Hamish and Kate Read online

  His failure was catered for and he did not once think of success.

  Each following morning Euan woke with optimism. He thought, today I will talk with Clare. He would arrive early at his office at the University but it would be too early to call her, she would not be there yet. He would need a coffee first; he would have to finish a piece of work; there were errands to run; he was busy; he was not in the mood. The mornings would disappear and the afternoons would have a different set of excuses and as the day wound down his excuse would be that it was getting too late to call. He did not know where she lived and had not requested her home telephone number. In any case, to call her in the evening had an obvious relationship-starting connotation. However, he would go to bed each night optimistic that he would call her the next day.

  The days repeated. Looking, in retrospect, for the perfect opportunity became an end in itself. He would look back at the day just passed, usually when the “too late to call” excuse began, and find times that would have been perfect. ‘Yes, eleven a.m. was the right time. I had fixed that problem, I was feeling good and that’s when the geology department finishes their communal morning tea. I should have called her.’ There were many such chances that went begging and Euan would make a mental note to remember that time the next day but something would interfere with the execution.

  He fell into depression as he was saved from embarrassment. He wasn’t going to call Clare. He’d left it too long and the memory of the evening at Liam’s faded.

  The weather followed Euan’s mood and became single-minded, brooding and dark. It was not officially winter but it was cold and there were early and heavy dumps of snow on the mountains. For the first time Euan took an interest in televised weather bulletins. He watched the images of children rugged up and throwing snowballs and enthusiastic cross-country skiers taking advantage of clear slopes before the lifts opened and they were consigned to back country trails.

  A few weeks after the dinner at Liam’s, Euan went to an evening gathering of graduate students hoping to see Clare. She wasn’t there. Kate was.

  ‘Where have you been?’ she asked him. ‘I expected you to be a regular visitor at home by now.’

  ‘What?’ Euan was mystified.

  ‘Were you listening at all?’ Kate asked.

  ‘When?’

  ‘At the dinner.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Euan said. He was genuinely confused.

  ‘I guess you really don’t,’ she said with surprise. ‘Clare and I just started sharing a house. You really didn’t hear us talking about that?’

  Euan shook his head.

  ‘It seems a waste. Your friend Liam went to all that trouble after, I assume, you asked for his help, and you don’t follow it up,’ she said.

  Euan sounded like an errant child as he complained that Kate’s insight into his premeditated intentions for Clare were false.

  ‘Just call her,’ Kate said, ignoring his hollow complaints. ‘Or go and see her.’ Kate was mystified how Euan had not noticed the positive impression he had made on Clare. She, also, did not understand how he had missed the interest she had shown in him.

  Kate pointed out a young man on the other side of the room. ‘Do you know Michael?’ she asked.

  Euan said that he didn’t.

  ‘You’d like him,’ she said. She took Euan by the arm and led him across the room. Euan liked the feel of being controlled by a beautiful woman.

  Michael was tall and thin with long dark hair. He had a dry sense of humour that made it difficult to know if he was being humorous or naive. Kate introduced the two young men and turned to leave. Euan protested her departure, he wanted to grill her for more information on Clare.

  Kate laughed at him and shocked him by giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. He withdrew his face at the surprise action as if Kate had been attempting an attack.

  ‘Just call her. Call her tonight,’ she said and then left Euan with Michael as she went to join another group of students.

  ‘She likes you,’ Michael said.

  ‘What?’ Euan said with annoyance as he watched Kate walk across the crowded room.

  ‘Kate told me you played guitar. Is that right?’ Michael asked.

  Euan played classical guitar, for personal pleasure. Michael had aspirations of a professional music career. The two men showed off their musical knowledge like it was an intellectual arm wrestle. They tested each other on Beethoven, Britten and Bach and soon realised their music interests were complementary and their knowledge similar. Their competition ceased and thirty minutes after meeting they had become friends.

  Euan had a long-term goal to play all of the Bach Lute Suites but he procrastinated. He had some success as he ploughed through the notation but had stalled at a few of the hardest passages. He talked of those difficult passages and as Michael made suggestions, Euan thought of the similarity between mastering the Lute Suites and his attempt at a relationship with Clare. They were both important goals but he was unwilling to risk failure in one and embarrassment in the other. He wanted achievement without the effort of attainment. He was inspired and convinced, as he listened to Michael, that the safety of failure after inaction was no safety at all.

  Michael invited Euan to a lunchtime concert, that he and a few musicians were giving at the University the next day. Euan viewed accepting the invitation as his first step towards a less risk adverse lifestyle. To begin with, as far as music was concerned and, if he was able to act on his new inspiration and confidence, Clare as well. It was late when Euan left the graduate gathering and after looking unsuccessfully for Kate, he hurried home ready to follow her advice and call Clare. He picked up his telephone and realised he had not asked Kate for her home telephone number and, in any case, it was probably too late to call Clare, she may have gone to bed. He decided he would call her at work, the next day, after the lunchtime concert.

  That would be the perfect time to call, he thought as he, once again, went to bed full of optimism for the next day.

