The Virtuoso (8 page)

She then launched into several stories about Noël, her eyes drilling into me the entire time. ‘One time he came up from Sussex the night before a performance with Sir Henry Wood at the Cambridge Theatre. He had influenza, so slept until one hour before the performance. I didn’t unpack anything when he arrived, just hung his morning coat, and put the poor tattered pianist to bed—his pyjamas had travelled in with his music as they always did. But when he decided to get dressed I opened his case, and I found to my horror that the silly woman Nancy had forgotten to pack a white shirt, or any shirt at all for that matter! Well! So I rallied to the cause—’

She paused and drew in a breath, releasing me momentarily from her stare. I seized the opportunity
to excuse myself, telling her it was lovely meeting her but that I must get going. She lifted her chin, looked down her long nose and smiled at me and for a moment I felt a tremendous sense of relief. But then she did the most curious thing (I thought at the time she must have been drunk): as she leaned in close and said goodbye, she slipped the bony fingers of her right hand between my legs and tickled me on the crotch, giving me such a fright that I jumped backwards, smiled, nodded and headed straight for the door.

As soon as I was in the corridor and walking down the back stairs I wondered why I’d left so abruptly, why I hadn’t simply said goodbye, got myself a champagne and introduced myself to another guest.

I stepped out into the laneway and kept walking. It hadn’t entered my mind that I might be going home alone. I kept tempting myself to return, thinking it wasn’t too late, that we could still go home together. But the further I walked, the more I became resigned to the fact that I wouldn’t be going back inside. I reassured myself that Noël had wanted me to leave because he was protecting me, protecting us; I had to trust that he knew best.

I turned off Wigmore Street, snowflakes feathering down through the fog. I dug my hands deep into my pockets, buried my chin into my scarf, and whistled the theme to Gibbon’s
Fantasia
all the way home.

One afternoon after a visit into Ibbs and Tillett, Noël mentioned he needed to drop in at his mother’s in
Belsize Park to pick up some shirts she’d had laundered for him. Reluctant to lose him so early in the day, I offered to accompany him.

Since meeting Dulcie backstage at the Wigmore I felt as if I’d been seeing her everywhere I went, yet rather than becoming more comfortable with her presence, I was finding the mere sight of her increasingly terrifying. She was always easy to spot at a concert: tall country-girl frame, impeccable deportment, cat’s-eye glasses, a brightly patterned home-tailored dress, and an elaborate hat that, given her height, could be seen floating above the crowd at any sized gathering. She would invariably be sidling up to some gentleman wearing a Savile Row evening suit and sporting a silver-headed cane, threading her arm through his and whispering in his ear, or throwing her head back girlishly, letting that haughty laugh of hers ring across the room. At the Hypocrites Club after a concert of Noël’s I once even saw her reach under the table and squeeze Lord Matchett’s thigh, right in front of the Lady. And only the previous morning, just when I was beginning to wonder if I was imagining her ubiquitous presence, I turned on the wireless to hear her shrill voice. She was talking to Samuel Rogers about her pianist son, stifling her Australian twang, and littering her oration with deliberate pauses and emphases on selected syllables like a musician leaning on the first beat of every bar. She spoke about her own musical upbringing; her talented brother Fred who’d died of a heart attack while conducting ‘Now is the Hour’ with the Melbourne
Symphony Orchestra (punctuating the comment with a whooping laugh); and of course her cousin, the outspoken critic and poet Walter James Turner, ‘who we call Uncle Walter because he’s like a father to dear Noël’. She was perfectly charming, and in possession of a razor-sharp wit; and she was, after all, I thought, doing all this for Noël. Yet even just listening to Dulcie’s voice, I felt a shiver running through me and was most relieved when the interview came to an end.

Dulcie answered the front door of her neat first-floor Victorian flat, lifting her chin high before pressing her cheek lightly against Noël’s. She glared at me standing behind Noël in the doorway, ‘What a surprise to see you again so soon,’ then smiled. She spun on her heels, her tight-waisted, checked, pleated skirt (too young, I thought, for a woman of her age) flowering out, and walked tall and erect through the living room like a finishing-school graduate. I pulled my shoulders back and straightened my neck, awkwardly aware of Noël’s equally statuesque posture. We followed her into the kitchen.

