Goya'S Dog (16 page)

Trying to empty his head, he looked around.

I'm nervous by myself, he thought; I'm nervous here. That's one thing a woman does, she stops you thinking all the time. And when she goes away you start to think again. And that's the cause of all your woe.
De-dum de-dum de-dum de-dum
.

Empty your head, he thought.

Aware, when he moved, of a rich tang coming from under his shirt, he leaned closer to the lady nearest him to get a closer look at the program, a single white sheet, but the writing was too small for him to make anything out. He wanted the concert to start at once, and loosened his tie, noticing a stain, trying to scratch it off and tasting the flake, deciding it was mustard, tried to think when he'd had mustard. There seemed to be a zone of exclusion around him, a circular clump of land three men wide where no one would sit. Their faces were haggard. The men leaned into their wives to hear their vacuous comments. Dacres expected a botched and scratchy performance. Still, it was nice to have somewhere to rest for an hour. He closed his left eye and opened it as he closed his right eye, shifting the stone columns nine feet this way and that.

The crowd slowly stopped talking when a lanky man dressed in the same colours as a pint of Guinness appeared on stage. Above the dog collar he had an impressive mane of white hair. It was hard to make out his grey features at this distance: Dacres imagined a Hogarth face from the gin series. Dacres couldn't hear very well and watched the audience listen, counting wattles and asking himself if there was anywhere he could go in this damn country without hearing a speech. He watched the pastor's hands move up and down, both together, and wondered if he was a marionette. Dacres concluded—self-satisfied smile—that yes, in a sense he was. But then again, he was also a puppeteer, was he not?
Dacres did gather, paying attention, that the cultural evening's soloist was a refugee from war-torn Europe, sheltering among us from the terrible tragedy that engulfs us all, all, for mankind is a brotherhood, and we must be steadfast, for if we are, good
will
ultimately triumph, and please give him your … and so on. Then he remembered that regimental colours were going to be deposited at the church the following Sunday, and a nervous murmur passed through the crowd. “Without further ado,” the vicar concluded. He applauded to his right, backing away to his left. The crowd clapped without spirit.

The little man who replaced the priest did not inspire much hope. He moved quickly and awkwardly, like an insect missing a leg, and wore a faded, ragged, formerly black suit. When he sat, however, he did so with grace. All Dacres could see was the man's half-bald head. He reminded Dacres of an anxious little bookstall owner behind St. Martin-in-the-Fields, what had been his name? Evelyn had known him better. The cellist, who was called something like
Pusck
or
Puskov
, stared at the music stand and then stood and moved it to the side; he didn't need it. Silently he lifted the cello, and waited for the rustling and coughing to stop, and waited, eyes lowered.

Dacres realized he didn't even have a pencil to sketch with; that was how low he'd fallen.

It was obvious, from the first notes, that the man was a real musician, that he could play. Elbow and wrist moved like a locomotive's rods, starting up. He bent low over the neck of the instrument, which dwarfed his thin bones. He was a sallow small man but he played cleanly, mathematically, with no overdose of feeling. He had a precise—but rich—sound and an unadorned attack. And as he took the bow through its iterations he built a repetitive pattern. Dacres, who always favoured the expressive over the restrained, the untrammelled over the elegant, found himself transfixed. A structure grew: a church within the church. Dacres's fingers pressed hard at the skin beneath his eyes, thumbs along his jawbone. Then he was unable to look and held the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger and closed his eyes at last and listened, shocked.

The music passed over him and made him feel decadent, wasteful. He listened and it was like a discovery, like seeing Dürer's natural animals after years of Soutine and Modigliani, or even looking at a street atlas, in black and white, and suddenly seeing its beauty: seeing it as a work of art. Not the vision remade but the perfection of the effort, he thought, not in words. There's another way to live, he thought, not in words. He listened.

Someone in the row ahead of him coughed twice. Dacres opened and closed his eyes, and the man coughed again, and Dacres saw men and women shift position, cross and uncross their legs. Pearls before swine, he thought. Pearls before swine. He listened again, he started to disappear again, he was thinking nothing, uninhabited by thoughts. But the aging woman nearest him was breathing in and out through her nose, and each exhale was an Alpine shepherd's whistle, a death rattle. Dacres wanted to send a message to Pusque, Puskov, and say, these people are idiots—but I am listening to you. Distracted again, he looked around at the people angrily, wanting to tell them, this is God's breath, you cretins, you're breathing it in, you're mixing it up with your carbon monoxide, like perfume in a paper bag.

