“You still have it?”
“No.”
He pauses. “We should talk. You’re obviously quite a talent.”
“Not exactly ready for the big time yet,” she laughs, warmed by flattery.
“There are opportunities even for someone at your stage. Let’s say we meet and throw a few ideas around.”
“But…”
“How do you feel about crossover?”
Does he think he can make her a pop star? “I don’t know.”
“I’m looking to showcase some new talent, young hopefuls, you appreciate I’m thinking aloud here, really we should talk. Lunch tomorrow? Even if it goes nowhere you’ll at least get a decent meal out of me.”
And in a moment it’s all arranged, she hangs up thinking this could be a psycho stalker or the biggest break of her life.
It’s three weeks since she showed up for a lesson with Mr Conroy only to be told he was unwell. Her tutor since then has been Mrs White, and when Paige arrives to see her she’s still thinking about Verrine’s call, wondering whether to mention it. They’re working on Chopin’s Scherzo in C sharp minor, Mrs White wants Paige to play it at a student recital later in the term. Mrs White is nearly at retirement age, has a grown-up daughter in Australia and a son who’s an anaesthetist; she’s fat and motherly, in a purple angora sweater with her spectacles hanging from a chord on her ample bosom. Paige can’t imagine ever being like her.
“You’re still using your old fingering,” Mrs White points out, interrupting Paige’s performance, saying it as if she were disapproving of the amount of salt being added to a pot of soup.
“Sorry,” says Paige. She’s been practising it exactly the way Mrs White wants, different from the fingering in the score and anything that would have occurred to Paige naturally, but supposedly better. Mrs White can do her own fingering perfectly and expects every one of her students to do the same. Paige tries again, they get along for a page or two.
“No ritardando there,” Mrs White reminds her. She chose the Chopin Scherzo for Paige to learn because, she said, it shouldn’t only be for those “big muscly boys”, and the unwanted image that came to Paige’s mind was of Sean, now going out with someone else according to social media and more particularly Ella. The Scherzo alternates between the muscly stuff and what Mrs White calls the “feminine” passages: Chopin, she maintains, was deeply in touch with his feminine side. These episodes are like flowing water, ripples on a lake; the other parts are solid rock. But whenever Paige tries to pursue this imagery she only ends up with Sean, herself, and the foetus.
The family photographs in Mrs White’s comfortably furnished room are more prominent than the piano that serves as support for several of them. The anaesthetist is seen in various stages: nappies, school uniform, geeky graduate, nervous bridegroom. The daughter looks like a younger Mrs White, embracing her own children in sharp antipodean sunlight, declaring success to the world, though Mrs White herself has an old-fashioned modesty that is immediately comforting. Her lessons typically begin with tea and end with biscuits (“I mustn’t,” she always insists, taking a Hobnob from the china plate). Mrs White says she never had any ambitions to be a soloist, would have liked to have done more touring as a chamber musician but had two children to bring up and, well, had to make choices.
Paige has been asked to do one of the watery bits again, she’s got to get the fingering right otherwise that water’s going to pour out of her hands and make a puddle on the floor. All very well hacking away at the rocks but they’re mountains in the background, need to look at what’s in front. And Paige thinks of Julian Verrine, his invitation to what she supposes should be called a business lunch. Can’t help imagining herself on Classic FM bashing through crowd-pleasing double octaves and to hell with getting the trickles right. Definite star quality. Sean opens the newspaper and sees her looking glamorous in a full-page interview. Wishes he’d never hurt her.
Mrs White says they should take a short break because she can see that Paige is getting tired. Very important not to overstretch the tendons. She refills Paige’s teacup and says she’s had a letter from Sarah about the mission, Paige is never good at keeping up with soap-opera but knows from previous lessons that the daughter does some kind of religious work, Mrs White is a loyal church-goer and exudes a serenity that Paige envies though also doubts. All very well to have faith yet what if it’s false? Paige would never discuss it with her, but if the miscarriage came up she knows Mrs White would say it’s in heaven, the little cabbage stalk grew wings and became an angel, when really it never had any life except a potential one that got burned like old paper.
Paige declines a Jaffa Cake and asks, “Have you heard anything about Mr Conroy?”
Mrs White shakes her head earnestly.
“Is it true he’s gone missing?”
“So it would appear. Some fear the worst.”
“You mean harming himself?”
“He tried it before, you know, when he had a breakdown a few years ago. Such a common story, artists cracking under the strain. So easy to become isolated and obsessive. And it all started so well for him, I remember when people were seriously calling him a new Pollini. But that was a long time ago.”
“Beaten by his own demons.”
“He certainly made a fine job of sabotaging his career though who can say how things would have turned out otherwise? You know how heavily the odds are stacked against any kind of success, Paige. First there has to be complete mastery of technique, no one would question David’s, in his day he was astonishing. And sensitive interpretation, again he had it, even if his readings were a little clinical. Then luck, David got his break when John Ogden had to cancel a performance and they wanted a last-minute replacement. But once you’ve got an audience you have to hold on to it, and that means connecting. I don’t think David ever truly connected with the public. I think he despised them, because really he despised himself.”
Paige wants to know more but it’s time to resume work. Her mind keeps wandering and her playing is sub-standard, Mrs White can sense it and soon calls a halt.
“Perhaps you didn’t get enough sleep,” she says kindly.
Paige is thinking about the meeting with Julian Verrine, wondering what to wear. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course, dear.”
“How good do you really think I am?”
Mrs White answers without hesitation. “You’ve got huge potential.”
“I’m not talking about that.” Potential, Paige knows, is something that gets incinerated. “I mean now.”
The teacher’s beneficence remains undimmed though her response is evasive. “There’s a difference between performing for one person in a room and a thousand in a concert hall.”
“I want to know if I can connect.”
“You need to do the other things first: technique, interpretation, projection.”
“I’m twenty years old, there are pianists younger than me giving Prom concerts.”
“Yes, and Liszt was touring when he was twelve, you missed your chance at being a child prodigy. But as a mature artist you’re not yet fully formed. A child could learn the part of King Lear, but would he understand it?”
“You’re saying I don’t have enough life experience?” Paige is thinking: if only you knew.
“Yes, I suppose that’s what I’m saying. If you’re asking me about show business then it doesn’t matter, the younger the better, as long as there are no wrong notes. A lot of concertgoers hear Beethoven no differently at fifty than they did when they were twenty so that’s all the more reason for it not to matter, they like to see someone young and pretty on stage doing something they can’t do but wish they could. Given the right PR you could probably have a career like that tomorrow, though it wouldn’t last long.”