Shadow Music

by Elisabeth Rose

  She nodded. “Go on.” The words were a mere whisper of sound.

  “I pulled the Poulenc out from underneath it and upended the music stand so that it fell on the floor, then I sort of kicked it away under my desk and left it there like a big malevolent spider waiting to bite me. But you know what it’s like. The next day I decided I was being ridiculous and when I had a student I just bent down and pulled the page out cool as can be. Nothing happened. I had this vague idea that the student would protect me somehow. Don’t know what she could’ve done. She was only twelve.” He laughed but it came out as a dry, mirthless croaking.

  “After that I was able to control myself a bit better. I made sure I made mistakes here and there so that the power didn’t get too strong. But there was something driving me to keep playing it over and over, day after day. I had to play it every day. And then one day I finished up my practice session with the melody part alone. I’d figured out that if I played a completely wrong note at the end I could stop quite easily, also the less expression I put in the easier it was to stop. I went to my bedroom to meditate. I always did half an hour of sitting meditation every day but I’d never done it straight after playing the melody. I usually did it first thing in the morning but for some reason that day I hadn’t. The tune was wafting around in my head and that was the first time he spoke to me.”

  “Who was it?” Nina’s breathless interjection startled him. He’d almost forgotten she was there he was so wrapped in the memory of that first extraordinary experience. The voice had come into his mind so clearly he’d thought someone was in the room with him. But he knew no one was. He lived alone.

  “It was a man. Young, light, English, definitely upper class, well educated, but I knew he wasn’t contemporary, right from the start. Something about the way he spoke. He said, “She’s dead.”

  “You could tell from that? Two words?”

  “No…I…I must have heard more…I may have decided later. I don’t know.” He tried to search a brain made mush from jet lag and no sleep. “Does it matter? I know now for sure that they’re not contemporary. I think they’re from the late nineteenth century—the eighteen eighties or nineties. I know there are two strong men’s voices and one weaker one. The one I heard first is the flute player. His name is Jasper, the strongest, although the other is the leader, I think. Piers. His name is Piers. He’s the violinist. He’s very angry.”

  “Piers,” Nina echoed faintly and then again, stronger. “I know his name…” She shook her head. “I have dreams I can’t remember. About…bits and pieces…I can’t remember. He told me his name. Piers. He speaks to you too? Is he angry? I think he’s more sad than angry.”

  She had a faraway look, trying to fit the idea of anger with her own impressions.

  “Sad? I suppose he could be. He always seems to be driving the other two along when I hear him, trying to convince them of something.”

  She still had that dreamy expression, besotted. “I only hear him clearly. Piers. But he talks to the others. He sounds desperately sad to me. He has the most wonderful voice.”

  “I suppose we’re hearing the same voice?” Martin said, a curl of jealousy making him speak more harshly than he’d meant. That voice didn’t strike him as wonderful at all. Aggressive and bullying, he disliked this Piers intensely. Jealous? Of a voice?

  Nina nodded. “I’m sure we are. The violin…”

  “Oh. Yes, of course. I forgot. How could I forget that?” He flopped back onto the sofa cushions, his mind whirling, wondering if they were both insane.

  “How did you find the other part?” prompted Nina. Martin forced his brain back into gear.

  “You know exactly how stunned I was when Jasper spoke to me. You must have felt the same…My eyes flew open and I lost him, of course. I tried to regain the contact but I couldn’t in the normal course of meditation. I discovered I had to play the melody first or at least sing the tune in my head. Usually when you meditate you try to clear your mind or focus on one thing alone. I’ve been doing it for years now and my concentration is quite good—for a short span, anyway. When the tune was fresh in my mind Jasper was very clear and as I got better at it, more relaxed when he spoke, in other words, I could hear the other man, Piers, as well. The third one is very faint still. He only came through clearly when I talked Sylvia into playing with me, but that’s getting ahead of myself.

