Jelly was weeping onto a pile of unopened post. ‘How… how long did they… ?’
‘I may be all right for a while, especially if I go for the surgery. I may see this Christmas, but as for the one after, who can say… ’
His equanimity astounded her. ‘When can I see you?’
‘If there’s any time you could come to Ireland… I’m afraid I’m unlikely to be up to the crossing. And if you do… well, I can’t promise to be the best company.’
Jelly grabbed the diary out of Anna’s top drawer. Her spring was chock-full of concerts, all over the country – Torquay, Oxford, Bournemouth, the Wigmore Hall – and in a horrible irony she had to go to Belfast, but needed to come straight home the next day. Some musicians, Jelly knew, would cancel concerts with impunity. She never had. People invest time and effort in going to listen to you; you can’t let them down. ‘There has to be a time.’
‘Jelly… it’s all right, you know.’
A pause. She knew what he was trying to tell her: if she went, she would be going to say goodbye.
She’d never said goodbye to Sep. He vanished back to France when his leave was over, and that was that.
‘Listen… ’ he said. ‘Please don’t feel you have any obligation towards me. I’ve never wanted to hold you back. Certainly not now. You understand?’
She could scarcely say that perhaps he could have tried harder to hold her back. That it wasn’t fair that she should have to endure him dying as well as Sep and her parents and too many friends, and that he was not only too young to die, but too good, too kind. And that to break off now what little there was between them would compound the unendurable with the inexplicable. ‘Isn’t there something I can do?’ she pleaded, skirting the issue. ‘Anything I can send you, anything that will help, even just a little bit?’
‘Yes,’ he said, after a moment’s thought. ‘Jelly, dearest girl, will you promise me one thing? Whatever happens – don’t change. Stay true to yourself, no matter what it takes. You are the best, brightest star in my firmament, you know that.’
‘And you in mine… ’ Their relationship was not really a relationship; it was a friendship blended with a might-have-been. Yet now that it must end, the lack of fulfilment hit home.
‘You couldn’t belong to me,’ he said. ‘You belong to your music. You have so much to give, so much love and joy for everyone who hears you. Don’t be distracted. It’s your true purpose and it will make you immortal. And then I can die happy, knowing you will, in a manner of speaking, live for ever. That’s all I want, my dear.’
Anna looked round the door, but stopped short, seeing Jelly in tears.
Jelly put down the phone. ‘Tom’s dying,’ she said.
*
Jelly knew that without Adila, Alec and little Adrienne, and Anna too, she’d be adrift in a hostile ocean, holding on to one tiny plank of violin to stay afloat. It was ten years since her mother had died; her father, left behind in Budapest decades ago, was a more recent, still seismic loss. The friends to whom she could turn in difficult times were at some distance. Donald Tovey lived partly in Norfolk, partly in Edinburgh; Myra Hess, her pianist duo partner, was in St John’s Wood, but spent months every year on tour in America; George was, of course, in Dublin.
The grief assailing Jelly now was not something she would choose to inflict on any of them.
‘You should have married him while you could,’ said Adila unhelpfully, clasping Jelly to her jewel-clad bosom. ‘Shall I not go to the party? You shouldn’t be alone tonight.’
‘No, you must go. Please, Adi. He’s still alive, so there’s still hope. There has to be hope.’
‘I’m here,’ Alec said, attentive and concerned. He would be busy, of course; his legal paperwork was interminable now there was anxiety that Japan might leave the League of Nations. He told his family little about his work, especially that for the League – partly because he was not supposed to talk about it. If Adila or Jelly pressed him for news, he would keep it brief, for instance explaining only that the new government in Germany was not well liked.
‘I’ll look after her,’ Anna promised. ‘Jelly, why don’t we go out to eat, just the two of us?’
*
Around 8, they drove to Soho for dinner at Kettner’s, Jelly’s favourite restaurant; the oak panelling and slender staircases reassured her with their very familiarity. They picked a table by a generous window that gave them a vantage point overlooking Romilly Street, then ordered cocktails as a treat. Jelly distracted herself by telling Anna about dining here with Maurice Ravel, chattering in French, enjoying champagne and feeling somewhat underdressed, so elegantly attired was he; and about the night, after a concert and the ensuing party, when she’d ended up playing Ravel all the Gypsy music she remembered from Budapest. Soon afterwards, he’d told her he was writing her a new piece, provisionally called Tzigane.
