‘Jesus Christ…’ I said.
While I was peering in, not even bothering to hide my awe and astonishment, she was picking up an envelope which must have been posted by hand through the letterbox. She opened it and read the letter.
‘It’s a note from Piers,’ she said. ‘He came round after all. How stupid of him.’
I was standing there like some idiot, not saying anything.
‘Well,’ said Madeline, ‘this is as far as you go.’ She started to turn away. ‘Good night.’
‘Look — ’ Forgetting myself, I had laid my hand on her arm. Her grey eyes looked at me, questioning. ‘I’d like to see you again.’
‘Do you have a pen?’
I had a cheap plastic biro in my jacket pocket. She took it and wrote down a telephone number on the front of the envelope, beneath the word ‘Madeline’ which had been put there by her friend. Then she handed it to me.
‘Here. You can phone me. Any time you like — day or night. I don’t mind.’
And after saying that, she closed the door gently in my face.
*
Samson’s wasn’t very crowded — the weather must have been keeping people away — and we had the choice of whether to sit in the eating part or the drinking part.
‘Are you hungry?’ I asked. ‘Or do you just want to drink?’
‘I don’t mind.’
I sighed.
‘Well, have you eaten tonight?’
‘No.’
‘Then you must be hungry.’
‘Not really. Don’t you want to sit next to your friend?’
The piano was in the drinking area, but it was close to the open door of the restaurant, so that diners could still listen to the music. Tony was playing with his back to us and hadn’t noticed our arrival yet.
‘It doesn’t matter where we sit,’ I said.
‘I thought that was the whole point of us coming.’
‘We came because it’s a nice place to come to. I didn’t even know if he was going to be here.’
I must have raised my voice, because Tony heard me, turned round and waved with his left hand, while the other hand kept an attractive little arpeggio going on F sharp minor.
‘Let’s go through,’ I said, indicating the restaurant.
‘I don’t want to sit and watch you eat,’ said Madeline.
‘You don’t want anything?’
‘Not particularly.’
‘Well why didn’t you say so? Fine, OK, we’ll just have a drink.’
‘But you’re hungry.’
‘For Christ’s sake.’
I sat down at the nearest table and began looking through the wine list.
She sat beside me and said as she slid out of her coat, ‘You are difficult, William.’
A tune went through my mind:
There were times when I could have murdered her But I would hate anything to happen to her… I know, I know, it’s serious
‘Hello, young lovers,’ said Tony.
We had started on the wine, a nice cold bottle of Frascati, and now he was standing over us, beaming down, waiting for an invitation.
‘Got a few minutes to spare?’ I asked, waving him to a seat.
‘Thanks.’
We asked for a third glass.
‘Nice version,’ I said.
‘You mean the Cole Porter? Yes, I thought I’d try it in a different key. Never done it in A before. It makes it sound sunnier, somehow. So,’ he poured himself a generous glassful, ‘how’s everything going?’
I’d hoped he might begin by talking to Madeline, but his question was obviously directed at me, and I could tell that we were going to embark on a conversation about music from which she would be excluded.
‘Well, we haven’t rehearsed much recently,’ I said. ‘Tomorrow will be the first time in over a week. We’ve been recovering from the last gig. It was a bit rough.’
‘Yes, you mentioned something about that.’
‘I had a word with Chester about it. He was very apologetic, said he wouldn’t book us into a place like that again.’
‘So how’s Martin? Have the bandages come off yet?’
‘Yes, a couple of days ago, apparently. He can nearly hold his guitar again now.’
‘Nasty.’
‘Well, you know, you learn by experience. Now we know never to play at a place where the wine waiter has got “Love” and “Hate” tattooed on his knuckles.’
Tony smiled an accusing smile, as though at the scoring of yet another point in a long-running argument.
‘Well, that’s rock music for you, isn’t it? Nothing like that has ever happened at a gig I’ve played at. And have you managed to practise any real music in the meantime?’
‘I’ve been having a go at some of the ones you wrote out for me. I was meaning to ask you — I think you made a copying mistake somewhere. Three bars from the end of “All the Things You Are” — you meant B flat minor, didn’t you, not major?’
‘That’s right. It’s just a straight two-five-one. Why, did I write major?’
Madeline got up and said, ‘Will you excuse me a moment? The ladies’ is downstairs, isn’t it?’
‘Sure.’
Tony and I sat in a rather embarrassed silence for a while.
‘I think she feels left out, when we start talking about music,’ I explained. ‘Perhaps we should try to keep the conversation more general.’
‘Isn’t it a problem?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I mean going out with someone who isn’t interested in what you do.’
‘She’s interested. Madeline enjoys music, all sorts of music. Like, she listens to church music a lot, especially.’
‘Well, she would.’ Tony poured me some more wine. ‘So you’re still getting on OK, are you, you two?’
Perhaps I should explain at this point that I’d known Tony for several years. In fact he was my first ever piano teacher. When I was back up in Leeds, doing the chemistry degree that I dropped out of, he was doing his PhD and earning some extra money by giving jazz piano classes. He had a small family to support even then: his wife, Judith, and their little son Ben, who was only five at the time. I got to meet them both soon enough, because I started going back for private lessons. They had a small terraced house in the Roundhay area, a really nice place with a piano and a garden and even a bit of a view towards the country, so that half the pleasure of going there used to be to see the family and maybe join in with their supper afterwards. Judith seemed to like having me as a guest, I could never quite fathom why. For some reason I never took to student life — all those sad men cooking up Pot Noodles for themselves in shabby communal kitchens, taking them back to their rooms and eating them in front of Dr Who on a portable black and white TV — and I used to relish these quiet family evenings round at Tony’s, with their good food and bottles of red wine, and Monk or Ben Webster or Mingus or someone playing away in the background.
That only lasted for my first year, anyway. Judith wanted to come to London where there was more chance of getting a full-time job, so the whole family moved down to Shadwell, taking Tony’s unfinished thesis with them. Fortunately, through his involvement with the scene in Leeds, he had got to know some musicians here and soon found himself in demand as a teacher and performer. And it meant that when I (in my wisdom) decided that London was the only place for aspiring musicians to be, and gave up the losing battle with my degree, at least there was someone for me to anchor myself to. They had been very helpful. I owed a lot to them. It turned out that Judith’s sister Tina was looking for someone to share her flat: she had this council flat in Bermondsey, a two-bedroomed place. I moved in there almost at once, and I suppose by and large the arrangement worked out — but I can talk about Tina later, because she was involved with what happened, too.