Moon Song (5 page)

‘For you, anything!’ He flung up his hands. ‘See you later.’ He went round to the stairs up into the organ loft.

Isoldé stayed a moment by the gate, looking up at the softly glowing organ pipes above her then turned back to her seat.

‘Hi, Zoldé. Mind your feet, love.’ Paul began to walk backwards down the nave on his rubber-soled shoes, stopping every few feet to clap his hands. He broke into a grin as he stopped to clap beside Isoldé’s chair.

‘Might have guessed you’d have picked the best spot, as usual.’ He pointed to the boom-arm, hiding behind the pillar, from which the mike hung out in the nave several feet over her head. ‘And you haven’t got this bloody cold, have you?’ He glared at her.

Isoldé laughed and shook her head. ‘That’s Jamie. You should know.’

Paul rolled his eyes. ‘I’m sleeping in the spare room and he’s going round with a medical face-mask on, won’t let me near him!’ He laughed. ‘He won’t risk me getting The Cold,’ he capitalised the words. ‘I had to promise the poor bastard he can sit in on the edits for Sunday’s broadcast. It’s rotten luck, he’s been waiting for tonight for centuries.

‘Mr King!’ Paul called up to the organ loft, ‘give me a middle A, please.’ The note boomed out. ‘Can you diddle a bit of the Dies Ires, please?’

Mark duly diddled the opening bars.

‘And a bit from the middle of the Toccata, please,’ Paul ordered, staring at his instruments.

To Isoldé, the organ sounded like the breathing of a wild beast, her spine shivered.

‘Now I need something for the little jobs up in the minstrel’s gallery,’ Paul called, and the ethereal notes sounded down the nave. ‘And could you just hit the big boys?’

That made the whole cathedral rock. It always blew Isoldé away, almost literally.

At last Paul was done with his sound checks. It was close to time now; people were coming in, the huge nave filling up.

‘Better rescue your seat,’ Paul said. ‘See you in the Pot later?’

Isoldé nodded. She watched him scoot off out the south door
to the caravan where all the equipment was set up, imagined him tucking himself away behind his meters and loudspeakers, then went back to her chair.

The last notes of Poulenc’s organ concerto died away into silence. The silence held a moment and then the audience rocked to its feet and roared. Isoldé couldn’t manage it. She was still sitting, her hands flapping feebly in an attempt to clap, her throat dry and shut. She’d been hearing the old organ regularly for the past year and more since she’d moved to Exeter but never had anyone drawn out its magic as Mark King had just done. It was incredible. Isoldé pulled her legs in under the chair to sit in a small bundle while people climbed out around her. They seemed to understand, even if they were all shouting their heads off in admiration.

‘You OK?’ Paul crouched beside her.

Isoldé nodded, still speechless.

‘Pretty stunning, eh? I’m keeping the master unadulterated,’ he went on. ‘King may want it for a recording. And I couldn’t bring myself to desecrate it, cut it. I’ll never chuck this one.’

Paul realised Isoldé still wasn’t communicating, patted her shoulder and set off for the Pot.

The cathedral emptied. Mark King found her shortly after, still sitting there in the nave.

‘That was good,’ she managed to croak at him then coughed, trying to get her brain back in gear and her dry throat together.

‘Thank you.’ He offered his hand to help her up.

‘Hungry?’ she asked in a more normal voice, as she stood up.

‘And thirsty.’ He smiled down at her.

‘Let’s go then.’ She took his arm.

The Pot was bursting at the seams but Jim saw who it was Isoldé had on her arm. He slid out from behind the bar and encouraged the three men in the corner to bunch up with the rest of Terpsichore, Exeter’s early music group, on the next table. All eight of them were there tonight, including Munroe Watson, the
leader. As soon as they saw who it was struggling through the crowd they gave in easily. Jim sat King down in the corner and put Isoldé between him and the excitable recorder players.

‘What can I get you?’ Jim asked.

‘What’s good tonight?’ Isoldé asked.

‘There’s a stroganoff, or I’ve some excellent local steak.’

Mark looked at Isoldé.

‘Steak?’ she asked him.

‘For two,’ Mark said.

‘How’d you like it?’

‘Just frighten it with the match-box, please, Jim.’ Isoldé told him.

‘Bleu,’ Mark told Jim. ‘I guess that’s the same?’ he quizzed Isoldé.

She chuckled.

‘Dark or light beer?’ Jim wanted to know.

‘You choose,’ Mark told Isoldé.

‘Riggwelter. Can you bring a jug?’

