by Angela Huth
He knew she was aware of his ungrounding … She put down her viola, came over to him, hugged him with the impetuosity of a child.
‘What’s the matter? Have I done something?’
William was rigid in her arms, fighting to keep an unreadable demeanour.
‘Done something?–Oh, Bonnie. Just: the pleasure of playing with you.’
Bonnie stood back from him now, puzzled.
‘You know something, William? Playing with you–with all the Quartet, but especially alone with you–is the greatest privilege I’ve ever … I mean, I can’t describe what it means to me. That you, William Handle, should play with me! Beyond my wildest–’
‘Dear Bonnie,’ William interrupted, fearful of being completely thrown by further compliments. ‘We must do it again.’
‘Please. Promise? I loved it. What will my mum think?–Come on. Grace is waiting for us.’ She gave him a wonderful smile and left the room.
Bonnie’s declarations were indeed unexpected. Here was proof, surely, that his feelings were in some ways reciprocated. Bonnie had poured her soul into the music, sending messages too strong to be ignored. She had hugged him, told him she wanted them to play alone together again. So many glorious signs unsteadied him. He leant his forehead against the cold window, shut his eyes. It would be a very dull life, he thought, if ordinary days were not sometimes scattered by momentous and unexpected events. Awash with both gladness and horror (what would this lead to?), he followed Bonnie downstairs carrying his violin–for comfort, for safety–wondering how he would get through the rest of the day.
At lunch in the kitchen he was grateful to the two women. Aware of it or not, they made it easier for him than he had supposed. They chattered about music, flowers, cooking. They liked each other. William was not necessary to their conversation.
They left him free to play a strange and frightening visual game. He would look at his wife Grace, and wipe her out of his mind. She simply did not exist in her place across the table any more. It was like playing on an internal computer. One click, and the vision was gone. He was left alone with Bonnie. Bonnie and he, in this alarming game, were alone at the marital table. But it had become another table which he did not recognise.
Grace kept returning, of course. Her powerful presence could not be clicked out for long. This, in fact, was a relief. It proved to William he was not going mad. Had he clicked her out of his mind and she had not returned, that would have been cause for real alarm.
‘William? Another slice? You look miles away.’
‘Not hungry, my Ace, thank you so much.’
He clicked her away again.
On the journey to the barn for the rehearsal, alone in his cold little car slushing carelessly through wet snow, Bonnie in the wing mirror a few yards behind him, it all became clear to William. Simply: Grace had to go. He could see no other way, despite the absurdity of the idea. Once she was no longer there, Bonnie could move in to fill the space, the house, his life. They could play, play, play together, making music more divine than he had ever heard. How he would negotiate the matter of Bonnie moving in with him, persuade her of the wisdom of the idea, was not relevant to his present plan to do away with his wife. Later he would think about how to overcome any objections Bonnie might put in his way. But for the moment he must concentrate wholly on how to extinguish Grace, his beloved Ace. It would be nice to think that some outside force would make this possible–struck by lightning while out shopping, a call from her sister in Australia to go there at once … But such things were unlikely, and he could not wait too long.
The truth of the matter was that there was no alternative. Suddenly William was able to contemplate the fact quite calmly: he would have to murder his wife.
4
‘I don’t think monkfish would be too alarming,’ said Laurel.
William pulled his gold-rimmed spectacles down his nose and gave her a look he hoped she would interpret correctly: no need to patronise me, thanks very much.
‘In that case,’ he said, ‘perhaps you should choose it.’ With the intention of further study, he raised the menu again. It was as big as a pillowcase, and bent awkwardly. After a while he turned back to Laurel, who was biting her lip. ‘Think I’ll have the Zuppa di Mammole e Tompinambur and then the Calamari ai Ferri con Peperoncini,’ he said, very fast, his Italian accent near-perfect. That’ll teach her, he thought.
‘The what?’ said Laurel.
‘The zuppa whatever,’ said Jack, who pronounced zuppa like upper.
