Читать книгу The Ann Ireland Library - Ann Ireland - Страница 6

Pamela frowns over her bifocals and makes that scratchy noise in her throat that drives Toby nuts. Very slim and brittle, she glares at the manuscript page on her music stand as if the notes were in a foreign language. Toby taps his baton on the side of his own stand.

“Let’s jump in at bar twelve, kids,” he says. “Right after the key change.”

This reference to “kids” is a joke, given that the members of Guitar Choir are all at least a dozen years older than Toby and a couple are pushing sixty.

“Twelve?” Pamela repeats, eyes widening. “Twelve?” she says again, sounding mystified by the request.

Toby wonders if she’s growing deaf, something that happens to people as they get on in life. He feels a spurt of impatience but fends it off, and instead starts to sing her part, tapping out the beat. At the same time he glances at the wall clock — nearly 4:00 p.m. Soon the after-school crowd will blow in, snapping basketballs in the upstairs gym. This church is multi-use, and Guitar Choir shares space with AA and a Montessori preschool.

The amateur musicians scramble through the passage and onto the next. Their instruments sound a bit like balalaikas, plinking away. Finally, Bill, a retired fireman, cries in recognition, “It’s a Beatles medley!”

Indeed it is — eight songs sewn into a cunning five-minute package by Toby.

“Don’t forget the Parkdale Community Centre concert in two weeks,” Toby reminds them, and they yelp with excitement before coming to a ragged halt.

Then Pamela repeats, “Two weeks?” and lifts her glasses, indicating this is news to her.

Toby tugs his jeans over his narrow hips and inhales deeply. Last night was ball hockey, and he feels it in his upper arms and left shin, where someone nailed him with a stick blade. Then there were the half-dozen post-game beers, and didn’t they end up at The Duke singing Broadway tunes?

“That’s right,” he says brightly. ‘Where were we? Bar forty-something.”

“Forty-three,” Bill supplies.

Toby runs a hand through what’s left of his hair and gives Pamela a meaningful look. “Note that second guitars enter a bar later.”

She actually smiles, that strained face pleased to be recognized.

The choir chugs on, tight with concentration while Toby keeps the beat and cues entrances. Tom, who rarely gets the rhythm right, is lagging on “Norwegian Wood” while the others trot into “The Long and Winding Road.” Toby sings his part, coaxing him back into the fold. For a few lines everything goes smoothly. It is one of those moments where effort turns into music, and they feel it, hardly dare to hope it will continue.

It is Matthew, the lawyer, who breaks the spell.

“Someone’s out of step!” he protests, and the group staggers to a halt again.

“Don’t quit!” Toby pleads. He continues to wave his baton, but it’s no use. They sit in silence, a dozen grizzled faces staring at him, waiting for guidance.

“Quitting might be the advisable position,” Matthew says, leaning back in his chair and cradling his instrument.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Pamela asks.

Matthew doesn’t answer right away. Instead he tilts his head and looks into the distance before answering, “The Beatles. Is this what we want to play?”

Here goes. About twice a year Matthew likes to cause trouble. Last time it was over seating arrangements; another time he got the idea they should all use the same kind of strings, the most expensive ones available.

“I’m not fond of what happens when classical players get hold of pop music,” Matthew adds.

Toby secretly agrees with this, but still feels a flare of irritation. He’d been so sure they would love playing the songs of their youth.

There is a short, tense silence, then Toby jumps in, tapping the stand with his baton. “Where do we pick it up?” he asks cheerily.

“Sixty-four,” someone says.

“Sixty-seven,” another disagrees. “Didn’t we begin ‘Strawberry Fields?’”

Matthew is mumbling something about copyright issues. Do they even have the right to sample these tunes?

Finally, the group settles back into playing and makes it to the next transition, an upbeat version of “A Day in the Life” where again they falter.

Pamela says in a tragic tone, “This arrangement is blisteringly hard.” She’s been a member of Guitar Choir since day one and organizes the annual fundraiser. As she looks around, anticipating agreement, her seatmate, Bert, ventures, “Not so hard if you count carefully.”

Pamela snaps back, “Perhaps if you quit tapping your foot on the offbeat —”

Matthew says in a tone of laboured patience, “Counting is not the only issue here.”

“Well, genius boy?” Pamela says, looking back at Toby. This term has begun to sound sardonic over the years. “We could perform the trusty Albéniz instead,” she adds, waiting for the others to support this idea.

They squirm in their chairs; everyone is a little scared of Pamela. The Albéniz features her seven-bar solo, which she plays meticulously and without a shred of musical expression.

“I’m with Matthew,” Tristan pipes up from the back row. He’s pastor of some weird church in the city’s east end. “Let’s get back to real music.”

Toby collapses his arms to his sides. “I thought you’d get a kick out of playing these songs.” His lower back is killing him; Jasper promised to hire a Korean girl to walk up and down his spine.

