by Adam Thorpe
‘Hey, congratulations,’ I say, overeagerly. ‘Toomas seems very nice.’
I realise, as she absorbs my bluster, that I sound like my mother commenting on a new spotty friend, years back.
‘It’s his thirtieth birthday coming, in a few weeks. We’ll have a party at the dacha. You can come and meet a lot of people. People in your new life. A really huge big cake I’ll cook. Guitar. Beer. Dancing. A summer party.’
‘That’s really kind.’
‘You’re doing this for Jaan, not for me. I know that.’
It is more like an order, the way she says it.
‘And for my work,’ I point out, hurriedly, surprised at how sick I feel in my heart at her news about her pregnancy. ‘My music. I think I’ve just written my best piece, for English radio. It’s called Grey Days. There’ll be more, not necessarily grey. Lots of colours, in fact.’
She looks at me straight in the eyes. Hers are definitely blue-green, with a kind of grey edging, and they just about fill their space.
‘I’m glad you say that. Now I’m believing you.’
I shift in the chair, I try to concentrate. ‘Anyway, look, I think I’m much more sussed now, as a person. You don’t need to worry. Milly’s pretty happy, she’s not planning to slice me into little pieces or anything. I can go back to England to visit my dad, my friends. Concerts. You know? Once or twice a year, for a couple of weeks, maybe. Maybe some engagements, I hope. It’s just so easy from Tallinn. Cheap-break Europe, yeah? I don’t want to pat everyone on the back too much, but I think – I think we’re doing OK.’
‘We have to be,’ she says.
I study my hands on the table. My nails are broken and filthy; there are ingrained patches of beach tar on my knuckles. The indent of the wedding ring is almost gone, like a trace of something in wet sand. That’s what happens to the past. My rib gives a sharp twinge, suddenly, as if in denial.
‘I’m going to work pretty hard,’ I add. ‘I mean, just to live. To survive. To eat. I’m going to be forced to. That’s fairly real for me. Haven’t known it for years and years. Squelching around in money is a really bad idea. I think it kills everything, in the end. I mean, everything.’
She nods. There is a little pause, during which the ball ticks and tocks against the beam. We can just hear the whine of Toomas’s saw, like an insect. I try to breathe shallowly.
‘This is good,’ she says, at last. ‘You’ve gone the good way. I feel it. You know why you’re here, on this earth. Not in the sky. On this earth. Here.’ She absently rubs at a knot in the table with her thumb. ‘You’ll meet someone nice, on Haaremaa. You’ll write beautiful music. You can do things for my radio.’
‘No problem,’ I say, glowing.
It’s as if, walking without looking where I was going – walking backwards, heels first, virtually improvising – I have suddenly turned my head. I very much like what I see stretching out in front of me. It was always there, too, I just didn’t realise it. It just needed a turn of the head.
‘As long as I find somewhere close enough to bike from,’ I go on.
‘Don’t fall off again.’
I grin, nodding, and my lip twinges where the two stitches were.
‘And a half-decent piano. I sold mine.’
‘There’s the dacha,’ says Kaja.
I assume she must be joking. We watch Jaan as he goes on bouncing the ball and catching it off the main beam. The frail song comes to an end. She switches off the stereo with the remote. She places the remote carefully on the table.
‘There’s the dacha,’ she says again. ‘For renting. Maybe. Where we sang the forbidden songs.’
‘Well, OK, just for while I’m looking,’ I agree, suddenly seeing how sensible this is.
‘Looking?’
‘I’m looking for a plot of land to buy, yeah. Something I could put a yurt on.’
‘A yurt? Like a Mongolian?’
‘You know, I’m not exaggerating: I don’t have a lot of money, now.’
‘A yurt!’ She laughs, placing her hands either side of her face. ‘You are so mad!’
‘Bonkers,’ I say. ‘Stark raving. It only costs a couple of thousand to buy one. It’s round. It’s warm. It’s perfect.’
‘You’re like you’re selling one to me.’
‘No, I’m not. I’m selling it to myself.’
‘You can make it really … what’s that expression?’
‘Home?’
‘Hip! Really hip!’
‘Hip?’ I shake my head. ‘No way,’ I assert, as she grins at me. ‘No way is this whole dream of mine ever going to be hip. It’s just going to be concentrated. That’s all. We don’t do hip,’ I add, catching her grin.
Yes, I’m grinning myself, now. From ear to ear. But not Jaan. He’s watching us, frowning, passing the ball without thinking from hand to hand. It’s because I promised to give him another innings in the yard before we leave for Maarje’s, and now he’s impatient. Now he wants to start.
Acknowledgements
With many thanks to John Woolrich and Jonathan Reekie of the Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts, where I was writer-in-residence in 2004 and where the germ of this novel was first sown. I am deeply indebted to Zoë Swenson-Wright for her dedicated close reading and notes; to Corinne Chabert and Bill Hamilton for crucial advice; and to the composers Felicity Laurence, Sébastien Damiani and James Ellis for their assiduous checking of the musical details and for general counsel. I am also grateful to Imogen Barford, Kiffer Finzi, Sean Martin, Josh Thorpe and Grit Orgis for inspired help with certain details, to my editor Robin Robertson for his guidance and encouragement, and most of all to my wife Jo for persuading me to write a love story in the first place – and for seeing it through.
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