Time Will Tell (30 page)

‘I'm sorry,' Emma says, ‘about your wife, I mean. Did you patch things up?'

‘No. I'm afraid not. But things are fine now. She lives a couple of hours away. It was one of the reasons I moved here, so I could see my son, John. Ten years ago, as I said. Things are fine now. He's off to MIT to study engineering. You're looking at a very proud father.'

‘Congratulations! That's excellent. So he's not a musician then?'

‘Oh, no. I wouldn't allow that.' Andrew laughs. ‘He has to keep me in my dotage.'

Emma frowns, as if remembering something. ‘Funny, that. I split up with my partner around about the same time as you did. Ollie. Do you remember him? The baritone in the group? We had a filthy argument and … I still don't know. But we split up. Perhaps it was the motet? Maybe it was cursed.'

There's a theatrical exaggeration to the final word at which they both laugh, but the theory that the manuscript might have been hexed was one Andrew had seriously entertained. Then, sitting at the kitchen table, the shreds of his past and the emptiness of his future laid out before him, he had believed that the book curse he had encountered in the library was not merely a medieval superstition and that he was being punished for his transgressions. Eventually he had rejected that idea and, in the intervening years, his slow appreciation of human nature and his own selfishness had led him to a more rational conclusion.

‘I'm sorry about your relationship,' he says. ‘I suppose that explains why he's not singing in the group anymore?'

‘Yes. You can't work together after something like that. Most of the people you met are still here.' Emma scans the room and, as she identifies the various members, images of the meal that night, at the brasserie in Tours, stir in Andrew's mind. Yes, it was a brasserie – lots of drinking, and him showing them the motet and… He can't recall much of it now.

‘…and Allie and Susan are now a couple – no one saw that coming, I can tell you – but that's the nature of the touring life. Allie was married with two kids, and then he and Susan became an item. Another broken marriage.'

‘Have you not met anyone else? I mean, an attractive woman like yourself…?'

There's no coy modesty, no acknowledgement of flattery. Emma is still possessed of a directness that Andrew remembers more clearly than many of the events of the past:

‘No. No time for relationships. It's difficult to find a partner when you're away as much as we are. And I suppose I'm a bit driven as well. There's still time though.' She picks up her drink and then puts it down again.

‘I'd be happy to take you somewhere if you'd like a real drink,' Andrew says. ‘This isn't a pass. Don't worry,' he adds quickly, seeing concern clouding Emma's eyes. ‘I have a partner. But it's nice catching up like this. And that punch really is disgusting.'

He isn't really expecting Emma to take up his offer and he feels sorry for her. From her comment about there being time left to find a partner he has inferred that she wanted children and, in her mid-forties, it might be too late now. For all the mundanity, for all its predictability and regularity in which a failed marriage stands alone as a feature in an otherwise ordinary life, Emma's existence, with all its awards and attendant renown, has entailed a cost that Andrew has not had to pay.

‘You're right,' she says, ‘the punch really is dreadful. And I would like a drink and to carry on chatting, but it's Memphis tomorrow, and I really need my sleep these days. It's a two-flight day. You know what they say about the South: if you die and go to heaven, it's via Atlanta.'

It's a practised line from a travel guide, or perhaps one learned at a reception like this, something that Emma has probably rehearsed and delivered automatically on countless occasions to charm concert promoters. Andrew regrets the falsely formal note in the midst of their personal confessions, a signal of a distance between them. His offer of a drink had been a genuine one and he knows that she has misread his intentions. Furthermore his hasty announcement of his own relationship has sounded condescending, even smug.

‘Of course, of course. I quite understand,' he says. ‘You must be tired with all this travel. If you want me to create a diversion for you so you can make an exit, I'm happy to shout “fire”.'

He delivers the last line with a straight face and for a split second Emma takes him seriously, before catching the deadpan tone. He sees her hesitate, something like shock registering, then he remembers that she knows nothing of the role of fire in the archives at Amiens and how it all ended.

She smiles. ‘That's really kind of you, but I'm used to making a more graceful exit.'

At that moment Allie, the bass of the group, approaches, nods a neutral apology for interrupting and touches Emma on the shoulder.

‘We're off,' he says in a deep voice. ‘I've organised lifts if you want.'

‘Thanks, Allie. I'll just be a couple of minutes.'

