Madame Sousatzka (19 page)

Manders walked into the room without knocking. ‘You look wonderful,' he beamed. ‘It's a perfect fit. Hair looks good, too,' he said, stepping back to get it into focus. ‘Unkempt enough for a schoolboy, but not scruffy enough for a second-rate artist.' It was obviously a rehearsed line, and was probably at that moment circulating in the numerous handouts Manders had sent to the Press. ‘Just came to wish you good luck,' he said. ‘I'll be around in the interval.' He bounced out of the room, well pleased with himself, and Marcus knew again that he wasn't ready.

He suddenly missed the noises in the corridor, and he opened the door of his room. He could hear the audience clapping, and it sounded like a thunderbolt. He closed his eyes, which were smarting with fear, and he gripped the door-knob to control his trembling.

The main body of the orchestra was assembled on the platform. The rank and file took a surreptitious look around the hall and, as if they had seen all the hundreds of faces before, returned disenchanted to their instruments. In the almost-silent last-minute tunings, Manders entered the hall. He tripped up the stairs, eyeing his takings with a look that told them he was responsible for everything. Then he sneaked into his gangway seat, folding himself like an impermanent pleat next to Mrs Manders, who looked as if she was not expecting him. He leaned over and greeted the
Sousatzka party alongside him, giving them a general wink which might have meant anything. His late entry and ostentatious movements already singled his row out as a source of attraction, and there were whispers of ‘Manders' and ‘Sousatzka' from the people behind.

Madame Sousatzka clutched her programme, holding it to her as if it were trying to get away. When the leader of the orchestra came on to the platform she clapped with one hand against the programme. Jenny, who sat next to her, clapped vigorously as if the concert were at an end. Uncle had her arms clapsed about her as if she were pulling herself together. Cordle, on Madame Sousatzka's right, placed his large hand on hers in a gesture of confidence.

Mrs Crominski sat at the end of the row, immobile. Her coat was still buttoned, and the silk of her gloves stretched taut over her clenched fists. Her feet were tightly crossed in a rope-climbing position, so that the new leather of her shoes whistled occasionally as they rubbed against each other. When she made an effort to relax, her body set up an overall trembling and she would stiffen again to avoid embarrassment. She clutched at her programme, not daring to open it, for fear it would slip from her fingers.

The leader bowed to receive the applause, and the sub-leader, for whom it was obviously a question of dead man's boots, glowered at his feet behind. But as the leader took his seat he turned to his partner, and for a few moments they indulged in what seemed to be a very friendly conversation. Suddenly, and at no given signal, everybody was quiet. The curtain at the end of the platform was invisibly drawn across and a little man, a veteran of the rostrum judging by the tired look of his tails, hopped up the steps like an old blackbird. The orchestra looked at him with some surprise, as if he were not the man who had conducted the rehearsal in the morning. Nevertheless, when he had taken his bow, they shrugged themselves into a standing position for the National Anthem.

The initial drum-roll literally frightened Madame Sousatzka out of her seat. She dropped her programme and stood trembling from head to foot as if she were wearing a corset of built-in semi-quavers.

Jenny, who had never been to the Festival Hall before, wanted to show her enthusiasm, and she opened her mouth to invoke the Lord to save the Sovereign. She had called upon the Almighty in her deep contralto, and was just about to tell Him what to do, when she realised that she was quite alone, and unwilling to take the whole of the responsibility on her shoulders – after all, she wasn't even a relation – she decided to hold her peace.

Uncle cheated a little, humming the tune quietly to herself. During her marriage and the diplomatic rounds with Paul, she had heard it often enough. She raised her eyes slowly to the roof and whispered, ‘Paul, they're playing our tune.'

Madame Sousatzka looked upon the Anthem as a respite, and hoped patriotically that it would go on for ever.

Cordle used the music to ask God to save himself. He felt guilty, as if he were using someone else's telephone, and he looked around, wondering if he'd been found out. He caught Manders's eye and knowing look. ‘They always do this,' it seemed to say. ‘I have to go through it every concert. I'm an old-timer, you know. It's only a formality.'

