The Museum of Modern Love (13 page)

SNOW HAD BEEN FALLING AT
record levels. It was February and Lydia had been in the Hamptons for a month. Levin had received only the barest reports from Alice after Lydia's stroke. There was no good news. The city was slick with ice and everything felt hunkered down. The days barely became light and the nights were whipped and chastened by Atlantic storms. That day everyone had been braced for a blizzard born in Canada. The weather stations were calling it a Category 1 hurricane. But New York, despite snowdrifts up and down the city, was dauntless. The lights were still on and he'd received an email from Hal.

Where are you? Can't reach you. Call me. Work.

‘Arky, hi,' said Hal. No one ever sounded like Hal on the phone. Hal had constructed a New York drawl from a Kansas twang (his father) and a New Zealand clip (his mother). His vowels were organic. ‘Where have you been? Did your phone get stolen by reindeer? I've been calling you for weeks.'

‘I've been busy.'

‘Okay,' said Hal. ‘So how are you? How was your weekend?'

His weekend? Levin's one trip out had consisted of a brief foray to eat breakfast at the Grey Dog. The city was dirty with trampled snow and bitterly cold. Tourists were in for the winter sales,
filling up the Village, flocking into Bloomingdales, congesting Spring and Canal and everything in between, trawling the little boutiques selling Swiss Army knives and designer satchels, tea towels and shirts, moving from one warm retail cell to the next. Every cafe and restaurant within a two-kilometre radius of NYU was filled with students back after the holidays. But this was what Lydia had wanted. She had wanted to live on the square a stone's throw from the campus.

Without Lydia, Levin had lost the rhythm of the week—the certainty of Monday to Friday, the habit of Saturday, the reprieve of Sunday. It was all gone. The day could be any day. If he wanted, he could take three Sundays in a row and wander through the city, take in a gallery, walk for hours along Riverside. Without Lydia coming and going from her office, the structures of the working week were abandoned like stone walls where the grass had won out and the whole edifice had fallen into disrepair. But wasn't creativity the grass that did just that? Worked away at structures. What sort of brainwashing, he had wondered, had created a world in which people worked fifty or sixty hours a week, every week, no matter how beautiful the day outside, no matter what thoughts they were having? Where would the paintings come from? The novels and sculptures? The music?

Levin had been thinking of ideas for his next album. He'd retrieved something he'd begun a few years before, a suite for orchestra—almost a little symphony—of four movements. He had an idea for an opera too, one drawn from an early film score he'd done for Tom.

‘I have an offer for you. It's not cars and guns.' Hal's voice was too loud in his ear. ‘As your agent, I need to remind you that people move on fast in this game. Two years is a long time between drinks. Time to jump, Arky.'

‘I'm listening,' said Levin. If it had been a director he'd worked with before, they wouldn't have come to Hal first. And if it had been a big money deal, Hal wouldn't have called, he'd have come to see him. So he waited, half irritated he'd bothered to respond to the email.

‘Here's the thing,' said Hal. ‘You know how Disney teamed up with the Japanese company—Studio Ghibli?'

‘A disaster in my mind. Why would Ghibli allow that? Watch how clichéd everything will get.'

‘Well . . .' Hal paused, as if he was about to argue, but instead he continued. ‘Now Warner is quietly undertaking a few explorative projects with a company called Izumi. The one they want to talk to you about is an adult fairy story.'

‘Ah.'

‘Turns out Seiji Isoda, the director, is a fan of your work. He thinks you're the man for the job. He's been working for years to get the project up and then, voila, Warner comes along.'

‘It's an animation?'

‘Yep. But Warner, Levin! And it's for adults, not kids.'

‘So is it more like
Ghost in the Shell
?'

‘Not really. It's a myth. It's pretty unusual. I'm sending you the script over now. It could be good. They're certainly keen to have you. Call me when you've read it.'

‘Okay.'

‘Arky, that means call me tomorrow. And turn your phone on. This isn't the Dark Ages.'

When he switched off his phone again, it occurred to him that Hal hadn't mentioned Lydia. That must have taken something. Hal was very fond of Lydia and Alice. The day Lydia had her stroke, he'd called Hal and cried on the phone. Hal had come over, brought wine and cheese, and listened to the whole saga. Levin didn't remember the detail of the night, but he did
remember Hal hugging him at the door. The next day the legalities were made clear, and Levin cut himself off. Yet today they had spoken as if everything was normal. There was something reassuring in this pretence. The Hollywood adage of
fake it until you make it
. He and Hal had faked it, and it had been okay.

They met in Hal's office. There were blizzard warnings from Washington to Long Island. Schools were closed, airports too. Hal had sent a town car to pick him up. It was 11 am and already the day was concrete, the sky ash above the Chrysler Building beyond the boardroom windows.

Two twenty-something women and a thirty-something man in a blue pinstripe accompanied the young director. Levin felt unbearably old. This was partly to do with having watched The Who do the half-time entertainment at the Super Bowl the day before and thinking that being an ageing muso looked like hard work.

Isoda himself looked all of seventeen, with straight shoulder-length hair and sculptural Japanese features. Levin immediately felt like they'd met before. Tom had been like that. An instant connection.

Isoda spoke careful English with a captivating catch in the vowels. Hal hadn't been exaggerating. He did, it appeared, know all Levin's work. Had every album—even
Light Water
, which must have taken quite some doing. And he'd seen every film.

The young director smiled and said without apparent guile, ‘I think the work you did with Mr Washington was intriguing. Very interesting scores. It must have been a great loss. I admire the partnership you created. And I admire your composition very much. If you give me this opportunity, perhaps we might take a first step in collaboration together.'

