The Rain Before It Falls Page 12

  After a pause, and a frown of concentration, she began by playing a long, low, single note on her flute. Then she let it hang in the air, and decay.

  Then she played another long note – a minor third above the first – and followed it, after a few seconds’ silence, with a simple three-note phrase in an apparently unrelated key.

  Next, she clicked on her foot pedal, and suddenly, miraculously, the two notes and the phrase she had already played were repeated, and repeated again. She clicked again, and the notes began to blossom and multiply. Chords began to form, and loops of sound were created, shifting in and out of phase with each other, until the air seemed to be filled with a whole ensemble of flutes, over whose uncanny concord Catharine began to improvise quiet, tentative, fragmentary melodic lines. The music seemed infinitely sad and eerie, as if it were somehow drifting into the church not just from some remote, unvisited place, but from the distant past. Not for the first time that evening, Gill felt her skin turn to goosebumps, and found herself shivering. She’d heard Catharine playing the work of other composers often enough. But it was twice as thrilling, and ten times stranger, to know that the sounds she could hear now were coming from the imagination of her own daughter, someone whom she herself had once brought into the world. At that moment, she knew that they had never been so close to each other: Gill knew exactly what Catharine was thinking, exactly what images were passing through her mind, with every stretched, pregnant note. The music she was playing was not abstract. It was a soundtrack: the soundtrack to a story they had heard together only a few hours earlier, about two little girls, running away from home, on a winter’s night in wartime Shropshire. Catharine was thinking of the hidden path that led to the caravan, the rustle of leaves overhead as Beatrix led her trusting cousin away into the forest, the gaunt and sombre silhouette of Warden Farm standing out blackly in the moonlight. These images, these fitful, antique images, were somehow inscribed into the fabric of her music. Gill could not have been more convinced of the fact, even if her daughter had been trying to describe the scene in words.

  She glanced across at Elizabeth, and could see that she was feeling it too. And when the improvisation was over, after around seven or eight haunted minutes, they did not, at first, join in with the audience’s vigorous applause. Instead they turned and looked at each other, and Elizabeth saw that, although her mother was smiling, proud and joyful and almost overcome with admiration, her eyes were also gleaming moistly.

  Afterwards, along with many of Catharine’s friends, they went to a pub in Wigmore Place and waited for her arrival. There were more than twelve of them squeezed around the table, including Daniel, the obscurely untrustworthy boyfriend (who had arrived late for the concert), and the pale, waiflike and rather beautiful redheaded pianist who had played the piece by John Cage.

  ‘That was amazing,’ Gill said, leaping up and hugging her daughter as soon as she came in. Daniel hurried off to buy her a drink, and Catharine squeezed herself into a corner of the table, to a general chorus of greetings and congratulations.

  ‘That gadget of yours,’ said Daniel, when he returned with her pint of Guinness, ‘I was trying to work out what it does. Is there a little hard disk in there, or something?’

  ‘Trade secret,’ said Catharine, flashing him a flirty smile.

  ‘No, but I imagine everything you play into there – within certain parameters – is recorded instantaneously, and then repeated back, is it?’

  The workings of the device were not what interested Gill, so she allowed the conversation to go on without listening too closely. It was soon bogged down in minute and unfathomable technicalities. Elizabeth was looking at her watch.

  ‘Getting tired?’ Gill asked.

  ‘No. I was just wondering how soon we could get away. I’m dying to listen to the rest of those tapes.’

  ‘Oh.’ Gill was surprised. ‘I thought we’d do that tomorrow morning.’

  ‘What?’ said Elizabeth, turning on her. ‘You’ve got to be joking. We’re going back to Catharine’s place right now.’

  Gill glanced over at her daughter, still deep in ever more specialized conversation with Daniel. ‘Are you sure we’re invited?’ she asked, nodding at them meaningfully.

  ‘Well… that’s a good point.’ Elizabeth looked doubtful, but only for a moment. ‘I’ll have a word with her. Don’t worry about it.’

