A Darker Music (16 page)

Mary closed the diary and ran hot water for the washing-up. When she’d been outside this morning she’d caught the scent of violets, and after she’d finished tidying the kitchen she’d go and look for them. Clio had said she liked their perfume.

She was rummaging through the heart-shaped leaves when she heard a vehicle pull up. She straightened, holding the few flowers she’d managed to find.

It was a police car. A tall young policeman was knocking at the back door, and when he heard her steps behind him he turned to face her.

‘Mrs Hazlitt?’ He was starting to say more, but saw from Mary’s face that he’d got the wrong person.

‘I’m Mary Lanyon, the housekeeper. Mrs Hazlitt’s not well.’

‘Sorry. I’m new to this district. Is Mr Hazlitt here? I tried to phone but his mobile’s turned off.’

Mary shook her head. ‘No, he’s in Perth. So is Martin.’ By now she was curious. What had the Hazlitts been up to? ‘Can I help you at all?’

The young policeman had come down the steps to her level but was still towering over her. ‘Does a … a Jamie Flowers live here?’

‘Jamie?’ She’d never heard his last name. ‘There’s a Jamie who works here. Young lad, dark hair?’

‘Sounds right.’ Mary could see that he was trying to decide how much to tell the housekeeper. ‘I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.’ Mary wanted to say
Stop! This has got nothing to do with
me
, but he was launched now. ‘I’m afraid there’s been an accident, last night or early this morning.’

‘What?’

‘A motorcycle went into a tree. The lad was dead — deceased — when they found him. The motorcycle’s registered to Downe Merino Stud. He wasn’t carrying a driver’s licence … had his Medicare card and a bank book, but nothing to say who his next of kin is. Was.’

‘I have an idea he might have been too young to have a driver’s licence. And I think someone said he had a sister. I can’t help you any more than that. There’s no point disturbing Mrs Hazlitt, but we can try some of the other staff.’ She thought quickly: Cec would be the proper person to approach. ‘We’ll try Mr Melrose — he’s the studmaster.’

She led the way to the stone house and knocked on the back door. There was no sound from inside, not even the creaking of a floorboard, and after waiting a few minutes she concluded that Cec might have taken Janet off somewhere to look at wildflowers or fossils. She turned away from the door, glancing up at the policeman. ‘We’d better try the Graysons. Actually, they’re more likely to know who his next of kin is.’

The policeman followed her across the track, past the peppercorn trees to the Graysons’ house. The back door was open, and the sounds of television cartoons and childish squabbling announced that this family was spending its Sunday morning at home.

Gayleen was waiting at the door, when they got there. ‘Is your mother in?’ Mary asked her. She didn’t want the girl to hear the distressing news without any family support.

Gayleen was staring at the policeman, her face pale. ‘Is it …’

‘Gloria!’ Mary called past Gayleen. ‘Are you there?’

‘Mary! Come in.’ Gloria’s cheerful voice drifted from the kitchen. Mary glanced at the policeman, and they edged past Gayleen into the house. Gloria was sitting at the table peeling pears. Her daughter followed them in and was gnawing at a thumbnail. Garth appeared from the front of the house. He looked surprised by the sight of the policeman. For a long minute nobody spoke.

‘I’m afraid this gentleman’ — the policeman hadn’t given Mary his name — ‘has some bad news.’

The policeman cleared his throat. ‘We’re trying to find out who’s next of kin to Jamie Flowers.’

Immediately, the three Graysons leapt to the right conclusion. Gayleen burst into sobs and rushed past them, heading for her bedroom.

Gloria stood up, her sticky hands still holding a half-peeled pear. ‘What happened?’ she asked. Her voice was husky.

‘Motorbike hit a tree.’

‘Where?’

‘Just this side of Lake Grace.’

‘He’s dead, I suppose. You don’t survive motorbike crashes.’

The policeman nodded. ‘He wasn’t wearing a helmet. He had ID on him, but nothing with his next of kin. The bike belongs to this place.’

‘He didn’t have a licence either,’ Garth said. ‘It must be that farm bike he rides around on. He had no business taking it off the property.’

‘I’m pretty sure he’s got a sister up Lake King way,’ Gloria said. ‘I don’t know her married name. He might have been heading there. Or coming back. Gayleen might know.’ She exchanged a look with Garth and wiped her hands firmly on her apron. ‘Okay, I’ll go.’

