Julian said this one Friday evening, having come downstairs after spending an hour in his bedroom with Myra, during which time a quiet, rhythmic underbeat had filled the house. When she’d first heard this noise Colette had thought there was something wrong with the pipes, or that there was someone up on the roof mending tiles. It was only when she’d discerned an accompanying squeaking noise, a human vocalization of ecstasy, that she realised what it was. Then she heard it everywhere. From James’s bedroom where he often spent the weekends, the witch-haired anthropologist giving similar mouse-like noises. Even from Juliette’s room once, though thankfully Juliette was silent. Instead it was Boris who provided the voice part, a series of deep groans, a noise she hadn’t heard since Janus had had toothache.
‘I’m going to write an essay on it,’ Julian went on, ‘all that music, it’s just sex. Rhythms building up, slowing down, building up, pausing, getting diverted, wandering, then the rhythms building up again, falling away, then a great climax at the end. That’s all it is.’
Colette had still not told anyone that she met Janus once a fortnight in The Coach and Horses. Everyone assumed they were meeting in Brimstone Park, and for this reason kept clear of the area on Sundays. Each time they met Janus seemed to have more good news to tell her. Another private concert booking. Promotion at the Steinway Showrooms. Meetings with old friends and colleagues from his college days.
‘But why are you still living in a probationer’s hostel?’
‘I’ve got it rent-free till the summer. What’s the point of paying for a flat until I have to? Anyway, I’m saving up a big deposit so I can get a nice place. A friend of mine has promised me a place in this big house in Holland Park. I’ve got over a thousand pounds saved thanks to these concerts I’ve been giving.’
‘Perhaps you’ll do a public recital soon?’
‘Yes, perhaps.’
When Janus went to the bar for another round of drinks, Colette froze at the sight of a face she recognized at another table. It was the solicitor’s clerk, the one who delivered the summons to Fernlight Avenue. He was sitting there in his casual clothes, a rough-looking leather jacket and ripped jeans, the antithesis of his legal self. He’d caught Colette’s eye and was giving her a wry, pitying smile, as if to say, after all we did for you, now you’ve gone and blown it.
But she hadn’t. The Coach and Horses was borderline. On the boundary of the legal and the illegal. And there was no stipulation that she could never see her son again. When he returned he was carrying the usual barley wine for his mother, but this time for himself he’d bought a half pint glass of something that looked like beer.
‘It’s only shandy,’ said Janus. ‘Less than half of it is beer. You can’t expect me to sit here for all these weeks watching you get tipsy on barley wines and not feel a desire for a little tipple myself. Anyway, the orange juice was getting to me, like it was with you. I was pissing orange juice last time.’
‘That man over there – don’t look!’
But Janus had already swung round to stare in the direction Colette had indicated. Luckily the clerk wasn’t looking.
‘What man?’
Colette suddenly became aware of the foolishness of drawing her son’s attention to the man whom he could reasonably hold responsible for ruining his life, albeit in the role of a functionary.
‘It doesn’t matter.’ Luckily Janus hadn’t recognized him. ‘I thought I knew him. He’s gone now.’
Janus eyed his mother suspiciously, while he swallowed his shandy. Colette noticed a shiver pass through his body as the alcohol took up its residence.
‘Just one shandy,’ said Colette.
‘Two,’ said Janus as he returned to the bar.
Colette wondered if she should make a dash for it. It had been a mistake to meet in the pub like this, but they had been carrying on for so long without Janus succumbing to the temptation of all-surrounding booze, that she’d thought everything was going to be all right. But now it looked as though he was going to get drunk speed-drinking shandies.
He returned with a pint this time.
‘No, Janus. This is going to far.’
‘Too far? It’s a soft drink, virtually.’
‘If that’s half beer you’ll have had three-quarters of a pint by the time you’ve finished it . . .’
‘What’s three-quarters of a pint? I used to have to have four special brews just to feel relaxed enough for proper drinking. This is no more potent than a bag of wine gums . . .’