He listened again, he was able to listen again, and he was able to forgive, a little. He moved between the trance and the bile like a swimmer coming up for air, every other stroke.

Dacres saw Darly Burner. He recognized her instantly. Down in the audience to his left, on the main level, sitting next to the giant farmhand from the party. Amid all the flexing legs and hands checking wristwatches, she was perfectly still. He watched the cellist again and then had to look back to watch her watch. She was leaning forward to hear better; she was looking at the cellist intently, her face a spotlight. Her companion, whose name Dacres didn't remember, scratched his neck. He gave a delicate pink yawn that grew and grew, and then he snapped his mouth shut like a bear trap.

What are the bloody chances, he mused silently, very silently. Is there something at work here? The coincidence bedevilled him: here I am, slouching shape, and here she is in her hat, and here's the chap
with the bayonet, and we move around the board this way and that. Janusz and Daddy too, all of us. But then the smoking fat-armed maid comes one Tuesday morning with her feather duster and we're thrown together all hugger-mugger, into a pile. That's all.

Then powerfully he thought no, listen, it's the music. There was no coincidence: of course she's here. Where else could she be? Seeing her, listening, things fell into place: their conversation at the showing; the mad dash downwards since, Adelaide Blackthorn and a hundred watery coffees at the Lion Grill. And then Bach rewards Dacres doubly. To know it calmed him. We're thrown together, you and I.

At half-time there was weak applause. Pusque rested over the instrument, drained, and after twenty seconds looked up at the audience. Around Dacres, who clapped until his hands hurt, people were talking already, getting up to stretch their legs. Darly was talking to someone on her left whom Dacres couldn't see. He heard a man ask his wife if she thought it would rain later.

Dacres sat, exhausted and pensive. When the gallery was mostly empty, he stood. He went downstairs to the entrance hall and looked through the crowd, and pushed his way past shoulders and bellies rudely until he saw her, then ran a hand through his dusty hair, and then pretended to be surprised.

“Oh, Mr. Dacres, isn't it?” said Darly, flustered.

“It is,” he replied.

He shook hands with her friend, Lorne (his hand lost in the beast's paw), and met Lorne's cousin, Marie, a pale and unhappy-looking girl. Lorne looked him up and down, and his lower lip stayed out, and he asked, dubiously, “Everything okay?”

“Fine, thank you, fine. Wonderful show, isn't it?”

Dacres sneezed and stepped back from Lorne's shadow. Marie just looked at the ground.

“Well? What do you think?” Dacres asked Darly, running his woolly sleeve under his nose.

They had to speak quite loudly to make themselves heard, but Lorne was so immense that people couldn't get too close. He was like
a giant head in the sea, Dacres thought. Someone would fell him and turn him into a canoe.

“Very snazzy,” said Lorne.

“What?” Dacres said.

“Really snazzy.”

“Steady on …”

Lorne was holding on to Darly's elbow but then she slipped it free. Marie hadn't spoken yet.

“Unfortunately we're just leaving,” Lorne went on. “Do you smell something?”

“Really leaving?” Dacres said, quick.

“Only I'm not sure I want to,” Darly said. She tried to speak lightly but her voice was tight.

“Well, that doesn't really matter to Mr. Davis, does it sweetheart?”

“Dacres,” said Darly.

“Sure—”

“Call me Edward,” said Dacres, all charm. “I do wish you would.”

“It's my fault,” said Marie at last. “Don't trouble over me.”

“What?” said all three.

Dacres tightened his tie, tucked his shirt in over his belly. “You'll miss the second half,” he said.

“Marie's feeling unwell,” Lorne said. His voice was low-pitched and loud enough that he didn't have to shout.

“Lorne has to take Marie home. It's very gallant of him but I'm torn in two. Marie says she doesn't mind me staying because she's just going to go to bed and this really is something special, I'm trying to tell him, this fellow Puskov is … and I've told him I'll be fine but he won't leave me by myself, if you believe it.” She spoke quickly and bitterly. “What do you think, Mr. Dacres? Edward?”