When the Anthem was over the tympano player patted his drum as if he was patting a horse after a good gallop. The audience sat down and rearranged their clothes and programmes. There was a rustle of paper as they confirmed for the hundredth time that they were to be treated to the Leonora Number Three. The unison opening put them at their ease and prophesied that there would be no difficulty in listening to the overture. It might even be a pleasure.

Jenny was clinging to her seat with fascination, not so much at the music as at the paraphernalia of the occasion. In particular that part of the audience that sat behind the stage, facing the conductor. A woman in a red pullover in the front row kept nodding her head at the conductor as if in approval, and an old bearded man next to her, sitting immediately behind the drums, stared blankly in front of him like a mute, as if the percussion of the National Anthem had paralysed him. She looked up at the organ, and the countless pipes that sprawled like a plumber's paradise across the upper wall. She started to count them,
but after the first dozen they blurred and became two-dimensional. She took another general look at the audience behind the stage. So many people, she thought. I must know some of them. She thought of all the people she had met during her working life. Hundreds of them. Freds and Bills and Toms, even a Eustace, she remembered. But to none of them, not even to Eustace, could she put a face. She remembered only beards or stubbles, horny hands and the occasional acne. Her acquired blindness was acutely compensated for in her sense of touch. She imagined herself groping around the audience with her fingers, greeting each familiar touch. But would they know her? She knew she could recall the faces of the teachers of her childhood, but would they recognize all their pupils? She suddenly grew afraid that in the vast hall a Tom, Bill or Fred was staring at her, and she covered her face with her programme. She was too innocent to know that her clients came to her equipped with the same blindness, born of the same necessity.

The sound of a distant trumpet-call from the orchestra cut off her wandering thoughts, and for the first time she began to listen. She found it hard to concentrate, and she tried reading her programme. ‘The music is suddenly interrupted by the sound of a distant trumpet-call.' That must have been it, she thought, and found that the programme notes ended only a short paragraph later. One paragraph to Marcus. Suddenly the trumpet called again. It sounded nearer this time, but it was a harsh note, and off-key, and in no way corresponded to the ‘sound of heroic calm' of the optimistic programme note. Two more lines to go. She read them hastily. ‘The end of the allegro symbolizes triumph and victory.' She recognized the victory as the full orchestra took up the melody. She looked at the programme hopefully, but there was no doubt that the notes had come to an end. There was a two-inch white gap, and Marcus was over the page.

The audience began to applaud, a formal, polite acclaim, neatly timed for an overture, and when it began to wane Mrs Crominski, Jenny, Cordle, Uncle and Madame Sousatzka simultaneously began to clap again, encouraging
the applause, no doubt in the hope that the orchestra would give an encore. But no one took up their clapping and the conductor was already leaving the platform. Jenny took out her pencil, and solemnly ticked off the overture on her programme. Then quietly, and with determination, she turned the page. She looked at Madame Sousatzka, who had folded her arms lightly on her lap. Her programme had dropped to the floor, and as the conductor disappeared from the platform she turned round and looked at the audience, preferring to read on their faces what was happening on the platform, rather than face it herself. Her eye caught a posse of fat starched ambulance women, seated near the exit, their faces a composite blank. They certainly weren't there for the love of music. Stolid, immovable, there for their job and keeping the law, rather like long-suffering policemen in a controversial demonstration in Trafalgar Square. Their faces betrayed the void stare of duty, and Madame Sousatzka turned back helplessly to look at the platform. She stared at the green curtain solidly drawn, and she felt the fear that lay behind it.

Marcus stood there alone, with the green canvas wall in front of him. He felt the conductor's hand on his shoulder. ‘Are we ready?' he said. Marcus didn't remember answering. He remembered being convinced that never in his life would he feel more alone. The usher drew the curtain, holding it aside for them to enter, and in that second when Marcus saw the vast audience as if through a wide-angle lens, and the foreground of flowers that half hid them, he knew that this moment was lonelier still. The conductor ushered him forward to the first step.

