The oldest, yet the latest thing (Part 2) VIII
‘The next time?’ Jimmy thinks with inward indignation.
“So, what do you prefer,” Wright continues, “playing top or bottom?”
From the corner of his eye, Jimmy can suddenly see Barrow freeze, shock springing up in the whites of the man’s widening eyes; then the underbutler’s usually oh-so-pale face turns bright red for some odd reason that Jimmy can’t quite fathom, and the man looks away as if silently chastising himself.
“I mean, do you like playing the primo or the secondo part better?” Wright corrects himself quickly with a nervous laugh, tearing his eyes away from Barrow, who is drawing on his cigarette so hard that his cheekbones stand out sharply all of a sudden, threatening to break through his skin for a moment.
Both Wright and Barrow are, for some reason, studiously avoiding looking at each other.
Finally, Jimmy gives an inward shrug, unable to work out what it is that has the two men so tongue-tied all of a sudden. “I don’t care. I don’t really like playing duets,” he declares, feigning disinterest. (Lying comes easier and easier to him these days. In reality, he loves playing piano four hands. But he’d rather cut off his hands than play with this limp-wristed Mr Iron Hoof over there.)
To Jimmy’s dismay, Wright is actually standing in the exact spot where Jimmy usually stands in the evenings, chatting with Barrow. The man is even drinking tea the way he usually does at this hour. The only difference is that their guests’ valet keeps throwing Barrow nervous glances over his teacup. And, of course, Jimmy would never do that!
Jimmy clucks his tongue in indignation and turns halfway back to the piano in order to hide his annoyed face.
“Lovely evening, what?” he hears Wright stutter; the man is obviously trying to strike up a conversation with Barrow now.
‘Bollocks!’ Jimmy thinks glumly, staring at the way the ivory is yellowing with age and peeling off some of the piano keys. ‘It’s colder in here than inside an iceman’s lorry. You can practically feel the damp air creep in from under the doors. There’s nothing particularly ‘lovely’ about this evening. I’m freezing in about a dozen layers of clothing.’
Yes, he realises, somehow he’d managed to forget about the cold over the past half hour or so, while playing for Barrow. Now it’s back with a vengeance, flooding across the floor in a cool wave of air and crawling up his trouser legs like the tide coming in. It’s almost as if just by walking into the servants’ hall, Wright has lowered the average temperature of the room by several degrees Fahrenheit. And it’s only now, as he presses a few keys at random, that Jimmy notices how horribly out of tune the instrument is. Strange! Earlier, caught up in his memories and his conversation with Barrow, he had had quite a different impression of it: it had sounded like the grandest of all concert grands, notes sparkling brilliantly with each scale he played, every chord shining with otherworldly beauty. Even the piano stool hadn’t seemed so uncomfortable just moments ago. The thing is old and won’t turn properly anymore, forever stuck between two positions - 180 degrees back and forth - and Jimmy cannot adjust its height anymore, which means that he, who has never been the tallest of men, is sitting on a piano stool that’s much too low for him, making the thigh muscles of his right leg cramp up from the uncomfortable angle at which he had to press the sustain pedal earlier. Now, why hadn’t he noticed that earlier? ‘Maybe because I was distracted,’ Jimmy muses. Distracted by the music. Yes. Caught up in a world of his own. Their own, actually. Barrow’s and his. And now it suddenly feels as if he has, after a long journey among the stars, found himself abruptly and none-too-gently brought back to reality, back to planet Earth, back to the dust in the corners of the servants’ hall, to the all-encompassing cold, to the uncomfortable piano stool, to the dankness and humidity in the downstairs rooms that warp the wooden instrument and put it out of tune, to the ivory chipping away from the keyboard … It’s as if only now he has noticed that the memories of home, the sepia-toned thoughts of a bygone yesterday and the heart-warmingly familiar images of his parents’ faces weren’t real at all, their features already fading away from his memory again, slipping away between his shaking fingers, away into nothingness, away into the dark beyond, leaving behind only the image of the cruelly matter-of-fact words, ‘It is my painful duty to inform you …’ printed on a telegram template, the name ‘Edward Kent’ filled in hastily by some official’s careless hand, and the image of his dead mother’s horribly discoloured, purple-bluish face after the flu had taken her.
“So, er, peaceful and quiet,” Jimmy hears Wright add with an unsure smile. “Don't you think so, Mr Barrow?”
It’s all Jimmy can do not to slam his head into the keyboard in front of him. ‘Just kill me now,’ he thinks.
“It was, yes,” Barrow replies neutrally.
“So, I’ve heard congratulations are in order?” Wright asks the underbutler when no further answer is forthcoming, bashful smile still audible in his voice. “You’re going to be a homeowner soon, Mr Barrow. You must be thrilled.”
