Music is well said to be the speech of angels.
Thomas Carlyle
On Friday evening I left at seven-fifteen to meet Ben in the church just as heavy drops of rain started to dash onto the dusty pavements. I wished now I hadn’t chosen open-toed sandals, but they were the only shoes that went with my favourite red skirt and denim jacket, and it was too late to change now.
I could hear the distant notes of the organ grow louder as I turned the corner into Vincent Street, and when I opened the door of the church, they rolled over me in a swell of sound that vibrated through my whole body. It was a Bach Fugue–in F, I worked out after a moment. The soaring scales expressed ecstatic worship in a way words never could.
From where I stood in the doorway, the organ loft rose above my head. I tiptoed down the aisle and slid into a choir stall to watch and listen, the grey evening light coming through the windows and the heavy scent of incense and lilies adding to the mystical atmosphere. Had it been just like this when Laura sat here, more than a hundred years ago?
All I could see of Ben was his bright hair as he played so I sat back and closed my eyes, letting the music course through me. When he paused at the end of a movement, I clapped.
‘Hello,’ he called down, his voice echoey. ‘Sorry, got carried away. Didn’t realise you were here. Just a moment.’
He vanished and I heard papers scuffling and footsteps on wood before he reappeared through the wooden gate below, straightening the collar of his silvery-grey sports jacket.
‘That was magnificent,’ I said. ‘I’m no good on the subject of church organs, but it really doesn’t sound too bad.’
‘It’s awful. Couldn’t you hear the wheezing? The stops badly need renewing. It’s the original Willis. Not going to be cheap to restore.’ But he was smiling, exhilarated, as I was, by the music and the atmosphere. A man in his element.
His fingers brushed my arm lightly. ‘Come on, we ought to go.’
We shared a red tartan umbrella, which he liberated from the vestry, and forged our way out through the lashing rain.
‘You women are so daft,’ he cried, as he held my arm, guiding me between puddles. ‘Why do you never dress properly?’
‘What–in sensible shoes? Be elegant or die has always been my motto,’ I retorted and he laughed. He was close; the heady scent of lilies and incense from the church still clung about him.
We ran through the thickening downpour, madly dodging puddles and shrieking with laughter. When we reached Smith Square, our red tartan joined the sober-looking queue of black umbrellas edging its way inside St John’s Church. Several people shot us looks of alarm, probably fearing we were drunk, so we did our best to calm down.
‘Do you know anyone who’s playing?’ I asked him as we took our seats–good seats near the front–and we watched as the small orchestra assembled.
‘Actually, Nina’s given me the tickets. You’ve met her, haven’t you? Well, seen her. Here she comes now.’
We clapped the leader of the orchestra as she entered and with a small stab of unease I recognised the slim brown-haired girl I’d seen gazing up at Ben in Greycoat Square. She bowed, sat down, checked the tuning of her violin, then waited serenely for the conductor to come on, her instrument held resting on her lap. Her eyes searched out Ben and she nodded at him, her expression gravely joyful. She didn’t notice me.
It was a wonderful concert, or at least I think it was. I missed a lot of it because my mind kept drifting to Ben, sitting beside me. I was trying to observe out of the corner of my eye whether he was watching Nina or looking at me, but he always seemed to be absorbed in the music, sometimes with eyes closed and a frown of concentration, sometimes staring unseeing into the dark recesses of the church roof.
During the interval we queued for refreshments and several people came up to talk to Ben. As he introduced them to me, one by one, I gradually realised that he was at the heart of a musical community. I myself only recognised a fellow soprano from the choir, here with her husband, but Ben knew them better than I did, too–apparently taught their son at school–and this heightened my feelings of isolation. It was a relief to be able to wave hello to someone Ben didn’t know–another brassist I’d played with in London once or twice. But before I could go across and speak to him, a voice behind me said, ‘Well, this is a surprise. Twice in one week. How delightful.’ I turned to see Ben’s sardonic schoolfriend Michael, his tight lips curved into a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. He gave me a little mock bow.
‘Hello, Michael!’ cried Ben. ‘Where are you sitting? I couldn’t see you.’
‘Same row as you but on the other side,’ Michael replied. ‘I tried to catch your eye. They’re rather good, aren’t they? Nina’s going great guns. If I had one criticism I’d say that the last movement of the Mozart was played at a gallop.’
