Song Of Time (7 page)

“You can’t give up.”

“What do you think the future holds for me? More tests, more bad reactions and useless referrals until the health service runs out of money and interest, and some fancy new disease comes along to take its place. I mean, WRFI’s hardly glamorous, is it? At least AIDS had sex and drugs going for it, and CJD had all that tragic stuff of turning fresh teenager’s minds into sponge, and cat flu was quick and spectacularly nasty. WRFI’s a shitty condition in every sense of the word. It’s slow and stupid and pointless. And I’m such a bloody
exhibit
. When I perform, when I even look at a piano, all anyone now hears and sees is this smart kid who’s bravely overcoming a disease. I’m a freak. All I’ll ever get is patronised.”

“What about Chopin, or Jacqueline du Pré? What about all the other artists who’ve had consumption, AIDS…?”

For once, Leo didn’t come back with an instant reply. He was seriously drunk by now—his true intellect was probably already beyond reach— and it occurred to me as he took another long swig of Pernod that our best chance was that he’d fall into some kind of sleep, awake sore-headed in the morning, but at least in a fit state to get on the plane to Venice. But the thought was vague, and I think it came to him at that same moment, for he eased himself up a little and carefully placed the bottle, which was now well past half-empty, on his bedside table.

“Give me your hand, Sis. No, I mean the left…”

His fingers traced the calluses of my fingertips, which, much like my playing, had grown both tougher and more sensitive lately.

“It’s down to you now, you know.”

Changing his grip, I took his hand within mine. I felt incredible heat. Incredible lightness. Even now, I still believe that Leo was gone by then—beyond my reach, beyond my pleading.

“I was never made for this, Roushana,” he told me. “If it isn’t now, it’ll be some other day that’s so soon it’ll make no difference. Some infection or glitch, or a loss of will far more protracted and painful that this. That’s why I have to…” He thought for a word. “…go. You won’t do or say anything tonight that’ll spoil things, will you?”

Silently, I shook my head.

“Knew I could trust you, Sis.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Is there anything…?”

“No.” He smiled. “I’ll be fine.”

My brother would have researched what he needed to do: hoarded the right tablets in the correct amounts after having checked the precise results of their dosage. He’d get this thing right. That was how he was. I didn’t doubt it. Letting go of his hand, I leaned over and kissed him. There was a moment’s dizziness as our lips met—as if I, too, might tumble with him into the place towards which he was falling—and then I stood up. I turned away. Quietly, I closed the door of his bedroom.

The house spun with trapped heat and darkness. Down the stairs, the dining room door had been left open, and I could just see the smiling gleam of the exposed keys of the piano. For a moment, the air stirred, the house whispered, and I believed I could hear again, although far more beautifully than they had ever played it, Leo and Blythe performing that Brahms sonata. Then there was silence.

Back within my room, I picked up my violin. Sometimes, you hated your instrument. Sometimes, also, you loved it. There was no need, tonight, for any preliminary exercises or tunings, or even the score of Bach’s
Ciaccona
. For the first time, the central melody and all phrases drew together in an endless weave, and I realised that Bach, supposedly the most chilly and mathematical of composers, was in fact the happiest and the saddest, the most warm, human and humane. I didn’t doubt, as I played that night, that I was walking in the halls of genius.

SOMETIMES, HE’S SEEMED TO BE MERELY DREAMING—my drowned man or boy. At other times, as I’ve sat here today at my desk or wandered Morryn, half-dreaming, and explored my memories I’ve hurried back to him in this music room, filled with the sudden worry that he might be comatose—or dying. Occasionally, I’ve become near-certain he’s merely been feigning sleep, and has been quietly watching me as I sift through these remains of my life.

