Another silence. ‘What?’ I said.
That strangely uninflected voice was somehow more disturbing than rage. ‘He’s left it all to you,’ he said. ‘The house, the art, the collections—’
‘Me? But I don’t even know him,’ I said.
‘The twisted little bastard.’
No need for me to ask who he meant; that phrase was reserved for his brother. So very like him in so many ways, and yet, whenever his name arose, I could almost believe that Nigel could kill a man; could beat him to death with fists and feet . . .
‘This must be a mistake,’ I said. ‘I’ve never met Dr Peacock. I don’t even know what he looks like. Why would he leave his money to me?’
‘Well — maybe because of Emily White.’ Nigel’s voice was colourless.
And now the coffee tasted like dust; the birds fell silent; my heart was a stone. That name had silenced everything — except for the buzz of feedback that began right at the base of my spine, erasing all of the past twenty years in a surge of deadly static . . .
I know I should have told him then. But I’d hidden the truth for so long; believing that Nigel would always be there; hoping for the perfect time; not knowing that this time was all we had —
‘Emily White,’ said Nigel.
‘Never heard of her,’ I said.
16
You are viewing the webjournal of Albertine.
Posted at: 03.15 on Wednesday, February 6
Status: restricted
Mood: sleepless
When dealt one of life’s terrible blows — the death of a parent, the end of a relationship, the positive test result, the guilty verdict, the final step off the tall building — there comes a moment of light-headedness, almost of euphoria, as the string which tethers us to our hopes is cut and we bounce off in another direction, briefly powered by the momentum of release.
The penultimate movement of the Symphonie fantastique — ‘The March to the Scaffold’ — has a similar moment, when the condemned arrives within view of the gallows, and the minor key shifts into a triumphant major, as if at the sight of a friendly face. I know how it feels: that lurch of deliverance, the feeling that the worst has already happened and that the rest is merely gravity.
Not that the worst had happened — not yet. But the clouds were gathering. By the time that letter arrived, Nigel had less than an hour to live; and the last thing he ever said to me were the four little syllables of her name, Emily White, like a musical sting performed by the ghost of Beethoven . . .
And Dr Peacock was dead at last. Ex-Master of St Oswald’s School, eccentric, genius, charlatan, dreamer, collector, saint, buffoon. Unrelenting in death as in life; somehow it did not surprise me to learn that once more, with the kindest intent, he had torn my life apart.
Not that he could have harmed me. Not intentionally, anyway. Emily always loved him: a large, heavy man with a soft beard and a strangely childlike manner, who read from Alice in Wonderland and played old, scratchy records on a wind-up gramophone while she sat on the swing in the Fireplace House and talked about music and painting and poetry and sound. And now the old man was dead at last, and there was no escaping him, or the thing we had helped set in motion.
I don’t really know how old Emily was when she first went to the Fireplace House. All I know is that it must have been some time after the Christmas concert, because that is where my memory shorts out for good; one moment I’m there, with the music all around me like some fabulous velvet, the next . . .
Feedback and white noise. A long rush of static, broken occasionally by a sudden burst of perfect sound, a phrase, a chord, a note. I try to make sense of it, but I cannot; too much of it is hidden. Of course there were witnesses; from them I can, if I wish, piece together the variations, if not the fugue. But I trust them less than I trust myself — and besides, I’ve worked hard to forget all that. Why should I try to remember it now?
When I was a child, and the worst happened — toys broken, affection denied, the small but poignant sorrows of childhood recalled through the mist of adult grief — I always sought refuge in the garden. There was a tree where I loved to sit; I remember its texture, its elephant hide, the sappy, plush scent of dead leaves and moss. Nowadays, when I’m lost and confused, I head for the Pink Zebra. It’s the safest place in my world; an escape from myself, a sanctuary. Everything here seems expressly designed to fit my unique requirements.
To begin with, its comfortable size, with every table against a wall. Its menu lists all my favourites. Best of all, unlike the genteel Village, it has no affiliations or pretensions. I am not invisible here, and although that could have its dangers, it’s good to be able to walk in and to have people talk to you and not at you. Even the voices are different here: not reedy like Maureen Pike’s or breathy and sour like Eleanor Vine’s or affected like Adèle Roberts’s, but rich with the tones of jazz clarinet and sitar and steel drums, with lovely calypso rhythms and lilts, so that just sitting here is almost as good as music.
I headed there that Saturday after Nigel had gone. That name on his lips had unsettled me, and I needed a place to think things out. Somewhere noisy. Somewhere safe. The Zebra was always a refuge for me; always filled with people. Today there were more than usual, all waiting outside the café door; their voices surging around me like animals at feeding-time. Saxophone Man’s Jamaican accent. The Fat Girl, with her breathy tone. And orchestrating everything, Bethan, with her Irish lilt, cheery, speaking to everyone, pulling it all together:
‘Hey, what’s going on? You’re late. You should have been here ten minutes ago.’
‘Hello, darlin’! What’ll it be?’
‘You got any more of that chocolate cake?’
‘Hang on, I’ll have a look for you.’
Thank goodness for Bethan, I told myself. Bethan, my coat of camouflage. I don’t think Nigel really understood. He resented all the time I spent at the Pink Zebra; wondered how I could so often prefer the company of strangers to his own. But to understand about Bethan, you have to be able to penetrate the many disguises with which she surrounds herself: the voices, the jokes, the nicknames, the cheery Irish cynicism that hides something closer to the bone.
Underneath all that there’s someone else. Someone damaged and vulnerable. Someone trying desperately to make sense of something sad and senseless . . .
‘There you are, darlin’. Try that for size. Hot chocolate, with cardamom cream.’
The chocolate is one of my favourites. Served with milk in a tall glass, with coconut and marshmallows, or dark, with a clash of chilli.
‘Listen to this. Creepy Dude came in to the Zebra the other day. Sat down just where you’re sitting. Ordered the lemon meringue pie. I watched him eat it from over there, then he came back to the counter and ordered another. I watched him eat that, then when he’d finished, he called me over and ordered more pie. Honest to God, darlin’, your man must have et six pieces of pie in under half an hour. The Fat Girl was sitting right there opposite him, and I thought her eyes were going to pop out of her head, so I did.’
I sipped my chocolate. It was tasteless. But the warmth was comforting. I carried on the conversation without really paying attention to it, against a wall of background noise as meaningless as waves on a shore.
‘Hey, babe, lookin’ good—’
‘Two espressos, Bethan, please.’
‘Six pieces of pie. Imagine that. I’ve been thinking that maybe he’s on the run, that he’s shot his lover and he’s planning to jump off Beachy Head before the police catch up with him, because six pieces of pie — Jesus God! — now there’s a man with nothing to lose—’