Strange Music (22 page)

‘Oh, I've done my share of thinking, too. In fact, it was something you said on that same day at Castle Combe, about the possibilities of commercial
TV
. . .'

‘About jumping ship, actually.'

‘Well . . . yes. But not for purely selfish career reasons. In fact, I'm coming round to the view that the only way to change the
BBC
will be to pit it against a rival system whose aim will be to collar the biggest number of viewers. Commercial
TV
will be like
TV
in America: an endless wasteland of bland, trivial, populist pap, much of it actually bought in from America. The government – even a Tory government – will put a quota on it, of course, if only to prevent a haemorrhage of dollars, but commercial
TV
will buy right up to that quota.'

‘I'll tell you another thing that “even a Tory government” will insist on: a certain standard of news broadcasting – not all gossip about film stars and sporting heroes and kittens being rescued after falling down wells.'

He reached a hand across and patted her on the back. ‘You're ahead of me, darling. The same will be true of cultural programming . . . they'll also insist on so many hours a week dedicated to culture, drama, science, history . . . and that's where it starts to get interesting.'

‘To you.'

‘To me. The question is, do I jump ship and join commercial
TV
and show Auntie how it could be done, or do I stay and scare Auntie into doing it first? Steal their thunder.' He stole a sly glance at her. ‘I'd stay with Auntie if
you
were there, too.'

She avoided his gaze. ‘And what if I joined commercial
TV
when it starts up?'

When he did not answer she added, ‘They'll come knocking at your door anyway, months before there's anything on air.'

When he still did not answer, she leaned forward and stared into his face. ‘By God – they already have!' she said.

He nodded. ‘'Fraid so, old darling.'

‘And you've said you'd think it over? When did this happen?'

‘The day before our wedding. So I haven't really considered it too deeply. Yet. In fact, there was something else to think about first: how long it might be before this Labour government falls and the Tories get back in. This is only their first year and they could theoretically last until 'fifty-five . . .'

‘But . . .?'

‘The flies are bothering these fellows – I thought we'd avoid them in January. And we ought to get back to the hotel, anyway.'

They trotted off inland to the home of the
gardian
– a simple whitewashed cottage roofed in thatch, where they could tether their horses and arrange for tomorrow's ride.

‘The Labour government?' she reminded him as they set off at a necessary snail's pace in the Bentley, along a track that even a tank commander might negotiate with care. The suspension control on the steering column was set to its firmest notch.

‘Well,' he replied uncertainly, ‘I think they'll be lucky to survive until the Festival opens this May. I doubt they'll still be in by Christmas. But even so, it could still be three or four years before any new commercial service is launched.'

‘Four years . . . five years . . . six years – what's the difference? Surely the
BBC
can see it coming? How far ahead do you plan programme changes? Give me an example.'

‘OK, did you ever see an American programme called
What's my Line?
any time you were over there? Bennett Cerf, Harold Hoffman, Louis Untermeyer . . . John Daly in the chair? People come on and do a mime—'

‘Oh, yes! Good fun.'

‘Well, we've taken up the British rights and we've already been planning it in detail for some months – lining up the chairman and “panellists,” as they call them – though it won't go out until next year. So, to answer your next question, I'm sure it would take a couple of years to start an entirely new broadcasting company from scratch. Just to give you one little detail: we'd have to start transmitting a test signal about six months before the first programme went out, to reassure people we're serious, to give them time to buy aerials, and to give electricians time to sell, install, and tune the sets. Six months.'

‘You said “we!” Is your subconscious running ahead of you?'

He laughed. ‘Could be.'

Her fingers played an imaginary piano as she counted the months and years forward to a possible change of government and then onward to the day when transmissions might begin in earnest. ‘I think,' she said at last, ‘that “we” can safely leave it until the Tories actually win.'

‘Hmmm. You don't think that might be too late? They are already recruiting.'

‘Nobody of any quality, surely? Just people who suspect their star is already waning . . . people tempted simply by money. But you're a heavyweight, my love. Even if their ship already has a captain, they'll put you on board as the admiral.'

