Loggerheads and Other Stories Read online

  Jonathan Coe

  LOGGERHEADS AND OTHER STORIES

  Contents

  9th and 13th

  V.O.

  Loggerheads

  Leiden

  Three Stories from Unrest

  Ivy and Her Nonsense

  Pentatonic

  Rotary Park

  Author’s Note

  Follow Penguin

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  LOGGERHEADS AND OTHER STORIES

  Jonathan Coe was born in Birmingham in 1961, and now lives in London. He has published ten novels, including What a Carve Up!, which won the 1995 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, The House of Sleep and The Rotters’ Club, winner of the Everyman Wodehouse Prize. His most recent novel, Expo 58, is published by Penguin. His biography of the novelist B. S. Johnson, Like a Fiery Elephant, won the 2005 Samuel Johnson Prize for best non-fiction book of the year. He is a frequent contributor to the London Review of Books and the Guardian.

  9th and 13th

  I live on the corner of 9th and 13th, and I promise you, it’s not a good place to be. It’s not a place where you’d want to linger. It’s the sort of place you pass through; the sort you move on from. Or at least, that’s what it is for most people. For everybody but me.

  I can’t believe I’ve been living here for more than eighteen months now. I can’t believe that every morning, for the last eighteen months, I’ve been woken up by the rolling of shutters at the Perky Pig Diner and BBQ just across from my apartment. Shortly after that happens, the noises will start downstairs: furniture being shifted, trucks driving in and out right underneath my bedroom, the throb of their revving engines so insistent that even when I try to block it out by putting on my headphones and turning the keyboard’s volume up to max, even then I can still feel it through my feet. I live above the business premises of the Watson Storage and Removal Company: which makes sense, in a way, because like I said, this is a transient place, a place for people on the move, a place for people who are getting ready to pack up and leave.

  9th and 13th. Do you know what that sounds like? You can find out for yourself, if there’s a piano anywhere nearby. Start with … start with a C, if you like. Way down on the keyboard, two octaves below middle C. Hold it down with your little finger, and now stretch your fingers, really stretch them, more than an octave, until your thumb is on a D. Now play the two notes, and listen to the interval. You’ve got your 9th. It’s slightly rootless, already: those two bass notes that don’t quite agree with one another. There’s an audible sense of indecision. And now, with the thumb of your right hand, you play a B flat. This adds a kind of bluesy overtone, turns the ambiguous statement of those two notes into a question. It seems to ask: where are we heading? To which the next note – another D – adds nothing except emphasis. Now the question seems even more urgent, but when the F is introduced, it changes everything. All of a sudden the chord feels hopeful, aspiring. There’s the hint of an upward movement, the sense that we might be about to arrive somewhere. And then, finally, we add the A, so that we have our 13th interval at last: and listen to how plangent it makes it sound, how wistful. This chord is aching to resolve, to settle on something: C major would be the most obvious place to go next, but it could be A minor, or F major 7th, or … well, anything. It’s so open. As open as a chord can get. Brimming with potential.

  9th and 13th. The sound of possibility.

  And how long is it since I played those chords, now? How long since she came into the bar and stood over the piano as I improvised, in the half-dark, after even the most hardened drinkers had finished up and gone home? I don’t know. I lose track. All I remember is that for a few minutes we talked, swapped a few banalities, as my fingers wandered trance-like over the keyboard, tracing the usual patterns, the easy, familiar harmonies that I’m locked into, these days, like a series of bad habits. She was from Franklin, Indiana, she said, and had only pitched up in New York that afternoon. She said she’d given up her job in the local record store and had come to the city to write. To write books. And that’s all I ever found out about her – not even her name, just that she was from Franklin and that she was going to write and that she had dark hair, pulled severely back from her face into a short ponytail, and tiny freckles on either side of her nose, and brown-green eyes that narrowed to a smile whenever I looked at her. Which wasn’t very often, I have to say, hunched as I was over the keyboard, picking my way slowly through those well-worn chords, until my hands finally gave up; faltered, and came to rest; came to rest where they always did. The usual place.