“We do,” Pamela says, sensing Toby’s mood. “It’s always like this. We flounder, we work, and we eventually succeed.”

“Do you think we’re getting noticeably better?” Tristan asks plaintively.

“Of course,” Toby says, but hears his voice sounding less than convinced. It’s a good question: are they better? They seem to have plateaued. Guitar Choir began nine years ago, beginning as a sort of therapy for him after the Paris incident.

“Because this is the high point of my week,” Tristan says.

Everyone chimes agreement.

Toby feels something melt inside him.

“If we continue another nine years, we’ll have to rename ourselves the Choir of the Ancients,” Matthew says, waiting for the titter of laughter.

“You’ll never leave us, will you?” Bert asks.

They all stare at Toby, waiting for his answer. But he’s not speaking. Instead he’s feeling one of those strange episodes where his sense of smell turns aggressive, wave upon wave of odours, Play-Doh and cleanser, vinyl mats rolled up in the corner, and something else that he can’t pin down. It seems to radiate from his own body, acidic and nasty.

“Toby? You okay?”

It’s Denise, the pretty one, younger than the rest. She tips her guitar against her chair and darts up, sliding a hand over his wrist as he stands there, swaying from side to side. He must have dropped his baton. He heard it fall, a clatter of fibreglass against tile.

“Can I get you a glass of water?”

His lips are suddenly parched. “Please,” he croaks, lowering himself onto the stool, legs dangling. The women scurry about as he unzips his leather jacket and loosens his collar. He hasn’t felt this claustro in years. Is that his heart ping-ponging inside his chest? Tiny points of light hit his retina, and he shakes his head.Whoa, bad idea: the room swims by.

Denise presses a glass of water into his hands, and he sips gratefully. Whiff of chlorine and fluoride.

“Know something, gang,” he says after a minute. “I may have to call it quits today.”

“Of course,” Denise agrees, squeezing his shoulder.

“How will you get home?” someone asks. They know he doesn’t drive.

“I’ll run him back,” Denise offers.

“No, let me,” Pamela says, popping her guitar in her case. “Don’t you have to pick up your kids?”

Should have eaten a proper lunch, Toby thinks crossly. No more hot dogs grabbed off a street vendor: sunk by fat and carbs. He drains the water glass, and gradually the room rights itself. His jacket, now gathered on his lap, smells like a stable. They all stare at him, faces pinched with concern. He manages a smile. “I’m feeling better.” It’s true. The heightened senses have begun to settle down.

They aren’t convinced but soon chatter as if it were a normal break period. Tristan offers to go out and fetch coffee; someone else shows off a new digital tuner. Toby feels heat evaporate off his skin.

Matthew approaches, speaking in his plummy trial lawyer’s voice: “You were quite correct in insisting that we finish playing the piece before making any decision. I suggest holding off our vote.” He leans over. “On a different topic, I understand there’s an international guitar competition coming up in Montreal.”

“Right you are,” Toby says.

The room falls nearly silent.

“Any thoughts of entering?”

Toby lets out a jittery laugh. “Last time didn’t go so well for me.”

They all know the story: breakdown, drawn-out recovery, and no public performances since.

“Don’t pressure him,” Denise warns.

“I don’t mind,” Toby says. “In fact, I’m flattered.”

“You are one hell of a musician,” Pamela says.

They have gathered in a semicircle.

“You don’t walk into these things after a decade off performing,” he reminds them.

“You play for us all the time,” Pamela points out.

That’s true. He always rips off a piece or two for them at the end of each session. And when they perform at the old folks’ home or community centre, he’s liable to turn a short solo somewhere in the program.

Tristan re-enters the room, carrying a tray of coffee and a box of assorted Timbits, which he lays on the table.

Eyeing these, Toby says, “A new generation’s come up since me.”

“One needn’t win these things,” Matthew says, “in order to make an impact.”

What they don’t know is that Toby checked the competition website last month and brushed up on the compulsory pieces, two of which he’d played in recital years ago. He studies the group for a moment, noting their eager faces, understanding that they see him as a kind of secret weapon they’ve been holding on to all these years. Maybe he sees himself the same way.

Toby pulls his guitar onto his lap and tunes while Guitar Choir members grab coffees and find their seats. He waits, as he’s taught them to do, for the room to quiet down. Anticipation creates the silent beats before music begins.

“You’re not going home?” Pamela asks, puzzled by the change in plan.

Toby nods “no” while others shush her.

Hands hovering over the strings, he lowers his eyes, then unrolls the opening arpeggio, launching into a neo-classical sonata, pure juicy pleasure, each phrase ducking into the next, the rise and fall of breath twinned to the cadence of sound. The piece is in his hands, has been since he was a teenager. A relief to send it into the world again.

