The Run-Out Groove

by Andrew Cartmel

  Because I’m a barbarian, it reminded me of Count Basie.

  She must have played for fifteen minutes. None of us said anything or moved. Perhaps we didn’t want to break the spell. Then she stopped. The silence seemed to vibrate around us. Cecilia sat placidly at the piano, unmoving and apparently spent. I looked at Nevada.

  “Mozart?” I said.

  She nodded. “Don Giovanni.”

  “The Beethoven transcriptions,” said a voice. We all turned and looked at Cecilia. Nevada and I were too shocked to reply. We’d become accustomed to the notion that Cecilia couldn’t speak—even though of course we’d heard her sing.

  If anything, Ambrose was even more shocked than us.

  Finally Nevada cleared her throat and said, “Perhaps you’d like to play something else?”

  “Oh no, no,” said Ambrose. “Cessie mustn’t overdo it.” But Cecilia had already leaned towards the keyboard and begun to play. Ambrose glared at us. Nevada had made a connection with her, and he didn’t like it. He moved over to kneel on the floor beside Cecilia, who continued to play, apparently quite unaware of him. “Mustn’t overdo it, doll. Come on now. There’s a good girl.”

  He was grinning all the while he spoke, as if to sustain the illusion that this was all just a casual, friendly conversation. He rose from the floor and stood beside Cecilia. She kept playing. More Mozart, I think.

  Clearly, she didn’t want to stop.

  Abruptly he reached down and lifted her left hand from the keyboard. But her right hand kept playing. He let go of her left hand and gently lifted her right hand, but now her left hand resumed playing. Then he went back to her left hand and lifted it, with the predictable result; the right hand resumed. This went on for what felt like an embarrassing length of time. Finally he lifted both her hands at once, plucking them off the keyboard, and held them tight, hugging her from behind.

  He chuckled and smiled at us to show that this was just an affectionate tussle between a couple, rather than a man imposing his will on a woman who might as well have been a stranger. Cecilia stared at us, her face expressionless, her hands stilled.

  It reminded me of the way a cat will accept an unwanted embrace, silently enduring it until she can squirm free.

  “I’m afraid you have to go now,” said Ambrose, smiling politely at us.

  “I don’t think so, Ambrose,” I said. “We’ve come all this way, twice, and you’re sending us away with nothing.”

  “Oh, no, no,” he said. “No, I’m not.” He gingerly released Cecilia who sat there, unmoving. Reassured by this passivity he leaned down and picked something off the floor under the sofa. It was a sheaf of notepaper, ruled and handwritten. “I’m going to give you this.” He lifted the papers and smiled, as if we should admire them.

  Cecilia suddenly started playing again. Ambrose sighed and set the papers on the piano, turning back towards her. “Now, doll,” he said, “I thought we had sorted this out—”

  There was a bright, chiming sound that harmonised with the music coming from the piano. For a moment I thought Cecilia must have pressed a switch—or perhaps a pedal—to activate another instrument. Then I realised it was the doorbell. Ambrose was gazing towards the front door. “Who could that be?” he said. He turned and looked at us, as if we might know. He seemed to think we’d brought someone with us. I just shrugged, though I had an unhappy fluttering in my stomach as I reflected that it might be Tinkler, ignoring all our injunctions.

  Nevada leaned over to me and whispered, “If that’s Tinkler I’ll kill him.”

  Ambrose was still staring towards the door. Cecilia kept playing, either genuinely oblivious to everything else or just ignoring it. The sound of the piano in the room was amazing. It was a salutary experience to be reminded of what a real musical instrument sounded like in a real environment, at close quarters. This is what every hi-fi nut aspired to, after all. I was impressed with Cecilia’s lightness of touch and delicacy of playing. In a room this size it could easily have been an overwhelming, deafening experience. Point-blank piano. But instead it was sheer pleasure.

  The doorbell rang again, and once again randomly fitted in with the contours of the music. I almost laughed. It was such an absurd situation, with Ambrose still sitting there, making no move to answer the door and staring at it—I thought—a little fearfully.

