First of all they played straight through the piece. ‘I should just say,’ said Peter at the end, ‘that I assume it’s meant to sound as though I can’t play to save my life.’
‘Absolutely. You’ve really got it.’ With Corinna there was somehow a risk that one might revert to the age of eleven oneself, and get whacked round the head with a book. They went through it again, much more confidently, then she stood up for another cigarette.
‘Isn’t this main tune oddly familiar?’ Peter said.
‘Is it? I shouldn’t have thought any of Gerald’s stuff was familiar.’
‘No… I mean, I think he’s pinched it. It’s Ravel, isn’t it, it’s definitely French.’
‘Aha…?’
Peter played the tune again, very plainly. ‘God, you’re right,’ said Corinna, ‘it’s the
‘There you are!’
‘Naughty old Gerald,’ said Peter, which was a liberty she allowed; though she then said,
‘It might just be naughty old Maurice, of course. You’ll have to check the dates. Anyway, we’d better look at the Mozart for ten minutes, then I must get back, I have to take my husband to the cricket club.’
‘Oh, in Stanford Lane?’ It was a pleasant ten-minute stroll from the bank. ‘I must say you spoil your husband.’
Though not cross, Corinna didn’t look pleased by this. She pushed the
‘Oh, no, I’m sorry… Has something happened?’ Peter saw him being knocked down in the Market Square.
‘Ah, you don’t know.’ She shook her head as if exonerating Peter, but still somewhat nettled. ‘People say it’s agoraphobia, but it’s not actually.’
‘Oh…?’
She sat down again. ‘My husband had a very bad war,’ she said, with her little quiver of irritable tension. ‘It’s something that’s very hard for people to understand.’
‘I’m afraid I only met him for three minutes when I opened my account,’ said Peter. ‘He couldn’t have been nicer – even to someone who had more than forty-five pounds.’
‘He’s a brilliant man,’ said Corinna, ignoring this pleasantry, ‘he should be running a far more important branch, but he finds many things difficult that other people don’t.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I think people need to know that, though of course he loathes having any special exceptions made for him. Probably he’d hate me telling you this. Essentially he cannot tolerate being alone.’
‘Yes, I see.’ Peter glanced at her face, unsure if this explanation marked a new intimacy. She jetted up the last bit of smoke, and stubbed the cigarette out in the bin.
‘He was escaping from a German POW camp when the tunnel collapsed.’ She beamed at the top line of the opening Allegro. ‘No light, no air – can you imagine? He thought he’d die there, but they rescued him just in time.’
‘Goodness,’ said Peter.
‘So that, my dear,’ said Corinna, with a sharp frown, ‘is why I need to take him to the cricket club,’ and she fired off the first bars with a snap of the jaw before he was nearly ready.
5
‘I can’t believe you’re doing this,’ said Jenny Ralph.
‘Oh, I don’t mind, honestly.’
She approached him awkwardly over the gravel in her high heels, her glass held away from her. ‘They’re using you again!’
‘It’s only while people are arriving – I like having something to do.’ Paul stood in the gateway and watched a large black Rover 3-litre coming very slowly along the lane, like a car at a funeral. He said as happily as he could, ‘I’m a bit of an outsider here, anyway.’
‘Well, you needn’t be shy,’ Jenny said. She was wearing a wide-skirted dress like a ballroom-dancer’s and a lot of eyeshadow, and the fact was she did make him feel a bit shy, despite his greater age. He was wearing his work suit, and wished he had something else. ‘And you’ve obviously hit it off with Granny.’
‘Oh… well, she’s interesting, I like her.’
‘Mm, well, she adores you,’ said Jenny, rather tartly.
‘Oh, does she?’
‘ “The bank clerk who quotes darling Cecil!” ’
‘Oh, I see…’ said Paul, laughing as he stepped out from the gate, but wondering again if he was just a figure of fun to them all. He smiled and waved at the car. The visors were down against the lowering sun, and the deafish old couple inside seemed a little bemused. The plan was that they were to go on past the house and leave their cars in the field opposite, walking back across the lane and in through the further entrance to the drive. If they were extremely frail, they could park in the drive proper. It was delicate work deciding if the numerous quite elderly arrivals were frail enough to qualify. In the field itself there was a further just possible hazard from cow- shit, which Paul thought it better not to mention explicitly. ‘Do mind your footing,’ he called out, as the car crept off.
‘No,’ he said, ‘we had to learn “Soldiers Dreaming” by heart.’
‘I beg your pardon…?’
‘The poem by Valance.’
‘Okay…’ said Jenny.
‘ “Some stroll through farms and vales unmarked by war, / Not knowing in their dreams / They are at war for just such tranquil fields, / Such fleet-foot streams.” ’
‘I see…’ said Jenny. ‘By the way, you know there’s a dance at the Corn Hall tonight.’
‘Yes, I know – well, I know someone who’s going.’
‘Oh really… do you want to go later?’
‘Would you be allowed?’ Geoff had been talking about it, he was taking Sandra, and Paul felt suddenly heavy with the idea – then saw in a second that he couldn’t possibly take Jenny.
‘It’s the Locomotives, a group from Swindon… Too thrilling. Actually don’t say anything about it,’ said Jenny, turning round to smile at young John Keeping, who was crossing the drive, also with a tumbler in his hand. He had changed into a dark double-breasted suit, with a red silk handkerchief in his breast pocket, and looked immediately like a successful businessman. ‘My grandmother thought you might care for a drop of the fruit-cup,’ he said. He brought a heavy irony to being, for a moment, a waiter.
‘How kind of her,’ said Paul, taking the glass, not sure what fruit-cup was.
Jenny made a sharp little face. ‘I just caught Granny tipping in another half-bottle of gin, so I should be a bit careful, if I were you.’
‘Oh lord, well, watch out,’ said John, with a lazy guffaw.
Paul blushed as he took a sip. ‘Mm, not bad actually,’ he said, trying not to cough as the gin cut through the momentary illusion of something like orange squash. He took another sip.
John looked at him narrowly, then swivelled on his heel to take in the view down the lane, the half-circle of the drive. He said, ‘When my grandfather gets here, do you know? Sir Dudley Valance?’
‘Oh, yes…’ said Paul.
‘Can we save a spot for him by the front door. He won’t appreciate being made to walk.’
‘Right…’
‘He has a war-wound, you know,’ said John, with some satisfaction. ‘Well, here you are,’ he said, nodding at an approaching Austin Princess, and set off back over the gravel to find a drink of his own.
‘He can walk perfectly well,’ said Jenny. ‘It’s just that everyone’s frightened of him.’
