Rough Music (28 page)

“Bit of a comedown from those to rook-scarers,” he said.

“His wife died,” Frances told him. “He’s still a broken man, apparently.”

Sandy said nothing, his attention absorbed by the other concertgoers. He had that in his favor; when he had nothing to say, he kept his mouth shut. He was also, John supposed, a good husband and father in that he provided well for his family and they all appeared to love him. John was shocked however at how even the oldest child, who should at least be reading easy classics by now, spent all his free time playing games and surfing the Internet on Sandy’s laptop computer. It was a lapse emphasized by the child’s startling similarity to Will, who rarely had his nose out of a book at that age. When taken on walks or trips, neither boy asked questions unless they related to food or other things they wanted that would cost money. Flowers, birds, scenery, buildings—nothing seemed to stimulate their curiosity and he could tell from their reactions to things he said, about the Saxons or the tides or the lives of fishermen, that they knew nothing. Poppy and Sandy were raising two cultural blanks. Attractive, healthy, very good-natured and probably quite clever, but blank. John looked around the church at the other young couples and imagined them all producing similar offspring, then stopped because the idea frightened him. He did not like to be made to feel reactionary, even though he knew that within the family he was regarded as a social dinosaur; a man who still had a use for shoe trees, weekend ties and a Church of England prayer book.

There were three singers taking it in turns to rise from their chairs beside the piano; a woman and two men. The Schubert sequence was interminable, the smiley, inaudible explanations often lasting nearly as long as the brief songs that followed them. When the thunder finally sounded, one of the men threw off an impromptu performance of
Der Erlkönig
. When a burst of rain followed it, clattering on the glass overhead, the other man swelled a long program further with
Die Forelle
. John noticed Sandy stir impatiently at the sycophantic, cultured titters that followed the announcement of each addition and warmed to him with fellow-feeling.

Much as he could still recall reams of poetry learned by rote at school, he found himself remembering a trite, gallumphingly-accented English version of the song from the same hazy period in his life.

Almost guiltily he craned his neck for a better view and began to enjoy himself, tapping a foot to the infectious rhythm.

Britten, in his experience, normally signified music to be borne with fortitude. It was either simply tuneless or tunefully creepy. In the course of Will’s time as a chorister, John had endured both the
War Requiem
and
The Little Sweep
. Will had landed the title role in the latter, leaving his father with chilling memories of his son being stripped half-naked in public in the cause of a thigh-slappingly grisly number called
Sammy’s Bath
.

There was some shifting around before the Britten sequence began and when one of their neighbors needed to leave to help the volunteer coffee-makers, John was tempted to escape with her, pleading that old man’s silencing standby, a troubled bladder. Frances patted his knee, however, and murmured, “Isn’t this a treat!” in a way that compelled him to stay and suffer.

The first item,
The Little Ploughboy
, confirmed his worst fears, managing to be not only tuneful and creepy but to induce little patronizing snorts of pleasure in the audience. Then came
Salley Gardens
, a tune John had always loved and which Britten had left well alone. It was with the unpromisingly titled
O Waly Waly
, however, sung by the bass, that he found himself transported. He realized he knew it, or a version of it, from a Kathleen Ferrier record he played sometimes when Frances was out. (The scratches on the record irritated her, she claimed, but he had reason to suspect she was jealous of his perceived attachment to the dead singer.) It contained the combination of despairing love and inexorability folksongs carried off so effectively and Britten had set it with admirable simplicity. The piano played nothing but chords in a rocking rhythm John could not have described technically but which put him in mind of water lapping round the landing stage at the end of the garden. For a young man, the bass had an amazingly mature voice, so that it was almost as though another, older man sang through a younger mouth. Where the words were saddest, he held back rather than letting rip, covering the brass in his tone as one might shade a candle.

“A ship there is, and she sails the sea,” he sang. “She’s loaded deep as deep can be, but not so deep as the love I’m in; I know not if I sink or swim.” And thinking suddenly not merely of Kathleen Ferrier but of the sitting-room at Wandsworth where he first heard the record and the old Governor’s House at Camp Hill and Frances young and careless in the garden, John was moved and it was his turn to reach out and touch her.

