by Zoe Morrison
17.
Oxford, June, 1950
‘Will you come with me?’ he said, touching my wrist after the concert. ‘I want to show you something.’
Out of the music room again, towards the college gate, and this time walking fast.
‘Where are we going?’ I said, panting already.
‘It’s a surprise.’
‘So fast!’
‘Sorry,’ taking my hand, ‘I don’t want you to miss it.’
‘Miss what?’
Up the street, veering sharply left.
‘You’ll soon see, if we make it.’
Past the Bodleian Library, past St Mary’s Church, down to Christ Church College where I stopped at the entrance, I couldn’t help it. It was the grandest of colleges, the big decorative gate, the huge quadrangle at the front with the great hall behind it, the sheer magnitude of it all. He was unmoved by this, of course, used to it. He nodded briefly at the porter, strode in.
We went into what looked like the chapel (it was a cathedral, he told me) and at the front were some stained-glass windows by Burne-Jones depicting a medieval scene in brilliant colour. With the evening light coming in, the stained glass made a pattern on the floor; different coloured shapes outlined in black.
‘Isn’t that lovely,’ I said, breathing heavily.
Without saying anything he put his hands on my shoulders and guided me into it. I was softly coloured: a little red, faintly yellow, tinged green, purple, blue.
‘Turns out we’re early,’ smiling.
‘Really?’
‘Stay there, though. That’s good. Don’t move.’
I stood still for a few seconds, staring straight ahead, then looked up at the window. It wasn’t to my taste, but I could see it would be beautiful to others. The chapel was very quiet, it was just the two of us in there, breathing six feet or so apart.
‘Nearly there,’ he said presently, looking at his watch, lifting a finger, ‘Now!’
And at that moment the sun shifted and the light that had been coming in through the stained glass was suddenly concentrated and so sharply delineated it was like a solid block coming out of the window towards me. I was in it, I was covered by it, and I gasped and reached out, but there was nothing to touch, of course, just air. My arms were sapphire, emerald, mauve, ruby, my body was burning orange, my feet were gold. I had tears in my eyes, my heart was thudding, and I looked around and saw with surprise that he was standing to one side, entirely unmoved. He was observing the effect, my reactions, quite carefully, and then he smiled.
We walked out of Christ Church back to New College. Oxford was unfolding itself around me. Not just the buildings, which had gathered shadows, but the silvery sky, the scent of the air, the calls of the evening birds. He was telling me how stained glass, along with flowers and the liturgy, all those things spurned during the Reformation, had been aesthetic reflections of a theological point: that there was too much focus in the world on commerce and industry rather than beauty, compassion and nature. The idea seemed to articulate so much of what I thought was important, what I valued. Then, after a short silence, he said, ‘You are music to me. You are light. You are a whole new world,’ and he turned to me, lifted my chin with a finger, tucked my hair behind my ear again, and kissed me softly, with such tenderness, and it was exactly what I desired.
And perhaps I could have said then: But I am flesh, you see, I am also a soul, I am not those things you say, not at all, I am me. But it was wonderful to be thought of like that, even if it were hyperbole, and in any case I wasn’t thinking like that; who would be?
18.
Oxford, July, 1950
Every week, when the concert ended, we left and walked out into Oxford. He showed me the Sheldonian Theatre; I stood on the stage looking out at the hundreds of empty, tiered seats; he pointed out the baroque, painted ceiling. We went into the Holywell Music Room, the oldest concert hall in continuous use in Europe, he told me. He always had the key to these places, I don’t know how, and on a summer night we had them to ourselves. We went up Carfax Tower, into the Bodleian Library, and into many colleges and private galleries. I saw ceilings so ornate I could hardly take my eyes from them; more walls of stained glass and pictures, walls bejewelled; flagstones beneath our feet with letters carved into them long ago; relics in glass cases covered with dark velvet.
One night he took me into Hertford College, up a spiral staircase and into an octagonal-shaped room at the top, which contained a gold-lacquered harpsichord. (He told me later he’d had a man clear the room and carry it up there in pieces and put it back together.) I played a Bach partita. The fast, plentiful notes clattered up to the ceiling and back down, they ricocheted off the walls. The place filled with the music and I could hear what I had just played, what I was playing and, in my head, what I was about to play, all at the same time. I started to laugh, and he clapped and said bravo, and started laughing too, and all those sounds, the laughing, the clapping, the bravos, the music, which was still ringing, were all mixed up and magnified in that odd-shaped room.
The oldest part of the city had narrow laneways with tall stone walls on either side, and because there had been no rain (this was a drought by English standards) they were often coated with dust. I was mid-sentence the first time he pressed me up against one of those walls, the stones grating my back, and kissed me. The week after, he lifted me over the fence of the South Park, which shut in the evening, and we lay in a patch of long, green grass. He was nothing like the boys I’d been with at the Royal College. He was focused on me, and slow, artful; his own desires came second. I was drunk on it. We would walk from historic building to historic building (he still liked to lecture and I listened now and asked questions), and all the time, for me, our destination was the South Park, its darkened benches, stretches of cool grass, and over-hanging plants.
