CHAPTER
TWO
Gerald Matthews
stretched out a hand and switched off the tinny alarm on his pocket-sized alarm
clock to prevent it ringing unnecessarily.
For he was already wide awake, having anticipated the alarm some fifteen
minutes in advance of the 7am deadline at which it was usually set. On this occasion, as on a number of previous
ones, it was an inconvenience he might just as well do without!
The practical details of getting up were normally an ordeal for
Gerald but, today, the sight of the sun streaming in through a narrow gap in
his curtains and the exuberant twittering of local sparrows acted as a kind of
invincible goad, and before long he was up and about, frantically hunting for suitable clothes to wear, scrutinizing
his stubble-ridden chin in the oval mirror of his dressing-table, and generally
making a fuss of himself. When, in this
fussy fashion, he had washed and dressed, combed back his curly fair hair and
polished his new shoes, he sped downstairs, threw open the front door and,
almost skipping out onto the garden path, began to vigorously inhale and exhale
large draughts of suburban fresh air.
Yes, it was definitely the kind of day to make one feel pleased with
life! One just had to be grateful for
weather of this magnificent calibre. If
the cloudless warmth lasted through to the weekend, he would take himself off
somewhere for a long walk.
Sated by his spell of deep breathing, he
re-entered the semidetached house and swiftly made his way towards the kitchen
at the rear. However, he hadn't been in
there long enough to fry some bacon when a clamber of footsteps above the
ceiling indicated that Mr David Shuster, eligible bachelor, lecturer in
English, and sole owner of the two-storey property, had risen from the
living-death of drug-induced sleep and moronically entered the bathroom, where
he would remain for at least another thirty minutes - the fact of his regularly
being obliged to contend with the often critical, though sometimes admiring,
attention of large numbers of female students having made him, in Gerald's
view, somewhat over-solicitous of his facial appearance. Thus by the time Shuster arrived downstairs,
impeccably well-groomed, Gerald would be either clearing away the dishes or,
assuming he had already done so, reading one of his many music scores in the
adjoining study.
As it happened, Gerald had just swallowed
his last mouthful of toast and was greedily downing a large mugful
of thick, sweetish coffee when Shuster entered the kitchen and was heard to
proffer exuberant salutation, a manner of greeting which Gerald automatically
reciprocated, albeit slightly surprised by the other's uncharacteristic
early-morning exuberance. "Now
don't tell me that you're in a good mood this morning," he hastened to
add. "What, exactly, were you
dreaming about?"
"Oh, much ado about nothing,"
Shuster briskly replied with Shakespearean gusto. "It went in a flash as usual." He walked over to the fridge. "Good God, don't tell me we've run out
of bacon already!" he cried, peering in.
"On the top shelf," said Gerald,
carrying his empty mug and plates to the sink.
"I only took two slices this morning."
"Ah, yes." Shuster's hungry eyes alighted on the elusive
bacon like a bloodthirsty hawk upon its tender prey. "So how did the music lesson go last
night?" he asked, taking command of the frying pan. "I trust you weren't overly exasperated
again?"
Gerald Matthews smirked ironically in
tacit response to this assumption, since he was only too aware of the cause of
his Thursday evening tantrums, and replied that it was fortunate for him that
he didn't have to see Lorraine Smith more than once a week, since she had all
the traits of an utter wastrel.
"Something of an unwilling piano
pupil by the sound of it," conjectured Shuster, turning the
sizzling bacon over and adding a couple of small eggs to the rather large
frying pan. "You seem to get
lumbered with so many like her."
"Yes, and, what's worse I can't get
rid of them," Gerald sighed.
"Why, she still can't properly differentiate between major and
minor diatonic scales!"
"Really?" exclaimed Shuster with
apparent unconcern.
"And I've been going over them with
her for the past five months!" cried Gerald, patently exasperated. "Her sense of interval recognition is
virtually non-existent."
"Dear me," mumbled Shuster, more
for his own benefit, it appeared, than for Gerald's. "So you lost your temper again."
"Fortunately not! But I certainly took it out on the piano
afterwards. The grand style, so to
speak." Gerald thought he detected
an involuntary wince on Shuster's clean-shaven face at this point and,
transferring his washed crockery to the draining board, tactfully added:
"I believe you were out at the time."
"I was indeed. Invited out to dinner,
actually."
