Hamish and Kate Read online

  The next Thursday evening, Michael and Euan arrived at the cafe. It was the same one Euan had spent his first afternoon with Clare. No-one noticed them as they entered with their classical guitars in their cases. There were more people present than Euan had hoped for. Some were eating desserts but most were sitting around tables drinking wine or bottled beer. As they threaded their way across the venue to a far corner, Michael told Euan that his band had played there, many times, when they first started. The owner was adamant that his venue was for acoustic instruments only, but Michael had, somehow, convinced him that a mellotron was, at heart, an acoustic instrument and had been allowed to use it. His band no longer played small venues with acoustic guitars, stand up bass, percussion, flute and mellotron and Michael missed the intimacy with a small audience.

  Michael stopped a few times to chat to people he knew and while Euan stood behind him waiting, he looked over to the window table where Clare and he had sat that first afternoon. Euan’s reverie did not result in memories of Clare. He wanted the performance with Michael over.

  They sat on stools in a corner and checked the tuning of their guitars. Euan’s hands were shaking.

  ‘I can’t do this Michael,’ Euan was distraught. ‘Look at my hands. How can I play like this?’

  ‘I’m a little nervous too. Does that surprise you? I’ve never given a real classical recital before but these guys,’ he flourished to indicate the audience that were paying them no attention, ‘won’t worry about a few mistakes. Once we start you’ll be fine. If you do make a mistake then, apart from “don’t”, just keep playing.’ Michael played a short scale and then smiled at Euan, who knew the rarity of that look. Michael’s smile added to Euan’s nervousness, he knew Michael must be really worried.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Michael said, trying to be reassuring and failing. ‘It’ll be fun. Ready?’

  They played the first piece from the E minor suite. Michael played the first bars of the Passaggio and then Euan came in and played some of the runs. Euan started the Presto too quickly and Michael frowned to slow him down. Euan’s hands stopped shaking and he played fairly well. He stuffed up a few of the trills but only Michael would have known. Euan concentrated during the first piece of music and looked only at his hands or at Michael for direction. He pointedly ignored the audience. He could not hear any sound other than their playing, it was like the people in the room had disappeared and he and Michael were again playing on their own in Euan’s room. Euan was pleased that his concentration was such that he could remove the audience. He had visions of ignoring a much larger audience. His nervousness had gone and with a great flourish the two of them hit the final E major, almost at the same time.

  Euan looked up at the audience as the final notes rung out. The silence remained. He had not removed the audience by concentration, there was not a single sound in the venue as people stared at the two men holding guitars. Some of the audience were frozen mid-action, with raised drinking glasses. Every set of eyes were on either Michael or Euan, who had an urge to look behind him because some terrifying scene must be acting out. The audience erupted into applause which lasted so long that Michael stood and gave a mock bow. He pleaded for silence because they had more music to play. The noise from the audience increased after Michael asked for silence. He sat down and lent over to Euan.

  ‘Was that fun? That was fun,’ Michael said.

  They played through all the Suites, twice, and by the end of the evening the venue was packed. The owner was happy as owners are when their venues are filled with patrons buying things. As they left, the owner stopped Michael and beamed, asking him to return whenever he wanted. Preferably every night until his popularity subsided.

  Euan and Michael regularly played small acoustic venues from then on.

  A month later, Michael telephoned Euan at his office at the University. He sounded worried.

  ‘Ah, I’ve just had a telephone call and I told them I’d have to ask you first,’ Michael said, confusing Euan with the lack of explanation. Michael was silent as if he expected Euan to have understood his request and was waiting for a reply. ‘They want to slot us into the Festival,’ Michael continued. ‘Ah, we’d be a main act. On Saturday night. Next week.’ Michael stuttered to a halt as if it had been difficult to get the words out. Euan did not understand why Michael sounded nervous.

  ‘That would be good wouldn’t it?’ Euan asked. ‘Where would we play.’

  Michael was annoyed. ‘You’re not listening Euan,’ he said. ‘I said, at the Festival. Saturday night. At the Concert Hall, of course.’

