by David Hewson
It was easier when Leo had gone. I abandoned the cellar and searched the house. Sure enough, I found Rebecca’s music safely deposited behind a painting of ancient Athens that covered up the canal-side wall of the great room downstairs. Leo must have had a space cut out of the brick to provide such a hiding place. More fool him.
I took the score, trying not to feel her presence through the ink upon the page, and deposited it safely in a hiding place which Leo had inadvertently suggested. The concerto was in the cellar, safe from all. Leo hated rats. As with magnets, like repels like.
Then I left the house and began to walk to Ca’ Dario, thinking of how this interview with the Englishman might fruitfully proceed. If Rebecca were to gain a benefactor, it would at least be one she might trust.
43
Music in the dark
CA’ SCACCHI SEEMED EMPTY SAVE FOR GHOSTS AND the lingering scent of Laura. When Daniel could stand the loneliness no more, he left for La Pietà, where the second full rehearsal was due to begin at five in the afternoon. The city was a teeming throng of people, surly locals pushing their way through the vaporetto queues and a sea of aimless tourists forever stopping without reason in the most awkward of locations. He was acquiring the local contempt for visitors. Yet he slipped through the mass of bodies like a phantom, unseen, as if he lived on a different plane, wondering at times if the spark of madness which seemed to have infected Laura was now racing through his own veins.
There was a small crowd outside the church, trying in vain to talk their way into the rehearsal. The woman on the door recognised him and was immediately on her feet, barring his entrance.
“Signor Forster?” She seemed distraught. “What has happened to Scacchi? They tell such stories in the papers. I can’t believe a word of it.”
“He’s very ill.”
“You’ve seen him? May I too?”
“Of course. He’s in the Ospedale al Mare. But . . .” Daniel held out his hands, an Italian gesture, which he realised instantly.
“He’ll not live?” the woman asked.
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll go. And I’ll say a prayer for him tonight. He’s a good man, Mr. Forster. You remember that, whatever else anyone says. He wanted to do something for you. But I think you understand as much.”
Daniel wondered whether he did comprehend fully Scacchi’s motives. Laura had warned him against such naivety.
“I think it would be good if you could visit him,” he told her.
“Who knows if he can hear me or not? Doctors. Pah! And that woman of his. The one they say was responsible?”
“I don’t know,” he said, feeling evasive.
“It’s rubbish. I met her sometimes, when she could bear to bring herself out of the house. She would no more harm Scacchi and his friend than she would hurt you or me.”
He thought of Laura’s histrionic ranting that afternoon. It was an act, and they both knew it.
“I agree,” he said.
“She’ll be free! I shall go to the stupid police and tell them myself!” The small crowd was growing restless. One Japanese couple tried to sneak through the door, only to be halted by a stream of Venetian vernacular.
“Off with you! Off with you! Buy tickets for Friday or be gone.”
The Japanese man scowled at her. “We’re not here Friday.”
“Then wait for it to come to you,” the woman responded. “It will, surely, if it’s as good as they say it is. Ask the composer yourself. Signor Forster?”
The crowd began to murmur and flock around him. Daniel felt the heat rise to his cheeks, found himself apologising, and then, with a sudden urgency, made for the door. Inside, the church was cool and dark. The first movement had just begun. He found a chair to the right of the entrance and sat there in shadow, letting the music absorb him, wondering again what strange provenance the work might have had.
It lasted close to an hour, though he soon lost what little sense of time he possessed. Heard now in its entirety and played by musicians who were becoming familiar with its themes and nuances, the work astonished him. It was bold and dexterous, but its true power lay beyond the technical. For most of the time he listened with his eyes closed and found himself swept along by the swell of its coursing emotions. The music ranged from slow, stately tragedy to quicksilver passages of shimmering beauty and life. It was like the best of Vivaldi but overlaid with something younger and more modern. When it became more widely known, the concerto would, he felt sure, rise rapidly to the status of a new classic, sought after by violinists of a greater stature than Amy, though she performed superbly throughout. With that realisation, too, his mind became more determined than ever. There would be a time when he would reveal his deception, however Massiter felt about the matter. Even if he disappeared entirely from public view after Venice, the knowledge of the sham would remain with him always. He could not, in all conscience, shoulder the deceitful burden any longer than was necessary. The consequences were immaterial. He had played the Venetian game, to the tune of both Scacchi and Massiter, for too long.
The rehearsal came to a close with a show of fireworks from Amy, who tore into the final passages with a verve and resolve that astonished him. Their argument in the Gritti Palace now seemed to exist in another lifetime. He could not countenance the idea that there should be any lasting rift between them. When the final note sounded, Amy sat down, drained, to a round of applause from her fellow players. The entire orchestra seemed exhausted by the work, too, as if they were mesmerised by their own efforts.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. It was the woman who manned the door, asking him to take a call. When he returned, Amy was placing her fiddle in the case. He caught up with her as she emerged into the soft early-evening light. The lagoon was busy with vaporetti. A larger ferry-boat was departing for Torcello. Across the water, the Campari sign was prematurely lit on the Lido. It was an exquisite evening.
