Easy Silence

by Angela Huth

  ‘It’s good she’s moved to Aylesbury. Much easier.’

  ‘Easier for what?’ William sniffed.

  ‘Well, easier for her.’

  ‘You’ve seen her flat?’

  ‘I found it for her, if you remember.’

  ‘So you did. Does she seem to be happy there?’

  ‘Seems to be.’

  ‘That’s good.’ William liked the fact that Bonnie plainly had not told Grant about yesterday’s visit. He turned up the volume on the wonderfully uncomplicated-looking radio. Another musical interlude would give him time to work out his next step. But it was Debussy piano music, not Grant’s favourite sort of thing. He switched it off again.

  ‘I sometimes worry,’ he said, ‘that she’ll be off quite soon. I mean, she’s so young, so good. Someone will snap her up. Some job far more exciting and lucrative will lure her away.’

  ‘We went through all that when we decided to take her on,’ said Grant. ‘We all agreed it was a risk worth taking.’

  ‘So we did.’ William sighed. He felt a sudden desolation, more from the prospect of Bonnie leaving them than from the future of the Quartet. Perhaps now was the moment to put this to Grant.

  ‘Rufus and I,’ he said, ‘will have to think about retiring one day.’

  ‘No need to think about that. It’s not as if engagements are dropping off. In fact, with Bonnie, we haven’t been so in demand for ages, have we? Perhaps she’s given us a new life.’

  ‘I think she probably has. But the fact remains. Rufus and I … are probably past our prime. We should bow out on a high, shouldn’t we? But I like to think the Elmtree might continue in some form. I often wonder if you … could keep it on. With Bonnie, maybe. Shouldn’t be too hard to find a couple of excellent violinists. There’s so much young talent about.’

  ‘That could all be a possibility,’ said Grant.

  ‘Of course,’ went on William, after a decent interval, ‘if Bonnie got married, hitched up, involved with someone–you know the kind of thing I mean–then I suppose there’d be no chance of keeping her.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Grant shrugged again. ‘Depends. Women are so independent these days. Keep on with their careers, fit them in with children and so on.’

  ‘True.’ Pause. ‘As far as you know, does she have any sort of… arrangement?’

  ‘You mean a man?’

  ‘I suppose I do.’

  ‘As I told you’–Grant was smiling–‘she keeps her cards pretty close to her beautiful chest.’

  ‘Her beautiful chest: yes indeed.’ William smiled too, to disguise his slight alarm. To hear Grant applying adjectives to Bonnie that he, William, only used in the most secret part of his mind was faintly disturbing. But he saw it was the moment to dare to push a little further. ‘Damn attractive young girl,’ he said.

  Grant thought about this.

  ‘Though I don’t think she has the faintest awareness of her own attraction. Very unusual. She seems to be utterly without vanity.’

  ‘I’m with you there. A rare specimen of her generation.’

  ‘There are a lot of very good specimens among the young,’ said Grant. ‘You just don’t happen to know them.’

  William enjoyed such mild teasing on Grant’s part.

  ‘Not among Jack and Laurel’s friends, there aren’t.’

  They both laughed. William’s affection for Grant had been deepened by the journey, he thought, as they reached the outskirts of Bournemouth. What’s more, he was comforted by the knowledge that Bonnie’s private life was a mystery to Grant, too. It was right that it should be so, of course: there would be something distasteful about the single, attractive female member of the Quartet confiding her hopes and fears to her fellow players. And until she made a definite announcement about future commitment to some stranger, there remained hope that William–in a way he was still not able to work out–might win her lasting love and affection, her life.