So far, as each of the four diners privately recognised, the evening had been ghastly. Jack and Laurel were not lovers of classical music, but had suggested coming to the concert for William’s pleasure. If they had thought harder they might have concluded their presence was the last thing William desired: he abhorred the idea of anyone sitting through a concert out of perverse duty, least of all his philistine son. On the rare occasions Jack had suggested coming to hear his father play, he had been careful to choose a programme of composers unlikely to tax his ears. Tonight, Bartok, Haydn and Purcell were about as dreary as a string quartet could produce, Jack thought, but the overriding consideration had been location -Ealing. Very convenient for Hammersmith. Grace had suggested the alternative of a Schubert evening in Leicester the following week. But with a workload like Jack’s and Laurel’s, flouncing off to the Midlands, midweek, was of course out of the question. With the lack of inhibition that martyrs feel free to indulge, they had several discussions about the displeasure the Ealing concert would cause them, but nobly recognised there was no alternative, within the time limit, that could be considered a birthday treat.
They both devised a way of getting through the musical bit, as they called it. For some time Laurel had been wanting to work out a marketing strategy for a hotel in Portugal. As a mere seller of tickets and information, she was not strictly required to meddle in the business of promotion. But she had learnt that it could be advantageous to pick on some foreign hotel and sell it hard with her ‘personal recommendation’, which she could give quite easily without the bother of a personal visit. (One of her ingenious little plans on her way to becoming top dog.) Such was the busyness of her working life that the Portuguese hotel had had to be put on ‘the back burner’. The hour of the concert of tedious music, therefore, presented this opportunity, this ‘space’ she had been looking for. Not daring actually to use her calculator while the Quartet played, during the applause she executed a few sums, and by the end of the piece of music–which left her cold, as she whispered to Jack–a complete plan for the Portuguese hotel was dazzling in her mind.
Jack, too, had decided to avail himself of the chance to reflect upon a business plan concerning the higher, more complicated realms of chartered accountancy that he so enjoyed. However, without the relevant papers to hand, this was impossible. He gave up, concentrated on trying not to fidget. Occasionally he glanced at his mother, hands folded at rest on her knee, head tipped a little to one side, benign eyes following every movement of her husband’s bow. Jack followed her look to the stage. There was his father, grim-jawed, eyes half-closed, sawing away at the violin to make music that, amazingly, the majority of people in the hall had actually paid good money to come and listen to. Extraordinary, thought Jack. Other people’s pleasures never ceased to surprise him. Nor, for that matter, did his parents–a rum couple if ever there was one, completely sheltered from modern life by their adherence to bygone standards, language, behaviour. They were the sort of people who wrote thank-you letters for a minor Sunday lunch, indulged in an excess of precautions–an umbrella if there was a single cloud in the sky, vests in October, the scrupulous studying of ingredients in supermarket food. For years as a child Jack had been embarrassed by his mother’s insistence, when they went to visit friends, of carrying a bag of ‘indoor shoes’ as a precaution against any mud they might encounter on the way. He had given up trying to explain to her that the whole concept of indoor and outdoor shoes had gone out w
ith the ice age, and this was the happy era of the ubiquitous trainer which served all purposes. Why, he and Laurel even wore trainers to the office. But there was no point in trying to persuade Grace. Her prejudice against the trainer was deeply embedded: to her, the ugliness of such footwear (as if that mattered! Jack and Laurel agreed) was so acute that she had learnt to avert her eyes from people’s feet in order to avoid the unpleasant spectacle.–Grace and William, Jack had always known, were so bound together in their wayward opinions that they made a formidable force, as parents, to confront. Both so consumed in their artistic pursuits (though Jack found Grace’s meticulous rendering of the wild flower hard to think of as art), they had seemed, for all their kindness, impervious to the requirements of a small boy, a teenager or even a young man. All he had ever wanted was their interest, and he had never found it.
Jack glanced back at his mother: the devoted wife, astonishment at her husband’s talent undiminished, love for him seemingly unabated. It would be hard for anyone (except Laurel) to agree that Grace was a mother lacking in many respects.
