Эд Макбейн - Mothers and Daughters

She was, after all, a graduate of Talmadge University, and some of the music instructors there were rather well known in musical circles, and she had always been a good student and a favorite of many of them. As soon as the composition was finished, she would walk over to the school and renew old acquaintances, casually mention that she had been working on an orchestral suite for a good long time now and had just finished it this summer, well no, really I’m sure you wouldn’t want to hear it, no, it’s nothing really, well, if you insist, I’ll play it for you, though I’m not sure the full effect will be realized with piano alone. And then, yes, she would take advantage of whatever connections they had. Then, yes, she would try to get the work performed, try to get it recorded — but first, of course, she had to finish it.

She was thoroughly satisfied now with the major theme, the section she called Genesis, the opening section with its choralelike overtones. The theme ran throughout the entire work, its solemn ponderous chords appearing in the most curious places, illogically springing up in the Revival section where, and she thought this was an innovation, she had actually used clapping hands as a part of the scoring, two sections of clapping hands in counterpoint to each other and to the timpani and brass. The spiritual section still disturbed her, though, despite the gimmickry of the clapping hands, not really an original concept anyway, Bernstein had used it, though not as flamboyantly, still she wasn’t satisfied with the section, it did not have the true ring of an old-fashioned revival meeting.

Nor was she happy with the brief section in the minor key, the section she had titled Episode, somewhat tangential to the concept of the entire work, and with a foreign flavor to it, actually a Russian flavor. She thought Episode described it fairly accurately, a sort of interlude, a filling-in of spaces, a jaunt away from the major theme of the entire work, and yet a section that advanced the first two sections, the introductory section labeled Genesis, and the spiritual, hand-clapping, joyous, happy, loving second-section called Revival. Still, it needed work, she knew that.

The last and final section of the composition was called Judgment Day, and it recalled the major theme again, picking up the tempo and enlarging upon it, striking each note sharply and cleanly, with a great deal of brass and a segue into strings again. Judgment Day, in fact, borrowed from each of the work’s sections, trying to round out a cycle, something begun with Genesis and ending with the final note of the suite, but really a cycle that was never fully completed because after Judgment Day, there would be another Genesis, and another joyous Revival, and perhaps another Episode, and then again into Judgment Day, the cycle was endless and mystifying, somewhat like a medieval round. The problem in the final section — or the problem as she visualized it — was the resolution of the various themes stated throughout the work, themes that certainly needed resolution before the final note was sounded, but which needed resolution in terms of a sudden alteration of tempo toward an overwhelming climax of sound. The last section moved faster, there was the rushing sound of strings in the background, the reeds seemed to flow more swiftly, the brasses tongued their passages in staccato wildness, everything seemed to rush, oh how she hoped it would rush, toward a climax where theme after theme was resolved separately, and where the major theme was stated triumphantly and majestically.

Or at least, that was what she wanted.

And what she did not yet have.

But this was April, and she was brimful of plans. She knew exactly what she hoped to accomplish during the summer. Kate was going off to Europe with Julia Regan, and arrangements had been made to send Bobby off to camp, and this meant that the house would be empty, blissfully, magnificently empty, and that she could spend all day, every day, at the piano until the suite was finished. In the first green rush of April, she made out a tentative schedule, a visual chart that outlined the exact amount of work she hoped to complete by the end of each day. Her chart told her how many new bars she would write, which sections of the work she would revise, where more complete scoring was necessary, when she would tape-record and play back the sections already finished. Her chart was a day-by-day plan of creativity, and she knew that before the summer was through — she had set Labor Day as her deadline — the work would be completed and ready to show to her old instructors at the university. After that, it was anyone’s guess, But at least she had a plan.

It was April, and at least she had a plan.

Matthew got the idea for the second honeymoon some time in April.

He got the idea sitting in his office and looking down at the street. The idea came to him full-blown. Sitting there with spring outside his window, he suddenly remembered that Kate would be going to Europe this summer, and Bobby would be going to camp, and he suddenly thought, It would be nice to go away somewhere with Amanda, a sort of second honeymoon.

That was exactly the way he thought of it. As a sort of second honeymoon.

And yet, though he labeled it that, he knew it was something more, knew it meant a great deal more to him. He could remember with painful clarity that day at the breakfast table with Kate last month, and the knowledge that something in him had changed, that he had become a different person than he once had been, a person unexciting and somehow dead. He longed to be alive again. The children would both be away for the entire summer, and he had a vision of the open road with Amanda beside him, both of them free of all responsibility, laughing, haphazardly crossing the face of America, sleeping when they were tired, making love when they chose to, getting drunk if they liked, doing whatever they wanted, whenever and wherever they felt like it, recklessly, foolishly, in complete abandon. It seemed absolutely essential that this spring of all springs, this spring when he had had a sudden and frightening glimpse of himself as some fossilizing organism, this spring he should plan for a summer that would be revitalizing and rejuvenating. He felt it was absolutely essential.

He went next door to see Sol Stang, the senior partner of the firm, and he said, “Sol, I want to take my vacation in July this year.”

“Okay,” Stang said, “so take it.”

“I want a full month.”

“You’re out of your mind.”

“You’d have to prove that allegation with the testimony of either two psychiatrists, or a psychiatrist and a psychologist. I want a full month, Sol.”

“We’ll have a half-dozen cases coming to trial in July, Matt. We can’t spare you for a full month.”

“I know you can’t. But you can’t spare me for two weeks, either, when you get right down to it. But I take two weeks each summer and two weeks each winter, and somehow the firm seems to get along without me. So this summer, I want to take my wife on a second honeymoon. I want a month. That’s that.”

“Who the hell says that’s that?”

“I say it. I’m taking a month, Sol. My daughter leaves for Europe on July first, and my son leaves for camp on July third, and Amanda and I are leaving for parts unknown on July fourth. That’s that.”

“You know, Matthew,” Stang said, “I sometimes wonder why on earth we ever took you into this firm.”

“I’m a good lawyer,” Matthew said, and he grinned. “I just won a decision for a full month, didn’t I?”

“This isn’t law,” Stang said, “this is economics. And besides, you didn’t win any decision. It’s been a standing rule of this firm for as long as I can remember that no single partner would take more than two weeks at any one time.”