by Ekow Duker
‘Well, they can be more intricate than triangles or circles.’
Now this was more interesting. They’d be leaning forward in their chairs now without noticing they were doing so.
‘Actually, I see angels …’
No. It was better to leave out any mention of his synesthesia. It had only brought him misery in the past.
André moved out of the flat in Cricklewood as soon as he’d earned enough money. The landlady, whose name he’d discovered was Siobhan, was genuinely sorry to see him go.
‘I didn’t expect you to stay,’ she said the afternoon he left. He’d called an Uber and she’d insisted on waiting outside with him. ‘I wanted to play the cello myself but me dad, bless his black heart, didn’t see the point.’ She dabbed at her eyes with a tattered dishcloth. ‘I’m glad for you, Andrew, I really am.’ She looked wistfully down Cricklewood Broadway where a shuttered pub lurked in the distance. ‘Just to think I had a proper musician in my house and I never heard him play a note.’
She looked so upset that André felt contrite.
‘How about this?’ he said. He took his violin out of its case and began to play Beethoven’s fifth symphony in C minor, right there in the street. Siobhan crossed herself at the very first note and muttered to herself, her Irish accent suddenly much thicker than before. It wasn’t long before a small crowd gathered, drawn by the impromptu recital. Knots of hooded youths stood alongside mothers with prams. A pair of policemen in a patrol car cruised to a stop, as did an old woman with plastic shopping bags clutched in her liver-spotted hands. A few even put money in André’s violin case. He gathered up the notes and coins and gave them to Siobhan before he left.
‘God bless you, sir,’ she said. She crossed herself again. ‘You play like a saint, Andrew Potter. Like a fockin’ angel.’
Mrs Collins assigned André to a class of older students. In their late teens and early twenties, they were all already quite accomplished musicians who played with a drive and purpose that was markedly absent in the lower classes. A few of the students were South Korean. André referred to them privately as Park by the Window, Park at the Back, Park in the Front and Park Over There. But there was one English boy in his class and he caught André’s attention from the very first day.
His name was Nigel Summerscales and if his surname wasn’t memorable enough, his playing certainly was. He was a tall, pallid youth with an untidy shock of ginger hair that fell over his eyes in a style that was still fashionable. In class he could be as reticent as the Asians, rarely speaking up or offering an opinion. But he played the violin with such fury it was a wonder he didn’t do himself harm. Nigel Summerscales played everything from gypsy songs to Mozart’s Requiem Mass with the same frantic intensity. The mere act of picking up his violin seemed to stoke a blaze within him that burned fiercely right up until the last stanza.
Nigel could be rather gullible, however. Had he been younger, eight or nine years old perhaps, it might have been endearing. As it was, his callowness was invariably embarrassing. One of the Koreans, Park Over There, was forever pulling Nigel’s leg. One day he told Nigel he could introduce him to the members of an all-female K-Pop band that was touring the United Kingdom. But only if he wore a coat and tails to class. The members of the group were apparently set on meeting a real English gentleman. And, to the amusement of the class, Nigel showed up the next day dressed to the nines in a tailcoat and white tie. There was something blundering and undeniably tragic about Nigel Summerscales.
One afternoon, as the students were putting their instruments away, André went across to him.
‘Do you mind?’ André asked. He lifted Nigel’s violin out of its case without waiting for permission. ‘This is a really beautiful instrument, Nigel,’ André said with undisguised appreciation. He held the violin away from him, sighting down the neck as if it was a fencing foil. ‘Where did you get it?’
Nigel looked around before answering.
‘My father bought it for me.’
‘I see. Is your father a musician too?’
Nigel laughed, a hoarse staccato bark that could have passed for a cough. ‘He’s in the army. He bought it on auction in Italy.’
His clothes were rather shabby and, André realised, not at all in keeping with his refined diction. His shirt was missing a button and his black stovepipe trousers came to a premature end a few inches above his ankles. But his shoes were smart and brightly polished, like a soldier would wear on parade.