  Euan understood and immediately felt light headed. They were being asked to perform at an international festival of classical musicians, before an audience that would find mistakes in presentation, interpretation, tempo, anything and everything.

  ‘Why did they ask for us?’ Euan asked, hoping it was all a mistake or some weird joke of Michael’s.

  ‘What I’ve been told is that they want to add some local colour, something a little different. What can be done to modernise a classic, without turning it into Muzak. One of the organisers has heard us play and liked it. They know we’ll draw a mixed crowd and it is, well, Bach. And,’ he said, and by his altered deadpan response Euan guessed he was amused, ‘they had someone pull out at the last minute. What do you think?’

  ‘Can we say no?’ Euan asked.

  Michael sighed. ‘Not really,’ he said.

  During the Saturday of their performance, Euan wondered if it was possible to die simply from nervousness. He was way beyond worry and embarrassment, he sustained a physical and mental ailment. As he drove to the concert hall he seriously considered a motor accident that would, gratefully, render him incapacitated. He dreamed of crossing the median strip and crashing into oncoming traffic. He parked his car and raced inside the hall to the toilets, where he threw up.

  Euan returned to the toilets many times as he waited before their performance. When he washed his face, he stared at the person in the mirror, angry at him for agreeing to such a stupid idea. He wanted to return to his safe and silent room and lock his front door forever. He dreamed of being alone. He returned from his last trip to the toilets just before he was due on stage.

  ‘You look horrible,’ Michael said. He was standing just off stage, holding his guitar by the neck.

  Euan had a wonderful idea and was disappointed that he had not thought of it earlier. He did not need to die or be injured to stop their performance, damaging his guitar would be sufficient. Euan rehearsed in his mind the action of smashing his guitar on the ground at his feet.

  ‘Thanks,’ Euan said sarcastically. ‘This is going to be bad, isn’t it?’ Of course, he could not damage his guitar. The inevitable humiliation and extreme embarrassment was seconds and meters away.

  ‘Possibly not,’ Michael said.

  Michael began his march across the stage and Euan followed immediately behind, hoping to be unnoticed in Michael’s wake.

  It was a large audience and their applause, as the two of them walked on stage, did not calm Euan. He thought he and Michael looked like a silent-era comedy duo.

  The performance started badly. They began with Suite I, the E minor suite, and unfortunately, Euan had the music open in front of him. He was so nervous that he doubted his capacity to remember and instead of playing from memory he read the music. The notation was unfamiliar and he had a moment of panic, thinking it was the wrong music. He played mechanically, he did not trust his physical memory, he didn’t let his hands play unhindered. He changed position on the guitar as if it was the first time he was attempting that piece of music. He played F naturals instead of F sharps.

  Michael stopped playing. He sighed and looked to the roof of the auditorium. He reached across and put his hand over the strings of Euan’s guitar. He slowly stood, methodically placed his guitar on his chair, lifted Euan’s music from its stand, carefully shut the book of music and flung it across the stage with a flourish. He bowed to the lar
ge audience as if to apologise for his inept assistant.

  ‘That was the modern, twelve-tone interpretation. Now, we’ll play in the same key. Both of us.’ He looked sternly at Euan and wagged his finger.

  The audience laughed as if it was part of the act.

  Euan was horrified. His mouth opened in shock and embarrassment as if he had been wrongly accused of an illicit act. An audience often wants to enjoy a performance and will laugh at anything. They laughed at Euan’s failure like it was a well planned routine and they laughed harder at his wide-eyed look of shock.

  Michael and Euan started again. The audience took its cue from the comic opening. They laughed at some of Michael’s flourishes as he passed control to Euan and at Michael’s comic actions as they raced some of the faster sections in unison. Euan played the straight man and, after their restart, he played without obvious errors. The audience applauded after each Suite, which Michael encouraged, and there was sustained applause once they had finished.

  The critical and the popular crowd loved them. They became celebrities, for the short time that those things last.

