Read Online After Brock by Paul Binding - Free Book Online

first thing this morning.’
    â€˜Sorry about that!’ I said, ‘but there’s no time like the present, is there?’
    â€˜Very true!’ said Dr Pringle, ‘and I wish more people acted on that principle… But – please come inside.’
    After a hall with four other doors opening off it, we walked into a large sitting-room, not exactly cluttered, but as full as could be before that becomes the right word. It was plainly a practice room too. There were two music stands (well, maybe Dr Pringle did sometimes give lessons at his home). A net-curtained bay window looked out onto Walworth Road itself, the panes dusty. Otherwise the room, considering all the stuff it contained, was in good enough order. The walls were almost entirely covered by shelves holding books, CDs, vinyl records and scores, there was a shabby but comfortable-looking sofa and armchairs, a large desk stood by the window and on top of it were papers stacked in piles held down by glass paperweights, half-a-dozen framed photos and two potted yuccas.
    â€˜I can make you some coffee if you’d like some, Nat?’ said Dr Pringle, ‘and then we can talk. But we shall have to do so in a low voice. My wife is ill, you see.’ He gestured to the wall. ‘She’s had a bad night. I’m afraid she often does!’
    My mum’s mum was ill for over six months; it was horrible. I should be less scared of ill people than I am.
    â€˜Sorry to hear it, Dr Pringle,’ I said, ‘yes, coffee’d be great.’
    While he was out of the room, I went over to the desk and looked at the framed pictures. Two, wording at the bottom told me, were of the Zoltán Kodály Pedagogical Institute of Music, Kecskemét, Hungary. One showed a long, curved, whitewashed building approached by a walled flight of steps standing by which was Dr Pringle himself, even younger than now. The other was of a corridor inside, whitewashed, cool-seeming, particularly to a Londoner on a hot day like today, its arches revealing views of greenery. The music teacher was in this picture too, and, as if to prove his status, was actually carrying his violin case. This was the place, the institute, the degree on his card came from, I supposed. A third photograph showed the great man himself, Zoltán Kodály (I must Google his biography!), and a very nice face he had. Obviously the face of someone who cared about children having their natural musical her-itage. Old and bearded and wise, eyes half-closed, right hand resting on the coat of a fair, charming-looking young woman. I guessed her to be, despite the immense gap in their ages, his wife, partly because, before all the rupture, my dad would sometimes put his hand on my mum’s sleeve in just that contented way. Dad loved Mum at such times, I feel sure, but it’s difficult to sort this stuff out.
    A fourth photo showed a different woman, dark, plump-faced, sallow, in a black, high-collared coat. Though she looked many years older than him, I had no sooner turned my gaze on it than I reckoned this was the woman in the next-door room, the wife who was ‘ill, you see’, and who had just had a bad night, as she often does, he was afraid. For Mr Kodály a many-years-younger wife, for Dr Pringle a many-years-older one. I surprise myself with my intuitions quite often.
    The sixth photograph was of a large old church, of dark pink stone, with a square tower. Underneath it, in old-fashioned, sloping, imitation script sprawled the words ‘Priory Church, Leominster’.
    Leominster, where Dad had been born, where he had spent his early years, but where he never (I’d noticed) wanted to go, even though he now lived and had a business not far away. He rarely spoke of his life there. When I’d told Josh I didn’t know of any likely skeletons in the family cupboards, I wasn’t being quite honest. My dad, unlike my mum, is a secretive person.
    And having