The Museum of Modern Love (7 page)

Love accounted for so many things. A series of biological and chemical interactions. A bout of responsibility. An invisible wave of normality that had been romanticised and externalised. A form of required connection to ensure procreation. A strategic response to prevent loneliness and maintain social structures.

He had exhibited all the signs of love. He had felt himself love Lydia over and over again. And there had been the bad patches. When she was sick. Unrecognisable. Not the Lydia he knew. The coroner had been right. Familiarity was dangerous.

He had spent most of Christmas Day, after he'd left the hospital, walking. He had walked to Brooklyn and on, and it was only when he realised that he couldn't feel his fingers and
toes that he'd finally hailed a cab. He'd slept for almost a day. He didn't know where that fatigue had come from. But he knew that when she got sick, he got very tired. He remembered how the shampoo had run out. The cat was hungry. The milk had been past its use-by date but he'd used it anyway. He'd ignored the flashing messages on the phone. Lydia's friends and colleagues stretched far and wide, people who were useful any time of the day and night. But not to him.

He remembered that he had been convinced that it was Lydia's electric toothbrush on the sink and he'd hunted high and low for his own and ended up using an airline one. Days later he realised it was actually his own toothbrush, but he only recognised it in relation to Lydia's. He had worried that this was somehow symbolic. Who was he without Lydia? Without her thoughts and clothes and food and friends? Her idea of time and entertainment? Who might he be if he was left to his own patterns and rhythms? How long would it take to become something beyond her? Who would that person be? He hadn't wanted to know. But he had no choice. If there was one thing he knew, it was that days kept coming at you, no matter if you were ready for them or not.

He started sleeping later. Not waking to Lydia's usual 5 am start, he found his body inclining towards 7 am, then 8, until he was waking at 8.45 am to the latest snowfall on the deck. He had, until then, been a hot breakfast man. But he began to put on boots and coat and stroll across the square to Third Rail, where he'd order a long macchiato. Sometimes on the way home he'd pick up an onion bagel and toast it with a second coffee he'd make in the espresso machine around 11 am. Sometimes he bought blueberries. He tinkered in his studio, going over old material, considering his next album. He played all his vinyls at whatever hour he liked.

In March he moved Lydia's things into a lower drawer and arranged his bathroom items on the most convenient shelf. He stacked the dishwasher the way he liked and stopped hearing Lydia correcting him. He let Rigby sleep on the bed beside him. He watched James Horner and Hans Zimmer both lose out for Best Soundtrack at the Oscars. None of this made him happier. Quite the opposite. He worried that the universe had become a little bit spongy. If he put his finger out and prodded it here or there, it might quiver. If life was unknowable, just a dance of unseen forces, then surely it didn't matter what happened between him and Lydia. But it did. He knew it did. And if this was a dream, then he wanted to know when it would end.

Maybe it would end if he went to see Lydia. But it was the one thing he was not allowed to do. Could not do. And all this he thought of as he gazed at Healayas sitting opposite Marina Abramović.

After almost an hour, Healayas left the chair. Levin rubbed his face, then let his hand linger over his eyes, breathed in that personal moment of privacy. He wanted her to see him, and he did not want her to see him. When he lifted his hand and looked around, she was gone.

ON THE THIRD AFTERNOON THEY
spent together watching Marina Abramović, Levin offered to buy Jane a drink when the museum closed. She suggested the bar at her hotel.

‘If that's not too forward. I'm just keen to sit there and it seems strange to do it on my own. And I do want you to know that I'm married. In fact, I'm a widow but only recently. I felt the need to tell you that.'

‘Nice hotel,' he said, surprised she was staying there. ‘You know Robert De Niro owns it?'

Jane did, although she hadn't until she'd checked in. She didn't remember how she'd come to book it. Small decisions had become a mystery to her since Karl's death. It was as if there were parts of her brain going about life with no awareness on her part.

They took the subway to Canal and walked the few blocks towards the Hudson. Levin didn't ask any more about her personal circumstances, but now he could see the word
widow
was pinned to her like a conference badge. It might have been easier, he thought, if he had a simple descriptor too.
Turncoat. Coward. Bereaved. Abandoned. Abandoner.
Any explanation for his situation seemed to require a paragraph. A debate. A fugue. Sometimes followed by
silenzio
. Or
crescendo
.

The barman welcomed them, delivered iced water, a dish of warm olives.

‘I hardly know what to order.' Jane laughed.

The barman suggested a martini and she agreed. Levin ordered a Guinness. Away from the gallery, he felt as if they were devotees, two people drawn together by an obscure obsession. He realised they might have nothing else in common, and suddenly felt awkward being with her.

‘Do you get to meet the movie stars when you're the composer?' Jane asked.

He shook his head. ‘I work for the most part on my own. Then, when the director is happy with what he's hearing, I put together a team of musicians. It's very structured. I spend a lot of time consulting with the director, watching edits, but I'm a long way from the actors. When I was younger, I'd spend time on set. There's not much magic to it. It's all craft. Lighting. Acting. Editing. The music is just one of the elements to make the illusion seem real.'

‘What inspired you—you know, when you were younger?'

‘Have you seen
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
?'

Jane shook her head.

‘It's an early Clint Eastwood,' Levin said. ‘Ennio Morricone did the soundtrack. He did
The Mission
too. It's a remarkable score.'

‘We saw
The Mission
,' Jane said. ‘It was terribly sad.'

‘Well, you'd know the soundtrack to
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
too if you heard it.'

Jane said, ‘I have to confess, we're not really filmgoers.'

