Lifetime Burning

by Gillard, Linda

‘Oh…’ Flora knew she’d lost but her sense of defeat was mitigated by a grudging admiration for her brother’s mind.

  He jerked a thumb in the direction of the wireless. ‘If this play was being broadcast in Russian you wouldn’t have the option of interpretation. The meaning would stop at the actor’s mouth. But I could play you music in Russian and you’d understand it as well as a Russian! Well, you wouldn’t,’ he said scornfully, ‘but a musical person would. That’s the big disadvantage of words, you see. They only work if you speak the language. But music works in any language because it doesn’t have a language. It’s faster, more direct. Like mainlining.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Oh, it’s to do with drugs. Heroin addicts inject the drug into their veins. It’s called mainlining. It hits you harder than smoking opium because it goes straight into your bloodstream.’

  Flora stared at him, awestruck. ‘How do you know all that?’

  ‘Dave Potter’s brother went to university in Paris and came back a drug addict,’ Rory explained, as if this were a natural consequence of studying at the Sorbonne. Flora didn’t understand but was too shocked to seek further clarification. Rory continued. ‘Music goes straight into your emotional bloodstream, bypassing the brain. Words have to go the long way round.’

  ‘So you’re saying music is better than drama?’

  He grinned. ‘No. That’s what I think, but it’s not what I’m saying. I’m just saying music is more intense, faster-acting, a stronger drug. Drama is a more dilute form of emotion. It’s at one remove.’

  Flora considered for a moment. ‘Then presumably, performing music is even closer to the source than listening to it.’

  Rory frowned. ‘I hadn’t thought of that… But, yes, it stands to reason. If I’m playing the piece I’m probably feeling it more strongly, more deeply than anyone in the audience.’

  ‘Well, if that’s the case, the composer wins.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘He feels something and then he expresses it in lots of dots and squiggles. Whatever you play only exists because the composer felt it. Your playing is just a dilution of what he felt.’

  ‘Oh, yeah…’ Rory said softly.

  ‘Am I right?’ Flora asked, astonished.

  ‘Yes, I think you are.’ Rory looked at his sister and said thoughtfully, ‘You know, Flor, you’re a lot cleverer than you look.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she replied, trying not to preen. ‘I hope you realise you’ve just talked all the way through the end of my play.’

  ‘We’ve just talked. You shouldn’t have argued. Anyway it wasn’t very interesting.’

  ‘How would you know?’

  ‘I was listening.’

  ‘You weren’t.’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘While we were talking?’

  ‘Yes. I can listen to two things at once. At least.’

  ‘How did it end then?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know… It was all much the same. People complaining, sounding depressed. God, why would anyone listen to such stuff?’

  ‘You see, you weren’t listening really.’

  ‘I was. I’m just trying to remember.’ He leaned back on the sofa and closed his eyes. ‘There was a woman talking, but she wasn’t really saying anything. And there was a band playing. A military band. The woman kept repeating, “If we only knew… If we only knew.” ’

  ‘Knew what?’

  ‘I don’t know! The play ended, didn’t it! Why they were all suffering, I suppose. She said something like, if we wait, we’ll find out why we live, why we all suffer.’

  ‘Oh, that’s beautiful.’

  ‘It’s just a load of words, Flora.’

  She ignored him, wanting to indulge her emotions. ‘It’s so sad… but sort of hopeful at the same time.’

  ‘No, it’s not,’ Rory scoffed. ‘But the band was - the brass band playing in the background. That was sad, but sort of hopeful.’ Flora’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Now what?’ Rory asked, exasperated.

  ‘Oh, you wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘Tell me - what’s the matter?’

  ‘It’s just - well, it’s just I don’t know who I’m going to argue with when you go away to college!’

  ‘Oh…’

  Flora hugged her knees and buried her face in her arms. At a loss, Rory looked down at her bent head, at the back of her neck, exposed where her long blonde hair divided and fell forward over her shoulders, revealing pale skin that rarely saw the light of day. He wanted to comfort her, to lay his hand gently on her neck, but instead he shoved his hands into his pockets and said, ‘You’ll find someone, Flor…’

  I didn’t. Rory was wrong. I never spoke to anyone else the way I spoke to him. I discussed theology with Hugh, poetry with Ettie, Method acting with fellow students and I discussed sex (exhaustively) with Colin, but it was never the same. There was always the need to explain. It wasn’t like thinking aloud, like talking to myself. And no one ever took my breath away, pulled the rug from underneath me, made me laugh like Rory did.

