Change of Heart, page 11
‘Very well, Diane,’ he said, making ready to kill the call. ‘If I can’t dissuade you, if that’s what you want. All I can say is that it’ll be a wasted journey because I won’t be here.’
He put the receiver down immediately, then leaving his food and drink untouched, he hurried next door to the study where he took the phone off the hook, thereby leaving the number unobtainable, before shutting himself in for the next hour and a half until Mrs Davies had finished clearing away and locking up and the house was completely silent – all except for the whine coming from the uncradled telephone receiver on the desk beside him.
Still he waited, just to make sure, and then once he was completely convinced there was no-one about he stole silently upstairs to his bedroom where he quickly packed one small suitcase with a few clothes and his shoulder bag with his notebook, address book, passport and credit cards. Feeling rather as if he was a small boy escaping for the day to go fishing, he stuffed the bed with some pillows and rolled-up garments to make it look as if he was asleep, found his car keys, and tiptoed all the way out of the house carrying his shoes in one hand with his case in the other, and his shoulder bag slung around his neck.
By chance rather than foresight his rented Toyota was still parked at the opposite side of the house to the staff quarters, so he was able to start the car and drive slowly off down the side drive without attracting any attention. Even so, despite the fact that he knew the car couldn’t be heard or seen he negotiated the service road without the help of either head or side lights, guided only by the full moon above him. It wasn’t until he was well clear of the house, which in his driving mirror he saw was still in darkness, that he put on his lights and pulled the driver’s door properly shut before accelerating away out of the park and heading for Worcester and the main road for London.
11
AS FREDDIE DROVE through the night revelling in his freedom, the thought suddenly occurred to him that to think in the way he had been thinking, logically, deductively and analytically, must surely prove that he wasn’t mad, in the same way he had proved to himself that he hadn’t still been dreaming. If he really was still in the throes of some sort of anxiety crisis he wouldn’t have been able to suppose the hypothesis which he had supposed. He’d simply have gone on the way he’d been going on, without questioning his situation, without imagining the existence of any other possibility. In his excitement at realizing this, he banged the steering-wheel with both hands and heard himself telling himself out loud that of course he wasn’t mad! Until a few miles further on when he closed his eyes and very nearly crashed the car as he saw through what he had just thought to be a watertight argument.
Because of the way he was behaving, and thinking, and perceiving, it was even more possible that he was sick, for who else but someone in the throes of an anxiety crisis might imagine the place where he was resting and holidaying to be a nursing home for the mentally ill? For the ordinary people employed there as housekeepers and cleaning ladies to be nurses? For semi-senile lawyers and genially cooperative agents to be psychiatrists? Far from proving his sanity, the fact that he could imagine such an improbable scenario and then suppose it to be actuality, must prove the very opposite; for who else but someone with a mind out of balance could imagine such things? The more he thought about his situation and the more he tried to fathom it out, the more confused and bewildered he became. Madness was the one disease which those suffering from it could not self-diagnose, he knew that as well as anyone. People who deludely thought other people were putting pins in their food didn’t consider themselves mad, they considered the people putting the pins and needles in their food to be the ones in need of help.
He was wasting his time. The only person who could help him was someone detached from his plight, an expert in the field, namely a professional psychiatrist, which was why his instinct to flee Stoke Park was the right one after all. It had not been anything to do with Diane. It had all been to do with getting himself to London, finding a top psychiatrist, and submitting himself to analysis. That was the way to find out whether or not all that had happened to him was real or whether it was imagined. It was the only way.
When he realized this he stopped being afraid and his mind felt suddenly clean and refreshed, as if a window had been thrown open in his head and a fresh breeze had blown in off the sea. He put the radio on and suddenly the car was filled with the glorious sound of a violin in full flight that suffused him with a warm joyous feeling in which he indulged himself freely and without question, little realizing how the Fates were drawing in their net, and how close he was coming to finding that which he had thought forever lost.
‘Yes,’ he said aloud, as the sound of the strong and urgent yet tenderly poetic music filled the car. ‘I know this. This is the Brahms Concerto in D. But who is this? Who is this playing?’
For the more he listened, particularly when the soloist reached the delectable, songful central Andante, the more he felt sure that he had found his voice. This was the voice for which he had been waiting and searching and now at last he had found it. But whose was it? Who was this wonderful musician with the voice of an angel?
But the Fates didn’t want him to know quite yet, the Three Sisters still had one more trick to play before they produced their trump card. So as Freddie entered London, one of the Sisters (it really doesn’t matter which, it could have been Clotho, Lachesis or Atropos) pointed a finger at the red Toyota as it dropped down off the Hammersmith flyover onto the Cromwell Road just as the recording of the concerto was coming to an end.
‘That—’ said the voice of the Radio Three announcer.
‘Is quite enough,’ said Clotho (or Lachesis or Atropos), and promptly interrupted the broadcast with a traffic warning.
