Prelude (7 page)

The word hangs there. Even though her tone is light, I can’t say anything in reply.

She’s watching the clouds as she talks again. Her voice catches in her throat. Is she choking up? “Life gets more and more complicated.”

She’s almost talking to herself.

“Being a teenager is much underestimated.” She turns around, her eyes sparkling moist. “Shall I tell you the best thing of all about being young? It’s being able to indulge your passions.”

She comes over to the piano and picks up
The Well-
Tempered Clavier
. “If you want to spend all day playing Bach preludes you can do just that.”

I finally find my voice. “And you can’t?”

“In theory, yes.” She flicks through the book, staring at the notes. “But the older you get, the less time you have for your passions. And if that’s the case at twenty-three, then how’s it going to be when I’m forty?”

It is the first time we’ve ever had a conversation that did not bear directly on music. “Is twenty-three so much older than seventeen?”

“You’re probably right,” she says. “But just as there are young seventeens and old seventeens, so there are young twenty-threes and old twenty-threes.”

“And you are?”

She slides into the armchair. “I am most definitely an old twenty-three.” Her fingertips tap against her chin. “Unhappiness is not conducive to ageing well.”

I’d like to reach out, to help her. But what she’s been through is so way beyond my own experience, that all I can do is nod and listen.

India seems to shrink in the chair, bowed by her memories. “My own fault. I don’t know if that makes it any easier.”

Her face and torso are side on, but her eyes blaze right at me.

She is on the point of telling me more, but then she catches herself, remembers that she’s a piano-teacher talking to her pupil, remembers that she is paid to talk about music and nothing more.

The moment passes, and out of the face of that lost, haunted woman, re-emerges the India that I had met at our first lesson, serene and untroubled.

She looks at her watch, a silver Cartier. “You’ll be late for lunch if you don’t hurry.”

“Thank you,” I say, and what I mean is thank you for everything; thank you for coming into my life.

“A pleasure.”

Outside India’s room, Room 17, I have to stand against the wall. My legs are about to buckle beneath me. I lean back and wave after wave of emotion crashes over me. Never before had I realised how draining it can be to sit with the one you adore.

As I walked back to The Timbralls, I felt almost punch-drunk. Though what lingered was not what she’d told me, but the sight of her sitting there on that dirty armchair.

I’d wished I’d been more sympathetic, that I’d been capable of saying the right words.

But I’d had not the slightest inkling of how to react. Eton had taught me so many things. Empathy was not one of them.

I tried to guess at the unhappiness that had come into her life. I wondered if India had suffered a bereavement, a set-back, or an illness. But as it turned out, I was wrong on all counts.

For in my innocence, I had forgotten the most common and the most obvious cause of all human misery.

It was heartache, pure and simple.

And soon enough I would have my fill of it.

But there is one thing that I am still only beginning to appreciate about heartache, and it is this: that time will indeed cure it. But every so often something catches you on the raw and the pain will be as sharp as if your heart has been freshly snapped in two.

For me, it feels as if twenty-five years back I’d undergone a serious operation, and that somehow the scalpel was left in my guts. For although the stitches are long gone and the scar has faded to nothing but a white slash, I only have to press against my old wound and I can feel the keen knife-edge of the scalpel, just as sharp and just as unforgiving as it was all those years ago.

PRELUDE 22,

B Flat Minor

WHAT A YEAR 1982 was for news.

Though perhaps I’m biased. It was the year that I started buying four newspapers a day and, if you truly immerse yourself in a subject, then you can become fascinated by almost anything.

I had become so dedicated to the Falklands that I was quite capable of reading the identical story in
The Sun
,
Mail
,
Guardian
and
Times
. But the Falklands aside, that summer term of 1982 was still an extraordinary time for news. Just off the top of my head, there was Prince William’s birth, John McEnroe at his foul-mouthed best at Wimbledon, the World Cup, and the IRA blowing up the Household Cavalry in Hyde Park.

One night, I was indulging in two of my favourite pastimes: listening to the chart round-up on the radio while at the same time gobbling up the newspapers’ analysis of the Falklands. It seemed that Argentina had yet to score a single hit and Britain was already gearing up for a full-scale invasion. Meanwhile, in the States, Ronald Reagan had promised support and ‘Materiel’. I loved that word and liked to say it out loud: “Materiel!” It smacked of high-tech bombs, heavy-duty guns and exotic weapons of mass destruction.

The only other news was that a total exclusion zone had come into force around the Falklands.

What that meant, I did not know. But Sap was about to tell me all about it.

Sap’s real name was Anthony Parrish, but he was known as Sap—short for Sapper, an army engineer.