Allie nods again, walks back to one of the sopranos – Susan, Andrew assumes – and puts a hand familiarly in the small of her back.

‘I didn't introduce you. You probably won't see him again,' says Emma, placing her plate on the table next to the untouched punch.

He waves away her apology. ‘Of course. And I may not see you again, but I must say it's been great to catch up.'

He holds out his hand but Emma doesn't take it.

‘Likewise. It's been great to see you again,' she says. ‘I must just ask you, though…'

Andrew knew she couldn't leave till she had asked the question, and here it was. But the question isn't about the motet.

‘The Chiron manuscript. What did you think of it?'

The Chiron manuscript – a memoir by Ockeghem's friend, Geoffroy Chiron – has recently been discovered, a document of immense historical importance. It was as if someone had stumbled across a diary belonging to Christopher Columbus's First Mate, or unearthed an account by one of Leonardo's pupils of his master's rivalry with Michelangelo. Andrew has heard of it, of course. It was impossible to avoid, making the front page of the
New York Times
and the cover of
Time
, the subject of a BBC/PBS mini-series, and
the
buzz-word within musicology, mentioned in Emma's programme notes that evening.

‘I'm ashamed to say that I haven't actually read it,' he says quietly. ‘I know, I know. I should. But…'

‘You really did leave the fifteenth century behind, didn't you?'

‘Well…'

‘Do you know,' says Emma, ‘I sort of regret reading it. I mean, I think it's got a lot to do with why I'm turning my back on it all.'

‘Go on,' he says.

‘It's Josquin. I used to love him. Well, love his music anyway. You can't fail to love his music, unlike some of the others who are a bit more difficult.
Everyone
loves Josquin. But when I read the Chiron manuscript and found out what a jerk he was, I began to dislike his music. I suppose it's a bit like Wagner; it's difficult to separate the man from his music, and I guess that's true for Josquin now.'

Andrew has heard the same argument and there's a noticeably cooler response to Josquin in his classes than there used to be. The idea that Josquin was a bad man and not quite the man people once thought has quickly coloured his musical reputation.

‘I suppose you're right,' he says. ‘I should read the Chiron memoirs.'

‘You should. I mean, it's fascinating, and there's lots about Tours and Ockeghem. I can't
believe
you haven't read it.'

Andrew holds up his hands defensively. ‘I know. Look, I promise I'll read it. I'll listen to
Nymphes des bois
– your recording, of course – and read it. I really will. Maybe even tonight when I get home. Online.'

‘You must read it. You really
must
.'

‘Well, you should get going, I suppose,' Andrew says, holding out his hand, and this time Emma takes it.

‘It's been great meeting again.'

‘The honour is all mine,' he replies with the same straight-faced irony. She grins, but then immediately her look flicks away, still preoccupied by the subject which he thought was closed.

‘And, of course, the other reason you should read the Chiron manuscript is that it's all about the motet,' she muses. Hesitantly she outlines the conundrum, each step of logic offered to Andrew tentatively and in the hope of confirmation. ‘I guess there must be other references to the motet, and that's why you knew it existed? And you took your cue from that and decided to “compose” the motet that you showed us?'

Andrew remains silent.

‘I suppose what I'm saying is…' She pauses and draws breath, a silent beat in which the fear of causing offence can be heard. ‘The motet never existed. Right? Your version was an inspired guess and therefore it was a fake?'

‘Well,' says Andrew solemnly, abstrusely serious, with the same flat, ironic delivery, ‘you must understand that it was a long time ago.'

He looks over the crowd of people – the chattering students in their shorts, freeloading on the miniature desserts; men tinkling their car-keys cueing their wives to depart; the singers with their suit-carriers smiling their way out of the room and into the humid, spring air.

‘I'm not really sure I remember.'