  9th and 13th.

  At which point – at which precise point – she asked me a question.

  ‘Listen,’ she said. ‘Is there anywhere … do you know of anywhere that I can stay tonight? I don’t have anywhere to stay.’

  The possibilities raised by that question, like the possibilities raised by that chord, hung in the air for as long as it took the notes to decay.

  Infinite possibilities.

  To take just one of them, for instance. Supposing I had resolved the chord. Supposing I had resolved it in the most obvious way, with a soft – soft but insistent – C major. Perhaps with an A natural in there somewhere, to make it just a little more eloquent. And suppose I had answered her question, by saying: ‘Well, it’s getting pretty late, and there aren’t that many places around here. There’s always my couch.’

  What would have happened?

  Where would I be now?

  This is what would have happened:

  Her eyes would have narrowed again, at first, in that warm, shy, smiling way she had, and then she would have looked away, gathering her thoughts for a moment or two, before turning back to me, and saying:

  ‘Would that be OK? I mean, that’s really nice of you …’

  And I would have said: ‘No problem. It’s just a couple of blocks from here.’

  ‘I don’t want to put you to any trouble,’ she would have said. ‘It’ll only be for one night.’

  But it wouldn’t have been only for one night. We both would have known that, even then.

  I would have closed the lid of the piano and said goodnight to Andy at the bar, collecting my fee (a thin wad of dollar bills from the cash register), and then opening the door for her, warning her to mind her step on the narrow, dimly lit staircase that led up to the street. She would have had a bag with her, a black canvas holdall, and I would have offered to carry it, slinging it over my shoulder as I followed her up the stairs, admiring the sway of her back and the shapeliness of the stockinged ankle I would have glimpsed between the bottom of her jeans and her neat brown shoes.

  Once out in the street, she would have pulled her coat tightly around herself, and looked to me for guidance – only her eyes visible above the turned-up collar – and I would have taken her arm gently and led her off down West 4th Street, heading north towards 9th and 13th.

  ‘Are you sure this is all right?’ she would have asked. ‘I hate to think I might be imposing.’

  And I would have said: ‘Not at all. It’s good of you to trust me, really. I mean, a total stranger …’

  ‘Oh, but I’d been listening to you play the piano.’ She would have glanced at me, now. ‘I’d been in there for a couple of hours, and … Well, anyone who plays the piano like that must be a good person.’ Then a nervous laugh, before offering up the compliment. ‘You play very nicely.’

  I would have smiled at that: a practised, rueful smile. ‘You should tell that to the guy who runs the bar. He might pay me a little more.’ After which, almost immediately, I would have been anxious to change the subject. ‘My name’s David, by the way.’

  ‘Oh. I’m Rachel.’ We would have shaken hands, a little awkwardly
, a little embarrassed at our own formality, and then hurried on to my apartment, because Rachel would have been looking cold, already: her breath steaming in the frosty air, the hint of a chatter in her teeth.

  ‘You probably want to get straight to bed,’ I would have said, as soon as we got inside, and I would have helped her off with her coat and hung it up in the hallway. I would have showed her where the bed was, and changed the sheets for her while she was in the bathroom. The old sheets and blankets I would have taken with me, using them to make up some sort of bed for myself on the couch. When she had finished in the bathroom I would have gone to check that she had everything she wanted, and then I would have said goodnight, but afterwards I would have lain on the couch for ten minutes or more, waiting for the light in her bedroom to be turned off. But she wouldn’t have turned it off. Instead, her bedroom door would have been pulled slowly open, and I would have felt her looking at me, trying to work out if I had gone to sleep, before she tiptoed through into the hallway, and started searching through the pockets of her coat. A few seconds later she would have found what she was looking for and would have come back; and just as she was returning to the bedroom I would have said:

  ‘Is everything OK?’

