CHAPTER
SEVEN
The final chord of
César Franck's Prelude,
Chorale, and Fugue gave rise, following its timely demise, to a burst of
spontaneous applause from both Howard Tonks and Sean Carroll. The two men clapped as though they were at a
concert. For something about the
consummate manner in which Roy Hart had just played the piano created the
illusion they were.
"Quite remarkable," opined Carroll, as the novelty of
clapping his hands together, fingers to palm, in the presence of only two other
men began to wane. "T(h)at was
quite the best performance of this composition I've ever heard. One would have t(h)ought you were playing to
hundreds." And to make doubly sure
that his professional appreciation was felt or at least registered by the
pianist, he sent a broad Irish smile in hot pursuit of his words. With jet-black hair, bright-blue eyes, a
florid complexion, and a generous smile like that, there could be little doubt
as to his country of origin, even if one were deaf to his strong Dublin accent,
with its plethora of silent h's in connection with the letter 't', in ironic
contrast, one might have supposed, to the silent t's of Gaelic in connection
with the letter 'h'. But right now he
was in
"Don't you t(h)ink Franck was as great a composer for solo
piano as Liszt?" remarked the conductor in question, turning to his host.
"No, I can't say I actually do," the latter
thoughtfully and almost apologetically replied, not a little surprised by the
nature of Carroll's statement, which struck him as rather obscure and
pretentious. "Though there are
undoubtedly similarities between them," he conceded. "The work we have just been listening to
certainly has some marked affinities with Liszt. Not lacking in passion or brilliance, by no
means the sort of music to have appealed to a more reserved and graceful
composer like, say, Saint-Saëns. But
not, for all that, the sort of music which is ideally suited to the piano,
unlike much of Liszt's. One gets the
impression that the organist in Franck usually got the better of the pianist
and affected his piano compositions accordingly. Even when composing for piano, he often
tended to think in terms of the organ."
"Yes, I would find it hard not to agree with that
observation," Roy Hart, the 55-year-old concert pianist still seated at
the Steinway, elected to comment.
"Not that I know a great deal about the, ah, organ. But there are certainly occasions during the
course of this particular composition when relatively unpianistic writing
imposes itself upon one, to the detriment of technique. The fugue is, I think, as good an example as
any."
No stranger to Tonkarias, Roy Hart had been a good friend
of the composer for several years. With
the sole exception of Maynard Ferguson, a pianist five years his senior, he was
the leading exponent in Britain of Howard Tonks' piano music, a man who had
given recitals of this music in just about every major city in Europe and
America, and been acclaimed, wherever he went, as one of the most versatile of
modern concert pianists - a reputation stemming, in the main, from his ability
to give piano recitals of virtually any major composer for that instrument who
had ever lived (though, these days, he was increasingly coming under the
influence of the avant-garde, and, more specifically, of a group of five
British composers, including Tonks, who represented in some people's estimation
the most radical departure from traditional classical forms which the Western
world had yet experienced).
"But there are compositions by Franck, surely, t(h)at match
if not surpass anyt(h)ing Liszt ever did," objected Carroll
good-humouredly, taking up the thread of his earlier comment.
Howard Tonks scratched the crown of his head with the middle
finger of his right hand and turned a mildly quizzical gaze on the middle-aged
figure seated in the armchair to his right.
"Yes, I suppose one could argue that Le Chasseur Maudit
is as good as any of Liszt's better symphonic poems, with the possible
exception of Prometheus," he concurred, after due
consideration. "As for Psyché,
I'm not so sure. Some people, I know,
regard it as the greatest symphonic poem ever written."
"Probably the greatest by a Frenchman," said Hart, as
he returned a half-consumed glass of medium-sweet sherry to the small coffee
table by his side. "Though I,
personally, would hesitate to rate it any higher," he added as an afterthought.
"That's not a particularly high rating anyway,"
averred Howard Tonks. "How many
other Frenchmen - it not being forgotten that Franck, though a naturalized
Frenchman, was Belgian by birth - have actually written symphonic poems?"
"Two or three at the most, beginning with Berlioz and
ending with, ah, Debussy," stated Hart confidently.
"Yes, La Mer isn't a bad work either, is it?" opined
Howard Tonks, and he proceeded to hum a bar or two of Debussy's major work in
the genre - a species of scholarship to which Sean Carroll felt compelled to
add another bar in order, seemingly, to prove how well-versed he was in the
repertoire of symphonic poems. "But
as regards the symphonic poem in general," Tonks continued, ignoring the
conductor's humming, "I don't think you'll find a greater exponent than
Liszt, notwithstanding the important contribution made by Richard Strauss. At least six of his thirteen examples are of
a quality which should endure for some time to come, and the good work Bernard
Haitink and the London Philharmonic have done, in recent years, to record them
all and bring them to public attention in an excellent production is something,
I feel confident, that Liszt himself would justifiably be proud of, were he
alive today."
