The Emperor Waltz (17 page)

‘Well, I don’t know about that,’ Mr Carraway said.

‘Another drink, Caroline?’ Michael said.

‘Well, I don’t mind if

3.

we can have some fun up here,’ Nathan said. ‘You get me? Anita, you like poppers?’

‘Poppers?’ Anita said. ‘Are you like seriously asking me if I like poppers?’

‘Ah, come on, Anita,’ Nick said. ‘We’re having a bit of banter with you, man. We know you ain’t been to orchestra practice this afternoon like your mum says.’

‘Oh, yeah,’ Anita said. ‘So I’ve been like where, then?’

‘You’ve been doing it with some badman all afternoon, ain’t that the truth?’ Nick said. ‘You’ve been lying there, and saying to him, go on, do me, do me.’

‘Whatever. Go away, little boy,’ Anita said. ‘You’re wrong in the head. I went to orchestra practice, you know? I took my violin, and my dad drove me, and I like rehearsed Dvor̆ák’s like Eighth Symphony, and then at seven my dad came to pick me up. So where was I supposed to be
doing it
you know with some
badman,
do you think?’

‘Ah, come on, Anita, we know you like it, we know you sket deep down,’ Nathan said.

‘And we brought you some poppers,’ Nick said. ‘You like poppers, Anita?’

Out of his back pocket in his falling-down, underpants-showing jeans, Nick pulled a small brown bottle. Anita leant over and examined it. The label said Jungle Juice.

‘That’s Jungle Juice,’ Anita said. ‘That’s poppers, is it?’

‘I love poppers,’ Nathan said, putting it back in his pocket. ‘Oh, we love poppers. You just take one sniff, Anita, and it’s amazing, you’re falling over. One time, right, we were in IT and we were just passing it around, because our IT teacher, Mr Brandon, he never notices anything, you can just show him your screen and he’s lost in space, and the whole class was just high, and, Anita, listen, Mr Brandon just never noticed.’

‘Yeah, Brandon, he wallad,’ Nick said.

‘He what?’ Anita said.

‘He wallad, I said,’ Nick said, thrusting his chin out and shrugging.

‘I have no idea what that means,’ Anita said. ‘I can’t understand half the things you say. Wallad?’

‘Yeah, man, everyone knows wallad,’ Nathan said.

‘I’m like so –’ she made a face of horror and despair, a mask of tragedy and abandonment ‘– when I even like listen to you, you know what I mean? It was like this one time, at my friend’s house, you know, it was just like …’

‘You don’t have to like listen,’ Nick said.

‘Yeah, but I can’t help it, you know, I’m stuck in here.’

The door opened, and there was the eleven-year-old. He had been dressed by his mummy. He wore an ironed white short-sleeved shirt and blue trousers; his shoes were black lace-ups. He himself wore a cheerful, open expression, his black hair cut short at the back and sides, sticking up somewhat on top. Behind him was Mrs Khan, smoking.

‘Hi, kids,’ she said. ‘Having a good time? This is Basil. That’s Anita, and that’s …’

‘Nick,’ said Nick, and ‘Nathan,’ said Nathan.

‘That’s right. You know Mrs Osborne, don’t you? Have you met Basil before? He’s not in your school yet, are you, Basil?’

‘No, Mrs Khan,’ Basil said. ‘But I’m in the same orchestra as Anita. She plays the violin and I play the cello, though I’m only in the seventh desk back. We’re rehearsing Dvor̆ák’s Eighth Symphony and the
Emperor Waltz
at the moment. The cello’s not really my main instrument, though. My main instrument’s the organ, but you can’t play that in orchestras apart from a few pieces. For instance, did you know Mahler’s Eighth Symphony has a part for an organ?’

‘I never knew that,’ Mrs Khan said, puffing on her cigarette. ‘That you were in the same orchestra as Anita. We must have a word with your mum, and then we can pick you up together rather than both turning out every week. That would save a lot of effort.’

‘Oh, it’s not an effort for Mummy,’ Basil said. ‘She says she enjoys the drive and I’m happy to be with her as much as possible, since the divorce, you know.’

Nick and Nathan exchanged incredulous glances of joy.

‘Oh, yes,’ Mrs Khan said, with an air of distaste. ‘Of course. Well, I must be getting back downstairs. There’s lots of food there, on the tray, look – my daughter and these two haven’t started it yet. I’m happy to see she has some manners still. If there’s anything else you need, just come downstairs. Bina’s cooking in the kitchen and she’ll help you out, help you to find anything. There’s some dessert, which she’ll bring up when you want it, it’s her special dessert, you’ll love it. You’d make everyone so happy if you ate the salad, too, kids. Well, I live in hope. See you all later.’

