- •Crooner
- •I told him I didn’t want to impose, but there was now something gently insistent about Mr. Gardner. “No, no, sit down. Your mother liked my records, you were saying.”
- •I thought he wasn’t going to answer. In the dim light, his figure was just this hunched-up shape at the front of the boat. But as Vittorio was tying the rope, he said quietly:
- •Vittorio had stepped up onto the quay, but Mr. Gardner and I kept sitting in the darkness. I was waiting for him to say more, and sure enough, after a moment, he went on:
- •Come rain or come shine
- •I couldn’t remember the last time Charlie had asked my help for anything, but I managed a casual nod and waited. He played with his menu for a few seconds, then put it down.
- •I have to admit I was rather moved by this. All the same, I could see there was something not quite right here, something he wasn’t telling me.
- •I went up to him and said: “Charlie, I don’t think it’s going to work.”
- •I decided it might be best not to respond this time, and for a few moments we waited quietly for the kettle to boil. She prepared a cup for me, though not for herself, and placed it in front of me.
- •I should have thought of this before. How much time do you have left?”
- •I reached down to the fallen standard lamp, but Emily restrained me.
- •I wasn’t sure if Emily’s puzzled look was due to what I was saying, or still left over from gazing at the saucepan. She sat down next to me and thought for a moment.
- •I felt a sharp tug on my shoulder.
- •Malvern hills
- •I waited for him to sense what he’d walked into, but if he noticed, he showed no sign of taking it into account. He smiled at his wife and said, presumably for our benefit in English:
- •I leant over the strings and practised another little phrase to myself, and for a few seconds nobody spoke. Then I asked: “So what sort of music do you guys play?”
- •I stared at Maggie, for a moment quite speechless. Then I said: “You’re talking such rubbish. Why are you talking such rubbish?”
- •Nocturne
- •In answer to her question, I told her the toughest part for me was not being able to play my sax.
- •I had to reassure her some more that I’d had a good time and that I’d come back. Then as I was going out the door, she said:
- •I did calm down then for a while, and I gave a brief account of how Lindy had asked me over, and the way things had gone.
- •I looked at the board, trying to remember where we were. After a while, I asked gently: “Maybe that particular song, it has special associations for you?”
- •I didn’t know what to say, and before I could think of anything she was talking again.
- •I sat down on my usual sofa and watched her fussing with the hi-fi. The lighting in the room was soft, and the air felt pleasantly cool. Then “The Nearness of You” came on at high volume.
- •I was puzzled, but got to my feet. As I went to her, she pulled off the handkerchief and held towards me a shiny brass ornament.
- •I wandered further into the room and threw the torch beam around some more. “Maybe this is where it’s going to happen. Where they’re going to give Jake his award.”
- •It occurred to me I was losing my grip. I said quickly: “Okay, I’m out of line. I’m sorry. Now let’s go find this office.”
- •I felt the soft material of Lindy’s night-gown brush against my back. Then she’d taken my arm and we were standing side by side.
- •I could sense the security guard shift behind us.
- •I tugged at Lindy, but she seemed now to be seized by the oft-cited mania of criminals to flirt with being caught.
- •In the centre of the room was a bulky shape with a sheet draped completely over it. Lindy went to it like it was an old friend and flopped down tiredly.
- •I went up to the first dome and carefully raised it. Sure enough, there was a fat roast turkey sitting there. I searched out its cavity and inserted a finger.
- •I stopped and she didn’t say anything for a long time. Then she said:
- •Cellists
- •It was unusually warm that afternoon. He’d come to the hotel as usual, and begun to play for her some new pieces he’d been preparing. But after barely three minutes, she made him stop, saying:
In answer to her question, I told her the toughest part for me was not being able to play my sax.
“But you can see why Boris won’t let you,” she said. “Just imagine. You blow on that horn a day before you’re ready, pieces of your face will fly out all over the room!”
She seemed to find this pretty funny, waving her hand at me, as though it was me that had made the wisecrack and she was saying: “Stop it, you’re too much!” I laughed with her, and sipped some coffee through the straw. Then she began talking about various friends who’d recently gone through cosmetic surgery, what they’d reported, funny things that had happened to them. Every person she mentioned was a celebrity or else married to one.