Does it represent a failure of will that I’ve brought him here? Certainly, it would be nice, to leave a little mystery, and possibly even a small scandal, behind me.
Famous violinist found dead with anonymous male
—as if people still cared about such things. I should report him now—alert the waymarks. Perhaps he’s dangerous. He could be a compendium of every worst fear, the bearer of some deadly new virus far worse than the antique plagues which afflicted my childhood, or the human bomb, the patient torturer, the rapist, the robber, the hostage-taker, the madman. But he looks so vulnerable—so deliciously helpless…

I stand over him again now as the shapes cluttered within this music room begin to blur and soften with evening. He moans softly as I lift the blankets. On closer inspection, the scratches and marks seem to lack the pattern which you might expect from someone who’s merely been buffeted by the sea. Illuminated in the sun’s low light, a cat’s paw of cuts runs almost playfully across his smoothly hairless chest, whilst a large lozenge of bruise shapes his right thigh. He isn’t circumcised. He’s perfectly dry now, and he smells warm and clean. The salt would probably be good as an antiseptic. His knees are grazed. So are the palms of his hands. He could have been crawling, like some penitent from one of those mad sects. Now
there’s
an explanation I hadn’t thought of. Perhaps he wanted to die…

It’s down to you now Sis.
The air soars past me and my hands redouble as I look down on them. I feel as if I’m falling, but I ride these sensations. I drift apart from them. I feel as if I could pull down these old walls, tread the evening sky, burrow the earth, re-arrange everything. How much are these fugues down to my age and illness, how much is caused by the process of dying? My disease and the silvery roots of the crystal seed which was implanted in my skull now co-exist within me. They co-operate in my change and degeneration. I ride the feeling. I let it come. Suddenly, I’m exhausted—I’m tumbling towards death even as I stand here in this music room. But at least I’m not alone.

“Hey…” I risk nudging him. “Rip van Winkle. What’s your name…?”

He murmurs something, although it may just be a leave-me-alone groan. It sounds, though, like it begins with an a.
Aaddduubbnmmm
. Adam? Is he telling me his name? But it still seems a shame to wake him, and I can feel the drag of sleep as his face relaxes, his body recurls. There’s something touching, almost abject, in the way he’s pressing the insides of his wrists together, although around them I can see a pattern of dug-in cuts and discolorations. Similar marks also circle his ankles where his feet project from the blankets. It’s as if he’s been roughly shackled by ropes.

I go towards the windows. Winter is brewing—it comes earlier each year. I can feel it in my and Morryn’s bones. Even now, on this fine evening, the wind is rising, pushing at the glass, testing the slates and eaves. I shiver, touched by outriders of the true cold which will soon turn the earth to stone, freeze rivers to grey and push the sun so far off into the sky that it will seem much as it must to those machines which mine the distant planets. But still, there is always music and the grey rectangle of my once hi-tech violin case rests on its usual chair. Keying the code, lifting my precious Guarneri from inside, I wipe an imaginary dusting of resin, then pluck each of the strings. Sensing the delayed beginning of our daily routine, the automatic piano’s keys dip in response as it sounds g, d, a, e. Tweaking the adjusters, I strum back at it, then shoulder my instrument, lift the bow, and draw a longer series of open notes. The piano has fallen silent now, but a ghost I cannot see has raised his hands from the keys, and is looking towards me with a mischievous expression I recognise as entirely my husband Claude’s.

We’d do this sometimes. I’d start something, and he’d have a guess, recognise, catch up. It was our private game, although we’d often do it before an audience as well. Occasionally, there was no piece, and we simply riffed, extemporised, improvised. Of course, the musically knowledgeable clapped all the louder when we’d finished. It was part of our glamour, our success, our so-called swagger and synergy—Claude Lewis and Roushana Maitland astonish the world again! Not that I feel particularly swaggerish now, standing in my music room with a half-drowned man as unwitting audience as my fingertips squeal against the cold strings. In fact, there’s always this moment, this gathering barrier, when my mind feels empty and my hands lifeless. What awaits next? Silence? Agonised screeching? It will be one or other for me soon enough. But that, as much as the continued need and compulsion to practise, is why I must still go through these motions each day.

The automatic piano waits. I could announce any piece in the standard repertoire, tap in the beats, and it would start to accompany me. I can specify mood and pace.
Piano
or
forte
. But I’d rather do it this way. Stagger in, and let the damn thing catch up. So my hands pick the sliding notes of—here, and for blank moment, I actually don’t know what it is myself—but, yes, it’s that old warhorse, Kriesler’s
Praeludium
. It pours out from my violin, and I, like the piano, must follow. Then, we are riding together. My fingers dance. The notes flutter and rise and the lid of the automatic piano gleams with the reflection of a woman who, despite everything, can still play a pretty mean fiddle.

