‘It must be possible to squeeze in a few more,’ Ben insisted.
‘I’d better check the insurance situation on that,’ muttered Jeremy, scribbling a note.
Ben stood up, barely managing to control his frustration. ‘So is there anybody who shares my vision?’ he asked, looking round the room, meeting every eye.
Crispin was nodding enthusiastically through his umpteenth sausage roll and I said quickly, ‘Ben, there definitely are ways in which you can make a difference. Don’t forget, you’ve shown the choir that they can do better. They can improve. They don’t just come along and have a jolly time any more; now they are learning something. The audience will notice this and you’ll get more interest all round. Isn’t this a great enough achievement?’
‘Absolutely,’ said Dominic. ‘Fran’s hit the nail on the head. We’re very lucky to have you, Ben, and your ideas are fantastic. We must obviously circulate the questionnaire and gauge what the members want, but personally I don’t believe expansion is right for us at the moment. As Jeremy says, it’s moving away from the reason the choir was set up. OK, I know things change and we mustn’t be rigid about it, but there is something about our current set-up that’s valuable to the members, and it would be a shame to throw that away.’
‘I’m sure I speak for everybody, Ben, when I say you’re giving many people a great deal of pleasure with your leadership,’ Michael said quietly, and people murmured their agreement. ‘Don’t underestimate the importance of that. Just go carefully.’
Ben raised both hands, then brought them down on his knees and sank back in his chair. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I get the drift.’
‘We do value you,’ Val insisted. ‘And the questionnaire will be incredibly useful.’
‘Amen to all that,’ said Jeremy, glancing at his watch. He stood, shrugging on his jacket. ‘I have to go, I’m afraid. Marriage Guidance course at eight.’
After that, no one stayed for long. Crispin helped himself to a pocketful of petits fours and nodded his thanks. Even Michael seemed to realise it was tactful to go. Ben and I were left, staring at the debris. I wondered if I ought to leave too, but thought he might need me.
‘Ben,’ I said, moving towards him, but he turned away, arms folded, rigid with misery. ‘I’m sorry. I know how much this means to you.’
‘Do you?’ he said dully. ‘Then why didn’t you support me more? It was the least you could have done, stood by me. I thought you were on my side, but you were just like the others.’
‘That’s not fair. I tried to be positive, but I can’t ignore the difficulties. I couldn’t lie.’
‘I expected greater support from you. People are either for me or against me, I find. You were against me, this evening.’ His lips formed a petulant twist. Part of me was shocked and the other part badly wanted to comfort him.
‘Don’t be daft. It’s not personal. We were trying to discuss something objectively. And everyone was so nice about you and everything you do.’
Ben’s eyes glinted like blue ice. ‘You were against me, Fran, and I’m deeply hurt. I thought you were my friend.’
Now I was angry. ‘That’s rubbish. You’re being unkind.’ I was bewildered as well as angry. He was so different from the other night, acting like a toddler with a tantrum. ‘If it comes to that, I could feel let down about you, arranging that the organ should be restored instead of our angel, and then not telling me.’
‘But the organ’s much more important than your angel. You must see that.’
‘That’s not the point. It feels so–underhand, that’s all.’
He didn’t answer that.
‘Ben,’ I said, recovering myself. ‘Don’t let’s quarrel, please.’
‘Who’s quarrelling?’ Suddenly his mood changed. ‘It’s always the same.’
‘What is?’
‘I get so far with things and then there’s a brick wall. As though someone’s trying to stop me.’
I wondered what things he meant–music, perhaps. I remembered all those posters and flyers in the other room advertising his solo performances. All were dated a couple of years or more ago.
‘How do you mean?’
‘I don’t seem to get anywhere with what I do.’
‘That’s just not true. You’ve got a career many people would envy. You’re involved in so much.’
‘That’s not what I’m getting at.’ He picked up a cassette from the top of a pile and placed it in the machine with a theatrical gesture. The sounds of a concert hall suddenly filled the room, people coughing, rustling programmes, settling down. Then wild clapping as the performer arrived on stage, dying away to complete silence before the rush of liquid piano notes began, passionate, sparkling, brilliant.
I glanced at the cassette box he held in his hand–Ashkenazy, one of the world’s most gifted pianists. And Ben had never made it even to the lesser ranks. Was this what he was saying?
