A Distant View of Everything

  “I’m here on behalf of the Liberal Democrats,” said Sheila Grouse.

  “Of course,” said Isabel, and thought, Not to complain, of course…

  But now it was partridge rather than grouse. She turned to Jamie. “The cellist,” she whispered.

  “Stephanie?”

  “Do you know her?”

  “Yes, of course. We did that recording for Paul Baxter—remember?”

  “Vaguely.”

  The musicians took their places.

  Partridge? Partridge?

  The ensemble was ready to begin. “Gavin Bryars,” whispered Jamie, pointing to the first item on the programme. “Remember him? The Sinking of the Titanic?”

  Isabel’s memory for composers was not as good as Jamie’s, but she remembered the performance of that haunting piece of music, performed beside a large swimming pool with some of the audience in the water, swimming or holding on to floats as the musicians played. Jamie had explained it to her on the way to the concert. “It’s actually going to be beside the pool,” he said. “And it’s meant to be the orchestra on the Titanic playing as the ship went down. It’s gorgeous, evocative music. And they get fainter and fainter towards the end, when the band was playing at an impossible angle on the tilting ship.”

  She had been unable to say anything.

  “And Marconi,” Jamie continued, “developed a theory that sound never dies—that it would always be there, but infinitely faint. So if you take that view, the sound of the band playing that hymn on the deck of the Titanic is still out there in the water. Still there, but very, very faint.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yes. And Marconi thought if only he could develop sensitive enough equipment, he could hear all the sounds that had ever been made in the past. He hoped that we would be able to hear the Sermon on the Mount—actually hear the words, still echoing out there somewhere.”

  “And hear Caesar saying, ‘Et tu, Brute?’ ”

  Jamie smiled. “If he ever said that, yes. And hear the rumble of Vesuvius and the impact of the meteor that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. And President Kennedy saying, ‘Ich bin ein Berliner.’ ”

  “And that would settle that,” mused Isabel.

  “Settle what?”

  “You know what a Berliner is?” asked Isabel. “It’s a jam doughnut. Some people say that Kennedy said he was a jam doughnut. If you wanted to say, ‘I live in Berlin,’ you’d say, ‘Ich bin Berliner,’ without the article ein. So some people laughed at him and said that he’d solemnly announced that he was a jam doughnut. But they were wrong.”

  Jamie raised an eyebrow in mock seriousness. “He wasn’t a doughnut?”

  “He wasn’t a doughnut. Apparently if you want to say that you identify with a group of people and are not actually a member of the group, you can put the indefinite article in. So he was being grammatically correct. And if we could hear it again, we could check up that nobody laughed.”

  “Because laughs never die away entirely,” said Jamie. “At least, if you believe in Marconi.”

  “A nice thought.”

  “Nor do tears,” said Jamie. “But I suppose that’s a question of evaporation rather than the fading of sound.”

  Isabel closed her eyes. “Just think of all of humanity’s tears. They would make vast lakes, wouldn’t they? Dantean lakes.”

  Now, in the Queen’s Hall, she remembered how she had felt at the end of that piece of music. The swimmers in the pool had lingered, barely moving, holding on to floats, and then slowly they had come out, and Isabel had seen how moved they had been.

  The ensemble began to play, and Isabel’s attention wandered. She tried to concentrate on the music—she liked Bryars, but she was thinking about something else he had written. He had come across a tramp at the railway station singing, in a frail and cracked voice, “Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet.” Bryars had put that on a tape loop and played it time and time again, slowly bringing in the swelling sound of an orchestra, and that had somehow lent great dignity to the faltering tones of the tramp. It did not matter that he was feeble and broken down; he had an orchestra behind him, and it made him and his song, for those moments at least, glorious. The kindness of music, thought Isabel; the kindness.

