Read Online Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell - Free Book Online Page B

girl riding a horse over a low hill crowned by a shipwrecked beech tree. Passed a gardener spreading soot against the slugs in a vegetable garden. In the forecourt, a muscle-bound valet was decoking a Cowley Flat Nose. Seeing my approach, he rose and waited for me. In a terraced corner of this frieze, a man in a wheelchair sat under foamy wisteria listening to the wireless. Vyvyan Ayrs, I presumed. The easy part of my daydream was over.
    Leant the bicycle against the wall, told the valet I had business with his master. He was civil enough, and led me around to Ayrs’s terrace, and announced my arrival in German. Ayrs a husk of a man, as if his illness has sucked all juice out of him, but stopped myself kneeling on the cinder path like Sir Percival before King Arthur. Our overture proceeded more or less like this. “Good afternoon, Mr. Ayrs.”
    “Who in hell are you?”
    “It’s a great honor to—”
    “I said, ‘Who in hell are you?’ ”
    “Robert Frobisher, sir, from Saffron Walden. I am—I was—a student of Sir Trevor Mackerras at Caius College, and I’ve come all the way from London to—”
    “All the way from London on a bicycle?”
    “No. I borrowed the bicycle from a policeman in Bruges.”
    “Did you?” Pause for thought. “Must have taken hours.”
    “A labor of love, sir. Like pilgrims climbing hills on their knees.”
    “What balderdash is this?”
    “I wished to prove I’m a serious applicant.”
    “Serious applicant for what?”
    “The post of your amanuensis.”
    “Are you mad?”
    Always a trickier question than it looks. “I doubt it.”
    “Look here, I’ve not advertised for an amanuensis!”
    “I know, sir, but you need one, even if you don’t know it yet. The Times piece said that you’re unable to compose new works because of your illness. I can’t allow your music to be lost. It’s far, far too precious. So I’m here to offer you my services.”
    Well, he didn’t dismiss me out of hand. “What did you say your name was?” I told him. “One of Mackerras’s shooting stars, are you?”
    “Frankly, sir, he loathed me.”
    As you’ve learned to your cost, I can be intriguing when I put my mind to it.
    “He did, did he? Why might that be?”
    “I called his sixth Concerto for Flute”—I cleared my throat—” ‘a slave of prepubescent Saint-Saëns at his most florid’ in the college magazine. He took it personally.”
    “You wrote that about Mackerras?” Ayrs wheezed as if his ribs were being sawed. “I’ll bet he took it personally.”
    The sequel is short. The valet showed me into a drawing room decorated in eggshell green, a dull Farquharson of sheep and cornstooks, and a not-very-good Dutch landscape. Ayrs summoned his wife, Mrs. van Outryve de Crommelynck. She kept her own name, and with a name like that who can blame her? The lady of the house was coolly courteous and inquired into my background. Answered truthfully, though I veiled my expulsion from Caius behind an obscure malady. Of my present financial straits I breathed not a word—the more desperate the case, the more reluctant the donor. Charmed ’em sufficiently. It was agreed I could at least stay the night at Zedelghem. Ayrs would put me through my musical paces in the morning, permitting a decision on my proposal.
    Ayrs did not appear at dinner, however. My arrival coincided with the start of a fortnightly migraine, which confines him to his rooms for a day or two. My audition is postponed until he is better, so my fate still hangs in the balance. On the credit side, the Pies-porter and lobster à l’américaine were the equal to anything at the Imperial. Encouraged my hostess to talk—think she was flattered at how much I know about her illustrious husband, and sensed my genuine love of his music. Oh, we ate with Ayrs’s daughter, too, the young equestrienne I’d glimpsed earlier. Mlle. Ayrs is a horsey creature of seventeen with her mama’s retroussé nose. Couldn’t get a civil