"Not your eminent colleague, the
unmusical physics genius, by any chance?" conjectured Gerald smirkingly.
Shuster smiled patronizingly as he scooped
a well-fried rasher onto an empty plate.
It was a standing joke between them that Loper,
the physicist, couldn't tell the difference between Mozart and Beethoven, being
tone-deaf. "No, not this
time," he calmly replied. "Friends of a colleague, in fact. Keen literary minds from
down under."
"So you actually had dinner with
Australians for once." It was like
Gerald to jump to concrete conclusions.
"New Zealanders
actually," Shuster corrected.
"Though, quite frankly, I wouldn't care to be entertained by them
every week. It was a demanding
experience, both gastronomically and intellectually. Still, a refreshing
change!"
"Glad to hear you say so," said
Gerald, who was now ready to depart the kitchen. "Well, I must be off in a minute, since
I don't want to arrive at the office later than eight-thirty this morning. Incidentally, there's a literary chap there
by name of Michael Savage who might interest you. I made his acquaintance some time ago, but
he's certainly an unusually elusive man.
Not what I'd call sociable at all.... As it happens, I invited him over
here last week, but since then I find it difficult to avoid the impression that
he's trying to snub me."
Shuster feigned indignant surprise. "Really? And how old is he?"
"Oh, twenty-three
or twenty-four. He did tell me
the other day."
"Good grief, don't tell me you belong
to that perennially eccentric category of age-forgetters!" exclaimed
Shuster with cynical relish.
"Not as completely as I'd like
to!" retorted Gerald, whilst admiring his fair countenance in the hall
mirror. "I should like to have
remained twenty-five for ever."
"Humph! Think yourself fortunate that such wishes are
only granted in fairy tales," the lecturer's manly voice boomed from the
kitchen. "Else you might have lived
to regret it!"
"Not the way I live," the
twenty-eight-year-old narcissist shouted back and, with a departing chuckle, he
was out through the front door and into the sunny street.
On the tube, Gerald pondered various
events of the previous evening's piano tutorials. Like the two occasions, during the second
lesson, when he had almost lost his temper with that wretched girl Lorraine
Smith, who would never, it seemed to him, come properly to grips with her
scales and arpeggios. Of course, her
parents were fairly well off and only too keen to help her get on in life, as
they say. But, as often happened, the
children of such parents had their own ideas on that score, being disinclined
to take seriously those things that they didn't want to take seriously, with a
consequence that they not only wasted their parents' money but, in combating
parental pressures, simultaneously reduced their own flair for life.
This
Alighting from the half-empty carriage at
his usual station, he hurried up the escalator as though it were merely a
staircase, dashed, season ticket in hand, past a slightly-bemused ticket
collector, and rushed out into the dazzling sunshine of the glorious 25th
June. It was a ten-minute walk to the
music firm and he would be there in good time if he didn't stop en route, as
sometimes happened, for a coffee at the nearby Italian café where, at this time
of day, a wait in the queue was almost always guaranteed. Glancing at his watch he decided, in view of
the fact it had just turned
Even at this relatively early hour the
streets leading to work were thronged with purposefully striding bodies of all
shapes and sizes, each of whom was pursuing a secret destiny oblivious of the
many other destinies hurrying by to time's pressing dictates. Yet, although he was very much a component of
this universal coercion, Gerald had enough presence of mind to note a variety
of features - from an old man's white-washed wizened face to a young girl's
rather heavily made-up eyes - which engaged his passing attention. He stopped briefly twice en route to stare,
firstly, through the window of a small music shop with many bright covers of
topical and even post-topical songbooks on display, and, secondly, at an array
of saucepans and other domestic utensils in a nearby general store - an
experience which instantly connoted with the fact that Michael Savage was
leaving the firm today. For they had
visited this particular store together just over a week previously, and on that
august occasion Savage had divulged his intention of leaving while Gerald had
been closely examining a large baking tray, an item he reluctantly but
stoically purchased the following day.
So much for the facts! At any rate, it was up to Gerald to seize
upon the occasion of his colleague's imminent departure by inviting him for a
drink and/or meal at lunch time, thereby acquiring the opportunity for an
exchange of mutual intentions and problems, as well as possibly even securing
ongoing access to his colleague's potential friendship - assuming, of course,
that that was mutually acceptable.
However, the recollection that he wanted to be at the office by
