“Oxford,” said Pearce, reverently, as though describing a lover. “Much darker tone.”
“Sorry?” said Israel. “You’ve lost me. Oxford has a much darker tone than…?”
“The viola,” said Pearce. “Compared to the violin. Much darker. Voice of the soul. C. G. D. A.” Pearce plucked at the strings of the instrument in his hand. “Prelude to the Bach cello suites, arrangement by an old friend of mine. My first wife-beautiful soprano voice. Igor wrote something for her mother…”
“Erm.” Israel hesitated. Pearce had recently been showing signs of memory loss and confusion. He’d been found as far away as Belfast, on his bicycle, claiming that he was riding in the peloton in the Tour de France. “You know you’re outside Zelda’s, playing your violin?” said Israel.
“Viola,” said Pearce. “I’m collecting money for the Green Party. Forthcoming elections. Need every penny.”
“You’re busking,” said Israel.
“That’s illegal,” said Ted, spitting on the pavement.
“Fund-raising,” said Pearce. “Spare a few coppers, guv’nor?”
“Not likely,” said Ted.
“I didn’t know you were a Green Party supporter,” said Israel.
“Isn’t everybody these days?” said Pearce, breaking into another wracking coughing fit, which doubled him over, his slight frame shaking as he stood himself up straight again.
“No,” said Ted.
“Sssh,” said Israel, staring hard at Ted. “Are you all right, Pearce?”
“Yes,” coughed Pearce. “Fine.”
“Good,” he said to Pearce. “Good for you.”
“It’s not good for me,” said Pearce. “Not at all. That’s not the point of it, my dear. It’s good for the planet.”
“Yes,” said Israel, soothingly. “I meant-”
“I’ve been planting trees up at the house, you know, carbon offsetting. About a thousand now, I think.”
“A thousand trees?”
“Indeed.”
“That’s a lot of trees,” said Israel.
“Hardly,” said Pearce. “You can never have enough trees.”
“No,” agreed Israel. “They don’t grow on…trees.”
“Sorry?”
“They don’t-” began Israel.
“Just ignore him,” said Ted. “And he shuts up in the end.”
“Handbook of the soul,” said Pearce. “A tree.”
“Is it?” said Israel.
“Of course.”
“Right. Yes. Probably it is.”
“Irish oak. Native species. Sorbus aucuparia. Sorbus hibernica…I had a friend who grew hurley ash for profit, you know. Nice little business.”
“Aye, all right,” said Ted. “Let’s get in here for our coffee, Israel, shall we?”
“Yeah, sure. Pearce, do you want a cup of tea or anything to keep you warm? We’re just going in to Zelda’s here-”
“No, thanks,” said Pearce. “No time for tea. Work to be done. Planet and what have you…Raging against the…” He hawked up some phlegm and spat it into a polka-dot handkerchief. “Dying of the light.”
“OK. Good to see you,” said Israel. “Look after yourself, OK?”
“Aye, you enjoy yourself there,” said Ted.
“I’ve been measuring my pond at home,” said Pearce.
“Right ye are, auld fella,” said Ted to Pearce. And “Let’s get in here, my back’s killing me,” he said to Israel.
“One hundred and two feet,” said Pearce.
“Very good,” said Israel. “Excellent.”
Pearce raised the viola and the neckerchiefed dogs stirred at his feet, preparing themselves. “I’ll see you on Sunday, of course?” said Pearce.
“Yes,” said Israel. “Of course.”
“Sunday?” said Ted.
“I visit him sometimes on Sundays.”
“Very cozy,” said Ted.
“Sshh,” said Israel.
“Good,” said Pearce, waving them away with his bow. “Now, no time to chat. Must get on. Bach.”
“Ing,” said Ted.
“Sshh!” said Israel.
“Bloody header,” said Ted, as they walked into Zelda’s.
“I like him,” said Israel. “He’s my favorite person in the whole of Tumdrum.”
“Aye,” said Ted. “’Cause he’s not all there, an a big lump trailin’.”
“What? What does that mean?”
“He’s as bloody crazy as you are.”
4
They waved good-bye to Pearce playing his viola outside and pushed into the crowds. Even by the usual packed standards of Zelda’s on a Friday morning, Zelda’s was packed: you couldn’t move for the thick fug of car coats, steamed milk, and potpourri.
“Oh god. What the hell’s happening in here?” said Israel.
“Busy,” agreed Ted.
Zelda’s Café was a kind of holding area for the nearly departed, a place where the retired of Tumdrum assembled for coffee and scones before ascending toward the Judgment Seat and the Gate of Heaven; it was a place neither in nor entirely of this world, or certainly not of the world that Israel wished to inhabit; not a world he could ever feel a part of. It wasn’t that they were bad people, the ever-fragrant coffee-and-scone crowd in Zelda’s. In fact, they were very decent people-sweet, sweet milky coffee ran in their veins, and they were as good-hearted as the glacé cherry in a cherry scone. They just weren’t Israel’s kind of people. And here they all were, gathered together, just about every last one of them: it was as though Zelda’s was staging the worldwide scone and coffee fest. Scoffest.
“We’ll never get a seat,” said Israel, staring at the heaving throng. “Shall we go somewhere else?”
“There is nowhere else,” said Ted.
“Ah,” said Israel. “Yes. You see. There’s the rub.”
“Give over,” said Ted.
“Come on, ye, on on in,” said Minnie, bustling over, frilly pinny on, brown cardigan sleeves rolled up. “Plenty of room, gents, plenty of room!”
“God. Really?” said Israel. “Isn’t it a little-”
“And none of yer auld language here today, please. We’ve a visitor. Come on on.” She waved them forward and started to lead them through the crowded café, like a guide taking tourists through a souk in Marrakech.
“Who’s the visitor?” said Israel, squeezing between car coats.
“A Very Important Person,” said Minnie.
“Who?” said Ted.
“Nelson Mandela?” said Israel.
“Och!” said Minnie.
“The Berlin State Philharmonic?”
“What?” said Minnie.
“You know you’ve got Pearce outside busking?”
“Ach, he’s harmless, bless him,” said Minnie.
“He’s away in the head,” said Ted, demonstrating what he considered to be a state of away-in-the-headness by rolling his eyes and lolling his tongue.
“He’s not well,” said Minnie.
“It’s the Haltzeimer’s,” said Ted.
“The what?” said Israel.
“Have you lost weight, pet?” said Minnie, glancing behind her.
“Just a bit,” said Israel.
“He’s depressed,” said Ted.
“I am not depressed,” said Israel.
“Split up with his girlfriend back in London,” said Ted.
“Oh dear,” said Minnie. “And you’ve grown a beard as well,” she added.
“Adding insult to injury,” said Ted.
“Top-up of coffee when you’ve a minute,” said a man in the traditional Zelda’s getup of car coat, plus a suit and a tie, and a zip-up pullover, with a Racing Post propped before him, as Minnie bustled by.
“Make that two,” said his similarly attired companion.
“And I’ll take another date and wheaten scone,” piped up another identically clad man at another table.
“And me!”
“Cinnamon scone, and a large cappuccino?” called someone else.
“Och, all right,” said Minnie, squeezing past women whose calorie intake had clearly exceeded recommended daily amounts for some years, and men whose red, flushed faces suggested that an occasional tipple had become a rather more regular routine. “Give me a wee minute here, will ye?”
Zelda’s was not the Kit Kat Club.