The Virtuoso

by Sonia Orchard

  Noël was the first person to leap up from his seat, his face scarlet, straight towards Walter as if he were about to strangle him.

  ‘Walter, you bloody fool! You brought me in too early!’

  I turned my head to avoid witnessing the scene, wanting to slink outside, but worried that if I moved Noël might turn his wrath on me. A moment later I looked back and the commotion had completely blown over; Walter and Noël were laughing, and Noël was slapping his big hand on the little conductor’s back.

  ‘I say,’ Noël called out, turning to the technician who sat next to me in the booth. ‘It’s awfully stuffy in here—do you suppose you could fetch us all some water?’

  The recording was completed in one more take, Noël packed up, spoke to Walter and several of the musicians and singers, then joined me in the booth, shaking my hand and picking up his coat.

  ‘So how’d it sound in there?’ he asked, lighting a cigarette as we stepped out on to the street.

  I couldn’t ever recall him appealing for any feedback; on the contrary, he usually seemed to forget about a performance as soon as it had finished.

  ‘It went all right, I suppose.’ I was still bothered by his outburst—that he could have behaved so unprofessionally. ‘The sound was a bit tinny though, a bit thin,’ I said, digging my hands into my pockets and looking straight up the street, as if it really didn’t matter anyway.

  ‘You thought so? Yes, I was wondering…’

  ‘And the tempo seemed to lag a bit at times.’

  I’m not sure what came over me, why I said the things I said, why the music now sounded so terrible to me. But my mood had sunk and they were the only comments I could think to make. I didn’t feel like going out for a drink with Noël any more; I regretted coming along, and in the silence that followed each of my remarks I thought about heading home.

  Noël offered to take me out to dinner; I shrugged and nodded, holding on to my sour mood as if it had been ordained upon me. We took the train to Oxford Circus; Noël chose a French restaurant on Berwick Street, close to my digs—I knew immediately what he was up to—and after two courses and a bottle of wine, he led me around the corner to a quiet basement bar that was filled with wooden tables in small nooks, dimly lit by red lanterns. The staff all addressed Noël by name, and within moments of our taking a table an ice bucket and bottle of champagne arrived beside us.

  ‘I’ve started writing an article for Musical Review on the Immortal Beloved,’ I said, leaning back in my chair and looking about the room as if I’d be just as happy sitting at any other of the tables, where pairs of well-heeled gentlemen sipped wine, smoked cigars and allowed the food sitting in front of them to grow cold. ‘Gerald thinks there’d be interest in me writing a book on the subject, but I don’t know that I could be bothered,’ I lied—I’m not sure why.

  There has always been ongoing debate in musical circles about the mysterious love letter found in a locked drawer in Beethoven’s apartment on the afternoon following his death, thought to have been written by the composer fifteen years earlier. In the letter, Beethoven expresses delirious passion for the woman to whom he wrote, Unsterbliche Geliebte—his Immortal Beloved. Given that Beethoven was considered to have been a loner, without ever having had a single serious romantic relationship, the letter is one of the most intriguing personal documents in musical history. Every now and again, such as had happened recently, someone would stir up a controversy, claiming they’d uncovered proof of the identity of this enigmatic woman.

  ‘Really? My money’s on Therese Brunsvik, the one whose portrait he kept in the secret drawer. Unless you’re going to suggest someone else?’

  ‘No, I haven’t a clue who she was. I actually don’t even want to know.’ I flicked my cigarette in the ashtray and smiled, beginning to perk up a bit. ‘It’s far more romantic that way.’

  ‘How very Wagner of you,’ Noël laughed.