We didn’t have sex – I believed you only did that when you were married (all this made sense to me then). He didn’t mention it. After we’d kissed we’d lie on the grass on our backs, then hop back over the fence.
He started hiding a picnic basket in the park before it closed, all those delicious foods he’d somehow got hold of, and we’d eat there together before going back to New College. A choir was singing in the chapel one night as we walked back in. I don’t know what choir it was, the New College choir rested over the summer, but it sounded like them, the boy sopranos with the men’s deep voices. They were singing Fauré’s ‘Cantique de Jean Racine’, the voices entered one after the other, the lowest first, the melody smooth, calm, building, the inner part of flowing, ceaseless triplets. Everything in the college was still and listening, buildings, trees, even the wind. He translated some of the Latin for me: ‘We break the silence of the peaceful night; Saviour Divine, cast your eyes upon us!’
Everyone had spilt out of the music room onto the college lawns and people were sitting in big circles beneath the drifting clouds of midges, talking and laughing. I beckoned to Edward, we sat in one of the circles and I joined in one of the conversations. While I was talking I looked over at Edward and he was staring out into the college grounds instead, as if suddenly fascinated with landscaping, paving, botany. After a while I found myself drifting off and looking out at the gardens, too, and it was as if I could still hear the choir singing, that beautiful music.
19.
London, July, 1950
Back in London, I played through the Beethoven I was meant to be working on that week, but I already knew it. I leafed through some of my other music. I put on the stand an album from my days with Miss May, something by Brahms, I think, and played it. The yearning melody, the tug and release of the rubato, the way the theme was repeated and built on, the final, gentle resolution; all of this was just right. I got out some other books, reintroducing myself to the Romantic repertoire. They were usually short, spectacular concert pieces portraying one or two intense emotions.
In Oxford that week I performed the Beethoven, but when I’d fin
ished I rose in the silence, closed the album, put it to one side of the piano, and played Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C sharp minor. There was a brief, stunned pause (it hadn’t been on the program) then long, heavy applause. From the keyboard, before I even got up, I looked at him. He was clapping hard and smiling, and when I bowed someone else, not him, called, Encore. Afterwards people wanted to talk to me and he stood beside me the whole time. Then he squeezed my hand and we travelled slowly through the room, through all the people, out the door.
After this I continued to practise what was required, but also this Romantic repertoire. So I was very distracted; in fact, I’d been distracted ever since meeting Edward, and missing trio rehearsals. Hetty and George were understanding; they thought I had a crush. They hadn’t known me long and they respected that sort of thing and didn’t want to meddle. But I knew I had veered close to offending them. The Summer School wasn’t just about solo work; we also rehearsed and performed as an ensemble. It wasn’t right, either, to keep rushing off like that at the end of the concerts, we were supposed to stay and talk with the other musicians and tutors.
Hetty and George didn’t like Edward. When I’d introduced them to him he wasn’t polite. It was after a concert and I knew he was in a rush to go, he had another big tour planned for me, and he cut the conversation short and didn’t even smile at them. I told him he should have been more friendly.
‘We shouldn’t have left so soon, they’ll think you’re rude.’
‘But I’ve been waiting all week.’
‘They’re my friends. I wanted you to meet them.’
‘I did,’ he said. ‘Hetty and George.’
‘There are others, too.’
‘Oh, I’m sure.’
It was our first disagreement, and as usual we were rushing from the college, by now we were down one of those narrow alleys with tall walls on either side.
‘If you want to know the truth of it,’ he said.
‘I do.’
‘You shouldn’t bother with that trio, you’re wasting your time. You’re a brilliant soloist, absolutely brilliant. You should concentrate on that.’
I should have been angered, but part of me felt complimented and I spent even more time after that on my solo work.
When we said goodbye at the station I often wanted to cry. It sometimes felt as if I were revisiting all my goodbyes, all those tears never shed. He held my hands, he kissed me, but he never said much at those times of departure, and when I looked up at his face it was expressionless, as if wiped across by a hand.
‘You could come up to London,’ I ventured once, ‘for a visit.’
‘I have to work here,’ he said. ‘You have to practise.’
20.
Oxford, July, 1950
He started to meet me at the train station when we arrived in the morning. He’d be standing there on the platform with his hands behind his back, that little frown on his face, his hair still wet and flattened, just combed. When we saw him I could sense Hetty and George bristle behind me. He always ignored them.
He had a gift for me behind his back the first time he met me like this. It was an old silk shawl wrapped in soft tissue. I’d never received such a beautiful present. As I stood admiring it Hetty and George walked past us and up to the college.
After this he always had a present when I arrived: an antique book about Beethoven with a rose tucked inside the cover; some sweets in a twist of paper. A card with a pressed flower glued to the front, a snakeshead fritillary, bell-shaped with spots resembling scales. It was a native wildflower, he said, and used to grow in many parts of England. You can plant it, he said, but it only grew wild in a few places now. He had picked it in Magdalen Meadow, which they didn’t mow so it would continue to seed. I showed it to Hetty and she said they only bloomed in spring, those wild flowers, she’d read about them in the paper, so who did he pick it for then? Taken aback, I said that Clarence was giving me flowers back in April, and also flowers took a long time to press, so maybe Edward had picked it on a whim then decided to give it to me. Maybe, she said.