Perhaps my drowned man doesn’t like music, for he remains resolutely asleep even as, with what feels like an unnecessary amount of fuss and clatter, I put aside my violin. And I still haven’t got the measure of him. He’s clean-shaven, for a start—a flurry of sunlight catches on grains of barely incipient stubble—and his golden, curly hair has been recently trimmed. Why would anyone so well cared-for be abused, tied up, then abandoned to the sea? None of it makes any sense. I touch the subtle wood above the automatic piano’s keys. A screen appears. The entire repertoire of Western music and much of that of other cultures is offered to me. But my bladder gives a twinge just as I settle on Debussy’s
The Girl With the Flaxen Hair,
and, with an instant need which I haven’t felt since childhood, I know I have to go and pee.

The first lovely fall of notes drifts from the music room as I scurry along the darkening hall, then the sound grows muffled as I close the toilet door and pluck at my clothing. The seat is ridiculously far down, absurdly cold, then, and even though I’m bursting, I have to sit and wait until the tiny dam finally breaks in a disappointing trickle. The automatic piano has chosen to play the doomy chords of
The Submerged Cathedral
by the time I’m finally empty and splashing myself in the guttering taps. My neck prickles as I bury my face in a towel. Who
is
in there playing? Claude?
Me
? Then, a wave of relief; good though the automatic piano is, you can still tell that it’s just a machine.

Feeling somewhat better and something more like myself, I head back to the music room. Inside, my drowned man’s sitting up with his arms wrapped fearfully around his body and his eyes are flickering wildly against the twilight as the automatic piano dips its keys. I hobble over to make it stop.

Sudden silence. The shocked air exhales.

“I thought you were asleep. I’m sorry…”

There’s a slight change in the eyes as he stares up at me.

“You understand what I’m saying?”

He’s conscious of his nakedness. A hand clutches pointlessly across his thigh.

“I found you on the shore.”

At last, he blinks.

“You were nearly drowned. I rescued you. I brought you here. You slept. Do you understand?”

An almost nod.

“What’s your name?”

His lips begin to shape. Could it really be Adam? But no sound emerges.

“I’m Roushana Maitland. I live here.” I don’t say alone. “This is Cornwall.” Which could, depending on where he comes from, be either ridiculously specific, or a wild over-generalisation.

He half-raises the hand which was covering his thigh in a trembling gesture towards the space of empty air beside the piano. He makes a stuttering noise. I lean forward. He tries again. “I saw…”

“You saw? Saw what?”

The hand falls. His eyes trail back to settle on me. But reluctantly. Waking up alone in a strange house with a piano played as if by ghostly fingers, what is he to think?

“What did you say your name was?”

A small shrug.

“I thought you said your name earlier. I thought you said Adam.”

He repeats it, but stammers the b.

“Is that you.
Adam?
Is that your name?”

“I don’t know.”

“You can’t…” Slowing down, conscious of the rattle of my heart, I take a breath. “You were washed up on the beach. Do you know what you were doing there?”

He shakes his head. Again, the gesture doesn’t seem quite right. A negation of sorts, but not quite no.

“Do you know who you are?”

“I thought…” Still afraid, he looks at me blankly.

“I’m sorry. All these questions. I’m not that used to discovering naked young men, I suppose.”

It’s an attempt at humour; he almost smiles.

“Were you on a ship? Some kind of boat? Were you swimming? Walking around Bezant Bay? Flying? Did you fall from the cliffs?”

“I can’t remember.” The eyes don’t slide away from me quite so readily now.

“Whatever it is, you’ve clearly had a severe shock. And I—I’ve had a shock too. And I’ve been a bit—well, I’ve been a bit preoccupied today. You seemed so fast asleep…” I trail off, conscious of the intimacy which sharing this house has already thrust on us.

He moves a hand, tracing it up across his chest as if to feel his face, then seems to think better of it. The hand falls and clutches at the towel which lies beside his bare thigh.

“What
do
you remember?”

“The shore. You were there. I was…” A long silence. Even with his eyes open, he’s still close to sleep.