‘There’s no need to be embarrassed by that, Nigel,’ André said, a little pompously. ‘Violins are not like property. They’re never tainted by the vulgarity of an auction. If anything, they’re enhanced by it.’
Nigel gave a thin smile of assent. Their conversation was teetering on the edge of awkwardness.
André gave Nigel’s shoulder a squeeze. ‘You’re a fine musician, Nigel,’ he said. ‘Let me know if there’s any particular help you need.’
As André walked away through the music stands and out the door, he was strangely conscious of Nigel’s eyes on him. Now that he lived on his own and was far from home, he’d begun to cruise again, frequenting the parks and bars where other like-minded men could be found. He despised himself for doing this but the urge was much too strong. He only did it in lieu of seeing the engele. They came to him so rarely these days. He longed for the indescribable thrill that consumed him whenever they appeared but the more they stayed away, the more frantic he became. The men he chose were generally lithe and with a chiselled musculature. Men who exuded an electric virility. In other words, men who looked like the engele themselves.
On the cruising circuit, André came to be known as The Violinist. The name was often said with more scorn than affection. Naked, he would get on all fours and place his violin on the ground, plucking the strings with his fingers while a man he’d just met held his hips and thrust himself into him. Or he might sprawl on his back across the bonnet of a car with his violin and his bow in his hands, weeping uncontrollably while a stranger fucked him. And when he wept, his partners mistook his tears for wonder at their prowess. They preened and strutted before André, offering him words of false consolation. They could not know the anguish he felt, for the engele did not come.
In time André began to suspect the angels had simply tired of his violin. It was a decent violin but not exceptional by any means. The notes were lively enough but far from brilliant. They lacked the sensuous lustre of a Stradivarius, a del Gesù or a Guadagnini. He wished he’d be able, one day, to afford an instrument by one of the master luthiers from Cremona but instruments like that went for millions of pounds. Not even Sylvanus Pieterse’s violins sold for that much.
One Sunday afternoon, while André was walking in a park in Islington, he saw an older man sitting on a bench. André recognised him immediately as Eduard Zöllner, the celebrated Austrian concert violinist. Herr Zöllner was in his late fifties with heavy black-rimmed spectacles and a silver ponytail that dangled down his back. André went up and introduced himself and they sat together in conversation. They spoke for several minutes, with Herr Zöllner bashfully deflecting André’s glowing praise in heavily accented English. André had read somewhere that Zöllner owned a three-hundred-year-old Guaneri violin. He was beside himself when Herr Zöllner invited him back to his hotel to play it.
They took a black cab to The Strand and André let the older man rest his hand on his thigh. By the time the cab pulled up in front of The Savoy, André was in a state of nervous excitement. He declined Herr Zöllner’s offer for them to first have a drink in the American Bar. It was the Austrian’s way of offering him a way out should he wish to pull back.
‘It is too early in the day anyway for a drink,’ the musician said with a smile. He took André’s elbow and steered him towards the lift. Herr Zöllner’s room, fresh and light and with Edwardian furniture and fittings, overlooked the twist in the Thames. And when he brought out the Guaneri, André could barely bring himself to touch it, it was
so painfully bewitching.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ Herr Zöllner said gently. ‘It had the same effect on me the first time I held it.’
He stepped behind André and began kneading his shoulders, his fingers strong and persistent. André could feel the man’s erection hard against his buttocks.
The angels appeared the moment André played the very first note. They swept in from Westminster, their wings flapping powerfully and with steely purpose. Their flight followed the curve of the river past the London Eye. They were hovering outside the window with their arms locked in formation before the note had died away. André exploded in a violent orgasm that left him doubled over and panting and Herr Zölllner muttering that he really needed to learn self-control.
André stayed away from the South Africans he came across in London, preferring to keep largely to himself. He didn’t enjoy the banter around their obligatory braais and took particular offence to being called ‘bru’. This was done with such tin-eared insistence, one would think the letters B, R and U were tattooed in blue ink across his forehead.