  When William had left for Bournemouth Grace stood at her desk knowing it was yet another morning in which extraneous matters would keep her from work. She flipped through her sketchbook, searching for a Pulsatilla Vulgaris Alba she had intended to finish. The pallid little flowers with their stiff little leaves so horribly carefully drawn, as she now saw, filled her with gloom. Her conviction that her talent–if talent you could call it–was very minor indeed pressed upon her. Perhaps the knowing, deep within her, that the ultimate book–if ever it was finished–was not going to be very good was the reason she so often found other excuses not to persevere. Because she did not really love what she was doing, but had chosen it as an alternative to her own piano playing when she met William, she did not feel compelled to keep at it in the sort of disciplined way that William practised his violin, always trying to reach a few steps closer to perfection. In the case of her flowers, Grace thought, she had neither the energy nor the desire to strive for perfection. And this morning, ankle still hurting, the knowledge of Lucien’s strange behaviour causing pain that could not be shifted, and William away enjoying himself for twenty-four hours, it occurred to her she should give up altogether. Stop pretending this magnum opus was worth pursuing. Throw it away, perhaps, and start something quite different. She picked up the folder of finished paintings, devoid of even less liveliness than the sketches. How could she have believed Lucien when he was so encouraging about her ability? Surely that was just another of his lies. Her work was fit only for the fire.

  Grace lifted up a picture of a clump of violets, awkwardly placed on the page, it now seemed. She was about to tear it in half when the telephone rang. She put it down again.

  ‘Hello? Mrs Handle?’ A woman’s voice she did not know. ‘This is Lobelia Watson speaking.’

  ‘Oh, Lob–, Mrs Watson.’ Grace could not remember exactly what agreement they had come to about how to address each other. But it was nice to think her new, possible friend was ringing so soon. Usually, there were no calls for her in the morning.

  ‘I just thought you’d like to know that soon after you left yesterday Lucien came back in a high good mood. I haven’t seen him so happy for ages. He was laughing, joking, said it had given him a terrific kick, as he called it, thinking of us being so amazed by each other.’

  ‘I’m glad he enjoyed his little joke,’ said Grace. ‘I mean, I suppose it was quite funny.’

  ‘Well,’ said Lobelia, ‘it was rather protracted. Descriptions of you for months, building up this shocking picture. But Lucien’s like that–once he’s got an idea in his head he’ll stick to it, ever more devious. I suppose it’s all part of his … trouble. I suppose building up the picture was all part of his enjoyment.’

  ‘I’m glad he’s happy again.’

  ‘It’s always a relief, though it may not last long. He was so–touching, really, last night. Offered to make me a drink, even made a stab at laying the table. At supper we had a perfectly civilised conversation–history of art. Well, I was once a mature student.’ She gave a self-deprecating laugh. ‘He said he wanted to find out everything I knew about Van Gogh, God knows why. He did go out later, but kissed me on the cheek on his way out. Nothing like that has happened for years. I couldn’t believe it. And this morning I found him down in the kitchen before me, boiling the kettle. All very mysterious. Wonderful.’

  ‘My goodness,’ said Grace.

  ‘He was the one who suggested I rang this morning, make some kind of plan for us to meet, perhaps. I was going to leave it for a few days … I was wondering whether …?’ Her eagerness, her uncertainty, quivered in Grace’s ear.

  ‘Why don’t you come to lunch on Friday?’ Grace suggested. ‘My husband will be away rehearsing, but it would be a lovely excuse to spend the morning cooking us something.’

  ‘That’s really so kind. If it isn’t too much trouble, I’d love to.’ Lobelia paused. ‘Oh, with all these arrangements’–she gave another small laugh, as if awed by unaccustomed plans for lunching out–‘I almost forgot Lucien’s message. He said w
ould I tell you he was planning to come round to see you today. He said he’d not been round for ages. He was looking forward to seeing you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Grace.

  But when she had put down the telephone she realised that part of her was not looking forward to seeing Lucien at all. That is–it was so confused in her mind. She longed to see him, God knows she had missed him, but also, his madness confirmed by Lobelia, she was now afraid of being alone with him. What exactly made her suddenly nervous of his presence she could not explain. Perhaps she could not be sure she could contain her furious disappointment in him, and if she gave vent to her anger he might well react in some irrational, perhaps violent way. It would have been fine if William was upstairs in his study, ready to come to her rescue in the event of a sudden outburst of temper. But to be in the house alone with him, after several weeks of no real communication, filled her with apprehension. She thought of the wolf howling, the disappearance of the cufflinks, the extraordinary lies about Lobelia. She thought about the unknown part of his life, whose clues came in his dishevelled appearance, his large-pupilled eyes … and she felt a vulnerability that had never struck her before.