She left, closing the door.

‘Is this your father’s study?’ Basil Osborne said. He went round the room, looking in particular at all the books. ‘What do you think of the
Emperor Waltz
, Anita? It’s hard, isn’t it, harder than you think it’s going to be, but it’s satisfying when you get it right. I didn’t think I knew it, but I’d heard it before, somewhere. I know you, I’ve seen you a lot, but we’ve never said hello or anything like that.’

Anita was looking at him with disbelief.

‘So, Basil,’ Nick said heavily. ‘You play the organ.’

‘Yes, that’s right,’ Basil said. ‘I don’t have one at home, of course! I have to go and practise it in St Leonard’s Church, you know, the one up by the bus terminus. They let me come in on Tuesdays and Thursdays after school. Shall I sit here?’

‘Is it a big organ?’ Nathan said. ‘Do you like a big organ, Basil?’

‘Well, I’ve seen bigger organs, perhaps in cathedrals,’ said Basil. ‘But I’ve never played a really big one, I’ve only played on quite medium-sized organs, like the one in St Leonard’s. Is that food for us? Golly. It looks delish. Can we start on it or are we waiting for someone?’

‘Does it give you a lot of pleasure,’ Nick said ‘When you sit on a really big organ.’

‘Well, I don’t know that the size of the organ makes all that much difference,’ Basil said. ‘But I wouldn’t know. It’s true that even a moderate-sized one, when it’s going at full tilt, can be really exciting.’

‘So when you see a big organ,’ Nathan said, ‘I bet you can’t wait to sit on it.’

‘I don’t know that that’s really what organists think,’ Basil said, puzzled.

‘Oh, shut up,’ Anita said. ‘They’re being horrible, don’t pay any attention. Do you want some food? There’s plenty. That’s like lemon squash or you can have some Coke. There’s some like orange juice as well.’

Basil scrambled up from the beanbag and started filling his plate with food. It was as if he were in a race and might end without enough.

‘Take your time, man, take your time. Ain’t no ting,’ Nathan said.

‘You talk like black people do,’ Basil said gleefully, with an air of discovery. ‘There’s a boy in my class called Silas who comes from Jamaica, at least his parents do, he was born here, and sometimes he talks like his grandmother talks and he sounds just like you do. This looks really good, I like everything here. It was nice of your mother to make all this food specially for us.’

‘Yes, she knew how to make food that appeals to people who talk like a boy called Silas’s grandmother,’ Anita said. ‘Ah, Basil, you make me laugh, you really do.’

‘That ain’t true,’ Nick said. ‘Do I look I’m laughing, man?’

‘True that,’ Anita said, in Nick and Nathan’s style. Then she went into hostess mode. ‘Take your plate and sit down, Basil – there’s plenty of food, you can go back for more later. And some squash? Or Coke? There’s more downstairs if we finish this bottle.’

‘Like I say, man, take your time, ain’t no ting,’ Nick said.

‘Skeen, man,’ Nathan said. ‘Is it time to get wavey, man?’

‘Because Anita, that OJ, that Coke, that lemon squash and shit, well, I look forward to that, but there is something that you can put into those things to make them a less long, alie?’ Nick said.

‘I have literally less than no idea what you’re talking about,’ Anita said. ‘Anyway.’

‘Anita,’ Nick said. ‘Have you got any vodka that we can maybe put into the OJ?’

Anita looked from one to the other; she did not look at Basil, who had a samosa in hand and was, frozen, examining them all with interest. ‘Have I got any vodka?’ she said.

‘Vodka, yeah,’ Nathan said. ‘I know you do, girl.’

‘Is there anything else with your banter? Some like rum for the Coke or some gin for the lemon squash and shit or anything else completely random, you know what I mean?’

‘Oh, man, who’s the fool now, bro?’ Nathan said.

‘Well, I don’t know about that,’ Basil said. ‘I don’t think it’s a very good idea if your parents come upstairs at the end of the night and you’re all stinking of booze and can’t get up because you’re so drunk. They’ll smell it on you straight away. I could always tell when my daddy had been drinking because you could smell it on him, even the next morning, and he always said, Never again.’

‘And I suppose he did, though?’ Anita said.

‘Yes, he certainly did, sometimes in the same evening as the morning when he’d said, Never again or sometimes the next day. That was certainly a pie-crust promise.’

‘That was what are you even saying?’ Nick said.

‘That was a pie-crust promise, I said,’ Basil said.

‘What the fuck is a pricrust promise?’ Nathan said.