  Chapter 4

  Euan went to the concert the next day on his own. He walked down the centre aisle of the University’s theatre and chose a seat in the middle. The lighting was dim and as his eyes adjusted he saw that the auditorium was almost deserted. Euan thought he had made a mistake and had come on the wrong day. The stage was covered with a mass of snake-like chords from microphones, electric guitars, an amplified acoustic guitar, a stacked bank of keyboards displayed in the three-sides of a square and a mass of amplifiers and small monitor speakers facing away from the audience. There was no way this was to be the classical guitar recital he had expected. Euan stood up and prepared to leave. He then noticed a classical guitar on a stand next to a hard-backed chair and a flute resting on a grand piano. The guitar looked out of place and inconsequential among its louder cousins. Euan watched a few disinterested and dishevelled people poking about on stage, making and testing connections and tuning instruments. Euan squinted in the cavern-like lighting and recognised Michael tuning one of the electric guitars. Euan was surprised but sat down anyway. He waited, expecting to be disappointed.

  The random activity on stage reduced until all the musicians were stationary in their allotted positions and two other people had jumped off the front of the stage and walked to a large mixing desk not far from Euan. Classical, symphonic music swelled though the stack of speakers on the side of the stage. Euan smiled. Maybe this will be something different and good after all, he thought.

  One of the band members began softly playing the acoustic guitar in unison with the recorded music. The recording faded and the guitar played a crescendo in a chord sequence that held back from a resolution. The band exploded into a new, and unrelated, key. Euan was overwhelmed with the volume, intensity of playing and the complexity of the music.

  Michael played a theme and then variations on the electric guitar, the keyboards provided counterpoint with the keyboard player using his hands on different instruments, the acoustic guitar added
lightness to the music at odds with the bass and drums. The music was very loud. Euan did not know which instrument to concentrate on. He heard the drums reproducing the variations from the guitar and blending them with the counterpoint of the keyboards. He tried to listen to only the drummer and understood he was joining the music together. He shifted his focus from instrument to instrument and tried to untangle each melodic line. He failed. He gave up and listened to the whole. After a few minutes he realised the music, so far, was a long overture.

  Euan did not know music like that existed. There was the guttural, whole-body experience of over-loud music and there was, also, the delicate structures of theme and variations. Michael tempted his audience, he gave hints of longer musical themes and morphed those themes into new themes from prior variations. Strange sounds arose from the guitar as if Michael was stretching the instrument beyond its limit, like a jazz saxophonist might achieve.

  There was a particularly beautiful, melancholy melody that Michael hinted at in the first minutes and each time it was begun the band softened their playing style as if they were forced to be subservient. Before the melody was complete, Michael moved on to another theme and the band would follow.

  Euan lost track of time. The music forced emotions on him, as if he had ceded control of himself to a group of strangers. His only possible response was to leave, he could not alter how he felt. Euan was forced to remember things: joyous times as a child, confused times, angry times and, by the incomplete melody, deep melancholy. Euan thought of a lifetime spent without Clare and was jealous that Michael was able to force that thought onto him.

  There were microphones on stands that looked like they were waiting for a singer but there had been no singing, or any room in the music for a human voice. The acoustic guitar player looked like he may be a singer, he remained close to the centre of the stage, but he looked as overcome by the music as Euan. However, the acoustic guitar player shook off his reverie, stepped to the microphone and drew breath. The band coalesced around one of the themes and the singer’s high pitched, delicate, amplified voice rung out over the top of the other instruments. The amplification allowed the singer to sing softly and purely. The instruments on stage were increased by one.

  Many themes introduced during the overture were sung but at times the guitar or the keyboards would carry the melody, the singer was not paramount in that music. A discordant variation reminded Euan of a Britten quartet and he remembered his conversation with Michael the previous evening. When that section had gone on for too long and was too loud, it came to a messy crescendo and then dissolved into the complete melancholy melody Michael had heralded during the overture. The confusion faded away, the discords gone and the difficult time signatures became a flowing 3/4. The singer played, on the flute, a simple counterpoint to the melody on Michael’s guitar. Euan was overcome with a sadness he did not have.

  The soft music did not herald the end, it was like the eye in the centre of a hurricane. The loud music returned until the band played a coda based on the melancholy melody but loud, fast and in a major key. The last few bars quickly switched back to the minor and the ending was a gentle conclusion to a hectic and charged journey. The last chords were played on the mellotron bringing the beauty of the orchestra to the last seconds. Euan was reminded of the end of Wagner’s Ring Cycle.

  The silence made Euan aware of his surroundings for the first time since the music had started. There was scattered applause from the few groups of people in the auditorium. Euan guessed there were at most thirty people in attendance. It was a great shame that so few had witnessed that performance.

  Michael put his electric guitar away and sat in the chair next to the classical guitar.

  ‘Did you like that? I knew you would.’ Two women were seated directly behind Euan. He had been unaware of them. It was Kate and Clare. Kate had asked the question.

  ‘When did you come in?’ Euan turned in his seat to look at them.

  ‘I told you you’d like Michael,’ Kate said.