  As she remained standing at her desk, looking at the mist-dull laurels outside in the drive, a sense of urgency added to her weighing-up. Suddenly she knew that she could not be here, alone, when Lucien arrived. It would be foolish–dangerous, even. She would be letting him down, of course: her absence might spur him to some future revenge. But she would have to take that risk. The important thing, right now, was to go. To check the locks on all the windows, set the alarm and be off.

  As she rushed about the house no plan came to her of where she should go for twenty-four hours–she merely thanked God that William had gone with Grant and so the car was free. Something, she thought, would come to her. She stuffed her night things into a small bag, took the housekeeping money from the kitchen drawer so that there would be no need to stop at the bank. Ten minutes after Lobelia’s call, too amazed by her own unpremeditated actions to summon any coherent plan, she swirled out of the drive only wondering whether to turn right or left into the street.

  After so many years of performing in public, William and the others knew that it was only very rarely that a group of performers would achieve ‘lift off, as Grant crudely called it. When it happened–sometimes spontaneously and surprisingly, sometimes anticipated due to a sympathetic location or a piece of music loved by them all–its boost would tide them over the less memorable evenings, as they waited for it to recharge them again at some unknown date.

  Bournemouth, William was pretty certain, would be a lift-off evening. It was in Bournemouth the Elmtree had first won ecstatic reviews in the national press. They had returned every year, certain of support from their loyal fans–many of whom had been at that first concert. But the cheering thing was that for the last few years there had been many young people in the audience, too. William enjoyed finding a few pieces that would keep this new generation from thinking the Elmtree were strict traditionalists. Dvořák’s Quartet in F, the American, a regular every year that had come to be known as the ‘Bournemouth special’. An early Mozart, and Brahms were usually included in the programme, while the ‘spice’, the new element, was couched between them. This year William had chosen a piece by Alan Rawsthorne. He looked forward to the reaction.

  The concert had been sold out for weeks–it always was. The hall was packed. A crowd of young was standing at the back. William led the players on to the platform–edged, as always, with ranks of poinsettias so popular with producers of musical concerts. He sensed a lightness of being, enjoyment, before a note was played. The applause–again, as always–conveyed the warmth of the audience’s welcome. At such times William was able for a few moments to put aside his usual feelings of inadequacy as a musician, and believe that the Elmtree Quartet could make some contribution to the happiness of a few hundred people.

  William observed that Bonnie gave one of her extra special little bows, accompanied by a dimpled grin. At this, the applause thickened and William found himself smiling. He had kept meaning to say something to Bonnie: suggest she should join the others only in the one, uniform bow at the beginning. But he had not the heart to do so, and would say nothing this year–after all, it was her début, here. She had to introduce herself to the audience, many of whom might be mourning the loss of Andrew. And certainly, before she played a note, she seemed to have won them over. As her sleeves swung William caught sight of flashes of scarlet satin lining–she only wore the scarlet at especial occasions, he thought, and smiled again at the catcalls that came from the back of the hall. He took in the audience as best as he was able with lights shining into his face, and could just observe that in the front row, her tense, pale face shrouded in a filmy scarf, was Iris. For a second William was struck with guilt: perhaps he, like Rufus, should have brought his wife to this concert. But then Grace never liked staying in hotels, wasn’t keen on the Dvořák, was much happier at home in front of the fire …

  A keen silence fell now as the musicians, sitting, tuned their instruments. William checked each one of them with a look. They were all ready to go. He nodded. They bent their way into the first teasing notes, the pastoral lilt, of Dvořák’s Quartet in F. All thoughts of Grace vanished as William disappeared into the music.

  As the wife of William Handle, an annual guest at the hotel for many years, Grace was able to check in with no difficulty. She was shown up to his room–the red carpet of the endless corridor seemed to move towards her like those flat moving escalators at airports: an illusion caused by the long and tiring day, she thought.

