‘I’m here now so stop moaning. You’re not a good colour,’ Sara said, sitting on the edge of the empty recliner alongside and peering into his face. James looked as if he were about to give a bright smile to show how mistaken she was, but did not. Instead he smiled with closed lips and said, ‘Glad you came. I’ll be fine just as soon as I’m out of here and had something decent to eat. I’ve given it a try and I don’t like it and I’m not staying. You’ll pack for me, won’t you? There isn’t much. I would have done it already but I’ve been a bit light-headed.’
‘Pack?’
Sara exclaimed. Surely if Medlar Cottage became James’s personal recuperation ward, Joyce and Pretzel would have to go? She took less than a second to weigh up the merits of one against the other as house guests. But she was also wondering how James could be contemplating leaving when he was clearly so ill. But how could she find the strength to withstand those beseeching, unhealthy eyes?
James, seeing her difficulty but not understanding the reasons for it, at once adopted the mental stance of one who wants something so badly he refuses to ask for it. He raised both hands, showing his palms. ‘Sorry. Forget what I said. Never mind.’
‘It’s a lovely place, this, James. Why would you want to leave? It’s so peaceful. You’d never even know it was here, from the road. All those trees. And you can see for miles.’ Sara picked up the book. ‘What are you reading Coleridge for? You must be ill.’
‘Reading it for?
For?
It’s Art, sweetheart. It’s not
for
things. When did you get to be so brutally prosaic?’
‘I think that life with PC Plod must be draining the poetry out of you, Munchkin,’ James said, smiling evilly. He took the book, opened it and leafed through it. ‘Here’s one just for you—it goes
“My pensive Sara!”
It’s called the “Eolian Harp”. Want to hear it? And yes, I’m ill. I suppose.’
‘No, I don’t. And I wish you wouldn’t be rude about Andrew. And I’m not pensive, I’m shattered. Honestly,’ Sara muttered, ‘I wouldn’t mind staying here myself. I don’t think I
am
very well. And I’ve got Salzburg in a few days, and you wouldn’t believe what else I’m having to deal with.’
James would have laughed if he hadn’t thought it would hurt his stomach. Oh, Sara, Sara. Barely a minute into a visit to a sick friend and she’s telling you
she’s
shattered and unwell. You had to love her, sitting there twisting her dark, shining hair in her fingers, her big eyes looking if anything more beautiful for the touch of sulk and self-pity in them. Pure, unreconstructed diva that she could sometimes be, you had to love her because she was born to play the cello and did so with brilliance, sensitivity and passion as well as, of course, the international recognition that suited her natural glamour. She could be sensitive also in friendship, as well as fierce, selfless, loyal and bloody funny. But James had seen that unless her considerable intelligence or emotional luck intervened in time to prevent it, it could sometimes appear that she was also born to conduct her love affairs in a manner that was clumsy, distracted, impetuous and extreme. And up to a point she understood this about herself, so you had to love her, and in any case she somehow made you, anyway.
‘You do seem a bit tense,’ James said. ‘Andrew trouble,
is it?’ In James’s private opinion Andrew and Sara were in for trouble, sooner or later.
‘Yes, I suppose it is. Partly,’ Sara sighed, loyalty mixed with dismay. ‘I didn’t tell you on Tuesday. I thought we should concentrate on getting you in here. But he’s got an awkward case, a man they should have charged with murdering his wife. He’s Japanese. A professor. He was here for a conference and he killed her, Andrew’s sure of it.’
‘Why is that difficult? I mean, any more difficult than usual?’
‘There’s not enough evidence. The bloke practically admitted it but they can’t use it as evidence because he hadn’t been cautioned before he said it. And now his lawyer has told him not to repeat it, and Andrew’s in a permanent fury about it.’ She did not add that his fury, because it was directed mainly at himself, was all the fiercer and more painful to watch. ‘Then there’s all the guilt about his children, and Valerie being vile. Then the question of that flat he bought and hardly ever uses. And I don’t know where any of it leaves me. Do you know, I don’t even actually know whether we live together or not?’
James sighed. ‘Oh, he’ll sort it out,’ he said, without much enthusiasm. ‘Perhaps you’re too involved. Perhaps you should just try letting him get on with it. You’ve got other things to think about, after all. What about your Dvořák? I missed your Prom, sorry. How did it go?’
‘And Andrew says this man, the husband, is the only real suspect and the forensic evidence isn’t conclusive. I mean, if one of his hairs is found on her cardigan, it doesn’t prove he killed her. Anyway, look, I don’t want to talk about Andrew’s problems. What about yours?’
