Alan Hollinghurst - The Stranger’s Child

Mrs Jacobs looked self-conscious too, but in a happy way, her head on one side. Her own responses were almost a part of the performance. The over-active first section of the music had ended, and now a slow tune came in, with a definite air, even on a first hearing, of being what they were waiting for. Mrs Jacobs raised and then dropped her right hand in greeting to it, and shook her head slowly as it went on. Paul thought she was probably very drunk – he felt the glow of his friendly understanding with her, from that first evening; though he somehow saw that to her being drunk had its whole long sentimental history, whereas to him it was a freakish novelty. Somewhere at the back there was a frail bit of humming and a little giggle when someone shushed. Then here came the song again, and as his eyes slid over the heads of the audience to find Peter he found Peter turned sideways and looking back at him, and the rapid pressure on his own heart and the glow of his face were fitted by the music, like a theme tune: they both smiled just in the moment of turning away.

After that Paul looked around casually, to see if anyone had seen; he watched Julian, also standing, on the other side, pink with drink and the comical effort to look sober. Jenny sat just beside him, with a similar frown of critical concentration, pinned in beside a large old man with a farmer’s face and a mass of white hair, and politely ignoring the loud dejected noise of his breathing. Paul turned with a remote smile, as if transported by the music, and found Mr Keeping, standing at the back, pressed against the red velvet curtains, and staring intently at his wife, also with a hint of a smile, his unreadable mask. She was on display, physical and passionate, and Paul realized he would never see Mr Keeping himself in quite the same way again. Then his gaze dropped to the woman seated in front of him – the clasp of her necklace, the label at the neck of her dress turned out… Anne-Marie Paris London – he read it upside-down. When she twitched her head at a sudden loud chord the tips of her hair tickled his fingers. She glanced round, apology just ruffled by accusal. A little later she murmured something to her husband, who absorbed it with a quick tutting nod. Paul had a strange and intense apprehension, for three or four seconds that might have been a long tranced minute, of this unknown woman’s life, that would never cross with his again, and the hypnotic detail of her label showing, which she herself was unaware of.

The door beside him into the hall was propped open, and now and then he heard a clatter of plates or a forgetful raised voice from the kitchen, where the women from the Bell were washing up. The front door was open too, and by moments cool air with a distant smell of firs to it ran in and then ebbed away. There was the quiet section, the theme tune again – he didn’t dare look at Peter – and he heard the jingle of something on Roger’s collar, unconcernedly out of tune and time, as he nosed round on the edge of the drive. Then there were footsteps on the gravel, stopping uncertainly, but an unselfconscious few words of greeting to the dog, which barked uncertainly itself a couple of times. Paul thought of a policeman, for some reason, and then of Sir Dudley Valance, with his war wound, whom he now seemed to be slightly obsessed by. There was a throat-clearing, a light knock, several people looked round, with the lively interest of an audience in any disturbance… Paul made a cringing face and slipped out into the hall.

‘Ah, hullo – good evening…!’ – a man peering in, too absorbed in the moment to lower his voice, and giving at once a sense of awkwardness, in his tight brown suit. ‘I’m fearfully late – but I didn’t want to miss it.’ A posh, silvery voice, with, not a stammer but pauses between phrases. Paul came out on to the doorstep, and shook his hand firmly and without exactly encouraging him, he thought. Surely this wasn’t Sir Dudley. They nodded at each other, as though they were both in a bit of a fix.

‘We’re just having… some music,’ said Paul tactfully, with a hesitation of his own.

‘Ah!’ No, this man was about fifty, but with something boyish in his wide bony face as he turned his head and listened. Paul looked at the tufts of badly cut hair, thick and greying around a sun-blistered bald patch. ‘Well, yes indeed,’ he said, ‘and Senta’s… Ballad , always her favourite.’ They heard the music grow very emphatic and loud, Paul pictured Mrs Keeping shaking herself to pieces, and then at once there was applause. He thought someone else might come out and help.

‘Will you…?’ – he gestured into the hall.

‘Yes – thank you.’ Now they could talk normally. ‘Hello, Barbara!’ said the man. One of the women had come out from the kitchen.

‘Hello, Wilfrid,’ she said. ‘You’ve missed your dinner.’

‘That – doesn’t matter,’ said the man, again with his air of monkish simplicity and tiny hesitation.

‘We weren’t sure we’d be seeing you,’ said Barbara, with the same odd lack of respect. ‘Mrs K’s got a concert on so you’ll have to be quiet.’

‘I know – I know,’ said Wilfrid, frowning a little at Barbara’s tone.

‘Would you like to go in?’ said Paul. He watched the man watching the people inside, one or two faces turned, while Mrs Keeping was announcing the next item. His brown suit must once have been someone else’s, all three buttons done up, the sleeves short, and the trousers too, and a sense of large square objects trapped in tight pockets. Paul wondered if the other guests knew him and a scene was about to occur that he would be blamed for.

‘Is she going on long?’ said Wilfrid, pleasantly but as if out of earshot. There were one or two more curious glances.

‘I don’t really know…’ said Paul, detaching himself.

‘Have you had something to eat?’ said Barbara, softening a little. ‘Or do you want to come into the kitchen?’

‘I think perhaps…’ – Wilfrid gazed at her and flinched. ‘Is it an awful bore?’

‘Ah, that’s all right.’

‘I got a lift into Stanford, and then the bus, then I walked up.’

‘Well, you must be hungry,’ said Paul, adopting the condescending tone. He could hear Peter saying something, in his Oxford voice, making them laugh, and he realized that something had happened, and the voice was now a trigger to jolts of excitement and anxiety that ran through him and made him half-unaware of anything else that was going on. The music began. Wilfrid followed Barbara, but turned in the doorway, came back to the hall table, took a small parcel in shiny red paper out of his pocket and added it to the base of the pile. When he had gone, Paul looked at the label: ‘Happy Birthday Mummy, Love Wilfrid.’

The little puzzle of this didn’t hold him long. He leant in the doorway to listen, or at least to watch Peter play. This must be the Mozart, surely. He thought there was something daft but also impressive and mysterious about big clever Peter stooped over this dainty but tedious piece of music and giving it his fullest attention. The large hands that had recently stroked his knee under the table were now hopping and pecking around on the deep end of the keyboard, in a remarkable show of fake solemnity. Mrs Keeping was having more fun up at the other end, making Peter look like an anxious but courtly attendant; her nods and grimaces now seemed like slightly impatient instructions to him, or tight-lipped confirmation that he had or hadn’t got something right. And turning the page was a bit of a worry, with both players busy at once. After a minute Paul noticed that Peter did any pedalling that was called for, and got interested in his legs as much as his hands. Mrs Keeping’s legs jumped as she played, and Peter’s occasional toeing of a pedal was like a courteous version of the footsie he’d just been playing with him under the table. Paul was warmed by this secret, and admiring of Peter, and jealous that he couldn’t play with him himself. At the end he applauded loudly, and made a point of making the very last clap, as they used to at school.