Sap was not one of my natural friends, but we got on well enough because he was the only other boy in my year who was also apparently destined for an army career. But while I shilly-shallied, he had as good as signed up. He already carried himself like an officer, shoulders squared to attention and hair trimmed every fortnight.

Sap’s face was flushed with excitement when he barged into my room. “Have you heard?” he said. “It’s bloody incredible.”

“We’ve dropped the bomb on Buenos Aires?”

“We’ve sunk a boat. A heavy cruiser, the
General Belgrano.
” He was so excited that he couldn’t sit down. “She was in the exclusion zone. One of our subs torpedoed her and down she went.”

“Jesus!” I said. “How many on board?”

“Hundreds,” Sap replied. “Two torpedoes and bang, that was it.”

Before I could say any more, Frankie had come in, stinking of cigars and red wine.

He gave us a sloppy salute, a Brigadier greeting two subalterns in the mess. “Hoped I’d find you two,” he said. He was still in his grey suit, stick-ups and clumping black shoes. “Well, the
General Belgrano,
eh? What do you make of it?”

“Fantastic hit, Sir,” Sap said.

“About time too,” Frankie commented. “Mind if I take a seat?”

I gestured to the sofa and Frankie sat while Sap perched on the end of the bed.

“Must be the first ship we’ve torpedoed since the Second World War,” Frankie mused. “It’s what you live for, isn’t it boys? You put in years of training and then finally you get a chance to put it all into practice. Lucky sods.”

“Did you ever fire a shot in anger, Sir?” Sap asked.

Frankie shrugged. “Never. Never got the chance. One quiet year in Northern Ireland, and for the rest of it just a tour of Germany and a stint in London.”

“Bad luck,” Sap said.

“That’s what happens if you sign up for a short-term commission. Hopefully you two will fare better.”

“We can only hope,” Sap replied.

I just sat at my burry, watching the pair of them. In my mind’s eye I was still picturing the
Belgrano
as it slipped beneath the sea. The oily waves in flames, and the men freezing to death in the Atlantic before choking down that last breath of seawater.

“Did you know there’s at least one Old Etonian out with the task force?” Frankie said. “Must be about 42, a year or so younger than me. I knew him very slightly when he was here. Herbert Jones was his name, though I think they just call him ‘H’ now. He’s a Lieutenant Colonel too.” He stroked the back of his hand, musing. “He stuck with it.”

“Who’s he with?” Sap asked.

“Two Para. Red beret and all the other trappings. Quiet chap, didn’t talk much. But God he must have been tough.” Frankie slapped his thighs and got up. He gave one final wistful shake of his head. “What a man. Well, good luck to the fellow.”

Over the next few days, more details of the
Belgrano
came out. She’d been hit by two Mk 8 torpedoes, the first on the port bow and second on the stern. The ship’s power and communications systems had been knocked out and over 200 men trapped inside. The captain of the British submarine Conqueror had watched through his periscope as the Belgrano crew scrambled into the yellow life-rafts. By the time the rescue was complete, some 368 of the crew were dead.

The British newspapers were like cockerels on a dung-heap.
‘Gotcha!’
blared
The Sun
. The broadsheets called it a stunning blow to the Argentinian Navy.

But I couldn’t get the picture of the drowning sailors out of my head. None of the crew had been equipped with anti-flash protection: many had been terribly burned.

This, I was beginning to see, was the true face of modern war. Not a glorious death in the face of the enemy, but being roasted alive after a sneak attack by an unseen foe.

Was it really for me? What would my father think?

THE SQUIRREL BITE on my thumb got better. I still have the scar to this day, a white fleck at the base of my knuckle. I was back at the piano within five days and practising
The
Well-Tempered Clavier
with all the fervour of a cult fanatic.

Divinity, English and Economics were all put on permanent hold as I devoted every spare moment to the piano. Homework was knocked out in half-an-hour, and course textbooks left untouched and unloved. And of Othello—the man whose fatal flaw I was set to so spectacularly mimic—the only times when I learned anything new were in McArdle’s English classes, during the brief moments when I could drag my attention away from Angela and her mini-skirted legs.

To my delight, I mastered my first love, Prelude 17, in two weeks. If I attempted it now, it would take me months and months but, for that term, I would think nothing of putting in four hours at a stretch, practising a bar over and over again until my fingers had been drilled like army recruits.

How I came to love Johann Sebastian. All day his work danced through my head. For years, I had thought his music was starchy, but after my full-body immersion into
The Well-
Tempered Clavier
I began to appreciate his diversity.