‘Look, there they go,’ James said, raising a hand to
point. ‘That’s Jane and some Welshman, forget his name. Down there.’ Sara looked down across the garden and saw two figures in robes identical to James’s make their way round a pretty stone fountain towards what looked like a miniature parthenon, partly obscured by trees, at the end of a broad grass walk to the left of the house.
‘Nice fountain.’
‘There are fish in it. They’re the only meat in the place.’
‘Where are they off to now, those two?’
‘Oh, down to the pool. That place that looks like a temple. It’s all marble inside. Listed building. It’s divine. They’ll be there all afternoon, lying around.’
‘Is that part of their treatment?’
‘Supposed to be. Rest is important, apparently, as is nutrition. All those tricks with massage, hydrotherapy, yoga, the dog’s bollocks, they’re quite pleasant, but I think they’re mainly just to pass the time.’ He snorted. ‘That’s all it is. Waiting till you feel better. That’s what they’ll be doing round the pool now, just lying waiting till they feel better.’
‘Why aren’t you, then? Sounds nice. You are rather isolated up here.’
‘Exactly. Isolation is better any day to the conversations they get you into. They want to tell you everything, and to hear everything, too. Medically, I mean. In forty-eight hours I’ve heard more words for bowel movements than any reasonable person could need in a lifetime.’
‘And just how are they, by the way? In your own words?’
This time James managed a proper smile. ‘Tired, but apparently I’m meant to be. Hungry, which I’m also meant to be, according to Dr Golightly.’ His eyes brightened.
‘Didn’t you
love
Dr Golightly, Munchkin?’ He sighed stagily. ‘He almost makes all this stuff sound sensible, and it certainly works for him. He really is rather gorgeous. So I’m resting my system, apparently, and rediscovering a healthy mind and body balance, after the imbalances imposed on it by stress and my modern Western lifestyle habits. And as soon as my system is on its way to being rebalanced, then—get this—then I’m allowed to do art therapy.’ A snarl had entered his voice. ‘Only I’m not staying.’
‘Yes, you are. And I have to say,’ Sara said, ‘that it doesn’t sound too bad to me, for a week or two. Quite pleasant, sensible, even.’ When James did not reply she turned her attention once more to the view. The foreground stone and greens of the garden fountain and the treetops above the swimming pool temple stretched away to the golds, greys and blacks of the city’s spires and roofs, and the blue August hills beyond.
‘Poussin,’ she murmured. ‘Reminds me of Poussin.’
‘Hmm,’ James concurred. ‘Roasted with lemons. Skin all crispy. Chive and garlic butter …’
‘I meant,’ Sara said sternly, ‘Poussin the artist. Nicolas Poussin. Blue backgrounds. Greens in the foreground. Trees, classical ruins. Arcadian vistas.’
‘Big cavorting nymphs. Naked shepherds swigging from the keg. I should be so lucky. Fuck Poussin.’
‘James, you’ve got to
try
. You’ve got to get well. It is a beautiful place, try and appreciate it.’
‘Fuck Art. Fuck this place. I’m hungry and I want to go home.’
‘You promised Tom. You
promised.’
Tom would expect a call from her. Was she going to have to say that James had been more unwilling and uncooperative, as well as more
ill, than she had ever seen him before? But he was looking at her now with something of his usual expression, knowing he had gone too far.
‘Sorry. Sorry,’ he said, softly. ‘I’ll stay. I will.’ Sara looked at him without trust. ‘I will. I’ll try, I’ll even do the art therapy. Munchkin, I’ll wear a smock and a black beret and paint you our own fucking Poussin, if it’ll make you happy.’
Sara laughed and said as convincingly as she could, ‘Art therapy might make a change for you. You might even like it.’
‘I might. I’ll have to find something to do if I’m not supposed to be playing the piano.
Although,’
he lowered his voice, ‘they’ve got quite a decent piano here, a baby Blüthner. I sneaked a little go.’
‘Aren’t you supposed to give everything a rest? Tom said you hadn’t packed any music.’
‘I didn’t. I only tinkled for a bit and anyway there’s a nice lot of music here already. The last music therapist left some of her own stuff behind in the piano stool—tons of it actually—and they haven’t got an address to send it on to, Yvonne says, so there’s any amount of Schumann, Schubert, Brahms and all that.’
‘Oh, yes. The one who left.’
‘Yvonne didn’t like her. Same as the art therapy, self-expression for the untaught. Yvonne says I’m lucky to escape. Banging and whanging away on recorders and percussion, finding their voices, imagine. She kept getting her name wrong. I remember now—her actual name was Alex Cooper and Yvonne kept calling her Alice and she didn’t like it. According to Yvonne she was tight-arsed,
couldn’t take a joke. Anyway the music therapy’s suspended. Alice Cooper only lasted three weeks.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yeah. Hated the living-in, Yvonne says. She went without giving notice. Dr Golightly was furious.’