  He was a hard act to follow.

  1959

  Flora had never felt so terrified in all her sixteen years. She sat in a waiting room presided over by a benevolent middle-aged woman who occasionally looked up from her typewriter to smile encouragement at Flora and the two boys sitting opposite her on the other side of the room.

  The three young people took it in turns to glance furtively at a clock on the wall. From time to time one of them would retrieve a folded piece of paper from a pocket, study it briefly, then put it back. The lips of all three moved occasionally, as if in silent prayer.

  Flora was indeed praying. When she wasn’t praying she was mouthing the lines she’d learned from Saint Joan, alternating them with a speech of Viola’s from Twelfth Night. She stared fixedly at the clock and prayed to the trinity of God, Shakespeare and Bernard Shaw that she’d be called upon first to audition and preferably soon.

  Flora and her mother had arrived in London early. Dora insisted that Flora eat something as she’d refused breakfast and so they went to the Lyons Corner House where Flora forced down a cup of tea and a Chelsea bun, which did little to relieve her nausea. She still arrived early for her audition, before the two boys, both of whom appeared to have travelled even further. The taller boy was darkly handsome in a black polo-neck sweater and spoke with a Lancashire accent. Flora found it hard to understand him when he spoke to the receptionist who had no such difficulty. Flora watched him from beneath her illicitly mascara’d eyelashes and tried to imagine him as her Orsino. He certainly looked the part, but Flora couldn’t imagine the immortal opening lines of the play - If music be the food of love, play on - uttered in a broad Lancashire accent. She decided that, sadly, his northern vowels must surely count against him.

  The other boy arrived clutching a small battered suitcase. He was stocky, with an appealing, animated face. Not an Orsino - far too short and his ears stuck out slightly - but Flora could imagine this boy playing Shakespearean clowns. She decided he had nice eyes - dark brown and trustworthy, like a retriever’s.

  He directed a strained smile towards her as he sat down and Flora attempted to smile back. She didn’t, couldn’t, speak. Finding this faculty had deserted her, she started to panic, wondering what she’d do if, when they finally asked for her Saint Joan, she opened her mouth and no sound emerged. Flora decided to alter her petition to the Almighty. She ceased praying to be admitted as a student to this illustrious drama school and asked if He would simply ensure she survived today’s ordeal without fainting or bursting into tears.

  The receptionist, who had seen a lot of suffering in her time, broke an electric silence with, ‘Shouldn’t be much longer now,’ and gave Flora another kind smile. Glancing at the clock again, Flora hoped her mother hadn’t exhausted the shopping possibilities of nearby Oxford Street. Dora had been given strict instructions to wait outside the building, but as it was now raining Flora feared she might venture t
hrough the hallowed portals in search of shelter. Public humiliation might ensue if Dora were to notice the mascara and comment. Flora modified her prayer yet again. She requested the Almighty keep her mother at bay, standing on the pavement in the rain until the ordeal was over. Her clammy fingers groped for the now crumpled sheet of paper on which she’d typed Joan’s final soliloquy and her eyes scanned the page, settling inevitably on the last line: How long, oh Lord? How long?

  1961

  The door opened and a cello case appeared, followed by its owner, a young girl of about eighteen, her face masked by a curtain of long dark hair. She slammed the door behind her, leaned against it and burst into tears.

  Rory looked up from behind the grand piano, appalled. Eventually he decided to cough. The girl didn’t hear, so he coughed again. She jumped and stared, her damp face plastered with tendrils of hair. Rory opened his mouth, his jaw twisting as he worked at the words. ‘I’m sorry - this practice room is booked.’

  ‘Oh… Sorry.’ The girl searched for a handkerchief. ‘I listened outside. I couldn’t hear anything.’

  ‘I’ve been studying the score.’

  ‘Oh. Sorry.’ She blew her nose thoroughly. ‘I was just looking for somewhere to cry actually.’ She gestured towards the case. ‘It’s a bit difficult getting a cello into the ladies’ lavatory.’