"Here, here!" interjected Hart, his pale-grey eyes
suddenly glinting with the enthusiasm being generated by his spirit. "In point of fact, I would rather listen
to Les
Préludes and Festklange performed by a poor orchestra than many
symphonies-proper, including the Franck, being performed by a great one. I still think the result would be more, ah,
congenial to my ears."
"I'm sure it would," Howard Tonks graciously
concurred, though he had to admit to himself that the idea seemed rather odd.
There was a short pause in the conversation which prompted the
composer to glance at his watch and wonder at what time his daughter would be
home. It was now half-seven, and he had
been told to expect her early that evening.
Despite his concern, he had almost forgotten about her - at any rate, to
the extent of not remembering how upset he had felt by her absence the day
before. But thank god she was safe and
presumably on her way back! He would
certainly want to speak to her when she arrived, ask her a number of questions
about that young correspondent and her experiences of the past few days. What a pity he had been out when she
telephoned home that morning! The task
of meeting Sean Carroll at Euston Station and transporting him across
"A curious t(h)ing about Liszt," observed Carroll, by
way of starting-up the conversation again, "is t(h)at his music so often
seems to be in complete contrast to his lifestyle. I mean, for a man who reputably led such a
busy social life, who was by inclination a 'man of the world', it is really
quite extraordinary t(h)at much of his music should be so refined, so exquisitely
otherworldly, if you'll permit me to say.
You would t(h)ink he lived in an ivory tower most of the time, an
isolation of the spirit t(h)at enabled him to perfect his unique style. And then the spiritual tower would seem to
have been supplemented by a material tower, like the one Yeats had at T(h)oor
Ballylee, which would grant its fortunate possessor comparative freedom from
all the social engagements and professional obligations of life in a major
city."
"Yes, I suppose one could think that about Liszt,"
conceded Howard Tonks, nodding vaguely, "particularly as regards works
like Orpheus
and Die Ideale - the most otherworldly of his symphonic poems. But, even so, the man-of-the-world is very
much in evidence in certain other works."
"Doubtless he needed the contrast between his social and
professional life to ensure that much of his music attained to a high degree
of, ah, spirituality," conjectured Hart from the piano. "He was able to make the best of both
worlds, rather like Oscar Wilde, his nearest literary equivalent. Remember that line in The Picture of Dorian
Gray about curing the soul by means of the senses and the
senses by means of the soul? Well, it
would appear Liszt was a master of doing just that, a man who knew how to make
the senses serve the spirit instead of hindering it. For, in the final analysis, it's a question
of knowing how to live well or, alternatively, of being in a social position
where one can live well, which is to say properly. If one is either too poor or too rich the
chances are that one won't be able to live properly, that, on the contrary,
circumstances will force a kind of, ah, spiritual or sensual lopsidedness upon
one and thereby hinder one's creative development. But in Liszt's case, circumstances evidently
favoured his creative development and enabled him to produce works which
testify to a healthy spirit. And, unlike
Schumann, he didn't suffer from manic depression and syphilis."
"Tertiary syphilis, wasn't it?" Mr Tonks suggested,
out of academic interest.
"So it is generally believed," the pianist
confirmed. "Though there are still
some doubts as to the, ah, exact cause and nature of Schumann's madness. But genius though he undoubtedly was, we
nevertheless have good reason to assume that his art was, in some degree,
tarnished by the nature of his health, both mental and physical, and therefore
fell short of true greatness. Or perhaps
I should say proper living?"
"That may be partly true of the late works," rejoined
Mr Tonks, his impassive countenance suddenly betraying signs of deep anxiety,
"but I would hesitate to apply such a sweeping assumption to the early
ones.... Though to what extent his art was tarnished by ill-health is something
that few if any of us will ever be able to ascertain."
"Oh, I quite agree," conceded Hart, smiling
defensively. "But the assumption
itself is by no means invalid. Indeed,
we could apply it to artists in every field, to painters and poets as much as
to composers and novelists. The
inability, for one reason or another, to live properly, healthily, naturally,
fully - call it what you like - inevitably makes for bad art. Or, if that sounds a little too rhetorical,
let us rather say for art which is less good than would otherwise be the case,
had its creator not been, ah, poisoned in some way. Even Beethoven's music, great though it
undoubtedly is, must have suffered to some extent in consequence of his
solitary lifestyle. And what applies to Beethoven
probably applies even more to Tchaikovsky, whose solitude was complicated by,
ah, repressed homosexuality."
There was a protracted sigh of disapproval with this attitude
from Sean Carroll, whose blue eyes now shone less brightly than before. He couldn't abide the idea that anyone who,
by normal standards, was something of a freak ... should be doomed to producing
inferior art on that account. Was there
not sufficient historical evidence to show, on the contrary, that it was
precisely those who most lived against the natural grain, in one way or
another, who produced the greatest art?
