So the lesson was begun after that and took its customary course. Gail kept her thoughts as far as possible on what she was doing and not until the end did she venture to ask the question which had now forced its way to the front of her mind.
‘Did Mr. Bannister say anything about bringing his son with him? — Mr. Marc Bannister who, after all, did compose “The Exile”.’
‘I told you. He never mentioned “The Exile”.’ Madame Marburger spoke briskly. ‘It may have nothing to do with that at all. A man like Quentin Bannister has many irons in the fire.’
‘I know.’ Gail still looked slightly troubled. ‘But, you see, Mr. Bannister and his son don’t always seem to see eye to eye about things. Frankly, I don’t think Mr. Marc Bannister was much in my favour. I shouldn’t like to think his father might be going behind his back.’
Madame Marburger looked astonished, as well she might.
‘I think, my dear,’ she said drily, ‘that you’re rather exaggerating your own importance. I hardly think the Bannisters would be quarrelling over a singing student, however gifted.’
‘Of course, that’s true.’ Gail coloured suddenly. ‘I don’t know what made me think — imagine —’
‘Nor do I, quite frankly,’ cut in her teacher, in a tone which discouraged any further discussion. ‘No doubt Mr. Bannister will get in touch with me about a convenient time to hear you when he is coming to town. All you have to do is see you are in good vocal shape when the time comes. You were not at your best today. There was a very poor degree of concentration.’
Gail accepted this rebuke humbly, feeling it was probably justified. For it had been difficult to concentrate on routine work when an exciting and faintly mysterious prospect was beckoning. But, try as she would to keep her teacher’s trenchant words in mind, something deeper than logic made her speculate a trifle uneasily about Quentin Bannister’s latest move.
She thought at first that she would tell Oliver about it. Then she decided that the less said about it the better. She was not at all a secretive girl, but she sensed instinctively that the Bannisters did not always let their right hand know what their left hand was doing. And if anyone presumed to pass on information to the wrong quarter, that person would be extremely unwise.
When she went out with Oliver that week-end, therefore, she made no mention of his father’s approach to her teacher. And this was made all the easier by the fact that he was full of his own affairs.
‘I want you to meet Tom Mallender,’ he informed her. ‘He’s the chap who is collaborating with me over these revue sketches. I’ve told him about you, and that you know how to hold your tongue in the early stages and not talk about our work until we’re ready to talk about it ourselves. I’m to take you along to his studio this evening, and we’re going to try out one or two numbers on you. Is that O.K. with you?’
‘I’ll say it is!’ Gail was immensely gratified, as well as curious. ‘What do you want me to do? Just listen?’
‘And express a reasonably intelligent opinion. We’re getting so involved and enthusiastic ourselves that it’s difficult to be self-critical. We need another opinion. But if we’re as good as we sometimes think we are we can’t risk taking most people into our confidence. They’d start blabbing about it, and then the whole thing would go off at half-cock.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ Gail promised. ‘And I’ll be silent discretion itself outside the studio.’
After a hasty dinner — over which, to her surprise, Oliver seemed as nervous as a prima donna on a first night — he drove her to his friend’s studio and presented her to Tom Mallender.
In contrast to Oliver, Tom was perfectly cool and collected.
‘Oliver says you’re a good, average judge,’ he observed, as he poured her a long cool drink.
‘I don’t know that I am,’ Gail protested. ‘I’m very happy to listen and give my views for what they’re worth. But you’re probably much better judges yourselves. If you can actually compose these things you must have a pretty good idea about standards.’
‘Difficult when it’s your own stuff.’ Tom Mallender shook his head. ‘There are times when I think we’re turning out rot, and others when I wonder how the world managed so far without us.’
Gail laughed, but Oliver growled, ‘Don’t be an ass. It’s pretty ordinary stuff, really. Only maybe it has a certain twist —’
‘There you are! That’s what I mean,’ Tom said resignedly. ‘When my spirits are up his are down, and vice versa. Play her something, Oliver, and stop glooming.’