  “How did I find the cello part? I went back to the shop and went through the rest of the music from the deceasedʼs estate. It never occurred to me then that Ruth might have sold more of it. It was about six weeks later. I flipped through every page of every book and there it was, stuck in “Virtuoso Exercises for the Violoncello.” Same handwritten manuscript but there were initials pencilled on the top corner—S. W. Ruth let me have it for nothing. It was useless without the other parts. She also gave me the address of the person who brought it all in. It had only been there a matter of weeks before I found it. I was tremendously excited.

  That same day I badgered a cellist, Sylvia, to play it through with me. I didn’t tell her anything just said I’d found these parts and the melody was quite haunting and I wanted to hear it with the bass. She’s a very good player but I doubted whether she would get it note perfect because the manuscript was very hard to read in places on her page. From my limited experience I thought she would probably be safe from the effects. Actually it looked as though someone had had a good go at destroying it. Failed, of course.” He looked at Nina. “Have you tried?”

  She nodded. “I couldn’t do it.”

  “No. You can’t. Anyway we started to play the opening and I could see Sylvia becoming hooked on it the way I had that first time. She played beautifully, so expressively, and almost as soon as we began, I heard Jasper and Piers and then the third man, an Irishman they called Michael. They were talking about a woman. They’re always talking about a woman. She’s dead or rather, has just died and she’s very beautiful. Her name sounds like “Mirror” and I think they all loved her but Piers particularly.”

  “It’s M-I-R-A. Short for Miranda…” She frowned. “I think that’s right. I don’t know how I know. Maybe I dreamed it too.” She scraped at her lower lip with her teeth. “Go on.”

  “Sylvia got to the second section and stumbled over one of the bars. Instead of going over it, she stood up and refused to go on. “I’m not playing this anymore,” she said and left. Pretty much straight away. She wouldn’t speak to me after that. I’m sure she didn’t hear the voices, she just hated the vibe from it.”

  Martin stopped. What he was going to say next would sound daft even to his own ears and goodness knew he was certainly half crazy by now. Nina waited expectantly, her face still giving nothing away but with an abnormal intensity suffusing her whole body.

  “I think…that somehow, it only lets people play who it wants to. Who are sympathetic in some way.”

  Would Nina think he was crazy? She had a classic inscrutable look as she stood up.

  “I’ll make more coffee, or would you rather have tea?”

  “Coffee, please, but I really need to sleep soon,” he said and leant back in the chair eyes closed.

  She did think he was mad. Loony old King Lear had nothing on Martin Leigh. He suddenly saw himself as she must be seeing him. And squirmed. Hair unkempt and messy and although reasonably clean, in dire need of a run-in with a barber. The tight curls which his mother assured him as a child were the envy of every woman and girl in the area and which he knew were the butt of every boy’s joke, had grown thicker and less manageable the older he got. When reggae had become popular, for once his hair fitted a fashion style but now he kept it short. At least he had until a half year ago, until this obsession had overtaken him.

  Since finding the music, he’d hardly given grooming a thought beyond washing regularly. His clothes were stale and smelly from travelling. It was hot here in Australia. Much hotter than he’d been prepared for, if prepared was the word to describe the haphazard shoving of c
lothes into a suitcase borrowed from his landlord and upstairs neighbour, the long-suffering Franz.

  November in England did not prepare the traveller for November in Sydney, even if intellectually, he comprehended the change of season. Martin had thrown in underwear and four or five shirts and T shirts but neither shorts nor sandals. He would need both in the coming weeks and it wasn’t even summer yet.

  Would Nina think it too much if he asked to use her shower and washing machine? He needed to find somewhere to stay tonight. It was getting late. She’d know of a hostel or a cheap hotel in the area.

  He heard her coming back and dragged his eyes open. She was stunning. Fresh and pretty in her cotton dress…and sparkling clean…and would smell lovely too, if he were able to get close enough to her to test his theory. She was graceful with a fascinating, exotic beauty inherited from an Asian ancestor.

