Hi. I’m Evelyn. AJ sent me to you.
He’d known her name. Her first show had lit him all over with electric pleasure. Her playing was exquisite. She drew tones from the score he’d never heard before and he’d fallen halfway in love with her before he’d even seen her face. A few days later, Lance had hurried into the dressing room at the five-minute call, grabbed his laundered shirt from the rack and kicked his trainers off in a huff.
New girl’s not for playing, although I don’t know why I’m telling you that.
Maybe she just doesn’t want to play with you?
No.Lance had looked genuinely horrified.Not possible.
With Evelyn in front of him, smiling, her fringe falling deliciously across her face, the Grub had started to play wheeling, spitting fireworks in his ears, so loud he could hardly hear her. A swelling in his trousers and a twisting in his belly, the agony of the humiliation – he felt fourteen again.
Can I ask you a question?she’d said.
Of course.His heart soared and plummeted at the same time. The fireworks kept sparking, mockingly. He thought she’d probably ask him if her tuning was right in the third act, which it was, or something about per diem payments. She slid into the seat opposite him and put her glass on the table.
What do you hear when you’re in the Grub?
A thrill slid through his blood that she heard it too, this beautiful woman with hands that pulled such gracefrom her instrument, so near to him, asking him something so intimate.
He smiled broadly to mask his nerves and clasped his hands tight in his lap, hoping to hide his ridiculous hopes.Right now I can hear a mash-up of the John Lee Hooker my dad used to play and the hello song from a music class my mum used to take me to when I was three. But I’ve got used to it. I just ignore it most of the time.That was a lie. He never managed to ignore it and there was no way he was going to tell her truth; that the fireworks were blasting, and that as she flicked her hair over her shoulder and he got a waft of some kind of fruity shampoo he heard a long, low blast of a saxophone, like a joke sexy noise, that went straight into Marvin Gaye.
He wished he could have painted her face, the delight, the relief. That was when he fell the rest of the way in love with her.
But that’s so nice!She took a swig of her wine and it left a purple stain on her lips that made his groin twitch.I hear nothing but these hokey old Irish folk songs I used to have to play for weddings when I was a teenager.
I used to do weddings too, he said.I don’t ever want to hear that Mendelssohn march again.
Something bitter passed across her face and she took another gulp of wine.Yeah. My mum pretended she was my agent. She booked me almost every weekend for years and years and when I asked for the money to go to Guildhall she told me to leave and not come back until I was grateful for her sacrifices.
There had been a moment of awkwardness. She hadcracked open a little door of honesty and he wanted to stick his foot in it to wedge it open. He could feel the smirks of Steve the bassoonist and Wilf the cellist burning into his back, and the fireworks spitting and shrieking in his head were starting to make his temples throb.
Do you want to get some air?he’d asked.It’s really noisy in here.
A couple of weeks later they discovered that if their bare skin was touching they could hear each other’s private music, and the more of themselves they pressed together the louder it was. They’d lie entwined in his cabin after curfew, the movement of the Grub rocking them like babies, and they would listen to the music it played them and giggle together at the cacophony. At those times it was like the Crow was playing along, the jester to their king and queen, telling jokes only for them. He had never been so bare, so raw. The Crow teased out every loving, obsessive, jealous, doting thought of her, gave it melody and played it to her.
But Evelyn would say,I don’t know how long I’ll be able to stand this, Michael. It’s only in here with you that I can get any peace.
Sometimes the Crow repeats these words in the middle of the night and he wakes up, his cheeks wet with tears, reaching for her in his bed, fingers clawed with regret at what he didn’t do and didn’t say to keep her.Just wait, will you, I’ll leave. Just let me finish out this pledge and I’ll come with you.
But she hadn’t waited. She’d left, walked off the Grubat Liverpool Lime Street dragging a suitcase and the harp inside its scuffed, taped-up case.I think it’s best if you stay, Michael. I’m not sure what we’ll mean to each other out in the world.
Michael looks at AJ, his hands clasped behind his back, staring up at the Grit.
‘Can I ask you a question?’ AJ inclines his head. ‘What does the Grub play for you?’
It’s an intimate question, like asking to peer into his dreams, but there is no one left who understands what it’s like. AJ thinks for a moment. ‘Rachmaninov, mainly. My mother was a very fine pianist, and he was her favourite.’
Michael envies that clarity. How restful to only hear what you could hum along to, something that could comfort you instead of drive you mad.
‘I missed it, though. During the years I’ve spent away. There’s nothing out there in the world but silence. It can be lonely. Perhaps that’s why I keep coming back.’
Michael nods. He knows about loneliness.
‘Do you still hear the harp?’ AJ asks delicately.
Michael says, miserably, ‘Yes.’
‘You won’t forever, you know. It will get better.’