Looking back, it’s possible that my reaction to Bach was almost Pavlovian, that I automatically began to associate his music with my Goddess. And it is true that the moment I heard
The Well-Tempered Clavier
, I instinctively thought of her. But does that matter? Do you have to know the why and wherefores? Do you have to analyse cause and effect? Or can you just accept that your emotions are valid without feeling the need to analyse their origins?

I enjoyed the practice. But it was, as I’ve said, a means to an end, and that end was my piano lessons.

They never matched the intimacy of that second lesson, that time when our fingers had brushed against each other. But, with time, I was beginning to relax in her company; was starting, even, to revel being in her presence. Compared to that stuttering wretch of the first two weeks, I was blossoming.

I loved to look at her, of course. I could have spent hours on end just gazing at her face.

But she had a real knack with words, could make me laugh out loud. She had a delightful irony that would catch me clear in the solar plexus.

My favourite times of all were not when I was gazing at her face, nor when we talked. No, my happiest moments were when I was trying out a prelude for the first time, the two of us side-by-side on the music stool, my right hand and her left hand working together in imperfect harmony.

As we played, there might be an occasional touch— shoulder-to-shoulder, elbow-to-elbow, knee-to-knee. These moments could be guaranteed to send a shiver of excitement washing through me.

But what I came to like best was the magical alchemy by which the two of us created a piece of music together. Two hands and two hearts, both bringing Bach back to life. It was much more intimate than the neat virtue of playing a piece solo.

The lessons were the formal times when I was scheduled to meet with India, but I had taken to lurking around the Music Schools at all hours. I usually hoped to see her there at least twice a week. Sometimes she’d pop into my practice room, or I might catch her on the pavement as she was heading home.

I lived for those moments. For unlike my actual lessons, they were in the lap of the gods. It was their very spontaneity that made them all the more thrilling. One moment practising a prelude, focused on my music, and the next she’s walking through the door. She would be pleased to see me, but I think also that she delighted in the fact she had introduced me to
The Well-Tempered Clavier
. It was the private thrill of the matchmaker who brings two lovers together.

Seeing India, even for a few seconds, could make my day, although to say that these sightings were in the lap of the gods is not strictly accurate. Like a big-game hunter, I could maximise my chances of seeing India by being in certain places at certain times. The Music Schools, for instance, were a favourite hunting ground, as was the School Hall at 11 a.m.

But I soon learned that there was one place where, almost every morning, I could find India. As soon as I knew of it, I never once missed a chance of seeing her there.

Eton has two main chapels, one for the lower boys, which is Gothic and depressing, and the other a bigger chapel for the senior boys, which is magnificent. The upper chapel is over 500 years old, and when you walk in and stare up at the huge vaulted ceiling, it feels like you’ve entered a cathedral. It is the sister chapel to Henry VI’s other pet academic project, King’s College, Cambridge, and it is vast, though not half as vast as Henry had wanted it. When the King had originally planned his chapel (where, naturally, the boys would send up regular prayers for his mortal soul), he had wished it to be at least eighty-yards longer. But, as so often occurs with these building projects, the money ran out.

Despite this, what remains is still a spectacular school chapel, with a grand organ, old oak pews, and carved stalls for the masters. My favourite part came courtesy of the Nazis. A time-bomb landed in the schoolyard on December 4, 1940 and a day later, on the eve of Founder’s Day, most of the chapel windows were destroyed. They were replaced by the most remarkable John Piper stained glass, four of the miracles on the northern side and four of the parables on the south. I have spent many hours staring up at them.

In the mornings, the junior boys had to go to the lower chapel, but the seniors had the option of going to either the upper chapel or the School Hall where some form of entertainment would be laid on—a talk, perhaps, or some music. I would do everything in my power to stay away from the chapel. I loathed it. For an entire decade, I’d been forced into various school chapels and, to this day, church services remain to me nothing but an exercise in tedium.

But on Sundays there was no getting out of chapel and I would dutifully join the rest of the rabble and take my seat.

IT WAS THE third Sunday of term, and the upper chapel was filled to the gunnels with tailcoats. I am already going into hibernation, preparing myself for seventy-five minutes of torpor, when out of the corner of my eye I detect a flash of green-and-red skirt. It is India, show-stoppingly beautiful. Conversations dry up. Eyes dart. There is not a boy in the chapel who has not seen her, who is not inspecting her in the most minute detail.

She walks down the aisle like a catwalk model and, even in her innocence, she must have been aware of the reaction. She scans the oak stalls by the walls before spotting an empty seat.

Immediately after she finds her place, she leans forward to pray. She prays for a long time, and once more at the end of the service, her head still bowed as I join the merry cavalcade out of the chapel and into the sunshine.