Were not the greatest artists almost invariably perverted solitaries -
men like Gerard de Nerval, Baudelaire, Huysmans, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec,
Tchaikovsky, even Nietzsche? Did not
genius presuppose a certain level of freakishness, born of solitude and
inspiration? And was it not in the
nature of great works of art that they required freaks of one sort or another
to pursue them; that they depended, in other words, on the unusual circumstances
of their creators for their originality and uniqueness as art?
"Naturally, there is some truth in what you say," Hart
conceded, after the conductor had concluded his objections. "But that is hardly reason for us to
assume that only those who are sexually perverted or mad or crippled or ailing
or whatever are qualified to produce the greatest art. Such art is generally produced, in my
opinion, by men who live well, have a healthy sex-life, good companions, a
pleasant environment in which to work, regular food, relatively good health, and
so on. Admittedly, it may be true that
an artist who lives badly, for one or more reasons, may have more innate genius
than a majority of those who live comparatively well, in consequence of which
he'll probably produce finer work. Even
so, his work will almost certainly be tarnished by the nature of his, ah,
circumstances. Take Beethoven, for
instance. One of the greatest composers,
even given the fact that we are made all too conscious, in a number of his
works, of the depression and frustration which underlay his repressed sexuality
and habitual solitude. There is
decidedly something of a sickroom atmosphere there, particularly in his later
works, and this atmosphere detracts, in my opinion, from his, ah, creative
genius. It's the same with Tchaikovsky,
Saint-Saëns, Satie, and any number of other sexual perverts and
solitaries. Their work may be great,
but, in the final analysis, it's more the record of men who lived under, ah, pathological
conditions and produced such work in consequence of those conditions
than a record of the highest art."
"I'm afraid I can't agree with t(h)at idea one little
bit!" confessed Sean Carroll, shaking his large handsome head from side to
side in gestural testimony of his disagreement.
"They may have lived under relatively unusual or frustrating
conditions, but they were still capable of producing great art!"
"Yes, but not the highest or greatest art," countered
Hart, briefly shaking his own head from side to side, "for it stemmed from
a maimed and perverted self. Compare
Beethoven with Bach or Mozart and you have to admit that, great though he was,
his illustrious predecessors possessed both a psychological and a physiological
advantage over him, and accordingly wrote healthier music. And it's the same thing, if from a different
standpoint, with Liszt, who must have possessed a like-advantage over Schumann,
even given the fact that Schumann had a wife and, ah, six children. Unfortunately, his family weren't able to
prevent him from losing his mind as a result, one can only assume, of the
syphilitic infection he, ah, contracted in his student days. And neither were they able to rid him of the
manic depression he probably acquired at the time he was struggling to make a
name for himself and get that megalomaniac Wieck to part with his, ah, talented
daughter. So, you see, it makes a lot of
difference what shape your health is in when you compose music or write poetry
or paint pictures. In nine cases out of
ten, the cripple is at a distinct disadvantage to the healthy and sound!"
"I don't t(h)ink there would be much great art left in the
world if you disqualified everyone who had been either diseased or solitary
from your final assessment," opined Carroll, offering the pianist an
ironic smile. "After all, it's in
the nature of genius to be solitary."
"Not necessarily!" Hart retorted. "A genius may not have time to spare on
too many friends or acquaintances, but he should at least be able to spare some
time on a wife or mistress. Wasn't Bach
a genius? Weren't Mozart, Goethe, Blake,
Brahms, Emerson, Wordsworth, Shelley, Byron, Liszt, Chopin, Turner, Dickens,
Tolstoy, et al., all geniuses? The fact
is that those who were solitary and perverted tended - and still tend - to be
the, ah, exception to the rule. It isn't
the likes of Swift, Van Gogh, Baudelaire, or Dadd who form the majority in this
respect, but such married men as Bach and Mozart who generally produced
healthier work. So, in my opinion, a
genius needn't necessarily be a freak.
The assumption to the contrary seems to me somewhat misguided and, ah,
over-simplistic. Even those who were
freakish were more often victims of unfortunate circumstances than simply
freaks by natural inclination - assuming one can be such a thing by natural
inclination! Such, at any rate, was the
case as regards Baudelaire and Van Gogh, not to mention Nietzsche."
Howard Tonks raised his head from the bowed position in which it
had remained, during the course of this metaphysical debate on genius, and gave
Roy Hart, who struck him as having only a very limited and intrinsically
philistine concept of genius symptomatic of an interpreter, a cursory
glance. He was almost expecting the
pianist to allude to him as one such circumstantial freak. But there was no sign of irony or malicious
intent upon the latter's plump face.
Staring straight at Sean Carroll, it bore, on the contrary, one of the
most smugly earnest and serious expressions the composer had ever beheld on it
- an expression, one might have supposed, of a ministering priest convinced of
his own unshakeable self-righteousness.
"I still t(h)ink the greatest art comes from men who are
what you arbitrarily call freaks," declared Carroll, unable to restrain
the impulse to keep up his side of the argument. "After all, great art is an expression
of inspired individuality, and those who are most qualified to be inspired
individuals don't lead a relatively conventional existence, hedged around with
all manner of worldly and commonplace concerns or duties. For nature and art are ever antit(h)etical,
and if one is too close to nature one can't produce great art."