  She would have started, and paused, before saying: ‘Yes, I’m fine. I hope I didn’t wake you.’ And then: ‘I forgot my notebook. I always try to write something in it, every night, before I go to bed. Wherever I am.’

  ‘That’s very disciplined of you,’ I would have said. And she would have asked me:

  ‘Don’t you practise every night? Surely you must practise.’

  ‘In the mornings, sometimes. By the time it gets this late, I’m too tired.’

  She could have turned, and gone, at this point. The silence would have been long enough to allow it. But that wouldn’t have happened. I would have sensed that she wanted to stay, and would have said:

  ‘So what are you going to write now?’

  ‘Just a few … thoughts, you know. Just a few thoughts about the day.’

  ‘You mean like a diary?’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘I’ve never done anything like that. Never kept a diary. Have you always kept one?’

  ‘Yes. Since I was a child. I remember, when I was about seven, or eight …’ We would have talked, then, for fifteen minutes or more. Or rather, I would have listened (because that’s always how it is) while she talked; talked, and came closer – sitting on the arm of the couch, at first, then sitting beside me, after I had shifted over to make room for her, her bare thighs (because she would have been wearing only a T-shirt, and panties) in contact with my hips: only the sheets and blankets intervening.

  I know, too, what would have happened at the end of those fifteen minutes. How she would have leaned towards me, leaned over me, the heaviness of her body against mine. How her hair, freed now from its ponytail, would have drifted across my face until she brushed it back, and how her lips would have touched mine: her lips dry with the cold. Dry at first. How I would have followed her into the bedroom. How there would have been a rapid, almost imperceptible shedding of our last remaining clothes. How I would have learned about her by touch, first of all, and by sight only later, when the bedclothes lay dishevelled, thrust aside, strewn across the floor. How willingly she would have given herself to me. And how beautiful she would have been, by the flashes of neon through the uncurtained window. How very beautiful.

  How right for me.

  That’s what would have happened. And this is what would have happened next:

  In the morning, we would have had breakfast together at the Perky Pig, and even that would have tasted good, for once. Over refills of coffee, we would have made plans. First of all, there would have been the question of accommodation: it would have been blindingly obvious that we could afford a bigger and better place if we pooled our resources, and moved in together. But that would have presented another problem: her parents, both Christian fundamentalists, would never have countenanced this arrangement. We would have to get married. The suggestion would have been made jokingly, at first, but it would have taken only a few seconds for our eyes to make contact and to shine with the sudden, instantaneous knowledge that it was what we both wanted. Three days later, man and wife, we would have spotted an advertisement in the New York Review of Books for a vacant apartment in the West Village, offered at a derisory rent to suitably bohemian tenants. It would have been the property of a middle-aged academic couple, about to depart for a five-year sojourn in Europe. Arranged over three floors, it would have included an enormous studio room – at the centre of which would have stood a Steinway baby grand, sheened in winter sunshine from the skylight – and a small but adorable garret study with a view over the treetops of Washington Square. In this study, during the next few weeks, Rachel would have written the final chapters of her almost-completed novel. A novel which, after two regretful but encouraging rejections, would have been accepted for publication by Alfred A. Knopf, and would have appeared the next September, becoming the sensation of that fall. Meanwhile, as her book climbed the bestseller lists and scooped up prizes, I would have finished my long-projected piano concerto, an early performance of which (at the Merkin Concert Hall, with myself both playing and conducting) would have caught the attention of Daniel Barenboim, who would have insisted on programming it as the chief item in his recital for the ‘Great Performers’ series at Lincoln Center.

  Our son, Thelonius, would have been born a few months later. Followed, after another couple of years, by our daughter, Emily.

  Yes, by our daughter, Emily …

  Wait a minute, though: I can hear her crying. I can hear her crying downstairs.

