Easy Silence Read online

  Easy Silence

  Angela Huth

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  We look before and after,

  We pine for what is not:

  Our sincerest laughter

  With some pain is fraught;

  Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  1

  ‘Where, tonight?’

  ‘Slough.’

  ‘Slough?’

  ‘Slough.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought–’

  ‘Some industrial estate. Some hall. Rather good acoustics, as far as I remember.’

  ‘Slough! I have to say I can’t imagine there’d be a very good turn out in–’

  ‘You’re wrong there, my Ace.’

  ‘So you’ll be back late, you poor thing.’

  ‘Not very late.’

  ‘Slough … Mozart?’

  William Handle glanced at his wife to assess the precise measure of interest in this question. He knew so well the waterline in her blue eyes that divided politeness from real interest. Tonight, weary after a long day whose tribulations she had relived for him over tea, he judged mere politeness fired the question. She didn’t really want to know the answer, she certainly hadn’t the heart to be subjected to details of the programme. William spared her.

  ‘Mozart, yes,’ is all he said.

  ‘Sure you’ve got the right–’

  William tapped his music case. ‘Checked three times.’ Since the occasion, five years ago, he had found he’d taken Bach instead of Brahms to a big concert in Manchester, he had been almost neurotic in his checking.

  ‘Well, then.’ Grace patted his shoulder. She registered that the stiff stuff of his mackintosh had actually cracked. Tomorrow, at some appropriate time, she would suggest he invested in a new one. To say anything now would be foolish. William no longer suffered the acute pre-concert nerves of his youth but he liked to start thinking about the music when he had finished his second cup of tea. Any deflection ruffled him, though Grace was the only one privileged to observe such disturbance. She handed him his violin case, opened the front door. The small car parked in the driveway was pearled with rain.

  ‘Oh dear, what a bother, ’I won’t be able to hurry. ’William was always nervous about his lack of driving skill, especially in the dark and rain. ‘I’d hoped it might have stopped.’

  ‘It’s sure to have cleared by the time you come home,’ said Grace, who believed in encouragement.

  ‘Goodnight, my Ace.’ William kissed his wife on the cheek. When his hands were free he liked to cup her chin and kiss her lightly on the mouth–something he discovered she enjoyed when they were courting and had become a habit between them. But lumbered with both instrument and music case, he was only able to give her what they jokingly called a pre-concert kiss. The cases barged into Grace’s thighs. She backed away, smiling.

  ‘Drive carefully.’

  ‘I will.’

  All the way to Slough William had trouble with the windscreen wipers. They went either too fast or too slow. In neither mode (a modern word William sometimes reluctantly found he was obliged to use) did they perform their function properly. The glass remained smeary, a screen of moving abstract patterns that flowed from coloured neon signs and streetlights. William was forced to drive slowly, trying to decide just how near or far he was from the exploding headlights coming towards him. He feared he would be late. He wanted to look at his watch, but Grace had drummed into him so often that a driver should never take his eyes from the road. In her absence, he felt it more crucial than ever to heed her advice, always sound. So he gave up the thought of checking the time.

  But tonight something more serious than the rain troubled William. Through the squiggle of disconcerting lights he tried to remember what it was. At a red light (handbrake diligently on), it came to him: Andrew. Andrew Fulbright. Andrew, his dearest friend, his friend of almost thirty years, best viola in any quartet in the country … gone. Gone! The fact was still incredible. William could not bring himself to believe that when he reached the dressing-room tonight Andrew would not be wittering on about the threadbare state of his white tie (a mean man, in small respects, he would never deign to replace it), or the banality of the programme if it did not include some difficult modern composer, or the warmth of the lager provided for after-concert refreshment, or the inconsideration of British Rail for those requiring to travel home late. Dear Andrew! William and the other two members of the Elmtree Quartet were so familiar with his grumbles that their sympathetic responses had become automatic–sometimes in harmony, sometimes solo, with as little thought as was necessary in playing the opening bars of Mozart’s K458. But they were enough to console Andrew–a man quick to recover from his own imagined misfortunes if ever there was one. Within moments he would be laughing, tuning up long before reaching the platform with a keenness, a precision, that would make the others smile. And then, no matter how many times Andrew had played a piece, he never resorted to automatic pilot. He always gave his soul to the music in a way that the others–so often tired, bored, irritated–failed to do with such constancy. Now Andrew was gone for ever. This would be the first concert without him.

  The car behind William hooted four times in the manner of the opening bar of Beethoven’s Fifth. This was a signal William could read. Rather than feel annoyed by the other driver’s impatience, he was soothed. It could mean there was another musician on the road to the concert. William obligingly let in the clutch, observing that by now the green light had changed to amber. But he made a dash for it. Didn’t want to annoy the chap behind any further. Grace said the slightest hesitation could inspire road-rage these days. William could not imagine what he would do should some angry driver come banging on the window set for a fight. Grace said he should always lock the car from the inside if there was any suspicion of things turning nasty. But William had never encountered any such suspicion, and in the meantime had forgotten how to lock the doors from the inside. In this first-ever possible nasty moment, aware of his vulnerability, he slammed down the accelerator and leapt forward through a glow of red, causing traffic from each side of him to start up a cacophony of hooting, which put him vaguely in mind of Gershwin’s tuned taxi horns in An American in Paris.