‘Not pricrust, pie-crust,’ Basil said. ‘It’s like the crust of a pie. Easily made, easily broken. Have you never heard that before?’

‘No, I ain’t never heard nothing like that before, man,’ Nick said. ‘Did you hear it when you were sitting on some massive organ, you might have misheard somewhat, man.’

‘Yeah, you so pricrust,’ Nathan said to Nick. ‘Easy to break, you are.’

‘So, boys,’ Anita said. ‘I’m not going to give you rum, because, you know, he’s right, it smells when the parents like come upstairs at the end of the evening? And gin less so but still it smells in the room and they’re definitely going to come in in some like totally random way and they’re going to like smell it? But vodka, that’s cool, we can put a little Mr V in our Mrs OJ and they won’t smell that. I’ve done that before? Like this one time at like my friend’s house, this is my friend Alice, we got like so wasted, and no one could tell, though her mum, the next day …We can do that, sure.’

‘I’ve never had vodka,’ Basil said, with the air of a reminiscing old colonel. ‘I’ve had a glass of champagne at my uncle’s wedding, when he got married to Carol, that’s his second wife, and once Polly, who’s my daddy’s girlfriend, she let me taste a bit of her margarita –’ and as Anita left the room, he turned to Nathan to go on ‘– because she likes making herself cocktails before dinner and I was there one night on a Saturday and my mummy was supposed to pick me up, only she thought that my daddy was supposed to bring me over, and I was still there when Polly had made her margarita and was putting their dinner in the oven – they get readymeals from Marks & Spencer, my daddy says Polly can’t cook and they like different things. I didn’t know,’ Basil went on confidingly, turning from Nathan to Nick, as Nathan, open-mouthed with disgust, got to his stockinged feet and followed Anita out, ‘I didn’t know about the margarita, whether I liked it or not, it was really strange. I don’t know what was in that, it was more of a mixture. But I’ve never had vodka. Oh, and once this boy in our class brought a can of beer to school and we all had a taste, I really don’t know why people like that, it was horrible.’

‘Yeah, you talking to yourself, man,’ Nick said. ‘I don’t know why you think anyone in this room even listening to what you

4.

‘Well, that is kind of you,’ Vivienne Osborne was saying. ‘Just a very weak one. I’ve been so looking forward to this, I can’t tell you – I’ve had such a week at work.’

‘I do like your blouse,’ Shabnam Khan said.

‘It’s new, actually,’ Vivienne said. ‘I bought it only yesterday in Marks & Spencer – I shouldn’t say, but we all do, don’t we? It’s such good quality, and much better than it used to be, I mean from the point of view of fashion. You really wouldn’t know sometimes that it wasn’t from some Italian designer in Bond Street.’

‘What do you do, Vivienne?’ Charles Carraway said.

‘Me? I teach economics at one of the London colleges – you won’t have heard of it, I won’t even embarrass you by asking you.’

‘Try me,’ Charles Carraway said drily.

‘Oh, I shall, I shall,’ Vivienne said, with a lowering of her head, a glance upwards with her eyes that dated her to the early 1980s. She had seemed, initially, confused and unprepared as she had come in, handing coat and umbrella and glimpsed son over to Shabnam as if she had thought that Shabnam might be the housekeeper named Bina. Now she appeared to have resources of flirtatiousness, directed for the moment at Charles Carraway. ‘It’s called London Cosmopolitan University – people say it sounds like a cocktail. So you haven’t heard of it and now we can move on.’

‘I think I do know the name,’ Charles said. ‘Is it in Bethnal Green?’

‘Close,’ Vivienne said. ‘Oh, thank you so much, a lovely weak gin and tonic. Perfect. No, we’re in Fulham, actually. But I’m thrilled that you’ve heard of it. Thank you so much –’ she gestured with her drink, which spilt a little ‘– for asking me. I’ve just recently been going through the dreaded breakdown-and-separation-and-divorce from my husband,’ she explained, turning to Caroline Carraway and making quotation marks in the air, ‘though, Heaven knows, there wasn’t much to dread about that, it was really quite a relief in the end. We had a long period of not getting on, then of him moving into the spare bedroom, then of spending time avoiding each other in the house, I think he ate at the Chiswick Pizza Express every night for a month, and then his girlfriend, who I wasn’t supposed to know about, moved to a slightly larger place and he decided to move out. It was really not just a relief but a real pleasure for Basil and I when my husband moved out. That would have been two years ago. But nobody asks a divorced woman with a great lump of a son out for dinner. This is so kind of you – I mean to make the most of it. And you must come round to mine for dinner too! Very soon. Single women can entertain and make a success of it, I mean to show you. You have a son, don’t you, Caroline?’