  No, it isn’t her. It isn’t Emily. It’s the squeal of those big garage doors at the Watson Storage and Removal Company. Those rusty hinges. The first of the trucks has just arrived.

  Do you want to know what I did say to her, instead? Do you want to know how I actually answered that question?

  ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘There’s an excellent B & B near here. Just around the corner. Halliwell’s, on Bedford Street. It’s just five minutes’ walk.’ And I looked away, to avoid glimpsing the disappointment that I knew would flare in her eyes, and I played the same two chords again, over and over, and I heard her thank me, and I kept on playing them, and she left, and I played them again, and two days later I went to Halliwell’s to look for her, but they didn’t know who I meant, and I said her name was Rachel but of course it wasn’t, I made that up, I never knew her name, and I carried on playing those two chords and I’m still playing them now, this very moment, 9th and 13th, 9th and 13th, the sound of endless, infinite, unresolved possibilities. The most tantalizing sound in the world.

  I don’t know what chord I should play next. I can’t decide.

  V.O.

  There came a point when it stopped being an interview and turned into a conversation. And there came another point, some time later, when it stopped being a conversation and turned into a flirtation. William could not have said when either of these things happened, with any certainty.

  He did notice, however, that Pascale had laid aside her notebook, and was no longer writing down everything he said. And he noticed that they were no longer talking about his forthcoming film project, or his last CD, but had begun to discuss the unsatisfactory progress of her own career in journalism.

  ‘Even now,’ she was saying, ‘I can’t be sure that they will publish this article. And, you know, that’s annoying for you – because you have taken the trouble to talk to me – but also for myself, because it’s a lot of work, to transcribe all of this and to write it up and then to be told that they don’t want to use it after all.’

  William smiled the self-deprecating smile at which he was so practised, and said: ‘You make me wish that I was more famous. I’m sure if you were interviewing Jerry Goldsmith, or Michael Nyman …’

  ‘No, not at all,’ said Pascale. ‘I can assure you that your film scores
are very well known in France. They are very popular. It’s just that – I don’t know …’ She shook her head, and stared ruefully into space. ‘They are so unreliable, these people. They say one thing and they mean another.’

  ‘I’d enjoy talking to you,’ said William, after a pause, ‘whether you were going to write about me or not.’

  Pascale turned. For a moment he was convinced that the remark had sounded too crass, too forward. Her eyes were screened: all he could see in her Ray-Bans, dimly, was his own reflection. But the smile that now flickered on to her face was pleased rather than mocking.

  Instead of responding directly to the compliment, she said: ‘Are you enjoying the festival, so far?’

  ‘Yes,’ said William. ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘It’s not exactly Cannes. Not many celebrities, not many famous names.’

  ‘Well, there’s Claudia Remotti: wouldn’t you say that she’s one of Italy’s biggest movie stars, these days? It’s not often I get to spend so much time with a woman like that.’

  Pascale pouted. ‘So the jury spend a lot of time together?’

  ‘Absolutely. We watch the films together, we eat together, drink together …’ But William was irritated, even as he said this, by the thought that he didn’t know where the other jury members were at that moment. Were they socializing, somewhere, without having invited him – without even noticing that he wasn’t there? Was some other man – that self-assured Spanish director, perhaps – sitting next to Claudia and plying her with alcohol? He felt a bitter pang of jealousy and poured more beer into Pascale’s glass.

  They were drinking at a seafront bar on a small promontory which jutted out from the shore, so that the ocean glimmered, turquoise and opalescent, on three sides. William’s eyes were smarting from the white sunlight. He had forgotten to bring his sunglasses to France; had been on his way to buy some, in fact, when he had stopped at the bar for a drink and been waylaid by this charming journalist. She had asked him if they could meet for a short interview some time during the week, and he had said that now was as good a time as any. It meant, admittedly, that he’d been unable to call his wife, Alice, at the time they had arranged – between two and three that afternoon – but that was a small matter. She was bound to understand that an interview request should take precedence …