The Means of Escape (4 page)

The artists sat meekly down, while the patronne herself served them with a small glass of greenish-white muscadet.

‘I am your host,’ repeated Bonvin. ‘I can only say that I am delighted to see pupils, for the first time, in Palourde, but I assure you I have others as far away as Corsica. Once a teacher, always a teacher! I sometimes think it is a passion which outlasts even art itself.’

They had all assured each other, in Paris, that old Bonvin was incapable of teaching anything. Time spent in his atelier was squandered. But here, in the strangely transformed bar of the Hôtel du Port, with a quite inadequate drink in front of them, they felt overtaken by destiny. The patronne shut and locked the front door to keep out the world who might disturb the professor. Bonvin, not, after all, looking so old, called upon them to show their portfolios.

Hackett had to excuse himself to go up to his room and fetch the four drawings which he had made so far. He felt it an injustice that he had to show his things last.

Bonvin asked him to hold them up one by one, then to lay them out on the table. To Hackett he spoke magniloquently, in French.

‘Yes, they are bad,’ he said, ‘but, M. Hackett, they are
bad for two distinct reasons. In the first place, you should not draw the view from the top of a street if you cannot manage the perspective, which even a child, following simple mechanical rules, can do. The relationship in scale of the main figure to those lower down is quite, quite wrong. But there is something else amiss.

‘You are an admirer, I know, of Bastien-Lepage, who has said, “There is nothing really lasting, nothing that will endure, except the sincere expression of the actual conditions of life.” Conditions in the potato patch, in the hayfield, at the washtub, in the open street! That is pernicious nonsense. Look at this girl of yours. Evidently she is not a professional model, for she doesn’t know how to hold herself. I see you have made a note that the colour of the hair is red, but that is the only thing I know about her. She’s standing against the door like a beast waiting to be put back in its stall. It’s your intention, I am sure, to do the finished version in the same way, in the dust of the street. Well, your picture will say nothing and it will be nothing. It is only in the studio that you can bring out the heart of the subject, and that is what we are sent into this world to do, M. Hackett, to paint the experiences of the heart.’

(– Gibbering dotard, you can talk till your teeth fall out. I shall go on precisely as I have been doing, even if I can only paint her for an hour and a quarter a day. –) An evening of nameless embarrassment, with Hackett’s friends coughing, shuffling, eating noisily, asking questions to which they knew the answer, and telling anec
dotes of which they forgot the endings. Anny had not appeared, evidently she was considered unworthy; the patronne came in again, bringing not soup but the very height of Brittany’s grand-occasion cuisine, a fricassee of chicken. Who would have thought there were chickens in Palourde?

Hackett woke in what he supposed were the small hours. So far he had slept dreamlessly in Palourde, had never so much as lighted his bedside candle. – Probably, he thought, Bonvin made the same unpleasant speech wherever he went. The old impostor was drunk with power – not with anything else, only half a bottle of muscadet and, later, a bottle of
gros-plant
between the six of them. – The sky had begun to thin and pale. It came to him that what had been keeping him awake was not an injustice of Bonvin’s, but of his own. What had been the experiences of Anny’s heart?

Bonvin, with his dressing cases and book-boxes, left early. The horse omnibus stopped once a week in the little Place François-René de Chateaubriand, at the entrance to the village. Having made his formal farewells, Bonvin caught the omnibus. Hackett was left in good time for his appointment with Anny.

She did not come that day, nor the next day, nor the day after. On the first evening he was served by the boot-boy, pitifully worried about getting in and out of the door, on the second by the hotel laundrywoman, on the
third by the patronne. ‘Where is Anny?’ She did not answer. For that in itself Hackett was prepared, but he tried again. ‘Is she ill?’ ‘No, not ill.’ ‘Has she taken another job?’ ‘No.’ He was beginning, he realized, in the matter of this plain and sullen girl, to sound like an anxious lover. ‘Shall I see her again?’ He got no answer.

Had she drowned herself? The question reared up in his mind, like a savage dog getting up from its sleep. She had hardly seemed to engage herself enough with life, hardly seemed to take enough interest in it to wish no more of it. Boredom, though, and the withering sense of insignificance can bring one as low as grief. He had felt the breath of it at his ear when Bonvin had told him – for that was what it came to – that there was no hope of his becoming an artist. Anny was stupid, but no one is too stupid to despair.