Jimmy swivels around in his seat again, shooting daggers at the valet with his eyes. Doesn’t the man know how dangerous all of this is? Has he forgotten about the public uproar following the discovery of the scandalous nature of Casement’s diaries? Jimmy doesn’t want Barrow doing anything stupid, doesn’t want him to be found out and subsequently arrested. Doesn’t Wright understand that?
Barrow, for his part, just sucks on his cigarette nonchalantly. “Well, whatever ruffles Mr Carson’s feathers has me thrilled, yes.”
“He’s not too happy with an underbutler moving up in life, is he?” Wright laughs nervously.
“He isn’t happy with anyone moving up in life,” Barrow points out matter-of-factly and exhales a long stream of smoke. “Moving forward is a transgression against the natural order of things, in his opinion.”
At that, the visiting valet’s brown eyes seem to smile from behind his spectacles for a moment. “Ah, I see. And change is, in itself, dangerous and disruptive? The natural order of things being ‘the best of all possible worlds’ and such?”
Barrow nods. “Yes. And in this Panglossian view, the universe is in a perpetual state of mathematical harmony. But I’m no Candide, Mr Wright, as you will have probably guessed.”
“Then you must agree that this Monadology according to Charles Carson is illogical in itself,” Wright points out, carefully setting his teacup back on the saucer in his hand after a quick sip. There is an interested gleam in his eyes now. “For, in mathematical harmony, ‘nothing arises out of nothing’. Ergo, change wouldn’t exist if it weren't for a sufficient reason. Which, in turn, would mean that moving on is better than not moving on, for the simple reason that change does exist and, hence, does contain more reality than something that doesn’t exist.”
Jimmy isn’t entirely sure he knows what these two men are talking about, isn’t sure why Barrow nods his head affirmatively at that. The only thing he is sure about is that he’s just heard two words he doesn’t like very much.
“Mr Barrow isn’t moving on!” he snaps angrily from where he’s sulking in his corner. “He’s just moving out. Nothing will change. He’s still going to be around. He’ll stay here. Everything will stay the way it is now.”
Wright looks around, a bit startled, as if he isn’t sure what’s warranted such an attack, as if he has only just remembered that Jimmy is in the room. “Well … that’s … erm … intriguing, really,” the man replies, not unfriendly. “But that is essentially a big change, isn’t it? Working in service, yet living in a grand old house of one's own … that’s a bit of a new thing, uncharted territory, so to speak. Never done before and all that.”
‘Oh, go boil your head!’ Jimmy thinks. Why does this man have to be so insufferable? Why is he such a know-all? Jimmy vaguely realises that what he is experiencing is intellectual jealousy but quickly pushes that feeling away. Surely, it isn't just that. The man is full of himself, right? Right? And pretentious. Yes, that must be it!
Meanwhile, Barrow has cleared his throat. “Well, it is all in keeping with the late Mr Crawley’s plans for the estate. They’re trying to buy up potentially profitable land, that can be put to agricultural use, yet getting rid of all the property that doesn’t yield any income.”
“And that’s where you came in and persuaded them to sell a house that has been nothing but a liability over the last few decades?” Wright asks.
Barrow smiles a small smile. “Something like that, yes. It’s just that Mr Carson isn’t very much in favour of looking at the estate from a profit-and-loss perspective. In his view, tradition is grander and worth more than ‘filthy lucre’; it’s most certainly grander than reality, in any case. But we’ve already established that metaphysics isn’t exactly his strong suit … And a servant buying a house is just an unheard-of blasphemy to him. Man doesn’t like to have things run a bit differently.”
“There’s nothing wrong with running things a bit differently from time to time,” Wright agrees vaguely, quickly looking down into his teacup, voice a bit strained.
Jimmy feels his eyes widen incredulously.
‘So, this is where this is going,’ he thinks, staring at the bashful stranger. He knows exactly what the man has just said there, and if Barrow isn’t blind, he knows it as well.
At that moment, Wright seems to give Jimmy a quick, nervous look over the rim of his round glasses.
‘He wants me to leave. Desperately!’ Jimmy realises, digging his fingernails into the palms of his hands. (It doesn’t hurt. Not enough, in any case. Not the way he wants it to. Like every good pianist, he keeps his nails very short, too short to hurt himself with at a moment like this. It’s ironic because the only thing that actually hurts aren’t his palms; they’re his finger pads, where he has, once again, cut his nails down too short, leaving reddish, raw patches of skin, that sting every time his fingers come into contact with soap or are pressed down too hard. It’s a common pianists’ ailment. Jimmy knows that. And yet he still hasn’t managed to stop himself from cutting them down so far. Because this pain holds the memory of a time when he was a better pianist, of a time when he was a son and not just a father. This slight stinging ache is dear to him, familiar and comforting like an old friend.)