‘Living-in? You mean to say there’s a vacancy here for a
live-in
musician and all they do is give a few lessons to complete beginners?’
‘More or less, yeah. So? I hope you’re not going to suggest
I
take them on. I’d rather die.’
She stood up. ‘James,’ she said, ‘stay here. Don’t move, I’ll be back in a minute.’
‘What are you—Sara?’
She was already five yards down the path when she turned. ‘Nothing. I’ll only be a minute. Just a little suggestion I have for him.’
James felt a little of his weary gloom dissipate, but not much. Unable to find enough curiosity to call after her to tell him what her little suggestion was, he lay back again, closed his eyes and listened to the birds, a fair number of which, he thought, he could cheerfully eat. With or without roasted lemons, crispy skin, chives and garlic butter.
I
’VE BROUGHT YOUR
tea. Joyce? The thing is, Joyce, we do have to talk about a few things. I’m afraid I’m doing the Dvořák again.’
Joyce rose from the pillow looking askance and surprised in the offhand way that she had perfected since her arrival. ‘Oh dear, are you? That’s a great pity, in my view. It needs work.’ She pronounced it WURK. Sara curbed a temptation to throw the tea over her head.
‘I mean,’ she said, with insincere patience, ‘that I’ll be away. There’s a performance and live recording in Salzburg. In about ten days. So I’ll be away, do you see? So it makes sense for you to get settled in at the Sulis before that happens …’
Sara was still standing in the doorway with the cup of tea, determined to get her message across this time. Joyce had proved to be a mistress of elective deafness on the subject of her moving from Medlar Cottage. She would nod in apparent understanding and then immediately try to draw them away from the subject with blatant non sequiturs about anything: the weather, Pretzel, her appetite. Sara had made her tea, wishing it were hemlock, and marched upstairs determined that she would be made to get the point.
‘The house will be empty. And it’s been lovely having you but it was only for a while, wasn’t it? You’ll want to be getting on with things, I expect. I mean, you were going to need somewhere more permanent some time, remember, and this is a wonderful chance.’
‘But I could stay here and look after the place for you. Pretzel and me. A dog about the place, wouldn’t that be a help, now?’
‘You are too kind,’ Sara said, ‘but no, I’m not letting you spoil your plans for me.’ Before Joyce could reply that the only person with plans was Sara, she went on firmly, ‘You need to get yourself properly settled in and used to things. You’ll love Dr Golightly.’ As she handed Joyce her cup and saucer she looked doubtfully at her yellowish eyes, remembering Stephen Golightly’s clear blue ones. ‘You will. He’s very kindly agreed to give you the nice little apartment that the last therap—resident musician had. And he understands that you need to take things very gently and get your own playing going again, and he wants you to think of it as your opportunity too, to get
really well
again.’
Even as she spoke a little dance started up inside Sara’s head, celebrating the end of all the dishonest little euphemisms that now tripped out of her mouth, like ‘really well’ for ‘sober’ and ‘properly settled in’ for ‘well and truly off my hands’. The greatest dishonesty of all, that she had spent half an hour in Dr Golightly’s beautiful consulting room discussing with him how desperately Joyce needed help and that he had agreed out of pure kindness to take Joyce on or rather in, would remain her secret. The arrangement she had come to was that as well as board and lodging in the staff accommodation, Joyce would be paid a
tiny amount of money, mainly for the sake of her pride, in return for leading her fellow patients in a little light music therapy and other, unspecified ‘helping out’. Dr Golightly had graciously blurred the divide between staff and patient that he was making in her case by describing the Sulis as ‘a mutually supportive, healing community which strives to respect each individual’s contribution and meet his or her needs’. So Joyce would get treatment for her drink problem even though she was broke? Sara had asked, preferring plain words. Dr Golightly had reassured her. He could not allow anyone resident at the clinic and in need of its resources to go without, and certainly not for the want of money. He would consider that simply unethical. Waving aside Sara’s offer to pay, he had proposed that he would devise and supervise Joyce’s regime personally. Sara smiled, recalling how he had then explained to her that he was not a specialist in alcoholism but would apply the naturopathic principles of the clinic and that these might be tough but should prove effective. His face as he spoke, so serious and apologetic, had betrayed that he had no idea that at that moment she had been thinking how easily she could have kissed him for his unassuming compassion, if not for his blue eyes.