Freddie cried aloud in anguished disbelief. He had no idea what had happened to the car radio since he had only previously used it to play cassettes, but having forgotten to pack any for this particular journey instead he’d relied on the radio for entertainment. The last thing he knew was that the set was programmed to interrupt broadcasts with traffic bulletins. In desperation he pressed every illuminated button he could see on the machine but, exactly as the Fates had decreed, by the time he had finally rediscovered the station the announcement was long over and an orchestra was playing Dvorak’s Ninth Symphony ‘From the New World’.
Once he’d stopped cursing and swearing he consoled himself with the thought that he would surely be able to find details of the programme he’d just heard in one of the broadcasting guides, so he switched the radio off and turned his attention to booking himself into a hotel.
Cunning was now replacing any kind of logic. If Diane really intended coming over, having found he’d fled Stoke Park she’d know where he would have gone, namely London, and the first place she’d look for him would be The Beaufort Hotel where he always stayed. So Freddie booked himself into The Hilton which was the last place Diane would come searching, knowing how he hated huge hotels.
Finding the right psychiatrist wasn’t so easy. It wasn’t exactly the sort of recommendation which the hotel reception could be expected to make, nor was it the sort of information which could be gleaned from the Yellow Pages. It was as Freddie well knew the sort of referral which only a doctor or someone familiar with your medical history could make, but having at present no such contact in England it seemed he was at an apparent impasse.
Until he remembered Stephen Noyes.
Besides looking after all the voices, chests and throats of the cast of the London production of Freddie’s first hit musical Just That, Stephen Noyes had become a friend. Freddie and he would dine out together regularly, evenings to which the fashionable young composer always looked forward because besides being the best ‘voice’ man in London, Stephen was also one of the best raconteurs. Remembering, also, how well connected Stephen was in the medical profession, Freddie realized he had found his man and rang him at once, only to get his answering machine which assured the caller if he left a number he would be called back as soon as possible.
Freddie left a message to say where he was and for Noyes to ring him as soon as was conceivably possible, but that was all. Explanations as to what exactly Freddie wanted from his old friend could wait until they spoke to each other person to person. In the meantime he would lie low. At the moment he had little taste for wandering London in company with thousands of other tourists, but most of all and, absurd though it seemed to him afterwards, he was afraid that somehow he might bump into the incoming Diane. Or someone who knew them both, which was much more likely. So instead he would stay hidden away in his tenth-floor room in The Hilton until Stephen returned his call and then take it from there, starting with finding himself a good psychiatrist.
By the time he’d decided on his plan of action and settled into his hotel room, he had completely forgotten to look up in the broadcast guides exactly who had been playing the Brahms Violin Concerto on Radio Three the night before.
Of course it was one of the Three who made him forget to look it up. It was done quite deliberately. Normally for reference purposes Freddie always made a note of any singer, musician, dancer, actor, choreographer or lyricist whose work attracted him, yet somehow on this occasion he forgot, even though he had known as he had listened to the recording that he had found his voice. Moreover he forgot completely, not even suddenly remembering halfway through the weekend and setting about putting it to rights. The matter just went entirely out of his head.
It wasn’t until very much later that he had time to wonder at this uncharacteristic lapse, only when the pieces of the puzzle had all fallen into shape to form a complete picture. And when he did consider it, he came to the conclusion that like everything else that had happened to him since he had first dreamed of the white deer, even his forgetfulness must have been preordained. He had not been meant to know until the right moment. A right moment which that particular Sunday evening when he returned from a long walk around Hyde Park, the one excursion he had allowed himself, was then but a matter of minutes away.
The time was nearly half past ten as he finished undressing and finally flopped down onto the bed, trying to decide whether to read or watch television. Because he was pleasantly tired after his walk he chose television and flicked it on with the remote control, channel-hopping to see what was on. On the first channel there was some old spy film which was so tired the print had lost its colour, on the next there was a news programme, the third was showing the concluding part of some cheapo mini-series about sex on the show-jumping circuit, and on the last some alternative comedians were demonstrating their alternative to comedy. Freddie settled for the news programme, and taking off his hotel-supplied bath robe slipped between the bedsheets to settle down and watch.
He very nearly missed it. By the time the presenter was reviewing the headlines of the following day’s newspapers he had dropped off asleep in front of the set. Something woke him just as the credits were coming up, he didn’t know what it was that woke him, but something did (or somebody), and remembering that he hadn’t cleaned his teeth he got up and went to do so, leaving the television on only because somewhere in the bedding he had lost the remote control.
‘And now in place of the advertised edition of Delectus which due to legal technicalities we are unable to show,’ he heard the announcer saying, ‘here’s another chance to see one of the most often requested earlier editions of the programme. A film by Martyn Vaunte about the nature of musical prodigy and about one musical prodigy in particular. The film is simply entitled – Fleur.’
He was there even before the opening shot, even before the music began. He couldn’t remember getting from bathroom to bed, he couldn’t remember being in the bathroom, he just knew he was there and that he couldn’t miss a frame or a word because he knew it was Her.
And it was.
There she was. Even though as he first saw her she was just a child, he knew it was her. He knew it was Fleur, it was Fleur, it was his Fleur. It was Her.
