Refrain

Chapter 13: Concerto (Part II)

Outside, the sun had sunk, leaving strips of orange and purple on the horizon. I followed Frankie to the back of the house, where he opened a door to the garden shed, and flipped on a switch, The light was pale and powerless in its early 20th century form. He closed the door behind us.

I watched as Frankie scanned the shelves, which had boxes of gloves, and trowels. I doubted he'd touched any of them. From a lower shelf he started to pick up what looked like lanterns. I went closer, extending my arm. He hung one over my wrist.

'Did you know?' he asked, eyes counting the number of metal handles he was holding, like a farmer at the harvest.

'Yes,' I said as I took over another lantern he was offering me.

'Good. I figured as much. For what they are, they don't really take the trouble of hiding it from others, do they?'

I didn't reply.

'You see,' Frankie paused in his hands, 'the whole thing, I thought it was wrong, too, when I'd first watched them do it. I'd told Edward they were a pair of tricksters. Shamans. But Edward trusted them. Had known them for years, he'd told me. He'd even taught the boy violin himself.'

I swallowed hard.

'And I couldn't really stop them. How could I, after the things I'd seen them do, the changes they'd brought in Edward? Cadence my boy, did you know, back in 1905, after Edward had first sketched what was to become the Violin Concerto tonight, he'd almost burned it again? But before he could he'd played it to Kreisler once, and the boy was there, charging into the room just like today.'

Frankie put the lanterns down on the floor. He rubbed his hands together, slowly.

'And afterwards he'd performed his tricks. A child instructing the Maestro, can you believe it? But whatever it was, it had worked. Edward was appeased. "Frank, he'd said the same about Gerontius. And he had been right."' Frankie mimicked Elgar's timid excitement, low and gruff. 'And sure enough, Gerontius, it took. Almost a whole year later. But it took.'

'What tricks?' I asked.

''You didn't know?' Frankie quirked an eyebrow at me. 'Then you're in luck. You have quite the miracle to witness tonight.' He picked up the lanterns again. They tolled, like bells. 'Let's head back now. The boy never stays long.'

When we opened the door, it had already gone so dark, I could only detect people when they moved: backlit, shadowy, spectral. As we came closer to the centre of the room, I made out two shapes bent over the piano, deep in conversation.

'Here, do you see what I mean? The bowing would be best detached and not slurred in twos, so demisemiquavers instead of triplets. Here as well, same principle.' Louis was using his office-hour voice, so himself as I knew him, that I almost felt like laughing, over the sheer, mad irony of it: that he, even in his school uniform from—God, who knows which year—could've got a reference from the great Elgar for his Oxford job more than a decade later, to comment on his teaching abilities.

'What about this leap up the G string here?' Elgar said, tapping at the paper. 'I kept asking Billy if we should not better change it to the D, which would be more reasonable. But he insisted I leave it.'

'Yes, I'd also leave it be,' Louis said, 'I'm sure people can land it. You can land it nicely, no? Billy?' he turned to look at Billy, who was rubbing rosin onto the bow a few feet away from them, legs crossed on the floor.

'I'm glad you think so,' the warmth in Billy's voice melted away any ambition he might have held, 'Edward here didn't seem to have as much faith in me.'

Louis left the piano and came towards Billy. I was just laying a lantern there—Frankie and I had been arranging gas lanterns in an arc on the floor to delineate the stage—and was in the middle of striking a match when I'd heard him move. It was too late now to run away.