The oldest, yet the latest thing (Part 2) VII
“Why have you stopped?” Barrow’s soft voice asks behind him. “That sounded lovely.”
Jimmy half turns towards him on the squeaky piano stool. “I haven’t stopped. I’m not playing yet,” he smiles.
“Oh?”
“I haven’t played this one before. I need to work out the fingering first.”
From the corner of his eye, Jimmy can see that Barrow’s hand has frozen on its way to his mouth, handsome face caught in an expression of questioning surprise, fingertips and cigarette barely touching his lips, both eyebrows raised in bemused enquiry. “The what?”
“The fingering,” Jimmy laughs, tapping the sheet music on the piano stand with the index finger of his outstretched left, as if Barrow could see the little numbers from where he’s sitting at the table. “It’s usually all off. I don’t know who these editors have in mind when they publish their scores … Young, blushing maidens perhaps? Swooning over one romantic piece of music or other? In any case, the recommended fingering never works for me. It’s as if it’s all written for someone with considerably smaller hands than mine.”
He swivels back to face the piano and gives the tip of his pencil a quick, perfunctory lick, swiftly crossing out the number 3 he has just spotted on the page and replacing it with a small 1. (No need for his middle finger to pass over his thumb here when he can reach that key with his thumb with ease.)
Then he glances over his shoulder at the other man again. “‘Cause you see, I’ve got rather large hands,” Jimmy explains, holding up his right for Barrow to see.
“Yes, I’ve noticed,” the underbutler replies quietly, cutting his eyes away from Jimmy’s hands a bit too quickly, then exhales a long plume of smoke with faux nonchalance.
“And that means the indicated fingering’s mostly wrong for me,” Jimmy adds and continues to mark down the changes on the sheet music.
It’s true: Jimmy has always prided himself in comfortably being able to span an eleventh and even managing to awkwardly stretch to a twelfth. Thundering octaves up and down the keyboard are child’s play to him. Something that publishers like … (Jimmy raises his gaze to take a quick peek at the top of the page) … like Monsieur E. Fromont, Paris, don’t seem to have in mind when thinking of a typical pianist. God knows who they think this music is meant for. People with significantly smaller hands than his, in any case. People like … like Barrow, Jimmy suddenly realises as he turns his head slightly and his gaze falls upon the man’s elegant pale hands. They’re quite remarkable, these hands, he notices out of the corner of his eye, slender, almost aristocratic-looking and with a narrow span. One of them is partially covered by the man’s customary glove, its leather soft and worn at the finely stitched seams. And yet those fingers are so white, so long, so delicate that … Jimmy quickly whips his head around again to stare at the score on the piano stand. ‘Right … where was I?’
“And here I always wondered how pianists know which key to press at what time,” Barrow’s amused voice addresses him from behind. “Turns out it’s just like maths: a logical sequence of numbers … You just have to follow the instructions.”
“It’s not as easy as that,” Jimmy laughs, feeling his cheeks begin to warm, even in the cool air downstairs. He feels happy, he realises dimly. Giddily happy for some reason that he doesn’t quite understand.
“Isn’t it?” Barrow’s voice rings out behind him, followed by a long drag on the cigarette. “Well, I don’t know a lot about music, to be honest.”
Jimmy has suspected this, of course. Barrow seems more a man of letters than of song, constantly hidden behind his newspapers and books as he is.
Jimmy, for his part, has never really understood this peculiar obsession some people seem to have with the printed word, this love affair with books and papers. He’s got nothing against a good read every once in a while, nothing against devouring a gripping (and slightly sensationalist) novel or flipping through a magazine that the girls have left lying about in the servants’ hall, but his thoughts, his emotions, his dreams at night, don’t consist of fully formed sentences, not even of disconnected words; they’re aren’t language at all - at least not this kind of language … It’s a language made of chords and harmonies and scales. A language not any less true and real, but almost untranslatable into actual words, into precise terms and expressions. It’s as if his brain is just wired differently, as if he is less aware of himself and others sometimes, as if it’s all more vague, less defined. But the fact that he sometimes doesn’t know what it is that he feels and doesn’t know how to describe it doesn’t mean that he feels it any less keenly, doesn’t mean that this inner music surging through him is any less powerful and overwhelming.
Whenever he hears someone’s tread on the floor of the attic corridors upstairs, the footfalls turn into a complex rhythmic pattern in his head, a rhythmic pattern in a specific time signature and tempo, being tapped out against the wooden floorboards. And when he hears someone speak or shout or scream or cry or laugh or even just sigh, he registers the pitch of their voice and whether it goes up or down.
