It was Saturday and the day of his wife’s cremation. The service lived up to his worst fears: he hated the recorded music and the eulogy failed to conjure up either his wife’s virtues or her idiosyncrasies. For several minutes he could not even think of his wife’s face. It was as though she had decided not to take part.
When the service was over, the small group of friends stood about outside the crematorium: handshakes, embarrassed hugs, the odd kiss and the occasional, ‘I’m so sorry, Nigel, you must come and see us whenever you like.’ Some people had to leave straight away and the rest went to a pub nearby. At last that was over too and he could make his way home.
Mr Johnson lived in a terraced house in South London at the junction of two roads. As he rounded the corner to his front door, he heard the sound of the neighbour’s boy practicing his cello. Usually, he heard only the odd note, as from a great distance, not even clearly enough to know what he was playing, but today the boy must be in the front room with the window open, for he could hear every note. The boy played a scale and stopped. Mr Johnson found his key after trying the wrong pocket and as he reached up to the keyhole, he heard the familiar opening notes of Rachmaninoff’s Vocalise. His hand holding the key dropped and he remained perfectly still. In fact he stayed like that until the last note. He knew the piece well, indeed he had a wonderful recording of it sung by Renee Fleming. But how well it suited this arrangement for the cello and how well the boy played it – even without the piano accompaniment. For Mr Johnson, it was as if he had never really listened to the piece before. The opening theme seemed to be an intense yearning for something lost, sinking slowly into despair, like an autumn leaf floating to the ground, then being whisked up by a sudden gust of wind, before settling slowly down again. The middle section seemed more like a battle between the Fates, a ‘rage against the dying of the light’, and the last section, starting on a low note and then rising slowly to the mountain top, a climax of pain, though tinged now with understanding and acceptance, before the final descent to resignation.
All the sadness and emotion he had expected to feel at his wife’s cremation welled up in him now, so that he could hardly find the keyhole in order to let himself in. He took off his coat and dropped it on the chair in the hall. Then he fetched a glass and poured himself a whisky, rather larger than usual because his hand was shaking so badly.
For Tariq, playing the Vocalise next door, it was also a kind of farewell. That morning, his father had told him that he would have to give up the cello; he could no longer afford to pay for the lessons. Tariq would have to return the instrument to the school on Monday and also tell his teacher, Miss Bell, that he couldn’t go on with it. Tariq’s father, Mr Hussein, offered to tell Miss Bell, but Tariq said he would do it himself. But how would he explain it without shaming his father? And how would Miss Bell take it? He knew she liked him: he had always worked hard and made his way up the grades without failing any of them. When they both played together, Miss Bell accompanying him on the piano, he knew that every now and then, they made a sort of magic. Then she would look at him with her large, knowing eyes and say, ‘That was good, Tariq. If you go on playing like that, one day you will be able to get into one of the top orchestras in the country.’ That had been Tariq’s dream and now it was shattered.
Though the Husseins had moved into the house next door to the Johnsons four years ago, they had never got on to calling terms. They were on perfectly good nodding terms but the lives they led were so different that there were few obvious opportunities to meet. The Johnsons were older, both retired, and they had no children. They kept very much to themselves. The Husseins owned a shop, which meant long hours of work, and the rest of the time was taken up with their two children, Tariq and his younger sister. Mrs Hussein was a shy person and Mr Johnson decided that Tariq must take after her. As a lover of classical music, he had tried speaking to the boy when he heard the sounds of cello practice, but the boy did not know how to respond and Mr Johnson had not tried again.
It came therefore as a surprise to Mr Johnson when the door bell rang on Monday morning and there stood Mr. Hussein, holding a bunch of roses rather awkwardly.
‘Oh, so very sorry to disturb you, Mr Johnson. My wife and I knew that Mrs Johnson had passed away and we wanted … we wanted to say how very sad we are and …’ He came to a stop and held out the flowers.
‘How kind of you, Mr Hussein. Please do come in.’
‘Oh, thank you so much. I shall only stay for a very fleeting moment, you know. I must get back to my shop; my wife is holding the fort all on her own.’
‘ No, but do please stay. Just let me put these into water. Aren’t they beautiful. It is really kind of you.’
Mr Johnson showed his neighbour into the sitting room and said, ‘ I’ll be back in a jiffy.’
And so he was, the roses stuffed into a vase without any arranging, but still looking lovely.
‘Please sit down,’ said Mr Johnson, waving Mr Hussein to a chair by the hearth.
‘Oh, are you quite sure? Is this not your very own chair?’
‘No, no, of course not. Sit down and make yourself at home. After all, your own home is just the other side of that wall,’ he said, pointing to the hearth. They both laughed.
‘Do you know,’ continued Mr Johnson, after a pause, ‘my wife’s funeral was awful.’