Jack shifted his eyes to the delectable sight of the new member of the Elmtree players, Bonnie Morse. He observed the charm of a pudgy elbow, blanched as mozzarella, that flashed against the red satin lining of her sleeve. He observed the angelic mouth, the bobbing fringe that tantalisingly hid the eyes. He was fascinated by the occasional sight–when she pursed her mouth in concentration -of the shallowest dimple he had ever seen, no more than a small shadow, really, playing about her cheek. As for the large velvet bosom … Jack could not help supposing that should Bonnie ever take the risk, say, of a lace décolletage, a cleavage as enticing as the dimple would be revealed. (The disloyal thought occurred to him that Laurel’s breasts, small and lustreless promontories, were in a sadly different league from Bonnie’s. Funny how Laurel was proud of them. She often persuaded Jack to join in their praises.) So intent was his concentration on Bonnie’s physical assets that he ceased to care about the boring music: he scarcely heard it. The interval came with surprising suddenness, interrupting thoughts which had wandered some way down a nefarious path … Bonnie jogging along the river bank beside him, so he could watch those bloody great knockers jumping about … Bonnie–well, he’d have a chance to conjure other pictures later.
It was Grace who realised, as she studied the menu, the extent of trouble Jack and Laurel must have taken to choose the right restaurant. Their concern had obviously been not to plump for somewhere alarming in its inventiveness, and yet not so pedestrian that she and William might suspect, as a very ordinary couple, they were being suitably catered for. As it was, she felt, they had got it just right. This was an agreeable place: starched cloths, comfortable chairs, attentive waiters, lively hush. Among the rather highfalutin Italian specialities that William had gone for with a certain arrogant relish, there were some simple dishes, too. Grace herself fancied the grilled chicken with herbs, some polenta on the side–she had never understood the secret of polenta, so might learn, and even copy She caught William’s eye, smiled. Laurel’s well-meaning suggestion about the monkfish had plainly annoyed him. He did not smile back.
Nothing is but what is not, William said to himself. He was inclined to quote Shakespeare at moments of great happiness or despair. Grace’s concerned little smile had made his heart bounce and lurch. He needed a drink. Jack was taking the devil of a long time choosing a suitable wine–but then he fancied himself as a wine buff. His praise of William’s own choice was always underlined with a trace of a sneer, not that William cared a toss what Jack thought about his choice. While Jack frowned over the long list, made a few comments to the wine waiter designed to illustrate his knowledge, and William fretted, a very junior waiter was permitted the task of putting a plate of nuts and olives on to the table. Laurel, who had been wondering how to dissolve the awkwardness caused by her innocent suggestion to the touchy William, pounced upon them, snatched up a green olive (not forgetting to curl her little finger in her hurry) and hoped the others would follow suit. She believed that the event of the olives and nuts would break the ice, and then there would only be three courses, and some two more hours, of the painful evening to go.
The dish was white, of fine bone china, divided into four. Two sections held black and green olives; the other two, nuts–peanuts and cashew nuts. Laurel pushed the dish towards Grace.
‘Have a peanut,’ she said, taking a black olive herself. She did not presume that Grace would be fond of olives.
‘No thank you,’ said Grace. ‘I’m allergic to peanuts.’
William raised an eyebrow.
‘I’d almost forgotten that,’ he said.
‘How interesting.’ Laurel turned to Grace. She was always fascinated by others’ illnesses and allergies, having experienced nothing but excellent health herself. ‘How did you discover the allergy?’
Grace gave a small laugh. Aware that everyone at the table was listening, she found herself confused. She never liked to be the centre of attention.
‘I was about five or six,’ she said. ‘Someone gave me a peanut-butter sandwich. I began to wheeze, then choke. I was taken to hospital. To be quite honest I don’t remember much about it except that it was very frightening. They didn’t know much about allergy in those days, but realised I must have at least a mild one. So I’ve avoided peanuts ever since.’
Peanuts, thought William.
‘Must be rather scaring,’ said Laurel. ‘I mean, always having to be on the alert. Suppose you ate something you didn’t know had ground-up peanuts in it?’
Exactly, thought William, whose hands had turned cold.
‘Oh, I’m used to taking care,’ said Grace, choosing an olive. ‘It’s become a habit. But I hope I don’t make much fuss, do I, William?’
‘You don’t, my Ace. Indeed you don’t.’ The cold shrouded his whole body, now, as a picture of Grace, this time next year, came to him. Grace in her coffin, Grace dead. Luckily the excellent wine was poured: William gulped at it like a desperate man, earning a look of disapproval from Jack.