And whenever he thinks of Eddie, his child, his sweet little innocent son, he is engulfed in the warmest, sweetest A-flat major harmony the universe has ever created for man to marvel at, in a soulful tune, that quickly turns so soft, so pure, so painfully beautiful, that it starts to squeeze his heart into an aching knot, before turning into a sorrowful and dark F minor theme, filling his soul with its rich, broad and full sound.
And thinking of Barrow is like listening to a melody that, in a mesmerising moment of god-like clarity, emanates from the strings of some unknown, yet divine instrument, filling the glorious spheres with its breathtaking splendour and Jimmy with rage and awe and wonder and fear …
Thinking in musical terms is such a profound experience, such an integral part of Jimmy’s being, that he doesn’t really understand how anyone can live without it, live not knowing anything about music.
Yes, music (and maybe the cinema every now and then), that’s all the nourishment his soul needs.
This deep need to pore over the financial section of the newspaper that Barrow displays so often, on the other hand, this enthusiasm for whatever some journalist has written somewhere about the goings-on in the world, for all of those endless, pointless arguments about Egypt becoming independent or about women's suffrage or about this whole Irish debacle, all of this eludes Jimmy completely.
“It’s not maths,” he breaks his silence eventually. “You see, I could probably play it without paying attention to the fingering. But that’d be more difficult.”
“Why?” Barrow has folded up his newspaper and looks genuinely interested now.
“Well, you could say that playing the piano is like walking, in a way,” Jimmy tries to explain it, scrunching up his face in concentration. “Only that instead of putting one foot in front of the other, you’ve got ten of them to sort out and have to make sure that each one does exactly what it is supposed to do. At breakneck speed probably. And on an uneven path of black and white keys at that. A path through a composition that you might not know yet. A path that’s badly lit, so to speak.”
“Sounds like an adventure.” One side of Barrow’s mouth curls up in a lopsided smile at that, new, unlit cigarette dangling from his lips.
“It is, in a way, yes,” Jimmy laughs again. “So … if there is a fingerpost pointing you in the right direction, you better take it seriously.”
“Only that sometimes the right direction isn’t, in fact, right for you,” Barrow nods, clearly having understood the metaphor. “And when it’s not, you’ve got to come up with your own directions.”
“Something like that, yes,” Jimmy beams at him, his earlier anger completely forgotten by now. “And those directions are a very personal thing. The path laid out by one pianist can be quite hazardous for another to follow. That Ravel thing I was playing earlier … it still has my father’s fingering written in on most pages. But that version doesn’t work for me either.”
“‘Cause you’ve got to find out what’s right for you. I see …” Barrow says slowly, an odd, pensive gleam in his eyes. “You’ve got to find your own way through the dark … to feel it out with your fingertips … ‘Cause nobody has walked it before. Yes, I … understand.” The man looks away at that, eyes fixed on something invisible in the distance, as if suddenly caught up in some memory, his newly lit cigarette smouldering away between his pale fingers.
“I’ll try again if you want. Properly, this time,” Jimmy suggests, tearing the man out of his strange reverie.
“Wh- Oh, play that piece, you mean? Yes, please. I liked that one,” Barrow snaps out of his thoughts.
“It’s French, though,” Jimmy admits with an apologetic smirk.
“Well, nobody’s perfect,” Barrow shrugs. It’s meant in jest. That much is obvious from the man’s narrowed, twinkling eyes and wry smile. It’s a playful little quip.
And yet, there’s something … something in the way he says it. Some hidden pain in the corners of Barrow’s eyes as the man smiles to himself for a moment, a look of forlorn contemplation on his face. There’s something about his mouth that's just a bit too tense for a joke and a hint of a suppressed something in his voice that just seems off. It’s as if there’s a rich series of subtle, yet heartbreakingly beautiful overtones to this remark, swinging in the air like a delicate cobweb of sound.
And suddenly, Jimmy wonders if maybe Barrow’s statement about nobody being perfect isn’t referring to something else entirely. To something that hasn’t got anything to do with French music: To Jimmy’s not being that way. Or maybe to Barrow’s heart being so imperfect and foolish to insist on loving someone who cannot return the sentiment … To how fate constantly insists on throwing together pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that don’t fit together, on rearranging every intricately written, harmonious composition until it sounds dissonant and jarring…
At that, Jimmy gives himself a quick little shake and turns back to the piano to play the Debussy even though he knows he’s no good at sight-reading. (He’s never been good at it.) There’s something about playing a prima vista that just doesn’t come naturally to him. He’s too impatient for it, not calm, not confident, enough. It’s not how he works. He feels overwhelmed by new information too quickly, which makes it hard to process two staves at the same time - when seeing them for the first time, that is. And translating a plethora of notes into music at a glance is no mean feat. Jimmy is much better at playing things he’s worked out, in a sense, things he’s understood and rehearsed and practised over and over again. Pieces that he’s really worked through. Having to capture and process data in an instant is very difficult and extremely frustrating to him.