Wright gives him another covert look out of the corner of his eyes, and, despite the cold, Jimmy suddenly feels a few beads of sweat form on the back of his neck as he digs his fingertips into the flesh of his palms, clenching his fists. The valet’s furtive little looks, his charming smiles, his honest laughs and genuine friendliness, everything about the man calls for capital punishment, in Jimmy’s opinion. Why can’t the man just be a bastard? It would be so much easier to hate him, and Jimmy wouldn’t have to feel guilty for behaving so dastardly around the man, for disliking him so much. This way Jimmy has got to hate the man for being so likeable and clever and well-educated and kind to everyone, to hate the fact that everyone below stairs seems to be falling over themselves to praise him, to hate those stupid, I’m-oh-so-intellectual glasses and the dreamy-eyed glances the man keeps throwing in Barrow’s direction from behind their polished circular lenses. And all of that makes it much more difficult to justify one’s thoughts and feelings to one’s own conscience.
And then, there’s this tiny voice in the back of Jimmy’s mind telling him that it’s all none of his business, anyway. It’s a sneaky little voice fighting an endless fight with the beast that is roaring in his chest, growling that he’s got to protect Barrow, he’s got to make sure the man doesn’t do anything stupid or get into trouble.
It’s the next time he looks into Wright’s eyes that the roaring beast in his chest surrenders, making way for something softer, kinder, gentler, for a feeling so infinitely more tender that it almost pains him to feel it flood his chest. It’s because of what he suddenly discovers in those sad round eyes: this expression of deliberate emptiness, this profound longing, this loneliness so akin to the air of isolation that Barrow, so often, seems to wear like a cross on his back. And suddenly, all the resentment and anger Jimmy’s harboured for Wright starts to evaporate bit by bit, leaving nothing but pity and embarrassment behind - embarrassment at how humiliating it must be to crave something so repulsive and undeniably wrong, how humiliating to this genuinely nice man to know he will never be able to find an equally kind and caring wife for himself. What a horrible fate to know that what one wants is criminal and yet to be unable to help oneself! To give oneself up to the habitual practice of debauchery almost against one’s will. And to remain wifeless and unloved. It is a sad, a depressing thought, that makes Jimmy’s heart go out to the stranger, who is just as lonely, just as miserable, just as unhappy as Barrow and will probably remain so throughout his entire life.
And isn’t it strange how these men are so completely different from what Jimmy would have thought they would look like? Barrow doesn’t seem to bear the slightest resemblance to one of those chaps. And even Wright is far manlier, taller and more sinewy than most men Jimmy knows. The man certainly looks like he would win in a fight. Even though there is this little something in his vowels that’s just that bit too charming, that slight sweetness in his voice that’s a bit more melodious than usual.
It’s actually quite worrying, Jimmy realises, that he doesn’t find that off-putting at all. Quite the opposite, actually. The way in which the stranger moves his nice, muscular forearms whenever he makes a gesture is quite fascinating. It’s not at all what Jimmy would have expected it to be. Not disgusting or ridiculous. No. These ever-so-slightly effeminate gestures actually contrast nicely with the man’s long masculine arms and strong bone structure. And for some reason, the fact that he finds it so nice, so not repulsive at all, so attractive even, worries Jimmy, making his throat work uncontrollably and something below his sternum buzz like a thousand insects crawling under his skin and into an open, yet still invisible wound.
‘Well, a woman would probably find him attractive, that’s all,’ Jimmy tells himself. ‘I’ve got eyes. Of course, I’ve noticed it. Shame he’ll never like a woman in that way. Shame he lusts after Mr Barrow instead …’
Which once again leads him to the question of how this stranger has even realised Barrow is … that way. It’s not exactly obvious. Have these chaps got secret signs or something? Have they got a secret handshake? Or do they tap their feet in a certain manner once they spot someone they suspect of being one of ‘their sort’?
‘Perhaps I should just leave,’ Jimmy thinks, trying to suppress the awful feeling that’s roaring inside of him like a restless fire at that thought, this inner horror screaming loudly inside of his head at the idea of what these two men might do … Perhaps he should leave them to themselves. It’s none of his business, after all. And it’s not like Barrow is some child that needs looking after. And, of course, Wright knows of the dangers that lie in pursuing another man, is aware of the constant danger of discovery. There’s a reason the man’s so nervous, after all.
Jimmy is about to get up from his piano stool and leave them to it when Wright suddenly clears his throat again.
Continued here