"Yes, but living with a wife or a mistress doesn't
necessarily imply that one is too close to nature!" countered Hart, his
acerbic tone-of-voice now betraying a degree of impatience with the conductor
that he had hitherto managed to conceal.
"And neither does it necessarily mean that one can't be highly
individualistic in one's art. I have
already mentioned Blake, Liszt, and Turner in this respect. But I could just as easily mention James
Joyce, Stravinsky, Picasso, Aldous Huxley, Yeats, Prokofiev, and Tolkien. What was there about marriage or concubinage,
for that matter, which prevented them from expressing themselves in a highly
individualistic manner, I wonder? All
right, there are also the solitaries and sexual perverts, the cripples and
madmen - the likes of Genet, Céline, Satie, Raymond Roussel, Utrillo, Kafka, et
al. But if your purpose is to convince
me that they were the ones who, in
consequence of their respective psychological or physiological anomalies, were
producing the greatest art, then you're a bloody long way from succeeding! Fortunately, the criterion of great art
doesn't depend upon the, ah, extent of its weirdness or the comparative
weirdness of its creators. It depends,
rather, on the nature of its subject-matter and the way in which that
subject-matter is, ah, handled. The
finest subject-matter, embracing the finest treatment or technique, will make
for the greatest art. Hence, in the
realm of painting, a work which focuses on a beautiful country house will be
aesthetically superior to one, displaying a similar standard of technical
proficiency, that uses for its subject-matter a rat-infested city slum. In the realm of literature, a work which
focuses on the leisurely upper classes will be aesthetically superior to one,
with a similar standard of technical proficiency, whose focus is the
hard-pressed lower classes. And, by a like
token, a work of music utilizing the finest melodies and harmonies will be
aesthetically superior to one which doesn't.
That should be fairly obvious, surely?"
He looked inquiringly at both Sean Carroll and Howard Tonks, as
though to elicit an affirmative response from them. But such a response wasn't needed or indeed
desirable. For it would have humiliated
its perpetrator, particularly Tonks, whose music, judged by this rather narrow
estimate, would have appeared anything but great! Compared with the finest works of Bach,
Handel, Haydn, or Mozart, it would have dwindled to an insignificance virtually
beneath contempt. For if beauty was a
constant, and the greatest works of art were those which approximated most
fully to the highest beauty, whether human or otherwise, then it was only too
evident that the works of Howard Sebastian Tonks were among the aesthetically
poorest which had ever been composed; that they were, in fact, not music at all
but anti-music - creations, in other words, that took their inspiration from
ugliness and hatred, and, to judge by his most recent tendencies, the worst
ugliness and hatred, to boot!
But if that was so, why
did Roy Hart bother to perform such radically degenerate compositions in
public? Why did he specialize, these
days, in giving recitals of just such anti-music instead of confining himself
to what his theory and taste knew to be best?
Was it simply because he had grown weary of performing traditional
classical music, or was there perhaps some deep-rooted psychological malaise at
the heart of it, a manifestation, for instance, of middle-class masochism, or
maybe even some desperate love-affair which had caused him to ignore his better
knowledge in the hope of gaining a satisfaction that would otherwise be denied
him? Supposing the woman he had fallen
desperately in love with happened to be a keen avant-gardist, would not the
intellect be sacrificed to the heart and his taste be trampled underfoot in the
interests of what his tyrannical passion demanded? These were conjectures that Howard Tonks had
formulated on more than a few previous occasions, when the pianist had taken a
similar line as regards the relative merits of diatonic composition and caused
him to wonder why he bothered to perform contemporary music at all, commercial
factors notwithstanding. But despite
their friendship, Roy Hart was such a secretive devil, where his private
motivations were concerned, that Tonks' conjectures, whether plausible or not,
were unable to penetrate the barricade of secrecy which the pianist had
stubbornly erected to protect himself, presumably, from the outside world. And because of this, the composer was no
nearer today to unravelling the enigma of his friend's divided allegiance, his
theoretical allegiance to the past but his practical allegiance to the present,
than he had been during the first months of their friendship.
Returning to the fray after the brief lacuna in their
conversation brought about by Hart's rhetorical question, Sean Carroll said:
"On the basis of the criterion you have just revealed to us, it would seem
t(h)at a work of literature like Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu would
strike you as being of greater artistic significance than, say, James Joyce's Ulysses
because, unlike the latter, it deals with the upper classes rather than the
lower, the rich rather than the poor, and consequently has a finer
subject-matter."
"Absolutely!" came the implacable rejoinder from the
man at the piano. "I do consider
Proust superior to Joyce on that account, since the subject-matter of lower-middle-class
life is, ah, less good, aesthetically considered, than the subject-matter
generally favoured by Proust. And the
same holds true for the comparative merits of, say, Aldous Huxley and D.H.