  The piano kept playing. The doorbell kept ringing. Then the doorbell stopped. And the front door opened. Now, the only person I knew who was rude enough or arrogant enough to walk into someone’s house uninvited was currently ensconced in rehab on a cocaine charge. So I was quite interested to see who this newcomer might be.

  He was a small, neat man in a pale-green tweed suit with a bald, pink head and a trim little silver moustache. His eyes gleamed as he smiled at us. He looked alert, prosperous, precise. His first words were, “You must forgive me.”

  Cecilia stopped playing.

  I could see our host didn’t recognise him. Ambrose pulled himself to his full height and began to walk towards the uninvited stranger. Suddenly he was tall and quite intimidating. But the little man didn’t back away. He just continued smiling in an attempt to defuse the situation and said, “I am so sorry just to barge in but I was ringing the bell—”

  “I know,” said Ambrose. “We heard you.”

  The little man sighed. “Well, that’s just the thing, you see. I couldn’t be sure you had heard me.” He nodded at Cecilia and smiled at her. “Not with that beautiful music playing. I was standing outside listening to it and it was a genuine pleasure. I could have stood there all day. But I’m afraid I finally had to ring the bell.” He took a further step into the room, which wasn’t easy, and moved towards Cecilia.

  Ambrose moved to block him.

  “You play as wonderfully as ever, Cessie,” said the little man.

  “All right,” demanded Ambrose. “Who are you?”

  The little man was looking at Cecilia. She gave no sign of seeing him. He said, “Dr William Osterloh.” He turned and smiled at Nevada and me. “But call me Bill.” I noticed that Ambrose wasn’t included in this invitation.

  “Doctor?” said Ambrose. He sounded simultaneously both more and less suspicious.

  “Yes, Bill Osterloh.” He was looking at Cecilia. “You remember me, don’t you, Cessie? I travelled with you and the band many times, when your sister and I were having our sessions.”

  “Sessions?” I said.

  He turned and smiled at me. “Ah, the ambiguity of language. I take it you were thinking of sessions in the musical sense. As in ‘a session in the studio’.” He twinkled at me, bright eyed. That was indeed exactly what I had been thinking. He shook his head and chuckled. “No, not so.” He turned and looked at Cecilia. “Cessie did those sort of sessions and so did Valerian.” Ambrose was watching him warily. “And in between those Valerian and I would fit in our sessions.” He turned back to me. “My sessions.”

  I said, “You were her psychiatrist.”

  He smiled. “Psychologist. But yes, her shrink.” He nodded at Cecilia. “You remember me, don’t you, Cessie?” She was staring blankly, face inclined a little downward, perhaps looking at the keyboard, and giving no sign of having heard him. She seemed completely buried inside herself again.

  “Okay, right,” said Ambrose. “What exactly do you want here, Doctor?”

  “Want?” said Osterloh. “Nothing.” He was looking down at the piano, at the papers Ambrose had set there.

  “Here, I’ll take those,” said Ambrose, abruptly snatching them up. Dr Osterloh looked at him. He didn’t seem offended.

  “I have only just learned that Cecilia is still alive,” he said. News travels fast, I thought. “And I was so pleased. I simply had to come and look her up and tell her in person how pleased I am that she is alive and well.” He looked at the great pale bulk of the woman hunched over the piano, and I thought, She’s alive all right, but I don’t know about the rest of it. “Such wonderful news.”

  “Wel
l, that’s very kind of you, Doctor,” said Ambrose and he smiled a mouthful of gold. He seemed to have settled for his standard unctuous approach. “But it’s time for Cecilia to have a little lie-down.”

  Osterloh’s eyebrows raised in polite concern. “Really? Is there something wrong with her?”

  “No, not at all. She just gets a little worn out.”

  Osterloh smiled. “There’s no reason why she should. A strong woman like her. Perhaps you’d like me to make an assessment.” He leaned towards Cecilia, turning an enquiring smile on her as he began to peer into her eyes.

  “Oh no, Doctor,” said Ambrose hastily. “That won’t be necessary. No. Come on now, love. Come on, doll.” He coaxed Cecilia up from the piano stool and began to lead her towards the door.