  Chapter 17

  ‘Are you busy?’ Clare said. She had appeared at the open doorway into Euan’s office and waited as she watched him look up from his desk and swivel in his chair to face her.

  ‘No, not really,’ Euan said. He was surprised to see her. He had spoken to Clare a few times since their talk in the cafe, they had been greetings in passing. He had been busy, and distracted, by his Physics work and by music performance and rehearsals with Michael. He no longer had space in his life for Clare and had been relieved that she had not responded to his plan of studied absence.

  ‘I’ve been thinking. I wanted to talk to you instead of using the telephone,’ she said. ‘Have you got time now or should I come back later?’

  ‘No, now is good.’

  ‘Can I shut the door?’ Clare asked but shut the door before Euan replied.

  Euan moved his one visitor’s chair nearer his desk.

  Clare was nervous. ‘Kate has been telling me about how you’re doing all this music with Michael. About how you’re getting on with things.’

  ‘Yes, it’s fun at the moment.’

  ‘It must be,’ Clare said. She was tentative and unsure. ‘Do classical musicians have groupies?’ She laughed thinly.

  ‘None that I’ve seen. Unless Michael is keeping them all to himself.’ Euan smiled.

  Clare talked, nervously, of nothing of importance. Euan understood why she had come to see him. He listened to the sound of her voice, her staccato cadences, like he was listening to music. He did not need to hear what she was saying. Without understanding why, perhaps out of a misguided feeling of compassion, Euan stood and held out his hand to Clare. She took it, stood and then enfolded him in a hug.

  Euan stared over Clare’s shoulder and out of his office windows. It was a warm day and a dark band in the west signified an approaching storm front. He wondered if that was to be the cold-front that, finally, returned winter. It was, again, April.

  Euan wondered, with Clare in his arms and her head nestled against his shoulder, why had Kate again intervened.

  Chapter 18

  Clare and Euan were once again a couple in time for the skiing season. They lived the normal day-to-day life that had left Euan dissatisfied before Clare left, to return home for Christmas. Again, when she was absent he did not miss her.

  Euan’s proficiency on skis increased and by mid-winter he could keep up with Kate, Clare and Hamish on all the runs they preferred. He was ungainly, especially compared with the grace of the two American women, and he was always last but he did not keep them waiting and he did not require assistance.

  Euan enjoyed their weekly, weather dependant, trips to stay at the University’s lodge. He enjoyed those two nights of each week more than the other nights he spent with Clare. He preferred the communal time with Kate and Hamish more than the time alone with Clare. Michael had been correct in predicting the outcome of Euan’s pursuit of Clare.

  ‘You seem pretty distracted,’ Euan said to Kate. They were standing at the top of a steep slope. Clare and Hamish were part of the way down already.

  Kate smiled at Euan but it quickly faded. ‘Yes, I am,’ she said.

  ‘Reason?’

  ‘Nothing that concerns you,’ she said quickly.

  ‘I was just asking,’ he said angrily, interpreting her abruptness as rudeness.

  She smiled again and did not let it fade. ‘Sorry, Euan. I meant nothing you can help with.’

  Hamish stopped on the slope and waved his arm, signalling his concern that Kate was OK. She waved back to indicate she was.

  ‘He’s got an offer of a job,’ she said. ‘The USGS at Woods Hole. In Massachusetts.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’

  ‘Do you?’ she asked angrily. Euan was surprised at her response.

  ‘It means he won’t be here, doesn’t it?’ he said. ‘But, at least, he’ll be over there, for when you go home.’

  ‘There’s that.’

  ‘It’s good for the two of you, I would have thought,’ he said. ‘In the long run.’

  ‘Do you have any idea what’s going on around you Euan?’ Kate was annoyed. She stared at him and made him uncomfortable. ‘I wonder if you are even awake most of the time.’

  ‘I’m not stupid, Kate,’ Euan did not respond to her anger. ‘It’s simpler to ignore stuff, that’s all.’

