-morning, when he made his coffee, with two spoons of sugar, which Grace would never a
llow downstairs, before trying to ring Bonnie once more.
In the kitchen Grace was taking her usual battering from Lucien.
‘She’s giving me a lot of grief this week,’ he was saying. ‘Something’s like upset her. Don’t ask me what. But is she taking it out on me? Hell she is.’
He was referring to his mother, Lobelia Watson, whom Grace had not met–an apparent monster whose general misdeeds and loathsomeness of character Lucien had exhaustively described to Grace since the beginning of their acquaintance some months ago.
‘Like, last night. She comes back from her therapist–she’s always worse when she’s been moaning on to her–and it’s like, Lucien do this, Lucien do that, take your wet clothes out of the machine, hang them on the line, whatever. Then it’s Lucien you don’t understand me. Lucien you don’t give a thought to anyone but yourself–how does the bitch know what goes on in my mind? Then she’s on about drugs, of course. Every day she’s on about drugs. Cuts out little stories from the paper saying some git’s OD’d and died, and puts them by my bed like when I was a child she put little jugs of daisies. Bloody mad.’
He picked up his mug of coffee in both hands, looked at Grace. Then quickly his eyes fidgeted away over things nearby–his fingernails, an ashtray on the table, a pencil. Grace had rarely seen him look out of the window or into any distance. It was as if he could not face horizons. He needed to be near the things he regarded.
‘You know what I think. I’ve said it so many times. You should leave home. Soon as possible.’
‘How bloody can I?’
‘Get a job.’
‘How bloody can I? What can I do? Who’d have me?’
‘Don’t be daft, Lucien. You could do anything you put your mind to.’
‘She’d go off her trolley if I left.’
‘You’d have to risk that. Most people are quite relieved when their children go. Not many mothers would be happy still to have a twenty-four-year-old son living at home.’
‘You don’t know my mother. I’m all she’s got. All she’s got to fucking live for, she says–well, she doesn’t put it quite like that, does she? I can’t do a thing right in her eyes, but if I left she’d never forgive me. I said to her once, Mum, I said, what happens when I meet some girl I want for more than a night? Want to set up with her?–What did she do? Bugger off and drink a bottle of vodka. Who had to clear up the mess next morning? I mean.’
Grace had heard all this, with variations, many times before. Lucien’s way was to start with a blast of angry complaint shot with questions to which he did not want to hear an honest answer. Usually, his morning fury had dwindled after half an hour. The second half of his visit he switched into the young man Grace had grown strangely fond of–still uneasy and inelegant, but lively, interested, curious, amazed by things that seemed to Grace quite ordinary.
‘William and I missed Jack dreadfully when he first left,’ she said, which was not entirely true, ‘but we also felt quite pleased. Free.’
‘Yes, well, your Jack. He’s a different matter, daresay.’
Grace could see he was simmering down. They sat in silence for a while–a silence as easy, though different, as it was with William. Across this table from the unspeaking William she was always aware of the mutual charge of love and affection, garnered from so many years of happy marriage, that does not need words, queries, analysis. She and William both recognised, and were able to indulge in, the lazy silence of mutual knowing, the unspoken agreement that no effort had constantly to be made. This was the reward for altruistic years together. With Lucien, the silence bore no such mutual recognition. For his part, thoughts were totally of himself. Preoccupation with this ‘limited subject’, as William, who found his wife’s young friend hard to tolerate, once called it, was very fashionable. Grace could see that, and was both appalled and intrigued by such egotism. In the many hours that she and Lucien had spent at the kitchen table (hours lost to her work on the book) there was no denying that Grace, too, was compelled to think only of her visitor. He knew this. He could see questions struggling in her eyes. Her concern was a bolster, nicely doubling his sense of self-interest.
‘I suppose you’re wondering about me.’ This he observed approximately once a week.
‘I am, rather.’
‘You keep wondering. Come up with any good solutions and I won’t half be pleased.’
He gave her a quick smile. A smile that lighted his grey-skinned face beguilingly. Crinkle of dark eyes and unshaven jowls, a flash of incredibly white teeth, despite a regular boast that he never brushed them because of his mother’s nagging. (Jack, who had brushed his teeth regularly since he was a child, was now the owner of a very unpleasant smile: dun-coloured teeth fringing over-long gums, inherited from neither of his parents.)
‘So how’s the book going?’ Lucien asked eventually. ‘Buttercup a day?’
‘Afraid not. It doesn’t work quite like that.’
