I glanced round at Jeff. It was impossible for anybody with his complexion to turn pale, but his face had assumed a hideously mottled appearance and his legs were twitching convulsively. He seemed to sense that my gaze was on him, because he turned tortured eyes towards me and gave me the ghastly semblance of a smile. Just beyond him, his wife was leaning forward. Her mouth hung slightly open and her lips trembled.
As Margaret fought for the right notes, a total silence and immobility settled on the packed hall. It seemed an eternity before the little girl got it right and galloped away over the rest of the piece, and though everybody relaxed in their seats and applauded with relief as much as approval, I had the feeling that the episode had taken its toll of all of us.
I certainly didn’t feel so good and watched in a half-trance as a succession of children went up and did their thing without incident. Then it was Jimmy’s turn.
There was no doubt that most of the performers and parents were suffering from nerves, but this couldn’t be applied to my son. He almost whistled as he trotted up the steps, and there was a hint of swagger in his walk up to the piano. This, he clearly thought, was going to be a dawdle.
In marked contrast, I went into a sort of rigor as soon as he appeared. My palms broke out in an instant sweat, and I found I was breathing only with difficulty. I told myself that this was utterly ridiculous, but it was no good. It was how I felt
Jimmy’s piece was called “The Miller’s Dance,” a title burned on my brain till the day I die. It was a rollicking little melody which, of course, I knew down to the last semi-quaver, and Jimmy started off in great style, throwing his hands about and tossing his head like Artur Rubinstein in full flow.
Around the middle of “The Miller’s Dance,” there is a pause in the quick tempo where the music goes from a brisk ta-rum-tum-tiddle-iddle-om-pom-pom to a lingering taa-rum, taa-rum, before starting off again at top speed. It was a clever little ploy of the composer and gave a touch of variety to the whole thing.
Jimmy dashed up to this point with flailing arms till he slowed down at the familiar taa-rum, taa-rum, taa-rum. I waited for him to take off again, but nothing happened. He stopped and looked down fixedly at the keys for a few seconds, then he played the slow bit again and halted once more.
My heart gave a great thud. Come on, lad, you know the next part—I’ve heard you play it a hundred times. My voiceless plea was born of desperation, but Jimmy didn’t seem troubled at all. He looked down with mild puzzlement and rubbed his chin a few times.
Miss Livingstone’s gentle voice came over the quivering silence. “Perhaps you’d better start at the beginning again, Jimmy.”
“Okay.” My son’s tone was perky as he plunged confidently into the melody again, and I closed my eyes as he approached the fateful bars. Ta-rum-tum-tiddle-iddle-om-pom-pom, taa-rum, taa-rum, taa-rum,—then nothing. This time he pursed his lips, put his hands on his knees and bent closely over the keyboard as though the strips of ivory were trying to hide something from him. He showed no sign of panic, only a faint curiosity.
In the almost palpable hush of that room, I was sure that the hammering of my heart must be audible. I could feel Helen’s leg trembling against mine. I knew we couldn’t take much more of this.
Miss Livingstone’s voice was soft as a zephyr or I think I would have screamed. “Jimmy, dear, shall we try it once more from the beginning?”
“Yes, yes, right.” Away he went again like a hurricane, all fire and fury. It was unbelievable that there could ever be a flaw in such virtuosity.
The whole room was in agony. By now the other parents had come to know “The Miller’s Dance” almost as well as I did, and we waited together for the dread passage. Jimmy came up to it at breakneck speed. Ta-rum-tum-tiddle-iddle-om-pom-pom, then taa-rum, taa-rum, taa-rum … and silence.
Helen’s knees were definitely knocking now, and I stole an anxious glance at her face. She was pale, but she didn’t look ready to faint just yet.
As Jimmy sat motionless except for a thoughtful drumming of his fingers against the woodwork of the piano, I felt I was going to choke. I glared around me desperately, and I saw that Jeff Ward, across the aisle, was in a bad way. His face had gone all blotchy again, his jaw muscles stood out in taut ridges and a light sheen of perspiration covered his forehead.