He developed a lingering anxiety of not being English enough, as though he were an imposter waiting to be caught out. Sometimes he called himself Andrew Potter instead of André Potgieter and the South Africans thought him somehow deficient for that. In their eyes, the act of anglicising a perfectly good Afrikaner name marked him down as affected and unreliable. They chaffed him mercilessly because of that.
After he left Siobhan’s bedsit, André had found a ground-floor flat just off the Finchley Road in Golders Green. And when he went to the library, he half expected the librarian to glance up at him over the top of her glasses and say in a mildly amused voice, ‘It’s Potgieter, isn’t it? Not Potter.’
CHAPTER 20
Mrs Collins gave André a small office on the first floor overlooking the quadrangle. Unlike the quadrangle, which was verdant with green ivy, André’s office was rather spartan in comparison. The wooden desk had been poorly assembled from a flat pack and listed awkwardly to one side. Copper pipes that served no apparent purpose protruded from the wall like the veins of a large animal. There were no books on the bookshelf, just a rolled up Manet print with a rubber-band around the middle. It looked suspiciously like it had once been a washroom. And if André had been in any doubt about that, the basin in the corner and the white ceramic tiles gave it away.
Mrs Collins had been more than apologetic and offered to move him as soon as a more suitable office was freed up. But André didn’t really mind. In any case, it was unlikely another office would become available anytime soon. The teachers at Saint Anthony’s clung to their offices like limpets to the side of a rock. He realised how extraordinarily fortunate he’d been to get this job in the first place. A larger than normal intake of students in the past few years had stretched the college’s capacity to its limit and Mrs Collins thought it wise to redistribute some of the workload. Essentially, Saint Anthony’s had created a new position for him. The pay was very good and the work was undemanding. André’s students were a joy to teach and his colleagues, with the exception of Mr Harper, were generally very pleasant.
One morning André was busy marking exam papers when he heard a knock at his door. He looked up to see Joanna Myrie.
‘May I come in?’
Joanna Myrie was older than André and although she taught the cello, had the ample proportions of a double bass.
André pushed the exam papers to one side. ‘Of course, Joanna. How can I help you?’
He motioned her to sit but she declined with a rapid shake of her head.
‘There’s a parent downstairs to see you,’ Joanna said. ‘She’s in the Amadeus room.’
She made expansive movements of her hands as she spoke. It was as if she were doing the weather report on television and it was forty-five degrees in Damascus.
André’s brow furrowed. ‘The Amadeus room? She must be important.’
The meeting rooms at Saint Anthony’s were named after great composers and were furnished in keeping with the composer’s stature. The Amadeus room was the most luxurious of all.
‘Did you see who it was?’ he asked,
Joanna Myrie shook her head. She was wearing a white cotton dress instead of her usual pair of jeans and had applied her makeup with delicate care. Her hair was swept back to reveal a diamond stud in each ear.
‘Well, thank you for delivering the message,’ André said hurriedly. ‘You really didn’t have to come all this way. You could have called from reception.’
‘I was coming upstairs anyway,’ said Joanna. She hesitated as if there was something else she needed to say, but by the time she’d readied herself André was already at the door.
He expected to find one of the Asian mothers waiting for him, the South Korean ambassador’s wife perhaps. He tried to remember which of the students had the South Korean ambassador for a father but couldn’t decide between Park Over There and Park at the Back. He’d have to wing it and try not to mention the student’s name until his mother did. André had never, in fact, been in the Amadeus room before. He ran his hand over his hair before he pushed the door open.
A well-dressed woman rose smoothly to her feet and stepped forward to greet him.
‘Good morning, Mr Potgieter,’ she said, extending a veined and jewelled hand. She spoke with the assurance of a woman with old money. ‘I’m Susan Summerscales. Nigel’s mother.’
As they shook hands, the pearls around her wrist chattered softly as if in assent. She motioned to André to sit and remained standing until he had done so. Then she sat across from him with her knees pressed together and her hands resting in the linen well between her legs.
