by Rachel Joyce
They were in the sitting room of the white house by the sea. Frank and Deborah had already gone the whole way – cherry nipples downwards – but this was the first time Peg had invited her for dinner. So far she had played Shostakovich and Bitches Brew. She had offered gin cocktails with an hors d’oeuvre selection of Fortnum’s crackers and pineapple chunks. But there was no sign whatsoever of a good hot meal.
Deborah was in awe of Peg, and the white house too. ‘She’s amazing. So bohemian. And it’s really cool the way you two live out here and call each other by your first names. As if you’re just friends.’ Frank didn’t like to mention that the house was actually beginning to fall down. There were so many holes in the roof that when it rained, he slept beneath a tarpaulin.
‘Let’s not play Berlioz, Peg,’ he said. ‘Deb likes Mantovani and Herman’s Hermits.’
‘My parents like Mantovani. I don’t mind what I listen to. I’m easy.’
‘You don’t mind?’ repeated Peg. ‘You’re easy?’ Her eyebrows were practically in her turban. You’d think Deborah had just confessed she walked the streets at night. ‘What is Mantovani anyway?’
‘It’s kind of nice and swirly,’ said Deborah.
‘I’ve never heard of it.’
‘You wouldn’t like it, Peg. Listen, me and Deb are going upstairs for a while.’ He was desperate to roll around with her. And something about the way she sat, all good and solid and reliable, made him grateful. She never asked questions like ‘Have you heard this? Have you heard that?’ Instead she asked if he was hungry, or if he’d had a nice day. For his seventeenth birthday she had knitted him a jumper to match hers – only instead of a pink kitten, he had a blue dog. (‘What the fuck is that?’ asked Peg.) Deborah was his ticket to normality.
But Peg was pulling out a record. Sensing an audience, she was not prepared to give up so easily. ‘Let me tell you about Berlioz,’ she said.
First off, he was French. (‘I do know this,’ said Frank.) He was a Romantic. (‘Yup. I know that too.’) Things were going well for Berlioz. At the age of twenty-seven, he won a music scholarship that took him to Rome but he’d only been away for a few months when he heard his girlfriend had met a new man. So what did he do?
‘Golly,’ said Deborah. ‘I have no idea.’
‘I do,’ said Frank. ‘It’s not regular.’
Berlioz was beside himself. He took the first train back to Paris, along with a dress, a hat, a pistol and a bottle of strychnine. His plan was to burst in on his girlfriend and her new lover, disguised as a maid, or at least a maid in a hat, and blow out their brains. After that he would turn the gun on himself. The poison was just a back-up plan.
‘Did he kill them?’
‘No. Somewhere along the way, Berlioz lost the dress. Well, he had a lot to think about. Instead he threw himself into the Mediterranean.’
‘Oh my God. He committed suicide?’
‘No. He got fished out. Which is just as well because otherwise we wouldn’t have his Symphonie fantastique with its famous use of the leitmotif.’ Peg puffed on a Sobranie and adjusted the folds of her kaftan. ‘Pineapple, anyone?’
Deborah’s hand shot to her mouth. She retched but nothing came. ‘Oh help,’ she said, turning pale.
‘Are you OK, Deb?’
‘I’m pregnant.’
The room seemed to fall over. ‘What?’ said Frank.
‘What?’ said Peg. For once, she pulled off her sunglasses. Her eyes were small and blinking.
Deborah said it again. She was pregnant. Three months overdue. ‘I’ve thought it all through. I want to keep the baby. Me and Frank can get married.’
29
Two Queens and a Duke
NOW THAT FRANK had held Ilse Brauchmann’s hand – albeit briefly – he could think of little else, and it was also harder than he had anticipated to talk about music while eating a fried egg. Nevertheless the strange row with which they had started their lesson pushed their relationship into a new place. The argument had served as a kind of cleanser. Frank was reminded of the garden at the white house by the sea; how in the heat of summer it could look desolate, ransacked by heat and salt wind, but come rain, it was filled with new colour and smells, as if it had been given a whole fresh outfit.