  It transpired, in any case, that Daniel had to be up early for a seminar the next morning, and had not been planning to go home with Catharine after all. So it seemed there was no obstacle to their returning to Primrose Hill that night, and following Rosamond’s story to its conclusion. Gill was worried that this meant she wouldn’t get to bed until very late, and wondered if she would find herself locked out of her hotel; but her daughters told her not to fret. ‘They have twenty-four-hour porters for that sort of thing,’ said Elizabeth knowledgeably. They left just before last orders were called. Daniel stood up to kiss Catharine goodbye: a kiss so ostentatious, and reverent, that Gill (reproving herself, at the same time, for her scepticism) wondered if he was not over-compensating for something. It also struck her that he had not actually complimented Catharine on her performance, but merely taken an interest in the workings of her echo machine, or whatever it was. A thought she would have dismissed as irrelevant, probably, had it not been that – just as she was following her daughters out of the door – she spotted Daniel reseating himself next to the redheaded pianist, and caught the first words that he spoke to her. Which were something like: ‘That was one of the most beautiful things I’ve heard in my life.’

  ∗

  Eleven-thirty. They are back in Catharine’s flat, at the very top of that austere, lofty Victorian house, the sounds of night-time London forgotten again, far beneath them. A bottle of red wine opened, this time, to fortify them against whatever shocks the remaining tapes hold in store. Some bread, cheese and grapes, laid out on a chopping board on the floor, with knives and plates: but nobody seems to want them. The noise of the plane tree, again, as it taps against the windowpane. The overhead lamp switched off, so that the only light in the room comes from the coal-effect gas fire, turned down low and dancing away cheerfully enough in the grate. That, and the phosphorescent turquoise glow from the display panel on Catharine’s stereo system. Kneeling before it, she ejects the latest tape to see whether it needs turning over yet, finds that there is still half of this side left to run; and puts it back into the machine. She crawls over to the fire and sits cross-legged in front of it; checks with her mother and sister that they are ready to start listening; and presses the remote control.

  Once again, they hear the onset of hiss, and the ambient noise which tells them that they are back in Shropshire, back in Rosamond’s bungalow, back in her sitting room, where she sits surrounded by ghosts and photographs. A prefatory cough, the clearing of a frail, elderly woman’s throat, and the flow of narrative resumes.

  Number twelve. Ah. This one, Imogen, is probably my favourite picture of all. The memories associated with it are exquisitely happy. Almost painfully so. I hope that I can describe it to you calmly, with some objectivity. I have not looked at this picture – not dared to look at it, to tell the truth – for many years. You will have to give me a moment or two to take it all in, and to compose my thoughts, and my feelings.

  Very well. A lake, first of all. Clear blue sky, absolutely cloudless. A rich cerulean blue at the very top of the picture, and then getting paler and paler until the sky is almost white where it brushes the top of the mountains. Mountains in the distance, yes: twin peaks, one on either side of the picture, with a long ridge connecting them, dipping gently in the middle. No snow on these peaks today, although there certainly would be in the winter. At the foot of the mountains pastureland begins, and starts to tumble in green, undulating folds towards the far shore of the lake, broken intermittently by patches of pine forest and, almost hidden away in one valley, you can just see a small village, with the church spire rising pr
oudly from a muddle of clustered white buildings and red roofs. This village, unless I’m much mistaken, would be Murol. For we are in the Auvergne district of France, and it is the height of summer: a long, silent, perfect day in the summer of 1955.