There was no police station in Palourde, and if Anny were truly drowned, they would say nothing about it at the Hôtel du Port. Hackett had been in enough small hotels to know that they did not discuss anything that was bad for business. The red-haired body might drift anywhere, might be washed ashore anywhere between Pointe du Grouin and Cap Prehel.

That night it was the laundrywoman’s turn to dish up the fish soup. Hackett thought of confiding in her, but did not need to. She said to him: ‘You mustn’t keep asking the patronne about Anny, it disturbs her.’ Anny, it turned out, had been dismissed for stealing from the hotel – some money, and a watch. ‘You had better have
a look through your things,’ the laundrywoman said, ‘and see there’s nothing missing. One often doesn’t notice till a good while afterwards.’

T
o Hopkins, deputy artistic director of the Midland Music Festival, an idea came. Not a new idea, but rather comforting in its familiarity, an idea for the two opening concerts next year. He put it forward, not at the preliminary meeting, still at quite an early one.

‘Out of the question if it involves us in any further expense,’ said the chairman.

‘No, it’s a matter of concept,’ said Hopkins. ‘These are Mahler concerts, agreed, and we need Mahler specialists.

‘I suggest that for the first one we book a young tearaway, no shortage of those, and for the other a retired maestro – well, they don’t retire, but I have in mind a figure from the past making one of his rare appearances, venerated, dug up for the occasion, someone, perhaps, thought to be dead.’

He mentioned the name of Beehernz. Most of those present had thought he was dead. Some of them remembered the name, but did not get it quite right. It was thought he had something to do with the ‘Symphony of
a Thousand’. In fact, however, he’d had nothing to do with it. Nearly forty years earlier, in 1960, the BBC had celebrated the centenary of Mahler’s birth. It was only at a very late stage that Beehernz, booked for the occasion, had said, in his quiet way – that was how it had been described to Hopkins, ‘in his quiet way’ – that he would prefer a substitute to be found for him, since he had only just learned that he was expected to conduct the Eighth Symphony.

‘What is your objection to the Eighth Symphony?’ he was asked.

‘It is too noisy,’ replied Beehernz.

Beehernz had not appeared in public since that time. Hopkins’s committee agreed that his name could be made into a talking point. Would Hopkins undertake the arrangements? Yes, everything, everything.

According to the BBC’s records, Beehernz lived in Scotland and had done so since 1960 – not on the mainland, but on an island off an island – Reilig, off Iona, off Mull, via Oban.

‘“Reilig” means “graveyard” in Gaelic,’ said the BBC reference librarian.

‘There’s no regular ferry from Iona,’ said the Scottish Tourist Board, ‘but you can enquire at Fionnphort.’

Preliminaries were conducted by letter, because Beehernz was not on the telephone. Some of Hopkins’s letters were answered, in not very firm handwriting. The contract too came back, signed, but still not pleasing to the festival’s accounts manager. ‘Where’s the compensation
clause? A specific sum should be named as a guarantee of his appearance … They can go missing at any age … Stokowski signed a ten-year recording contract at the age of ninety-five … It’s worse as they get older, they just forget to turn up … It needn’t be an immense sum … What does he live on, anyway?’ Hopkins replied that he supposed Beehernz lived on his savings.

Hopkins was more interested in what the old maestro was going to play. Something, certainly, that wouldn’t need more than two rehearsals, if possible only one.

‘I’d better go and see him myself,’ he said. This was what he had always had in mind.

He was going to take two other people with him. One was a singer, Mary Lockett. He didn’t know her at all well, but she was only just starting on her career and wouldn’t refuse – no one ever refused a free trip to Scotland. She had a ‘white’ voice, not really at all the kind of voice Mahler had liked himself, but she was said to be adaptable. Then he’d take his dogsbody from the festival office, young Fraser. In the evening on the Isle of Reilig they would sit round the piano and let decisions grow. Hopkins couldn’t decide whether he expected to find the old man seated, solipsistic, huddled in past memories, or nervously awaiting visitors, trembling in the over-eagerness of welcome. Hopkins wrote to say they would arrive on the twenty-first of May, leaving the car in Oban.