She sniffed and he saw she was crying. She had always been charmingly sentimental, crying easily at carols or songs that evoked a happy time.
How sweet
, he thought, squeezing her hand.
She’s thinking about us.
Then he realized the words sang of betrayal and of love as a long, hard slog of a journey. He glanced over again and saw to his dismay that she was crying in earnest, not just misty-eyed but with proper tears streaming down her face. He squeezed her hand again, uselessly, hoping she would manage to rein herself in, but she could not apparently and began to cry more openly until she was actually sobbing and having strouble breathing. A couple in front turned, first the husband then the wife, their faces angry until the sight of her tears turned them hastily back, alarm in their eyes. Other people were turning. Someone even shushed her.

“Ssh,” John murmured too. “It’ll soon be over,” which earned him a shush as well.

Frances struggled to her feet. She was like a woman gasping for air. “I’m sorry,” she said and spoke aloud.

John jumped up and helped her out, past the eyes boring into them. The song finished as they were leaving and he fancied the applause was the warmer to show disapproval of the rude interruption. Under cover of a change in singer, Sandy hurried up behind them, carrying the cushions. John guessed he had been suffering and was happy with an excuse to escape.

When they reached the graveyard Frances began to wail. John held her tight and she clung to him like a frightened child. “What?” he said. “What is it?”

Behind her Sandy signaled that he would go to the field across the way to fetch the car.

At first she could only mumble incoherently as John continued at once to hug her and steer her away from the church porch so she would disturb the music less.

Then she said what sounded like, “Chopsticks.”

“What?” he asked.

“It was a vision,” she said. “I had a vision.” And she gulped deeply, then bent over and was violently sick into the long grass beside the lych-gate.

John handed her his handkerchief and glanced behind them but the interval had not started yet. A handful of people who had not managed to capture seats were watching them from the porch with unfeigned curiosity.

Nobody spoke on the short drive home. John thought of many things to say but judged it better to remain silent. The boys were asleep. Will was sitting up reading. He was surprised to see them back so soon. Frances confirmed that something was wrong by saying, rather briskly, that bed was the best place for her and took herself off without greeting Will or looking in on the children. Will took the used picnic things off Sandy and, mind-reading, returned from the kitchen with the Scotch bottle and three glasses.

“I had no idea she had got so bad,” Sandy told Will as they sat on the veranda. “Poppy’s been making out she’s just a bit confused.”

“Poppy is in denial.”

“But she’s not so bad,” John insisted. “Not most of the time. She can’t concentrate the way she used to or read a book and she’s a bit forgetful. But she can talk quite cogently and plan excursions. Well, not plan exactly. But she enjoys them. And she still plays the piano, you know.” He heard how he was sounding and shut up.

“John,” Sandy said after a pause. “When we get back, you should let me book her in. For a scan.”

“Why?” Will asked. “How can that help?”

“So we can know the worst. See how it’s progressing.”

“You make it sound like a mold.”

Sandy pulled a face and dropped his voice so low that John had to lean forward to catch what he was saying. “Well, when you look at the photographs of the progressive damage it does … You don’t need to talk about this. Not yet.”

“Now who’s in denial?” John said. “Can I have another?”

“Sure.” Will splashed more Scotch into his tumbler. “Dad, are you OK?”

“It was a shock, that’s all,” John said. “I think it shocked her too. She was sick. I thought she’d had another stroke.” He drank, let the whisky scour him out. “It’s very kind of you to have us here, Will,” he said. “Not much fun for you.”

“Don’t be daft. It’s kind of you to come and keep me company.”

“No. This time next year … Well … Who knows …”

There was another pause filled by the sound of wave on sand. The sculpture thing was silent. By common consent, Sandy had tied it up until they got it home and could station it at the far end of the garden. Even there, John foresaw neighborly complaints. The boys had discovered it and kept untying the contraption and setting it clacking. Possibly Sandy could be persuaded to take it home with him.

