A Note of Madness (13 page)

‘No! Do you think I’m going to stand here and watch you give yourself a nervous breakdown? Do you think I don’t know how obsessed you’re getting with your playing? Practising all day and all night! Sleep deprivation leads to insanity, Flynn. Is that what you’re trying to do – drive yourself mad?’ Rami was worked up now, wide-eyed and angry.

Flynn felt his throat tighten. He lunged for the headphones again and then let his arm drop as Rami jerked
them away angrily. ‘Fine,’ he said numbly. ‘Fine. Whatever you want. I’ll go back to bed.’

Rami’s look of annoyance suddenly turned to concern. ‘I just don’t want to see you overworking yourself like this,’ he tried to explain, his tone gentler now. ‘It’s unnecessary, Flynn.’

Flynn nodded, defeated. He ached all over. His head hurt. His eyes hurt. He switched off the keyboard and shoved it beneath his bed. ‘Goodnight then,’ he said to Rami, pulling off his shoes and socks.

‘What’s going on?’

‘Nothing, I’m just tired.’ He fought to keep his voice steady.

‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’

He brushed the back of his hand rapidly over his eyes, willing Rami to leave.

‘Christ, what is it, Flynn? Has something bad happened?’

‘Nothing, I said.’ Fully dressed, he got into bed, face turned to the wall.

Rami lingered infuriatingly in the doorway. ‘Why can’t you tell me?’

Flynn could only shake his head, rubbing the sleeve of his jumper across his eyes. Go, Rami, he silently implored him. You can’t help me, nobody can. You’ll never understand. You have no idea what it is like to be inside my body, my brain, my mind! Trying to describe my life and feelings to you is like trying to describe colours to the blind, or music to the deaf. It’s simply not
possible. We may exist side by side, we may share the same blood, the same upbringing, but our minds exist in different worlds. You exist in the world of the rational, the world where every problem has a logical solution, every question has an answer. Can’t you see that none of my problems have solutions, my questions can’t be answered? Nothing in my irrational brain can be solved by your common sense, none of my pain can be shared by your structured emotions! In my world black is white, one and one never makes two and agony and ecstasy lie irrevocably intertwined. The only way to understand it is to share it and I would never wish this existence upon anybody, not even my worst enemy. You may try and sympathize, help and care with all your soul, but you will never, never understand.

‘Shall I go?’ Rami asked quietly.

Flynn nodded and Rami switched off the light and clicked the door closed.

FLYNN HIT THE
chords of the third movement as if he were beating a snake with a stick. Again and again, harder and harder, faster and faster, his fingers grappling with the keys as if with a will of their own. Eyes tightly closed, the music swelled and rose until he could no longer tell whether
he
was controlling
it
or the other way round.

‘Feel the music, feel the anguish, feel the pain!’ Professor Kaiser’s voice rose above the chords as he paced the room, stopping now and again to hum along to a section, waving his arms about extravagantly to demonstrate the intensity of the piece, the power of the music.

‘And more and more! And higher and higher! Swelling like a wave! Keep up the momentum, make it bigger. More, more!’

Flynn opened his eyes to a blur of fingers and tried to make sense of the thick fog of music as well as respond to Professor Kaiser’s commands. His fingertips were numb, and his arms and shoulders ached. He bit his tongue hard to dredge up the last burst of energy. A
final excruciating bar and then it was all over, hands on knees, head down and breathing hard, the final chord still ringing in the air.

‘This is better, this is better. I can feel the passion now. You were leaving the notes and putting your mind only on the music – the emotion inside the music.
Gut, gut . . .
’ Professor Kaiser paused by his industrial-sized window and gazed outside.

Flynn straightened up and pressed his hands to his face. His cheeks were burning to the touch and no doubt his ears were glowing too, as they always did after a lesson like this. Professor Kaiser claimed it was a testament to his concentration.

Flynn reached for his bottle of water and drank thirstily. He had been back in London a week now and was filled with a strange energy – an edgy, sleep-deprived buzz like a constant caffeine high that made it difficult to sit still.

Professor Kaiser turned from the window and gave him a rare smile. ‘Do you want a rest?’

Flynn nodded gratefully and swung himself round on the piano stool, putting his elbows on his knees. Professor Kaiser moved away from the darkening window and sat down in his creaky chair. There was a quiet moment.