‘We’ll do well to buy some supplies here,’ said young Fraser. ‘Mr Beehernz will very likely not have much in the house.’

They went to Oban’s largest supermarket and bought tea. Celebrated Auld Style Shortbread, cold bacon, and, after some hesitation on Hopkins’s part, a bottle of whisky. Half a bottle would look too calculated. He didn’t know whether Mary Lockett took an occasional drink or not.

‘There’s always a first time,’ said Fraser reassuringly.

They crossed to Mull, Fraser and Mary with their backpacks, Hopkins with his discreet travel-bag and document case. There was a message for them at Fionnphort, telling them to take the next ferry to Iona, and wait for McGregor. At Iona’s jetty all the other day-trippers got out and began to walk off briskly, as though drilled, northward towards the Cathedral. Time passes more slowly in small places. After what was perhaps three-quarters of an hour, someone who was evidently McGregor came jolting towards them in a Subaru. They’d have to drive over, he said, to the west coast, where he kept his boat at moorings.

Iona is three miles long and one mile wide, and Reilig looked considerably smaller. The blue sky, cloudless that day, burned as if it was as salt as the water below them. There was no sand or white shell beach as you approached, and the rocky shoreline was not impressive, just enough to give you a nasty fall. There was a landing stage with a tarred shed beside it, and a paved track leading up to a small one-storey building of sorts.

‘Is that Mr Beehernz’s crofthouse?’ Hopkins asked. McGregor replied that it was not a croft, but it was Beehernz’s place.

‘I imagine he’s expecting us,’ said Hopkins, although he felt it as a kind of weakness to appeal to McGregor, who told them that the door would be open and they’d best go in, but Beehernz might be there or he might be out on his potato patch. When he had seen them safely off the landing stage he disappeared into the shed, which was roofed with corrugated iron.

The front door was shut fast and weeds had grown as high as the lock. The door at the side was open, and led into a dark little hen-kitchen with just about enough room for a sink and a dresser and two dishevelled fowls who ran shrieking into the bright air outside. Fraser and Mary stood awkwardly by the sink, politeness suggesting to them to go no further.

‘Beehernz!’ Hopkins called. ‘May we come in?’

I need absolutely to find out what he’s really like. This is the opportunity before he comes back.

One step up into the living-room, white-washed, a clock ticking, no electricity, no radio, a single bed covered with a plaid, an armchair, no books, no bookcase, no scores, no manuscripts. Through into the kitchen, hardly bigger than a cupboard, a paraffin lamp waiting to be filled, a venerable bread crock, and, taking up half the space, a piano, a sad old mission-hall thing, still, a piano. Hopkins lifted the lid and tried the sagging middle C. It was silent. He played up the scale and down. No sound.
Next door, the scullery and water-closet, fit for an antiquarian.

A disturbance in the hen-kitchen, where the two seedy fowls were rushing in again, revelling in their own panic. Mary and Fraser had just been joined by a third party, an old man who had taken off his gum-boots and was now concentrating all his attention on putting on his slippers.

‘Ah, you must be …’ said Hopkins.
But that’s quite wrong. I don’t want to sound as though I’m the host.

Beehernz at length said, ‘I am sorry, but you must let me rest a little. My health, such of it as remains, depends on my doing the same thing at the same time every day.’

He advanced with padding steps, a little, light old man, and sat down in the only chair. Hopkins and Fraser sat gingerly on the bed. Mary did not come into the living-room. She was still in the hen-kitchen, unfastening the backpacks and taking out the Celebrated Auld Style Shortbread, the cold bacon and the tea. She then began to take down the tin plates from the dresser. Mary never did anything in a hurry. As she moved about she could be heard singing, just quietly, from the middle of her voice, not paying any particular heed – it was a nursery tune in any case:

               ‘Ich ging im Walde

               So für mich hin,

               Und nichts zu suchen,

               Das war mein Sinn.

               
In Schatten sah ich

               Ein Blümlein stehn –

               Where am I to lay out the plates?’

Beehernz was on his feet. ‘No, no, not now, not yet. Not yet. Let the young people go out for a little while.’

‘But we brought …’ Fraser said, in unconcealed disappointment.

‘For a little while,’ repeated Beehernz.

‘Let me explain, Mr Hopkins. I would prefer Mr – er – and Miss – er – I would prefer them to go back to Iona with McGregor’s boat. Yes, that is what I wish.’