‘You and your husband?' Levin asked.

‘Yes,' said Jane. ‘Karl only died in September last year, so it seems way too early to stop saying
we
. I'm not very good at this.
Can we, you and I, just move on and pretend there's not a death on my shoulder?'

Levin nodded, instantly disliking the image. He felt certain that she was going to ask him if he was married. But she didn't.

She smiled and said, ‘So how did that happen? That you started making music for movies?'

‘A friend of mine . . . a writer/director . . . We met at Julliard.' He shrugged. ‘It often happens that way.' There was no point in mentioning Tom. It was the death on his shoulder.

Jane said, ‘And you must have won awards?'

‘There've been a few.'

‘Oscars?'

‘Three nominations but no win. Still, that's nothing compared to Randy Newman. He's been nominated something like seventeen times and only won once.'

‘Sometimes,' said Jane, ‘I think to be famous must be like having a disease. Everyone who meets you or sits next to you at a dinner, they all know you have it and I'm sure they change how they are because of it.'

‘That's kind of true,' said Levin. ‘Unless they have more of it than you, and then you change. And in the film business it's very obvious who has more of it.'

‘Ah,' she said. ‘Well, I shall promise to try to be entirely unimpressed by you.'

‘That would be terrible,' said Levin. She was pretty when she smiled, he decided. He would have liked her to be his art teacher back in middle school.

‘Shall we have dinner?' he asked. ‘We could walk over to the Meatpacking District. Although here is very good.'

‘Oh yes,' she said. ‘I've eaten here and it's fabulous. I've done the Tribeca Grill too, and the Macao, which was wonderful, but it's hard on your own not to feel terribly conspicuous. And
it seems such a shame to get room service when there's so much to see.'

‘Well, there's a little place that does a very good French fusion . . .'

‘Are you sure your wife won't mind?' she asked, indicating the ring he wore. ‘You having drinks and dinner with a strange woman you met at MoMA?'

‘No,' said Levin. ‘She's . . . away. She travels a lot. She'd be pleased to know I . . .'
Wasn't lonely
, he thought. But instead he said, ‘That I was being hospitable.'

‘Can I have ten minutes? I'll go upstairs and freshen up. And we won't talk about my husband or your wife. Shall we agree on that?' She added, ‘And maybe not cotton farming.'

‘Cotton farming?'

‘It's what my husband did, until he died. But that's enough about that.'

When she returned she had swapped her jeans and sweater for a black skirt and a pale blue silk shirt. Her sturdy runners were now a pair of unassuming black flats and her hair was up. Suddenly she was an imperfect replica of Lydia, Levin realised, one from a fun mirror that had slightly distorted her, and he felt a wave of doubt sweep through him. What was he doing? He shrugged. She was a tourist. He was being hospitable.

Outside they were met by a fine but persistent drizzle. The doorman offered them umbrellas.

‘Shall we walk?' he suggested.

‘Alright,' said Jane, laughing. ‘It's an adventure. I'm in New York and I refuse to curb my enthusiasm!'

At first they walked in silence, and then she said, ‘So, Levin, why do you live here, not in LA where the movies are made?'

‘Well, there are a lot of movies made here. And it's a good town for music, New York, and a better lifestyle.'

‘So are you between jobs?'

‘No,' Levin said. ‘I'm working on an animation.'

‘For children?'

‘No, adults.'

‘Is that unusual, an animation for adults?'

‘It's a Japanese film. There's more of a tradition . . .'

‘But it's not going so well?'

‘What makes you say that?'

‘Oh, because you've been watching Marina Abramović for—what? Five or six days in a row, if I'm correct.'

Levin grimaced.

‘Is this how you do it? Distraction as a form of gestation?' she asked.

‘Well, it's a difficult project. I've never done an animation before.'

She nodded. ‘Still, you've made a lot of music with great success. Does that help? Knowing that?'

‘Not really.'

They paused at another set of lights. As they waited for the traffic, Jane said, ‘You know, in the twenties there was an artist called Tamara de Lempicka. She was Polish, but she'd studied in Paris and developed a remarkable style. She became one of the most famous painters in Europe. In a way she was a precursor to the whole fame thing that Warhol exploited. Her technique was very bold, almost photographic. Despite all her early success, by the time she was thirty-five she never produced anything of significance again.'

‘Is that meant to make me feel better?' Levin said.

‘No, and yes. I mean, I think every artist . . . well, I'm only a teacher, so I don't know. But what I've observed,' Jane said,
biting her lip and looking sideways at him, ‘is that all art seems to belong to a time. And some of those timeframes are quite short. Either because the world moves on, or the artist does—either metaphorically or literally. So when we do see longevity in an artist's output—when they go on for decades producing brilliant art—I think it's more the exception than the rule. What you've achieved already, well, it's incredible. Incredible. And I am sure that whatever this gestation is, while you sit and watch Abramović or whatever, you just have to trust it. Everything is important, that's what I've observed. You have to be alert, and you'll get going again.'

Levin felt an incredible urge to tell her about Lydia. Several times of late he had been overwhelmed with the urge to blurt the story out to a complete stranger. Someone on the subway or a waitress serving him coffee. Some days it felt as if it was a weight swinging inside him like a pendulum, and if he didn't tell someone, anyone, it would knock him right over.

This last week he had discovered that if he went out and spent the day at MoMA watching Abramović, he could return to the apartment as if he was some other man, a man returning from a day at the office, a composer who must work a day job and then squeeze his imagination into the silence of the evening. An artist quite alone, quite unobserved. A widower perhaps. Or single. Never married.