  Partridge, she thought. Partridge? She watched the cellist; she watched the tremor of her fingers over the vibrato notes. She saw how she had tied her hair back so that it would not get in her eyes as she bent to the music. She saw that the strap on one of her shoes had come undone. And then it came to her. This was the young woman she had seen in the Café St. Honoré. She was surprised that she had not realised this straightaway, but it was something to do with context.

  For a few moments she felt satisfaction in the fact that she had now put a name to the face, but then, in a sudden moment of chilling realisation, it occurred to her that this person had seen her having lunch with Rob, and at that precise time Isabel had put her hand over Rob’s on the table. It had been a gesture of comfort and reassurance—nothing more than that—but now it occurred to her that it might have looked very different to Stephanie Partridge. What she would have seen was two people at a table, holding hands over lunch; not an unusual sight in a romantic restaurant such as the Café St. Honoré undoubtedly was, but—and here a chill touched Isabel’s heart—Stephanie must have known that she was married to Jamie because otherwise why would she have stopped and stared in recognition?

  Isabel caught her breath. It had not occurred to her that her innocent gesture would be interpreted in this way, but of course it was entirely understandable that somebody should do just that. At the back of her own mind, of course, there had been a certain hesitation about telling Jamie about her meeting with Rob; she knew that it would sound odd to meet him just to get an address, and of course she should have told him at the outset, and she had not. And then she had given him an incomplete, ambiguous account of her day precisely because of her feeling of embarrassment. She should have told him then and there: she should have said that she had met Rob over lunch because he had more or less insisted, and that he had made an inept pass at her and she had almost walked out. That was all believable—and besides, it was the truth.

  She stared at the musicians, oblivious of the music, agonising over the possibilities. Jamie always liked of go to the bar at the Queen’s Hall after a concert, specifically to talk to his fellow musicians. She was sure he would be planning to do that this evening, as Laurence would be there, and he was bound to want to congratulate him on Butter Yellow.

  The Bryars came to an end. There was a brief silence, followed by a burst of enthusiastic clapping. Isabel watched the members of the ensemble stand up to acknowledge the applause. Stephanie Partridge, balancing her cello with one hand, pushed back a wisp of hair that had strayed across her brow. She was smiling as she looked up towards the gallery; she knew somebody up there, and inclined her head in greeting. A lover, thought Isabel; her lover is with her and she has been playing for him.

  Jamie nudged Isabel gently. “Didn’t you enjoy that?” he whispered.

  “Yes. I did. Of course I did.”

  “Then why aren’t you clapping?”

  She put her hands together, but the applause was dying down and the ensemble was preparing for the next piece. This was Butter Yellow.

  The leader of the ensemble, a tall man with heavy-rimmed spectacles, stood up to say something.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, this next piece is the world premiere of a new piece by a composer we have enjoyed working with over the past few years—Laurence Mave. Butter Yellow has presented technical challenges for us—as good music often does—but we are immensely excited by this piece, and we would like to thank Laurence for showing confidence in us by writing this specifically for us.”

  There was more applause, and the leader sat down. Butter Yellow began. Isabel closed her eyes and tried to stop thinking about Stephanie Partridge. But she could not; she now imagined herself in the bar after the concert, and Stephanie
Partridge coming up to her and saying, in Jamie’s presence, “I see you like the Café St. Honoré too.” And Jamie would say, “We haven’t been for ages,” and Stephanie would look puzzled and say, “But I saw you there the other day.” Or would she? If she thought that Isabel was there with a lover—and there was a strong possibility that this is what she thought—then only malice would prompt her to mention their meeting. It would be an act of deliberate sabotage, and there was no reason to think she would stoop to that.

  But what if Stephanie and Jamie were old friends, as was perfectly possible? They might have been at music college together—Stephanie looked as if she was the right sort of age for them to be contemporaries—and in that case she might feel protective towards Jamie, as old friends so often can be. An old friend might well reveal the apparent unfaithfulness of a friend’s spouse because of uneasiness over the deception.