So Oliver went to the piano, ran his hands over the keys for a moment or two, and then began to play an enchanting, half sad, half impudent little air. Without even bothering to get up from his chair where he was lounging, Tom began to sing, in a thin but appealing baritone. And the words he sang were, like the music, just on the perilous edge between pathos and self-mockery.
The whole thing was funny and sad, absurd and yet nostalgic. And the music so entirely echoed the words that the two seemed to have come from one brain.
‘Why, boys, it’s adorable!’ cried Gail when they had finished. ‘The kind of tune everyone will be singing within days! And it’s so funny — and sad — and —’ she sought for the right word and came up with it — ‘so stylish. Almost everything today is so brash and coarse and amateurish. This has quality. Play something else, Oliver, play something else.’
They caught her mood of enthusiasm. And Oliver played and Tom sang, and presently Gail also came to the piano and, leaning over Oliver’s shoulder to look at the roughly scribbled scraps of manuscript, she sang too.
Once she said, ‘That’s a bit trite. But perhaps it doesn’t matter. It’s quite a good tune.’ And another time she said, ‘That’s heaven! You can afford to repeat it.’
At last Oliver turned and looked at her with new respect and said, ‘How do you know so much about it?’
‘I don’t. It’s just a sort of instinct. I’m the completely average girl with a little bit up here —’ she tapped her head. ‘This is what everyone reasonably intelligent is longing for. They’re sick of bawling and crudities. They want spice without vulgarity, a touch of romance without too much sugar, nostalgia without self-pity. You know — you just can’t fail!’
‘Isn’t she a honey?’ said Oliver. ‘What did I tell you?’ And he got up and kissed her.
‘You didn’t tell me enough,’ replied Tom, and he also kissed her. Then they opened a bottle of champagne and were wildly gay for half an hour. After which Tom said,
‘You’ve got quite a nice voice yourself.’
‘She’s got a wonderful voice!’ exclaimed Oliver indignantly. ‘Why, my brother Marc is quite seriously considering her for the lead in his new opera.’
‘You don’t want to waste yourself on anything like that,’ Tom told Gail, with shocking indifference to the higher values. ‘Try her on the Spanish number, Oliver.’ ‘We haven’t really decided how it should go,’ Oliver objected.
‘Let her decide,’ replied Tom grandly. And they all crowded back to the piano, where Oliver played a pseudo-Spanish air with an over-exaggeration of rhythm which made it subtly funny.
‘Here you are — here are the words.’ Tom thrust a piece of paper into her hand, and they both watched her intently while she read them through.
Then she said, ‘Play it without that extra emphasis, Oliver. Play it straight.’
‘But it’s not meant to be straight,’ Oliver objected. ‘It’s a skit on all the skirt-twirling and castanet-clicking that one is so sick of.’
‘I know. But play it straight,’ she insisted. ‘I’m going to sing it that way.’
He did as she ordered. And, in her ‘dark velvet’ voice, she sang the song with the utmost simplicity. Not a note was exaggerated, not a shade of pathos was overdone. There was even a sort of desperate dignity about it. And at the end they both turned again to look at her, and Tom said in an awed tone, ‘She’s right, you know.’
‘But
we’re right too, in a way,’ Oliver said.
‘Of course you are! That’s why it has to be done both ways,’ declared Gail, on a sudden inspiration. ‘What is the scene, anyway? How were you going to use it?’
‘We hadn’t really decided.’ That was Tom. ‘It was to have a conventional Spanish background, of course. A sort of overdone act put on for the tourists. It was to be played for laughs, with everyone recognizing the sort of thing they expect to get on holiday but which has nothing to do with the real Spain. I don’t think, really, that it would bear the weight of a serious presentation, Gail.’