I hadn’t noticed this myself, and thought Michael pernickety. But I didn’t have time to respond as Ben took my empty glass. It was time we returned to our seats.
After an enjoyable second half in which I was finally swept up in Berlioz’s wonderful Symphonie Fantastique, I hoped Ben would suggest we went off by ourselves for a cosy drink. Instead he said, ‘You’ll come and say hello to Nina?’
‘Of course,’ I replied, whilst heartily wishing I could do the opposite. For some reason, I didn’t want to meet her. But it was only polite, since she had given him the tickets, so I followed him over to the green room door. Michael got there first, and it wasn’t long before my hopes of a quiet drink were dashed and it had somehow been arranged that we should all go back to Ben’s.
‘Nina, darling, that was simply wonderful.’
Ben embraced her warmly, while Michael planted a rather formal kiss on her cheek. Finally, she gave me a limp handshake.
‘Oh, you’re in Ben’s choir,’ she said. ‘I love
The Dream
but I’m so busy already this term with the violin, I simply haven’t got time to sing.’
She still held herself very upright and I noticed now that it was her natural posture, for she had a long, graceful back and a slim waist that would have made her perfect to wear one of those low-waisted fifteenth-century dresses. This elegance, her long fine hair and pale ethereal prettiness gave her a languid, feminine charm.
We all walked back in the direction of Greycoat Square. The rain had stopped now, though the streets shone wet. As often happens in mixed company, the men walked in front, Michael carrying Nina’s violin, leaving the women to hurry along behind.
‘Did I seem at all nervous?’ Nina said anxiously when I congratulated her on her performance. I was surprised that she revealed her vulnerability to a stranger.
‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘You seemed very confident.’ Which was true. She had seemed completely involved in the music.
‘It was my first time as leader of the orchestra. A bit nerve-racking with Ben and Michael sitting there. They know so much about music, you see.’
‘You didn’t have any family you could invite?’ I was interested to know if her situation was similar to mine.
‘I’m from Jersey,’ she said. ‘It’s a long journey for my mother now. My dad died a few years ago.’ She sounded a little choked and despite everything I warmed to her. She seemed a gentle person, one of deep feeling.
‘When did you leave Jersey?’ I asked her, and she told me about her studies in Paris and London.
‘I go back to the island as often as I can,’ she said. ‘They’re very supportive. I try to speak to my mum and my sister every night. Lily’s just had her second baby, a little boy, and I’ve hardly seen him.’ This family portrait touched a tender place in me.
‘How did you come to meet Ben and Michael?’ I asked. We were in Page Street now, where the black-and-white checked apartment blocks gleamed wet through the darkness, like nightmare chessboards, a threatening world through which the men marched confidently half a block ahead.
‘Michael’s a friend of someone in my quartet,’ she said, ‘and when I mentioned that I was looking for a piano accompanist, he suggested Ben. So that’s how it all happened really.’
It seemed that Michael was always helping Ben. It had been Michael who’d recommended Ben as organist and choirmaster, too. They were much closer friends than one might think. I wondered what Nina meant by ‘that’s how it all happened’. What happened? Everything about these three was so confusing.
Perhaps it was this sense of exclusion or the mocking chessboards, or watching Ben and Michael stride further and further away, but for a moment I felt an awful howling loneliness. ‘Come on,’ I said to Nina, fighting the mood, ‘let’s catch them up.’
By the time we reached Ben’s flat, my shoes and the hem of my skirt were wet through. He ushered us up the steps and in through the front door of the large Victorian house that had once been Laura Brownlow’s. Now it was divided in two, vertically, so that it was difficult to imagine how it had been originally. Through one doorway I glimpsed a shiny black grand piano, but Ben led us into the living room behind, where a pair of big padded striped armchairs and a matching sofa were arranged round a small fireplace. Books lined the walls and the room still had its original decorated ceiling. By now I couldn’t disguise the fact that I was freezing.
‘Fran,’ said Ben sternly, ‘for heaven’s sake, you’re shivering. Look, the bathroom’s at the top of the stairs. Go and dry yourself–there’ll be a clean towel in the cupboard–and I’ll light the fire.’