  ‘Yes. I mean, it must be.’

  She heaved the cello case on to her shoulder and turned away. Rory looked down at his score and picked up a pencil. ‘I don’t mind. If you want to cry in here.’ He waved his pencil in the air, vaguely. ‘Stay. Till you feel better. I’m just looking at a score.’

  The girl blinked at the strange young man and sniffed. ‘You’re Rory Dunbar, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’ He looked at her warily. ‘I don’t know you.’

  ‘Grace Bridgewater.’

  ‘Oh.’ He nodded, a jerky movement that dislodged his long fair hair on to his brow. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

  Rory saw a sturdy, brown-eyed girl with strong features and ugly, workmanlike hands. Her tight-fitting jersey drew his attention to her large breasts, which he admired for a moment before dropping his eyes hurriedly to the open score in front of him. He looked up again, aiming his gaze at her face. No one could call her pretty, but it was an arresting face: the mouth and nose too big for beauty, but her long thick hair, tumbling over her shoulders and across those breasts, was magnificent.

  ‘Why were you crying?’

  ‘I just had a lesson with the Nazi Kommandant.’

  ‘Toller?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He’s vile to everyone. Don’t take it personally. He sees it as his mission in life to put as many young people off music as possible.”

  ‘Well, he’s making a pretty good job of it. He says I’m hopeless.’

  Rory smiled and spread his hands. ‘Translation: you don’t play like he does.’

  Her face brightened. ‘Yes, that’s it! He doesn’t teach me, he just wants to show me. I think he plays more in the lesson than I do.’

  ‘Just say yes and copy him. Don’t let him break you. He hates girls anyway.’

  ‘Yes, that’s the impression I get. But why?’

  Rory hesitated and looked down at his score again, blushing. ‘Toller prefers boys… If you know what I mean.’

  She giggled. ‘Oh, Lord.’

  Rory looked up and grinned. ‘So you see, you don’t really stand a chance.’

  ‘Well, thanks for the advice! I’ll clear off now and let you get on with your practice. Sorry I disturbed you.’

  Rory decided Grace was much prettier when she smiled. ‘Do you feel like playing a duet?’

  ‘What, now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Grace approached the piano. ‘Have you got any music?’

  ‘I think so.’ Rory rifled through a shabby leather music case. ‘Brahms? Beethoven?’

  Grace’s eyes lit up. ‘The sonata in A?’

  Rory nodded.

  ‘Do you know it?’

  He nodded again.

  ‘Oh, I’d adore to play that! Shall we give it a go?’

  Without waiting for an answer she arranged a chair. Rory fetched her a music stand, adjusting the height as she took her cello out of its case and tuned. Grace watched him from behind her curtain of hair. He must have been eighteen or nineteen but seemed older. He wasn’t tall. Slim. Sporty-looking. His fair hair unbrushed, if not unwashed. His large grey eyes moved constantly, rarely settling for long. When they did she thought they looked serious, almost sad. As he arranged the music on her stand, she looked at his beautiful hands: smooth and pale, with very long fingers, the little finger almost as long as the third. Useful for a pianist.

  Rory sat down at the piano, turned and looked at her, his fair brows raised in enquiry. Grace wished she’d worn slacks or a longer skirt to cover more of her splayed legs - far from her best feature. ‘Ready when you are,’ she said cheerfully.

  Rory looked at his music for a moment, then asked, ‘How did you know who I was?’

  ‘People talk about you.’

  ‘Oh? What do they say?’

  ‘That you’re good.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘The girls say you’re nice.’

  ‘Oh.’ Rory looked surprised. ‘What do the boys say?’

  ‘That you’re weird.’ She laughed. ‘Which probably has a lot to do with being good and nice, so I wouldn’t worry about it. Shall we play?’

  Grace liked to tell people that she fell in love with her husband the first time they played together, somewhere during the scherzo of Beethoven’s Cello sonata in A, Op.69.

  So romantic.

  It took Rory rather longer to reciprocate, but he never told people exactly how long. Well, apart from me. The fact is, Rory didn’t fall in love with Grace until he’d been married to her for years.

  Better late than never, I suppose.

