A Note of Madness (4 page)

‘Do I look like I want to play this stupid game?’

‘Bzz. I’m afraid that answer is incorrect, Mr Jenkins. Miss Dawson, question to you. What is the definition of the musical term
D.C.
?’

‘Um . . .’ Jennah glanced nervously at Harry, her shoulders still shaking with suppressed laughter. ‘
D.C.
stands for
da capo
, which means “return to the beginning”.’

‘Yes – point to Miss Dawson.
Da capo
is when all the musicians – usually cellists – have lost their place in the music so they have to start from the beginning again.’

Jennah was biting her thumb, laughing soundlessly.

‘Are you going to give me that dictionary or not?’ Harry demanded, his face reddening.

‘
Discord
,’ Flynn went on, ignoring him.

‘An unpleasant clashing combination of sounds?’ Jennah suggested, wiping the tears from her eyes.

‘Correct! Harry Jenkins holding the world record,
playing a hundred and seventy-nine discords when not meant to in one rehearsal.’

‘Ha bloody ha,’ Harry said.

‘
Castanets
,’ Flynn continued. ‘A percussion instrument generally used for pinching each other in the groin area during rests.’

‘You’re both nuts,’ Harry said.

‘
Impromptu
,’ Flynn said. ‘When, in the middle of a concert, the musician gets so bored he feels it is necessary to lighten the mood by improvising without telling the other musicians and the piece takes a turn for the worse.’

‘You two are driving me mad!’ Harry dropped his head to the table with a clunk.

‘Sorry, Harry!’ Jennah said, still laughing. ‘We will help you, we will! I think Flynn should write a revised musical dictionary and present it as his final-year dissertation to Myers. Can you imagine the look on his face?’

‘Hey, excellent idea!’ Flynn suddenly exclaimed. ‘I’ll write a dictionary.
The Flynn Laukonen Revised Dictionary of Music!
Jennah, you’re a genius!’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Harry said.

The piece was made up of drops of icy water melting from an overhanging tree. Each simple note caused a stab of bittersweet pain as it fell against his skin like a pebble into still water, sending shivers down his spine. Flynn felt as if he could taste each note, feel it inside
him, and as the late-afternoon sunlight slanted over Professor Kaiser’s dusty study, it was almost too much to bear. He came to the end of the piece and immediately wanted to play it again, to experience again the intense sensations created by nothing more than a simple arrangement of notes, longing for the piece once more like fresh juice on a hot summer’s day. Each note was more poignant than the last, more exquisite, until you didn’t feel as if another could surpass it and then one did and it was utterly overwhelming, so much so that your chest ached and your eyes stung and your whole body felt as if it would burst.

The door crashed open. ‘Blimey, Flynn, the canteen will be closing soon. Isn’t Kaiser letting you have lunch any more?’ Harry stood in the doorway, impatient and uncomprehending, rubbing his nose.

Flynn stopped, breathing hard, wiping sweaty palms against his thighs. For a moment he wanted to hit Harry for coming in like that, for breaking the spell, for cutting the piece at its most poignant, for bringing him back to reality. Then his anger turned to excitement.

‘This has nothing to do with Kaiser. I’ve found this fantastic piece – it’s so simple but incredibly beautiful, by some obscure Russian. We could adapt it for the cello – it’s practically all melody.’ He jumped up and a pile of books toppled to the floor as he tried to gather the loose sheets of music from the top of the piano. ‘I think it could work as a duet with a little variation. It’s like two
melodies, actually, not one, running together, entwining and then separating—’

‘Flynn, not now! I’m sure it’s great and wonderful but can we please go and get some lunch? We’ve got Musicianship in less than twenty minutes and I haven’t had a break all morning.’ Harry’s voice sounded heavy and fed up. He didn’t understand.

Flynn tossed a couple of books to the floor. ‘Forget Musicianship! This is much better! Professor Kaiser’s out all afternoon – if I could just find the last page . . . Go and get your cello, Harry!’

‘You’re not listening to me. I need to have lunch! Unlike you I need food in order to survive. I’ve been playing all morning, my fingers are sore. I am not going to play through my lunch break as well, however amazing your Russian piece is . . .’

Harry’s voice tailed off as Flynn felt sparks of uncontainable laughter igniting within him. ‘Go and get your cello now!’

‘Stop laughing – it’s not funny. I’m not going to do this!’

‘Where has the last page gone? Go and get your cello, will you? D’you understand the importance of this piece?’

‘I
understand
that you’re trying to give me a nervous breakdown. I
understand
that you’re trying to starve me into submission.’