“Oh, Dan.” She looked at him with a mixture of grief and pity. “I don’t know what to say. I read it in the paper. Hugo told me he went round after it happened. It’s unbelievable.”
“I know.” She had found the apposite word. “It’s quite unbelievable.”
“How are you? How’s your friend?”
“Laura’s in prison.”
Her eyes grew wide with astonishment. “Laura? I meant the old man. How can you think of her? After what she did?”
The childishness never stayed hidden for long, though he cursed himself for such a stupid mistake. “She didn’t do anything, Amy. She loved both of those men and couldn’t harm them, not for anything. You were on the boat with us all. You know that, surely?”
She folded her arms tightly across her chest and sighed. “Hugo told me she had admitted it. And that the police plan to charge her. Why won’t you face facts, Dan?”
“I’m more than happy to face facts, if only I could find some.”
“Then why would she confess to something she didn’t do?”
“I think because she blames herself for what happened somehow and feels desperate to take the responsibility, for some reason.”
“But that’s crazy!”
“Yes. It is. Perhaps that’s your answer. She loved those men, Amy, Scacchi in particular. In some way I don’t comprehend, I believe they saved each other and, as a result, felt some kind of pact between them.”
“And now he’s unconscious, Hugo says. He can’t even tell them what happened.”
“No.” He stared at the Campari sign across the water and thought of Scacchi in Piero’s boat, with Xerxes at the tiller, and the constant flow of laughter and spritz.
“What do you mean ‘No’? He’ll recover?”
Daniel sat down on the steps. She joined him, bemused.
“No. I mean he’s dead. They called me while you were playing. They found him at four o’clock this afternoon. His heart must have failed suddenly. They hadn’t expected anything to happen so soon. On Friday I must bury him on San Michel
e.”
“Christ,” Amy said softly, then folded her arms around his shoulders and pulled her warm face into his neck.
“I wanted to be there,” he said to himself. “That’s the worst part. If he was to die, I wanted to be with him at that moment. I feel cheated somehow.”
She pulled back and looked into his eyes. “Dan . . .”
“And I feel lied to. As if they all saw me for a fool.”
“A fool? Didn’t you hear what we were playing in there? No one can think you’re a fool.”
He could see Amy was taken aback by the sharpness of his expression. She withdrew her arms from him and wiped her damp face on the sleeve of her shirt.
“Tell me that before you leave,” he said. “Not now.”
“I don’t...”
“Please, Amy. Be patient with me.” He watched the familiar figure in white shirt and pale trousers approach along the promenade. “Or ask Hugo what I mean. I gather you’re close.”
“Meaning what, exactly?”
“You said it yourself,” he said coldly. “He seems interested.”
She stood up, deeply offended. “Enough! I don’t give a shit how big a deal you think you are, Dan. You act like a complete jerk sometimes.”
Massiter strode up the steps of La Pietà towards them. He bowed politely to Amy, then nodded to Daniel. “I heard the news. It is a great loss, Daniel. Scacchi was my friend.”
“Quite.”
Massiter’s grey eyes held no emotion. Daniel could not prevent a single fevered thought running through his mind: that the death of Scacchi and Paul stemmed, in some mysterious way, from the pact they had made with Massiter. That this could be some kind of cruel justice which had yet to reach its close.
“I would like to honour him, Daniel,” Massiter continued. “I would like to make the concert on Friday his memorial.”
Daniel shook his head in puzzlement. “I thought you planned to do that for the girl, Hugo. How many memorials do you want?”
“Yes. I hate to say it, but that bitch of a policewoman was right. Susanna Gianni is long dead and buried. Scacchi’s in our hearts now. We should mark that moment.”
“Why do you do this, Hugo?” He was no longer cowed by Massiter. Daniel wondered what had wrought that change in their relationship.
“What, precisely?”
“The school. The concert. The whole performance. What do you get from it?”
Massiter seemed intrigued by the question. “I can’t paint, Daniel. I can’t write. I can’t play a note of music. But don’t you see? In a sense, I own it all. Is it so hard to understand? I like my name on the things I admire. I like to see that little line of print that does me proud.” He ceased to smile. “And I like to know you’re all in my debt.”
Amy shuffled uncomfortably beside Massiter. They were close already, Daniel thought. The moment would arrive when she would become one of Massiter’s possessions, too, just as he had.
“I’ll make the concert in his memory, Daniel. You may have your name on the music, but I pay the players. I rent the hall. I have my rights.”
“Of course.” Daniel nodded.
“And it will be a revelation!”
“A revelation,” he agreed. “Quite.”
Then, without a further word, Daniel Forster walked down the steps of La Pietà and turned right, into the backstreets of the city and the narrow labyrinth of alleys which would, at some point and after many wrong turnings, deliver him to the empty shell of Ca’ Scacchi.
44
An interview with the Englishman
I ENTERED BY THE TRADESMAN’S DOOR AT THE REAR AND found Gobbo in the kitchen, taunting one of the maids. He took one look at me and abandoned his pursuit.
“Good God, Scacchi. You look like you’ve spent the night on the tiles, and I know that’s not your style. What’s up?”