‘By the way,’ Professor Kaiser said, ‘you’re doing very well with that piece.’

Flynn looked up in surprise. So much praise in one lesson was a rare thing indeed.

‘You
are
going to be ready, you know.’

Flynn looked down again in embarrassment. Was his self-doubt so transparent?

‘What is worrying you?’

Stunned by this unexpected show of concern, Flynn pulled a face. ‘Nothing.’

‘It is sounding good,
ja
?’

‘Yes, but—’ He could not finish.

‘But what?’ Professor Kaiser’s tone hardened suddenly.

‘Nothing.’ Flynn sat up with a quick smile. ‘It’s fine. Shall I go over the slow movement again? I think it still needs working on.’

‘Have you heard about Jen?’ Harry asked him between mouthfuls of instant noodles that evening.

‘What?’

‘She dumped Charlie.’

‘Oh, that. Yeah, she told me last week.’

Harry scraped out the bottom of the saucepan with an irritating sound. ‘
So
,’ he went on without looking up, ‘what did you make of it?’

Flynn sifted wearily through the loose pages of lecture notes strewn over the kitchen table. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t really give it much thought,’ he lied. ‘I’ve lost the article about Mahler now . . .’

‘Here.’ Harry peeled it off the bottom of his saucepan. ‘Don’t you think it’s strange, though, just like that, out of the blue?’

Flynn gave a faint shrug, skimming the article. Writing a two-thousand-word essay on Mahler was no easy task when his every fibre resonated with Rachmaninov. ‘I suppose so. Apparently there’s some other guy.’

Harry gave him a sharp look. ‘Really? Any idea who?’

‘Nope.’

‘Really?’ Harry’s lips twitched with the hint of a smile. ‘No ideas at all?
Really?
’

Flynn dropped his hands down to the table with an irritated thud. ‘Why are you quizzing me on this? Do you think it’s you? It’s not you.’

Harry looked as if he were trying not to laugh. ‘I know it’s not me, you moron. Besides, Kate and I are quite happy together, thank you very much.’

‘So why are you so interested?’

‘I’m not. Just thought
you
might be, that’s all.’

‘She didn’t tell me who it was, Harry.’

‘Bet she didn’t.’

Flynn stopped writing mid-sentence and looked up with a frown. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Nothing,’ Harry answered quickly. ‘Just thought this might be your chance to – how can I put it? – swoop in, maybe.’

‘Swoop in? Jennah fancies someone else, I just told you. Anyway, it’s not as if I – I—’ He ground to a halt and infuriatingly felt himself flush.

Harry looked to be biting back a grin. ‘As if you—?’ he prompted.

‘I’m trying to write this essay,’ Flynn protested quickly. ‘You’re not exactly helping.’

But Harry had that glint in his eye. ‘You’re not getting off the subject that easily.’

Flynn lowered his head and viciously filled the top of the margin with black ink. His cheeks burned.

Harry continued to scrape the bottom of the pan, watching him with amusement. ‘Why are you getting so embarrassed?’ he asked after a moment.

Flynn put down his pen and forced himself to look up. ‘I’m not embarrassed!’

Harry started to laugh, then swiftly turned it into a cough. ‘Just finish your sentence then. It’s not as if you what?’

Flynn quickly averted his eyes. ‘I can’t remember what I was saying.’

Harry gave a sigh of exasperation but still seemed to be trying not to laugh. ‘Stop playing all innocent! You’ve only had a crush on Jennah, like,
for ever
!’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about!’ He glared at Harry hotly.

‘Oh, come on,’ Harry laughed. ‘Isn’t it time you stopped kidding yourself?’

‘I’m not!’

‘Look, how hard can it get? She’s just broken up with her boyfriend. Go and ask her out!’

Flynn jumped up, the blood hot in his cheeks. ‘I don’t want to, OK?’

‘You don’t want to, or you’re afraid to?’

‘Drop it, Harry.’

‘But why—?’

‘Drop it, will you!’

‘Fine!’ Harry slumped back in his chair, an amused but slightly confused expression on his face. There was a silence. Then he looked at Flynn and shook his head. ‘What the hell are you afraid of?’