  The room had a high Edwardian ceiling and elaborate cornice. The furniture did not match the grandeur of the architecture, but the bed and chairs looked comfortable, and there was a television and a mini–bar. Grace, who was both hungry and tired, helped herself to a packet of crisps and a gin and tonic–very unusual, for her, but she felt she needed it, deserved it. She had driven at least a hundred miles, unable to decide where to stop, where to stay. It was only when alone in a tea shop in Marlborough that she realised she wasn’t that far from Bournemouth, and the sensible thing to do would be to join William, surprise him, and drive him home in the morning.

  Grace, in the flush of the hotel room, began to enjoy herself. She took the drink into the bathroom–an extravagance of faux marble and white towels, and had a long bath. It occurred to her that if she hurried she could reach the concert hall in time for the second half of the programme. But she knew there would not be a seat. She did not fancy standing on her ankle, and she did not want to hurry. Her mind soon silvered with the gin, she felt safe in the steamy warmth of the bathroom, hidden in bubbles that smelt of pine forests, hair damp on her forehead. Later, in her dressing–gown, she watched the news on television, bad ankle resting on a Dralon stool. A second gin and tonic nudged the thought that, pleased and surprised though William would be to find her here, he might be less than delighted to find her in her dressing-gown, with its traces of breakfast on the lapels, badly in need of a wash. So she dressed again: the skirt she had been in all day and the spare (crumpled) jersey she had thrown, panicking, into her suitcase. Then she returned to the armchair to watch a cooking programme: only two or so hours and William would be here. She had made the right decision, she thought to herself. He would understand, be so pleased. Grace smiled to herself.

  Their time on the platform was immeasurable. William was suddenly aware that the end had come when the audience, frozen in their delighted listening, returned from their private reflections to clap. Applause rolled on and on, an unstoppable surf crashing into his ears. He had broken his usual rule about encores and given in to Elmtree’s greatest fans with two. Andrew was plainly not mourned: Bonnie had won over this enthusiastic crowd completely. Her bows and smiles–even a small curtsey, which caused a trill of laughter among the clapping–were completely over the top, though William knew that once again he would never scold
her. Dimples, shining hair, flashing velvet–no wonder they loved her.

  Despite the enjoyment of the audience’s appreciation, William would not let himself spoil it all by staying too long. With a final, curt little bow–the applause still echoing like ocean depths–he led the players off the platform. Bonnie swirled about, drunk on what she called the ‘magic’. Grant muttered ‘bloody lift-off, several times, while even Rufus acknowledged with a smile that it had been the best evening for a very long time. William himself was dazed by the knowledge that they had played their best, and their best had been rapturously acknowledged–perhaps there was still a year or two left for the Elmtree in its present form. More forcefully in his mind was a picture of the near future–the hotel’s elegant bar where, for once, careless of economy, he would order champagne, see Bonnie’s delight. And then, and then … who knows? Were he to engage her in a conversation she felt compelled to continue, perhaps she would accompany him to the large room overlooking the sea (he had been adamant about that, when making the bookings), where they could explore the mini-bar and draw back the curtains to let the moon play tricks on the vast spaces of carpet patterned with red roses.

  ‘William!’ Bonnie had taken his arm. ‘They’re wanting you to sign.’

  They were outside the stage door, a flurry of lights and cold breath ballooning up like captions from a dozen heads or so. William disentangled himself from his reveries, pulled a pencil from his pocket. Bonnie was right. Some old woman had shoved an autograph book up against his chest–politely, he guessed, for the real object of their desire was Bonnie. Scraps of paper, programmes and autograph books were swarming round her. She left William’s side, laughing. This sudden moment of fame, of public recognition, had ignited her spirits to heights William had never seen before. She was signing her name again and again, leaning against people’s shoulders and arms. William exchanged a look with Grant, who, like him, had been caught up in the slip stream of Bonnie’s popularity and had signed a few programmes. As no more requests for their signatures were forthcoming, they were happy vicariously to enjoy Bonnie’s success. Rufus was nowhere to be seen. He didn’t approve of such vulgar post-concert behaviour, as William knew, and had gone to meet his wife.