Lord God Made Them All (35 page)

I heard a whisper in my ear. “Some bloody aeroplane, this, Jim boy.” Joe had joined me at the window and was looking with disbelief at the still, scarred engine. Behind him, Noel was wide-eyed but silent.

On our three engines we flew on through the cloudless sky, and below, a turquoise sea sparkled. Soon we began to lose height, and I looked down on a great city with domes and minarets abounding. This was indeed some bloody aeroplane, but it had got us to Istanbul.

M
R.
G
ARRETT’S WORDS ABOUT
parents needing nerves of steel have come back to me many times over the years. One notable occasion was the annual recital given by Miss Livingstone’s piano class.

Miss Livingstone was a soft-voiced, charming lady in her fifties who started many of the local children in piano lessons, and once a year she held a concert in the Methodist Hall for her pupils to show their paces. They ranged from six-year-olds to teenagers, and the room was packed with their proud parents. Jimmy was nine at the time and had been practising without much enthusiasm for the big day.

Everybody knows everybody else in a small town like Darrowby, and as the place filled up and the chairs scraped into position, there was much nodding and smiling as people recognised each other. I found myself on the outside chair of the centre aisle, with Helen on my right, and just across the few feet of space I saw Jeff Ward, old Willie Richardson’s cowman, sitting very upright, hands on knees.

He was dressed in his Sunday best, and the dark serge was stretched tightly across his muscular frame. His red, strong-boned face shone with intensive scrubbing, and his normally wayward thatch of hair was plastered down with brilliantine.

“Hello, Jeff,” I said. “One of your youngsters performing today?”

He turned and grinned. “Now then, Mr. Herriot Aye, it’s our Margaret. She’s been comin’ on right well at t’piano, and I just hope she does herself justice this afternoon.”

“Of course she will, Jeff. Miss Livingstone is an excellent teacher. She’ll do fine.”

He nodded and turned to the front as the concert commenced. The first few performers who mounted the platform were very small boys in shorts and socks or tiny girls in frilly dresses, and their feet dangled far above the pedals as they sat at the keyboard.

Miss Livingstone hovered nearby to prompt them, but their little mistakes were greeted with indulgent smiles from the assembly, and the conclusion of each piece was greeted with thunderous applause.

I noticed, however, that as the children grew bigger and the pieces became more difficult, a certain tension began to build up in the hall. The errors weren’t so funny now, and when little Jenny Newcombe, the fruiterer’s daughter, halted a couple of times, then bowed her head as though she were about to cry, the silence in the room was absolute and charged with anxiety. I could feel it myself. My nails were digging into my palms and my teeth were tightly clenched. When Jenny successfully restarted and I relaxed with all the others, the realisation burst upon me that we were not just a roomful of parents watching our children perform; we were a band of brothers and sisters, suffering together.

When little Margaret Ward climbed the few steps to the platform, her father stiffened perceptibly in his seat. From the corner of my eyes I could see Jeff’s big, work-roughened fingers clutching tightly at his knees.

Margaret went on very nicely till she came to a rather complicated chord which jarred on the company with harsh dissonance. She knew she had got the notes wrong and tried again … and again … and again, each time jerking her head with the effort.

“No, C and E, dear,” murmured Miss Livingstone, and Margaret crashed her fingers down once more, violently and wrongly.

“My God, she’s not going to make it,” I breathed to myself, aware suddenly that my pulse was racing and that every muscle in my body was rigid.

I glanced round at Jeff. It was impossible for anybody with his complexion to turn pale, but his face had assumed a hideously mottled appearance and his legs were twitching convulsively. He seemed to sense that my gaze was on him, because he turned tortured eyes towards me and gave me the ghastly semblance of a smile. Just beyond him, his wife was leaning forward. Her mouth hung slightly open and her lips trembled.

As Margaret fought for the right notes, a total silence and immobility settled on the packed hall. It seemed an eternity before the little girl got it right and galloped away over the rest of the piece, and though everybody relaxed in their seats and applauded with relief as much as approval, I had the feeling that the episode had taken its toll of all of us.

I certainly didn’t feel so good and watched in a half-trance as a succession of children went up and did their thing without incident. Then it was Jimmy’s turn.