Flynn slammed into his bedroom, heart pounding, as the irritating sound of Harry’s tuning wafted through the wall. He dumped his books on the bed, sat down cross-legged in front of them, picked up his pen and took a deep breath in an attempt to gather his thoughts. Why had he allowed himself to get so rattled by that conversation? Why did he embarrass so easily and why was it that he was always so damn transparent? What was Harry trying to do? Did he think it was funny?

Flynn remembered the first time he heard about Charlie, the shock that one of the group had broken rank, then the realization that his dreams about Jennah – his stupid, childish, impossible dreams – would have to come to an end. Seeing Jennah with Charlie had been like a fist in the stomach, and Flynn had sworn to himself then that that was it, he wasn’t going to let his emotions run away with him like that ever again. So he had forced himself to think of Jennah as his friend – only his friend and nothing more. And now – now he was over her. Harry was just talking bullshit. So what if Charlie was no longer on the scene? Jennah went for the
tall, dark, mysterious type. She only thought of him as Harry’s quirky sidekick – Harry’s
crazy
sidekick if Harry had leaked information about the depression, the pills and the psychiatrist, which was distinctly possible.

He gazed at the Mahler article and tried to banish thoughts of Jennah from his mind. Despite every effort not to, he couldn’t stop thinking about her break-up with Charlie. Who was she in love with? Another student? Somebody really good-looking, no doubt. Somebody really good-looking but also into music; somebody talented like André, or that Croatian trombonist, or – or— He racked his brain, trying to come up with a student that Jennah had been particularly chatty with recently, but came up with a series of blanks. She was always hanging around with him and Harry.

He threw down his pen. Why was it that he could never concentrate? He needed to get this essay over and done with so that he could get back to his practice. The deadline had already passed – he had been granted an extension courtesy of the concert rehearsals, but Myers was not going to fall for another excuse tomorrow! It was almost ten. His mind began to race. If he wanted to get in two hours’ practice tonight and get to bed before one then he had to finish this essay in the next hour. He still could not remember what the Mahler article was about, despite now having read it for a third time. Gritting his teeth, he began reading it for a fourth . . .

Harry seemed to think he should ask Jennah out . . . The print danced before his eyes, he could not hear a single word inside his head. He tried to read aloud but his dull monotone made no sense. Reeling, he picked up one of the library books and tried to decipher his own pencilled scrawl . . . Being around Jennah made him feel awkward and breathless . . . He felt the adrenaline rise. Nothing was getting through. He couldn’t even remember the essay title. He pressed the heel of his palms against his eyes. Don’t think about her! Mahler, not Jennah. Jennah, Mahler; Mahler, Jennah. The names went around in his head like a crazy chant. He began to rip up the blank page into tiny pieces, letting them fall to the carpet like snow.

It was inconceivable that tomorrow he would be walking into the Royal Albert Hall to rehearse with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Flynn was overcome with a feeling of dread so strong that his limbs seemed to be in a kind of torpor and his brain felt like it was working in slow motion. Everything seemed to be a huge effort; just sitting up on the sofa, gazing blindly through the living-room window at a couple of bare, ugly trees was absurdly exhausting, yet he had slept more in the last twenty-four hours than in the whole of the previous week, and knew that more sleep would bring little relief. He felt chilled to the bone but couldn’t even be bothered to get up and turn up the heating or fetch a jumper. Anything in the least bit positive or proactive lay
completely beyond his reach. In fact, after some reflection, he realized that the only two things he felt able to do were think – black and negative thoughts – and cry. The thoughts just kept welling up of their own accord – a constant, steady flow.

The pressure behind his eyes reminded him that tears were never far away. He managed to hold them back, but only through fear that Harry might suddenly walk through the door. It was suffering, in its simplest, purest form, and all he could feel was the pain, unidentifiable by its cause or exact location but present all the same, permeating his every pore.
I can’t
. The two words seemed permanently lodged inside his head. I can’t play tomorrow . . . I can’t go to the rehearsal, I can’t tidy the flat, I can’t go for a run and I sure as hell can’t practise. He kept his eyes purposely averted from the keyboard in its corner but its mere presence weighed on him like a physical ache. Part of him hated the thought of anyone seeing him in such a pathetic state, even Harry, but another part of him wished for Harry’s return in the hope that it might provide some relief, if only temporary, from his unbearable self.