Finally, Cat spoke. ‘Don’t know about you dudes, but that was good enough for me.’ She turned to Anthony. ‘What do you say?’
‘I’m easy.’
‘We know that, honey, but what about the playing?’
‘I said – I’m easy.’
Cat turned to Ivan. ‘We can take that as affirmative – I think. What’s your opinion?’
‘Of what?’
‘Of the combo.’
‘I wish you wouldn’t use that expression.’
‘Here we go again,’ she said. ‘Forty minutes of bliss with Beethoven and it doesn’t take ten seconds to start another spat.’
‘It’s unseemly.’
‘Give me strength. What do you want us to be known as – the Ivan Bogdanov Players?’
‘Now you’re being offensive.’
‘It would be, stuck with a name like yours.’ She raised a hand. ‘All right, that was out of order. Sometimes you drive me to it. Back to my question: do we have a future together? I think we do, and Anthony is easy – which coming from him is as good as a twenty-one-gun salute. Are you up for it?’
Ivan sniffed. ‘Allowing that Mr. Farran was my suggestion in the first place, I give my consent, but with reservations.’
‘What’s your problem?’ Cat said.
Mel was increasingly uncomfortable. ‘Should I go outside while you discuss this?’
‘For the love of Mike, no,’ Cat said. ‘We’re talking about reviving the quartet and everyone deserves a say.’
‘Then we’d better bring in Douglas,’ Ivan said.
‘He can go bark at the moon. He’ll take his twenty percent whatever we decide. And if we’re down to a trio he’ll want twenty-five. What’s eating you, Ivan?’
‘I’m going to propose we agree to a trial period of, say, three months. If, for some reason, it doesn’t work as well as we hope, we can review it then.’
‘Why? When you and I started there was no trial period or the rest of us would have kicked you out for sure.’
‘You don’t mean that.’
‘I mean the first bit – no trial period. I like equality. If Mel is joining us, he won’t want second-class status.’
‘Perhaps we should ask him.’
And that was how Mel found himself in the hot seat. He cleared his throat and said, ‘If you’re serious about inviting me in, I’d like to know more about you.’
This silenced them for a beat or two.
Cat said, ‘Such as?’
‘What’s the name of your quartet?’
Even more hesitation.
Ivan said, ‘One matter we must discuss at an early stage is whether to adopt a new name.’
Mel gained in confidence. ‘What’s wrong with the old one?’
‘We had a quartet, a successful one, but it no longer exists.’
‘What happened?’
‘Our violist left.’
No one added to the bald statement. Mel could hear them breathing.
‘Over a disagreement?’
‘Not that I’m aware of.’
Finally Cat said, ‘You don’t have to be so mysterious, Ivan. Harry went missing in Budapest four years ago when we were playing there. Nobody has seen him since. He’s a missing person. We’ve been marking time ever since in the hope he’ll walk in one day. It hasn’t happened so we faced reality and started looking for a replacement.’
Mel turned to Ivan. ‘And you want to buy more time in case he does turn up?’
Ivan reddened.
‘He won’t,’ Cat said. ‘We would have heard by now. Something final must have happened.’
‘Was he acting strangely?’
‘We’re all strange, ducky, as you must have worked out for yourself by now. If you want my opinion, Harry was the closest to normal.’
‘Was there a disagreement?’
‘Disagreements are the stock-in-trade of string quartets. We’re strong-minded people, even Anthony, as you’ll discover. But there was nothing more than the usual to and fro over the score of whichever piece we were playing. We all bring something to the party and it makes for a more exciting performance.’
‘Then you haven’t played together for how long?’
‘A couple of years, give or take. We tried, but for one reason and another – most of them crap viola players – it hasn’t worked out, so we’ve had to do our own thing – teaching and orchestral work and stuff we wouldn’t want anyone else to know.’
Ivan said, ‘We haven’t made it public that the quartet stopped appearing. We’ve been fading away.’
‘Faded,’ Cat said.
‘I’d still like to know the name.’