Hardly pausing, he wipes his palms and starts the second piece of the compulsory program, this one a lush Spanish waltz, direct from Andalusia. He ignores the snap of basketballs overhead as the teenagers arrive. Not too fast, for a waltz is graceful, lifting off the third beat.

“Well done,” Matthew booms, but he’s too soon, for Toby isn’t finished yet.

Their parking meters have expired, kids need to be picked up from school, and someone has a dental appointment, but no one leaves, no one dares.

The third piece is a tricky tour de force he learned at age seventeen. It’s sewn into his mind; he could play its stampeding runs in his sleep — and has. He holds it now as a living creature, both tame and wild.

The last note rings a full four beats, then fades to a dot on the horizon. Toby lifts his head and exhales, thrusting his shoulders back. Glance at the clock; he’s been playing for twenty-five minutes.

No one applauds at first, then an amazing thing happens: each member of Guitar Choir rises and claps.

Toby feels his whole body vibrate, the residue of performance clinging to his skin.

Jasper and Toby live at the end of a lane downtown in the lee of a factory that once produced soap and is now waiting for a loft conversion. Half a dozen Victorian-era houses press cheek to jowl opposite a squat cinder-block building that contains a walk-in clinic. This clinic is an eyesore but buffers traffic noise and makes the lane invisible to passersby on King Street West.

Toby digs out his key, but it isn’t necessary; Jasper has left the door open. A thoughtful touch, but faintly irksome: are Toby’s habits so predictable? It didn’t used to be like this. Once upon a time he was about as dependable as a puppy. He kicks off his sneakers and moves through the front room of the flat with its off-white walls and Ikea furniture, past the jumbo-sized chair that until recently belonged to Klaus. Klaus is Toby’s father, now a resident for unknown reasons at Lakeview Terrace. It’s not as if he wasn’t fending well at home. Toby sniffs the air: leek and potato soup, one of Jasper’s specialties.

“You look different,” Jasper says, glancing up as Toby enters the kitchen area. He carefully places the spoon across the rim of the pot.

Toby slides his guitar case into the corner and drops his jacket on a chair. “I feel different.”

The two men approach each other, for this is their ritual, to pause before the welcoming kiss, no silly bear hug, just lips and tongue, bodies held a whisper apart. Jasper, being shorter, has to tilt his head.

When they pull back, Jasper says, “Cough up. Tell Jazz what’s new.”

Toby peels off his shirt, which doesn’t smell exactly floral, and shoots it in the general direction of the laundry hamper. Jasper frowns as he watches the garment flop to the floor.

“I had a sort of attack at Guitar Choir,” Toby says.

“Attack?” Jasper jumps on the word. “How so?”

“Like what used to happen. Only less severe.”

“Did you pass out?”

“No, nothing like that.”

Jasper visibly relaxes, pressing his lower back into the counter, then reaches to turn down the burner under the soup. A fresh baguette sits on a cutting board, the heel torn off and demolished.

Toby goes over to the sink and pours a glass of water, aware, as always, of Jasper’s gaze. He moves his hips a bit more than needed and peers out the window onto the concrete patch where buses idle before heading north toward the subway station. Since they live on the ground floor of the townhouse, views aren’t exactly optimal.

“I don’t like the sound of it,” Jasper says. Neatly dressed in chinos and trim cotton shirt, he has a small head, his features tidy and undramatic. He hates the swell of his stomach, a recent development.

“I ate a crap lunch,” Toby says. “It was probably a blood-sugar dive.”

“Maybe.”

“I recovered quickly.” Toby rinses out his glass and dumps it in the sink. He’s bored with the topic, even though he brought it up. He knows it’s mean to seek concern, then slough it off. Leaking a cautious smile, he says, “Big competition coming up in Montreal.”

“What kind of competition?”

“One of those guitar things.”

Jasper isn’t fooled by his breezy tone. “And?”

“I may toss my hat in the ring.”

“Really?” Jasper knows better than to make a fuss.

Toby prowls the flat, past Klaus’s hulking chair, past the Matisse numbered print — Jasper’s pride and joy — and the shelf of Toby’s house league hockey trophies. He’s never been the sort of musician to baby his hands.

“Chances are I wouldn’t make it to the semifinal,” Toby says, returning to the kitchen. “Hell, I may not make it past the first cull.”

“When did this idea occur to you?” Jasper asks, his voice a little sharp.

“Not long ago. I forget.”

Jasper nods, pretending to believe this. “I would never hold you back from attempting —”

“You can’t,” Toby points out.

“Quite so. But let me remind you that all did not turn out well last time.”

“Eleven years ago.”

“The consequences were fairly dire.”

“Eleven years ago.”

Jasper clears his throat, a picture of calm, as if dealing with one of his clients at work. “Do you really want to subject yourself to that kind of pressure?”

A reasonable question. Toby looks at his partner, feeling his cockiness bleed away.