‘I thought you might have come earlier, for lunch. You don’t want something to eat
now
, do you?’ she asked, turning to look at me, while returning to her operation of rolling the rims of martini glasses in a flat dish of what appeared to be crushed sugar cubes.

Noël took one glance at her extravagant use of sugar and smiled. ‘What
have
you been up to, dear Mother?’

‘They’re from Claridges,’ she declared, her nostrils flaring slightly as she paused to study her work.

The image of her sneaking the sugar cubes into a napkin in her handbag allowed me to relax momentarily.

‘I’m going to
Don Giovanni
tonight, so I expect a few may pop over afterwards for brandy alexanders.’ She held up a glass, twirling it in front of the window, inspecting the sugar rim. ‘Lord knows why I said yes to going with that Meredith woman, but her husband’s at the BBC; I’m hoping he turns up. Don’t know how he puts up with her; she’s a dreadful bore—
do
-gooder—always meddling in things. Friend of Nancy’s, I presume.’ She sighed. ‘Another of those tedious Marlowists, no doubt.’

Noël started flicking through a pile of mail on the kitchen dresser.

‘I’ve heard back from Mason, if that’s what you’re after. He said the ABC can’t afford to bring you out again just yet, but they’ll keep you in mind for ‘forty-seven. I wrote back and told him that next year is already booking up fast and he’d best arrange dates immediately. He keeps telling me how much the Australian press adores you, yet says he can’t seem to find a penny in the coffers.
Really.
So I enclosed those recent notices from Manchester. And I’ve written to Bernard and Waldemar also. Oh, and remember that lovely gentleman, Haynes, who took us to the races in Sydney? He died recently, so I sent condolences to his wife and colleagues from us both.’

Noël put the letters down and looked up. ‘Are my shirts ready, Mother?’

‘Hanging off my wardrobe, dear.’

Noël walked out, leaving me standing at the sink. Dulcie continued with her job as if there were nobody else in the room.

‘I do wish you’d look after them a bit better,’ she called out after him. ‘Two were frayed at the cuff. You
do
know how hard it is for me to find shirts that fit you.’

When Noël returned, Dulcie asked if he could move the buffet in the living room against the far wall. As soon as Noël walked towards the door she turned and drilled her eyes into me. ‘Well, you’re not here for your health, you know!’

I rushed out to help Noël, moving the green glass vases to the mantelpiece. Dulcie continued talking, calling out from the kitchen about the upcoming Salzburg Festival, which
everybody
had been saying was the first truly international festival since 1937, the year she and Noël attended after coming out from Australia. ‘Didn’t we have a magnificent time, darling?’ Her voice sounded strangely romantic. ‘I remember watching Fürtwängler up on stage at the Festival Hall as he started the Mozart concerto, and thinking, Next time I return to Salzburg, my darling Noël will be performing.’

Noël carried the dining-room chairs out of the path of the buffet, apparently ignoring his mother.

‘Fanny Bridges tells me that the British Council have suggested Hess, Solomon and Lympany as the pianists,’ Dulcie continued. I could see her through the doorway, carrying her tray of prepared glasses towards the fridge.

Noël nodded, signalling for me to lift my end of the buffet.

‘I don’t know why you insist on keeping on with Emmie Tillett,’ she went on. ‘Really, she does so little for you—’

‘Mother, von Karajan’s been banned, so has Schwarzkopf, and a dozen others. Denazification has almost dissolved the entire Vienna Philharmonic. It’s a miracle they’re managing to put on a festival at all. Next year will be a far better line-up.’

‘I suppose. Those Americans will probably replace
Otello
with
Oklahoma!
Ha!’ She stood in the doorway, screwing the lid on the jar of the remaining sugar cubes. ‘Yes,’ she beamed at her son. ‘Next year.’

After our visit to Dulcie’s and all that talk about Salzburg and Australia, I became quite excited by the prospect of touring with Noël, imagining us spending weeks together at sea, then stepping off the gangway at some hot and dusty port. I thought about the welcome that the Schumanns had received when they moved to Düsseldorf: their hotel room was filled with flowers, and Hiller appeared with the choral society to serenade them on their arrival. And when they visited Zwickau, the small riverside town in Saxony where Robert had grown up, they were honoured with a music festival made up entirely of Schumann’s own compositions.

