Who knows? Perhaps there is.
“A private concert?” says Daisy. And she follows up with the tic. The nose-wrinkle thing. It lasts a full six seconds and Owen—bless him!—Owen is enchanted. His face actually travels from left to right—like an owl’s—to capture the wondrous sight from various angles.
“Sure,” she says. “I’d like that.”
“Excellent,” says the maestro. “I’ll practice extra hard now I know you’re coming. It’s a complex series of pieces.”
“Good,” says Daisy. “Who wants simple, eh?”
They part outside on St. Martin’s Lane. He offers a hand to shake, but she takes it only to move in for a quick peck on the cheek. Quite a lot of blinky blinky follows. When she sashays off toward Leicester Square Tube, Owen stands rooted to the pavement, vision loaded and locked onto her departing figure, car headlights dancing on his spectacle lenses, unknowable symphonies playing inside the monkish skull.
Owen Cornish was a rather serious classical musician, a bit shy and speccy perhaps, but one of those nice chunky blokes who made oneself feel petite all of a sudden. He seemed smart—not so much for saying anything desperately clever, but more for his starey brown eyes that you sensed masses of stuff going on behind. And he had this way of looking at you—not creepily, not leering at your bosoms or anything—but really focused, like he Wants To Understand. Does that sound crazy? Anyway, the night before last I went to a private concert at his flat.
I was a tad nervous. I mean, the last concert of any kind that I’d been to was Foo Fighters, and this was a very different kettle of F. Picture the scene. Ding dong at the front door—the flat was in Paddington—and he opened it wearing a flipping dinner jacket!
“Oh, hi,” I jabbered. “I didn’t know it was formal. I left my tiara at home.”
He smiled. “It’s a harmless affectation. The others like it. Come and meet them.”
Blood. Dee. Hell. Talk about a bunch of stiffs.
Aside from Owen, there were four, all in evening dress. A very short, very round, older man with one of those awful arbitrary beards that are grown to mark the (arbitrary) border between face and neck (he played the oboe); a stringy, nervy-looking woman in a floaty dress (flute); a bank manager type (bassoon); and a swarthy-looking bloke with a mustache who turned out to be with the flutist.
Oh yes, and an old lady called Maureen who lived downstairs.
So the audience was me, Maureen and Mr. Swarthy; the wind quartet (who even knew such things existed?) sat in a little circle in front of music stands and played. Mr. Tubby with the arbitrary beard introduced each piece—the only composer who was even vaguely familiar was Buxtehude (?)—and it wasn’t too ghastly, being expertly performed, although that kind of meandering tooty tooty stuff usually leaves me a little—SFW?! It was actually kind of fascinating to watch, in its way, the disturbing things they did with their lips, the funny frowns and facial expressions, Mr. Swarthy all the time jiggling his foot and “conducting” along with his finger.
There was sherry when it was all over and some painful small talk, and I did wonder what Owen was doing hanging about with this bunch of losers, but it turned out they were all top musos, highly regarded within the profession and fatso was a personal friend of Sir Simon Rattle!
“Was that all right?” asked Owen after everyone had fucked off home (I mean departed in their carriages). “Did you enjoy it?”
“Yeah, brilliant,” I replied. (I actually did, sort of.)
“It’s not everyone’s idea of a splendid night out.”
“I liked it. It was—it was different!”
It was actually so bizarre a scene in that flat that it became a little dream-like. I guess it was to do with the strangeness of the new person; the alien ways that hadn’t yet been rubbed away through familiarity. (Although to be honest, I never got used to how Normotic Andrew wouldn’t allow anything to upset him. Even when I called him a heartless cunt, he smiled and said I probably didn’t mean it.)
Owen took a step toward me and I thought something was about to happen. But he just said, “I’ll make us a spot of supper. Back in a tick.”
He disappeared backstage to change into normal clothes and was next found in the kitchen beating eggs.
“Why don’t you pour us some drinks,” he said. “There’s a good bottle of Chablis in the fridge.”
I liked that he asked me to do that. When we clinked glasses there was definitely a look in his eye. Eyes. Both of them. I confess I found him attractive in that moment, the farmer’s son body inhabited by the soul of an artist sort of thing.
But then he got cranky about the omelet, chucking it in the bin like they do on Masterchef, because there wasn’t enough air in it, FFS. And it got worse as he was whizzing up the dressing for the salad when a rather fine glass oil and vinegar contraption slipped from his fingers and smashed on the floor. He made fists and actually bellowed like a stricken ox! And I swear he was going to punch the wall.
“You must forgive me,” he managed. “I happen to think small details matter a great deal.”
Resisting a powerful urge to say, honestly, I’d be perfectly happy with a Bargain Bucket from KFC, I helped him mop up the damage. But while we were down there on the floor with wads of kitchen roll, our eyes met again, and…
Well.
Talk about a charged moment!
Some kind of undiffused tension—part sexual, part salad-dressing-related—found release and the next moment we were locked in an exploratory snog, which wasn’t straightforward because (a) we were on our knees and (b) we were both holding oily wads of kitchen paper. I started giggling after a bit and suggested