  “Goodbye, Cecilia,” said Nevada. “Thank you for playing the piano for us. It was lovely.”

  “Yes, it was,” I said.

  Ambrose turned and gave us a strained rictus of a smile. “Isn’t that nice, doll? Wave goodbye to the people from Stanmer Productions. We’ll be seeing them again soon.” He actually lifted one of her hands by the wrist and made her wave to us—a clumsy, flapping, limp-wristed gesture. Dr Osterloh watched in fascination. Ambrose propelled Cecilia out of the room. Osterloh turned to us.

  “You are working for Stinky Stanmer?”

  “With him,” said Nevada. “Working with him. I’m the executive commissioning producer of his documentary department.”

  And I’m the king of Siam, I thought.

  “So you’re working on a documentary,” he said.

  “Researching one,” I said. “You must have known Valerian very well, Doctor.”

  “Yes.”

  “Even in the last days of her life.”

  He nodded, his eyes bright and alert, gauging me. “Especially in the last days of her life.”

  “Perhaps we can talk to you, then,” said Nevada, “in the course of researching our documentary.”

  “Of course,” said Osterloh, taking out a business card and handing it to her. “I hope you do.” He turned to me. “And perhaps you’d like a copy of my book.”

  “Your book?” I said.

  “Yes, The Sovereignty of the Self. I have some autographed copies in the boot of my car. Would you be interested in buying some?”

  “What is the book about exactly?” I said. I was hoping he wouldn’t say the sovereignty of the self.

  “It’s an enquiry into method,” he said. “And an ontological statement. It’s regarded in some quarters as a modern classic.”

  “I’m sure it is,” I said, “but we have to be quite focused in our research. Does it have anything about Valerian in it?”

  “No, I’m afraid it doesn’t.”

  “Well, we’ll have to give it a miss.”

  His silver eyebrows went up. “Are you sure? I still have several hardcover first editions I could let you have at a very advantageous price. Considerably less than they fetch on eBay.”

  “No, but thanks.”

  He shrugged. “All right. But don’t complain to me when they’re gone.”

  There was a sound from the hallway and Ambrose came in. “Cessie’s having a little nap.” He looked pointedly at the good doctor.

  “I should be getting along,” said Osterloh. He nodded to Nevada and me, smiled enigmatically at Ambrose, and went out the front door. He closed it firmly behind him but Ambrose insisted on opening and closing it again, apparently to make sure he was gone. Then he turned and looked at us. “Now, let me give you these.” He handed me the papers. They were covered with angular, untidy handwriting in peacock-blue ink.

  “What are these, exactly?” I said.

  Ambrose smiled modestly. “Well, we knew you were coming down, coming all this way to interview us, and we wanted to make sure you had something worthwhile, worth your journey. So I spoke to Cessie, and discussed various topics we thought would be of interest to you. About Valerian. And I took down what she had to say.”

  “You took it down?” said Nevada.

  A golden smile. “Yes.”

  I stared at the papers. “So you wrote this?”

  “Yes, and—” He fell silent. I turned and saw with a jolt of surprise that Cecilia had emerged from the back of the house. Her big face was pale in the shadows.

  “Do you want to know the truth about my sister?” she said.

  For a moment we were all too startled to respond.

  Then Ambrose moved to her hastily. “Doll. You shouldn’t be up. You should be in bed.” She ignored him, staring at us with those strange, blank eyes.

  “Do you want to know the truth?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Doll—”

  “She took it to the grave with her,” said Cecilia. “That’s where it is. All of it.”

  “Okay, that’s enough. Back to bed, you.” Beaming with false bonhomie, Ambrose literally pushed her out of the room.

  “That’s where it is now,” she called as he forced her back down the hallway. Then there was silence. He was back a moment later, the horrible false smile firmly fixed on his face.

  “Thank you for coming. Best of luck with the documentary. But I think you need to be going now. Goodbye.”

  * * *

  As we walked away from the house Nevada said, “She spoke. She actually spoke to us.”

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t know she could.”

  “Neither did I,” I said. “But while we were sitting in there it suddenly occurred to me that she might be doped to the eyeballs.”

