The Virtuoso (22 page)

The fog prevented us seeing too far down the street. With our heads tucked into our shoulders we were focused on the glistening cobblestones at our feet when the polished black boots and stiff navy-blue trousers stepped out of the mist and into our path. Suddenly two men appeared like a wall in front of us.

‘Evening, ladies—what are you two girls doing out so late, then?’ spoke one of the officers. His face was hidden in the shadow cast by the streetlight on his helmet and the cloudlike vapour that emerged from below his moustache when he spoke. I could detect a clamped grin.

I bowed my head and stared at the ground as I ran through the evening, as if having to scour it clean of
any incriminating evidence. Even though I realised the entire day had been free of anything that might be considered improper, my guilt seemed irrefutable.

‘Just on our way back from the Wigmore, officer,’ Noël said, like a well-mannered schoolboy. Even though I was surprised to hear him needlessly lie, his voice was so assured that it seemed the Wigmore was precisely where we’d been. He was clearly far more sober than I.

‘Don’t I know you?’ the policeman said. He squinted, studying Noël’s face, and I almost laughed with momentary relief. What extraordinary fortune, I thought, to be pulled up by a music lover.

‘You’re a chum of Montagu’s and his crowd, aren’t you?’

I’d heard that name; it trembled through me before I’d even registered who it was. Montagu and Wildeblood: I’d seen them in the paper—everyone had—these
depraved godless creatures
who committed such
abominable
acts, who must be
cleansed
from our streets. Men from the highest echelons of society—whom I’m sure I’d seen, probably met, at parties and bars—and now victims of the Great Purge. They were hauling in a dozen men a week, putting offenders on trial and sending them out to Wormwood Scrubs for hard labour; I’d heard tales from all around town, of men who one day simply didn’t turn up to work, and rumours of what had become of them. I’d read these stories in the safety of my room, sitting there at my table with the gramophone playing, looking at their
faces staring out from the pages, imagining what horrors these poor men endured.

‘Heard about them in the paper, officer, but I wouldn’t recognise them if they were standing right here in front of me.’ A hint of a smile crept across his lips.

‘Your name?’

‘Noël Mewton-Wood.’

Ah!—just the memory of the way he stood there staring straight into the eyes of the policeman and spoke his own name with such cool assurance still sends a shiver straight through me.

‘And what do you do, Mr Wood? When you’re not drinking at disreputable bars and corrupting young men, with no thought of God or country?’

‘
Mewton
-Wood, officer. I’m a concert pianist.’

The second policeman, who’d said nothing up until now, burst into laughter.

‘My colleague and I have been recording for the BBC all day in Maida Vale. This evening we attended a meeting in the rooms behind the Wigmore Hall, and as it’s been a long day we decided to stop by any bar that had its light on for a quick drink. I have no idea about the reputation of the bar we visited, officer. It seemed most friendly, they had a good selection of wines, the prices were reasonable, and it was convenient for my colleague, who lives locally, and for me on my way to the station.’

Under the streetlight his forehead glistened; his eyes shone with cool determination. Noël Mewton-Wood on stage, tall and calm, unbreakable.

I stood, though next to him, removed from it all. I was convinced of Noël’s invincibility and was bolstered by our association. It was, however, hard to erase the thought that perhaps all he’d said had been true: he’d been simply walking to the station, returning home to the house he shared with Bill.

‘Well. Mr
Mewton
-Wood. Very well.’ He seemed satisfied with Noël’s answers, yet unwilling to relinquish his rule. He turned to me, sniggering. ‘A bit nervous, are we?’

‘A little tired, officer.’ I attempted a smile. ‘Been a long day.’

He nodded and grinned, clearly pleased to be stretching out my day even longer. ‘And where might you be heading?’

I pointed towards the intersection of my street before managing to speak. ‘I have a lodging a hundred yards around the corner.’

‘Have you now?’ Then he stood for an interminably long time, looking about himself, musing over his options. The darkness and fog sat heavily upon us. I could hear the occasional car swishing along the street in the distance, sailing off into silence. We stood there waiting as he decided, my heart thumping so loudly I was sure he could hear. I hung my head, not sure what else to do.

‘Right, off you go then,’ he said angrily, as if we’d waylaid him.