“I would like to see your master on a matter of some importance.”
“If it’s money, chum, forget it. Our Oliver’s quite sick of Venetians hanging round his purse. Some blackguard got away with the cash from that concert of his. There’s the city’s thanks, eh? Pat him on the back one moment, rob him blind the next. Couldn’t have come at a worse time, either. He put off getting funds from London because of that. Now the banks are getting sticky and we’ve all manner of locals asking to be paid.”
He stared at me with a chilly expression. “If that’s what you’ve come for, some debt he owes to Leo, you’re not going through that door. Friendship ends when the master starts throwing the pots around. I’m not getting my arse kicked just to see you present another bill upon the table.”
“It’s not for money, Gobbo. At least not demanding it. In fact, he might even turn a penny or two out of what I’ve got to tell him.”
“Really?” He was an ugly fellow, particularly sneering like this.
“Yes. Really. Now, get along there and tell him I need ten minutes of his time and not a penny of his money.”
With that he was off, through the door which led to the front of the mansion and the first-floor room that, with its view of the canal, served as its principal meeting place. I waited, enduring the maid’s childish smirks, and then was summoned through into the vast, mirrored space I had last seen on the day of our trip to Torcello. Its magnificence seemed to have waned somewhat over the weeks. The glass could use a clean. The furniture looked old and marked. Rented premises are never the same as property occupied by the owner, I imagine. With just the three of us in it, this hall seemed empty and cold. Only the noise of the canal beyond the windows added a little life to the scene.
Delapole looked at me cheerily. “Scacchi! Not seen you since the triumph, eh? What a performance! Shame some thieving local saw off with my gains. I could have used that. I’ve a house in Whitehall, an estate in Norfolk, and God knows how many lumps of sod in Ireland. But tell that to one of your oh-so-worldly bankers and I might as well be offering collateral on Lilliput. You read Swift out here, I imagine?”
“It takes a little while for the translation, sir. Though I have heard much of him.”
“Damned good stuff, not that I understand it all. One verse hits the mark, though.”
He waved an arm in front of him, like a gentleman taking a bow, then recited:
“A flea hath smaller fleas that on him prey,
And these have smaller fleas to bite ’em.
And so proceed ad infinitum.”
It was a humorous line and even brought a smile to my face.
“There,” he said, pleased that he had amused me. “That wasn’t hard, now, was it? Mind you, I think I’m not a flea, but the very dog—the original dog—upon which the first flea fed. At least I can find no blood to suck, try as I might. It’s bread and water till that envelope gets here from London.”
Gobbo raised an eyebrow at me from the corner. Delapole is neither as impoverished nor as credulous as he wishes to appear, I think. No aristocratic fop could make his way alone through Europe for three years or more, as I understand he has, without a brain in his head. At least I hoped so if we were, together, to outwit my uncle.
“Well then, young Scacchi,” he demanded. “I am at your service.”
I had rehearsed these words in my head as best I could beforehand. This was a tricky path I sought to negotiate, and one with steep chasms on either side.
“Sir,” I began. “I wish to speak alone, if you permit.”
“What? Not in front of your friend here? Why, I think he will be quite offended.”
Gobbo did look shocked. Perhaps I shouldn’t blame him.
“It is not that I mistrust anyone, sir. But I believe what I have to say is best confined to as few as possible.”
“Oh,” Delapole objected. “Two sets of ears are scarcely more than one. Young Gobbo knows things about me that would set your hair on fire, lad, and never has he betrayed a trust. If he can’t hear it, neither can I. For if it requires action, then who should I turn to but my manservant?”
He had a point there. “As you please. But first let me say that I bring this news to you reluctantly. It pains me to reveal it, and in doing so, I place myself and one I admire at your mercy. You have shown yourself to be a good and generous man, Mr. Delapole, and I would not presume on these admirable qualities more than I have already.”
He cast a weary eye out of the window at the traffic on the water. “It’s obvious you’re not a Venetian, Scacchi. Three whole sentences there and you didn’t ask me for money once.”
“It is not your money that I need, sir. It is your advice and wisdom and impartiality. For I fear a grave injustice is about to be done which will harm one you have already honoured with your kindness.”
His pallid English face looked intrigued at that. He took a tall dining chair at the old walnut table which formed the centrepiece of the room and waved both Gobbo and me to join him. Once seated, I took a deep breath and told my tale, as accurately and as clearly as I knew it, withholding only those things which I deemed irrelevant, the most important being my own relationship with Rebecca Levi. I also left, for the moment, the matter of her race.
As I fell into the rhythm of my exposition, I relaxed a little, seeing on Delapole’s face, and even Gobbo’s, some shock at my revelations. Both had marvelled at Rebecca’s virtuosity in La Pietà; to learn that she wrote the selfsame marvel astonished them. When I told them how Leo had held on to her single manuscript and sought to bargain with it to his advantage, Gobbo gave out a low whistle.
“There,” he said with some self-satisfaction. “I told you that man was a bad ’un, Scacchi. You can see it in his weasel eyes. No one treats his own blood like he treats you, especially when you’re new orphaned and left in a place like this.”