‘This is rather unexpected. I wrote to you, you remember, to tell you that there would be three of us coming.’

Beehernz passed his hands over his forehead and looked out from between them, as though playing some melancholy game.

‘Three is too many, Mr Hopkins, to impose upon me so suddenly.’

What’s come over him? He may have it in mind to push the two of them over the cliff’s edge, two souls for whom I’m responsible to the festival committee.

‘I’ll go and see where they are.’

After all, they couldn’t go far. They were sitting on a rocky outcrop, looking westward.

Fraser seemed to be silent, perhaps from hunger. Mary never said much at any time. She was twisting the straw handle of her shopping bag between her fingers. Why did
women always have to carry bags about with them?

Hopkins made his explanation. An old man’s fancy. They mustn’t, of course, take it personally.

‘How else can we take it?’ Fraser asked.

‘You’ll be able to get accommodation on Iona, perhaps at the Abbey.’

‘Will there be room?’

‘Well, perhaps you’ll find they’ve taken some vow not to turn away travellers in an emergency. You must both of you get someone to sign your expenses and keep them in duplicate, of course.’

‘Surely we ought to say a few words of thanks to Mr Beehernz,’ said Fraser.

‘No, no, you’ve nothing to thank him for, you’d better go and put your things together.’ McGregor, indeed, was advancing up the path, saying that if there was anyone for the return journey, they would want to be getting into the boat.

As the boat ticked away through the calm and sparkling water, Fraser seemed to be shouting something. Sound is always said to carry well over water. This didn’t. He’d taken something, or mistaken something. Mary’s back was turned, as though on an experience that was over and done with.

When he got back he found Beehernz methodically chewing the cold bacon. ‘Sit down, Mr Hopkins. I eat once a day only, usually in the evening. But if it turns out to be midday, so be it.’

And the whisky, what’s he done with that?
Hopkins realized
then what Fraser must have been calling from the boat. He’d taken the bag with the whisky with him, in error, no doubt. The tape recorder was in it, too; Hopkins was left without his standbys, old and new.

‘Perhaps you would like to see my potato-bed,’ said Beehernz presently. ‘I depend on it very extensively. My hens have not laid for nearly a year, although I have not quite lost hope.’

They walked up the gently rising ground to the south, past a washing line from which a long-sleeved vest idly flapped, to an open patch of soil surrounded by a low stone wall. Here Beehernz explained his time-honoured way of cultivating his crop, describing it as a traditional West Highland method. He didn’t bury the seed potatoes, but laid them in rows on the surface and dug trenches between the rows, covering them with earth from the trenches as he did so. McGregor had shown him how to do that, or, to be more accurate, McGregor’s father.

‘Nothing’s come up yet,’ said Hopkins.

‘No, not a green leaf showing.’ They stood listening to the gulls crying from every side of them, high up in the deafening blue.

‘Why did you try out my piano this morning?’ Beehernz asked.

You old wretch, you old monster, how do you know I did?

Back in the living-room, Hopkins brought the piano stool out of the kitchen and drew it up to the table. Then he opened up his document case, moving aside the
remnants of the cold food. On this island of Reilig he felt authority leaving him, with no prospect of being replaced by anything else. Authority was scarcely needed in a kingdom of potatoes and seabirds.

I’ll begin
, he thought,
by calling him by his first name
, then found he had forgotten it. Temporarily of course – he was under stress.

He went on, ‘I respect your privacy, and I’m sure you understand that.’

Beehernz replied that he had never considered it at all. ‘You need two people to respect privacy, or, indeed, to make it necessary.’

Hopkins took a selection of documents out of his case. Doing this reassured him. The name was Konrad, of course.

‘This is our copy of the original contract. You have had your copy signed and returned to you. It didn’t at any time specify what your programme was to include. Now, although this wasn’t my main object in coming, I’ve been turning a few thoughts over in my mind, just to see how they strike you.’ Beehernz simply repeated the word ‘thoughts’ with an inappropriate laugh (it was the first time he had laughed). Hopkins continued, ‘I take it that you don’t, and never did, want to present the monumental Mahler. As I see it, you might begin with some of the early songs – let’s say the
Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen
, the 1884 version, with the piano accompaniment …’