  She put a tray down on the coffee table. Coffee and biscuits.

  He straightened up and smiled. “Could I wash, please, Nina? I’m…I need a wash,” he finished awkwardly as he stumbled to his feet almost sending the tray flying. “I’m sorry.”

  Nina grimaced in dismay. “No, I’m sorry. I should have asked if you needed to use the bathroom. It’s through there.” She pointed to the doorway leading to the back of the house. “And the toilet’s right next to it.”

  She sat down as Martin hurried out of the room. She was probably being polite and had wanted to drag him to the bathroom, no, more likely the laundry and disinfect him before he even sat down on her furniture or touched anything.

  Luckily a nailbrush sat on the soap dish. He scrubbed his hands, washed and dried his face and borrowed an elastic band from a dish of hairpins and bits and pieces on the bench. Now all he needed was a shave and clean clothes but his suitcase was in the hallway by the front door and he could hardly start showering and changing clothes now. Martin sighed and went back for some of those biscuits.

  Nina smiled when she saw the effort he’d made. “Feel better?”

  He nodded, nervous again under that calm steady gaze from her beautiful dark eyes and the realisation that although he was convinced he’d found his soul mate, Nina probably wasn’t. Nina thought she’d found a man as loony and obsessed as she was. One she hoped would help her.

  “I think you’re right,” she said. “About the music choosing us.”

  He closed his eyes and swallowed what might have been a tear threatening to escape so intense was his relief but she was busy pouring coffee and didn’t see his struggle for control.

  She handed him a Snoopy mug and he took a chocolate-coated biscuit, chewed and swallowed. “I think they choose who will play the part the best by deterring those not suitable.”

  “And we’re suitable.” Not sceptical, just establishing a fact.

  “Yes. They didn’t like Sylvia even though she was a beautiful player. Why was that, I wonder?” It had puzzled him then and still puzzled him now, months later.

  “She didn’t like the music. Some people hate it. The stallholder I bought mine from didn’t want me to have it. He got quite nasty.”

  “That’s what I mean,” interrupted Martin. “Why does it repel some people?”

  “I don’t know,” said Nina helplessly. “But how did you know there were other parts to find?”

  “Mainly from the part itself. I’ve got rests marked so there had to be other instruments. I just don’t know how many. And I don’t have the complete melody all the time. Sometimes it’s a harmony line. There had to be other parts. When I found the cello part I realised there were still others missing because both cello and flute have rests in the same place.”

  “My part doesn’t have any rests at all. It’s Piers’ violin part.” Nina’s voice shook a little as the full implications registered, as they had months ago to Martin. “It must be the main one. The most powerful. He’s the only one I hear. I knew there were others because he speaks to them but I don’t hear them. Not clearly. I think there’s a guitar.”

  “Violin, flute, cello and guitar. I wonder if there are more.” But if so where were they and what were they and how many?

  “Martin, how did you find me? It seems so incredible that you would come to Australia to search, let alone actually track me down. Or track the music down. How did you do it? I was going mad and if you hadn’t walked in today I don’t know…” Her eyes filled with moisture and she pressed her lips together tightly.

  He stood and moved to squat beside her chair. He took her hands in his, holding them firmly to stop the shaking. She sighed deeply and clutched his fingers, searched his face for reassurance and strength. Martin smiled. The urge to kiss her powered up from nowhere and almost overwhelmed him but he shoved it away.

  “There are two of us now and we’re not mad, either of us. There’s a reason for what’s happening. We have to find it.”

  Nina’s mouth trembled. Tears hovered on her lids making her dark eyes luminous and childlike. He squeezed her hands and she attempted a smile. He released her and reluctantly resumed his place on the couch, picked up another biscuit at random to prevent himself reaching for her.

  “I’ve had longer to get used to it, more than a year, and I’ve decided I won’t have a life of my own again until this is solved.”

