Read Online Adam: A Sensuous Coming of Age Tale by Anthony McDonald - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Anthony McDonald
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the recording studio, the actor in rehearsal, was asked: ‘ One more time please, just the same.’ (Somebody moved, a shadow passed, a dog barked, we forgot to switch the machine on.) Trying to repeat a Sunday afternoon frolic in a clearing on a cliff-edge and to expect it to go exactly as before seemed to Adam a childish folly. Better to be sensible. Wait. Things would take their course. Above all, don’t look … eager.
There was a guest for lunch this Sunday. Not, for a change, one of his father’s engineering colleagues with radical ideas about grouting – Adam was slightly relieved – but a music teacher friend of Jennifer’s (goodbye relief) and her husband who was a local vet. Lunch was later than usual and went on longer. With every English person’s dread of cooking for French guests and being found wanting, Jennifer had made superhuman efforts in the kitchen. She had not quite reached the eureka moment of discovering that French guests were really not so hard to please. Nothing they were offered by English hosts, however simple, however surprising, turned out to be anything like as ghastly as their upbringing and education had led them to expect; they usually left the table greatly relieved at the very least, and sometimes pleasantly surprised.
When it wasn’t focused on food, conversation turned from time to time to music. ‘You told me,’ said Marie-France, the music teacher, ‘that you were at college with Gary Blake.’
‘ That’s right,’ said Jennifer, pleased of the chance to speak of an illustrious acquaintance. ‘ Though I don’t know exactly what he’s doing now. We had a card at Christmas. He does know that we’re in France, at least.’
‘ Ah,’ said Marie-France, brightening at the chance to tell her colleague something she did not know. ‘ He’s taking a break from the recital circuit. Wants to settle to a little more composition.’ She sat back in her chair and bit off a morsel of bread and cheese in triumph.
Adam knew Gary Blake. Knew of him, at any rate. He was a pianist of some repute who had started out in Britain but made his home in Paris for the last few years. Adam remembered his occasional television appearances during his childhood, sometimes as soloist, sometimes talking about music, and remembered his mother unfailingly pointing him out and saying: ‘ He came to your christening you know.’
‘ He came to Adam’s christening, you know,’ said Jennifer and Adam slid lower in his chair. ‘ I really must get in touch again. Now that we’re over here.’
Marie-France turned to Adam. ‘I know it’s Sunday,’ she said, with the easy charm that her English counterparts so often missed, ‘ but will we have a chance to hear something from you after lunch?’
A year younger and he might have thrown a teenage tantrum and marched out ‘to go for a walk’. But the fact that he actually had an appointment down in the valley somehow made it impossible for him to say that he wanted to go there. He remained at his post, got out his cello and dutifully played the Sarabande from one of Bach’s solo suites. It went extraordinarily well and he surprised himself as well as his audience with his beauty of tone and depth of feeling. After that he found that the arranged meeting in the valley had taken on a new importance in his mind and it was with a certain solemnity that, at four o’clock, he announced his departure faire une promenade dans le vallon.
He had reached the spring and the sleeper ‘bridge’ almost before he knew it and was immediately disappointed, then cross, to find that Fox was not sitting on the railing. He glanced to where Fox had shown him rainbows dancing in the spray above the spring basin, but the light was different and the springs less boisterous and there were no rainbows. No, he thought, you could not have a complete repetition. Even on the way down he had noticed some changes since last weekend. Hedge-mustard was pushing up its bright
There was a guest for lunch this Sunday. Not, for a change, one of his father’s engineering colleagues with radical ideas about grouting – Adam was slightly relieved – but a music teacher friend of Jennifer’s (goodbye relief) and her husband who was a local vet. Lunch was later than usual and went on longer. With every English person’s dread of cooking for French guests and being found wanting, Jennifer had made superhuman efforts in the kitchen. She had not quite reached the eureka moment of discovering that French guests were really not so hard to please. Nothing they were offered by English hosts, however simple, however surprising, turned out to be anything like as ghastly as their upbringing and education had led them to expect; they usually left the table greatly relieved at the very least, and sometimes pleasantly surprised.
When it wasn’t focused on food, conversation turned from time to time to music. ‘You told me,’ said Marie-France, the music teacher, ‘that you were at college with Gary Blake.’
‘ That’s right,’ said Jennifer, pleased of the chance to speak of an illustrious acquaintance. ‘ Though I don’t know exactly what he’s doing now. We had a card at Christmas. He does know that we’re in France, at least.’
‘ Ah,’ said Marie-France, brightening at the chance to tell her colleague something she did not know. ‘ He’s taking a break from the recital circuit. Wants to settle to a little more composition.’ She sat back in her chair and bit off a morsel of bread and cheese in triumph.
Adam knew Gary Blake. Knew of him, at any rate. He was a pianist of some repute who had started out in Britain but made his home in Paris for the last few years. Adam remembered his occasional television appearances during his childhood, sometimes as soloist, sometimes talking about music, and remembered his mother unfailingly pointing him out and saying: ‘ He came to your christening you know.’
‘ He came to Adam’s christening, you know,’ said Jennifer and Adam slid lower in his chair. ‘ I really must get in touch again. Now that we’re over here.’
Marie-France turned to Adam. ‘I know it’s Sunday,’ she said, with the easy charm that her English counterparts so often missed, ‘ but will we have a chance to hear something from you after lunch?’
A year younger and he might have thrown a teenage tantrum and marched out ‘to go for a walk’. But the fact that he actually had an appointment down in the valley somehow made it impossible for him to say that he wanted to go there. He remained at his post, got out his cello and dutifully played the Sarabande from one of Bach’s solo suites. It went extraordinarily well and he surprised himself as well as his audience with his beauty of tone and depth of feeling. After that he found that the arranged meeting in the valley had taken on a new importance in his mind and it was with a certain solemnity that, at four o’clock, he announced his departure faire une promenade dans le vallon.
He had reached the spring and the sleeper ‘bridge’ almost before he knew it and was immediately disappointed, then cross, to find that Fox was not sitting on the railing. He glanced to where Fox had shown him rainbows dancing in the spray above the spring basin, but the light was different and the springs less boisterous and there were no rainbows. No, he thought, you could not have a complete repetition. Even on the way down he had noticed some changes since last weekend. Hedge-mustard was pushing up its bright
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