“It’s so bloody unfair,” Sandy said.

“Farmer’s coming back,” John said suddenly. “Your friend Harriet rang to tell me and I clean forgot. It looks as though they’re going to extradite him and he’ll be standing trial at long last.”

“Good Lord,” Will said. “Are you glad?”

“After all these years it’s become completely meaningless. I’m retired. It’s not my problem.”

“So why did Hats ring?”

“To warn me. Sweet of her really. She thought journalists might start ringing up, raking it all over. Who knows? They might ring you.”

“I was a kid at the time. Why should they want to talk to me?”

“Oh. No reason really.”

“Did I know him?”

“He was quite a pal of yours for a bit. You don’t remember a thing, do you?”

Will smiled. “Not a sausage.”

“It was a long time ago,” John said. “Maybe it was one of the others who was your pal.”

How could he have acquired this innocence? And how could she lose great tracts of memory and be termed sick when Will could forget things and remain so blithe? Every parent strove for this. Especially now, John had noticed, when childhood had shrunk back to its eighteenth-century brevity and technology and fear were shrinking the years in which children could be kept in happy ignorance, parents craved the restoration of innocence. But innocence in one’s adult child was somehow insulting.

“I should have let her go years ago,” John said quietly. “Then I’d never have had to endure this slow absenting of herself. I should have divorced her.” Then, seeing naked hurt writ across his son’s kind face, he added, without thinking, “Not that she ever gave me cause.”

And Will smiled grimly, accepting what he was told.

So
, John thought.
That’s how it happens.

“Do the boys have any idea, do you think?” Will asked Sandy.

“No. They just think she’s ancient. You know how ageist kids are.”

“Oh, sure,” Will said. “Oz accused me of being fifty tonight. Have you got stronger sunblock for him, by the way? I couldn’t help noticing when he was in the bath, he got quite burned on his back today.”

“There’s another big tube in the car boot somewhere.”

John stood. “I’d better turn in,” he said. “Keep her company.”

The domestic tone between them, almost like that of a long-married couple, was exacerbating his desolate mood. He pressed Will’s shoulder to keep him where he sat, and moved inside as their voices continued softly behind him.

The bathroom, so pristine when they arrived, had taken on the damp, chaotic look of one shared with children. As well as a scattering of sand on the wet floor, there was now a clutter of washbags and discarded clothes around the sink and a plastic spaceship lay marooned on its side in the bath. Both boys were prone to eczema so there was a great tub of the aqueous cream they used instead of soap. One of them had peed on the loo seat and John mopped it clean. He washed his face, brushed his hair, scrubbed at his remaining, jealously protected teeth and put his plate to soak in cleaner solution on a shelf out of the children’s mocking reach. Then he changed into the pajamas and dressing gown he left hanging on the door’s back. Crossing to their bedroom, he saw himself in the looking-glass. Flannel stripes, tartan dressing gown; a silver-haired, suntanned, nineteen-forties schoolboy.

She was asleep but she woke as he climbed into bed. For a terrible moment, thinking of the horror stories Sylvia had told him, he thought she was about to panic and ask, “Who are you?” but she merely drew him to her and kissed him briefly.

“Toothpaste,” she said.

“Yes.”

“It was a lovely concert,” she said. “Spoiled it royally, didn’t I?”

“Don’t be silly.”

“I’m
not
,” she said angrily. “Don’t patronize me.”

“All right. Yes. You probably spoiled it for some stuck-up old trout behind us. But I was ready to leave and I think Sandy was too. How do you feel? Still sick?”

“I wasn’t sick. Who said I was sick? I’m fine.”

“What did you see?”

“When?”

“You said … Back at the church, you said …”

“Oh.” She pulled back and settled herself afresh into her pillow. “Those carvings. It’s so sad. I wonder how she died, poor girl.”

“Should I have let you go?” he dared to ask her.

“Now you’re being silly,” she muttered, sinking into sleep and sounding complacent, even happy. “Where would I go at this time of night? And I’ve nothing to wear.”