Edward said Hetty was a troublemaker. He said she was jealous of me. He said that George’s expressions when he played were so dreadful they detracted from our performance, and something drastic should be done about them.
‘Stop, Alice, stop!’ Hetty said at our next trio rehearsal.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked, turning from the keyboard.
‘You’re getting faster and faster.’
‘Yes, I like that, I like getting faster there. It’s exciting.’
‘Great. We can’t keep up.’
‘Oh.’
‘You’re losing us.’
‘Sorry. I’ll make a note on the score.’
‘Don’t you agree, George?’
‘Ah, well …’ staring at the music, not wanting to be drawn. ‘I suppose we weren’t really playing together.’
‘You see?’ she said.
‘All right, I said I wouldn’t do it anymore, I’ve made a note. Look. Here.’
‘Humph!’ Hetty flounced in her seat. Then George let out a hoot and the three of us started laughing.
Perhaps it would have all changed anyway. We knew we were about to part. Hetty was off to Aberdeen to do her internment, as she put it, with the rich relative; George was off to Wales, where he’d got a job with an orchestra. And I was leaving for Australia.
21.
Oxford, August, 1950
Around this time I performed the Rachmaninoff Prelude Op. 23 in D major. While practising it, I noticed its tendency to return to the tonic, the D. It was as if the piece were an ode to the note. Even when complicated swirls and eddies took it elsewhere there was still a little reminder of the D, up high or down low, played every bar or two. Each and every climax and crescendo built to it; all the time, every time, that piece returned home. A lot of music is like this. It begins like this, it ends like this; this is the basis of classical music theory.
After the concert I told Edward what I had observed, which led me to talk of home again. I told him that night about the smell of the place, the scent of orange blossom that you could detect even when you were far away; you could smell it even when the trees weren’t in bloom. And when you smelt it you knew that you were nearly home. He listened, nodding, smiling. Maybe you will visit one day, I said, and he smiled at that too.
Later, when we were in the South Park, he sat up and said, ‘Where will you perform when you are back in Australia?’
‘Where?’
‘Yes, which concert halls?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t thought.’
‘Are there many good concert halls in Australia? Is there a culture that fosters excellence in pianists?’
‘Well, there are concert halls in the cities, of course – Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide … I expect I’ll perform in them once I’ve got myself, you know, settled.’
‘But you don’t know any of this. You don’t know of any concert pianists who have done this and succeeded.’
Of course I didn’t. I hadn’t even been to any of those cities, except to Melbourne when I left. It was the concert halls of London, Oxford and Yorkshire with which I was familiar. But I thought my mother would know what to do, and we would contact her old friends who were in the classical musical circles of the city; this is how I would start.
‘Just as long as you’re sure,’ he was saying. ‘You seem quite …’
‘What?’
‘Fixed on this notion of returning to rural Australia. I’m simply trying to reconcile this with your development as a musician.’
‘I’m going back,’ I said.
‘So you say. And becoming a concert pianist.’
‘Edward … this is what has always been planned. I haven’t seen my family or home for twelve years. I must go there.’
‘Of course. Everyone must do what they want; that is very important. Everyone must find their way home. That is the most important thing of all.’
> 22.
Oxford, September, 1950
On the second to last Wednesday in Oxford, after the concert, we walked straight out of the music room, out of the college and kept walking. We went up one of the roads that led out of the city. As we talked it started to feel like that first night again – we didn’t notice the time or how far we’d gone. When we saw where we were and how late it was we started running, cutting through smaller streets and lanes, once even a field. By now the light had fallen, the birds had gone quiet, and although we were going fast it was clear we weren’t going to make the last train.
We saw a car, a brown sedan, coming slowly down the street towards us. Edward stepped into the road, flagged it down and bent to the driver’s window. We both got in, clambered into the back seat. The driver wore a hat that cast a shadow over his face, but I could tell he’d been drinking – I could smell it. Just before he put the car into gear he cleared his throat loudly and spat out of the window. We sat in the back not saying anything, holding hands. The man seemed to exude disapproval despite agreeing to give us the lift. Perhaps he thought we were doing something clandestine; and there was of course the age difference between us. Anyway, that night we made it to the station on time.
On the last night of the Summer School, I played the Prelude in C sharp minor again. Huge applause, the final concert was over; time for the last supper.
Instead of taking me out through the college gate that night, Edward led me deeper into the grounds. We passed through an arch in an old wall, crumbling at the top; it was part of the wall of the medieval city. There was a small hill or mound in front of us covered in grass, wooden steps cut into its side; and at the top a bench made of two slabs of wood. Bushes grew around the bench so that when we sat down on it, all we could see were the stairs going down and a sliver of moon in the sky, white, tilted.