‘I’m going,’ said Colette, picking up her bag and lifting her coat from the seat beside her, ‘I’ll see you in a fortnight, but I’m not staying here while you get drunk.’
Janus said nothing, but sat back and took another pull on his drink while Colette made her way out of the pub.
In the busy, bright air of Green Lanes, Colette walked quickly towards home, aware, soon after she left the pub, of footsteps hurrying behind her.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, pulling on her shoulder to make her stop. She turned and saw that his mouth was shining, and there were dark, splashy stains on his shirt. He had rapidly finished his pint before coming after her. ‘I promise I won’t do it again. You can’t blame me, I have to sit there, like I said, with you drinking, how could I not be tempted? How do you think it makes me feel, sitting here on the margin of my own neighbourhood, knowing I can never see my home again?’
Colette turned and walked on. Janus followed.
‘I feel like I’m stranded on a lonely island. That’s what the Romans did with people they didn’t like but couldn’t kill. They’d cast them away on a tiny, barren island until they died of loneliness. That’s what you’ve done to me, I’ve got nothing but seagulls for company . . .’
‘Janus, stop following me, you’re straying into forbidden territory. If you come any further you could be in trouble.’
‘I’m already in forbidden territory. That pub’s an eighth of a mile inside the exclusion zone. I’m deep inside forbidden territory. I have been every fortnight.’
‘Then we’ll have to stop using that pub. Janus, will you stop?’
Colette halted, but Janus went on. He walked a few yards further and then stopped. Turning, he beckoned to his mother to follow.
By now they were almost at Palmers Green Cathedral.
‘Just let me walk you a little way home,’ he said, ‘it won’t matter if anyone sees us. They wouldn’t recognize me anyway would they? I’ve walked round here loads of times. I’ve even walked past the house a couple of times.’
‘You’ve walked past the house? When?’
‘A few nights ago. I saw a pretty little girl go in. She had hair a bit like a pineapple. Who was that?’
‘Oh, you mean Myra. Julian’s girlfriend.’
‘You didn’t tell me Julian had a girlfriend.’
‘I didn’t think you’d be interested. You’ve never asked how Julian is, not once in all the meetings we’ve had.’
‘And you’ve never talked about him either . . .’
‘That’s because I’ve been waiting for you to ask about him . . .’
Colette stopped again.
‘Janus, there’s a bus stop over there. You go and wait there for the bus. You are not coming any nearer to Fernlight Avenue. I’ll see you in a fortnight, but if you come any closer to the house I’m going to go over to that phone box on the corner and call the police.’
Janus looked incredulously at his mother.
‘I’m only trying to have a conversation with you. You wouldn’t . . .’
Colette made towards the phone box.
‘All right,’ Janus laughed, ‘you’ve won your little game. Very well done. I’ll catch the bus,’ he was holding his hands up, palms out, in a surrendering gesture. ‘Say hallo to Julian for me,’ he called as he crossed the road, ‘and to Myra . . .’
Two weeks was a long time. Longer for Janus, Colette supposed, but long for her as well. It was long enough to have lost the thread of what had
happened a fortnight before. When they met again in The Coach and Horses it was almost as if the differences of the previous meeting had been wiped from the slate, though both mother and son were back on the orange juice. By the meeting after that, Colette had forgotten about Janus’s drinking of shandies. She drank barley wines again. When Janus bought a shandy she thought little of it. Shandy, after a difficult introduction, had become acceptable in their lives.
By the summer it had become acceptable for Janus to drink two pints of weak lager and escort his mother up as far as the traffic lights at the cathedral. About half way home from the pub. He would give her a hug as green turned to red above them, and then cross the road to the bus stop.
One Sunday in late June, making the excuse that he needed some cigarettes, he walked with his mother past the cathedral and round the corner to the shop on Dorset Street. Inch by inch. Then this too became a routine. All through July he walked her to the corner of Dorset Street. It was only a ten-minute walk from here along Hoopers Lane to the house itself. Deep inside forbidden territory. Three-quarters of the way in. He was illegal.
He made his final push on a Sunday in mid August.