But he’s going to try. For Barrow.
And Debussy hasn’t made the task too hard for him to tackle. It’s a mellow little piece of music, with an accompaniment that falls comfortably under his more dexterous left hand and a simple undulating melody that doesn’t overstrain his weaker right, flowing along peacefully, supported by some intricate pedal work, and turning into a quiet, warm daydream of a faraway summer …
Every note of it is so enchanting, so endlessly soothing, so iridescently golden, that the music just envelops Jimmy in its warmth like the poetic promise of something wonderful and unknown that he can’t quite name but knows is there every time his fingertips connect with the ivory keys and conjure up this surreal longing for a brighter, more blessed tomorrow.
Across the corridor, the soft clack-clacking of Carson’s typewriter can be heard, indicating that the butler is still working despite the late hour. (The fact that the man hasn’t so much as raised an eyebrow at Barrow earlier or breathed a word against him, upon hearing about the underbutler’s antics at dinner, is a testament to how much he disapproves of strangers speaking out against the family.)
And behind himself, Jimmy can hear the gentle rustle of the evening paper as Barrow turns a page. There’s a strange domesticity to it all. As if this were how it was always supposed to be: a quiet, peaceful evening downstairs, that finds him seated at the piano, playing for Barrow (of all people). It reminds Jimmy of his parents for some reason, of the way his father would warm his hands by the fire and then stroll over to the old piano to play a dazzling little something for Jimmy’s mother, for her, always for her … of the way his mother would bow her head over her needlework, a little smile softening the look of intense concentration on her otherwise strict face as she sorted through the different pieces of lace and velvet ribbon in front of her, picking up a needle here or some whalebone there, all the while listening to her husband’s fingers hammering out the precise rhythm of a jolly Mazurka or some cheerful polka, listening to how he gently caressed the keys with a delicate Nocturne or a sentimental waltz … by the warm light of the fireplace … a lifetime ago …
Jimmy is just letting the notes roll off smoothly into the piece’s exquisite pianissimo ending when Wright walks in, a cup of tea in his hand and a nervous smile on his face.
“Oh … er … hullo …” the valet stutters.
‘Lord give me strength,’ Jimmy thinks sourly, taking his right foot off the brass pedal with a loud clonk.
“I hope I’m not interrupting a private concert for Mr Barrow?” Wright enquires, cautious smile audible in his voice.
Jimmy whirls around on his piano stool. “I was quite finished. Don’t worry … sir,” he says coldly.
“Nice piece,” the other man replies before Barrow can get a word in. “Debussy, was it? Lady Dullop would have liked that.”
“Probably, yes,” Jimmy says, trying very hard to keep his voice devoid of any emotion.
“How about we play a little duet for Mr Barrow?” Wright suggests, wiggling the fingers of his free hand in the air.
“I’m sorry, I don’t think I’ve got any sheet music for that,” Jimmy lies smoothly, his flat voice betraying nothing.
(As if he would let this brat touch the copy of Schubert’s Fantasia in F minor for four hands he’s got stashed upstairs in his room. The beautifully bound book of sheet music with its richly ornamented art-nouveau Breitkopf & Härtel cover lies hidden under his bed, preserving the memory of a better time, of long hours on warm winter evenings by the fire, of how he and his father used to play it back at home, of home, of a home he has lost - alongside his piano playing skills - of a home he will never have again, a home he will never be able to give his son.
His father’s sheet music is Jimmy’s most treasured, most carefully guarded possession. A precious treasure he has managed to hang on to even in the worst of times, even when he had had to sell the wedding rings Eddie’s mother and he had exchanged so hastily years ago after the boy’s conception. He’s held on to his father’s collection of scores, while selling all other family possessions to make ends meet. This collection is his treasure. Once, he even yelled at Alfred for touching his edition of the Schubert Fantasia with his greasy fingers while rummaging about. He’s certainly not going to share it with some stranger who’s just stumbled into his life to annoy him.)
“Oh, that’s too bad,” Wright replies with a genuine smile. “I’ll have to bring something along the next time we come to visit.”
‘The next time?’ Jimmy thinks with inward indignation.
Continued here