Something had to break soon, and once more it was Miss Livingstone’s voice which cut into the terrible atmosphere.
“All right, Jimmy, dear,” she said. “Never mind. Perhaps you’d better go and sit down now.”
My son rose from the stool and marched across the platform. He descended the steps and rejoined his fellow pupils in the first few rows.
I slumped back in my seat. Ah, well, that was it. The final indignity. The poor little lad had blown it. And though he didn’t seem troubled, I was sure he must feel a sense of shame at being unable to get through his piece.
A wave of misery enveloped me, and though many of the other parents turned and directed sickly smiles of sympathy and friendship at Helen and me, it didn’t help. I hardly heard the rest of the concert, which was a pity because as the bigger boys and girls began to perform, the musical standard rose to remarkable heights. Chopin nocturnes were followed by Mozart sonatas, and I had a dim impression of a tall lad rendering an impromptu by Schubert. It was a truly splendid show—by everybody but poor old Jimmy, the only one who hadn’t managed to finish.
At the end, Miss Livingstone came to the front of the platform. “Well, thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for the kind reception you have given my pupils. I do hope you have enjoyed it as much as we have.”
There was more clapping, and as the chairs started to push back, I rose to my feet, feeling slightly sick.
“Shall we go then, Helen?” I said, and my wife nodded back at me, her face a doleful mask.
But Miss Livingstone wasn’t finished yet. “Just one thing more, ladies and gentlemen.” She raised a hand. “There is a young man here who, I know, can do much better. I wouldn’t be happy going home now without giving him another opportunity. Jimmy.” She beckoned towards the second row. “Jimmy, I wonder… I wonder if you would like to have one more try.”
As Helen and I exchanged horrified glances, there was an immediate response from the front. Our son’s voice rang out, chirpy and confident. “Aye, aye, I’ll have a go!”
I couldn’t believe it. The martyrdom was surely not about to start all over again. But it was true. Everybody was sitting down, and a small, familiar figure was mounting the steps and striding to the piano.
From a great distance I heard Miss Livingstone again. “Jimmy will play “The Miller’s Dance.’ “ She didn’t have to tell us—we all knew.
As though in the middle of a bad dream, I resumed my seat. A few seconds earlier, I had been conscious only of a great weariness, but now I was gripped by a fiercer tension than I had known all afternoon. As Jimmy poised his hands over the keys, a vibrant sense of strain lapped around the silent room.
The little lad started off as he always did, as though he hadn’t a care in the world, and I began a series of long, shuddering breaths designed to carry me past the moment that was fast approaching. Because I knew he would stop again. And I knew just as surely that when he did, I would topple senseless to the floor.
I didn’t dare look round at anybody. In fact, when he reached the crucial bars I closed my eyes tightly. But I could still hear the music—so very clearly. Ta-rum-tum-tiddle-iddle-om-pom-pom, taa-rum, taa-rum, taa-rum … There was a pause of unbearable length, then, tiddle-iddle-om-pom, tiddle-iddle-om-pom, Jimmy was blissfully on his way again.
He raced through the second half of the piece, but I kept my eyes closed as the relief flooded through me. I opened them only when he came to the finale, which I knew so well. Jimmy was making a real meal of it, head down, fingers thumping, and at the last crashing chord, he held up one hand in a flourish a foot above the keyboard before letting it fall by his side in the true manner of the concer
t pianist.
I doubt if the Methodist Hall has ever heard a noise like the great cheer which followed. The place erupted in a storm of clapping and shouting, and Jimmy was not the man to ignore such an accolade. All the other children had walked impassively from the stage at the end of their efforts, but not so my son.
To my astonishment, he strode from the stool to the front of the platform, placed one arm across his abdomen and the other behind his back, extended one foot and bowed to one side of the audience with the grace of an eighteenth-century courtier. He then reversed arms and pushed out the other foot before repeating his bow to the other side of the hall.