I found the bathroom and peeled off my shoes, then opened the cupboard to search for a towel to dry my feet and the bottom of my skirt. After rejecting a couple of large bath-towels, I pulled at what I thought was a smaller pink one. When it unfurled onto the floor I saw it wasn’t a towel at all, but a woman’s bathrobe. Whose was it, I wondered. Nina’s? Or something he kept in case of an unexpected overnight guest? I stuffed it back in the cupboard and located an innocuous beige hand-towel.
When I padded barefoot back into the living room, Ben laid my shoes by the fire then pointed me to one of the armchairs, opposite Nina. Perching on the edge of the sofa he uncorked a bottle of red wine, while Michael, who seemed to be thoroughly at home, set out glasses on the coffee-table.
‘Thanks,’ I said, when Ben passed me my drink. ‘It’s a lovely place. The ceiling is Victorian, isn’t it?’ I wondered if he knew the building’s history.
‘I think so, yes. The flat comes with the job. I’ve lived here since June, when I became church organist. It belongs to St Martin’s, you see. Here you go, Michael.’
‘Thanks. Falls on his feet, does Ben,’ said Michael, with his twisted smile. ‘A grace and favour home, while the rest of us have stonking great mortgages.’
‘Or rents,’ sighed Nina, sipping her wine and screwing up her face, whether at the wine or the idea of rent, I couldn’t tell.
Ben frowned at Michael’s sneering. ‘Makes up for the very modest pay and the unsociable hours,’ was all he said.
‘Do you know,’ I asked them, ‘that this used to be the rectory? The vicar was telling me.’
‘Yes, I did know. Back in Victorian times, wasn’t it?’ said Ben. He addressed the others. ‘Then after the last war the diocese bought a smaller Edwardian place, where the Quentins live now, and turned this one into maisonettes. The other was sold but the vicar said they kept this on for the curate. Except the bishop can’t afford to give us a curate at the moment. Long may we be without one, I say, or I’ll be have to come and live with you in your bedsit, Nina.’ His eyes twinkled.
Nina giggled, her hand over her mouth. ‘Oh, you’d hate it,’ she said. ‘I do.’
I stared up at the cornices on the ceiling, trying to imagine the room as it must have been 120 years ago, but it was difficult. Possibly, facing east as it did, this had been the morning room. In which case, perhaps it was where poor Mr Bond had proposed and been rejected–or had that been in the drawing room? That would have been the room where I’d glimpsed the piano.
I decided to explain to them about Laura. ‘During my research into the window…’ I stopped and glanced at Ben, slouching languorously on the sofa. ‘Has he told you about the angel window?’ I asked the others.
‘The one that means the organ won’t get repaired? Oh, golly yes,’ said Michael. ‘He’s moaned about it endlessly, hasn’t he, Nina?’ Michael had been prowling the bookcases, occasionally selecting a volume and flipping through it. Now he came to lean against the back of Nina’s chair, looking down on her in a faintly proprietorial fashion. Nina hardly seemed to notice him.
‘It sounds simply fascinating,’ she gushed to me. ‘Putting together a shattered window. Like recovering a piece of history.’
‘It’s going to remain a piece of history unless we can find out more about what it looked like,’ I said. ‘But what I have found is the journal of a woman who must have lived here. It was her family who commissioned the window.’
‘Really? Who was she?’ asked Nina, and soon I was telling them all about Laura and the unfortunate dead Caroline.
‘It’s rather spooky, if you think about it,’ Nina said, looking round the room with a shiver, as though Laura might appear in a shimmer of ectoplasm.
‘Ever see ghosts here, Ben?’ Michael asked.
Ben shook his head. He was the only one who didn’t seem to be interested in Laura’s journal. After a moment he got up and fiddled about with a stereo system. Soon we were silenced by the passionate swell of Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ filling the room.
‘That’s chased the spooks away,’ he said as he turned it down again. ‘Michael, can you pour more wine? I’ll get some snacks. I’m famished.’
The conversation moved on. Michael told a complicated story about one of his and Ben’s schoolfriends, nicknamed Boko, who had got himself caught up in some financial fraud and looked set to go to prison. Nina listened wide-eyed, as though this tale was way beyond her cosy cottonwool-wrapped world.
I was just happy to sit in a warm room, drinking wine, eating cheese and biscuits and watching Ben, who listened gravely to Michael’s sorry narrative, occasionally putting in the odd comment. They shared a kind of shorthand, these two, bound by their common background. I felt envious. I didn’t have that with anyone, except possibly Jo.