  ‘Well,’ she said. She looked down the slope to where Hamish was catching up to Clare. ‘That’s a relief, in one way.’

  ‘When would he go?’ Euan asked.

  ‘Soon,’ she said. ‘A few weeks.’

  ‘And you?’

  She waited. ‘At least another year.’

  ‘Do you want to follow him? After you’re finished?’ Euan asked.

  Kate smiled and touched his shoulder.

  ‘I’m glad you’re awake today Kiwi,’ she said and slid away from him.

  Chapter 19

  A month later, Euan and Clare accompanied Kate to the airport, to farewell Hamish. Kate and Hamish did not linger on their goodbye, Hamish left them as soon as he had checked in his luggage. Kate inherited Hamish’s car and she dropped Euan outside his home after a whirlwind trip to the airport and back. Euan sat on his bed, picked up his guitar and began to practice.

  After darkness had come Euan answered a knock on his door. It was Kate.

  ‘I don’t want to be alone, Kiwi,’ Kate said. ‘Is that being weak?’

  ‘Where’s Clare?’ Euan asked. He had not yet invited her in. ‘Isn’t she at home?’

  ‘No, she went to the University. I think she thought I’d prefer to be alone.’

  ‘Oh,’ Euan said. He remembered a time when not knowing where Clare was in the evening would have made him frantic. ‘Come in, of course.’

  Kate sat in one of Euan’s two lounge chairs.

  ‘I haven’t had dinner yet, do you want something?’ Euan asked. He hovered over her.

  ‘I didn’t come to invite myself for a meal,’ she said. ‘Is it a bad time? I’m sorry, I’ll go.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. You can watch me eat if you want to, or you can eat as well. Whatever you want,’ Euan said.

  ‘All right then. Yes, I’ll have dinner with you,’ she said. ‘What are we having?’ she asked brightly and smiled.

  ‘Pasta. That’s the extent of the menu, sorry.’

  ‘That’s fine. Really.’

  At one end of Euan’s one roomed apartment there was a small kitchen, made separate by a projecting part-wall. He went into the kitchen and got out some pots.

  ‘What were you going to do tonight, Kiwi? If I hadn’t interrupted you,’ Kate asked.

  ‘Nothing. Just some practice.’

  ‘I won’t stop you will I? Can you play if I’m here to watch?’ she asked.

  Euan came out from behind the part-wall.

  ‘After playing at the Concert Hall, practising in front of yo
u will be nothing,’ he said and smiled.

  ‘I was there that night. Did you know that?’ she asked.

  ‘Were you?’ Euan was holding two pots, one in each hand, as if presenting them for selection.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You never told me.’

  ‘No. But I was there. I nearly died for you at the start. But, Michael saved it all, didn’t he? It was really great after that. You were really great, I mean.’

  ‘Was anyone else there? I mean, Hamish or someone.’

  ‘No. Just me. And a thousand others,’ she laughed.

  Euan laughed with her at the memory of his nervousness, although the recollection of his embarrassment caused his heart to thump. He and Michael had tidied up their comic routine and their larger concerts began with Euan causing a serious error corrected by Michael. Euan’s shocked face was a standard element guaranteed to cause laughter.

  They ate a plate of pasta each, sitting at Euan’s table. Their reflections in the glass windows, with the night outside, mirrored their actions as if another couple watched on. Kate cleaned up and washed the few dishes while Euan picked up his guitar and began to practice.

  As Kate washed and dried the dishes, she turned and watched her image at the sink and the image of Euan, in the other section of the room, sitting on his bed playing guitar. She smiled at the domesticity. It seemed right to her.

  ‘What’s that?’ Kate said, as she dried the last dish and looked for a place to put the damp tea-towel.

  ‘That’s something I wrote,’ Euan called out.

  ‘It’s nice,’ she said and walked out into the room and sat in a lounge chair.

  ‘Yes, well,’ Euan was diffident. ‘It’s not Bach but I like it.’

  ‘Does it have a name?’ she asked.