Jilly Cooper - Appassionata

‘That’s it, “Rachel’s Lament”,’ said Marcus, sitting down and playing it on the piano.

Abby fingered the curves of Boris’s violin, never more longing to join in.

‘Please make it a horn solo for Viking,’ she begged. ‘Viking wouldn’t sentimentalize it.’

Boris looked sulky. ‘It is too sweet for my Rachel.’ And, snatching the page, he tore it into little pieces and stormed off into the wood, not returning until nightfall.

All the same the composition of such a beautiful tune, unleashed something in Boris. The next day, although he grumbled every time the others sang it, he kept working feverishly, sixteen hours on the trot, increasingly encouraged by what he had produced, wading through the rapids, clinging to one stepping-stone after another, until by the last evening of the third week, he had written six out of nine sections.

It was still so hot, they had all the cottage windows open. Abby was upstairs working on the Brahms Second Symphony which the RSO were playing their first week back. Flora was copying out the ‘Agnus Dei’ in the kitchen and also watching a prom production of Götterdammerung on television, fulminating because Brünnhilde had just jumped Siegfried’s horse into the funeral pyre.

‘Bloody bitch, I’ll report her to the RSPCA.’

She had turned down the sound because Marcus, who had a recital in the North of England the next day, was practising Schumann’s Scenes from Childhood. Even on the old sitting-room upright, it sounded exquisite, and Marcus had hardly had any chance recently to play anything except Boris’s stuff.

He’s the most talented of all of us, thought Flora guiltily, and he’s the one who makes all the sacrifices.

Marcus had reached a little piece called ‘By the Fireside’, when Boris burst in, tears streaming down his anguished face.

‘Rachel play that very last time I see her, she, too, have recital next day,’ he sobbed, ‘I pull her off piano-stool in middle and we made love.’

Seizing Flora’s yellow sarong from the floor, he wiped his eyes and blew his nose.

Marcus leapt up in horror.

‘I’ll stop, Boris, I’m dreadfully sorry.’

‘No, no, go on, play it on Steinway, it ees catharsis.’

Marcus was not very happy with his recital. He drove all the way to a small Lancashire mining town. No-one welcomed him except the caretaker. There were thirty people in the audience who clapped him politely. Afterwards a secretary paid him one hundred pounds. The whole trip cost him almost as much in petrol, as he drove on the following day to see his grandmother in Cheshire, who’d been hit by Lloyd’s and her sixth husband, and who never stopped grumbling about the small allowance given to her by Rupert. Marcus stayed a couple of nights trying to cheer her up, but depressing himself, realizing how desperately he missed his father and everyone at Penscombe.

Returning to Woodbine Cottage in the early evening, he found the usual chaos, the washing-up machine was full and unloaded, the sink full of mugs, glasses and plates. In the fridge there was no milk, half a yoghurt, some apricot-and-nut pâté and half a grapefruit. There was also no bread. Tapes and CDs lay out of their cases like loose change on the sitting-room carpet, the plants had wilted, no-one had emptied the dustbin. Finding a squirming sea of maggots when he opened the lid, Marcus closed it quickly. The cats were weaving round his legs, reproachfully, rejecting a bowl of Whiskas covered in flies’ eggs.

Marcus wanted to yell at someone but the place was deserted. He had just finished straightening things out and was gasping for breath as he staggered round the house with a watering-can, when the others rolled back from the pub in total euphoria.

‘We’ve had a brilliant few days,’ cried Flora. ‘Boris has finished except for the orchestration.’

‘You did the trick, playing the Schumann the other night.’ Boris thumped Marcus on the back so that the watering-can missed a pot of geraniums and spilled all over the sitting-room table. ‘That night I dream my Rachel forgive me. I weave By the Fireside into “Lachrymosa”.’

‘And into “Rachel’s Lament”, which reappears again as the most ravishing solo in the “Libera Me” at the end — it’s stunning,’ sighed Abby.

‘How did you get on, Marcus?’ asked Flora, getting a bottle of white wine out of a carrier bag.

‘Not brilliant.’

‘Many people?’

‘Not a lot, but at least they paid me.’

‘Ah well, that’s good, then.’ Flora picked up the corkscrew.

‘If you’re not too tired,’ asked Abby, ‘perhaps you could play us what Boris has written.’

They were all so happy, he couldn’t shout at them.

No-one could be bothered to stagger over to Marcus’s studio, besides he was fed up with the drink rings on the Steinway, so Flora lit one turquoise candle and one blue and put them in the candleholders on the old upright.

Their soft light flickered on Marcus’s face, which gradually grew less pinched and strained as he miraculously deciphered Boris’s scrawl, his fingers moving with increasing assurance over the sticky yellow keys.

Meanwhile Flora on the viola and Boris on the fiddle, when he wasn’t reaching for his pencil to scribble some change or sobbing his heart out, joined in, harmonizing as they went.

Often the music was dense and hideously discordant, particularly when Boris muddled through Lionel’s appallingly demanding solo, muttering happily, ‘This’ll fix him, zee vanker,’ but often some magical tune or cadence would emerge, and Marcus would pause and shake his head in wonder.

‘This is incredible, Boris.’

After the beautiful solo of ‘Rachel’s Lament’ had faded softly away, the requiem ended most uncharacteristically with a joyous fanfare.

‘And trumpets sound for Rachel on zee uzzer side,’ said Boris, wiping his eyes.

The next moment, utterly exhausted, but triumphant, the three of them collapsed in each other’s arms.

‘You’ve done it, you’ve done it.’

‘No, you play zee Schumann, Marcus, you deed it,’ said Boris. ‘After zat I produce in trance like Handel’s Messiah.’

‘Levitsky’s Messier,’ giggled Flora, ‘if we’re going to compare handwriting and crossing out.’

As Marcus started to play the ‘Lachrymosa’ again, really making it sing, Boris raised his glass to Abby who was huddled on the sofa clutching Sibelius.

‘I zank you, Abby, for giving us roof over the head.’

‘We’re The Three Tenants,’ announced Flora, shimmering down a glissando with a flourish of her bow. ‘Eat your hearts out Placido, Luciano and José.’

Glancing round, Marcus realized Abby’s shoulders were shaking: ‘What’s the matter?’ He jumped to his feet.

Abby looked up, her face crumpled and soaked with tears.

‘You’re all so lucky.’ And, dropping Sibelius on the carpet, she ran out into the garden.

‘She’s pissed, and Boris has been getting too much attention recently. Leave her,’ said Flora.

‘I cheer her up,’ Boris went towards the french windows.

‘I think you should have a bath first,’ said Flora, ‘I don’t believe you’ve touched a bar of soap for a fortnight.’

Putting the kettle on, Marcus realized he hadn’t eaten all day. There didn’t seem any point starting. When he took out a cup of coffee to Abby in the garden, all the daisies that had shrivelled on the parched yellow lawn seemed to have sprung up in the star-covered sky. Boris was sitting on the old white bench under the greengage tree with his arm round Abby.

‘You must guest more,’ he was telling her. ‘When I conduct the London Met or the New World, the musicians adore me because they ’ate Rannaldini so much. Don’t cry, my darling, I vill dedicate Requiem to you.’

Boris had cracked the Requiem, now, as Flora said, he had only to ‘add the rough edges’. The next morning, having bathed at length and washed his hair in Marcus’s shampoo, and put on yet another pair of Marcus’s boxer shorts, he took the draft into the garden, looking handsomer than most dawns as he sat in a deck-chair eating dried apricots.

All great artists sacrifice the emotions and lives of those around them to further the interests of their art. In a mood to be expansive, Boris realized he had pushed Marcus too far.