‘It’s very good to meet you, Mrs Summerscales,’ said André. ‘I must say I’m very pleased with Nigel. In fact he’s doing splendidly.’
Since moving to London, he’d taken to sprinkling his conversation with spurious exclamations. They conveyed little meaning but he thought they made him sound more English.
‘He hasn’t dressed up in a tailcoat again, has he?’ Mrs Summerscales raised her eyebrows.
‘I see you heard about that,’ André murmured. ‘No harm was done, Mrs Summerscales. It was nothing more than a schoolboy prank.’
‘I’m afraid my son lacks a certain degree of worldliness,’ Mrs Summerscales said with a frown. ‘But I’m not here to talk about Nigel.’
‘Of course.’ André felt foolish all of a sudden. If she were not here to talk about Nigel, then he had no idea why she had come.
‘Are you looking for lessons?’ he asked. ‘For yourself perhaps?’
She gave him a sardonic smile and took a biscuit from the gilded plate on the table in front of her. She did not answer him for a while and looked at him as if she were weighing him up.
‘I’m not at all musically inclined, Mr Potgieter. It is Potgieter, isn’t it? I wasn’t sure if it was Potter or Potgieter but I suppose Potgieter suits you much better.’
André felt the heat rise to his face and he squirmed in his seat. Her directness made him self-conscious. With a nonchalance he hardly felt, he replied: ‘Some people find Potgieter difficult to pronounce. Potter or Potgieter. It’s all the same to me.’
‘I beg to differ, Mr Potgieter,’ Mrs Summerscales said. ‘Names are terribly important. You shouldn’t be exchanging yours for something as common as Potter. It would be such a poor trade, don’t you think?’
André flushed and looked towards the window, where the slats of the wooden blinds were burnished by the autumn sun. He wished he were back in the fields around Mthatha. Back there he knew who he was.
‘How may I help you, Mrs Summerscales?’ he asked.
Nigel’s mother clasped her hands together and André noticed how stark her knuckles were against her skin.
‘Can I trust you, Mr Potgieter?’
The question took André by surprise. ‘Of course you can,’ he said.
‘Nigel speaks very highly of you, by the way. I can
see how he’s come along since you took over his class.’
‘There is music in us all,’ André said gravely, repeating the Saint Anthony’s motto. The statement was somewhat disingenuous because the college served only a privileged few.
‘I want to sell my violin,’ Mrs Summerscales said abruptly. Then she sighed heavily, as if the mere act of saying the words had exhausted her.
‘There are many fine dealers in London, Mrs Summerscales. I can certainly recommend a few.’
Mrs Summerscales shook her head and a wisp of grey-blonde hair whipped about her face.
‘I’d rather not go that route, if you don’t mind,’ she said.
André recognised the look on her face. It was the same frightened defiance he’d seen in his father’s friends when the kaffirs marched in the street and threatened to take their land away.
‘The top dealers are very discreet,’ he murmured. ‘Your name need not be mentioned at all.’
Mrs Summerscales smiled at him as if he were a child who knew very little about the world.
‘I’m afraid I’m not the most popular person in London, at least not within my circles. I might as well take out an ad in The Times inviting people to a garage sale at my house. That would cause a great deal of amusement, I can assure you.’
André imagined he saw a glint of desperation in her eyes.
‘I was hoping that, as a foreigner in the music profession,’ she went on, ‘you might be able to arrange a private sale to a discerning overseas buyer. Someone far removed from the backbiting and chatter of London.’
‘I’m afraid my acquaintances are not that wealthy, Mrs Summerscales. I assume it is a violin of some importance?’
Mrs Summerscales nodded.
‘Can you describe it to me?’ he asked gently.
‘It’s a Guadagnini.’
André drew a sharp breath and sat up in his chair. ‘A Guadagnini? Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure. It’s been in my family for decades.’
‘But why on earth would you want to sell it?’ he asked.