  We are looking at Lac Chambon, which lies towards the south of the region. The lake is quite still, and reflects the outline of the mountains with exact, unmoving symmetry, so that if you stare at the picture long enough, it starts to look almost like an abstract study in geometry. Trees line the far shore of the lake, and in the foreground of the picture, occupying most of the top right-hand corner, there are the tangled, intertwining branches of a chestnut tree. This tree overhangs a small shingle beach, beyond which, standing in the water, there are two figures with their backs to the camera: a young girl, about six or seven years old, with fair, slightly brownish hair tied into two pigtails, wearing a swimsuit with pink and white vertical stripes; and next to her, a young woman of about twenty-five, wearing a plain navy-blue swimsuit, and a short white pleated skirt over the top – a tennis skirt, I think, in all probability. The woman has blonde hair – brilliant blonde hair, almost white – which falls just short of her shoulders. She is broad-shouldered and athletic-looking, but also slim, and graceful, with long, slender arms and legs. She is bending slightly, to help the little girl with something: it’s not entirely clear what, but I suspect she is trying to teach her how to skim stones. They are both standing a few yards out into the lake. The woman is Rebecca, of course, and the little girl is Thea. The person taking the photograph was myself, and when I took it I was lying in a meadow above the beach, surrounded by long grass and wild flowers. You can see a few of the blades of grass, and the petals of what I take to be yellow saxifrage at the very forefront of the picture, blurred and out of focus.

  I should tell you why we were taking our holidays in the Auvergne. The explanation might strike you as rather frivolous, but I hope not. It all began like this. One night at the flat in Putney, after Thea had fallen asleep (we had bought a little camp bed so that she could sleep in our bedroom), Rebecca and I were in the sitting room next door, listening to the wireless. We were tuned to the Third Programme, and they were broadcasting a concert which included, among other items, a selection of Canteloube’s famous arrangements of the Songs of the Auvergne. I recall, Imogen – and I hope this does not shock you – that during the course of the broadcast we became rather amorous with each other. In fact I don’t think we ever made love so tenderly and so… fiercely as that night. It was… Well, no doubt the details would be of little interest to you. Afterwards, for both of us, those songs were forever associated with that occasion, but more than that, somehow they became – what is the word? – symbolic? – or do I mean totemict? – totemic, I think – of the love between us. There was one song in particular, one of the most famous ones – ‘Bailero’, it is called, a most beautiful love song, very slow, and very sad – it starts with the woodwind voicing such plangent phrases, while the violins play long, lovely, shimmering chords, and then the soprano’s voice enters so unexpectedly, so dramatically, singing this extraordinarily melancholy tune… Oh, it is no use, of course, you cannot describe music in words, perhaps the best thing would be if I simply put that song on to the stereo when I have finished describing this picture, so that you can hear it yourself. I will do that, if I remember.

  Long-playing records were a fairly recent invention in those days. I can’t even remember if our gramophone was equipped to play them. Most music was still sold on ‘78’ discs, and it was in that form, I am sure, that Rebecca bought a copy of ‘Bailero’ a few days later. We must have driven the neighbours to distraction, playing it day and night. And, from that time on, it became a favourite pastime of ours, to fantasize about making a trip to the Auvergne, for no other reason than to imbibe some of the spirit of the landscape that had given birth to this glorious music. At first it seemed a far-fetched and impractical proposition. We were still accustoming ourselves to the responsibility of looking after Thea, and the thought of taking her to a foreign country with us seemed daunting, and a little capricious. As it became ever more apparent that Beatrix was in no hurry to return, we were obliged to adjust our circumstances, and to make sacrifices. I discovered that caring for a small child was not compatible with studying for a degree, and I dropped out of university midway through the first term of my second year. Rebecca continued to work, and through her diligence we managed to keep our heads above water, financially, and were more or less able to function as a family unit. One of the biggest problems was the attitude of our landlady, who considered the whole set-up most irregular (which it was) and would frequently torment us with threats – sometimes veiled, sometimes not – of bringing the situation to the attention of the authorities, or even our parents – none of whom knew anything about it, for a good while. She could usually be placated, thankfully, with prompt or even advance payment of rent, so that the worst we ever really had to contend with were her constant scowls of disapproval.

  We had little contact with Beatrix, and little idea of her whereabouts. Very occasionally, she would telephone. Even more occasionally, she would write. She sent her daughter presents at Christmas (twice) and remembered her birthday (once). Rebecca and I could certainly have been more energetic, in putting pressure on her to return home and bring an end to what was, from many points of view, a most peculiar and unsatisfactory situation. But we did not do this. We adored Thea, and loved having her with us: it was no more complicated than that. We both knew, obviously, that Beatrix was liable to return home at any time, and take her back. This cloudy prospect hung over us constantly. But I suppose that in our way we grew accustomed to it, until it became simply another of our conditions of living.