Noël and I had only spoken recently about his last Australian tour. Although he’d said that the Australians weren’t a very sophisticated bunch—‘Just as happy to
hear Tchaikovsky’s First every night’, and ‘Most think Hindemith is a brand of rash ointment’—I distinctly remembered him saying his mother and he had had a delightful time and that the entire country had treated him like royalty.

I mentioned to Anton that Noël might be touring Australia again, and he told me he’d heard that last time Noël toured there, he’d had a row with his mother and had returned to England on his own.

I tucked this piece of information away, deciding that as soon as appropriate, I would ask Noël who managed all his tour arrangements—say what a bore it must be to have to worry about all those annoying little details, and let him know that I’d be more than happy to write any letters or make any calls. I wouldn’t mention Dulcie at all; I’d just tell him that of course I wouldn’t accept any payment, I wouldn’t expect anything at all—I’d just be glad to know that the job was being done properly and that he was left in peace to concentrate on his music.

One morning Noël dropped over to my place; he said he was going to Regent’s Park to see the winter roses and asked if I’d like to come along.

While I gathered my hat, scarf and gloves, he walked around the room, perusing music and books and anything else that happened to be lying about. He picked up my cufflinks from the sideboard, commenting on their appeal. Despite having worn them several times in front of him I worried that he might now recognise
them, seeing them lying there on their own. I told him they’d belonged to my father—mother-of-pearl, I believed.

He walked with them towards the window and held them up to the light. ‘Marvellous creatures, oysters,’ he said.

I walked over to join him as he studied them in his palm.

‘Any grit or dirt that threatens to hurt the little critter, it wraps up with crystalline secretions, turning it into a pearl.’ He looked over at me with a solemn gaze before raising his eyebrows and smiling. ‘What we artists spend our entire lives trying to achieve. Clever little buggers, aren’t they?’

I told him he could have them if he liked, but he just laughed, thanked me and returned them to the sideboard.

We walked along Marylebone Road towards the main gate of the park. I thought about mentioning the topic of his management but wasn’t sure how to raise it. He was looking around as he walked, and I was afraid I was boring him. But I was thinking so much about this whole management business that I really couldn’t think of anything interesting to say.

We continued in silence for a while, then Noël mentioned that he’d started learning the Prokofiev no. 7 and asked if I’d heard it.

Insulted by the suggestion that I mightn’t know it, I said, ‘Of course. Not so keen on it though. I find it a little empty, bombastic. A rather tripey piece, really.’

Noël nodded thoughtfully, as if listening to the music in his mind, then replied, ‘Yes…I suppose it could be.’

He screwed up his eyes, looking towards the trees along the verge. ‘I can never concede that, though, when I’m learning a piece.’ He shook his head adamantly, opening his eyes quite wide. ‘The piece
must
be perfect. It
has
to be…’ He started kicking rotten acorns off the path as he walked. ‘Perhaps later,’ he turned to me, his face relaxing into a smile, ‘perhaps then, I’ll agree with you.’

Barely a word passed between us as we strolled about the park. Then on the way back, just off Portland Place, we dropped into a small gallery exhibiting works by modern Dutch painters. We were drawn in from the street by a large canvas just inside the door, of an oily blue-black sea viewed from the mast of a storm-weathered whaling vessel. Gazing down at the churning impasto white-caps, I recall feeling quite bothered by the unforgiving waters into which I stared—my body rolling about with the waves, knocking to and fro with the thud of the hull—but that was nothing compared with the sense of hopelessness I feel now, so many years later, remembering that day.

We stood there for several minutes and just when the silence between us had stretched a little too long, Noël started upon one of his anecdotes, about the paint colour the artist had used—Prussian Blue—telling me this pigment had originally been made from dried blood. As I stood gazing into the tumultuous sea
Noël told me how two early eighteenth-century German scientists had heated dried blood with potash and green vitriol to produce a pigment with an intense blue colour, ‘As if all the oxygen had been sucked out of the blood,’ he said. They named the blue pigment after its place of discovery: Berlin—or Prussian—Blue.

As we walked about the gallery Noël explained that later that century a Swedish scientist heated the pigment with diluted sulphuric acid to create Berlin Blue acid. In English, he said, again standing in front of the painting near the door, the acid was called prussic acid, and later, hydrogen cyanide.