The cheering changed to a great roar of laughter which continued as he descended the steps, smiling demurely. Everybody was still giggling as we made our way out. In the doorway we bumped into Miss Mullion, who ran the little school our son attended. She was dabbing her eyes.
“Oh, dear,” she said breathlessly. “You can always depend on Jimmy to provide the light relief.”
I drove back to Skeldale House very sbwly. I was still in a weak condition, and I felt it dangerous to exceed twenty-five miles an hour. The colour had returned to Helen’s face, but there were lines of exhaustion round her mouth and eyes as she stared ahead through the windscreen.
Jimmy, in the back, was lying full-length along the seat, kicking his legs in the air and whistling some of the tunes that had been played that afternoon.
“Mum! Dad!” he exclaimed in the staccato manner so typical of him. “I like music.”
I glanced at him in the driving mirror. “That’s good, son, that’s good. So do we.”
Suddenly he rolled off the back seat and thrust his head between us. “Do you know why I like music so much?”
I shook my head.
“Because it’s”—he groped rapturously for the phrase—“because it’s so soothing.”
Chapter
31
WHEN WALT BARNETT ASKED me to see his cat, I was surprised. He had employed other veterinary surgeons ever since Siegfried had mortally offended him by charging him ten pounds for castrating a horse, and that had been a long time ago. I was surprised, too, that a man like him should concern himself with the ailments of a cat
A lot of people said Walt Barnett was the richest man in Darrowby—rolling in brass which he made from his many and diverse enterprises. He was mainly a scrap merchant, but he had a haulage business, too, and he was a dealer in second-hand cars, furniture, anything, in fact, that came his way. I knew he kept some livestock and horses around his big house outside the town, but there was money in these things, and money was the ruling passion of his life. There was no profit in cat keeping.
Another thing that puzzled me as I drove to his office was that owning a pet indicated some warmth of character, a vein of sentiment, however small. It just didn’t fit into his nature.
I picked my way through the litter of the scrap yard to the wooden shed in the corner from which the empire was run. Walt Barnett was sitting behind a cheap desk and he was exactly as I remembered him, the massive body stretching the seams of the shiny, navy-blue suit, the cigarette dangling from his lips, even the brown trilby hat perched on the back of his head. Unchanged, too, was the beefy red face with its arrogant expression and hostile eyes.
“Over there,” he said, glowering at me and poking a finger at a black and white cat sitting among the papers on the desk.
It was a typical greeting. I hadn’t expected him to say, “Good morning,” or anything like that, and he never smiled. I reached across the desk and tickled the animal’s cheek, rewarded by a rich purring and an arching of the back against my hand. He was a big tom, long-haired and attractively marked, with a white breast and white paws, and though I have always had a predilection for tabbies, I took an immediate liking to this cat. He exuded friendliness.
“Nice cat,” I said. “What’s the trouble?”
“It’s ‘is leg. There’s summat wrong with that ’un there. Must’ve cut ’isself.”
I felt among the fluffy hair, and the little creature flinched as I reached a point halfway up the limb. I took out my scissors and clipped a clear area. I could see a transverse wound, quite deep, and discharging a thin, serous fluid. “Yes … this could be a cut. But there’s something unusual about it. I can’t see how he’s done it. Does he go out in the yard much?”
The big man nodded. “Aye, wanders around a bit.”
“Ah, well, he may have caught it on some sharp object. I’ll give him a penicillin injection and leave you a tube of ointment to squeeze into the wound night and morning.”
Some cats object strongly to hypodermics, and since their armoury includes claws as well as teeth, they can be difficult, but this one never moved. In fact, the purring increased in volume as I inserted the needle.
“He really is good-natured,” I said. “What do you call him?”
“Fred.” Walt Barnett looked at me expressionlessly. There didn’t appear to be anything particularly apposite about the name, but the man’s face discouraged further comment.
I produced the ointment from my bag and placed it on the desk. “Right, let me know if he doesn’t improve.”
I received no reply, neither acknowledgment nor goodbye, and I took my leave reeling the same prickle of resentment as when I had first encountered his boorishness.
