Listening in the Dusk (6 page)

There was a haze gathering over the brightness of the sun now. By afternoon, a fog would have come down, so Alice decided to go out straight away and buy essentials for the weekend. Bread. Coffee. Sausages. A pint of milk, which presumably must have ‘
A
’ slung around its neck before it joined its down-at-heel companions in Hetty’s fridge. First of all, though, she must go to the Post Office and draw out some money. Luckily — or rather prudently, albeit guiltily — she had brought her Post Office Savings Book with her: an action somewhat at variance with her current self-image of having walked out with nothing, but justifiable (she told herself) on the grounds that the savings therein were indisputably hers, her own earnings, nothing to do with the joint bank account which she was treating as
untouchable
, a monument to pride and ex-wifely renunciation.

The shops were near, and pleasantly various, and for a little while she just wandered along, getting the feel of her new neighbourhood, and seeking vaguely for some good and
sufficient
reason for patronising one rather than another of the supermarkets that seemed to abound in this area. Suddenly catching sight of her meandering self in a large plate-glass window, she stopped and examined the rather sparse
window-display
, consisting of a yellow chiffon scarf on a pole and two very large, very succulent cacti with spiky leaves. She glanced upwards, and yes, just opposite Tesco’s as she’d been apprised, she read the words “Dorinda’s Hair Fashions” in large gold letters, and lower down, in smaller and merely black letters, a list of the wonderful things that could be done for you within, at a price — or, rather, a whole list of prices — starting with manicure and ending with cold-perm and semi-permanent high-lighting.

Curiosity mildly aroused, she peered more closely through the
glass, and on the other side of a flutter of gauzy curtaining she could just make out the shapes of the Young Ladies employed here (they didn’t have to be young, of course, merely perfect to the last eyelash). In their pink beauty-parlour overalls, they glided back and forth among the shadowy hunks of customers who crouched like untidy bundles of washing under the various machines, a totally different species, one might have supposed, from the glittering lovelies who ministered to them.

And which of the lovelies, Alice wondered, pressing her face yet closer against the glass, was going to prove to be the redoubtable Miss Dorinda with whom she was destined to share the rather patchy amenities of seventeen Beckford Road? It would be a daunting prospect, the encountering of such
elegance
, such flawless grooming, on the dark stairways first thing in the morning as you stumbled up from the bathroom in dressing-gown and slippers, hair still a mess.

Perhaps, though, Miss Dorinda, being the manageress, no longer had to be perfect? Maybe she had by now attained the exalted status of being able to bite her nails, wear woolly cardigans, and leave her hair untinted? Maybe she would right now be sitting over a gas-fire in a cosy cubby-hole somewhere at the back, smoking a cigarette, reading a tattered copy of
Woman’s
Dream,
and only emerging when she felt like it to reprove one of those glittering underlings, in a super-posh accent, for some small neglect of one of those hunched-up shapes who paid the money that kept the whole thing going …?

At this point in her speculations, Alice became aware of one of the pink shapes gliding purposefully in her direction, and realising suddenly that her rudely staring face must be clearly visible from inside, she backed hastily away and moved on along the pavement, praying that it wasn’t Miss Dorinda herself who had spotted her unmannerly curiosity. Not that the lady would know who Alice was, of course; probably didn’t even know of her existence yet, so no harm had been done. Putting the little incident from her mind, Alice took her list from her handbag and applied herself seriously to her shopping.

By the time she got back to Beckford Road, the sun was quite gone, and the damp misty air was fast thickening into fog. She
stood on the top step, her plastic carrier-bags strewn around her feet, while she struggled with the key Hetty had supplied her with, trying to make it open the door. Was it the wrong key? Hetty had fished it out of her sewing-basket with great aplomb last night, but of course keys that find their way to the bottom of sewing-baskets are bound to be slightly suspect, however encouraging the assurances with which they are handed over.

Alice gave another twist to the thing, still to no avail. It seemed to go in all right, but after that nothing happened; and by now her right hand, from which she had removed the glove the better to cope with the whole manoeuvre, was growing numb with cold and clumsy.