Lawrence. I'm not against art that
either predominantly or exclusively focuses on the lower classes - far from
it! All the same, I would never pretend
that the use of such, ah, humble or vulgar subject-matter could make for art of
the highest order. To my mind, there's
all the difference in the world between a play like The Importance of Being
Earnest and one like Waiting for Godot. The first is art, the second anti-art. The first deals with life at the top, the
second with life at the bottom. The
first is Victorian, the second absolutely modern. The first, being essentially aristocratic, is
relatively unpopular. The second, being
effectively democratic, is all too popular.
Need I say more?"
"I'd rather you didn't," responded Mr Tonks in a
somewhat depressed tone-of-voice.
"For if you carry on applying your elitist criteria to contemporary
art, you'll either drive me to suicide or, assuming I can't muster the nerve
for that, induce me to tear-up my scores and prohibit anyone from publicly
performing my works in future!"
"T(h)at would be a terrible blow to the Dublin Symphony
Orchestra," Carroll ventured to object, with an impulsive though
respectfully restrained chuckle.
"After all, the contemporary arts have to be represented somehow,
even if they're less good than the traditional or historical ones. For one t(h)ing, they provide variety. And for another, the cultured public
generally expect them. Wit(h)out some
kind of contemporary creativity in the arts, our appreciation of the past would
quickly diminish and our opinion of the present would sink even lower."
"Do you really think so?" queried Hart, a sceptical
expression on his bearded face.
"I know so!" affirmed the conductor, offering his
opponent a mildly ingratiating smile.
"For anyone with a genuine interest in the arts, even poor art is
preferable to no art at all.... Not t(h)at I wish to imply your music is poor,
Howard," he added, turning towards the figure seated a few feet from him,
"since t(h)at would be the height of presumption! If it is grand enough to be known and played
around the world, then it's grand enough for me!"
Howard Tonks made a valiant effort to simulate gratitude for
this piece of flattery from an overly sycophantic guest. But his heart remained heavy with the burden
of being contemporary or, more specifically, relatively contemporary and
therefore not even truly contemporary by the standards of, say, rock musicians,
with their electric instruments, but simply an outmoded species of man who
carried-on in one tradition whilst other and more representative currents raged
all around him, to the detriment of his creative stability. It wasn't the first time he had found cause
to doubt himself on account of his professional activity, or to feel sorry for
himself for having been born into a middle-class world at a time when classical
music was on the decline and would soon decline to a point which made even the
cacophonous sounds of the more overly barbarous rock bands seem comparatively
musical! Indeed, on more than one
previous occasion he had actually contemplated abandoning composition
altogether, in order to dedicate himself to his garden instead. But the world had prevented him from doing
so, had well-nigh insisted on his continuing to compose, and forced him to
live-up to his international reputation.
By now the habit of composing was too much a part of his nature to be
eradicated or supplanted by anything else.
It was a veritable obsession, and nothing short of death could be
expected to prevent him from pursuing it.
Whether he liked it or not, he would have to continue from where he'd
left off and present the cultured world or, at any rate, the mainly
middle-class part of it with still more atonality. For it had not escaped his notice that even
rock music and other such broadly proletarian forms, against which classical
avant-garde music continued to battle in vain, was becoming civilized at last,
thanks, in large measure, to drum machines
and to a variety of synthesizers and synthesized sounds which had the
effect of interiorizing the music, both rhythmically and pitchfully, and thus
rendering it comparatively sensible. As
yet, this tendency was only embryonic.
But an age was nonetheless approaching when it would be impossible to
take the barbarism of proletarian music for granted, and then where would he
and his ilk be, he wondered? What place
would there be for civilized acoustic music in a world that had evolved to its
electric counterpart and thus rendered what he did - assuming it was still
civilized and not so decadent and far gone in aesthetic degeneration as to be
effectively barbarous anyway - totally superfluous and redundant?
Fortunately he still had the political establishment behind him,
so there was no immediate worry on that score!
Still, time could not be reversed, even if it could be slowed down and
even held-up a little, to suit the tastes of a generation and class which could
hardly be expected to groove to the latest rock music, as though such music
were an integral part of Western civilization and not the product, in large
part, of a barbarously subcultural
imposition inflicted upon it by relatively uncivilized people who, in this day
and age, had as much right to express themselves in their own more openly
aggressive manner as he had in his comparatively more genteel one, and probably
more right, if the financial success of their simple music was anything to
judge by - a success which put even his 'grand' music in the shade, where it
doubtless deserved to be and where it would remain, irrespective of Hart's
occasional attempts at publicly airing it, along with the rest of what was once
a proud civilization which now merely tottered-on, in cultural senility,
towards its inevitable demise.
