‘Classical can mean all sorts.’
‘String quartets?’
Now his interest did quicken a little. ‘Is that what it says she had on her iPod?’
‘You can read it if you like.’
‘It’s not so remarkable,’ he said. ‘A lot of people like listening to chamber music. Could I have my coffee topped up?’
‘Need your caffeine, do you? Bad night?’ She shuffled towards the kitchen area. ‘Or heavy day coming up?
‘They’re all heavy. I’m learning a difficult piece.’
She returned far too quickly for Mel’s liking with the cafetière and the Daily Mail. ‘You might like to see it. Bath gets in the papers quite often, but unpleasant things like this are rare, thank the Lord.’
‘Thanks,’ he said, back to his denial of any interest, ‘only I don’t think I have the time right now.’
‘Have a quick look at the picture anyway,’ she said. ‘One of those artists’s impressions, I suppose you’d call it. You wouldn’t want to see a dead person’s face at breakfast time. I was thinking she could easily have been in the audience for one of your recitals.’
‘If she was, I wouldn’t have noticed,’ Mel said. ‘I have to give all my attention to the music.’
She was lingering again, her hand on the back of his chair. ‘Or you could have seen her after, hanging about to get your autograph. I’ve heard that you’re famous, you and the Stark Arty Quartet.’
‘Staccati. The others may be well known, but I’m not. I’m a late arrival, filling in for someone who dropped out. Nobody wants my autograph.’
‘Don’t put yourself down, Mel. Plenty of young ladies are dewy-eyed about you when you’re playing, I’ll be bound.’
The face on the front of the paper lacked any personality. He turned it over and pretended to take an interest in the football. Mrs. Carlyle finally moved away. It crossed his mind that in future he might make a show of listening to his own iPod at breakfast. Would she take the hint? He couldn’t depend on it.
The quartet was supposed to be rehearsing Schubert’s Death and the Maiden at the Michael Tippett Centre, but Cat had phoned to say she had a bad headache and wouldn’t be coming in.
Ivan was unforgiving. ‘Women and headaches. That can mean anything. If I get a headache I take a painkiller. It’s about loyalty to the rest of us. What are we supposed to do – practise our scales?’
Mel said, ‘She must be in a bad way to miss a session. Shouldn’t we give her the benefit of the doubt?’
Anthony spoke up. ‘We can practise without her.’
Ivan shook his head. ‘This of all pieces requires the cello at the centre of things. It’s the way it’s arranged, with the rest of us responding to her variations. We’ll be all at sea.’
‘We can do the first variation. That’s mine essentially.’
‘A few bars and then what?’ Ivan said. ‘She becomes the soloist in the next. We can’t work through it piecemeal, picking the sections that suit us.’
‘Why not?’ Anthony said in his uncompromising way.
‘Because it will do more harm than good.’
‘I can’t think why.’
‘We lose the flow, the unity, the tempo, that’s why. It’s not just a waste of our time. It’s an insult to the composer. What do you say, Mel?’
After that, it was difficult to know what to say. ‘I see the difficulty –’
‘In that case, I’m not staying,’ Anthony said. He slammed his violin into its case and was off like the bishop who woke up in a brothel.
Ivan sighed and said to Mel, ‘I was about to suggest we looked for an alternative piece, something with less cello. He wouldn’t have agreed. He can’t deal with changes of plan.’
‘Pity. We needed him. There isn’t much two of us can do.’
‘He’s a fine player – brilliant, in fact – but as a personality he can be impossible. Well, you just saw. I ought to be used to his ways by now. Cat handles him better than I do. And so did Harry when he was with us.’
‘Did you know about this side of him when the quartet formed?’
‘Not really. We were so impressed by his musicianship that we overlooked the signs of oddity in his personal dealings with us. You expect eccentricity among musicians and we forgave the occasional outburst.’
‘Cat was telling me he doesn’t have much of a life outside his music.’
‘None at all that I’m aware of – which makes it so much more of a crisis each time anything upsets the arrangements. Shall we go for a coffee?’