‘Right you are,’ Jim disappeared behind the bar.

‘What
did you order?’ Mark looked at her.

‘It’s a Yorkshire brew, the strongest of the Black Sheep brews from Masham.’ She laughed. ‘Rigged means to be fallen down drunk, on your back and welter is a name for a male sheep. There’s a picture of a pissed sheep on the pump, and on the bottles. It’s got a distinctive dark hops flavour with a hint of aftertaste, a bit like a very mild Guinness. Take it easy though. It’s not a session beer, five-point-nine per cent, goes down smooth and foxes you before you realise. Gets you well rigged!’

‘Ye gods! You’ll have to lay on a wheelbarrow to get me back to the precentor’s lodging.’ Mark laughed back. ‘Where did you learn about beer? You seem to be an expert.’

‘I dare say these guys could arrange the barrow.’ Isoldé nodded over to the early music group. ‘My business partner, Darshan Buller, who owns the sci-fi bookshop and music store, is
a real ale aficionado. I’ve learned all about beer from him. I hope he’ll be along later, I know he came to the concert and I thought he might pop in but he’s dining with the bishop so he might not. He wants you to come and do a CD signing in the shop tomorrow.’

‘Arrrgh!’ Mark groaned. ‘I remember! The bishop did warn me and I’ve got the letter in my pocket. In fact, I know I’ve said yes!’ His face was woebegone. ‘As I suspect you already know if you work there.’

‘Mmm …yes. We’ve got you booked for tomorrow afternoon, circa three o’clock. And here is Darshan.’

‘Hi.’ Darshan smiled at Isoldé then turned to Mark. ‘I’m stuck with the bishop, but I had to just pop in and congratulate you on a fantastic performance. I’m Darshan Buller. The music and book shop. You’re doing a signing with us tomorrow.’

‘We were just talking about that.’ Isoldé rolled her eyes at him. ‘Mark’s very keen.’

Mark glared at her. ‘Good to meet you.’ He shook Darshan’s hand. ‘Sit down, join us?’

‘Just briefly, the bishop’s dinner is starting any minute, I told them I just had to come over and sort a couple of things. I see Zoldé’s got you drinking some decent beer.’ He accepted a glass.

‘Yes.’ Mark chuckled. ‘Seems like I’ve got a very full day tomorrow. Exon Radio interview in the morning then you in the afternoon and tea with the organ scholars after that, I’ll be wrecked. You’d better organise a good dinner for me after.’ He turned to Isoldé.

Darshan watched the look passing between them. He didn’t think they realised how struck they were with each other, not yet. But he could see it. Part of him coiled up in sadness, realising the missed opportunities. He’d forgotten, before she came down to Exeter, how much he felt for her.

‘That can be arranged.’ Darshan got his act together and began talking about organs and mentioning his trip to
Lunenburg. ‘I heard you there,’ he finished. He winked at Isoldé, not saying that she had been there too.

‘That’s way back,’ Mark coloured slightly. ‘Right at the beginning, but it was amazing to be actually playing a Bach organ.’

Darshan finished his beer, wished them goodnight and was off.

The whole of Terpsichore was leaning towards them, all ears pricked. Kathryn Handley, the viol player, poked Isoldé in the ribs. ‘Come on, Zoldé! Don’t leave us out in the cold,’ she whispered loudly.

Isoldé looked at Mark, he seemed up for it. ‘Mark, it’s just about to get worse. These guys are dying to meet you. Can I introduce Terpsichore, Exeter’s early music group?’

Mark held out a hand, leaning across Isoldé. ‘Good to meet you,’ he said. ‘I’ve heard you on the radio, got your last CD.’

That was all the excuse they needed, names were exchanged, drinks offered, beer mats and pens pushed over for signing. The evening was hectic, convivial, fun.

Mark found himself enjoying the company, mostly musicians and artists, and a couple of ancient tabby-cats who Isoldé introduced as Ailsa Barque and Magdalene Hysse, the crime-writer duo. That did intrigue him. He’d forgotten they hailed from a little village just south of Exeter, Dunchideock, wasn’t it? He remembered going to the pub there for folk evenings when he’d been at school. He usually travelled with one of their books in his pocket, as he did tonight. They signed it for him, he signed their beer mats. In fact, he laughed to himself, he thought he’d signed every sodding beer mat in Exeter tonight.

Terpsichore pulled out their instruments and did a turn then the musicians from the Exon Ferrets, the local Morris Side, set off with songs. Mark joined in. He had a goodish baritone, Isoldé noticed, but it was his fingers that held the magic in him not his throat.