‘Before we go any further,’ said Laurel, ‘there’s something I want to put to you both, Grace and William. Something I think might excite you.’
William sighed. Laurel no longer had peanuts on her mind. Grace managed a look of polite interest. She, like William, could guess the sort of temptation Laurel was about to reveal.
‘It’s this. It so happens ear-to-the-ground Laurel- that’s me–has wind of a very special Spring Break to Greece. Of course, as soon as it’s announced it’ll be booked up. But if you were interested, I could pull strings, probably get you something even more advantageous than the advertised rate
‘How about that, Mother?’ said Jack.
‘Greece,’ said William, with some semblance of a man pondering.
‘The islands. Imagine! Place of the wine-dark sea.’ Laurel had gleaned this snippet of Homer from more brochures than she could remember. It was the quote used in all copy advertising the Aegean Sea. ‘A lovely new Swedish cruising ship, air-conditioned, a lecturer, some professor from Oxford … or is it Cambridge? Anyhow, all pretty irresistible, don’t you think?’ Her own excitement at the prospect had caused pink spots on her beige cheeks. They were also splattered on the V of chest exposed by the neck of her Lurex jersey.
‘I fear we shall have to resist,’ said William. ‘The Elmtree’s very heavily booked next spring.’
‘Oh dear, there’s always something.’ Laurel gave an irritable sigh. The spots began to fade. ‘But if you ask me, William, you do need a holiday’
‘I don’t, you know,’ said William.
‘Nonsense! You push yourself too hard. You need a break sometimes. Think about it.’
‘I don’t know how you can keep turning down all Laurel’s exclusive offers,’ said Jack. ‘She goes to such trouble.’
‘We’re not very keen travellers, really’ said Grace. ‘You’ve always known that.’
William caught her eye and gave her a
small smile of support. She had saved him the necessity of a much less polite reply. Then, luckily, the zuppa whatever arrived, and he was obliged to spell out the Italian pronunciation, which diverted more talk of Laurel’s blinking special breaks.
At some time during the main course Jack felt it was his turn to make a show of interest in his father’s life. (Duty to his mother always failed him. He could never think of a single botanical question to ask.)
‘So: how’s the new viola doing?’
Both innocent of the other’s vision, father and son saw a white elbow dancing against scarlet satin.
‘Bonnie? She’s good. She’s doing fine. We were lucky to get her.’
‘Something of a looker, too,’ said Jack.
‘Bit overweight, if you ask me,’ said Laurel.
‘Much better than being too skinny, like a lot of girls these days,’ said Grace.
Bonnie was not a subject William had any intention of discussing. The very mention of her name made him feel light-headed. This time next year he and Bonnie could be anywhere. He would be free to ravish her, sleep with her, wake up with her, make music with her–all those Mozart duos to be explored. Bonnie! William filled his glass again. The exquisite wine was enhancing the familiar sensation that nothing is but what is not. Dully he listened while Jack and Laurel discussed her. They made no mention of her talent, only her looks. Laurel’s mean observations - ‘surely a girl with a bust like that shouldn’t wear velvet’ -indicated jealous hostility. William could see that a girl like Bonnie could pose a threat to the dreadful Laurel, but only if there was an opportunity for Jack to meet Bonnie–which, William would make absolutely sure, would never happen. Not that any such meeting would worry him–there was no likelihood whatsoever of Bonnie finding Jack attractive. If William had drunk less he might have found his son’s comments about Bonnie - ‘gorgeous knockers’ -outrageous, and he would have challenged Jack to show more respect. As it was, in his now befuddled state, although the observations were distasteful, William was also aware of a faint sense of proprietorial pride: here was his son plainly fancying a girl way out of his reach, the girl William felt closest to in the world. He loathed the idea of Jack’s lustful thoughts of Bonnie, although Laurel’s annoyance was amusing. Perhaps Jack was simply being provocative, entertaining himself by goading her. Well, William could see the fun of that. She was so very humourless, so very earnest. Surely Jack would realise, before it was too late, that somewhere beyond Shepherd’s Bush there must be a more life-enhancing girl with whom to spend his life.