“So you’re a sax player,” she said, suddenly changing the subject. “You made a good choice. It’s a wonderful instrument. You know what I say to all young saxophone players? I tell them to listen to the old pros. I knew this sax player, up-and-coming like you, only ever listened to these far-out guys. Wayne Shorter and people like that. I said to him, you’ll learn more from the old pros. Might not have been so ground-breaking, I said to him, but those old pros knew how to do it. Steve, do you mind if I play you something? To show you exactly what I’m talking about?”
“No, I don’t mind. But Mrs. Gardner…”
“Please. Call me Lindy. We’re equals here.”
“Okay. Lindy. I just wanted to say, I’m not so young. In fact, I’ll be thirty-nine next birthday.”
“Oh really? Well, that’s still young. But you’re right, I thought you were much younger. With these exclusive masks Boris has given us, it’s hard to tell, right? From what Gracie said, I thought you were this up-and-coming kid, and maybe your parents had paid for this surgery to get you off to a flying start. Sorry, my mistake.”
“Gracie said I was ‘up-and-coming’?”
“Don’t be hard on her. She said you were a musician so I asked her your name. And when I said I wasn’t familiar with it, she said, ‘That’s because he’s up-and-coming.’ That’s all it was. Hey, but listen, what does it matter how old you are? You can always learn from the old pros. I want you to listen to this. I think you’ll find it interesting.”
She went over to a cabinet and a moment later held up a CD. “You’ll appreciate this. The sax on this is so perfect.”
Her room had a Bang & Olufsen system just like mine, and soon the place filled with lush strings. A few measures in, a sleepy, Ben Webster-ish tenor broke through and proceeded to lead the orchestra. If you didn’t know too much about these things, you could even have mistaken it for one of those Nelson Riddle intros for Sinatra. But the voice that eventually came on belonged to Tony Gardner. The song-I just about remembered it-was something called “Back at Culver City,” a ballad that never quite made it and which no one plays much any more. All the time Tony Gardner sang, the sax kept up with him, replying to him line by line. The whole thing was utterly predictable, and way too sugary.
After a while, though, I’d stopped paying much attention to the music because there was Lindy in front of me, gone into a kind of dream, dancing slowly to the song. Her movements were easy and graceful-clearly the surgery hadn’t extended to her body-and she had a shapely, slim figure. She was wearing something that was part night-gown, part cocktail dress; that’s to say, it was at the same time vaguely medical yet glamorous. Also, I was trying to work something out. I’d had the distinct impression Lindy had recently divorced Tony Gardner, but given I’m the nation’s worst when it comes to showbiz gossip, I began to think maybe I’d got it wrong. Otherwise why was she dancing this way, lost in the music, evidently enjoying herself?
Tony Gardner stopped singing a moment, the strings swelled into the bridge, and the piano player started a solo. At this point, Lindy seemed to come back to the planet. She stopped swaying around, turned the music off with the remote, then came and sat down in front of me.
“Isn’t that marvelous? You see what I mean?”
“Yeah, that was beautiful,” I said, not sure whether we were still only talking about the sax.
“Your ears weren’t deceiving you, by the way.”
“I’m sorry?”
“The singer. That was who you thought it was. Just because he’s no longer my husband, that doesn’t mean I can’t play his records, right?”
“No, of course not.”
“And that’s a lovely saxophone. You see now why I wanted you to hear it.”
“Yeah, it was beautiful.”
“Steve, are there recordings of you somewhere? I mean, of your own playing?”
“Sure. In fact I have a few CDs with me next door.”
“The next time you come, sweetie, I want you to bring them. I want to hear how you sound. Will you do that?”
“Okay, if it’s not going to bore you.”
“Oh no, it won’t bore me. But I hope you don’t think I’m nosy. Tony always used to say I was nosy, I should just let people be, but you know, I think he was just being snobby. A lot of famous people, they think they should be interested only in other famous people. I’ve never been that way. I see everybody as a potential friend. Take Gracie. She’s my friend. All my staff at home, they’re also my friends. You should see me at parties. Everyone else, they’re talking to each other about their latest movie or whatever, I’m the one having a conversation with the catering girl or the bartender. I don’t think that’s being nosy, do you?”
“No, I don’t think that’s nosy at all. But look, Mrs. Gardner…”
“Lindy, please.”
“Lindy. Look, it’s been fabulous being with you. But these drugs, they really tire me out. I think I’m going to have to go lie down for a while.”
“Oh, you’re not feeling well?”
“It’s nothing. It’s just these drugs.”
“Too bad! You definitely have to come back when you’re feeling better. And bring those recordings, the ones with you playing. Is that a deal?”