Garth pulled out a chair and invited them to sit down. Mary couldn’t see any way of leaving without seeming uncaring. Clio would want to know the details, anyway. She was still holding the little posy of violets, wilting from the warmth of her hand. Garth noticed them and said, ‘What have you got there, Mary?’

‘Just some violets I picked for Clio. A bit sad now, though. Can I put them in your chook bucket?’

Garth reached out to take them and sniffed them, before dumping them in the lidded enamel bucket beside the sink.

C
LIO WAS SITTING
up in bed listening to music, looking more alert than she had earlier. As Mary came in, she removed the earphones and smiled. ‘I had a nice sleep and I’m feeling much better. I might even get up and eat in the kitchen today.’

‘Fine.’ Mary was reluctant to spoil Clio’s mood, but she’d have to hear the news sooner or later. ‘Clio, we had a visitor earlier. A policeman. He came about Jamie.’

‘Is he that boy who’s helping out? I don’t think I’ve ever set eyes on him. Has he got himself arrested?’

‘No.’ Mary took a deep breath. ‘Last night — I think it was last night — Jamie ran his motorbike into a tree.’

‘His motorbike? Or ours?’

‘Yours, I believe.’

‘Well, he’ll have to pay for the damage.’

‘No, Clio. He won’t. He’s dead.’

This caught Clio’s attention. ‘Was he in any trouble?’

‘Garth said he’d been kicking the sheep, and Cec told him off. Gayleen told me he’s frightened of sheep and hates them. She was upset yesterday because she couldn’t find him.’

‘He’d have taken off somewhere to lick his wounds — being reckless, speeding. Happens all the time. Nowadays their friends put flowers, and often a cross, to mark the place. Ghoulish, I’ve always thought, and the plastic flowers are a blot on the landscape.’

Mary could feel anger mounting. Only yesterday, Clio had been lamenting her own son’s accidental death.

Clio must have read some of this on Mary’s face. ‘You probably think I sound heartless. But I never met Jamie. I can’t get emotional about the death of a stranger.’ Clio turned her attention back to her music, slipping a fresh CD into the player. ‘Don’t be sad. It wasn’t your fault.’ As she adjusted the earpieces, she smiled at Mary. ‘What’s for dinner? Call me when it’s ready, won’t you, and I’ll come out and eat at the table like a proper grown-up lady.’

After dinner, Clio wandered back into her room. Mary was still feeling downcast over Jamie’s death and Clio’s indifference grated, so she wasn’t sorry to see her go.

Later, Garth came to the back door, wiping his feet on the mat with elaborate care. ‘Thought you might be needing some more vegies,’ he said. ‘How’s the meat supply?’

‘I’m getting low on everything.’

‘Didn’t know what you’d need. You want to come and pick for yourself ?’

Mary walked back with Garth to his place. The black cats were basking on the short grass but skittered out of their way. ‘Are those your cats?’

‘They’re Downe’s cats, pretty well feral. They hang around our house because young Glen gives them milk. He’s the only one can get near them. They do a good job on the rodents, though.’

‘How’s Gayleen?’

Garth’s face was troubled. ‘She’s too young for this.’ He gave her an oblique look. ‘We never should’ve taken him on, really. It was the boss …’

‘Gayleen was fond of him, though.’

‘Fond! Silly kid doesn’t know what fond is. That age, it’s all hormones.’

‘You’re probably right.’

Garth let her go through the gate first. ‘There’s a nice caulie, carrots, parsnips. What do you want, Mary?’

‘The cauliflower would be good, and half-a-dozen carrots. I’ve still got a few parsnips so you’d best leave them in the ground. Are there any peas? And a cabbage?’

Garth was gathering the fresh vegetables and loading them into Mary’s arms. ‘I’ll get a bag for the peas,’ he said and ducked into the garden shed, to reappear holding a plastic bag. ‘These are the first. They’re sugar snaps, so don’t go shelling them! What about meat? You need any extra mutton?’

‘I got extra beef, and used stuff out of the freezer, so that’s all right. It’s just one more dinner, isn’t it.’

‘And cake and sangers. Just as well it’ll all be over tomorrow or I’d be putting on condition.’ He helped her carry the harvest back to the homestead.

‘Will you get somebody to replace Jamie?’ Mary asked.

‘That’s up to the boss. He wasn’t all that useful, poor little bugger. We’d probably manage without.’ He paused for a moment to ponder the coming workload. ‘Lambing’ll be starting in a week or so. Then Cec’ll be taking the rams up to Perth for the Royal so we’ll be one short. School holidays, the lads can help out, and Gayleen. Even Glory, if need be.’