Lorne clenched his jaw.

“I'm sorry, Mr. Dacres, we're not usually so melodramatic,” he said. “Darly—it's sweet you're enjoying it but I told your father I'd see you home. You know I can't go against that.”

“It's not an oath, Lorne.”

“A problem of chivalry,” said Dacres easily.

Behind him, he heard, someone was about to be made vicepresident. Slaps on the back. He saw how quickly Darly was breathing and imagined her heartbeat pounding like a wren's. Finland, the Soviets, Dacres overheard.

“Sweetheart,” said Lorne to conciliate her. He had a big round face; it made Dacres think of that old cartoon of the sun with his hat on, coming out to play. Lorne would do fine in life, he was a solid chap, and one day he'd have a huge house and a dozen little Lorne Juniors and Lorgnettes who would win cups at rugby and grow delightful orchids in the conservatory, respectively. He'd be untroubled, Dacres thought. Unless the Nazis blew him up before the year was out.

“It's not chivalry,” said Darly, with heat. “It's ludicrous. It's childish.”

“What's the matter?” Dacres asked Marie, who did look troublingly clammy under her brown curls and pink hat. She was ready to go, clutching her purse to her waist, elbows close together. She looked faint and most of all, embarrassed. The crowd around them was beginning to flow back into the nave but the hubbub hadn't ceased, and they were in the way, which could surely only make her feel worse. Meanwhile Darly refused to meet Lorne's gaze.

Dacres said, “I'd be delighted to see Miss Burner home, if it would solve anything.”

Darly's eyes shot to him and then to Lorne.

Lorne was shaking his head.

“Then,” Dacres said, “you can escort Marie to her sickbed, and everyone is satisfied.”

“We couldn't possibly put you to that trouble,” said Lorne, but Darly had already taken a diagonal half-step back towards the hall.

“Where are you sitting, Mr. Dacres?” she said full-voiced, and glared at Lorne. Finally he stuck a hand out.

“Well I'm sorry, Mr. Dacres. And I'm in your debt.”

“Not at all,” smiled Dacres. “I'm in yours.”

Lorne kept the hand that had shaken Dacres's hand away from his body.

“Okay, good night, I guess, sweetheart,” he said.

Darly kissed Marie goodbye and told her to rest and they'd meet for lunch the following week if she could. She consented to be kissed on the cheek by Lorne, something like a dreadnought crashing into the Copenhagen mermaid.

“Shall we?” said Dacres, offering her his arm, quite puffed up with joy and trying not to show it.

After the concert they went out into the night. They were silent until Dacres sneezed and Darly, who seemed to think it was warm, made fun of him. He said that if one could see one's breath it was indecent to be out-of-doors and she said that he had much to learn and he agreed with that. They were walking past hardware stores and shoe stores. Walking south, he thought, but it was impossible to be sure. She often brought a silk handkerchief to her nose and he hoped it wasn't because of him.

“Bach was a funny man,” said Dacres, to say something. He hadn't really taken in the second half of the program, distracted by this girl's body, so physically close at hand. “The letters just tell us he was in constant need of firewood. He had a job. He was obsessed by his family tree.”

“Like my father.”

“Really? And yet on a daily basis he created this—”

“This is where the comparison falls apart.”

“This perfect lattice. Unmatched perfection.”

His lips felt chapped, the bottom of his ears very naked. He had no scarf. Darly was all in navy blue with scarlet gloves, tiny pearls on her ears and around her neck. At the art gallery she'd looked Bohemian; now she looked like a debutante—she dressed like a chameleon. Their feet fell into rhythm. If it was London, he thought, where would he be taking her? Champagne at the Café Royal, or no, straight back to the flat, look at my engravings. The nonsense he thought, all because of a young woman's skin.

There were wet specks in the air, sleet that wanted to be snow when it grew up, and he decided he'd remember this moment, walking in the strange city with the silent girl, taking sidelong looks at her shining face. He watched their feet, two by two, and did not try to offer her his arm. With a little dancing sidestep she slid a leaflet out of her path with her toe.