Noël and I took off in separate directions, like squirrels bolting into the bushes.

‘Don’t let me catch you two
loitering
around here again. You hear?’ A crack of a whip at our heels; a sudden regret, perhaps, that he’d let us off scot-free.

I walked as rapidly as I could without running, a curtain of mist drawing closed behind me. The muttering of the two policemen and Noël’s light footsteps smacking off the damp pavement and heading towards Piccadilly echoed out into the night, reverberating through the fog as if at that moment we were the only four people in the world. Once at a safe distance, I ran home and locked the door behind me, threw my hat and scarf on the table and stormed about the room.

I poured myself a gin, threw it down, poured another and finally sat, still wrapped tightly in my coat. Without the cold air lashing my face and the adrenalin pumping deliriously about my body, the reality of the incident began to emerge in all its sickening glory. I kept running over each detail in my mind, wondering if it really was true that we’d so narrowly escaped, and bewildered that Noël’s and my fate could be toyed with—determined—in such a callously arbitrary fashion.

I got up to check that the door was locked securely, pulled the blind down past the sill, then sat, again, on my bed and waited with my glass clasped in my hand. I felt dizzy, as if everything about me were slowly shifting in its footings. We had come close, too close to feel fully safe. The other version—where it
had
ended differently—was now running alongside,
unfolding simultaneously. I could actually feel myself there, being hauled off to a West End police station—brutish hands gripped around my upper arms, pushing me into a piss-stained cell. And for a moment it seemed I was only imagining myself sitting in my room on my bed, imagining I was free.

The following week, two days before our birthday, Noël invited me over to his and Bill’s new home for a drink before we headed out to a party. Noël greeted me at the door accompanied by a waft of sandalwood incense, paint and glue. He gave me a kiss, then ushered me straight through to the music room, immediately to the left off the entrance hall, and stood with me inside the doorway, gazing proudly about. The tall sash windows were framed with green raw-silk pelmets and curtains, gold cords and tassels drawing them to the sides; the wallpaper—Doric columns in ivory, pale olive green and real gold leaf—shimmered under the chandeliers like the autumn sun’s reflection off a pond; and amongst the Frank Lowrys and other paintings Noël had inherited from Walter, there was a new Duncan Grant he’d recently bought from the artist’s studio, hanging above the mantelpiece. In the middle of the room sat two grand pianos, a Steinway and a Brinsmead.

Noël took me on a tour of every room, except for their bedroom (where, he told me, Bill was sleeping), pointing out every piece of furniture—the French
Empire ormolu mantel clock on which lay the languid figure of Pallas Athene, the Louis XVI mahogany centre table with green marble marquetry top—and continually apologising for his excitement, explaining that I was one of the first visitors to the house since the renovations had been completed. He waved his arms wide, telling me that they were going to have a huge house-warming Christmas party when he returned from his forthcoming German tour. Then we returned to the music room and Noël poured us both a tumbler of gin and we sat down together on the chartreuse silk sofa, from which I’d watched him so many years ago at Walter’s party.

I knew I mightn’t see Noël on our birthday—he’d already told me he’d be in Wales recording most of the day—and ever since he’d rung me several days earlier, inviting me over for a drink, I’d been anxious about the evening. I felt that something was going to happen and I was paralysed by indecision, about whether I ought to sit back and let it all take place, or whether this
possibility
that I felt circling us was something that I was going to have to bring to life.

I’d been shaken up by our interlude with the police the previous week, and everywhere I walked I imagined these men following me about; I could hear their sniggering laughter, feel the cold thud of a hand landing on my shoulder. The more I thought about these two uniformed hounds and the night they’d stormed in upon, the more I realised how all these other worlds—the worlds of infinite possibilities—were so
tantalisingly close, bubbling and simmering, just below the surface of the mundane one I inhabited. Noël understood all of this—that’s what he showed us all in his music—and I felt that I was finally beginning to feel it as well: another life, humming like a harmonic within every movement, behind every moment, often making me feel quite
ajar
from myself. Lately it had been getting louder, day by day, as if any minute I might alight from my body and into this other life for good.