There was no doubt that most of the performers and parents were suffering from nerves, but this couldn’t be applied to my son. He almost whistled as he trotted up the steps, and there was a hint of swagger in his walk up to the piano. This, he clearly thought, was going to be a dawdle.

In marked contrast, I went into a sort of rigor as soon as he appeared. My palms broke out in an instant sweat, and I found I was breathing only with difficulty. I told myself that this was utterly ridiculous, but it was no good. It was how I felt

Jimmy’s piece was called “The Miller’s Dance,” a title burned on my brain till the day I die. It was a rollicking little melody which, of course, I knew down to the last semi-quaver, and Jimmy started off in great style, throwing his hands about and tossing his head like Artur Rubinstein in full flow.

Around the middle of “The Miller’s Dance,” there is a pause in the quick tempo where the music goes from a brisk ta-rum-tum-tiddle-iddle-om-pom-pom to a lingering taa-rum, taa-rum, before starting off again at top speed. It was a clever little ploy of the composer and gave a touch of variety to the whole thing.

Jimmy dashed up to this point with flailing arms till he slowed down at the familiar taa-rum, taa-rum, taa-rum. I waited for him to take off again, but nothing happened. He stopped and looked down fixedly at the keys for a few seconds, then he played the slow bit again and halted once more.

My heart gave a great thud. Come on, lad, you know the next part—I’ve heard you play it a hundred times. My voiceless plea was born of desperation, but Jimmy didn’t seem troubled at all. He looked down with mild puzzlement and rubbed his chin a few times.

Miss Livingstone’s gentle voice came over the quivering silence. “Perhaps you’d better start at the beginning again, Jimmy.”

“Okay.” My son’s tone was perky as he plunged confidently into the melody again, and I closed my eyes as he approached the fateful bars. Ta-rum-tum-tiddle-iddle-om-pom-pom, taa-rum, taa-rum, taa-rum,—then nothing. This time he pursed his lips, put his hands on his knees and bent closely over the keyboard as though the strips of ivory were trying to hide something from him. He showed no sign of panic, only a faint curiosity.

In the almost palpable hush of that room, I was sure that the hammering of my heart must be audible. I could feel Helen’s leg trembling against mine. I knew we couldn’t take much more of this.

Miss Livingstone’s voice was soft as a zephyr or I think I would have screamed. “Jimmy, dear, shall we try it once more from the beginning?”

“Yes, yes, right.” Away he went again like a hurricane, all fire and fury. It was unbelievable that there could ever be a flaw in such virtuosity.

The whole room was in agony. By now the other parents had come to know “The Miller’s Dance” almost as well as I did, and we waited together for the dread passage. Jimmy came up to it at breakneck speed. Ta-rum-tum-tiddle-iddle-om-pom-pom, then taa-rum, taa-rum, taa-rum … and silence.

Helen’s knees were definitely knocking now, and I stole an anxious glance at her face. She was pale, but she didn’t look ready to faint just yet.

As Jimmy sat motionless except for a thoughtful drumming of his fingers against the woodwork of the piano, I felt I was going to choke. I glared around me desperately, and I saw that Jeff Ward, across the aisle, was in a bad way. His face had gone all blotchy again, his jaw muscles stood out in taut ridges and a light sheen of perspiration covered his forehead.

Something had to break soon, and once more it was Miss Livingstone’s voice which cut into the terrible atmosphere.

“All right, Jimmy, dear,” she said. “Never mind. Perhaps you’d better go and sit down now.”

My son rose from the stool and marched across the platform. He descended the steps and rejoined his fellow pupils in the first few rows.

I slumped back in my seat. Ah, well, that was it. The final indignity. The poor little lad had blown it. And though he didn’t seem troubled, I was sure he must feel a sense of shame at being unable to get through his piece.

A wave of misery enveloped me, and though many of the other parents turned and directed sickly smiles of sympathy and friendship at Helen and me, it didn’t help. I hardly heard the rest of the concert, which was a pity because as the bigger boys and girls began to perform, the musical standard rose to remarkable heights. Chopin nocturnes were followed by Mozart sonatas, and I had a dim impression of a tall lad rendering an impromptu by Schubert. It was a truly splendid show—by everybody but poor old Jimmy, the only one who hadn’t managed to finish.

