But they were unaffected. The ’cello uncle shut his mouth with a snap, shrugged, and went on into the sitting-room, saying over his shoulder, ‘Well, if you will go in for these peculiar pursuits...’
My mother followed him with her eyes. There was a bass twang as he picked up his instrument from the sofa, and as if drawn by an irresistible magnet the others drifted after him. Only my cousin stayed long enough to spare Art a thought, then he too went back to his clarinet.
I listened to them re-tuning and setting up the music stands. They began to play a jigging piece for strings and woodwind that I particularly disliked. The flat was suddenly intolerable. I went out and down into the street and began to walk.
There was only one place to go if I wanted a certain kind of peace, and I didn’t care to go there too often for fear of wearing out my welcome. But it was a full month since I had seen my cousin Joanna, and I needed some more of her company. Need. That was the only word for it.
She opened the door with her usual air of good humoured invitation.
‘Well, hello,’ she said, smiling. I followed her into the big converted mews garage which served her as sitting-room, bedroom and rehearsal room all in one. Half of the roof was a sloping skylight, through which the remains of the evening sun still shone. The size and comparative bareness of the room gave it unusual accoustic qualities; if one spoke ordinarily it was like any other room; if one sang, as Joanna did, there was a satisfying illusion of distance and some good amplification from concrete walls.
Joanna’s voice was deep and clear and resonant. When she liked, in singing dramatic passages, she could colour it with the suggestion of graininess, a very effective hint of a crack in the bell. She could have made a fortune as a blues singer; but having been born a true classical Finn, so commercial a use of her talent was out of the question. Instead she preferred songs which were to me unmelodic and unrewarding, though she seemed to be amassing a fair-sized reputation with them among people who enjoyed that sort of thing.
She had greeted me in a pair of jeans as old as my own and a black sweater streaked here and there with paint. On an easel stood a half-finished portrait of a man, with some brushes and paints on a table beside it.
‘I’m trying my hand at oils,’ she said, picking up a brush and making a tentative dab at the picture, ‘but it’s not going very well, damn it.’
‘Stick to charcoal, then,’ I said. She had drawn with flowing lines the racing horses which hung in my bedroom, short on anatomy, but full of life and movement.
‘I’ll finish this, at least,’ she said.
I stood and watched her. She squeezed out some carmine.
Without looking at me she said, ‘What’s the matter?’
I didn’t answer. She paused with her brushes in the air and turned and regarded me calmly for some seconds.
‘There’s some steak in the kitchen,’ she said.
A mind reader, my cousin Joanna. I grinned at her and went out into the long narrow lean-to where she both took her bath and did her cooking. It was rump steak, thick and dark. I grilled it with a couple of tomatoes and made some french dressing for a lettuce I found already prepared in a wooden bowl. When the steak was done I divided it on to two plates and took the whole lot back to Joanna. It smelt wonderful.
She put down her brush and came to eat, wiping her hands on the seat of her pants.
‘I’ll say one thing for you, Rob. You cook a mean steak,’ she said, after her first mouthful.
‘Thanks for nothing,’ I said, with my mouth full.
We ate every scrap. I finished first, and sat back and watched her. She had a fascinating face, full of strength and character, with straight dark eyebrows and, that night, no lipstick. She had tucked her short wavy hair in a no-nonsense style behind her ears, but on top it still curled forwards on to her forehead in an untidy fringe.
My cousin Joanna was the reason I was still a bachelor, if one can be said to need a reason at twenty-six years of age. She was three months older than I, which had given her an advantage over me all our lives, and this was a pity, since I had been in love with her from the cradle. I had several times asked her to marry me, but she always said no. First cousins, she explained firmly, were too closely related. Besides which, she added, I didn’t stir her blood.
Two other men, however, had done that for her. Both were musicians. And each of them in their turn in a most friendly way had told me how greatly having Joanna for a lover had deepened their appreciation of living, given new impetus to their musical inspiration, opened new vistas, and so on and so on. They were both rather intense brooding men with undeniably handsome faces, and I didn’t like hearing what they had to say. On the first occasion, when I was eighteen, I departed in speed and grief to foreign lands, and somehow had not returned for six years. On the second occasion I went straight to a wild party, got thoroughly drunk for the first and only time in my life, and woke up in Paulina’s bed. Both adventures had turned out to be satisfying and educational. But they had not cured me of Joanna.
She pushed away her empty plate and said, ‘Now, what’s the matter?’
I told her about Art. She listened seriously and when I had finished she said, ‘The poor man. And his poor wife... Why did he do it, do you know?’
‘I think it was because he lost his job,’ I said. ‘Art was such a perfectionist in everything. He was too proud... He would never admit he had done anything wrong in a race... And I think he simply couldn’t face everyone knowing he’d been given the sack. But the odd thing is, Joanna, that he looked as good as ever to me. I know he was thirty-five, but that’s not really old for a jockey, and although it was obvious that he and Corin Kellar, the trainer who retained him, were always having rows when their horses didn’t win, he hadn’t lost any of his style. Someone else would have employed him, even if not one of the top stables like Corin’s.’
‘And there you have it, I should think,’ she said. ‘Death was preferable to decline.’
‘Yes, it looks like it.’
‘I hope that when your time comes to retire you will do it less drastically,’ she said. I smiled, and she added, ‘And just what will you do when you retire?’
‘Retire? I have only just started,’ I said.
‘And in fourteen years’ time you’ll be a second-rate, battered, bitter forty, too old to make anything of your life and with nothing to live on but horsy memories that no one wants to listen to.’ She sounded quite annoyed at the prospect.
‘You, on the other hand,’ I said, ‘will be a fat, middle-aged, contralto’s understudy, scared stiff of losing your looks and aware that those precious vocal cords are growing less flexible every year.’
She laughed. ‘How gloomy. But I see your point. From now on I’ll try not to disapprove of your job because it lacks a future.’
‘But you’ll go on disapproving for other reasons?’
‘Certainly. It’s basically frivolous, unproductive, escapist, and it encourages people to waste time and money on inessentials.’
‘Like music,’ I said.
She glared at me. ‘For that you shall do the washing up,’ she said, getting to her feet and putting the plates together.
While I did my penance for the worst heresy possible in the Finn family she went back to her portrait, but it was nearly dusk, and when I brought in a peace offering of some freshly-made coffee she gave it up for the day.
‘Is your television set working?’ I asked, handing her a cup.
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘Do you mind if we have it on for a quarter of an hour?’
‘Who’s playing?’ she asked automatically.