Classical Music

by Cowley, Joy

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘No, you didn’t. You started. You never finished.’

  ‘I did! Oh. Didn’t I? It’s not much of a story. Not as good as your hotel sheets.’

  ‘Tell me,’ she says, refilling her sand-encrusted glass.

  ‘There’s really nothing to it. It was decades ago. I bought this very expensive robe and I made the mistake of leaving it on the bathroom door. I came home one afternoon. Lal was out. Sitting at the table was this young guy I’d never seen before. He was drinking coffee and wearing my robe.’

  ‘Oh-oh!’ says Bea.

  ‘Too damned right! I was furious. I practically snatched it off him. He grabbed a dishtowel to cover himself. A dishtowel! Well, this is the lunatic bit. I went out into the street and stuffed the robe into the nearest trash bin. My gorgeous robe. Pure silk brocade.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know why. When Lal came home, we went out and looked for it. It was gone, of course.’ I hug my knees and stare through my glass at the city lights which blur and wink in the semillon blanc.

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘Nothing. It was gone, bye-bye, no more. I told you it was a nothing story. Do you want a swim?’

  ‘It’d be lovely,’ she says, not moving.

  I put down my glass, stand up, kick off my shoes, and walk towards the water in my stockinged feet.

  ‘I’ve got a spare.’ She is struggling up. ‘Diddy, what are you?’

  ‘Come on. Race you in.’

  She hesitates. I think she is laughing or protesting. Or both. She teeters as she steps out of her shoes. The next thing, she’s thumping across the sand, arms pumping like train pistons, and we’re both splashing into the sea. We dive together and come up, our clothes floating around us. The water is surprisingly warm and it occurs to me that this is the first time we’ve been in the sea together since her near-drowning incident.

  She says, ‘I suppose that suit cost as much as the Italian robe.’

  ‘Not quite.’

  ‘You’re mad, Diddy. You’re absolutely mad.’

  ‘What a nice compliment. Thank you.’ I float on my back and look at the stars which are faint yet, in a violet sky rimmed with black hills. At my feet are the lights of the bay. The water bears me easily in a gentle rocking motion, up and down, up and down, and then something happens. A vast and silent music. For an instant I have the knowledge of being held, one small note in a perfect symphony. Yes, perfection. There is undeniable truth in the experience, like the presence of Dad in my office. I am the small note but I am also the entire symphony, as is Bea and the water, the hills, the sky, Lal, Dad, Mum. As is Uncle Jack. And nowhere, nowhere at all, is there a note out of place. This is the sensation that fills me with perfect knowledge, but the moment I try to analyse it, it disappears and I am once more an aging woman in an Anne Klein tussore silk suit, floating on her back in the dark of Wellington Harbour.

  Bea says, ‘It’s definitely okay for Christmas?’

  ‘Definitely.’

  ‘Good. I’ll come for a month. Isn’t this water delicious? I’m Ophelia and you’re the Lady of Shalott. We’ll float the rest of our lives away.’

  ‘The Lady of Shalott was in a boat,’ I tell her.

  ‘No, she wasn’t. She was in a river.’

  ‘She was in a boat and the boat was in the river.’

  ‘The mirror cracked from side to side,’ Bea says. ‘I learned it at school.’

  ‘The boat was drifting down the river.’

  ‘There was no boat,’ she says. ‘Diddy! No boat.’

  ‘Bea, there was.’

  ‘There wasn’t.’

  We are quiet for a while. The small waves lift us, stirring our hands and our wet clothing.

  Bea tips her head back a little. ‘I used to think the stars were holes. When I was young. There were little holes in the sky and heaven was shining through. It didn’t make me happy. It made me scared. Heaven was so far away. I didn’t know how I could climb up that high. I thought maybe. Maybe there was an aeroplane that took us there.’

  We both stare at the sky and I find the Southern Cross hanging over the horizon like a lopsided kite. It’s years since I’ve seen the Southern Cross.

  Bea says, ‘Those old teachings about heaven and hell were just awful, weren’t they?’

  ‘Yes, they were. I think the truth is probably very simple. We are all a part of the ultimate reality. When we know that, we live in heaven. When we don’t know it, we can suffer hell. The trouble is, we mess up everything with words.’

  ‘We do, don’t we? Oh heck, I’m getting water in my ears.’ She stands up and raises her arms to wring out her hair. The sea pours from her sleeves. ‘Yes, you’re right. That’s about it.’

  ‘Music’s easier.’ I stand too, and pull down my suit blouse which is around my armpits. ‘Do you remember the pride in his voice when he used to tell people that his wife only played classical music? He wouldn’t have known the classical period from romantic or baroque. It was just something he said.’

  ‘It describes them, you know,’ says Bea. ‘Classical music. It was what they were.’

  ‘Mum and Dad? I don’t understand.’

  ‘Don’t ask me to explain,’ she says. ‘I’ve had too much to drink to explain anything.’

  We walk out of the water together, our clothes sagging. The sand is cool now and the air has a crispness that makes our skin tingle. ‘Aaron was telling me this story. A very famous old rabbi lay dying, and there was a long line of young rabbis waiting by his bed to hear his last words. You know, the last words of a man like that are ultimate wisdom. The old man’s lips moved. The young rabbi by the bed bent over. “Life is like a river,” said the old man.’

  ‘Life is like a river.’ Bea tosses her wet hair. ‘We’re very philosophical tonight.’

  ‘It’s the wine. Do you want me to finish the story?’

  ‘I thought you had.’

  ‘No. There’s more. It went down the line, one rabbi to the next. “He says life is like a river.” It got to the last rabbi in the line and he said, “What does he mean, life is like a river.” Well, back that went. What does he mean? What does he mean? And the young rabbi leaning over the old man, said, “What do you mean, life is like a river?” The old man feebly waved his hand. “Life is not like a river.” he said.’

  ‘Is that the end?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She starts to laugh. She walks up the beach, slapping her thighs. ‘It’s not funny. It’s not anything. I don’t know why I am.’

  I squelch after her. My clothes drip and the feet of my pantyhose become encrusted with sand. ‘I like it,’ I say. ‘If you have to use words, they’re as good as any.’

  She stops and puts her hands on her hips. ‘Life is like a river. Life is not like a river. Oh Diddy, both and exactly. Isn’t it? All so funny and lovely and marvellous and so bloody awful at the same time.’

  ‘Yes, Bea.’ I try to find my shoes in the dark. ‘That’s the way it is.’

  About the author

  Joy Cowley lives with her husband Terry in the Marlborough Sounds along with eight cats and seventy sheep.

  This is her first adult novel for many years although she is one of New Zealand’s most loved children’s writers and a frequent award winner. She is also famous here and all over North America for her hundreds of wonderful children’s readers.