  ‘I do find it fascinating that we presume to know every square inch of Beethoven’s life.’ I waved my cigarette around in the air as I spoke, feeling quite theatrical. ‘We know his favourite lines in Homer, Virgil and Shakespeare; that he ate goulash at the White Swan restaurant each night and once threw his meal at a waiter and that the gravy dripped down the man’s face. We’ve all heard that Prince Lichnowsky constantly visited him to hear him play, and how the prince would be locked out and made to sit on the steps with the servants. There’s little of his life that we can’t account for. Yet the one thing that supposedly meant more to him than almost anything else: his love for a person whom he called his true home, who made him both the happiest and the unhappiest of mortals—we know nothing about this at all.’ I fixed my gaze on Noël as I slumped back in my chair, my jacket hanging wide open, suddenly imagining his naked body seated opposite me, and everything I’d like to do to him that very moment.

  Noël sat back, drawing on his cigarette, squinting at me through the smoke. ‘Perhaps he never sent the letter; perhaps she didn’t even know how he felt. That’s often the way with these things,’ he smiled.

  ‘Perhaps. Anyway, I don’t believe her actual identity matters. She might as well have been his maid, a character from a book he’d read, or his so-called heavenly muse.’ I wasn’t at all sure if I believed what I was saying myself, but the idea seemed compelling. What’s more, I was drunk and having fun holding court. I put my glass down and looked over to the bar, where a young waiter in waistcoat and bow tie stood alone polishing wine glasses, completely absorbed in thought. ‘In fact, I’m not sure the Immortal Beloved even existed. I think he made her all up. Life was too goddamn wretched without her.’

  Noël laughed out loud, one hand resting on the table and tossing his head back. I laughed as well—I didn’t care if I sounded ridiculous. I’d have been happy to argue my newfound resolution all night.

  The waiter informed us of last drinks, and when our second bottle of champagne came to an end, I started fiddling around in my pockets as if preparing to leave. A look of panic shot across Noël’s eyes. As I stood and walked to the door I could feel him close behind, the hairs on my neck prickling upright.

  We headed towards Oxford Circus, without discussing where we were going. I was walking towards my place and assumed he was coming. We stumbled along, neither of us saying a word. I regretted that I hadn’t dragged him into the Gents at the bar when I was feeling frisky and full of myself earlier on. I was now in one of my drunk, maudlin moods, which seems absurd looking back, given that I was finally—as an adult—taking him back to my digs. It wasn’t the fear of rejection that dampened my spirits this time, but more a tired resignation to the roles we were both performing. I saw us acting parts in a play, charged with lines and emotions, carrying out an inevitable plot from which afterwards we’d both walk away. It seemed so overly rehearsed. I longed not just for the Noël of eight years earlier, who would have laughed and joked all the way down the street, but also for the old me, who might have found some source of beauty in the moment. Even the physical closeness between us failed to prick my senses; it only served to accentuate the gulf that yawned open, and highlight the thought that fleetingly punctured my inebriated mind: that it was only in this broken-down, desperate state that the two of us would ever meet.

  The fog prevented us seeing too far down the street. With our heads tucked into our shoulders we were focused on the glistening cobblestones at our feet when the polished black boots and stiff navy-blue trousers stepped out of the mist and into our path. Suddenly two men appeared like a wall in front of us.

  ‘Evening, ladies—what are you two girls doing out so late, then?’ spoke one of the officers. His face was hidden in the shadow cast by the streetlight on his helmet and the cloudlike vapour that emerged from below his moustache when he spoke. I could detect a clamped grin.

  I bowed my head and stared at the ground as I ran through the evening, as if having to scour it clean of any incriminating evidence. Even though I realised the entire day had been free of anything th
at might be considered improper, my guilt seemed irrefutable.

  ‘Just on our way back from the Wigmore, officer,’ Noël said, like a well-mannered schoolboy. Even though I was surprised to hear him needlessly lie, his voice was so assured that it seemed the Wigmore was precisely where we’d been. He was clearly far more sober than I.

  ‘Don’t I know you?’ the policeman said. He squinted, studying Noël’s face, and I almost laughed with momentary relief. What extraordinary fortune, I thought, to be pulled up by a music lover.

  ‘You’re a chum of Montagu’s and his crowd, aren’t you?’