  A short while later, his calm returned, his hands loosened on the steering wheel, his thoughts returned to Andrew. The sad fact was that Andrew had been forced to resign untimely from the Elmtree because of ‘wife troubles’. He had confessed to William that after many difficult years things had come to a head. It was either bloody concerts, Zara had said, or her. He could take his choice. Zara, addicted to the plural, had screamed at him; music, music, music–she was fed up to here with twenty years of music. So he could either go, go, go, or give in his notice, pronto, and stay, stay, stay. Andrew, being an honourable man and remembering his wedding vows, had been forced to choose his wife. He had given his viola to his son and swore never to play again, thus doubling Zara’s triumph.

  Andrew’s official reason for leaving the Elmtree was increasing arthritis in his shoulder, exacerbated by playing. William (first violin), Rufus (second violin) and Grant (cello) had never heard him complain of this, but did not press him. They set about auditioning replacements. William remembered desolate weeks of listening to young hopefuls–very eager young hopefuls–scraping through their favourite Brahms sonata. Not one of them would bring
to the Elmtree players the very particular quality of Andrew, but a choice had finally to be made. William agreed with the other two that a girl, called Bonnie, would be the best choice–though each in their hearts would have preferred another man. Among so many applicants William could remember little of Bonnie except that she had a powerful fringe and a memorable mouth. She had played part of the Walton viola concerto for her audition, which had cheered Andrew: he said here was a girl who liked a challenge. As the others wanted Andrew to be happy with his replacement and her playing was, indeed, original, if a little erratic, the choice was more or less made for them. Besides, time was running out. Zara was looking at houses in Yorkshire, to ensure Andrew was unable to go back on his word, and they were all fed up with auditions. They disliked their power to stifle a dozen hopes a day.

  There had been many rehearsals with Bonnie before the first concert together. William had concentrated on erasing the singular and beautiful sound of Andrew’s viola from his mind. Bonnie, of the bobbing fringe, did her best. She was quiet, accommodating, quick to respond to any suggestion for improvement. William tried to convince himself that in time he would become used to the strangeness of her presence. For the moment he could see her only as a replacement rather than a being. Certainly she was a good–an especially good musician, they realised after a week or so of playing with her. But as a young girl of flesh and blood, for William, she did not yet exist.

  This evening was to be Bonnie’s first concert as a member of the Elmtree String Quartet. That was what was troubling William. That was what was making driving in the dark and rain harder than usual. How on earth would it be? Never the same again, of course. Four old friends, so used to each others’ idiosyncrasies, so loyal in their disguising of each others’ frailties … And now they must accommodate a new player about whose attitude, life, tone, mastery of a score they knew nothing. Besides which, this new member, this replacement, was not a man. Ashamed of his secret dread and prejudice, William quickly told himself that it was only fair to give this Bonnie girl–young woman, whatever she was–a chance. Help her. She must be feeling pretty nervous. She would need all the support he, Grant and Rufus knew they must give. The whole prospect was nothing less than a nightmare.

  By the time William drew up at the hall on the industrial estate in Slough, the rain was so hard the windscreen wipers collapsed altogether, but Bonnie’s surname had come to him. Morse. Bonnie Morse. Hardly a name to distinguish a programme. He made a mental note to describe every inch of the new viola’s appearance, and performance, next morning to Grace. He would end up by trumpeting her name in the funny voice he used to disguise disapproval, and which always made Grace laugh. Bonnie Morse, indeed! How they would agree.

  As William ran through the rain towards the lighted door, violin case and music case banging at his clattery mackintosh, he realised that he had not given a moment’s thought to the Mozart he was about to play, but consoled himself with the thought that the pieces were so well known to him this would not, for once, impair his performance. More disturbing was the fact that there was a girl arriving ahead of him. Back shiny as a seal in the rain. Viola case tucked professionally under her arm. Bonnie Morse herself.

  It was a bad start. He had promised the others he’d be there first. Greet this Bonnie. Welcome her. Assure her. As leader of the players, do his stuff.

  William pushed himself into a run. He pictured her blundering along corridors looking for the room that the managers of the cat food firm, sponsoring the concert, liked to call the Green Room. It was clear already the choice of the new viola was a mistake. There was bound to be trouble. William felt the ache of a bereaved man as he thought of the absent Andrew. Fired by guilt and melancholy, he attempted to jump a puddle for further speed. He clambered into the air with the heaviness of an insect drowsed by late summer. He slipped on landing. Fell. Eventually, rose again. Cursed Bonnie Morse. In his final wet sprint to the door he tried to calm himself with thoughts of Mozart, but did not succeed.

  The next morning at breakfast it was Grace who brought up the subject that had occupied William’s mind during a long and sleepless night.

  ‘So: how did it go with the new viola?’