  She nodded. “It’s only been a few months for me.ˮ

  “You’re doing really well. You still go to work.” He glanced round. “Your house is clean and tidy. You’re still in control. I wasn’t at your stage.”

  She heaved in a deep shuddery breath and wiped her eyes. “Tell me the rest of the story.” But she was calm now and he felt one step closer to earning her complete trust.

  “After Sylvia left I didn’t know what to do. I tried playing the cello part on my flute but it resisted. It really did. It was the most extraordinary sensation. It was literally as if the music didn’t want to be played. So I had to give up. I considered asking another cellist but I wasn’t game to make someone else have that same experience. I thought I would wait a while and try again in a few weeks’ time. Then I remembered Ruth had given me the name and address of the person who had sold her the boxes of music. Did I say? There were three crates full of it. All sorts of stuff. Mostly violin, cello and piano but some flute and a little bit of guitar. That made me think too about what other instruments may have been in the group. Perhaps there was a violin part and a piano part or a guitar part.

  “And there were the initials S.W. I began by reading the phone book to see how many S Wʼs there were. Hopeless. There were hundreds. And that was assuming S.W. lived in London or was even still alive. Or even referred to a person. Then I tried the name Ruth gave me—Celia Harrow. I looked her up in the phone book and rang her to make an appointment to visit.

  Apparently she’s quite elderly and lives alone. She was rather reluctant to see me but seemed happy enough to talk on the phone. The boxes were her late brother’s. George. He died last year and she and his widow had started going through his things, clearing stuff out. They got rid of all his music and some of hers as well. The piano pieces it turned out, had been hers. She told me she’d never been much good on the piano. George had been the musician of the family, took after their mother who came from a long line of musicians. Her father, Celia’s grandfather was a professional violinist in the early 1900’s but was killed in the First World War and his father had been a cellist. He was Irish.”

  Martin stopped and looked meaningfully at Nina. She stared back.

  “Michael?” she whispered.

  “I think so. And not only that. His name was West and his son’s name…” Martin paused for dramatic effect. “…was Stanley.”

  “S.W,” she breathed. Her face had gone quite pale and she flopped back onto the couch like a stringless puppet.

  “Are you okay?” Martin asked anxiously.

  Nina nodded. “Yes.”

  He smiled. “You look how I felt when she told me. I nearly dropped the phone. She was burbling on about what a musical f
amily they’d all been and how glad she was that someone had bought some of the music who would truly appreciate it. She had no children and George’s family wasn’t interested. Then she asked me what I actually wanted. Why had I rung? I’d started out by telling her I’d bought some of the music and wondered where it had come from and she just took it from there with hardly any prompting. When she asked what I wanted to know specifically I floundered a bit. I could hardly ask her if her brother heard voices.

  “I said, ‘Did your brother play with a group? In the music there were two parts to a chamber work and I’d really like to track down the rest because it’s such an interesting pieceʼ.ˮ

  “That’s putting it mildly,” interjected Nina with a surprising little snort of laughter.

  Martin spread his hands, grinning. “What else could I say? She’d think I was crazy. I was—am—crazy but she didn’t need to know.”

  She smiled back with such an uninhibited show of complicity his heart turned right over in his chest. He stared at her several moments too long and she dropped her gaze hastily, the smile hovering about her lips. He’d have to tread warily here, with Nina. Regardless of his own immediate certainty, she displayed no signs of seeing him as anything other than a saviour, a partner in this most bizarre of quests. He couldn’t afford to frighten her with unwelcome advances.

  He fell in love too easily and although women were attracted to him, before long he somehow managed to disenchant them. Maybe they sensed the basic unreliability and shied away like horses from the smoke of a fire, instinctively knowing there would be nothing but pain and anguish in that direction. He wasn’t a man a woman could depend on and until now, until Nina, it hadn’t really bothered him.

  Evie, the latest and last in the procession had left not through natural disenchantment which would have come eventually, but as a result of this very thing they were embroiled in. She was terrified by what he had become. What he was now.