We sat in the plush red seats, and when the woman with the extravagant claret-red dress – puff-sleeved, high-necked, bell-skirted, ornately embroidered décolletage – next to Hendrich stood up and left for the restroom, he tilted his head towards me and surreptitiously pointed out a celebrity in attendance.
‘Man on balcony . . . leaning over . . . next to the lady in the green dress. The one everyone is looking at while pretending they aren’t.’ I saw a genial rosy-skinned man with a round owlish face and a neatly trimmed white beard. ‘Andrew Carnegie. Titan of industry. Richer than Rockefeller. More generous too . . . But, look, he’s an old man. What’s he got left? Another decade? Maybe a bit more? Yet every single piece of Carnegie steel in every railroad across this country will be there long after him. This hall, built with spare change, will be standing when he is six feet under the earth. That’s why he built it. So his name will live long into the future. This is what the rich do. Once they know they can survive comfortably and their children can survive comfortably they set about working on their legacy. Such a sadness to that word, don’t you think? Legacy. What a meaningless thing. All that work for a future in which they don’t appear. And what is legacy, Mr Hazard? What is legacy but the most empty and mediocre substitute for what we have. Steel and money and fancy concert halls don’t give you immortality.’
‘We aren’t immortal.’
He smiled. ‘Look at me, Tom. I look the same age as him. But in reality I am younger than a baby. I’ll still be here in the year two thousand.’
I risked offending him. ‘But how do you feel inside? The thing that has always worried me is the idea of spending several lifetimes as an old man.’
And for a moment I thought I had offended him. I thought I had overstepped an invisible line. And maybe I had, but he just smiled at me and said, ‘Life is life. So long as I can hear music and so long as I can still enjoy oysters and champagne . . .’
‘So you aren’t in pain?’
‘I have some bone trouble, yes. It keeps me awake at night from time to time. And I am no longer entirely immune to colds and fevers. You will notice this as you get older. All those physical benefits of being an alba begin to fade. You catch things. You become more like them. The biological shield drops. But I am good with pain. Small price to pay for being alive.
‘Life is the ultimate privilege, so I am among the most privileged people on the planet. You should be grateful too. You will still be here deep into the next millennium. Beyond me. Beyond Agnes. You are a god, Tom. A walking god. We are gods and they are mayflies. You need to learn how to enjoy your deific existence.’
A frail-looking man with an intense expression and thinning hair walked towards the centre of the stage. He stood in front of the crowd and gave the semblance of a smile. The whole hall erupted in applause. He stayed there, silent, just staring out at us for a while. And then he – Tchaikovsky – turned towards the little lectern that was on the stage, picked up his baton and held it in the air. He paused a moment. It was like watching an old wizard with a wand, summoning the energy needed to cast the spell.
The hall fell silent. I had never heard a silence like it. The whole hall seemed to be holding its breath. It felt civilised and modern. It felt refined and tantalising all at once, like a polite collective pre-orgasm.
Time slowed, inside that moment.
Then the music began.
I hadn’t enjoyed music for years. So I sat in my seat waiting, as always, for nothing at all.
After a blast of trumpets the violins and cellos were left on their own for a while, creating a noise that started small and tender, and rose to create a kind of symphonic storm.
And, yes, it did nothing at first. But then, somehow, it got in.
No. Not got in. That’s the wrong way of putting it. Music doesn’t get in. Music is already in. Music simply uncovers what is there, makes you feel emotions that you didn’t necessarily know you had inside you, and runs around waking them all up. A rebirth of sorts.
There was such a yearning and energy to it. I closed my eyes. I could not describe here on the page how I felt. The very reason such music exists is because it is a language that couldn’t be communicated in any other way. But all I can say is that I felt suddenly alive again.
As the trumpets and French horns and bass drum thundered in, it had such power my heart quickened and my mind felt dizzy. When I opened my eyes I saw Tchaikovsky with his baton, seemingly pulling the music right out of the air, as if music was something already in the atmosphere that you just had to locate.
Then, when it was all over, the composer seemed to deflate again. Even as the whole hall got to its feet and showered him with wave after wave of applause, and the odd roar of ‘Bravo!’, he gave the smallest of smiles and the smallest of bows.
‘He pisses over Brahms from a mountain, don’t you think?’ Hendrich whispered to me at one point.
I had no idea. I just knew it was good to be back inside the world of feeling.
I realised, even at the time, that the visit to Music Hall was all part of the sales technique. Hendrich’s way of getting me inside. Not only would he find my daughter, I would have a good life in the process. I didn’t yet understand what I was really being sold, but by the time that became clear I had already bought in. I had been sold, in reality, since he first mentioned Marion. But now I was starting to believe Hendrich’s hype. That the Albatross Society was a way not just to find my daughter, but also myself.
The next day, in Hendrich’s apartment, as we finished our champagne breakfast, the conversation happened. The one I always think of.
‘The first rule is that you don’t fall in love,’ he said, wiping a waffle crumb off the table with his finger before lighting a cigar. ‘There are other rules too, but that is the main one. No falling in love. No staying in love. No daydreaming of love. If you stick to this you will just about be okay.’
I stared through the curving smoke of his cigar. ‘I doubt I will ever love again.’
‘Good. You are, of course, allowed to love food and music and champagne and rare sunny afternoons in October. You can love the sight of waterfalls and the smell of old books, but the love of people is off limits. Do you hear me? Don’t attach yourself to people, and try to feel as little as you possibly can for those you do meet. Because otherwise you will slowly lose your mind . . .’ He paused for a while. ‘Eight years, that’s the rule. That’s the most an alba can stay anywhere before things get really tricky. That’s the Eight-Year Rule. You have a nice life for eight years. Then I send you on a task. Then you have a new life. With no ghosts.’
I believed him. How could I not? Hadn’t I lost myself after Rose? Wasn’t I still, in a sense, waiting to find myself again? A nice life. Maybe it was possible. With a structure. With something to belong to. With a purpose.
‘Do you know your Greek myths, Tom?’
‘A little.’
‘Well, I am like Daedalus. You know, the creator of the labyrinth that held the minotaur safe. I’ve had to build a labyrinth to protect all of us. This society. But the trouble with Daedalus is that for all his wisdom people didn’t always listen to him. His own son, Icarus, didn’t listen. You know that story, don’t you?’
‘Yes. He and Icarus try to escape from the Greek island—’
‘Crete.’
‘Crete. Yes. But their wings are made of wax and feathers. And his father . . .’