Startled out of himself by the finality of the word 'demise',
which seemed more unpalatable than usual in view of his imminent birthday, Mr
Tonks reached across the coffee table for his sherry and downed what was left
of it in one hearty gulp, much as though it symbolized the impending death of
the civilization into which he had been born at a time when it was already way
past its prime and therefore mostly used-up in any case. There were two other men in the room besides
himself, men whom he had almost, with good reason, forgotten about, who were
now respectively engaged in performing and listening to his new piano
sonata. At the Steinway, Roy Hart was
tentatively probing his way through its second movement, sight-reading a work
about which he had known nothing more, the day before, than that it had just
been completed, whilst, in the remaining armchair to the right of the coffee
table, Sean Carroll was displaying, with insufferable complacency, all the
signs of an attentive listener - part critic, part devotee of the performance
in question.
A hand on Mr Tonks' shoulder made him start from his morose
reflections, as, not without surprise, he recognized the heavily made-up face
of his wife descending towards him.
"Sorry to disturb you, Howie," she whispered in his nearest
ear, "but Rebecca has just returned.
So I think you'd better see her at once."
"Yes, of course!" agreed Mr Tonks, getting-up from his
armchair with some difficulty, in view of the amount of time he'd already spent
in it, and tacitly excusing himself, with a gentle wave of the hand, from the
increasingly odious proximity of his two musically engrossed guests.
He followed Beverly out of the study and along the hallway to
the front room where, dressed in tight jeans and a loose tee-shirt, Rebecca was
waiting for him in the company of Ludwig, their golden labrador, who happened
to be dozing quietly by the windows. At
sight of his daughter, Howard Tonks rushed towards her and gave her a tight
hug, releasing all the pent-up anxiety that had tormented him, to the detriment
of his professional self-esteem during the past couple of hours, through an
emotional effusiveness the likes of which Rebecca hadn't experienced in
years. He was virtually in tears as he
hugged her against himself and stroked her long silken hair with paternal
fondness. "Thank God you're
alright!" he gasped, as soon as the emotional upheaval had subsided to an
extent which made intelligible speech possible again.
"But I was always alright," confessed Rebecca in a
slightly puzzled and offended tone-of-voice, which was intended to impress upon
her father the superfluous, not to say hysterical, nature of his concerns.
Angered by her daughter's ungrateful and apparently cavalier
attitude, Mrs Tonks spat: "Yes, but you might have left a note or phoned
us on Thursday evening to prove it! You
can't imagine the amount of worry your disappearance has caused us, these past
three days. What with Mrs Marchbanks'
letter of resignation ..."
"Oh, sod old Marchbanks!" Rebecca spat back. "As it happens, I knew nothing of her
letter until this morning, when one of Tony's colleagues phoned his flat to
inform him about what had happened here Friday afternoon."
"I take it that would be a Mr Wilder?" Howard Tonks
ventured to speculate.
Rebecca briefly nodded confirmation. "And then Tony told me and, as soon as I
found out, I phoned home to inform mother what had actually happened," she
revealed. "As to the contents of
Mrs Marchbanks' letter, I can only repeat now what I said then: I was not
raped, neither on Thursday afternoon nor at any subsequent time."
"Thank goodness for that!" cried Mr Tonks, whose voice
was still strained with emotion.
"But if you were not raped, Rebecca, then what-on-earth
were you doing on the floor of your father's study with no clothes on?"
Mrs Tonks demanded to know.
"I was ... just having sex with Tony, mother, that's
all," explained Rebecca nervously.
"That's all?" echoed Mrs Tonks, her lips trembling
with anger. "You ought to be
ashamed of yourself, allowing such a thing to happen in your father's study, of
all places! What about poor old Mrs
Marchbanks? What about your ...?"
"Mother, will you please stop scolding me!" interposed
Rebecca, becoming angry. "I'm not a
child any more, you know."
Mrs Tonks' mouth shot open in horrified disapproval of her
daughter's callous attitude. How could she behave like this
after all they had done for her? How could she let herself be
seduced by a man she hadn't even known for more than an hour at the time? It was simply unthinkable! That sort of thing simply didn't happen to
young women who had been properly brought up.
"Are you absolutely certain you weren't raped?" she persisted
in doubting, as soon as her emotions would allow her to articulate another
question.
"Mother, I've no wish to repeat myself," Rebecca
retorted. "I told you what happened
and that's as much as I can do. If you
must know, I'm in love with Tony."
"In love ... after three days?" exclaimed Mrs Tonks in
a tone of petulant incredulity bordering on the hysterical.
"No, before then actually," her daughter corrected. "I fell in love with him last Monday to
be precise, the day he first came here.
Perhaps love is too strong a word but, well, suffice it to say that I
felt strongly attracted towards him. I
had gone to the french windows on my way-in from the garden to catch a glimpse
of dad playing Schumann, and that was when I first saw him and became aware he
was staring at me with one of the most admiring looks I had ever seen on any
guy's face. Naturally I was embarrassed
at first, given the surprise factor and the skimpy way I was dressed. But, well, my interest in him was
aroused, and so much so that, when I
learnt from dad that he would be returning on Thursday afternoon, I distinctly
found myself looking forward to it."