‘So, I say I’ll play his piece,’ Jelly said, gulping her White Lady, ‘and he says “wohnderful, you must give the premiere at the Wigmore Hall!” And the premiere is booked, and the seats are sold. But where’s my piece? You know when he sends it to me? Three days before the concert. Three days, can you imagine?’
‘Yes, Jelly.’ Anna had heard the story at least 20 times, possibly 200.
Tzigane sounded desperately difficult. Ravel had been far from sure it was playable, despite giving Jelly only 72 hours to perfect it. ‘It’s not so hard once you know it,’ Jelly said. ‘But I didn’t!’
Normally at this point she would laugh. Yet tonight the fragility of that experience seemed not silly, but alarming. Supposing she hadn’t succeeded? Supposing she had messed up the world premiere of Tzigane? Ravel wouldn’t have been blamed; she would. The critics might not know what to make of the piece, but they’d have recognised second-rate violin playing. What a precipice she had lived on without even noticing. How much she took for granted – had she learned nothing from losing Sep?
‘Jelly, why didn’t you marry Tom?’ asked Anna. ‘I think you love him – or you did once?’
‘Darling, of course I love him. I love everyone.’ The tears in Jelly’s eyes made a fairground mirror distortion of Anna’s face. ‘There’s no point thinking about it, not now.’
Supposing she’d married him after all, ten, fifteen years ago, and they’d had a little Adrienne of their own, or several? She’d have had to stop playing professionally. She’d have been Lady Monteagle, wife of a diplomat, an aristocrat. She’d be seen as a strange person with bizarre Hungarian origins, the daughter of a policeman, a woman who once upon a time used to be a famous musician – how shocking in those circles. Everything she had worked for would have been worthless. And after he was gone their children would have spent the rest of their lives missing him…
‘Jelly!’ Anna passed her a handkerchief. ‘Hush now! Your imagination’s running wild.’
‘But you know I’m right. It’s not possible to be a female musician and be married. It simply is not. Except for Adi, of course, but she’s an exception, and Alec’s an exceptional husband, letting her keep playing.’
‘But… ’ Anna was holding a forkful of baked fish and gratin dauphinois poised between plate and mouth. ‘Don’t you want to be married someday, Jelly?’
‘Why, darling? You do, don’t you?’
‘Well… I think it’s natural to want a home, children, security… ’
Jelly paused. With Anna in the mood for domestic yearning, which was fair enough for any girl her age, she didn’t want to reveal the image that the word ‘marriage’ usually conjured for her: a goose-down pillow pressed over the nose and mouth. But to lose Tom… She could still see, too, the possibility she had sacrificed.
‘Since Sep, I just… have had other things I wanted to do,’ she said aloud. ‘And you see, I have a home, and a child – she’s my niece, but I couldn’t love her more if she were my own daughter.’
*
Walking back to the car, Jelly felt weighed down, more by anxiety than by g
ood food. ‘You know, I never ate much when we were young,’ she confessed, to entertain Anna. ‘My father used to tell me I was the ugly one of the three of us. Perhaps I was afraid I’d be even uglier if I put on weight.’
‘Oh Jelly, that’s awful. You’re so gorgeous!’
‘Maybe I was at your age… ’ Jelly smiled, keeping at bay the awareness of her looming big birthday. ‘It’s very funny, really. He used to say I was the ugliest and the best of his daughters. And I always thought that if I believed one part of that, I had to believe the other as well.’
Over central London a crescent moon dangled, seeping out silver. The theatres had not yet finished, so the pavements of Soho were quiet except for a few dark-coated figures walking dogs under the street lamps, which were dimmer than those in surrounding areas because the wattage here was three times lower. Inside the little restaurants, lively with the staff’s Italian and Greek banter, diners were finishing meals and enjoying a smoke over coffee or brandy. Jelly caught snippets of conversation, plus the tip-tip of high heels and walking sticks against the paving stones.