Mr Hussein looked up startled. He was shocked at the words and could think of nothing to say.
‘Yes!’ Mr Johnson went on, ‘it was awful. No other word to describe it. But do you know what made up for that and will always remind me of the day?’
‘You know, I can’t guess at all,’ stammered Mr Hussein.
‘As I rounded the corner to our street, I heard Tariq playing the Vocalise.’
Now Mr Hussein was not musical and had no interest in European classical music. He had not the slightest idea what Vocalise meant and then he couldn’t begin to imagine how this Vocalise, whatever it might be, could be more memorable than one’s wife’s funeral.
‘ He played it,’ Mr Johnson was saying, ‘with such feeling and … and so beautifully, that I felt all the things I had hoped to feel at the service and hadn’t.’
‘How very, very strange, you know,’ Mr Hussein almost blurted out. ‘Only this weekend, I told him that he would have to give up his lessons and take the cello back to his school. I’m afraid business has been very, very slow this summer. Of course, I hope things will get better now that the road works are all finished, but for the moment I cannot afford to go on; the lessons are so expensive, you know. It’s a big blow to the boy, a big blow …’
Meanwhile, Tariq had taken his cello with him to school. He had said good bye to the instrument when he played the Vocalise for the last time. Now he just wanted to get rid of it as soon as he could. He made his way down a noisy corridor to the music room.
‘Hi, Tariq. Giving another concert, are you?’ ‘Hi, Tariq. Played anything good lately?’ He didn’t bother answering. He knocked on the music room door.
‘Come in! Hello, Tariq. What can I do for you?’
‘I’m bringing my cello back, sir.’
‘Oh yes, why’s that?’
‘I’m giving it up, sir.’
‘You’re WHAT?’
‘Giving it up, sir. The doctor says. Well, I can’t explain, sir, but I can’t go on playing.’
‘Well, I am sorry about that, Tariq. I’m quite shocked. We’ll talk about it later. What did Miss Bell have to say?’
‘I haven’t seen her yet, sir. I’ve got to tell her this evening.’
‘She’ll be very sad. Very sad. Well off you go, or you’ll be late for Assembly.’
What a terrible day it was for Tariq:
‘What on earth’s the matter with you today, Tariq?’ asked Mr. Jenkins, the maths master.
‘What’s happened to you, Tariq?’ asked Miss Collins, the English teacher.
‘What’s got into you?’ asked Mr. Oliver, the sports master.
‘I don’t know, sir. I don’t know, miss,’ was all he could say.
When school was over, Tariq walked slowly to the square where Miss Bell lived. He knew she finished teaching at about 6.00 pm, so when he got to her house a bit early, he stood and looked at the tree he could see out of the window during his lessons. When Miss Bell showed him how to hold himself whilst playing, she always said, ‘Look at that tree, Tariq. What is it doing? Well, it’s growing upwards. That’s what you must do. Feel yourself growing upwards, just like the tree.’
Tariq looked at the tree and wondered if he would see it again from that window.
The last pupil of the day let herself out of the door shortly after 6.00pm and struggled down the front steps carrying her cello, which looked almost as big as herself. The girl’s mother was waiting in a car in front of the house.
Tariq also waited until the car had pulled away. Then he went slowly up the steps to the door. He pressed the bell. At first, there was no sound; it was a troublesome bell and in the end he had to push as hard as he could to make it ring – which was not at all how he felt. He heard Miss Bell’s footsteps approaching; he knew the sound so well: a fast step across parquet floor, slowing down and going silent as she reached the carpet in front of the door. It opened and there she was, looking not at all surprised to see him, though she immediately said in a bright voice, ‘Come in Tariq. What a nice surprise!’
She showed him into the music room and he sat facing the window in the familiar chair. There was his tree outside the window. Instinctively, he sat up as though he were about to play.
‘What is it that brings you here, Tariq?’ he heard her voice saying, and then his own, as though it belonged to someone else.
‘I can’t go on with the cello, Miss Bell, I … I …’ but then his voice stopped and he couldn’t find where it had gone. After a silence, Miss Bell leant forward and put her hand on his.
‘Don’t worry, Tariq, I know. But I also know something you don’t. You have a neighbour who heard you playing the Vocalise when he was coming back from his wife’s funeral. It spoke to him and now he has offered to pay for your lessons.’
Miss Bell leant down and picked up her cello, which lay sideways on the carpet.
‘Here, use my cello and we shall play the Vocalise again.’
She sat down at the piano and began playing. When the cello’s final long note had stopped and the piano was silent, they both stayed quite still for a long time without speaking. Miss Bell felt that all the work she had put into teaching young people was worth it and Tariq felt … well, you can imagine how Tariq felt.
© David Walser 2008