"Even so, Rebecca, that's no excuse for such immodest
behaviour in your father's study, is it?" countered Mrs Tonks on a fresh
wave of petulance. "It wouldn't
have been quite so indecent had you taken Mr Keating into your bedroom instead. At least Mrs Marchbanks wouldn't have stumbled
upon you there!"
"Quite so!" concurred Mr Tonks, nodding in tacit
approval of his wife's judgement.
"And we wouldn't have lost the services of a housekeeper who, as
you well know, has been loyal to us for over six years."
Rebecca frowned sullenly.
"Isn't there any chance of your inducing her to return?" she
asked, turning a guilty pair of eyes on each of her parents by turn.
"Virtually none," Mrs Tonks averred. "A woman of her age won't treat such an
occurrence lightly, you know. In fact,
you were fortunate that it didn't cause her a heart attack. Had it done so, matters might now be a good
deal worse than they already are."
Rebecca shook her head, shrugged her shoulders in a gesture of
helplessness, and, turning away from them, flung herself down into a nearby
armchair. How depressing it was to have
to hear all this, to be confronted by her parents in such a humiliating
situation, and all because of a stupid old bag who probably hadn't had anything
even remotely resembling sex in several years!
Was it really necessary for mother to treat her like a young adolescent,
the way she had done a few years previously, at the time of her first
date? To Rebecca, the only thing that
mattered now was her relationship with Tony, her respect for and love of Tony. Thursday was in the past, and what was past
had to be forgotten.... Not that there weren't things about it she didn't care
to remember!
"Well, at least we won't have to contact the police
now," Mr Tonks remarked, after a painful silence, "and that is
something which Mr Webb of 'Arts Monthly' will be relieved to hear, I'm sure,
particularly since his managerial incompetence was largely to blame for this
whole sorry affair in the first place.
As to the interview, however," went on Mr Tonks in a sterner
tone-of-voice, "I shall have to inform the bugger on Monday that, in
consequence of his correspondent's grossly unprofessional conduct, I have no
choice but to withdraw my permission to grant it."
Rebecca's heart seemed to shoot-up into her mouth with the
stunning reception of this. "But,
dad, you mustn't!" she cried, going over to him in a panic of
disbelief. "I told Tony, this
morning, that you'd be prepared to see him on Monday."
"You what?"
Howard Tonks was patently flabbergasted.
"She asked me whether it would be possible to give Mr
Keating a provisional date for the interview and, since you weren't here when
she rang, Howie, I suggested you might be prepared to see him on Monday
afternoon, assuming you weren't otherwise engaged."
Mr Tonks had raised outstretched hands in indication of his
exasperation. "But, Beverly, how
could you possibly tell her such a thing after what's happened?" he
declared rhetorically.
"How-the-devil can I be expected to grant an interview to someone
who took advantage of my absence, last Thursday, to seduce our daughter in my
very own study of all places? It's
unthinkable!"
Mrs Tonks had turned pale.
"But the poor girl sounded so worried, Howie, and I was so relieved
to hear from her at the time that ..."
"It's unthinkable, Beverly!" repeated Mr Tonks,
cutting her excuses short. "Even if
I didn't have that damn conductor here on Monday, I would absolutely refuse, on
principle, to grant the interview!"
Rebecca's eyes filled agonizingly with tears. She couldn't believe he meant it. After all, Tony Keating wasn't entirely to
blame for what had happened. She, too,
had willed it. But, despite her protestations
and excuses, her father remained adamant, and to the point of forcibly removing
her beseeching arms from around his neck and unceremoniously pushing her away
from himself. The man who, no more than
five minutes ago, had clasped his daughter to his chest in an expression of
unmixed gratitude for her safety had suddenly become, as though by
schizophrenic transmutation, the stern father-figure who refuses to allow his
principles to be undermined by emotional appeals, no matter how sincerely
felt. He stood by his word like a sentry
at his post. Whether she liked it or
not, Rebecca would have to inform Mr Keating that, under no circumstances,
could he ever set foot in their house again.
If she wanted to see him in future, she would have to visit him
personally, not bring him home. And if Tonkarias
was no longer good enough for her, then she had better go and live with him
instead. That was all!
"I'm dreadfully sorry, Becky," declared Mrs Tonks at
the close of her husband's impassioned diatribe, "but if your father says
no, then no it will have to be."
Rebecca pursed her lips in grim response to an idea which had
just occurred to her. There was a chance
that she could induce him to change his mind and become more flexible. "Mummy, would you be kind enough to
leave the room and allow me to talk with dad alone?" she requested.
"I can't see what good it will do," said Mrs Tonks
doubtfully. "But if you
insist." She cast her husband a
puzzled and vaguely disdainful look, turned on her high heels, and left the
room without further ado.