Tables stood empty, though. Shops she remembered had gone out of business, several nightclubs too, since the Depression had hit the capital; wooden boards, nailed at random angles, barred windows and doors. In the shadows, along the side streets, another type of woman still waited and hoped. ‘There’s still a demand for that in a depression,’ Anna remarked as they passed, trying not to stare at exposed shoulders, lacy stockings or the excessive make-up designed to hide the ravages life left on these women’s faces. Jelly felt sorry for them. Some of her friends had no patience for that sympathy, but she was convinced nobody would take such a path except out of dire need. Few women had the mix of education, determination and good fortune that could lead them into careers. If their families lacked money, or gambled or drank it away, if they had no job, if they were not fortunate enough to marry, what alternative was there? And there would be children they could not afford… what then? Death at the hands of a back-street abortionist? Unless you were born into the right strand of society, you had scant hope of a decent life in this peculiarly brutal country.
That meant many things, as Jelly had learned long ago. She still sometimes had nightmares about the moment shortly before the war when she was performing in a salon concert and spotted surreptitious sneers cross the faces of two Lady Somebodies, one making a small yet unmistakeable gesture involving her nose. Jelly had expected that it was one’s musicianship that counted, not one’s racial or religious background. Her innocence burned dry. Unlike Hungary, where viciousness was virtually paraded, England tried to keep its own two-faced brand of cruelty hidden.
Yet even being born into the uppermost strand of everything could not protect Tom, the kindest and dearest of men, from the slow-motion illness that was defeating him.
*
The house in Netherton Grove lay quiet, the daffodils in the front garden glimmering in the moonlight. ‘Come in and have some coffee?’ Jelly suggested.
‘It’s quite late – are you sure?’ Anna glanced at her watch.
‘Of course, and I’ll send you home in a cab later, whenever you like.’
‘Maybe a quick cup.’ Anna smiled and followed Jelly inside. Upstairs, Adrienne was asleep, and from the big bedroom, Jelly could hear the soft snoring of her brother-in-law.
Jelly and Anna settled in the drawing room with a pot of coffee and some delicate porcelain cups that had belonged to Jelly’s mother. The piano was closed, and on a side table stood a bouquet of tiger lilies, a trophy from Adila’s latest concert, spicing the wooden floor with crimson pollen.
‘I miss my mother so much.’ Jelly filled Anna’s cup. ‘She always knew the best thing to say and do. They say only the good die young… Do you sometimes feel that everyone has gone?’
‘I can see how you would,’ Anna admitted. ‘Your mother and father, and Sep, and… ’
The prospect of Tom joining this list cut through Jelly. She could cancel everything and go to him now; perhaps marry him, even though it was too late to build a life together. Or she could accept his exhortations to stay away and concentrate on her music. If only there were wise words to be found. If only she had known where she really stood with Sep before he had been killed.
‘You know – I was thinking… ’
‘What, Jelly?’
‘Don’t laugh, but we could try the glass game.’
Anna recoiled a little. ‘You want to do that? Are you sure?’
‘Perhaps there’d be advice. Even – my mother?’ She tried to smile, to hide the pain she experienced at the notion of her beloved mama trying to reach her through a moving tumbler – or Sep doing so. Tom’s words expanded in her mind: be true to yourself, true to your vocation. Glass games were not true to anything Jelly held dear; but Adila made it look so easy…
‘I didn’t think you believed in it,’ said Anna.
‘I don’t.’ Jelly gave a laugh. ‘It’s just a distraction. Perhaps we’ll ask questions only for you. About the nice young man you mentioned the other day?’
Anna nodded, her expression unreadable.
Jelly fetched from Adila’s bureau a set of small letter cards, which they used for word games, and laid them out alphabetically in a circle on the dining room table. In the centre she set in place an upended tumbler. A scratch and whine at the door revealed Caesar, who should have been in his basket by the back door, but had begun to hanker for company on hearing their voices. She let him in; he lay across her feet and thumped his tail before going to sleep, nose on paws.