  ‘Just after the music started,’ Clare answered Euan’s question. ‘Kate said not to disturb you.’

  Euan wondered what to say next. His body was twisted so that he could look at the women. One arm was across his chest holding onto the back of the seat so that his body did not uncoil. He was uncomfortable. Michael began playing his classical guitar and Euan wanted to watch his technique. He began to untwist his body so that he faced forward. He wondered if he should get out of his seat and go and sit next to the women but Kate was on the outside and if he moved he would be sitting next to her and not Clare.

  ‘Would you like to go and get a coffee?’ Clare asked quickly as if forcing the words out. It was the question Euan had been too fearful to ask.

  ‘Now?’ Euan asked. He re-tightened his grip on the back seat to re-twist his body towards the women.

  ‘Why not now?’ Kate asked angrily.

  ‘No, no reason,’ Euan hesitated. ‘Now is good.’

  Euan got out his seat and shuffled along to the aisle. Kate stood as if she was also coming but sat down again once Clare had wriggled passed her. Euan and Clare walked up the centre aisle and out of the theatre. At the top of the steps, before leaving, Euan stopped and watched, for a moment, Michael playing classical guitar. He played well. Euan was jealous.

  It is difficult to celebrate success in other people when they share a skill but are better.

  Chapter 5

  Clare led Euan to a small cafe near the University. It faced the Botanic gardens across a road that was never busy. The cafe had a rustic, welcoming atmosphere, not at all like the University cafeteria’s formica cavern. They sat at a small, window-side table overlooking the road with the gardens on the far side.

  ‘I expected you to call me after that dinner. Isn’t that the normal thing to do? You know, mutual friends go to all the trouble to set us up and you don’t follow it through. It seems a waste.’ Clare laughed.

  Euan could not explain why he had not called. It was too silly and too childish now that he sat across the table from her. He was not nervous with Clare, his fear was of embarrassment, not of women.

  ‘Did you enjoy that music?’ he asked.

  ‘Not really. It was too loud. I prefer acoustic music really. Country stuff, from home, mostly. But Kate insisted that I go with her. She thought you might be there.’

  ‘I thought it was great. One of the best things I’ve heard. I didn’t notice anything else.’

  ‘I could see that. I was watching you. It was cute,’ she said. ‘Does that bother you? Being watched.’

  Euan laughed. ‘No.’

  ‘It’s nice that you can be so overcome by something.’

  ‘I didn’t want the music to end,’ he said with resignation, almost regret.

  ‘But you left before it was over,’ Clare said.

  ‘Yes,’ Euan said emphatically. ‘I did.’

  Euan remembered an excess of detail from that afternoon with Clare, as if his life was more concentrated over those first hours with her. He always remembered the taste of that cafe’s blend of coffee and the afternoon sun as it struck the wooden floor with the reflections from the floating specks of dust raised by customers and staff as they walked passed Euan and Clare’s table. He can remember watching Clare’s long fingers as she moved her hands in circles when her conversation became animated. Euan thought his new world, the one that included Clare, was wonderful.

  They talked until they left the cafe late in the afternoon. They went elsewhere to have an evening meal but Euan can’t remember the restaurant with the definition of the cafe, by then the location was unimportant, there was only Clare and she fills his memory of the rest of their first evening together. There was no sex that night. Euan went home, alone, after midnight. He contemplated masturbating but, strangely for him, the thought was inappropriate. He did not require relief and forgetfulness. He slept that night without remembering his dreams. There was no need of a brave death and resurrection sin
ce he had found, he thought, the unfocussed face of his dreams.

  The next morning, when Euan could not concentrate on his work, he left his office at the University and went for an idle walk through the Botanic gardens. It was an unusual thing for him to do.

  The gardens were celebrating autumn and Euan, naturally, thought only of Clare as he walked. He felt foolish and young but in the privacy of the gardens, mid-morning and mid-week, he did not mind allowing his pleasure to carry him to extremes. He smiled idiotically while keeping half an eye out for other patrons. His pleasure was a unique discovery.

  He walked without purpose, only to stay within the bounds of the gardens, and tried to name his new feeling. He was scientist so he had to find a description, but he failed to find a meaningful label. His ideas were silly, nonsensical and child-like. However, one phrase stuck with him although it was unscientific and embarrassing in its contradiction. Joyful melancholy, Euan decided, described his happiness, since at the beginning of a journey all directions are forward but change involves loss. His melancholy was not sadness, it was contradictory. It was uplifting but contained weakness as well as hope. He smiled with satisfaction that he had labelled his unique feeling and returned to simply walking and enjoying the emotion.

  Euan remembered the strings from the mellotron during the final chords of the lunchtime concert and he walked through the gardens with a musical accompaniment. The trees and shadows were figures in a movie with background music playing in his head. Euan was the movie camera and all possibilities were under his direction. He could make them happen by thought alone. He thought of Clare and true to all low grade movie scripts she appeared. She walked purposively towards Euan, with her head down, unaware that he was there. Euan blinked, expecting the apparition to disappear. She saw him when she was close.

  ‘Hi,’ she said with pleasure. ‘What are you doing here?’