  Of course, it was possible that Stephanie had not noticed that Isabel had her hand over Rob’s, and had assumed that they were meeting for lunch in an entirely innocent way. Rob could be a cousin, for instance—a cousin who had come into Edinburgh from the country and was being taken out for lunch. That less compromising conclusion might mean that she would not hesitate to make a casual reference to having seen Isabel in the restaurant, and Isabel would then have to explain to Jamie why she had been there and why she had not mentioned the lunch to him.

  She felt her stomach turn. It was a ridiculous situation for her to find herself in, and it was entirely her fault. She should admit to Jamie that she had misled him out of a feeling of awkwardness and embarrassment. He trusted her, and surely he would see that she was telling the truth. And yet, at the same time, might he not ask why she had kept the meeting back from him in the first place? That was the bit that did not make sense.

  She tried to put the matter out of her mind. She began to concentrate on the music. Yellow butter—could she see it? Were these chords the chords of yellow butter? She found herself thinking of Colombia. She had never been there, but she had known a Colombian at Cambridge. He had been studying for a postgraduate degree in linguistics, and he had told her about research he had done in the Amazon basin. He had been bitter about what he saw as the hijacking of his country by narcotraficantes. “There used to be a country called Colombia,” he said to her. “But no more.”

  At the end of Butter Yellow, Isabel made sure that she applauded. “Beautiful,” she said to Jamie as the applause rang out and the composer was invited up onto the stage.

  “Possibly,” muttered Jamie.

  “You didn’t like it?” she asked.

  “Too fluid,” he said.

  She was not sure that she understood. “How?”

  “Difficult to get hold of,” said Jamie. “It slid around…” He shuddered. “Butter’s slippery, I suppose.”

  The composer was bowing to the audience. At the back of the hall somebody hooted out appreciation—a sort of yelp that would have been more at home on the sports field. “Groupies,” whispered Jamie. “Even composers have them.”

  —

  AT THE END OF THE CONCERT, Jamie turned to Isabel and said, “Bar?”

  Isabel did not answer immediately but eventually said, “Do you really want to?”

  Jamie looked surprised. “We normally do.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s still pretty early.”

  Isabel was on the point of saying that she had a headache and would prefer to go home when she stopped herself. She did not have a headache, and a further lie was no solution to an earlier one—or to an earlier half-truth.

  “I suppose so,” she said.

  Jamie encouraged her. “You always enjoy it. You like the crowd.”

  “The crowd” was an expression that Jamie often used to describe his fellow musicians. Isabel found it amusing, conjuring up, as it did, a joyful throng—perhaps a little loud, perhaps a little over-enthusiastic. She imagined the crowd finding it difficult to get reservations in restaurants—Too many of you, I’m afraid—or being too large to fit into a single taxi; or walking boisterously along, filling the pavements to overflowing.

  “The crowd,” she muttered.

  “Yes,” said Jamie. “A lot of them are here tonight. Laurence is popular.”

  She nodded mutely—and miserably. “All right.”

  But Jamie was now worried. “Are you sure? If you’re not feeling up to it, we can go home, but—”

  She cut him short. “No, I’m fine. Let’s go before the bar gets too busy.”

  He seemed pleased. “You can grab one of the tables, if you like.”

  “I’ll stay with you,” she said.

  By the time they reached it, there was already a knot of people around the bar. Jamie, though, immediately saw a friend who offered to buy him and Isabel a drink.

  “Joe’s going to get us something,” he said to Isabel as he cast an eye around the room. “And there’s Laurence over there. Let’s go and speak to him.”

  Isabel asked him what he was going to say. “Are you going to be truthful?”

  He looked askance at her. “I’m not going to criticise it, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “I suppose I am asking that,” said Isabel. “You said that you found it too fluid.”

  His glance was intended to silence her. “I can’t say that.”

  “But you did.”

  “That’s different. You can’t tell somebody who’s made something that you don’t like it. You just can’t. You have to say you enjoyed it.”

  “But I thought you didn’t.”