‘What are you doing?’ said Colette, finding that Janus, instead of departing along Dorset Street, as he usually did after buying his cigarettes, was walking with her down Hoopers Lane.
Janus just smiled. There was no excuse he could use. There was no shop he could pretend to visit, it was just houses all the way to Fernlight Avenue.
‘Just thought I’d like to see the old house . . .’
‘No.’
‘But you said everyone’s away. Julian’s in Hungary with Myra, you showed me his postcard. James is in Venezuela. Juliette and Boris are in Brittany, and dad’s in the middle of London somewhere.’
It was true. The house was empty, and would be until Aldous came home in the evening.
Colette walked on. Janus walked beside her.
‘This is madness, Janus. It’s madness.’
‘I agree,’ said Janus. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll just walk as far as the corner, and then I’ll go. It just makes me feel so safe being here, in these familiar surroundings, these familiar streets and houses. Hackney’s so bleak and desolate, the people are so gloomy looking.’
They reached the corner of Fernlight Avenue.
‘They lopped the limes,’ said Janus, noticing the mutilated trees that lined the road. ‘I wish they wouldn’t do that. Why can’t they just let the trees grow and grow?’
‘They do look funny,’ said Colette. The trees had lost all their lower branches leaving only narrow, vertical trunks above a crown of arthritically swollen stumps.
‘Can I just have a look at the piano?’ said Janus, having followed his mother to the front door itself.
‘If you promise me you’ll go straight away and never come back, then just this once,’ said Colette, who would rather get her son quickly inside than remonstrate with him publicly on the garden path.
‘Oh that old, familiar smell,’ said Janus once they were inside and the door had been closed, ‘that pleasing mixture of sweetness and decay, like overripe fruit. I’d forgotten that smell.’
‘You do promise, don’t you, that you’ll be gone in an hour?’
The thought of Aldous coming home while Janus was in the house terrified Colette. Aldous was very regular in his habits these days, however. He was never home on Sunday before six, and was usually later.
‘Of course. I just want to have a look at the old piano. Why don’t you make us a cup of tea?’
They walked into the music room. It was still stuffed with Janus’s belongings. Colette had told him about Juliette and Boris moving into his old room. He showed little interest in the junk, his attention being drawn solely towards the piano. Colette watched him. She was moved by the slow reverence with which he approached it, the cautiousness, as one might approach the hospital bed of a loved one. He reached out and rested his hand on the lowered lid, caressed it, stroking his hand all the way along the curved body of the instrument.
‘It looks terrible,’ he said, after a pause. It was the way in which the piano was surrounded by junk, by heaps of old clothes and piles of books, bin bags full of rubbish, that made it seem as though it was actually on a scrap heap. But it was also the injuries it had sustained over the years, the brutal treatment it had received at Janus’s own hands, when in times of rage and frustration he had attacked the piano. The deep scratches in its black finish, the broken music rest, the cracked and lost ivories. Then Janus looked at the keyboard and saw that someone had gummed the names of the notes to the keys.
‘Someone’s learning it,’ he said to himself, almost incredulously. ‘Who’s learning the piano?’
‘Julian is teaching himself,’ said Colette. ‘He’s doing quite well, considering.’
Colette left Janus at the piano and went to the kitchen to make some tea. As she was filling the kettle the music started, the wandering chromatic scales of the second étude, Opus 12. It was one of the first serious pieces he’d learnt as a child. The swiftness with which he’d learnt the Chopin studies had been one of the first signs that Janus’s abilities at the piano were exceptional. She may have been suffering from the exaggeration of nostalgia, but as far as she could recall he had just seemed to play these pieces straight off. Hearing the music again, the sweetness of it, the fluency, the expressiveness, after having so long endured the naive blunderings and hesitations of Julian’s playing, made her heart feel full and warm.
‘You have to cross your middle and marriage fingers until they hurt,’ said Janus as Colette re-entered the music room, where Janus was playing the piece for the third time. ‘This piano’s had it, I’m afraid. I’m so used to playing the Steinways in Wigmore Street that this old Bechstein feels like playing a barrel organ in comparison. The sound’s not too bad but the touch is very sticky.’