Next she scrawled ‘Yes’, ‘No’ and ‘Goodbye’ on pieces of paper ripped from a notebook, barely legible in her strange, wide-lettered writing. As a child in Hungary she had gone to school for only eight days; each time she’d cried so much that eventually her mother could stand it no longer and kept her home. After that, Jelly played her violin to her heart’s content.
They lit a sole candle; the rest of the room disappeared into the night, while an island of creamy gold highlighted the whorls in the wooden surface. Now this seemed a cavern fit for other-worldly activities. The two women sat opposite one another, exchanging smiles to conceal their nerves.
‘Ready, darling?’ Jelly said, to reassure herself as much as Anna. ‘So, let’s sit quietly and clear our minds… ’
They waited, each with one finger on the glass, silent, focusing. The candle flame flickered in Jelly’s exhalations.
‘Do we need to invoke something?’ Anna whispered.
Jelly thought of Mary Southern’s opening invitation. ‘Hello, is there anyone of friendly intent who would like to talk to us?’
Twenty seconds more went by in stillness. Perhaps it wasn’t going to work? Then, beneath her fingertip, Jelly felt a slip of energy, like the prickle of an electric current.
The glass gave an unmistakable shift. Jelly and Anna breathed and waited. It moved, first left, then right – and was still.
Anna took a deep breath. ‘Is Mrs Antoinette d’Arányi there, please?’
‘Darling, don’t ask for my mama. It’s not a telephone… ’
Jelly was becoming aware of heat gathering in the centre of her palms – a concentration of some intensity, first a superficial tingling, then gradually digging deeper and deeper. Soon her hands seemed to be pierced through with a thousand pins, and around the central spots, numbness began to spread through her fingers and the muscles at the side of her palms. Before she could say anything, let alone make a break for safety, the glass started to glide along the table.
It circled the letters once, twice, and yet again; then swerved towards G and on to its next choice, apparently galvanised by a propulsive force that Jelly knew was not hers and, to judge from Anna’s frightened eyes, could scarcely belong to her, either. Anna, left forefinger on the tumbler, noted down letter after letter. Jelly, transfixed, was wondering what was happening to her hands. Wasn’t this what occurred when someone received stigmata? Yet there was no sig
n of blood – only the bizarre impression that someone had plugged electrodes into her palms.
In due course they derived from the glass one simple phrase: ‘Glad to see you’ – which was almost the same as the Eastbourne incident.
‘Is that Jelly’s mother?’
The glass slid towards ‘no’. Then, before either of them could ask a question, it plunged onwards, letter by agonising letter, forcing their concentration.
Anna noted down the sequence. ‘This is a little strange.’
The glass slowed and ceased its motion, leaving them to read back the transcript – once, twice… five times.
‘No?’ Jelly stared into Anna’s eyes, feeling winded.
‘I’m not seeing things,’ Anna said. ‘Are you reading this the same way?’
‘Does it say what it seems to?’ The closest approximation to the letters appeared to be: ‘A composer seeks your aid’.
Anna was moistening her lips; Jelly reached out to give her hand a reassuring press and found it chilly with fright. Part of her wanted to switch on the light and declare all of this, in best Donald Tovey fashion, nuff and stonsense. Could the composer perhaps be Sep Kelly? The pressure in her palms was becoming almost painful. She thought she could make out, in the candlelight, a pink spot in the centre of her free hand, as if she had held it over a flame for a moment too long.
She heard herself speaking, doing the one thing she had intended not to do: asking questions that were not for Anna, ‘Please, in what way does this composer seek my aid?’
The glass began to move even faster, as it might for Adila. It was many long minutes before it finally came to rest.
‘He left the earth before you were born,’ Anna read out. ‘He would like you to find a piece and play it. It has not been played for many years.’
They looked at each other in fear and wonder.
‘This is crazy,’ said Jelly. ‘It talks in sentences?’
‘I want to stop,’ said Anna. ‘It’s too strange. Please, Jelly, can’t we put on the light now?’
Ghost Variations Page 3