  I’d heard that name; it trembled through me before I’d even registered who it was. Montagu and Wildeblood: I’d seen them in the paper—everyone had—these depraved godless creatures who committed such abominable acts, who must be cleansed from our streets. Men from the highest echelons of society—whom I’m sure I’d seen, probably met, at parties and bars—and now victims of the Great Purge. They were hauling in a dozen men a week, putting offenders on trial and sending them out to Wormwood Scrubs for hard labour; I’d heard tales from all around town, of men who one day simply didn’t turn up to work, and rumours of what had become of them. I’d read these stories in the safety of my room, sitting there at my table with the gramophone playing, looking at their faces staring out from the pages, imagining what horrors these poor men endured.

  ‘Heard about them in the paper, officer, but I wouldn’t recognise them if they were standing right here in front of me.’ A hint of a smile crept across his lips.

  ‘Your name?’

  ‘Noël Mewton-Wood.’

  Ah!—just the memory of the way he stood there staring straight into the eyes of the policeman and spoke his own name with such cool assurance still sends a shiver straight through me.

  ‘And what do you do, Mr Wood? When you’re not drinking at disreputable bars and corrupting young men, with no thought of God or country?’

  ‘Mewton-Wood, officer. I’m a concert pianist.’

  The second policeman, who’d said nothing up until now, burst into laughter.

  ‘My colleague and I have been recording for the BBC all day in Maida Vale. This evening we attended a meeting in the rooms behind the Wigmore Hall, and as it’s been a long day we decided to stop by any bar that had its light on for a quick drink. I have no idea about the reputation of the bar we visited, officer. It seemed most friendly, they had a good selection of wines, the prices were reasonable, and it was convenient for my colleague, who lives locally, and for me on my way to the station.’

  Under the streetlight his forehead glistened; his eyes shone with cool determination. Noël Mewton-Wood on stage, tall and calm, unbreakable.

  I stood, though next to him, removed from it all. I was convinced of Noël’s invincibility and was bolstered by our association. It was, however, hard to erase the thought that perhaps all he’d said had been true: he’d been simply walking to the station, returning home to the house he shared with Bill.

  ‘Well. Mr Mewton-Wood. Very well.’ He seemed satisfied with Noël’s answers, yet unwilling to relinquish his rule. He turned to me, sniggering. ‘A bit nervous, are we?’

  ‘A little tired, officer.’ I attempted a smile. ‘Been a long day.’

  He nodded and grinned, clearly pleased to be stretching out my day even longer. ‘And where might you be heading?’

  I pointed towards the intersection of my street before managing to speak. ‘I have a lodging a hundred yards around the corner.’

  ‘Have you now?’ Then he stood for an interminably long time, looking about himself, musing over his options. The darkness and fog sat heavily upon us. I could hear the occasional car swishing along the street in the distance, sailing off into silence. We stood there waiting as he decided, my heart thumping so loudly I was sure he could hear. I hung my head, not sure what else to do.

  ‘Right, off you go then,’ he said angrily, as if we’d waylaid him.

  Noël and I took off in separate directions, like squirrels bolting into the bushes.

  ‘Don’t let me catch you two loitering around here again. You hear?’ A crack of a whip at our heels; a sudden regret, perhaps, that he’d let us off scot-free.

  I walked as rapidly as I could without running, a curtain of mist drawing closed behind me. The muttering of the two policemen and Noël’s light footsteps smacking off the damp pavement and heading towards Piccadilly echoed out into the night, reverberating through the fog as if at that moment we were the only four people in the world. Once at a safe distance, I ran home and locked the door behind me, threw my hat and scarf on the table and stormed about the room.

  I poured myself a gin, threw it down, poured another and finally sat, still wrapped tightly in my coat. Without the cold air lashing my face and the adrenalin pumping deliriously about my body, the reality of the incident began to emerge in all its sickening glory. I kept running over each detail in my mind, wondering if it really was true that we’d so narrowly escaped, and bewildered that Noël’s and my fate could be toyed with—determined—in such a callously arbitrary fashion.