‘You could make any piano sound wonderful, Janus. Play that other study, the one I love, I can’t remember the number, it’s the shivery one.’
‘No. 7’ said Janus, ‘more fluttery than shivery, I’d say.’ He swept through the piece, ‘butterflies on the meadow.’
They spent almost an hour like this, Janus playing any pieces his mother requested, and explicating the complicated structure of this piece or the subtle impressionism of that piece. Colette didn’t think they’d ever talked like that before. There was no condescension in Janus’s voice, no lecturing, or sarcasm, or disdain. He was talking as a musician, passionate about his work, to an interested, intelligent audience, equally passionate.
After he finished playing, Janus spent a little while rummaging through his possessions. He found a box file, an old wooden one that was stuffed with scrappy documents.
‘I think I’ll take this,’ he said. ‘It’s some old letters and things. You can throw everything else away.’
Janus then left. He’d been in the house for exactly one hour.
25
Throughout the summer postcards kept arriving at Fernlight Avenue, from James in Caracas, Julian and Myra as they travelled through Europe, from Juliette and Boris in France.
James’s postcards became letters once he’d travelled into the interior of Venezuela. They arrived, crumpled and smudged, as though they had spent a week in the sack on the back of a mule.
. . . We have spent two days in a small aluminium row boat on the Orinoco River. Then two days trekking. My face and hands are puffy with gnat venom. I am writing this while sitting cross-legged on the edge of the compound while tribesmen dance all around me, long spears in their hands. They have been dancing like this for about six hours. They have been taking ebene, a sort of hallucinogenic snuff that makes them think they are birds, and which dribbles out of their nostrils and down their chests in long, green strands.
Marilyn sends her love . . .
The postcards from Juliette and Boris expressed an equal degree of fascination with a far more proximate version of otherness. Their first ca
rd came from Paris.
. . . it’s so foreign here. The policemen have real guns, and everyone is talking French.
The cards from Julian and Myra were intermittent and traced the shape of a coiled snake around Europe – Paris, Freiburg, Innsbruck, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade . . . They had missed out Poland and Czechoslovakia due to a failure to obtain visas.
The postcards had become so frequent that Colette was almost surprised if there wasn’t one on the mat every morning. Towards the end of August, however, she was surprised when there arrived a postcard from Janus. It showed a view of Edinburgh, and had been posted in that city the day before.
Dear Happy Family, I’ve journeyed ticketless by British Rail to the Athens of the North. Thinking of you in your house, See you soon. Love, Janus
The postcard deeply disturbed Aldous and Colette. This wasn’t the sane, balanced voice Colette had come to know over the months since his release, the voice she’d reported on so enthusiastically to Aldous.
Three days later another card came, this time from Bath.
Dear All, Have travelled here by high-speed toilet. Intend having yet another fascinating day. Love, Janus
The following day there was a knock at the door. They recognized the knock. Only Janus ever knocked with such brisk, rhythmic assuredness. They were in the kitchen at the time. They wondered what to do. The knock came again. Aldous peeped through the kitchen door, which gave him a view of the hallway to the front door at the end. Even from this distance, through the distorting frets of the front door’s glass, Janus’s shape was unmistakable. With a sudden decisiveness, after some hesitation, Aldous strode to the front door and opened it. Janus looked surprised, as if he’d been expecting his mother to answer.
‘Hallo,’ Janus began, in an affectedly polite tone, ‘long time no see . . .’
‘Go away Janus,’ said Aldous, quietly but firmly.
‘I just wanted to drop by and say hallo.’
‘Okay, well you’ve said it now. You should go away now.’
Aldous closed the door. He could see through the glass that Janus had remained on the door step. As he retreated down the hall, the figure remained. By the kitchen door Aldous stopped. Here Colette was also watching. Aware that they were too far into the house for Janus to be able to make them out, they watched Janus’s sliced-up shape as it stood on the doorstep, shifting uncomfortably from left to right before it finally receded, then vanished.
I’ll Go To Bed At Noon Page 42