‘Yes, it would.’ She was thinking rapidly. ‘The girl who sings it does overdo it at first. It’s her big card for attracting the men. You can have what laughs you like in the way she makes fools of them. But then there’s someone she really wants, and he just walks past without even noticing her. Or perhaps he looks at her with distaste. And when they’ve all gone and she’s alone, she sings the song again. Exactly the same words and music. Only this time it means something that she’s never even realized herself before. It could be a heart-stopper, done that way.’
‘The girl’s a genius!’ Tom mopped his forehead with his handkerchief. ‘We’d better take her into partnership. I’m nearly sure she’s right. If we —’
Suddenly they were all three talking together and, with Oliver playing on the piano and Tom striking out words and substituting others on his battered piece of paper, they then and there worked out the song which was to capture all London in less than a year’s time.
It was late when Oliver took her home, and they walked hand in hand through the cool autumn night, while the stars seemed to lean out of heaven. And inevitably he kissed her goodnight when he left her.
Dead tired now and feeling a certain reaction from the excitement of the evening, Gail slowly climbed the stairs to her small attic flat, wondering quite seriously if she were in love with Oliver.
The next morning, in retrospect, the whole evening seemed a little mad and quite incredible. Had those numbers really been as brilliant and witty as they had seemed at the time? Was her suggestion about the Spanish item a stroke of genius or a rather silly gimmick?
As she ran through the rain to the church where she was to sing that morning, she asked herself these questions and found no answer. And as she sang her way with genuine feeling through one of the noblest of Bach’s airs, she felt faintly guilty about her performance the night before. It all seemed rather a long way from Bach! and she doubted if Madame Marburger would have approved.
But later, at home, while she washed her ‘smalls’ and sewed on a couple of buttons and wrote a long letter home, she paused from time to time to hum the Spanish air. And she knew instinctively that this was something people would love and remember, and associate always with some special occasion in their own lives.
For several days she heard nothing from Oliver. Then he telephoned and told her that he and Tom were so busy recasting some of their work and adding to it that he had no time for anything else.
‘You don’t mind, do you?’ he asked rather absently.
‘Not at all. I’m glad to know that inspiration is flowing so freely,’ she replied with a laugh.
‘It isn’t, really. Sometimes we’re terribly stuck, and then we quarrel like hell,’ Oliver admitted. ‘Then we remember how thrilled you were, and we decide it’s worthwhile going on. What are you doing?’
‘The usual.’ She was touched and pleased to have been of some use to the gifted couple. ‘Working hard and chasing the odd engagement. I’m off to a lesson now.’
‘Then go along, bless you. I won’t keep you.’ And he rang off so abruptly that Gail felt she was definitely of secondary interest at the moment. She didn’t hold it against him. She was sufficiently dedicated herself to understand that there were times when the dearest and most interesting person counted as nothing beside the pursuit of an artistic ideal.
When she arrived at Madame Marburger’s studio she became aware that her teacher was speaking to someone, and she hesitated outside the door, wondering if the previous pupil’s lesson had not quite ended. Then a deep, attractive, authoritative voice cut in and, suddenly recognizing it with an upsurge of excitement, Gail tapped on the door and went in.
Quentin Bannister was walking up and down, talking animatedly, while Elsa Marburger sat there listening to him with an odd mixture of amusement and respect.
‘Here she is!’ Quentin Bannister turned to Gail and took her hand. ‘We were talking about you, and I’m trying to persuade Madame Marburger that your talents lie much more in the direction of the theatre than the concert and oratorio platform.’
‘I am not entirely convinced.’ Madame Marburger smiled a little distantly. ‘But I see no reason why Gail shouldn’t avail herself of the opportunity you offer, and make an experimental digression into opera at this point. Will you explain to her?’
Quentin Bannister made a slightly impatient movement of his expressive hand, a little as though he deplored having to explain himself once he had made up his mind.
‘Gail already knows most of the situation,’ he said. But he turned to her then. ‘There is a strong probability of “The Exile” being put on in London in the near future,’ he explained. ‘And, in my view, you should be seriously considered for the part of Anya. As you know, Marc and I are not entirely at one on this. But he sees you only as you are now. Being much more experienced, I can see you as you would be after careful coaching. By the time we come to the real auditions I want you to be thoroughly prepared. Indeed —’ he smiled with a satisfied air — ‘I want you to be several jumps ahead of anyone else who applies and comes to it “cold” as it were.’