Ilse said, ‘God, Frank, I loved the records you found for me. All day at work, I have been looking forward to my lesson.’
In his mind he put her in an office with a large desk and a row of telephones. Fashion, he imagined. Or maybe she worked with her fiancé. He didn’t need to know any more than that, which was just as well, because she said, ‘James Brown! Oh my God! “Beata viscera”! And the Puccini! I couldn’t even breathe … And “Stairway To Heaven”. I love that! So what records do you have for me today?’
Music, Frank explained, said things that words couldn’t. This was the theme of his third lesson. Unfortunately there was no room on the table to lay out all the albums – what with the plates, teapot and condiments, etc. – so he simply held them up, one by one, like signs. Today, he told her, she was going to meet punk, a weeping Queen, the Duke, and a man in a dress.
Ilse nodded with big, sparkling, astonished eyes. She was beginning to laugh and he hadn’t even started.
‘Music should come with a health warning. Put the right words with the right music and you get dynamite. What do you know about punk?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I want you to understand it. Because punk means something to me. OK?’
‘OK, Frank.’ Smile, smile, smile.
‘So this is “God Save The Queen” by The Sex Pistols. The song came out in ’77, the year of the Queen’s silver jubilee, when the whole country was planning a street party. And what it says is the future’s over. England’s lost the plot. It makes a mockery of establishment and royalty, but it’s also kind of witty in a really British way. Here was this group of four reprobates who could barely play. And they looked at everyone in their party hats, and they said the one thing no one was supposed to say. They said, Fuck the Queen.’
Ilse Brauchmann sat, stunned. She even forgot she had a boiled egg.
‘The song got banned by the BBC and half the shops wouldn’t sell it but I played it all summer. I considered it a public service. Not that I have anything against the Queen – I like her – but it was important there was a place where the unsayable could still be said. And fair do’s to the Queen, I guess she agreed with me. She didn’t chop off John Lydon’s head or anything.’
Ha ha ha, went Ilse Brauchmann, all of a sudden laughing so raucously she had to make out she was yawning.
‘“God Save The Queen” is one massive self-destruct button. John Lydon can’t sing, he can’t read music, and that’s the whole point. The song isn’t just anti-monarchy, it’s anti-everything, including himself. But we need him. When the whole country’s waving paper flags and eating finger sandwiches, you need someone to moon their arse. You see?’
Ilse nodded. Slowly.
Next he pulled out Dido’s Lament, written by Purcell for his opera Dido and Aeneas.
‘OK, so that was an explosion. This is an implosion. This is the saddest aria you will EVER hear. It’s almost the end, and the one man Queen Dido ever loved has just left. He was her soulmate. He was the one. And now he’s gone. She knows there’s nothing left except to die. This is what it sounds like when a heart breaks.’
Ilse had reached for a toast soldier and was about to dip it in her egg, but stopped mid-air. She didn’t say ‘How?’ because she still didn’t seem to have the use of her voice, but he got the impression she would have, if she could.
‘Oh God, it’s so brilliant. Through the whole aria she’s singing “Remember me, remember me” and it’s all on the same note, until the very last time when her voice goes up. And it’s ah.’ He beat his chest. ‘It breaks your heart because it’s so desperate, that little change in the notes – and we get in that moment how ordinary we all are. Who will remember any of us? She’s the Queen of Cartha
ge and she knows it means nothing! Ah.’ (Another beating of his chest.) ‘She stops singing before the orchestra does, and that’s the last punch really because the music has to go on without her, and it’s so sad, God it’s sad, it’s SO sad—’ He had to stop because – to his horror – he was crying. She passed him a tissue. He said, ‘Listen. Listen when you get home. Don’t even take off your coat. Just lie on the floor with your headphones and listen.’ He blew his nose extensively. ‘I have a cold,’ he said. Just in case she thought he was moved, or soft, or something.
Maybe Ilse Brauchmann had a cold too because she was also blowing her nose. He suggested that if she wanted to finish her egg, he could take a pause but she pushed the plate to one side and gazed at him with her chin in her hands. She was all listening eyes and flicky hair.
