A Traitor to Memory

At the end, his words didn't seem illogical. Instead, they seemed to indicate an action that was reasonable and sound. Perhaps I was making a mountain out of a dust speck, using a manufactured “illness of spirit” as a cover for a wound to my professional pride.

So I picked up the Guarneri, Dr. Rose. In the cause of optimism, I put the shoulder rest in place. I gave myself the break of sheet music—alleviating the pressure of having to produce a measure from memory by choosing the Mendelssohn that I'd played a thousand times before—and I found my body, as Miss Orr would have told me. I could even hear her: “Body up, shoulders down. Upbow with the whole arm. Only the tops of the fingers move.”





I heard it all, but I could do none of it. The bow skittered across the strings, and my fingers flailed the gut with as much delicacy as a butcher dressing a pig.

Nerves, I thought. This is all about nerves.

So I tried a second time, and the sound was worse. And that's all it was that I produced: sound, Dr. Rose. I didn't come close to approaching music. As for actually playing the Mendelssohn … I might have been attempting a moon landing from the music room, so impossible was the task I'd undertaken.

How did it feel to make the attempt? you want to know.

How did it feel to close the coffin on Tim Freeman? I reply. Husband, companion, victim of cancer, and everything else that he was to you, Dr. Rose. How did it feel when your husband died? Because this is a death to me, and if there's going to be a resurrection, what I need to know is how it's going to be effected by sifting through the past and writing down my damn dreams. Tell me that, please. For God's sake, tell me.

2 October





I didn't tell Dad.

Why? you ask.

I couldn't face it.

Face what?

His disappointment, I suppose. What it would do to him to know that I can't do what he wants me to do. He's fashioned his entire life round mine, and my entire life has been fashioned round my playing. Both of us are hurtling towards oblivion right now, and it seems an act of kindness if only one of us knows it.

When I set the Guarneri back into its case, I made my decision. I left the house.

On the front steps I met Libby, however. She was leaning next to the railing with a bag of marshmallows open on her lap. She didn't appear to be eating them, although she did look as if she were contemplating doing so.

I wondered how long she'd been sitting there, and when she spoke, I had my answer.

“I heard.” She got to her feet, looked down at the bag, then stuffed it into the capacious front of her dungarees. “That's what's been wrong, isn't it, Gid? That's why you haven't been playing. Why didn't you tell me? I mean, I thought we were friends.”





“We are.”





“No way.”





“Way,” I said.

She didn't smile. “Friends help each other out.”





“You can't help with this. I don't even know what's gone wrong with me, Libby.”





She looked off bleakly into the square. She said, “Shit. What are we doing, Gid? Why're we flying your kites? Gliding your glider? Why the hell are we sleeping together? I mean, if you can't even talk to me—”





The conversation was a reenactment of a hundred discussions with Beth, with a slight change in subject. With her, it had been, “Gideon, if we can't even make love any longer …”





With Libby things hadn't gone far enough to make that a subject, for which I was grateful. I heard her out but had nothing to say. When she had finished talking and realised there would be no reply, she followed me to my car, saying, “Hey! Wait a minute. I'm talking to you. Wait a minute. Wait.” She grabbed my arm.

“I've got to go,” I told her.

“Where?”





“Victoria.”





“Why?”





“Libby …”





“Fine.” And when I'd unlocked the car, she climbed inside. “Then I'm coming with you,” she said.

To rid myself of her, I would have had to remove her bodily from the car. And there was a set to her jaw and a steeliness in her eyes that told me she wouldn't be removed without putting up a monumental fight. I didn't have the energy or the heart for that, so I started the car and we drove to Victoria.

The Press Association has its offices just round the corner from Victoria Station on Vauxhall Bridge Road, and that's where I took us. On the way, Libby brought out the marshmallows, which she started to consume.

I said, “Aren't you on the No-White Diet?”





“These are coloured pink and green, in case you didn't notice.”





“You once said white that's coloured artificially counts as white,” I reminded her.

“I say lots of things.” She slapped the plastic bag against her lap and appeared to reach a decision, because she said, “I want to know how long. And you'd better be totally straight with me.”





“How long what?”