But as I walked across the yard, I forgot my annoyance in my preoccupation with the case. There was something very peculiar about that wound. It didn’t look like an accidental laceration. It was neat and deep, as though somebody had drawn a razor blade across the flesh. I listened as I had listened so often before to that little inner voice—the voice that said things were not as they seemed.
A touch on my arm brought me out of my musings. One of the men who had been working among the scrap was looking at me conspiratorially. “You’ve been in to see t’big boss?”
“Yes.”
“Funny thing, t’awd bugger botherin’ about a cat, eh?”
“I suppose so. How long has he had it?”
“Oh, about two years now. It was a stray. Ran into ‘is office one day, and, knowin’ him, I thought he’d ‘ave booted it straight out, but ‘e didn’t. Adopted it, instead. Ah can’t reckon it up. It sits there all day on ‘is desk.”
“He must like it,” I said.
“Him? He doesn’t like anythin’ or anybody. He’s a …”
A bellow from the office doorway cut him short.
“Hey, you! Get on with your bloody work!” Walt Barnett, huge and menacing, brandished a fist, and the man, after one terrified glance, scuttled away.
As I got into my car, the thought stayed with me that this was how Walt Barnett lived—surrounded by fear and hate. His ruth-lessness was a byword in the town, and though no doubt it had made him rich, I didn’t envy him.
I heard his voice on the phone two days later. “Get out ’ere sharpish and see that cat.”
“Isn’t the wound any better?”
“Naw, it’s wuss, so don’t be long.”
Fred was in his usual place on the desk, and he purred as I went up and stroked him, but the leg was certainly more painful. It was disappointing, but what really baffled me was that the wound was bigger instead of smaller. It was still the same narrow slit in the skin, but it had undoubtedly lengthened. It was as though it was trying to creep its way round the leg.
I had brought some extra instruments with me, and I passed a metal probe gently into the depths of the cut. I could feel something down there, something which caught the end of the probe and sprang away. I followed with long forceps and gripped the unknown object before it could escape. When I brought it to the surface and saw the narrow brown strand, all became suddenly clear.
“He’s got an elastic band round his leg,” I said. I snipped the thing through, withdrew it and dropped it on the desk. “There it is. He’ll be all right now.”
Walt Barnett jerked himself upright in his chair. “Elastic band! Why the ‘
ell didn’t you find it fust time?”
He had me there. Why the hell hadn’t I? In those days my eyesight was perfect, but on that first visit all I had seen was a little break in the skin.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Barnett,” I said. “The elastic was embedded in the flesh, out of sight.” It was true, but I didn’t feel proud.
He puffed rapidly at the ever-present cigarette. “And ‘ow did it get there?”
“Somebody put it on his leg, without a doubt.”
“Put it on … wot for?”
“Oh, people do that to cats. I’ve heard of cases like this but never actually seen one. There are some cruel folk around.”
“One o’ them fellers in the yard, ah’ll wager.”
“Not necessarily. Fred goes out in the street, doesn’t he?”
“Oh, aye, often.”
“Well, it could have been anybody.”
There was a long silence as the big man sat scowling, his eyes half-closed. I wondered if he was going over the list of his enemies. That would take some time.
“Anyway,” I said. “The leg will heal very quickly now. That’s the main thing.”
Walt Barnett reached across the desk and slowly rubbed the cat’s side with a sausagelike forefinger. I had seen him do this several times during my previous visit. It was an odd, unsmiling gesture, but probably the nearest he could get to a caress.
On my way back to the surgery I slumped low in the car seat, hardly daring to think of what would have happened if I hadn’t found that elastic. Arrest of circulation, gangrene, loss of the foot or even death. I broke into a sweat at the thought.
Walt Barnett was on the phone three weeks later, and I feli a twinge of apprehension at the sound of the familiar voice. Maybe I wasn’t out of the wood yet.
“Is his leg still troubling him?” I asked.
“Naw, that’s ‘ealed up. There’s summat matter with ‘is head.”
“His head?”
“Aye, keeps cockin’ it from side to side. Come and see ’im.”