‘Now we come to the Duke. Duke Ellington. And trust me, you will need him after Dido. He’s so happy! So glidey! Track one, “Satin Doll”. The instrumental version. This isn’t an explosion and it isn’t an implosion, it’s just the biggest celebration. It’s a track for every single instrument in the band. They all get to have a solo, and they all get to support each other. Duke Ellington used it as his last number and when you hear it you’ll know why: it’s like closing off the lights on the band, one by one, until you get to the very last bom. It’s the happiest ever goodbye.’
Ilse laughed.
So what happened when he got to the fourth record, Symphonie Fantastique by Berlioz, and the story Peg once told about the man in disguise? He had begun to hope this was his best lesson so far – there was nothing he couldn’t say to Ilse Brauchmann that didn’t have her either howling with laughter, or on the verge of tears. Finally confident, and actually enjoying himself, he talked without one single ‘um’ or ‘uh’ about the absurd lengths Berlioz had gone to, in order to hide his true identity. He even described the dress and the hat – embellishing them with the kind of vivid detail that made them even more absurd and hilarious. He was so funny he made himself roar out loud; imagine this wild Romantic, striding through Paris in his dress, with a loaded gun and a hat. ‘Who was he was kidding? It was insane. As if no one would spot him! How did he think he could get away with a disguise like that?’
Ilse struggled to her feet. Her face had a stricken, affronted look, as if he had leant right over the table and served a blow to her stomach.
‘What’s wrong? What are you doing?’
She grappled with the clasp on her purse but her hands were trembling so hard she couldn’t open it.
‘Ilse?’
‘Verdammt,’ she hissed.
‘Please. Let me help.’
‘I don’t need it.’
Finally she managed; the purse fell open and she whammed a five-pound note on the table, along with his envelope of cash. She grabbed her coat. She didn’t even bother with the records.
‘I don’t understand. What did I say?’
She fled to the door and glanced back once, only to reply, ‘Don’t you dare follow.’ She made a strange wild pat at the air, stepped outside and was swallowed by the dark.
In silence, Frank replaced the records in their paper bag. He felt big and useless; he had no idea what he had said to upset her. The waitress watched from her stool in front of the saloon door, her mouth set in a grim line. By the look of things, she was prepared to keep up that expression for a very long time. Frank balanced his plate on top of Ilse Brauchmann’s plate, and then had a go at folding the two used napkins. It was like clearing away the ghosts of things. If only he understood.
‘Men,’ said the waitress, in the same way you might look at a nasty cloud and say, ‘Rain’.
‘But she told me. She told me not to follow.’
To which she rolled her eyes so hard they looked in danger of disappearing into the top of her head. ‘Are you an idiot?’
He searched everywhere. Castlegate, the little cobbled alleyways, the cab rank. Now that he had made up his mind, he couldn’t bear the idea of not finding her. The temperature had dropped suddenly – the cold was like pincers; it seemed to enter Frank’s eyes and mouth and burn his insides. He had to dig his hands in his armpits in an effort to keep them warm and the air smelt particularly cheese-and-oniony. Above the city, the moon hung low, surrounded by a frizzy halo; there was something greenish about the dark, but it was possible he was back to being fanciful now.
He lumbered past workers going home from the food factory, traders packing up their market stalls, but never Ilse Brauchmann. He passed gangs of teenagers roaming the streets, a line of muffled bodies beneath cardboard, and young couples rushing from wine bars to the safety of their cars. From the brightly lit windows of Woolworths, there shone an entire wall-length display of CDs. He passed broken gutters, walls blackened by years of rain and car fumes, crumbling plaster, windows broken or closed with corrugated iron. Graffiti and slogans. He even returned to the park and lumbered the entire path around the lake; pleasure boats rocking against the jetty, the water black as a seam of coal. But no Ilse Brauchmann. Once again, the woman had vanished.