Rebecca listened to the receding footsteps of her mother heading
back down the hallway towards the kitchen before, confident that the coast was
sufficiently clear, she decided to proceed with what she wanted to say. "There are two things that I have to
remind you of, father," she began in a respectfully subdued
tone-of-voice. "One of them
concerns me, and the other my best friend, Margaret." She paused to gauge the effect of her words,
but Mr Tonks' expression, tinged with impatience, remained relatively
impassive. "If you refuse to grant
Tony the interview, then I'll have no choice but to expose them to public
attention through the daily press."
"I don't know what the hell you're talking about,"
declared Mr Tonks. "What
two things?"
Rebecca drew herself still closer to her father, looked him
straight in the eyes, and whispered: "Sexual things."
"Sexual ...?" he echoed incredulously.
"Margaret has occasionally served as a convenient
substitute for mother, hasn't she?" Rebecca went on. "And as for me, well, the way you've
behaved towards me, on a number of occasions in the not-too-distant past,
wasn't exactly what one would call paternal, was it?"
"How dare you!" Mr Tonks exclaimed.
Rebecca smiled faintly and drew back a pace from the by-now
outraged countenance of her world-famous father. "It would certainly be inconvenient for
you if the interested public subsequently came to learn that your sexual
relations weren't exclusively confined to mummy
but also embraced your daughter and her best friend, wouldn't it?"
she remarked.
"How dare you!" Mr Tonks exclaimed again, barely able
to restrain the impulse to lash out at his daughter and stop her mouth. "You've no idea what you're
saying!"
"Haven't I?"
Rebecca smiled anew and turned towards the bay windows in order to be
free of the sight of him and better able, in consequence, to proceed in as
objective a manner as was compatible with the requirements of the
situation. "And will you also say
that to Maggy, once I inform her of my intentions and get her to testify
against you as well?"
Mr Tonks was beside himself with rage. "But I had been drinking when I
..."
"Took advantage of her youth?" interposed Rebecca
cogently. "Yes, that has to be
admitted - at least as far as the last time was concerned. But before that, when mum was at her sister's
and you had the pair of us alone here, luring Maggy into your bedroom on some
aesthetic pretext - were you also drunk then?" She paused to allow the full weight of what
they both knew to be a rhetorical question to have its desired effect, before
continuing: "And what about the time before that, when, mummy again being
absent, you induced us to take off our clothes and pose for your new camera for
the sheer hell of it? Admittedly, you
didn't commit yourself to any physical contact with either of us then, but, all
the same, you certainly got us to reveal ourselves in a manner which can only
be described as erotic, if not downright pornographic! And what became of the photos after you had
secretly developed them? Isn't that
something which only you and one or two of your closest friends, including Roy
Hart, know anything about?"
"Stop, for God's sake stop!" protested Mr Tonks, and
so loudly that it caused the housedog to bark excitedly from his resting place
nearby. "I won't tolerate any more
of this nonsense! You've no right to
blackmail me!" he added sternly.
"If I were you, dad, I'd lower your voice a little,"
Rebecca calmly advised him, turning round to face him again. "Otherwise mummy may get wind of it even
before I take my incestuous story to the papers."
"But you have no proof that what you say actually took
place. None whatsoever!" He was almost sneering triumphantly at her
now.
For her part Rebecca sniggered ironically, then retorted:
"Who needs proof? When I take my
story to the press, the very fact that the daughter of a world-famous composer
has such a tale to tell will be sufficient to arouse considerable interest on
that account. After all, even if it
weren't true, your name would still be associated with mine, the lies or
madness I'd be accused of by you would still prove of interest to anyone with a
knowledge of your professional reputation, and, before long, rumours would
begin to proliferate like lice, to the detriment of more things than your
marriage. But, of course, with Margaret
to back me up and reveal her own part in the story as well, you'd have a much
harder task trying to prove that I was either lying or insane, particularly
since Maggy was the principal target of your lust."
"Enough, enough!" cried Mr Tonks, his face burning-up
with a potent mixture of anger and shame.
"I can't believe you'd actually do this to me. Why, you're my only daughter!"
"Yes, daddy, and that's something you haven't always
remembered," said Rebecca, who lowered her eyes under pressure from her
own feelings of anger and shame, which caused a few self-pitying tears to
well-up from the depths of her humiliated soul and drip onto her cheeks. "But if you're now prepared to grant
'Arts Monthly' the interview, then I'm prepared to forget the incestuous
anomalies of our past relationship, to forget and, more importantly, to
forgive."
An uneasy silence ensued, during which time Mr Tonks managed to
cool down slightly and to assume an appearance of peeved resignation to his
fate. "You must be rather fond of
this Mr Keating," he at length remarked in a resentful tone. Then, realizing his daughter had nothing
further to say by way of confirming this, he added: "Tell the man to be
here by two o'clock on Monday afternoon," and briskly left the room.
"Thank God for that!" sighed Rebecca, as she flopped
down into the nearest of the available armchairs and closed her tear-drenched
eyes with an almost prayerful reverence.