The woman in a blouse patterned with cartoon apples looked at Levin and said, ‘Joe Hisaishi wasn't available, so Mr Isoda thought of you.'

Levin blanched. Joe Hisaishi? It was like not being able to get Howard Shore and thinking on who would do next. Nobody came after Howard Shore and nobody came after Joe Hisaishi. Like Clint Eastwood or Ennio Morricone. John Williams. Randy Newman. As composers, they lived in their own stratospheres. Levin had always wanted to be in that league. Believed he was good enough to be and was surprised that it hadn't happened by now. Maybe he was that good and nobody realised it. Like Van Gogh or Prokofiev. Or maybe he wasn't. That troubled him so much he refused to think about it. Now someone wanted him to score a fairytale?

‘As you know from the script, it's a myth, a fable. We want you to evoke an ancient forest removed from time, and yet bordered by a world that threatens it.'

‘I've read the script.'

‘Yes. Did you ever see a fish become a woman?' Isoda asked gently. ‘When you were a child?'

‘No,' said Levin.

‘I think I did, once. It's what made me love this story. I felt like it was my story. I have spent a lot of time in forests and it feels as if time does really begin there. Maybe stories too.
Willows whiten, aspens quiver, little breezes dusk and shiver, through the wave that runs for ever
. . .'

What sort of Japanese child read Tennyson? Levin wondered. The world had got very mixed up.

Levin sifted through the sketches they had placed in front of him. A slender raven-haired woman standing by a river. The woman leaping into the river transforming into a fish. A white bear holding a child tenderly.

‘These illustrations, they're amazing,' said Levin.

‘Thank you,' said Isoda.

‘They're yours?' Levin asked.

Isoda nodded.

‘You know I haven't done an animation before.‘

Isoda's eyes, dark as wet stone rested on Levin. ‘And I have not made a feature film before.
Spirited Away
is also an animation. Not really for children. You know this movie?'

‘I have a daughter,' said Levin. ‘She was a Studio Ghibli fan.'

‘So what's our timeframe?' Hal interjected, glancing at Levin and motioning with his head encouragingly.

‘As you can see, Mr Isoda is at work on the animations now,' said Apple Shirt. Her small perfect mouth was painted with mauve lipstick. ‘Mr Isoda will do all the key drawings for the animation team to develop. He has also written the adaptation from the book.'

The second woman, in a yellow silk shirt, nodded and spoke. ‘Studio Izumi has placed great trust in Mr Isoda.'

‘I am a great fan of Hayao Miyazaki,' Isoda said. ‘Who of course writes, draws and directs all his own films. This time I am taking something from literature, but if it is successful perhaps I will be lucky enough to direct one of my own scripts.'

‘So, the timeframe,' said Apple Shirt in response to Hal's question.

‘I think the expression is that you either have time or money. It's a small budget. So we would like to give you time, Mr Levin,' said Isoda seriously. ‘I imagine that is usually quite rare.'

Levin nodded.

Yellow Silk said, ‘The studio is developing several projects consecutively, and quite truthfully,
Kawa
is the one Warner is least interested in. But Mr Isoda intends to prove them wrong.'

Apple Shirt slid a DVD across to Levin. ‘This is some of Mr Isoda's previous work. Music clips. Some shorts. His work on several games. These are for you.'

‘That being said,' began the man in the pinstripe suit. Until then he had been silent but now he spoke in an unexpected Bronx accent. ‘It's February ninth. We're scheduled to have animations completed by the thirtieth of April and we would like the initial score by the twentieth of May. When Mr Isoda is happy, we'll discuss with you how the thing is going to be orchestrated.'

Isoda nodded and smiled at Levin. ‘I would like us to build the music and pictures together.'

‘And if it gets a release date?' Hal asked.

‘That depends on Warner,' said Isoda. ‘I'm hoping next February, when people are ready for something a little more . . . thoughtful after the Christmas blockbusters.'

‘And you would prefer to record in New York?'

‘If that is your preference. Or you could come to Tokyo.' Isoda smiled. ‘I would very much like to record in Tokyo, but of course that will create some difficulties for you, Mr Levin. Maybe I can take you to our forests. Let's discuss this as we proceed.'

Levin considered the album he'd begun toying with. But maybe, just maybe, he could still do it around the edges. It would be good to work. It might bring some sort of structure.

Isoda said, ‘Mr Levin, if you will agree to do the soundtrack, I'll do everything I can to make you proud.'

Levin stared at the young man with his eager face.

‘Just a moment,' he said, and left the room. He found the bathroom, closed the door of the cubicle and leaned his head against the tiled wall. He couldn't say why he began weeping, only that he thought this was possibly the saddest moment of his life.

There was something so ridiculously innocent about Isoda and his hopefulness. Levin thought of the first film score he'd ever
worked on, and how he, too, had done it with so much hope. Did he still have hope? How could he do this without Lydia? He wanted her home. But if he had her home, he'd never be able to say yes to this film or the next. That was the decision she had made for him. Now he had to make something of that. Otherwise the price was too great.

The wall was cold and white against his cheek. He gripped it as if he was floating on a plank in a wild sea, and wailed silently.

After a short while, he gathered himself, opened the cubicle, washed his face at the sink, paper towelled his face and hands, pushed back his hair. He looked bad, he realised. But suddenly it didn't matter. If they thought he was a little unhinged, they were right. He walked down the empty corridor and went back into the meeting room.

‘I'll do it,' he said.