By the time he was back at the cathedral, a first snow had begun. Tiny specks came slowly through the air, so weightless they seemed to be floating. Frank pushed on, scanning bus stops, pubs, restaurants. A larger flake fell on his sleeve and did not melt. Within very little time, the snow was coming more densely, as if the sky had a serious amount to offload and suddenly realized it needed to get on with the job. He returned to the Singing Teapot, wondering if by some chance Ilse Brauchmann had returned, but the café was empty, the main lights were off. The waitress stood at the window, her head craned up at the sky. Spotting Frank, she shook her head, suggesting she thought even less of him than she did of the unexpected change in the weather.
The snow was falling really hard now – pieces like kapok; entire cushion-loads of the stuff – and the ground was completely sealed. He could barely see up, and he could barely see ahead either. Across the street the wheels of a car spun over and over, failing to gain purchase. Joined by a few others, Frank helped to push it along its way.
‘Where did this weather come from?’ someone shouted.
‘We’d better get home,’ someone shouted back.
In a space of less than thirty minutes the city was smothered and silent. When Frank made a dash to the cathedral, it was only with the intention of warming himself a little before he went back into the snow to continue searching. Looking back on this moment, he wondered why it had not occurred to him that Ilse Brauchmann might already have left the city in a cab and be sitting in front of a fire beside her fiancé, but he was so full of trying to find her that fortunately none of those practical thoughts came to him. It is hard to look back on a moment when you are haring right through the centre of it.
If it was cold on the street, it was even colder inside the cathedral; a sort of preserved cold, like stepping inside a refrigerator and shutting the door. Tall stone columns soared upwards and fanned the nave ceiling. A businessman knelt beside his briefcase, an old lady sat with her head bowed, while two priests seemed to be flattening the carpet alongside the altar with their feet.
And there she was.
A pair of green shoulders. Alone in a pew.
Frank approached quietly, terrified of losing her again. Her eyes were swollen; her mouth was pale and puffy. Her leather gloves lay pulled off at her side and her handbag was wide open. She had a tube of cream that she was working into her fingers; pressing and rubbing it into the bare skin.
Frank sat at her side. He said nothing because he had no idea where to begin. It was Ilse who broke the silence.
‘Were you making fun of me? Because I hide my hands?’
‘Of course not. Why would I do that?’
‘Don’t you ever wonder who I am?’ She spoke through gritted teeth, as if the words were hurting her mouth. With that she slammed her hands right in front of his nose. ‘Look at them, Frank. Really look.’
‘Yes. Yes, I am. I’m looking.’ He wi
shed she wouldn’t do that. It was like watching her hurt herself. Also, she was quite loud. If she wasn’t careful, she would have everyone else looking too. Fortunately they were so caught up in praying, they didn’t seem to have heard this woman in her green coat, with her naked hands shoved in the air.
‘You see? Berlioz was not the only person in the world who wore a stupid costume. You see? Look at my hands. Do you want to have a good laugh at me too?’
In size, they were really not so different from anyone else’s, but it was the way they bulged at the middle joints like red buttons and had swollen up at the knuckles that shocked him. There was no bend in her middle fingers, though her thumbs were wrenched right over. They looked painful to wear, those hands.
‘What happened?’ His voice could barely find itself.
‘Arthritis. It came on when I was in my early twenties. It will get worse and worse.’
She began to cry, but discreetly, as if she didn’t want to disturb anyone else in the cathedral; after her outburst, it was this which moved him the most. That a beautiful woman could cry in a cathedral because her hands were ugly, and yet have the grace to do it quietly.
‘But you’re so clever with your hands—’
‘Jesus, Frank. Anyone can fix a pencil sharpener. Anyone can bash some nails in a window frame.’ She tugged a handkerchief from her sleeve and blew her nose.
He reached out. She recoiled but he kept his hand there, waiting in mid-air. The businessman left, the two priests retired to the vestry, and at last her hands came to his. He covered them with his own; the knuckles lay beneath his fingers like the backbones of a small animal. They were very hot.
‘Do you get it now, Frank? Do you get it?’
She was not what she wanted to be. He understood. There was no need to say any more. Frank looked and looked at Ilse Brauchmann’s swollen hands and he was so sorry – so caught up in his quiet, safe loving that hurt no one, least of all himself – he failed to spot the one thing she was desperate for him to see.
Outside the snow fell in joyous multitudes. Hiding everything.