  Chapter 3

  1957

  Ettie Sinclair, to no one’s real surprise, had never married. She’d lost her sweetheart, Geoffrey, in the war and had subsequently thrown herself into the arms of the Church, finding consolation in the words, music and arcane rituals of High Anglicanism. Now aged forty-one, her orderly life was divided between family, church and an undemanding job in the local bookshop. What little leisure time she had, she devoted to reading poetry and her duties as secretary of the Poetry Society. (Her talk on the dramatic monologues of Robert Browning had been very well received and the chairman had asked her if she felt up to tackling Keats, a prospect that both thrilled and daunted her.)

  If asked (though nobody tended to ask questions of Ettie) she would have said that her life was fulfilled, that it was happy, that she knew the love of God and therefore had little need for the love of man - any man in particular, that is.

  When Reverend Pym retired from St Edmund’s, Ettie was sad but bore the loss with her usual fortitude. The minister had heard her brief and uneventful confessions and helped her come to terms with the loss of Geoffrey, but faced with new and stimulating possibilities, the departure of the elderly priest didn’t seem quite such a cross to bear. Used to making the best of things, Ettie looked forward to sermons delivered by a younger man with perhaps more go-ahead ideas, the product of a mind more incisive than Reverend Pym’s, which had displayed a worrying tendency to wander over the last few years.

  The new vicar of St Edmund’s was the Reverend Hugh Wentworth, a young man of thirty-six, with a pretty wife called Miriam. The parish took the new incumbents to its bosom, not least because they resembled film-stars. Miss Thompson, who organised the flower rota, was heard to comment to her helpmate, Miss Cartwright, that young Mrs Wentworth bore a striking resemblance to Vivien Leigh. Miss Cartwright didn’t disagree but remarked that Mrs Wentworth’s beauty was of a superior kind, being as it was ‘all natural’, a reference, Miss Thompson assumed, to the actress’s fondness for powder and paint.

  Mrs Wentworth’s being of childbearing years
was yet another point in her favour, although, as Miss Cartwright pointed out to Miss Thompson, the Wentworths hadn’t long been married, so it was premature to talk of christenings. Instead, they talked of Reverend Wentworth. Miss Cartwright - wont to find fault even with the likes of Vivien Leigh - could find nothing to criticise in the new clergyman, although she did remark cryptically that he was a mite too handsome for his own good. The other flower ladies and most of the female congregation perceived no such flaw or, if they did, were prepared to overlook it.

  Father Hugh, as his affectionate congregation called him, was an imposing figure. Miss Cartwright might have claimed that at six feet three inches he was also too tall for his own good, but she could find no fault with his upright bearing, his ready smile which displayed a fine set of large white teeth, or his head of black hair which was perhaps a trifle long for a clergyman. Father Hugh the preacher was of no less interest to the congregation than Father Hugh the man. His voice was deep but clear, a firm musical baritone, and he declaimed the scriptures with passion (but not, Miss Cartwright noted gratefully, too much.) His sermons were short (which endeared him to many) and interesting (which endeared him to all). He was never thrown off his stride when babies cried. On the contrary, he was quick to bestow one of his winning smiles on the mother of the offending infant.

  Father Hugh was a success in the parish and the congregation of St Edmund’s thanked the Lord for sending them such a splendid new minister. Ettie too gave thanks for the advent of Father Hugh and never failed to mention him in her prayers. She never missed Sunday communion now and took to attending evensong more regularly, a change of habit she ascribed to a newly acquired enthusiasm for psalm-singing. When poor Miss Thompson slipped in a puddle of water in the Lady Chapel and broke her hip, Ettie was only too happy to take her place on the flower rota.

  Her research on the metaphors of John Keats fell quite by the wayside.

  Father Hugh, passing through the church on his rounds one Saturday, stopped to chat with the flower ladies and to admire their efforts. Ettie, a little flustered by the attention, adjusted her spectacles and remarked that she hadn’t realised how much pleasure and satisfaction might be derived from the arrangement of flowers to the glory of God. Father Hugh smiled, bending his leonine head to one of Ettie’s arrangements. (Miss Cartwright had thought it a little on the exotic side, with its Turk’s cap lilies and bourbon roses. She’d urged more greenery, but Ettie stood firm and ignored the advice.)