  I got up to check that the door was locked securely, pulled the blind down past the sill, then sat, again, on my bed and waited with my glass clasped in my hand. I felt dizzy, as if everything about me were slowly shifting in its footings. We had come close, too close to feel fully safe. The other version—where it had ended differently—was now running alongside, unfolding simultaneously. I could actually feel myself there, being hauled off to a West End police station—brutish hands gripped around my upper arms, pushing me into a piss-stained cell. And for a moment it seemed I was only imagining myself sitting in my room on my bed, imagining I was free.

  The following week, two days before our birthday, Noël invited me over to his and Bill’s new home for a drink before we headed out to a party. Noël greeted me at the door accompanied by a waft of sandalwood incense, paint and glue. He gave me a kiss, then ushered me straight through to the music room, immediately to the left off the entrance hall, and stood with me inside the doorway, gazing proudly about. The tall sash windows were framed with green raw-silk pelmets and curtains, gold cords and tassels drawing them to the sides; the wallpaper—Doric columns in ivory, pale olive green and real gold leaf—shimmered under the chandeliers like the autumn sun’s reflection off a pond; and amongst the Frank Lowrys and other paintings Noël had inherited from Walter, there was a new Duncan Grant he’d recently bought from the artist’s studio, hanging above the mantelpiece. In the middle of the room sat two grand pianos, a Steinway and a Brinsmead.

  Noël took me on a tour of every room, except for their bedroom (where, he told me, Bill was sleeping), pointing out every piece of furniture—the French Empire ormolu mantel clock on which lay the languid figure of Pallas Athene, the Louis XVI mahogany centre table with green marble marquetry top—and continually apologising for his excitement, explaining that I was one of the first visitors to the house since the renovations had been completed. He waved his arms wide, telling me that they were going to have a huge house-warming Christmas party when he returned from his forthcoming German tour. Then we returned to the music room and Noël poured us both a tumbler of gin and we sat down together on the chartreuse silk sofa, from which I’d watched him so many years ago at Walter’s party.

  I knew I mightn’t see Noël on our birthday—he’d already told me he’d be in Wales recording most of the day—and ever since he’d rung me several days earlier, inviting me over for a drink, I’d been anxious about the evening. I felt that something was going to happen and I was paralysed by indecision, about whether I ought to sit back and let it all take place, or whether this possibility that I felt circling us was something that I was going to have to bring to life.

  I’d been shaken up by our interlude with the police the previous week, and everywhere I walked I imagined these men following me about; I could hear their sniggering laughter, feel the cold thud of a hand landing on my shoulder. The more I
thought about these two uniformed hounds and the night they’d stormed in upon, the more I realised how all these other worlds—the worlds of infinite possibilities—were so tantalisingly close, bubbling and simmering, just below the surface of the mundane one I inhabited. Noël understood all of this—that’s what he showed us all in his music—and I felt that I was finally beginning to feel it as well: another life, humming like a harmonic within every movement, behind every moment, often making me feel quite ajar from myself. Lately it had been getting louder, day by day, as if any minute I might alight from my body and into this other life for good.

  I’d been holding a present, wrapped in crêpe paper, in front of me since I’d arrived, and Noël had pretended not to notice. When we sat on the sofa and raised our crystal glasses I presented Noël with the gift. For weeks I’d been mulling over what to buy him, wandering through shops, stumbling over possible presents—a Moorcroft vase? A hand-knitted cashmere scarf? A signed copy of Melba’s gift book? Then the day finally arrived and I hadn’t bought him a thing. Walking home along Regent Street that afternoon, with only two hours to go before seeing him, I was furious with myself that I’d let this happen, that I had been so extraordinarily careless, and it even crossed my mind that maybe I ought to call off our evening. Then I’d walked into my room and my eyes fell upon the perfect gift: an etching that my father had given me not long before he died, that I’d had packed away for years, and only recently had reframed and hung above my bed. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought to give it to Noël earlier, a picture that spoke volumes about what I’d never been able to find the words to say: Robert and Clara Schumann, sitting together at the piano.