Perhaps it wasn’t the key that was at fault at all? Perhaps the lock was in a mood this morning, like the geyser? Reluctant though she was to be a nuisance on this her first morning in her new home, to which her entitlement was still slightly precarious, Alice gave up and pressed the bell. Which didn’t work either. By now really annoyed, and quite pleased at the idea of being a nuisance, Alice raised the knocker and brought it down with a resounding thump, at which the door burst effortlessly open. It hadn’t been locked at all apparently, merely swollen and stuck with damp. In the whole episode Alice felt herself recognising yet another example of her landlady’s special brand of off-beat logic: it’s all right to give people keys that quite likely won’t work, so long as you also have a front door that quite likely won’t be locked.

Wisps of fog seemed to follow her indoors as she gathered up her scattered packages and moved into the cluttered hallway. Edging her way past the bicycle, and the awesome array of empties waiting for someone to take them to the bottle-bank, Alice made it to the foot of the stairs, where she became aware of lovely strains of music floating down towards her. One of the Schubert piano sonatas, beautiful! As if she were really entering a concert hall, late and shamefaced, Alice tiptoed up the stairs, clutching her parcels, until she came to the source of the sounds, on the third landing. Here, from behind one of the doors with its dark chipped paint, the music poured out, and Alice stood entranced, quite awed by the performance. Brian it must be, the
young musician of whom Hetty had generously declared that she quite liked to hear his tinkle-tonking, it gave the place a bit of life.

The third movement was starting now, and Alice found herself scarcely conscious any longer of the dark, shabby stairway, of her cold hands or her heavy parcels. She was in a kind of dream, totally lost in the music, when she was abruptly and
disconcertingly
brought to earth by the sound of a door opening behind her. Swivelling round, she found herself confronted for a second time that morning, by the sharp, suspicious gaze of the girl, Mary. The blue eyes, wary and hostile, bored into her own for a moment, and then, without a word, the girl withdrew once more, closing the door quietly behind her.

At the same moment, the music ceased abruptly, and the door facing Alice burst open, revealing a sturdy, dark young man with horn-rimmed glasses and a mop of very thick black hair, and wearing a heavy fisherman’s jersey and corduroy trousers. But the most noticeable thing about him at the moment was the look of almost comical disappointment that flashed across his face as he caught sight of Alice.

“
Oh
!” he exclaimed, in tones of unflattering dismay. “
Oh,
I thought it was Mary … I thought I heard her door opening …” and then, recovering himself and remembering his manners: “I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve met before. How do you do? I’m Brian.”

“How do you do?” responded Alice, taking the proffered hand, noticing that the strong, flexible pianist’s fingers were somewhat inkstained, and also beautifully warm to the touch despite the coldness of the room in which he was working. “I’m Alice,” she continued, “Alice Saunders;” and then, with a little laugh: “I’m sorry I’m not Mary. She was here only a moment ago, though. She’s in her room, if you want her …” and she stepped aside, leaving him space to cross the landing to Mary’s door opposite.

He made no move to do so. Simply stood where he was, looking as if he had been slapped in the face, though whether by Mary herself, or by the malignant fate which had placed Alice, and not Mary, on this third-floor landing at just this moment, was
unclear. In an effort to lighten an obviously fraught moment, Alice changed the subject.

“I thought you were playing the Schubert piece just
beautifully
! Hetty told me you were a musician, but she never told me you were as good as that! Is it a grand you’ve got in there?”

To her relief, his face brightened. He was even smiling, and he spoke eagerly: “How wonderful to have someone in this house at last who recognises something I’m playing!” he
exclaimed
. “All most people notice about my playing is whether it’s at some time when I’m not allowed to, like before nine in the morning or after ten at night. Not Hetty, of course; she’s a darling, she doesn’t mind
when
I play, or how loud, or
anything
. Except she likes it best when it’s a tune, she says, so that she can dance to it as she tidies round, if she happens to be in the mood. Apparently she can dance to the Moonlight Sonata, but alas, I’ve never seen her doing so. I’d love to see how it works out.”