Without taking his eyes off the ruts and potholes, he reached across and gave her arm a squeeze. ‘Thank God you're here.'

She kissed his hand and placed it firmly back upon the wheel. ‘I met Henry Reed at a Faber literary launch last month, and we were discussing wars and civil wars – as one does, you know – and he said something very striking; one of those ideas that helps a large chunk of the jigsaw to fall into place. He said that a civil war is the supreme kind of war because it puts a general to the severest test. A
successful
general in a civil war is the one who knows, to the nearest hour and minute, when to change sides!'

Thursday, 17 May 1951

‘
Please
don't fiddle with those loops!' Angela said sharply.

‘Sorry!' Gingerly, Chris placed the one he was holding back on its hook. ‘What's
pschuu
stand for, anyway?'

Rather than answer him, Angela hooked it into her tape recorder and pressed
Play
. The volume from the two large studio monitors made him wince. ‘My fault,' she said as she modulated the output. Then he heard:
pschuu . . . pschuu . . . pschuu . . . pschuu . . .
as the tape looped endlessly past the read head. She, meanwhile, went on seesawing tape manually through a lash-up connected to her headphones.

‘What is it?' he asked.

‘You could call it a note. A single note in a future composition. That's what all those other loops are, too.'

He scanned along her handwritten labels, written in black on the shiny white tape that joined the cut ends of each segment to form a similar loop:
skttzz . . . blih . . . ğuh . . .
‘What's g with a little crescent moon over it mean?' he asked.

‘Scratchy, like clearing your throat.' She imitated the sound, and then he mimicked her, extending his reading to other labels, too: ‘
Skttz pschuu kl-k-k-k blih fzzz psss ğuh!
It's poetry! It's the poetry of pure sound rather than meaning! Fan-taaas-tic!'

‘I'll play them all to you if you've got the time,' she offered.

And, indeed, she did.

‘Well?' she asked when she had exhausted her little store of some twenty loops.

He shook his head, unable for a moment to speak. At last he said, ‘I think that's just about the most exciting thing I ever heard. You're going to turn that into music? Strange music?'

‘No.' She laughed. ‘I'm not a composer. Maybe I shouldn't have said “composition.” Compilation is more like it. Or demonstration. I'm making a tape –
compiling
a tape, using all those different sounds and messing them about with electronic distortions. See that old water tank?'

He found it in the shadows at a corner of the old barn. ‘That's the one they took out of the tower on the main house.'

‘Waste not, want not.'

‘I hope it's not still full of dead pigeons and rats.'

‘As if! I've fitted a speaker and a mike inside it.' She pushed two banana plugs into her control board, picked up a guitar, and held a mike hard against the sounding board. She gave one of its strings a barely perceptible pluck but the sound that emerged from the speakers was spine-chilling . . . ghostly . . . a dying note escaped from caverns measureless.

‘Holy moses!' Chris murmured. ‘You can turn
that
into
that
?
'

‘It's only the beginning,' she said nonchalantly. ‘If you think of these discoveries of sounds as like the discoveries of new lands – of America, say – we've not yet reached the Adirondacks. Wait till we reach the Rockies!' She peered into his face. ‘Why so glum?'

He shrugged. ‘I'm in the wrong sodding trade, that's what. Have you been to the Festival yet?'

‘Yes, of course. Felix has a sculpture in—'

‘No, I meant the exhibition –
Sixty Paintings for Fifty-One
. Talk about depressing. It's just anarchy. There's no . . . I mean, you can look at any Renaissance painting and say, “Yeah – that's Renaissance, all right.” Same with Baroque . . . Classical . . . Romantic . . . I don't mean they're all the same. Delacroix . . . Turner . . . William Blake . . . I mean, they could hardly be more different but they're all part of the Romantic Movement. You can see what they have in common with Wordsworth and Coleridge and . . . I don't know – Chopin. Just like you can see something common in Oscar Wilde and Whistler and Debussy. But now! What's in common between John Minton, Ruskin Spear and Graham Sutherland – just to stick with painters, never mind writers and musicians and poets? And
this
!' He wafted his hand at the tapes.