A stab of his finger and the music was cut off. He turned and walked out. The door of the next room slammed shut. A moment later he began to play Beethoven
fortissimo
.
‘Oh!’ I wanted to hit something or run away, but made do with counting to ten. I’d be as childish as he was otherwise. Then, martyr-like, I started piling up plates and glasses onto a tray, resentful that he’d left me to clear up.
Loading plates into the dishwasher and hand-washing wineglasses was soothing. There were no blinds on Ben’s kitchen window and it was dark outside. Dotted around, I could see squares and rectangles of light as Londoners cooked, folded linen, put kids to bed or merely stared out at the sky, drink in hand. The tail-lights of planes winked overhead. Life went on.
When I was polishing the last glass, Ben appeared through the kitchen doorway. I watched him in the reflection of the window.
Finally he mumbled, ‘Fran, I’m sorry.’ I turned, the last trace of my anger vanishing when I saw his little-boy smile. He raised his hands in a sheepish gesture.
‘You really hurt my feelings then,’ I said softly.
‘I know, I know, I am really sorry.’
‘I was trying to be helpful at the meeting and you threw it back in my face.’
‘Yes. I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.’
He ambled across the kitchen and gently took the glass from me, then reached for another from the worktop. I watched him uncork a half-drunk bottle of red wine and slop some into the glasses, pushing one towards me. He took a great gulp of the other, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand in a manner that managed to be sexy rather than sloppy. He stood grinning at me.
I folded my arms. ‘Don’t think you can just make it up by smiling charmingly.’
‘You’re smiling too.’
‘No, I’m not.’
I was. He put his wine down and came over and, at last, took me in his arms. As he kissed me, I felt as though I was unfolding like a flower. A moment or two later, his hand snaked inside my top and his lips were moving down my neck, giving me the most amazing tingling feeling.
‘Ben!’ I remembered where we were. ‘All the neighbours will see!’
‘Let them,’ he growled, and kissed me again. After a moment he half-carried, half-led me up to the sitting-room sofa where he kissed me very satisfyingly again. We nestled together in the gathering darkness.
‘What did you mean earlier, about people stopping you doing things?’ I asked him sleepily.
He pulled his arm away and sat up, was silent for a moment. Just as I began to feel panicky, thinking I’d offended him again, he kissed me quickly.
‘It sounds funny, but I believe I’m jinxed,’ he said. ‘It’s like tonight. I know I’ve got the talent and the ideas–I put in the hard work, but it doesn’t seem to happen. There’s some invisible force that says “don’t let Ben succeed”.’
‘But surely you’ve succeeded at so many things,’ I argued. ‘The conducting, being organist, the piano, all your teaching. People think you’re marvellous.’
‘Yes, but it isn’t what I want. I was a soloist. That’s what I wanted to do most, but I never quite got there. A competition judge would take against me, or the recording never quite mate-rialised, or there’d be some sort of favouritism involved and someone else would get the break. It’s not fair. I needed that bit of luck and it never came. I love playing with Nina. That girl’s got so much talent, if only people will take notice. She’s brilliant, Fran, and has had some great teachers.’
‘I hope it works out then–for you both,’ I said softly. For although he spoke about Nina’s career, I discerned that he was speaking of his, too, as her accompanist.
That evening, I felt as close to Ben as I’d been to anyone. He’d opened up to me and sought comfort, and this touched me deeply. So what if he was moody? I was used to that with my father. But where my father kept me at arm’s length, tonight at least, Ben let me in.
We saw each other frequently after that evening, but I was occupied in the shop and visiting Dad, and Ben was always busy, at the school or teaching pupils at home, taking choir practice, rehearsing, sometimes with Nina. It was frustrating. Once or twice, when I rang his doorbell, he didn’t hear, was caught up in some piece of music, so I leaned over the railing and knocked on the window to attract his attention. I never knew how he’d be. Sometimes, when he opened the door he’d pull me into a passionate kiss that left me breathless and laughing. At other times, he’d still be away somewhere with the music and would give me that faraway smile of his, showing me rather formally into the drawing room while he finished whatever he had been doing. Then I’d feel on a knife-edge, so I’d play the game too and be cool towards him. Not that he ever noticed.