Mrs Crominski involuntarily relaxed, and trembled like a train. A woman sitting in front of her, who had been set in motion by Mrs Crominski's trembling, turned round to look at her. ‘It's my son,' she said, by way of apology for the vibrations. She pointed to the small figure on the platform. ‘Is my son.' The woman gave an understanding smile, as if she was prepared to be shaken like a cocktail throughout the concerto.

Madame Sousatzka leaned backwards in her seat,
pressing herself into the upholstery, trying to embed her whole body into its resisting frame. ‘Don't worry, my darrlink, this part is the worst. When you reach the piano it is over, and there is only the playing.'

Marcus climbed the first step. He heard the beginnings of the applause, unleashed by a single loud clap, which somehow or other he recognized as Cordle's. Cordle had told him to look at the piano, and the ground between him and it would disappear. But he was afraid to look anywhere but at his feet, because he could not rely on them to take him where they all expected him to go. Then, suddenly, his fear made him impatient and he took the next steps two at a time, and found that he had reached the back desk of the first violins. The two players had turned round to watch him, their fiddles standing upside down on their knees like stunted ‘cellos. This was their moment. It was a moment that made up for years of back-desk frustration, for years of following the bowing of the men in front, and hoping to God they were doing likewise. For years of being automatically accused, for whenever a conductor detected a false note it was always towards their desk that he would turn a raised eyebrow.

They stared a Marcus, smiling, and he couldn't help but see them. Then, like a disciplined miniature army, they raised their hands in which they held their bows, and cocked out their thumbs. Their movements were perfectly timed and symmetrical, for it was a regular routine with them. Every single soloist who played with their orchestra was greeted with their smiles and signs. Even the greatest, who needed no luck at all, even the idolized celebrities, who could have happily performed like pigs and got away with it, all were treated to the same send-off. Marcus smiled back at them, and his smile embedded itself into his face like a moist stucco. He moved forward and reached the fourth desk. The two players sat immobile, their black backs stiff, their coat-tails drooped over their chairs, so that they looked like two transfixed swallows. Marcus looked at the jacket on the player on the inside, and saw a long fair hair clinging to it. He raised his hand automatically to take it
off, and as he touched it, he felt that its removal would bring him bad luck. He wanted it to stay there as a talisman. It was only then that he noticed how his fingers were trembling. He swallowed, and it hurt him under his arms. His whole interior body felt like a nettle sting, as if his nerves were crying out to be scratched. He noticed as he moved forward that the foot of the inside player on the third desk was turned slightly outward, just enough to block his path. Marcus was convinced the man was trying to trip him up. He boiled himself up into the conviction that they were all against him, and when he reached the second desk and saw a mute on the violin stand, he was convinced that the orchestra were a bunch of saboteurs. He could remember no passage in the orchestral score of the concerto that called for a mute. They had had a secret meeting, he decided, they were going to give him as faint an accompaniment as possible. They didn't think he was worthy. He shivered. ‘I'm not ready,' he said to himself. ‘Where is the piano? Is the conductor still behind me? How long have I been walking? When can I start to get it all over with?'

By now, he'd reached the first desk. The sub-leader was sitting motionless, and by the shape of his back, Marcus knew that he knew the soloist was just behind him. He was sitting there, just like Jenny every Friday night, before Marcus surprised her with his hands over her eyes. And as he thought of Jenny, his body grew warmer and his fingers grew still. He put one hand on the piano stool and bowed to the applauding audience.

‘You feel better now,' said Madame Sousatzka. ‘Just one bow, my darrlink, and sit down. You are ready. Sousatzka says you are ready.'

Marcus sat on the piano stool. He fiddled with the knobs on each side, from force of habit. The audience was silent. Marcus looked up at the conductor. He nodded, and Marcus felt for the G Major chord. He took a deep breath, as he knew Madame Sousatzka in the audience was doing, and as he breathed out the opening chord dropped from his fingers with surprised finality. In the short introduction that followed and the final run to
its conclusion, he gradually detached himself from his playing. When the orchestra entered for the first time, there was a gradual stirring in the audience, as a relief from the tension Marcus had created.