Angela, who had been fiddling with yet more segments throughout this complaint, said mildly, ‘You've been talking with Eric.' She reached out and squeezed his arm. ‘It's not a good habit. Try and give it up.' And she went on to repeat Felix's remark about bumblebees that continue to fly even after aerodynamic scientists had proved it impossible for them. ‘And anyway,' she concluded, ‘I can give you a few names – Joyce's
Finnegans Wake,
Alexander Calder's mobiles, Jackson Pollock's paintings, and the music of Darius Milhaud and Olivier Messiaen. Fragments of words, fragments of shapes, fragments of paint, fragments of music – and in each case they add up to a universe . . .'

Felix entered the sound studio. ‘They appear chaotic but the more you look or listen, the more sense they make. Sorry, I couldn't help overhearing. Eric may speak the truth but he's blind to reality.'

‘One more thing,' Angela said. ‘If you want a hot tip for the future, look out for the name of Pierre Schaeffer. He's been experimenting with tape loops and natural sounds – just like this. He calls it
musique concrète
and he's just joined
RTF
in Paris, where he's persuaded them to set up a
musique concrète
workshop, which is more than I've been able to do at the
BBC
, I must say. There will be great things—'

Catching her tone, Chris asked, ‘Are you going to quit, then? When is the baby due?'

She glanced at Felix before answering. ‘September . . . October. After that, I'm going part-time – three days a week. And the rest of the time, between nappy changes and breastfeeds, I'm going to offer young composers – or even old ones if they feel like it – the chance to make concrete music in England.'

‘For free?'

She grinned. ‘Corvo says he's sure the Arts Council will come up with a grant to make it possible. Don't tell Eric – you know what he feels about the Arts Council.'

‘And I have news for you, too,' Felix said to Chris. ‘You know Marianne and Sally have won the competition for the new children's wing at Enfield Hospital – the old infirmary? They were thinking of asking Eric to design the murals, and I just commented casually to Marianne that it was a very
safe
choice, and she took it that I was really saying “unadventurous” – which, in a way, I suppose it would be. Children's author-illustrator . . . children's hospital . . . not terribly imaginative. And then somehow
your
name came up, Chris – something much more likely to intrigue the editors at the
Architectural Review
. Up-and-coming young painter . . . in for the
Prix de Rome
. So it might be as well to have one or two ideas ready, in case she asks – so you can trot them out as if they just spilled off the top of your head.'

Chris punched him lightly on the arm. ‘Ta muchly, mate. Enfield? Wasn't Willard's firm in for that competition, too?'

Felix nodded. ‘It's a bit of a sore point at the moment. Willard, with more than a hundred draughtsmen's tables, beaten by his own wife with only a dozen – though she'll have to find room for more now! Adam says poor old Willard-A spends half his time boasting about how much Marianne learned while working for him and the other half wondering aloud to anyone who'll listen about whether she and Sally haven't bitten off more than they can chew this time.'

Chris was skipping toward the door, saying, ‘I've got to tell Julie!' when Angela called after him: ‘Something that might help you, Chris. A very
smart
young man at the
BBC
was talking to me yesterday about this concrete music idea and he kept referring to “the sonic ambience.” So if, instead of talking about “murals” and things, you referred to . . . I don't know – the “painterly ambience?” The “colour ambi . . .?”'

‘The “
graphic
ambience!”' Chris said.

‘You've got it!' she agreed.

‘Well . . .' He paused at the door. ‘
Skttz pschuu kl-k-k-k
to one and all!'

When he had gone, she turned to Felix. ‘Julie? Who's Julie?'

He shrugged. ‘Chris's latest, apparently. It turns out that Anna was a bit of an ice maiden. I've not met her but Adam – who should know these things – says that Julie is “dark and luscious.”'