Sometimes we quarrelled–oh, about silly things–and then, when we made up, he would hug me as though it was the end of the world. Once, at home in the bath, after such a quarrel I noticed bruises on my upper arms. But still I couldn’t stay away. At other times I felt more like his mother than his lover, tidying up after him and soothing his ruffled feelings, though sometimes it was me who was badly in need of comfort because of Dad.
Looking back much later, I wondered what made me stay around. It was partly passion, pure physical passion. I longed for him, and the fact that he played with my feelings made me want him more. But I think I was crying for help, too, throwing myself into an intense relationship to forget my deep sadness and loneliness.
There was something in each of us that was alike, cried out to each other, some wound in each of us, some destructive darkness. He was a dark angel. And who were we hurting but each other?
One afternoon at the beginning of October, I sat at Dad’s bedside, holding his hand. He was asleep, but his breath came in quick, shallow snores.
A shadow fell across the bed, there came a polite cough, and I looked up to see Dr Bashir reading through the papers at the end of the bed and scrawling his initials on them. ‘Come,’ he said, and ushered me into a small consulting room near the ward.
‘Miss Morrison,’ he said, ‘we ran some more tests on your father this morning and the news is not encouraging. He appears to have suffered another small stroke, and he is slipping into an unconscious state.’
I couldn’t say anything. I just blinked at him.
‘I am sorry to say that the prognosis is poor. I cannot tell how long it will be, days or weeks or months. We can continue the medication he is on, but I fear it will merely delay the inevitable. He will travel deeper into a state of unconsciousness and, sooner or later, there will be irreparable damage. He will not, I’m afraid, return to us.’
He passed me a wadge of tissues, for by now I was crying. ‘Is there anyone you can call?’ he asked, and I shook my head.
‘There isn’t anyone,’ I said automatically, but immediately realised that this wasn’t true. I knew instantly who I wanted. Not Ben, who had never met Dad, not Jo or Jeremy, but Zac. I’d ring Zac.
Dr Bashir was still speaking. ‘And now I must ask you, Miss Morrison, if you would consent to your father being discharged from here.’
He paused, and a wave of panic overwhelmed me. How could I look after Dad properly in the flat, with those stairs and the seedy old bathroom and no help? I couldn’t do it. But Bashir was continuing, and as he spoke I breathed again.
‘He needs the level of care now that is best found in a hospice, and we can recommend one or two, if you would like us to. The beds here, you see–it’s a certain kind of ward. There is great need…’
‘Yes, yes,’ I said, feeling guilty for thinking about myself, determined now to engage with Dad’s needs.
‘These places are very good,’ the doctor continued. ‘They will make your father comfortable, attend to his every need. You will see.’
We talked about Dad’s Living Will, how he had stated that he didn’t want to be revived if it would be to live what was in effect no life at all. We must let time and nature take their course.
And so I agreed to let them make the necessary arrangements.
I found a payphone out in the foyer and managed to punch out the number of the shop. Zac picked up on the second ring.
‘Zac?’ I whispered. ‘Thank God. I’m at the hospital. I really need to see you. It’s Dad. Things are worse.’
‘Wait there,’ he said instantly. ‘I’ll get a cab.’
I hung about inside the main doors, watching the taxis come and go. Finally Zac stepped out of one and the force of my relief at seeing his familiar lean figure took me by surprise. He hurried towards me and we hugged. Now I no longer felt alone. In the four or five short weeks that I’d been home, I’d learned to appreciate Zac as the closest thing to family I had. He and Dad had come to know each other well in their own shy ways and he cared for Dad as much as I did. More so, I sometimes thought, for he didn’t carry all the baggage I did.
The hospice we found for Dad, and which could admit him straight away, was in Dulwich. It meant a train ride, but I liked the leafy suburb and the building–a gracious Edwardian mansion standing in its own grounds, the light streaming in through the windows filtered by the branches of autumn trees. Dr Bashir had spoken the truth when he said my father would be well looked after. The nurses, some of whom were nuns, went about their business with gentleness and efficiency, anticipating Dad’s needs and respecting ours, too. It was a pleasant place for Zac and me just to sit and be with Dad as he slept.