  He sighed. “What I said to you was private. We can have private reservations about a person’s work, but that doesn’t mean to say that we have to spell those out to him. It’s called tact, Isabel!”

  The reproof was administered gently, but it was a reproof nonetheless. Jamie, though, had more to say. “You’re the same, you know. What about van der Pompe? Did you tell him his paper was rubbish? You didn’t, did you?”

  She realised he was right. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re quite right. Why hurt Laurence’s feelings?”

  “Precisely,” he said. “And even if I said it was too fluid, that doesn’t mean to say that it wasn’t intelligent—or thought-provoking. Excessively fluid pieces can have their merits, after all.”

  She had no stomach for further debate. “Of course,” she said, looking towards the group of people in whose direction they were heading.

  “See,” said Jamie. “He’s over there. He’s being kissed.”

  Isabel followed his gaze. A neat, rather muscular-looking figure was in the centre of a circle of admirers. The woman kissing him was Stephanie Partridge.

  They joined the group. Jamie reached forward to shake the composer’s hand. “Really great,” he said.

  The composer had a broad smile on his face. “You like it?”

  “Sure,” said Jamie. “I think everybody did.”

  “Yes,” said somebody standing nearby. “The guy next to me said he’d never heard anything like it.”

  “Well, that’s a bit ambiguous,” joked Laurence. “But I shall take it as a compliment.”

  Jamie laughed. “No, they liked it all right. I saw that chap from the Herald—he was smiling. And the Scotsman too. I saw Susan Nickalls. She looked as if she was enjoying it.”

  “If the critics are happy,” said Laurence, “then I’m happy.”

  This reminded Isabel of a fridge magnet she had seen a few days ago. There had been a kitchen scene printed on the surface of the magnet; a well-padded mamma-type figure, arms folded, gazed over her brood of children. The inscription read, If Mama ain’t happy, then nobody ain’t happy. She had thought of the persistence of stereotypes, but had then laughed. Disapproval first, she thought, then laughter. It was a play on Brecht and his “Grub first, then ethics”—a proposition with which she had always been in profound disagreement. Grub was a matter of ethics, and one could not detach the business of survival from the realm of ethics…But that raised i
ssues altogether too complicated for the world of fridge magnets.

  A thought came to her: “The Ethics of Fridge Magnets”—a special issue of the Review of Applied Ethics. Should you display a fridge magnet that perpetuates inequality, or intolerance, or selfishness…People did, of course: there were grossly insensitive fridge magnets about; there were fridge magnets that belittled men, even if few of them belittled women (who, by and large, chose fridge magnets in the first place). There would be so much to discuss.

  Laurence turned to Isabel. “You’re Isabel, aren’t you?” And to Jamie he said, “Jamie, you never introduced me to Isabel.”

  Jamie smiled. “Sorry,” he said. “But you’re right, this is Isabel.”

  Laurence shook hands formally. Isabel glanced about her. Where was Stephanie?

  “Congratulations,” she said. “I think your piece went down very well.”

  Laurence bowed his head. “Thanks. I was a bit nervous. You know how it is.”

  “The programme said you were in Colombia,” she said.

  “Yes. I was there just before I wrote this piece.”

  “Inspired by it?” asked Isabel.

  “Yes. I went to a dairy farm. I was going to stay in this fantastic old hotel—you know, Spanish colonial style—and I took the wrong turning and ended up at a dairy farm. They were very friendly.”

  “They let you stay?”

  “No, although I expect they would have, if I had asked. But they insisted on showing me round. Then they gave me some of their butter. They were very proud of it.”

  “Hence Yellow Butter.”

  “Butter Yellow,” corrected Jamie. “It’s Butter Yellow. The order makes a difference, I think.”

  “Sorry,” said Isabel. “I suppose you’re right. Yellow Butter would be about butter, whereas…”

  “Butter Yellow would be about yellow,” supplied Jamie.

  “Yes, that’s right,” said Laurence.

  “But you were thinking about butter?” asked Isabel. “Or were you thinking about yellow?”