‘No, well. You promised I could see some of your paintings. I’m a Damien Hurst man myself, as you know. But I’m nothing if not adaptable. Dead cows one day, buttercups the next. Cows … buttercups–some link there, surely?’
He grinned. At moments like this Grace scorned herself for ever thinking there was something faintly sinister about Lucien. He had the charm of a rather silly schoolboy. A warmth and friendliness that had never been part of Jack’s character. And Jack had never shown the slightest interest in his mother’s work. Grace smiled.
‘I’ll show them to you one day,’ she said. ‘You promised that I could meet your mother.’
‘You can, any time.’ This was always his reply, but a meeting was never arranged.
Grace pressed him. ‘When?’
‘I’ll fix it. She’s in most afternoons after her therapy session. Comes back glowing. From spending so much money, daresay.’
‘I’m always free. Any afternoon.’
‘Music to my ears.’ Lucien grinned again. ‘Most people I know are always busy’
‘There does seem to be a lot of competitive busyness about these days, yes.’
‘That’s right.’ Sometimes agreement spurred Lucien to exotic observations that Grace found so singular she would pass them on to William (who was less able to see their interest). But today he swerved quickly back to his mother. ‘If I was my mum I’d be bored stiff wittering on every afternoon about myself, thirty-five quid an hour.’
‘Some people feel it does them good, talking to a professional.’
‘She’s one of them. One of her illusions.’
‘Everyone needs their illusions.’
‘Anyhow, it’s not doing any good.’
‘It takes time.’
Lucien poured himself more coffee, frowning. Grace sensed he was uncommonly restless today.
‘What does your old man do all morning, shut up in his room?’
‘Practises. Arranges concert programmes.’
‘Maybe I’d better come to one of his gigs,’ he said.
‘Wouldn’t be very up your street, I don’t think.’
‘How d’you know? OK, I’m into heavy metal, but I can also dig Beethoven. Honest. Like I told you, I’m adaptable.’ There was a long silence while Grace imagined the odd couple of Lucien and herself taking seats at one of the Elmtree concerts.
‘You don’t seem too keen,’ Lucien said at last.
‘I was just weighing up how much you’d enjoy it.’
‘I’d enjoy it. It’d be spooky, great. But if I didn’t, we could always walk out.’
‘We couldn’t,’ said Grace sternly.
Lucien took her hand, grinning again. ‘Course we couldn’t. Calm down, Mrs H. I was just winding you up. I’d sit there good as anything. Not cause you any hassle, honest.’
Grace shrugged. She tried to withdraw her hand but Lucien would not let it go.
‘Well, I’ll see what’s coming up. Perhaps the next Beethoven.’
‘I can take Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, no problem. Anything
but Strauss.’ He registered Grace’s surprise at the list of composers with whom she had not suspected he was familiar. ‘Don’t look so shocked. We learnt something called Musical Appreciation for a bit at school. I liked those lessons. I remember once snorting a line of coke during Fingal’s Cave. Improved it no end.’
‘I’m not shocked,’ said Grace, tightly. Lucien let go of her hand.
‘Of course not. You’re never shocked, Mrs H, Gracie. That’s what I like about you. I’m your piece of rough and I reckon that’s what you like about me. You could teach my mum a thing or two, you could. But I won’t put you to the trouble. Probably wouldn’t work.’ He stood up. ‘I’m going to go now before you have to ask. Back tomorrow. Thanks for the coffee.’ He put his mug on top of the dishwasher, the single gesture he had in common with William, and left with a speed that suggested he wanted to get away fast, he had urgent business to attend. As always, when he had gone, Grace felt a gust of relief–danger over–but also, at the thought of his return tomorrow, an unnerving sense of elation. Their strange friendship provided a semi-secret. Lucien’s visits caused a stir in the plain air of the house for which Grace felt grateful. The excitement of his curious appearances was her one infidelity, as she laughingly admitted to William, who had met Lucien only briefly, so was not able to share the view that the youth was worthy of much consideration. To William, Lucien was merely an uncouth young thug who took up far too much of Grace’s time baring his tedious soul. He would have preferred Lucien to be banned from the house. Just as keenly, Grace was determined that he never should be. To begin with, the differences of opinion between husband and wife, concerning Lucien, were obfuscated in a web of the merest suggestion as to how each one felt. But of late even these nervous pretences at argument had petered out. Now, Lucien had become a subject never to be discussed and–for William–a man never to be run into. Hence the need for careful timing, and the frisson that provided.