At the end, Miss Livingstone came to the front of the platform. “Well, thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for the kind reception you have given my pupils. I do hope you have enjoyed it as much as we have.”

There was more clapping, and as the chairs started to push back, I rose to my feet, feeling slightly sick.

“Shall we go then, Helen?” I said, and my wife nodded back at me, her face a doleful mask.

But Miss Livingstone wasn’t finished yet. “Just one thing more, ladies and gentlemen.” She raised a hand. “There is a young man here who, I know, can do much better. I wouldn’t be happy going home now without giving him another opportunity. Jimmy.” She beckoned towards the second row. “Jimmy, I wonder… I wonder if you would like to have one more try.”

As Helen and I exchanged horrified glances, there was an immediate response from the front. Our son’s voice rang out, chirpy and confident. “Aye, aye, I’ll have a go!”

I couldn’t believe it. The martyrdom was surely not about to start all over again. But it was true. Everybody was sitting down, and a small, familiar figure was mounting the steps and striding to the piano.

From a great distance I heard Miss Livingstone again. “Jimmy will play “The Miller’s Dance.’ “ She didn’t have to tell us—we all knew.

As though in the middle of a bad dream, I resumed my seat. A few seconds earlier, I had been conscious only of a great weariness, but now I was gripped by a fiercer tension than I had known all afternoon. As Jimmy poised his hands over the keys, a vibrant sense of strain lapped around the silent room.

The little lad started off as he always did, as though he hadn’t a care in the world, and I began a series of long, shuddering breaths designed to carry me past the moment that was fast approaching. Because I knew he would stop again. And I knew just as surely that when he did, I would topple senseless to the floor.

I didn’t dare look round at anybody. In fact, when he reached the crucial bars I closed my eyes tightly. But I could still hear the music—so very clearly. Ta-rum-tum-tiddle-iddle-om-pom-pom, taa-rum, taa-rum, taa-rum … There was a pause of unbearable length, then, tiddle-iddle-om-pom, tiddle-iddle-om-pom, Jimmy was blissfully on his way again.

He raced through the second half of the piece, but I kept my eyes closed as the relief flooded through me. I opened them only when he came to the finale, which I knew so well. Jimmy was making a real meal of it, head down, fingers thumping, and at the last crashing chord, he held up one hand in a flourish a foot above the keyboard before letting it fall by his side in the true manner of the concert pianist.

I doubt if the Methodist Hall has ever heard a noise like the great cheer which followed. The place erupted in a storm of clapping and shouting, and Jimmy was not the man to ignore such an accolade. All the other children had walked impassively from the stage at the end of their efforts, but not so my son.

To my astonishment, he strode from the stool to the front of the platform, placed one arm across his abdomen and the other behind his back, extended one foot and bowed to one side of the audience with the grace of an eighteenth-century courtier. He then reversed arms and pushed out the other foot before repeating his bow to the other side of the hall.

The cheering changed to a great roar of laughter which continued as he descended the steps, smiling demurely. Everybody was still giggling as we made our way out. In the doorway we bumped into Miss Mullion, who ran the little school our son attended. She was dabbing her eyes.

“Oh, dear,” she said breathlessly. “You can always depend on Jimmy to provide the light relief.”

I drove back to Skeldale House very sbwly. I was still in a weak condition, and I felt it dangerous to exceed twenty-five miles an hour. The colour had returned to Helen’s face, but there were lines of exhaustion round her mouth and eyes as she stared ahead through the windscreen.

Jimmy, in the back, was lying full-length along the seat, kicking his legs in the air and whistling some of the tunes that had been played that afternoon.

“Mum! Dad!” he exclaimed in the staccato manner so typical of him. “I like music.”

I glanced at him in the driving mirror. “That’s good, son, that’s good. So do we.”

Suddenly he rolled off the back seat and thrust his head between us. “Do you know why I like music so much?”

I shook my head.

“Because it’s”—he groped rapturously for the phrase—“because it’s so soothing.”

W
HEN
W
ALT
B
ARNETT ASKED
me to see his cat, I was surprised. He had employed other veterinary surgeons ever since Siegfried had mortally offended him by charging him ten pounds for castrating a horse, and that had been a long time ago. I was surprised, too, that a man like him should concern himself with the ailments of a cat