‘But is that quite fair?’ protested Gail. ‘Fair?’ Quentin Bannister repeated the word as though he found it entirely unacceptable. ‘What do you mean by fair? This isn’t some silly competition, with rules and regulations. It’s a professional audition, and you need to present yourself in the best light, which you certainly couldn’t do as you are now.’
‘Yes — I see,’ said Gail meekly.
‘Then don’t make stupid interruptions,’ he told her sharply. ‘I have brought you a copy of the score. There are only three or four of them as yet, so take care of it. I want you to learn the part, and I have arranged with your teacher that each one of your Tuesday lessons shall be on this work alone. I come to London on Tuesdays and shall be present at your lessons. And if I can’t convey to you more of this role than anyone else in London, I’m not the man I think I am.’
It was so patently — and engagingly — obvious that he thought himself capable of anything that both Gail and Elsa Marburger smiled at him and took him entirely at his own valuation.
‘Well —’ he held out both his hands to Elsa Marburger in a warm and expansive gesture — ‘I congratulate you, my dear, on the work you have done with this gifted child, and I rely on you to co-operate over this.’
Then he turned to Gail.
‘As for you, Gail, I promise nothing, of course, and you must not be disappointed if in the end the prize is not yours. The experience will be invaluable in any case.’
‘I know that. And I’m grateful.’ She put her hand into his.
‘Just one thing more.’ His hand tightened on hers as she was about to withdraw it. ‘This is a completely private matter between you and me and your admirable teacher. In a sense, I suppose you could say I am stealing a march on Marc. I prefer to put it that I am backing my own more experienced judgment against his, for his own ultimate good. I want him to hear you as you really can be before he makes the final judgment about the casting of his work. Is that understood?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Gail. And then, quite irrepressibly, she added, ‘You’re quite sure that you do know better than Marc about this?’
‘Why, of course,’ said Quentin Bannister simply. ‘And that’s why this small subterfuge is justified, and why I must ask you to say nothing whatever to Marc about it.’
‘That’s true. He completely underestimated you.’
Then he bade them both a courteous good-bye, and went on his triumphant way.
‘It must,’ said Elsa Marburger at last, ‘be very difficult to live with a genius.’
‘I was just thinking the same thing,’ replied Gail, and they both laughed. But then they became entirely serious and turned to examine the score of ‘The Exile’ together.
The original lesson lengthened into twice its usual extent and finally Madame Marburger said, ‘Go home now and put in some hard work on that first scene. What are you doing over the week-end?’
Gail had been hoping that Oliver and Tom Mallender were intending to see her at the week-end. But work — and the great opportunity — had to come first. So there was no more than a second’s pause before she said, ‘I’m more or less free.’
‘Then you had better come and see me on Saturday afternoon. By the time Mr. Bannister comes on Tuesday, you and I shall need to be pretty familiar with the early part of this work at least.’
With hardly a pang, Gail jettisoned the possibility of an inspiring afternoon with Oliver and Tom. Instead, she thanked her teacher for her willingness to give up her Saturday and, having carefully put away the precious score in her music case, she said good-bye and went out into the afternoon sunshine.
In her present state of excitement it was impossible to sit quietly on a bus. So she walked instead — from Regents Park down to Oxford Street. And all the way she was turning over in her mind the amazing thing which had happened to her — and the implications of Quentin Bannister’s arbitrary arrangement.
That she was incredibly lucky to have him take this interest in her was beyond question. If his judgment were right — and who was she to question the judgment of Quentin Bannister? — she would stand a very good chance of getting the role of Anya when the time came. What that could mean to her future career was something so dazzling that even the afternoon sunshine seemed to pale before such a prospect.
Music of the Heart (Warrender Saga Book 6) Page 6