I’d been holding a present, wrapped in crêpe paper, in front of me since I’d arrived, and Noël had pretended not to notice. When we sat on the sofa and raised our crystal glasses I presented Noël with the gift. For weeks I’d been mulling over what to buy him, wandering through shops, stumbling over possible presents—a Moorcroft vase? A hand-knitted cashmere scarf? A signed copy of Melba’s gift book? Then the day finally arrived and I hadn’t bought him a thing. Walking home along Regent Street that afternoon, with only two hours to go before seeing him, I was furious with myself that I’d let this happen, that I had been so extraordinarily careless, and it even crossed my mind that maybe I ought to call off our evening. Then I’d walked into my room and my eyes fell upon the perfect gift: an etching that my father had given me not long before he died, that I’d had packed away for years, and only recently had reframed and hung above my bed. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought to give it to Noël earlier, a picture that spoke volumes
about what I’d never been able to find the words to say: Robert and Clara Schumann, sitting together at the piano.

Noël was unwrapping the present, carefully peeling off the tape so as not to rip the paper. He laid the miniature picture in his lap and sat quite still, staring down at it, and for a moment I thought that he didn’t like it at all, that I was going to have to tell him that it was just a silly little knick-knack I’d found in a second-hand shop. He lifted the picture close to his face, his eyes tracing the fine black lines. Then he placed it on the occasional table, put a hand on my thigh, and told me it was exquisite. For a moment I was sure he was about to kiss me.

He said he had something for me, jumped up and stepped out of the room, returning with his hands behind his back, apologising that he hadn’t had time to wrap it. He sat on the edge of the sofa and handed me what looked to be an original pressing of Schumann’s
Davidsbündlertänze.

I’d always adored these pieces, yet had never got around to learning them. I knew they were favourites of Noël’s so was most flattered that he considered me worthy of playing them. But what really made me want to throw my arms around him was Noël’s implicit message. As Schumann had given this set of dances to Clara as a gift after the two had secretly become engaged.

There are many wedding thoughts in the dances
, Schumann had written to Clara,
which were suggested by
the most delicious excitement I can remember. I will explain them to you one day.

We raised our glasses again and shifted closer together on the sofa. I was feeling quite jittery, wondering what Noël really had in mind for the evening; we clearly couldn’t stay there. He’d mentioned, earlier, a party in Chelsea, at the house of his good friend Raymond Russell. At first I hadn’t been that keen to go, but now, thinking of Bill lying in bed upstairs, I couldn’t wait to get out of the house, and hoped we might do so before Bill woke and decided to join us.

I asked Noël if Bill was unwell, half-hoping I might raise an issue. Noël, playing with his coaster, replied that Bill had been complaining of a stomach-ache for days and had gone straight to bed when he came home from work. Noël started swilling the ice around in his glass and said, as if an afterthought, that he hoped Bill wouldn’t mind about us going out to the party.

‘
Surely
he couldn’t mind,’ I said, almost laughing. I was excited, detecting a fault line in this prissy little dolls’ house of theirs.

Noël stood and smiled. ‘Of course he won’t.’ Then, draining his glass, he walked to the stairs, adding, ‘He just gets so
awfully
grumpy when he’s ill,’ and brushed it off with a laugh.

Noël returned from saying goodbye to Bill and looked around, in silence, for his coat and scarf. We rugged up and stepped outside into fog so thick we could barely see the end of the street.

As we marched along Noël cheered up, mentioning he’d received a letter from an aunt in Australia and that it was almost a hundred degrees there at the moment. He said that when he was a child they used to go down to a place called Brighton Beach for his birthday—much nicer than the English Brighton, he added—which had colourful beach boxes all along the shore.

I’d only once before heard him speak about his childhood; one time he’d mentioned a cinema he used to visit, which had little twinkling stars stuck to the roof that would only brighten and sparkle when the lights went down. He told me he was so captivated by them that he’d find himself gazing up at this celestial sight rather than the talkie he’d paid to go and see. Now, as he spoke about Brighton Beach, I saw the same wistful expression as he’d worn recalling this enchanting cinema. I didn’t say a word—I was actually foraging around in my own childhood memories, trying to think of some story with which to respond. But before I’d a chance to speak he changed the topic and was telling me about Raymond Russell, who, he boasted, had one of the greatest early keyboard collections in the world.