“Difficult to tell,” he said again. “Might have been. The joins are still tight, so someone would have had to split the metal pipe.” He pointed. “It could have been done by flexing it up and down a few times until it cracked open due to fatigue. You know, like bending a wire coat hanger until it snaps.”
“But wouldn’t that make the brakes fail immediately?” I asked him.
“Not necessarily,” he said. “It might take a while for the air to seep from the cracked pipe into the master cylinder.”
“Can you tell if that is what happened here?” I asked.
He looked again at the jumble of broken pipes. “The accident seems to have smashed it all. It would be impossible to tell what had been done beforehand.”
“Would the police accident investigators have any better idea?” I asked him.
He seemed a bit offended that I had questioned his ability. “No one could tell from that mess what it was like before the accident,” he said with some indignation.
I wasn’t sure that I totally agreed with him, but I didn’t think it was time to say so. Instead, I paid him half an hour’s labor cost in cash and used my cell phone to call a taxi.
“Do you have the keys of the car?” I asked the man.
“No, mate,” he said. “Never seen them. Thought they were still in it.”
They weren’t. I’d looked. “Never mind,” I said. “They wouldn’t be much use now anyway.” But they had been on a silver key fob. A twenty-first-birthday present from my mother.
“Can I send it off to the scrap, then?” he asked.
“Not yet,” I said. “Wait until the insurance man has seen it.”
“Will do,” he said. “But don’t forget, you’re the one paying for the storage.”
What a surprise.
“WELL, THAT WASN’T very conclusive,” said Caroline as we sat in the taxi taking us back to Newmarket. “What do you want to do now?”
“Go home,” I said. “I’m feeling lousy.”
We did go home, but via the supermarket in Newmarket. I sat outside in the taxi as Caroline went to buy something to eat for supper, as well as a bottle of red wine. I was pretty sure that the painkillers I was taking didn’t mix too well with alcohol, but who cared.
I lay on the sofa and rested my aching head while Caroline fussed around in the kitchen. Once or twice, she came and sat down next to me, but soon she was up and about again.
“Relax,” I said to her. “I won’t eat you alive.”
She sighed. “It’s not that. I’m restless because I haven’t got my viola here to play. I usually practice for at least two hours every day, even if I’m performing in the evening. I haven’t played a note since the day before yesterday and I’m suffering from withdrawal symptoms. I need my fix.”
“Like me and my cooking,” I said. “Sometimes, I just get the urge to cook even if there is no one to eat it. The freezers at the restaurant are full of stuff I intend getting round to eating one day.”
“Shame there’s none of it here,” she said.
“I could call and ask one of my staff to bring some over.”
“No,” she said, smiling. “I’ll take my chances and cook for the cook. It also might be better not to mention anything about this to your staff.”
“Why not?” I said.
“They might get the wrong idea.”
“And what, exactly, is the ‘wrong idea’ they might get?” I asked.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “If they knew I was staying here, they might jump to the wrong conclusions.”
I wasn’t sure I liked the way the conversation was going. Too much analysis of any situation was apt to make it appear somewhat stupid, whereas uninhibited and thought-free actions were more often an accurate reflection of true feelings. The raw and honest emotion of last night in the hospital was in danger of being consumed by too much good sense and the weighing up of consequences.
“What do you play when you practice?” I asked, changing the subject. “And don’t say ‘the viola.’”
“Finger exercises mostly,” she said. “Very boring.”
“Like scales?” I had been forced to do hours of scales on the piano when I was a child. I had hated it.
“Exactly,” she said. “But I also play pieces as well. Scales alone would drive anyone crazy, even a pro musician.”
“What is your favorite piece to play?” I asked.
“Bach’s Violin Concerto in E Major,” she said. “But, of course, I play it on the viola.”
“Doesn’t it sound all wrong?”
She laughed. “No, of course not. It sounds fine. Take the song ‘Yesterday.’ You know the one, by the Beatles. It can be played on the piano, the guitar, the violin or anything else. It still sounds like ‘Yesterday,’ doesn’t it?”
“I suppose so,” I said. I would take her word for it.
I looked at my watch. It was six o’clock. The sun, if not exactly over the yardarm, was well into its descent from the zenith, so I opened the wine, and we sat and drank it, content in each other’s company.
Caroline fixed fresh salmon with a parsley sauce, new potatoes and salad, and it was delicious. We sat together on the sofa and ate it on our laps while watching a satirical news program on the television. Real domesticity.
As she had planned, Caroline didn’t sleep in my bedroom.
But, then again, neither did I.
11
C aroline got up early and called herself a taxi.
“Was it something I said?” I asked.
“Oh no,” she said, laughing. “It’s just that I have to get back to London. I’ve got a meeting at the RPO offices in Clerkenwell Green. I want to convince them to let me fly out for the rest of the tour.”
She sat on the end of the bed in my spare room, putting on some black socks. I sat up and pulled her back until she was again lying next to me, in my arms.
“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” she said. “But I’m glad it did.”
I did mean for it to happen and I was also glad it did. I kissed her.
“Are you coming back here after your meeting?” I asked.
“I can’t,” she said. “The orchestra finishes the run in New York tonight and then moves on to Chicago for the second part of the U. S. tour. I am desperate to regain my chair for that. If all goes well today, I will be flying out to Chicago on Sunday.”
It was now Friday. Sunday seemed much too soon for her to disappear from me across the wide Atlantic.
“But you haven’t even seen my restaurant,” I said. “How about tomorrow? For dinner?”
“Don’t be so eager, Mr. Moreton. I have a life, you know. And I have things to do if I’m going to be away next week.” She sat up and finished dressing.
“When will you be back from the States?” I asked.
“I don’t know that I’ll be going yet. The orchestra is due to return next weekend to spend time preparing for our Festival Hall season. It’s during that time I’m playing my solo at the Cadogan Hall. Are you still coming?”
“If you’ll still have dinner with me afterwards,” I said.
“Deal.” We sealed it with a kiss.
We went downstairs, and Caroline made us some breakfast.
“Watch that toaster,” I said to her. “It’s broken and doesn’t pop up like it should, and I’m forever forgetting and setting off the smoke alarm.”
She watched it, carefully and without incident. We sat at the kitchen table and munched our way through two slices each of toast and marmalade.
The taxi hooted from outside. Too soon, I thought, much too soon.
After Caroline left, I moped around the house all morning, wishing she were still there. I tidied the kitchen at least three times, and I even vacuumed the floor in the sitting room until the noise began to make my head ache. I had a bowl of cereal, with painkillers, for my lunch.
It was with mixed emotions that I took Caroline’s telephone call around one o’clock. She was so excited at having been welcomed back into the orchestral fold and busy making plans for her trip to Chicago. I was pleased for her, but I would have been kidding myself if I didn’t admit I was rather disappointed that she was going.