‘Then there’s the wedding in October,’ Mary said.

‘That’s nothing to do with us peasants.’ He grinned at her. ‘Thank God!’

‘Do you know where Cec and Janet are? When I took that policeman there this morning, there was nobody home.’

‘I think they went out fossil hunting. If Cec manages to find something he’ll be over the moon all week. If not …’ He pulled a long face that for a split second made him look amazingly like Cec, and they both laughed.

Once the vegetables were cleaned and stowed away, Mary mixed bread dough and put it to rise. Some crusty little rolls would be nice for tea tonight, and she could make a focaccia for morning smoko tomorrow. She’d retrieved a big packet of beef mince from the freezer to make a meatloaf for dinner, laced with bacon, garlic and breadcrumbs, and some of Clio’s excellent vintage plum sauce. She could make cauliflower cheese, and bake jacket potatoes and pumpkin. For dessert, there were still bottled peaches, plums and apricots in the pantry.

C
LIO WAS BACK
in bed. Listening to CDs made the time pass swiftly. Mary had cooked her a delectable meal of honeyed prawns, and she could still taste the subtle flavours. While she’d been up, she’d sorted out a handful of fresh CDs. Today, at last, she was feeling strong enough for Schubert, and one of the discs she’d selected contained the piano quintet
The Trout.

The Tartinis had played this, once, with Margot brought in to take the important piano part, and Eric for the double bass.

After they’d run through it a few times, they’d discussed it; a vital part of the process of familiarising themselves with the music and forming a collective interpretation of it.

That was the weird thing about playing chamber music: you developed a kind of group consciousness, a bond so strong and yet elastic that the tiniest gesture or flicker of the eye could let you know exactly what each player was about to do. So they’d sat around, still holding their instruments, and talked about the music, with Tallis as ever their leader and master.

‘The main melody,’ he’d said, his face alight with the love of it, ‘is carried by the piano. Even the violin is more like a descant than a leading voice. It’s called
The Trout
because in the fourth movement Schubert has written a series of variations on one of his songs, the one called
The Trout
or, in German,
Die Forelle
: a much prettier title. Even so, the whole piece reminds the listener — and the players — of the young Schubert, with his friend Johann Michael Vogl, on a long summer walking tour around the Austrian countryside, pausing beside a woodland stream and experiencing a moment of perfect harmony with nature.’ He’d stopped here to give them time to imagine the scene, before going on.

‘In the Allegro vivace, after the opening chord, the very first notes of the piano suggest the purling water of a shallow stream, with the higher strings like a lazy breeze stirring the green leaves overhead. There are times when the strings do little more than buzz around the piano, like a cloud of mayflies. Even when the violin initiates a theme, the piano takes over, leaving the strings to play like the fickle wind, hum like insects darting over the busy water — the piano — gurgling over a pebbly bottom, with the double bass mumbling along in the background.’

‘
The murmur of innumerable bees.
’ Eric liked to quote poetry.

‘The changes in mood and tempo are analogous to the course of the stream, hurrying through narrow places, slowing down to spread out in sleepy pools, but singing all the way.’

Richard, as always, played devil’s advocate: ‘But it’s just notes of music; mathematical, abstract …’

Alison, the studious one: ‘But if Schubert called it
The Trout
’ — she glanced through her eyelashes at Tallis — ‘
Die Forelle
, then surely he meant it to remind people of a trout stream?’

Richard wouldn’t let this pass unchallenged. ‘Don’t you think it’s weird how we always have to look for stories? Something to hang our emotions on? As if sheer aesthetic pleasure can’t ever be enough?’ He’d shaken his head, pretending to be genuinely puzzled, but Tallis had his number.

‘You’d better be sure that you’re all telling the same story then!’ He gave them a quick frown then went on. ‘The Andante is calmer.’

Clio had spoken up, her eyes fixed on Tallis’ face, trying not to stammer. ‘Like a drowsy summer afternoon …’

‘It’s pensive, too, though, isn’t it?’ Margot added.

Tallis had agreed. ‘With moments of infinite tenderness. The Scherzo, now, although it’s violent to start with, steadies and fades quite soon to something that can sound’ — he’d raised an eyebrow and nodded to Richard — ‘like rain falling on leaves.’

Predictably, Richard protested. ‘Of course, it doesn’t actually sound like rain at all!’