  ‘Fine. All right. She’s not bad. She’s rather good.’

  ‘She?’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you, my Ace?’ After so many years he was no longer in the habit of passing on the Elmtree’s news, usually of no great interest, to his wife. ‘The new viola’s a she.’

  Grace scraped her toast back and forth, spreading the butter till it was an almost calorie-free veil.

  ‘You didn’t, no.’

  ‘Well, it didn’t seem of much importance. All those auditions, no one particularly outstanding. The candidates were confused in my mind. I suppose I forgot to tell you the one we chose in the end was this young woman, Bonnie Morse.’

  ‘Bonnie Morse?’

  ‘Quite.’ They exchanged a smile at the name, as William had foreseen.

  ‘Young woman?’

  ‘As yet I haven’t determined whether she’s a young woman or an older girl. It’s not the sort of thing you can ask. She’s got a girlish fringe but womanly hips, I’d say’

  Grace now turned her concentration to thinning out the marmalade in the same way as the butter.

  ‘How could you tell about her hips if she was sitting down playing all evening?’

  ‘I was behind her when she took a bow at the end.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Grace after a while. ‘When’s your next date?’

  William shifted almost imperceptibly in the seat of his chair and picked up The Times to signal the end of the exchange.

  ‘Northampton, Thursday’

  ‘Perhaps I should come with you, judge for myself.’

  ‘Not worth it. Wait till she’s settled in and we’re playing somewhere nearer.’

  ‘It’s only an hour’s journey.’

  ‘Britten the whole of the second half. You know how allergic you are to Britten.’

  ‘True,’ said Grace. ‘All right, I won’t come. It was just an idea.’

  They fell back into the easy silence that was their habit at breakfast. Tea, before William set off for a concert, was the time they liked to exchange news, confirm plans, swap some of the random thoughts that had come to them during the day. It was also the time, especially when the evenings were drawing in, they sometimes fell into a little routine of reminiscence, which reaffirmed, rather than more obvious declarations, their long-married love, and reassured.

  Breakfast finished, William put his plate and mug on top of the dishwasher, his single contribution to domestic necessity, and went upstairs. Grace began to hurry with the rest of the clearing, for timing, in the strict routine of daily life that she and William had thrived on for years, was essential. Working daily under the same roof, they decided years ago, would best be accomplished if each of them was able to believe in the illusion that they were alone in the house. Thus skilful avoiding of the other was put into practice -difficult at first, some slip-ups encountered. By now, a habit no longer thought about. They had taken practical steps to ensure there was no danger of a chance meeting in the morning–a kettle and coffee had been installed in William’s room, for instance, so that he would not have to come down to the kitchen for his elevenses. This guaranteed they would not have to pass on the stairs, something they both secretly preferred to avoid. For what, as Grace once asked, do people who’ve been married for a long time say when they meet on the stairs? Their desire to avoid any such meeting was mutual, though unspoken. Neither wished to risk the possibility, knowing well that a preoccupied smile or the absence of a jaunty word are the sort of things that can lead to misunderstandings in the happiest of marriages.

  Grace waited till she heard her husband come out of the bathroom and climb the stairs to the third floor of the house, to his sound-proofed room. There, she imagined, he would stand at the window tuning his violin, looking out of the window at the severe patch of garden w
ith its orderly standard roses and dark privet hedges, and lose himself in Brahms, or whoever, for the next couple of hours before getting down to the tasks at his desk. If by chance his thoughts turned to her, Grace imagined, then he would see her equally engrossed in her work in the downstairs study, spectacles slipping down her nose, tiny sable brush hovering over the paper as she depicted every vein in a buttercup petal. Her A Child’s Guide to Flowers had engrossed her for the last five years and the signs were it would take another five to complete. Grace appreciated that William still showed interest in her progress from time to time, and loyally deflected questions from friends who enquired about his wife’s date of publication.

  What William did not know was that had he imagined his wife safely at her flowers, the picture would have been inaccurate. Until at least mid-morning, these days, she was no longer there. Since Lucien had started visiting, her work routine had been destroyed. And what William also did not know was that some mornings, when William took five minutes longer than usual to read the paper, Grace became rigid with concealed tension. For if Lucien had walked unannounced through the kitchen door, which was his way, and William had still been at breakfast–well, Grace dared not imagine what might happen. So occasionally, anxiously watching the clock, she was obliged to chivvy her husband in the gentlest possible way.

  ‘My goodness, it’s almost half past nine,’ she would observe, taking his plate to the sink to relieve him of this duty.

  ‘My goodness, so it is.’

  ‘You’d better get on, hadn’t you?’

  ‘So I had, my Ace. How right you are. The Mendelssohn.’ And humming the first few bars, he would be on his way.

  William never seemed to notice the urgency beneath her mild suggestions, and the small element of danger gave an edge to breakfast which Grace rather enjoyed.

  The morning after Bonnie Morse’s first concert with the Elmtree String Quartet there was no reason for Grace to urge William to hurry. But he finished more quickly than usual, eager to be alone in the safety of his sound-proofed room.