Flynn tipped a pile of books onto the floor. ‘This is a million times better than food! It’s a million times better than sex!’

Harry shot him a meaningful look. ‘Oh, and you would know!’

‘It’s a million times better than anything you’ve ever heard in your life! God, where is that bloody page?’ He upended another pile of manuscript paper.

‘Doesn’t Kaiser say anything when you trash his room like this?’

Flynn tore a sheet of manuscript paper from his pad. ‘I’ve lost the last page. Never mind, I’ll write it out again. Go and get your cello. Bet you I’ll be done by the time you get back!’ Kneeling on the floor, the paper on the piano stool, he began scribbling away.

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ Harry said drily. ‘Take your time because I’m going to go and eat.’

He would come back. Flynn knew he would. Harry might be a bit sluggish and droll at times but even he had to be intrigued by this. Chewing his lower lip hard, Flynn wrote down the music as fast as his hand would allow, excitement brewing up inside him. He could write out whole sonatas from memory in minutes. Harry would be astounded. He couldn’t get the notes down fast enough – only the limitations of his hand slowed him. His brain was on fire.

After a while, Harry returned, cello in one hand, sandwich in the other. Flynn brandished the sheet of manuscript, panting a little.

‘Aha!’

Harry snatched it from him. ‘What’s this?’

‘The last page. I wrote it out.’

‘Very funny. You found it.’

‘No! Look, it’s in pencil. Written out by my own fair hand, for you, my best friend!’

Harry gave him a quizzical look. ‘Have you been drinking?’

‘No, I’m high on Liadov! Come on, let’s get started. We haven’t got much time. Get your cello out. Come
on
!’ Flynn got up and went over to grab Harry’s cello, knocking it over and rescuing it by its neck in the nick of time. He started unzipping its case.

But Harry hadn’t moved from the piano stool, frowning over the music.

‘I told you,’ Flynn said. ‘It’s so simple, it’s incredible! You have to hear it first so tune up and move.’

But Harry was still frowning. ‘You actually wrote all this out? Just now?’

‘Yes. It’s all there. Come on!’

Shaking his head, Harry slowly put the music down and reluctantly accepted his cello. Flynn impatiently thumped on an A. Harry began tuning up, painfully slowly.

Flynn thumped the A and D-minor chords a couple more times for good measure. ‘OK, got it? Good, let’s start.’

‘Oh my God,’ Harry said flatly to no one in particular. ‘He won’t even let me tune up properly.’

‘Stop moaning. Are you ready?’

Harry gave him a look. ‘Can I just ask you something?’

‘What?’

‘If we’re skipping Musicianship and Kaiser is out all afternoon, then what exactly is the rush?’

‘We’ve got to adapt it for the cello. We’ve got to compose some variations. There’s not much time!’

‘Oh, sweet Jesus,’ Harry moaned.

‘Hi. I brought some beers to get us in the mood!’ That evening, Jennah stood on the doorstep brandishing a four-pack, hair whipping over her face in the chill evening wind.

Flynn was in a T-shirt and jeans, towel round his neck, midway through drying his hair.

‘So whose idea was it to resurrect our trio?’ Jennah asked, stepping into the living room and taking off her jacket. She was wearing a wine-coloured shirt and faded jeans and smelled of soap.

‘Mine, I suppose.’ Flynn looked at her uncertainly. Perhaps she thought it ridiculous. Free of coursework for one evening, he had managed to persuade Harry to call Jennah and arrange a rare rehearsal.

Jennah smiled disarmingly. ‘Good thinking. Are we going to go busking again soon? Maybe if we’re good enough I could give up my job at the music shop!’ The silver hoops in her ears caught the light as she laughed.

Harry came in from the kitchen. ‘Hi, Jen! Hey, beer, just what I need.’ He leaned forwards to kiss her cheek with his usual unaffected ease, grabbed a can and sat down. ‘Here’s to our trio!’

Jennah laughed.

Flynn took another deep swig and crammed a couple of Pringles into his mouth. ‘Shall we get started?’

Harry and Jennah exchanged glances.

‘No rest for the wicked,’ Harry said.

‘By the way, why weren’t either of you in Musicianship this afternoon?’ Jennah asked as she began assembling her flute.

Harry rolled his eyes. ‘Ask Flynn.’

Flynn, pretending he hadn’t heard, sat down at the piano and played an A.

‘Flynn?’

He half turned on the piano stool. ‘We were busy,’ he replied, suddenly shy.

‘Busy doing what?’