The music. The music next, or was it at the same time? He didn’t know as he knelt by the bed on the floor to watch, reaching behind him as he did so to turn off the bedside light so that he could see Her better. The music probably started at the same time as her face appeared, or maybe a moment after but it didn’t matter at all because it was Her; most definitely definitely it was Her and he wasn’t mad after all because there she was! She was there on the screen before him and she was called Fleur just as he had known she was.
The music. Of course it was the Brahms, just as he’d heard it the night before on the radio and the moment he heard it again he knew what it was and he knew she was playing it. No-one had said so yet, but Freddie knew it, just as he had always known Her and known about Her, just as she must have always known him and about him. Her face was changing now, melting through dissolves as she grew from a child of six through to a young oh-so-beautiful woman of seventeen? Eighteen? No-one says, at least not yet. The music plays, that’s all, the luscious central Andante, and as it does Freddie feels the tears smart in his eyes and he doesn’t give a damn. He just smiles and goes with it.
Now the film starts properly, the credits now over. The first sequence is a mid-shot of someone playing the violin in front of a symphony orchestra in a vast and packed auditorium. She is dressed formally in a long-sleeved, high-necked burgundy red silk evening dress but in contrast her mane of dark hair is not restrained and hangs loose, dressed in carefully arranged tangles which are covered with a multitude of small diamond-sewn bows that catch little flecks of light. She looks Pre-Raphaelite both in shape and countenance, a beautiful countenance almost heart shaped with perfectly proportioned features dominated by a pair of huge and darkly flashing eyes which are now half closed under a deeply furrowed brow as she, the soloist, reaches the climax of the concerto, the tempo suddenly slowing almost to a halt before the majestic last three chords, the bow coming off the violin with a sweeping flourish exactly as the orchestra finishes and then for a moment, one silent moment, she stands there violin in her left hand, bow in her right, looking high above her audience into the unseen roof of the great building before there is a spontaneous outbreak of simply tumultuous applause.
She plays the violin, Freddie whispers to himself in wonder, yes she is a solo violinist. Yet how, he wonders, how in heaven’s name could he possibly have known it?
‘Well,’ says an astonished voice off-camera, ‘there ends what has to be one of the most definitive performances ever of the Brahms Concerto in D, a simply astonishing tour de force by a young woman of seventeen whose talent seems to know no bounds, a performance full of daring yet also full of insight and lyrical eloquence. And just hear for yourself what the promenaders think of it—’
The commentator falls silent while the film cuts to shots of the packed floor of the Albert Hall where with the traditional foot stamping and shouting the informally dressed concert-goers are already demanding an encore as the soloist emerges, smiling, through the violin section of the orchestra. Summoned back by the tall elegant figure of the conductor and her quite obviously adoring fans, she stands by the podium bowing, and then as she stands upright again the film freeze-frames on the image of a beautiful young woman with her arms full of flowers and her eyes full of stars.
She plays the violin, Freddie whispers again. She is a virtuoso.
Now he sees her walking in what must be the grounds of The Folly. Exactly when this is isn’t yet clear, but from her looks it has to be about the same time as the concert, Freddie reckons. Still on his hands and knees by the bed, he watches this beautiful girl with a wonderful easy swinging walk, dressed now in a loose tunic-type ribbed wool sweater, hands sunk deep in the pockets of a calf-length dark brown suede skirt and her hair still dressed in that marvellous wild way. As the camera moves in closer Freddie sees that she is younger than he first thought, and certainly younger than the day he first met her. But only by two or perhaps three years at most.
He watches her walking across the very lawn where they’d met and towards the very woods from which he’d appeared, accompanied by a man wearing a loose dark blue suit and open-necked shirt.
The man was tallish, middle-aged, smooth haired with a heavy build and craggy permanently puzzled features, and the two of them were deep in conversation as they walked away from The Folly, back to camera, while a voice-over began the narration.
Fleur Fisher-Dilke—
Freddie missed the next bit as first he banged the bed in front of him with clenched fists before getting up and searching for a pad and pen to write her full name down. He had to in case he would never see or hear her name again.
Fleur Fisher-Dilke. He imagined that was how it was spelt but even if it wasn’t, even if there was a hidden ‘C’ in Fisher, or a Y in Dilke, it would be more than enough to go on, enough surely to find her in the telephone directory, the record shops, the music catalogues, in the directories of the famous, enough to find her somewhere at long, long last.
When he looks up at the screen again, resuming his kneeling position with her name carefully written down on the memo pad which he puts in front of him on the bed, Freddie see that Fleur and her interviewer have stopped by the gate which leads to the woods and are talking on camera now, having turned to look at the house which had been behind them.
The man is saying that this is where it all began and Fleur agrees, yes, that everything all began in that room there. She points at the room Freddie knows is the drawing room of The Folly, and says that’s where the whole thing started when she was six. It was the first year of the lease her parents had taken on the house. Rather than follow a straight narrative, the interviewer then asks Fleur if she was aware of being different, that is when she started playing, of being anything special at such a young age. And Fleur just shakes her head, eyes opening wide and smiling, says, ‘No, no not really. People always ask this, they always want to know what it felt like, as if this sort of thing—’