  In the spring of 1955, Rebecca found that she had saved up enough money to buy a small car, and suddenly the fantasy of our trip to France was turned to reality. Thea was by now settled, quite comfortably, in the local primary school; there seemed to be a real solidity in the relations between us, as a family of three, and we felt quite confident about embarking upon our summer adventure. We set off at the end of July and planned to be away for three weeks.

  The car was laden with camping equipment. You cannot see it here, but our tent was white, and very plain, and yet big enough for the three of us to sleep in comfortably. Mostly we stayed at official campsites, but at the very end of the holiday, I remember, we pitched camp, for one night only, right next to this shingle beach on the shores of Lac Chambon, and there we found ourselves quite alone. I don’t know who that land belonged to – if anyone – but no one disturbed us the whole time we were there.

  Those three weeks in France were undoubtedly the happiest of my life, and everything that was good about them is crystallized in this photograph, and in the song ‘Bailero’, which never fails to evoke for me images of that lake, and that meadow, where we lay all afternoon amidst the long grass and the wild flowers, while Thea played down by the water. There is nothing one can say, I suppose, about happiness that has no flaws, no blemishes, no fault lines: none, that is, except the certain knowledge that it will have to come to an end. As the afternoon waned, the air grew not cooler, but thicker and more humid. We had been drinking wine, and my head was feeling heavy and sleepy. I must have dozed off, and when I awoke, I saw that Rebecca was still lying beside me, but her eyes were wide open, and there was quick movement behind them, as if she were thinking rapid, private thoughts. When I asked her if everything was all right, she turned and smiled at me, and her gaze softened, and she whispered some reassuring words. She kissed me and rose to her feet and wandered down towards the shore, where Thea was collecting pebbles and sorting them into piles according to some eccentric system of her own.

  I came to join them, but Rebecca did not turn round when she heard my footsteps on the shingle. She shielded her eyes and looked towards the mountains and said, ‘Just look at those clouds. It will be some rainstorm, if those come our way.’ Thea heard this remark: she
was always quick to notice changes of mood – it surprised me, every time, to realize what a sensitive child she was, how attuned to grown-up feelings. It prompted her to ask: ‘Is that why you’re looking sad?’ ‘Sad?’ said Rebecca, turning. ‘Me? No, I don’t mind summer rain. In fact I like it. It’s my favourite sort.’ ‘Your favourite sort of rain?’ said Thea. I remember that she was frowning, and pondering these words, and then she announced: ‘Well, I like the rain before it falls.’ Rebecca smiled at that, but I said (very pedantically, I suppose): ‘Before it falls, though, darling, it isn’t really rain.’ Thea said: ‘What is it, then?’ And I explained: ‘It’s just moisture, really. Moisture in the clouds.’ Thea looked down and became absorbed, once again, in sorting through the pebbles on the beach: she picked two of them up and started tapping them together. The sound and the feel of it seemed to give her pleasure. I went on: ‘You see, there’s no such thing as the rain before it falls. It has to fall, or it isn’t rain.’ It was a silly point to be making to a little girl; I rather regretted starting on it. But Thea seemed to be having no difficulty grasping the concept; rather the reverse – for after a few moments she looked at me and shook her head pityingly, as if it was testing her patience to discuss such matters with a dimwit. ‘Of course there’s no such thing,’ she said. ‘That’s why it’s my favourite. Something can still make you happy, can’t it, even if it isn’t real?’ Then she ran off down to the water, grinning, delighted that her own logic had won such an impudent victory.

  The storm never reached us. We watched it break over the distant mountains, and then pass over to the east, but the shores of that lake managed to escape it. We made ourselves a meal and put Thea to bed. Soon the sky was quite clear again, and the stars glittered above us. The moon threw a path of silver across the still surface of the lake.