Jim eventually got them all out into the street at ten to midnight. The whole crowd said goodnight to Mark, individually.

‘My arms and shoulders are sore,’ he complained unrepentantly to Isoldé. ‘Every damn soul in that bar has patted my shoulder and wrung my hand. Shit! I’ll never play again,’ he wailed piteously, making Isoldé laugh.

‘Well, you’ll have to stop playing so well if you don’t like it,’ she returned.

‘It was good,’ he said ruefully. ‘It’s just I don’t think I’ve ever experienced anything quite like that before, even at home.’

‘Where’s home?’ Isoldé asked.

‘Caergollo, by Caer Bottreaux,’ Mark told her.

The cathedral bells began to chime midnight sparing Isoldé the need to reply. For the second time that day Mark King had struck her dumb.

Mark walked slowly around the close, thinking. The Clarence was still awake but he kept on past, considered turning up the passageway into the High Street. No, he thought, I need quiet. Not that Exeter High Street in the early hours of a Sunday morning was Leicester Square, but the students were still about, there was life. Down the east side of the close, towards his lodging with the precentor, all was quiet. He carried on. Despite it being the beginning of February, it was warm. Seasons all to pot, he muttered, but the warmth made him dawdle. The Candlemass concert had both elated and exhausted him. The organ was magnificent, and it had remembered him over all the years since he had been a student at the school. It was like riding a wild horse you had befriended. This one knew if you could play and, if it liked you, its paces were magic.

He remembered the first organ he had learned to play, in the tiny church out on the headland above Caer Bottreaux. That had been the same magical experience, orgasmic, he chuckled. Some boys went for sex with each other or with the girls in the city. He got off on organs. It was a whole-body experience. He would finish a performance drenched in sweat and glowing. The time it took to put the organ to bed, the rituals, gave him a chance to come back to earth.

The audience had been good tonight, he’d felt them with him on the thread, like he and they and the organ were all one being, led to ecstasy by the god in the machine. Like Pan. He laughed at himself but couldn’t stop, the beer, the company and the woman carried his mood further. The organ was like the goat god, the piper at the gates of dawn who was, like himself, the friend of animals. He felt he was still riding the god’s ecstasy now.

‘I should have gone in with her,’ he thought, but then, ‘no, not yet. And she’s not for riding this ecstasy with. This is my own.’

The god had brought the passion into the audience tonight, it
was still with him now. Mark sat down on a bench, dreaming.

A scurrying at his feet brought him back to the world. A little mouse was hunting food. It stopped, sat up on its haunches and looked at him. Mark looked back. The mouse put a paw on his shoe, then ran up his trouser and sat on his knee. Gingerly, Mark put out a finger, the mouse allowed the stroking, sat up and polished its whiskers. Across by the houses a black cat sat, watching. Cat and mouse eyed each other then the mouse ran off his leg over the back of the bench and into the grass. The cathedral bell rang one o’clock. Mark shook himself and went on down the Close to the precentor’s house. The cat watched him go.

A robin, singing on the bare wisteria branches outside his bedroom window, woke him. He stretched luxuriously. The clock said half seven. Out the window, he could see the moon’s last quarter, pink-gold against the turquoise sky with the morning star hanging at its tail. He stretched again and his feet met a lump in the bed. The lump began to purr, then rose, stretched and stalked up his chest to lick his nose. He stroked its ears. They enjoyed each other for a few minutes.

‘OK,’ he told the cat, as the smell of eggs and bacon wafted up the stairs. ‘I’m getting up.’

‘Did you enjoy the Pot?’ Margaret Appleforth, the precentor’s wife, poured him more coffee.

‘I did. I’ve not been in a place like that, oh, ever I suppose, although there were good pubs and bars at college. It was a bit like being at college again.’ He laughed at himself.

‘Yes.’ She laughed too. ‘It is a bit like that. The artsy students from the university go there, but it’s really a meeting place for the working artists and musicians who live in and around Exeter rather than a students’ bar. We go occasionally, usually lunch. And sometimes when Terpsichore do a session there. Munroe
went to the cathedral school, you know, a bit after your time. Cedric has a sort of fatherly feeling for the group and we keep up with them. They do a concert a couple of times a year for us at the Deanery too, and that’s always packed. We get out-of-towners for those,’ she added proudly.

‘They did a turn last night and, considering we were all three sheets to the wind, it was very good. None of the subtle recorder stuff though, lots of shawms, drums and cornettos, and good fast dance beats. Their percussionist is excellent and the fiddler.’