Jonathan Buckley - The Great Concert of the Night

The first encounter with William; or what I can reconstruct of it. We were sitting outside, near the abbey; Imogen had come down for the weekend. She glanced over my shoulder several times: a young man, twentyish, was standing a few yards behind me, importuning the people at the adjacent table; it appeared that none of them had offered him any money; he was asking them to reconsider, to no effect. Though the hair was a mess, he was not the most plausible of desperate cases: he looked more like an odd-job man than someone who was sleeping rough. ‘OK,’ I heard him say, conceding failure. ‘You all have a nice afternoon.’

As he approached us, Imogen seemed to be thinking what I had been thinking – that this person might not be genuine. But she said to him: ‘Would you like a coffee?’

A sticking plaster was attached to his brow, touching the hairline; he pressed a thumb onto it, as if to focus his thinking.

‘Sit down,’ Imogen said, indicating the seat next to mine.

He gave me a permission-seeking half-smile. I pulled the chair out for him.

‘Are you hungry?’ Imogen asked, sliding the menu card across the table.

His expression was that of a man who suspects he does not fully understand the situation in which he finds himself. ‘No cash,’ he said, pressing the plaster again. When he lifted his finger, the disc of blood in the centre of the plaster had widened.

‘Have what you like,’ Imogen told him.

He would just have a coffee, he said.

‘If you’re hungry, choose something,’ said Imogen. ‘Are you hungry?’

He glanced at me, for guidance. ‘I recommend the chocolate cake,’ I said, pointing to my plate.

A waitress had arrived; her gaze registered the unkempt young man, then she smiled at Imogen; her smile was like a puppet’s. Imogen ordered another coffee for herself, and directed the waitress to our guest, who ordered a cake as well.

‘Very nice of you,’ he said. The finger went back onto the plaster, pressing hard.

‘Let’s have a look,’ said Imogen. Obediently he lifted an edge, revealing a cluster of sutures. She offered a tissue, which he took with a trembling hand. ‘You need to change that dressing,’ she told him.

‘This’ll be fine,’ he said, tapping his fingers on the tissue.

There was a pharmacy in the row of shops on the opposite side of the street. ‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ said Imogen.

He watched her cross the road; a man beguiled. In her absence, it was agreed that she was a very kind person. That was more or less the substance of our conversation. His coffee and slice of cake were deposited by the waitress. The cake was consumed in a matter of seconds, before Imogen returned.

‘How did it happen?’ she asked, applying a new dressing.

He murmured his reply, as though responding to a question from a nurse in A&E. There had been a bit of bother at the place where he’d been living.

‘Where’s that?’ she asked, in nurse-like mode, removing some specks of dried blood with the tissue.

He named a street. It was a squat; a defunct office building.

‘And what’s your name?’

‘William,’ he answered.

‘Imogen, and David,’ she said, giving him a hand to shake; he wiped his hand on his chest first. ‘Would you like anything else?’ she asked.

‘No, thank you,’ said William. He took a sip from his empty cup; he was worried that in return for this charity he would have to submit to questioning.

‘You sure?’ she asked.

‘Sure, thank you,’ he answered, nodding too much.

‘OK,’ she said; from her smile he understood that there would be no interrogation; he could leave.

‘That was very nice, thank you,’ said William.

‘Our pleasure,’ she said, and she handed him the pack of sticking plasters.

‘Really?’ he asked, as though this generosity were extreme. On leaving us, he bowed to her, with a hand over his heart.

Watched Jumièges last night. I remember speaking to Imogen about it; Franck Boudet had called her, to talk about the script. One of the crew on Maintenant had told Franck a story about his family, a story that was now becoming Franck’s screenplay. The man’s sister was the model for the character that Franck was hoping Imogen would play. Every week she visited their father with their mother; she was much closer to both parents than was the teller of the story. The father’s health was poor: his mind was falling apart; a stroke – the most severe of a series – had rendered his speech incoherent and indistinct. He was confused, and often perplexed as to where he was and how he had come to be there. But one afternoon he seemed to wish to communicate something. His daughter was showing him again, on a map, the location of the village where her husband had been born. Her father’s gaze slid around the map, apparently seeing nothing but a web of coloured lines, but then his eyes became focused, as though he had suddenly seen something that made sense to him. He became agitated, and more agitated with the effort of making himself understood. His finger quivered above the map, pointing to Jumièges; eventually it was established that he wanted to go there. Jumièges was located more than a hundred kilometres from where he had been born and had always lived. When his wife asked him why he wanted to visit it, she received no intelligible answer. Before the next visit he would have forgotten all about Jumièges, she was sure.

But he did not forget. He was like a child demanding a treat that had been promised to him. They went to Jumièges. The expedition was difficult; it was also unwise, his carers argued. But the old man would not relinquish the idea, and it was unlikely that he would live much longer. This might be his last request. So arrangements were made; a nurse travelled with the family. At Jumièges, the dying man managed to make it known that it was the river, not the great abbey, that he wished to see. They came to Rue du Perrey, and there he became calm. His daughter turned the wheelchair to face the direction her father seemed to be indicating. Some small cliffs, some trees, the ferry, the green-brown meander of the Seine – it was not a memorable vista. But at the sight of this scene the old man started to smile. In recent years, he had rarely smiled. The smile dwindled; then he was crying. ‘When were you here?’ his daughter asked. There was no answer. When she asked again he became angry. He wanted everyone to be quiet. He did not appear to notice that his wife was upset. Her own memory was becoming insecure, but she knew for a fact that she had never been to Jumièges with her husband. She would never know what memory was being revived at that place, by that ordinary view.

The actress playing the daughter is adequate, but Imogen would have been better. The long look that this actress gives the father, at the river, is simply sad; Imogen’s gaze, as I imagine it, would have made us understand that she is not only seeing what her father has become – she is seeing the man that he once was, and the woman that she used to be.

After Imogen’s departure, whenever I encountered William I did not linger; there was pressing business elsewhere, I would pretend. Finally he remarked that he had not seen her for a while. ‘She’s in Paris,’ I answered.

‘When’s she coming back?’ asked William.

‘I don’t know,’ I replied, neutrally. Imogen had grown tired of London, I told him; she wanted to live in Paris for a while. I told him about her family’s connection to Paris, of which he had known nothing.