It wasn’t such a great distance physically from the Monterey Building to the Beach End, but at all other points of comparison they were miles apart. It took money, lots of money, to have a house at Beach End. It even took money to get the place in the first instance because competition is very fierce to acquire property up that way. I’d been there a time or two in the past, and it always left me with the same general feeling of dissatisfaction. I don’t know why it should. I do all right out of my curious calling. In fact some people might think I was well off, but that is not the same thing as Beach End money. Out there, the favored residents have so much of the stuff they never even think about it any more.
Just to make things worse, the approach road runs parallel with the beach and I have to drive slowly to allow for the occasional beach ball that might come my way, hotly pursued by some bronzed slim female with shrieks of excitement. One such crossed my path, causing me to brake sharply. She was wearing two little pieces here and there which were not really worth the effort of putting them on. I sat waiting, grateful at least for the flashing smile which was to be my sole reward for saving her life. Might have got one too, except that some husky young blond bum came chasing after her, and with a few more shrieks she disappeared into some dunes on the far side of the road.
That didn’t do either my imagination or my temper any good, and I was not feeling at my best when I arrived at the Somerset house. It was a white painted ranch style building with plenty of palm trees around. There was a huge heart-shaped swimming pool out front and that was when I remembered the house had one time belonged to Adele Ernest the movie queen. Still, that was no concern of mine. These days it belonged to one Hugo Somerset, entrepreneur. There were two cars in front, a week old Caddy, and a brand new M.G. It didn’t seem fitting to park a three year old waggon next to such company, so I left it under some trees, telling myself it would be cooler there anyway.
My feet clumped on the verandah and I punched a silver bell which played the first two bars of Amour Amour. Nobody in the house seemed in the mood for amour, because I gave another chorus on the bell and still got no response. The door stood open and I could hear music faintly from inside.
Pushing the door wider I called out hallo, and nobody called back. I stepped inside, where it was cool and dim after the baking sun, and pointed my nose towards the music. It was coming from the back of the house, and soon I stood at the entrance to a large room. It was filled with divans and rugs, and at the far end was a bar. The bar was quite a feature, being made of black marble in the shape of a grand piano. There was one of those too, only this one was made of mahogany. A huge stereophonic record player dominated one wail and this was the source of the music, which was very relaxed and somehow soothing. I put it down as Tchaikovsky, because with all I know about music everything sounds like him. Not that I was concentrating too much on the music at that moment. I was busy staring at the man lying full length on one of the divans. He was huge, a great bull of a man with spare pink flesh hanging in folds from every part of him. He had a big, beefy face, ending in a ridiculous small ginger beard. Outside of the beard and his crop of red hair he was entirely naked, except for a small towel slung across where small towels ought to to be slung in such circumstances. He was looking at me, too, but without much interest.
“Excuse me——” I began.
He shook his fist angrily and pointed towards the cabinet. I was to shut up until the music finished. That was O.K. with me, so long as it didn’t turn out to be one of these four hour concerts. Nobody invited me to make myself comfortable, so I perched on the edge of another divan, fishing around for an Old Favorite. The recumbent man snapped his fingers for one and I passed over the pack. He lifted a heavy silver lighter from the floor and lit the smoke, without offering to do anything about mine. Then he lay back again and closed his eyes.
I sat there thinking the fat man had the life, laying around in splendour. Listening to records and demanding cigarets from flunkeys while the rest of the world was out chasing its tail. The music lasted another fifteen minutes, then there was the gentlest of clicks and the machine switched itself out. For a moment I thought my silent companion would continue to ignore me, then he opened his eyes wide and looked at me.
“What did you think?”
“Beautiful,” I admitted. Then plunging in, “Tchaikovsky, wasn’t it?”
He looked at me to be certain I wasn’t kidding. People are always doing that.
“Swan Lake,” he rejoined. “Act Two. Notice anything?”
“Why er, no. Listen I’m not at all knowledgeable about music. About that kind of music,” I amended.
“It’s the sequence,” he mused. “The musical sequences have been rearranged so as to permit logical following of the keys.”
Despite my ignorance I couldn’t help saying:
“Don’t you imagine the composer might prefer to have it played the way he wrote it down?”
He beat despairingly on his flabby chest with arms like logs.
“This is the way he wrote it down,” he roared. “Other people have been monkeying with his original intentions for ninety years.