He laughed, and so did Alice, and a minute later she was in his room, picking her way across piles of music and
miscellaneous
garments towards the piano, whose virtues he was anxious to display.

“Not a grand — I wish it was — but just listen to the tone! I fixed the new felts myself, the old ones were all rotted away to nothing, and it’s made all the difference. Listen!”

He played a few bars of some piece with which Alice was unfamiliar, and the tone was indeed superb, though whether it was the new felts or the pianist himself who deserved credit for this, it was hard to say.

“Lovely,” Alice approved. “You’ve got a smashing career ahead of you, I’d guess. Concert pianist, I presume? Though Hetty did say something about you being a composer as well?”

He shrugged, grimaced wryly.

“Pie-in-the-sky, I’m afraid. Or rather two pies, each one further out of reach than the other. Trouble is with me, I want
everything.
I used to think it was because I was young, and young people do have this idea that nothing is out of reach, you merely need to bash away till you get there. But it’s just the same now, I’m afraid. I’m
thirty,
you know, and I
still
want
everything. Which is crazier, actually, with every passing year, because really I should have got somewhere by now, if I’m ever going to …”

He paused, waiting with touching confidence for Alice to contradict this melancholy diagnosis; which of course she did, racking her brains for examples of famous musicians who had had their big breakthrough well after the age of thirty.

“It’s not as if you were trying to be a pop-star,” she pointed out. “I imagine they
do
have to be practically in their teens still if they’re to hit the big time. But
you
are a serious musician with a serious career in prospect. Maturity can only be an asset.”

He demurred, though obviously pleased by this confirmation of his own secret and ineradicable confidence in his own talent: that confidence without which no one ever gets anywhere, and Alice was glad to see that he possessed it.

“Oh, well,” he said. “Never say die, and I suppose I never do. Meantime, I keep myself busy starving in a garret.”

“
I’m
the one in the garret, actually,” Alice pointed out, “though I’ve no intention of starving there. I bought some sausages today.” And then, impulsively, “Why don’t you share them with me? I’ve got a whole pound, much too much for just me, and I’m going to fry them this evening. At least, I hope I am. If I can work out where I ‘fit in’ as Hetty puts it.”

“Fit in with the cooking, you mean? Oh, you don’t want to worry about that. We all just muck in really — all except Dorrie that is — Miss Dorinda. She’s into Health, you see, and so we have to leave the kitchen clear for her to do her polyunsaturated this and thats. Or is it saturated? Anyway, it’s what sausages
aren’t,
I’m sure, so we’ll have to wait till she’s finished and safely back in her room.

“Look, shall I make some coffee? I’m sorry it’s so bloody cold in here, but Hetty seems to have pinched my fire. To give to you, I daresay. She does that sort of thing: she must have reckoned that your need is greater than mine. But I’ve only got to go down and show her my poor blue fingers and my chattering teeth, and I’ll get it back, and then
you’ll
be the unlucky one. And so we go on.

“However. Coffee. Let me move the debris off the armchair, and then you can sit down. Lucky me, I’ve got a gas-ring in here:
how about you? No? Well, I might be able to rig you one up if we can find the fittings for it behind all that junk you’ve got up there. A bit of rubber tubing may be all we need. I’ll come up presently, if you like, and see what I can do …”

No such fittings were revealed, but nevertheless Brian proved himself an invaluable assistant in all sorts of ways. He applied himself enthusiastically to stacking out of sight — more or less — the dauntingly heavy objects which had so far defeated Alice: the rusty refrigerator door, the old-fashioned mangle, and the various defunct television sets. An oblong monstrosity the size and weight of a cabin-trunk gave him pause for thought. It was, he assured her, an early tape-recorder. Forties vintage probably. “A museum-piece, really,” he opined, running his finger through the thick dust that obscured all marks of identification. “If only we knew someone who …”

“But we don’t,” Alice hastily interposed, fearful lest some plan should come into being other than making the damn thing disappear as completely as possible behind or beneath other damn things. “I’m trying to make this place
not
be a museum, I want to
live
in it, see?” At which he shrugged good-naturedly and concurred, dragging the thing towards long oblivion in
accordance
with her wishes.