‘Having a
ball
,’ Harry said sarcastically. ‘Flynn made me skip Musicianship just so that we could do ten times more work on some bloody piano sonata by some bloody unknown Russian and insisted that we not only transpose it but also write in a cello part and compose a bloody variation!’

Jennah looked across at Flynn, trying not to laugh. ‘Seriously?’

‘Mm.’

The laughter escaped her. ‘Oh, dear God, why?’

‘That’s what I said!’ Harry exclaimed.

Flynn shrugged, embarrassed.

Jennah stopped laughing. ‘Must have been quite something,’ she said. ‘Can I hear it?’

‘God, no, I never want to hear that piece again!’

But she was looking at Flynn. ‘Please?’

He made a casual gesture with his hand and shoulder as if to say ‘Why not? and looked over at Harry.

‘Fine!’ Harry exclaimed, pretending to be more irritated than he actually was.

Flynn went to dig out the music from his bag for Harry, who was still tuning. When he returned to the piano stool his palms were suddenly damp. He wiped them on his jeans and glanced at Harry.

Harry nodded, raised his bow and then stopped. ‘Are you playing without music?’ he asked in surprise.

Flynn shrugged and turned back to the piano. A sharply inhaled upbeat and they were away.

The first few bars were tentative, fearful almost. Harry’s notes blended in with Flynn’s, then pulled away. They kept it slow, teasing the melody out gently, the notes climbing then receding again. Harry only faltered once, twice, briefly losing tempo but quickly recovering. The piece soared to its delicate crescendo before ebbing away, and Flynn lost himself in the last few bars, the poignancy of the piece threatening to overwhelm him yet again. He opened his eyes reluctantly to Jennah’s clapping and turned round with a half-smile.

Jennah’s eyes were bright. ‘Oh, wow,’ she breathed.

Flynn turned to Harry. ‘See?’ he said with feeling.

‘That’s beautiful. You put in the cello part yourselves?’

‘Well, Flynn did,’ Harry admitted.

‘Where did you find it?’ Jennah asked.

‘On an old LP from a second-hand music shop. Took me for ever to track down the score. It’s good, isn’t it?’ Flynn couldn’t keep the grin from his face.

‘It’s beautiful.’

Flynn felt the flush of pleasure in his cheeks and raised his eyebrows at Harry.

‘It’s beginning to grow on me, I suppose,’ Harry said defensively. ‘So are we going to have a bash at the old Mendelssohn or what?’

‘Yeah, let’s go.’ Jennah propped her book against the table lamp.

‘Do you want my stand?’ Harry offered.

‘No, I’m good.’

It took Flynn a moment to find the music on the top of the piano, buried under a pile of Rachmaninov sonatas. It had been quite a while.

‘Ooh. You know, that last arpeggio sounds a little odd to me.’ Jennah stopped at bar eleven.

‘Be more specific, Jen,’ Harry said.

‘It’s just not quite, um, I dunno.’

‘It’s too disjointed,’ Flynn chipped in.

‘Yes, that’s it, disjointed.’

‘Try holding your notes a little longer,’ Flynn suggested. ‘And, Harry, lighten your bowing on the lower part. And I’m not keeping tempo, sorry.’

‘Let’s try it again,’ Jennah suggested.

They did. It sounded only fractionally better.

‘Keep going,’ Harry said between gritted teeth.

But on bar fifteen, Flynn had to stop. ‘You know, I’ve just had a really good idea.’

Harry let out a heavy sigh. ‘Can we play it through just once without stopping?’

‘Hold on, let’s hear Flynn’s idea,’ Jennah said.

‘Well, these two sections are just an echo of the first one. Three sections altogether, for three instruments. We each need to dominate in one.’

‘I’ve never heard it played like that,’ Harry objected.

‘Yes, but don’t you think it would sound brilliant?’ Flynn drummed his fingers against the edge of the piano stool with impatience. ‘Come on, let’s try. From the E flat.’

‘Hold on,’ Jennah interjected. ‘Who’s dominating which bit?’

Flynn thought for a moment. ‘Flute, piano, cello?’

‘Why do I have to go last?’ Harry protested annoyingly.

‘It doesn’t really matter,’ Flynn said. ‘But shouldn’t it go from light to heavy?’

‘Are you calling me heavy?’

‘No, he’s right, Harry,’ Jennah said. ‘It makes more sense that way.’

‘Why not heavy to light?’

‘Harry!’ they both shouted simultaneously.

‘OK, OK.’

‘I don’t think that was bad at all,’ Harry announced when they had finished.