  Nevada stared at me. “What?” Then, as it sank in, “You mean we just witnessed a lucid interval, when the drugs were wearing off?”

  “Or maybe he got the dosage wrong.” I shook my head. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. Maybe she’s like fucking Einstein and he’s just keeping her doped up.”

  “Christ, yes.”

  “He’s a psychiatric nurse,” I said.

  “So he’d have access to the drugs,” said Nevada.

  “And that would explain why he was so eager to get rid of Dr Osterloh.”

  She glanced at me. “You mean, before he had a chance to properly assess her and suss out what was going on.”

  “It’s a theory, anyway,” I said. I took the papers out of my pocket and studied them. “Oh, come on.”

  “What is it?” said Nevada.

  “It’s just the Wikipedia entry on Valerian. He’s copied it verbatim.” I showed her the papers.

  We dumped them in the first bin we came to.

  17. BRIC--BRAC

  We met Tinkler and Clean Head as arranged and headed back to where we’d parked the car.

  “Did you find things to do?” said Nevada.

  “Absolutely,” said Tinkler. “We went to the cathedral—”

  “You went to the cathedral?”

  “Of course,” said Tinkler primly. “We couldn’t come to Canterbury and not see the cathedral.” He glanced at Clean Head. “And then we went to see the Westgate, and the castle, which isn’t really a castle at all.”

  “It’s Norman ruins,” said Clean Head. “It’s fantastic.” She was the real culture vulture. Tinkler was just along for the ride. And of course he had an ulterior motive—he could hardly take his eyes off her.

  “So he hasn’t dragged you around the charity shops looking for records?” said Nevada.

  “Of course not,” said Tinkler virtuously. “I’ve been very well behaved. We’ve done the historical sites and had tea and scones at a nice little tea and scone place and visited an antiquarian book dealer where we found some rare Penguins.”

  “I got a couple of Graham Greenes,” said Clean Head with satisfaction. “The three-and-six editions. With the full colour Paul Hogarth cover art.”

  “And we went to a shoe shop,” said Tinkler.

  “A shoe shop,” I said.

  Clean Head nodded. “I have to say your boy has been very good. Patient. Considerate. Never pester
ed me to go and do his thing.”

  “I’m an ideal travelling companion,” said Tinkler. “And shopping companion. Patient. Considerate.”

  “Would this have anything to do with it being Sunday afternoon and the charity shops all being shut?” I said.

  “Well, there’s that too,” said Tinkler.

  When we got to the car I saw there was a note under the windscreen wiper, a small sheet of pale green paper. Tinkler spotted it too, and hurried to examine it. “How dare anyone put something under my windshield wiper?”

  Nevada looked at me. “Is it a ticket?”

  “No,” said Clean Head, with the air of one who knew. “They come wrapped in waterproof plastic.”

  “Also, everybody has got one,” I said. There was a piece of green paper on the windscreen of every car parked in the street. They couldn’t all be illegally parked. Tinkler had picked up the sheet of paper and was reading it. He gave a low whistle and handed it to me.

  It was a handbill, printed on green paper.

  House Clearance Sale. Bric-à-brac, records, magazines etcetera, all from the 1960s. Plus much vintage clothing. Clearance as the result of a recent bereavement. Everything must go.

  Underneath this, handwritten in ballpoint pen, was an address.

  Nevada and Clean Head were reading it over my shoulder. I looked up to see that Tinkler had scurried down the street and was working his way back along the row of cars, plucking the green pieces of paper from every windscreen. He was grinning broadly when he got back to us, with a fistful of them. “What are you doing?” said Clean Head.

  “Guaranteeing we don’t have any competition,” said Tinkler. “We don’t want anybody else turning up.” He happily folded the handbills and stuffed them into his pocket.

  “A bereavement,” said Nevada. “Isn’t that sad?” Then, after a moment, “Much vintage clothing!”

  “Fuck the vintage clothing,” said Tinkler. “Take us to the vintage vinyl.”

  * * *

  “Maybe they’ll have some books,” said Clean Head.

  “Never mind the books,” said Tinkler as we pulled up outside. “We’re going to separate these hapless gap-toothed hicks from their rare LPs.”