 

♦ ♦ ♦

The table lamp in the hall is on, the house silent. Andrew pads across the living room and checks that there's no light showing beneath the bedroom door; Tanya must be asleep. On the breakfast bar her bags are laid out, the homework she has marked that evening while he was at the concert neatly stacked; her iPod and car keys sit to one side ready for the drive to school in the morning. Andrew wonders if he might watch a little television, perhaps wind down after the concert, just forget the Chiron manuscript entirely. Driving home, fulfilling his promise to Emma had seemed like a good idea – sitting down in front of the computer, reading about the fifteenth century again, music from that period that he hasn't listened to for years playing in the background and dragging him back to those dizzy days in Tours. The coincidence of the loss of the motet and the breakdown of his marriage with the decision to turn his back on early-music history was one that Karen had expressed doubts about at the time. She'd urged him to keep some continuity in his life, warned him that otherwise he might be storing up issues that would return to haunt him in later life. He'd been grateful, if only because she thereby demonstrated that she still cared for him, but over the past few years he's come to the view that her advice was tainted by guilt. She may not have blamed herself for the break-up of their marriage, but she didn't want to be responsible for an act of professional suicide. But the truth, something which occasionally he still finds difficult to believe, is that he's genuinely at ease with life now, even happy – yet he can't deny that seeing Emma has stirred up old feelings, a sense of what might have been.

He takes a beer from the fridge; it will wash away the taste of that awful punch. Beer. Didn't he drink with those two basses that night? Something strong? He wonders if they would approve of what he's drinking now, a pale ale that a friend introduced him to and which Tanya now regularly buys for him at the supermarket.

He wanders over to the bureau in the living room where he keeps his CDs. Most of them are at the office. The ones he keeps at home are oddities that have little bearing on work – presents people have bought for him, some of Tanya's CDs, early music. He has three of Beyond Compère's albums, the most recent bought in 1997:
Ockeghem Gems
. He hasn't even opened it; it's still in its cellophane. He peels away the clear wrapping, twists the lid of his beer and wanders into John's old room. It's warmer in here, the aircon switched off to save electricity, and he leaves the door open to allow a breath of artificial air to waft from the living room. As a toddler his son had been fascinated by flying, and these days it's the construction of airplanes which inspires him. On one wall of the bedroom there are technical drawings of wing structures and fuselages which reveal the skeletons beneath the glossy airline liveries, and on the other posters of bands, reminders of his son's taste in music, the sounds of which occasionally thump through the closed door. In a corner, piled into a plastic box, are circuit boards, routers and cables, an abandoned laptop and a collection of monitors, old and new. Computers are John's other passion and over the years he has dismantled and rebuilt several. The one on the table, an old style desktop with a chunky monitor, is designed for optimum web-browsing, impervious to viruses and adverts, pop-ups and unwanted cross-scripting, a model John bequeathed his father when he headed off to college. There is no concession to design and Andrew appreciates its functionality, that and its retro styling.

He jiggles the mouse and the screen flickers alive, bright in the darkened room: John in his school graduation outfit, an arm around his girlfriend, smiling in the sunshine. Andrew has the same picture in his office, a reminder to his students that he's a father himself and that he's there to offer help and guidance if they want it. John is wearing sunglasses, his mortarboard tilted backwards on his head, an image that suggests the carefree spirit Andrew would like his son to be. He wants him to enjoy his life, to enjoy college, but MIT is as competitive as it gets. Will John and his girlfriend still be together when they graduate, as they have pledged to be? Love at that age is fragile, experimental, and Andrew worries; most romances die when two people are apart for any time and Massachusetts is a long way away.

He opens the CD and consults the track listing, chooses the correct disk and places it in the CD tray. He flips through the booklet, past the sleeve notes, the texts and translations, stops at a picture of the group. Here they are as he knew them. The picture is in black-and-white, and grainy like his memories. Consulting the rubric, he scans the characters. On the far left the two basses are laughing at something, a counsel of two. The tenors, next to them, look slightly puzzled as if they've been excluded from the joke and, beyond them, Emma is positioned dead centre, looking serious. Andrew is inclined to read the downturned mouth as mournful but he knows he's reading too much into the image. Next to her, the two sopranos are almost comically different, one grumpy and sour, the other inviting the viewer to look at her, flirtatious, a look almost parodied by the tall alto next to her. Finally there's the one Andrew remembers trying to teach him the laws of cricket. The photo was taken in winter, the singers bundled up against the cold in dark coats and scarves, the sun low and bright in a cloudless sky, a gothic church the backdrop. To Andrew the fractured discourse of looks is significant, the writing on the wall. Perhaps Emma herself has studied this picture and discovered, in the physical separation of her and her boyfriend, a warning that should have been heeded.