Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall (3 page)

“Mr. Gardner,” I said, “excuse me for interrupting. But if this Meg was so wise about everything, how come she wasn’t married to a star herself? Why was she serving hot dogs in this diner?”

“Good question, but you don’t quite see how these things work. Okay, this lady, Meg, she hadn’t made it. But the point is, she’d watched the ones who had. You understand, friend? She’d been just like those girls once, and she’d watched some succeed, others fail. She’d seen the pitfalls, she’d seen the golden stairways. She could tell them all the stories and those girls listened. And some of them learned. Lindy, for one. Like I say, that was her Harvard. It made her what she is. It gave her the strength she needed later on, and boy, did she need it. It took her six years before her first break came along. Can you imagine it? Six years of manoeuvring, planning, putting yourself on the line like that. Getting knocked back over and over again. But it’s just like in our business. You can’t roll over and give up after the first few knocks. The girls who do, you can see them any place, married to nobodies in nowhere towns. But just a few of them, the ones like Lindy, they learn from every knock, they come back stronger, tougher, they come back fighting and mad. You think Lindy didn’t suffer humiliation? Even with her beauty and charm? What people don’t realise is that beauty isn’t the half of it. Use it wrong, you get treated like a whore. Anyway, after six years, she finally got her break.”

“That’s when she met you, Mr. Gardner?”

“Me? No, no. I didn’t come on the scene for a while longer. She married Dino Hartman. You’ve never heard of Dino?” Mr. Gardner did a slightly unkind laugh here. “Poor Dino. I guess Dino’s records wouldn’t have made it to the communist countries. But Dino had quite a name for himself in those days. He sang in Vegas a lot, had a few gold records. Like I said, that was Lindy’s big break. When I first met her, she was Dino’s wife. Old Meg had explained that’s how it happens all the time. Sure, a girl can get lucky first time, go straight to the top, marry a Sinatra or a Brando. But it doesn’t usually happen like that. A girl’s got to be prepared to get out of the elevator at the second floor, walk around. She needs to get used to the air on that floor. Then maybe, one day, on that second floor, she’ll run into someone who’s come down from the penthouse for a few minutes, maybe to fetch something. And this guy says to her, hey, how about coming back up with me, up to the top floor. Lindy knew that’s how it usually played out. She wasn’t weakening when she married Dino, she wasn’t cutting her ambition down to size. And Dino was a decent guy. I always liked him. That’s why, even though I fell badly for Lindy the moment I first saw her, I didn’t make a move. I was the perfect gentleman. I found out later that was what made Lindy all the more determined. Man, you’ve got to admire a girl like that! I have to tell you, friend, I was a bright, bright star around this time. I guess this would be around when your mother was listening to me. Dino, though, his star was starting to go down fast. It was tough for a lot of singers just around then. Everything was changing. Kids were listening to the Beatles, the Rolling Stones. Poor Dino, he sounded too much like Bing Crosby. He tried a bossa nova album folks just laughed at. Definitely time for Lindy to get out. No one could have accused us of anything in that situation. I don’t think even Dino really blamed us. So I made my move. That’s how she got up to the penthouse.

“We got married in Vegas, we had the hotel fill the bathtub with champagne. That song we’re gonna do tonight, ‘I Fall in Love Too Easily.’ You know why I chose that one? You want to know? We were in London once, not long after we got married. We came up to our room after breakfast and the maid’s in there cleaning our suite. But Lindy and I are horny as rabbits. So we go in, and we can hear the maid vacuuming our lounge, but we can’t see her, she’s through the partition. So we sneak through on tip-toes, like we’re kids, you know? We sneak through to the bedroom, close the door. We can see the maid’s finished the bedroom already, so maybe she doesn’t need to come back, but we don’t know that for sure. Either way, we don’t care. We tear off our clothes, we make love on the bed, and all the time the maid’s on the other side, moving around our suite, no idea we’ve come in. I tell you, we were horny, but after a while, we found the whole thing so funny, we just kept laughing. Then we’d finished and we were lying there in each other’s arms, and the maid was still out there and you know what, she starts singing! She’s finished with the vacuum, so she starts singing at the top of her voice, and boy, did she have one lousy voice! We were laughing and laughing, but trying to keep it silent. Then what do you know, she stops singing and turns on the radio. And suddenly we hear Chet Baker. He’s singing ‘I Fall in Love Too Easily,’ nice and slow and mellow. And Lindy and me, we just lay there across the bed together, listening to Chet singing. And after a while, I’m singing along, really soft, singing along with Chet Baker on the radio, Lindy curled up in my arms. That’s how it was. That’s why we’re gonna do that song tonight. I don’t know if she’ll remember though. Who the hell knows?”

Mr. Gardner stopped talking and I could see him wiping away tears. Vittorio brought us around another corner and I realised we were going past the restaurant a second time. It looked even more lively than before, and a pianist, this guy I know called Andrea, was now playing in the corner.

As we drifted again into the dark, I said: “Mr. Gardner, it’s none of my business, I know. But I can see maybe things haven’t been so good between you and Mrs. Gardner lately. I want you to know I understand about things like that. My mother often used to get sad, maybe just the way you are now. She’d think she’d found someone, she’d be so happy and tell me this guy was going to be my new dad. The first couple of times I believed her. After that, I knew it wouldn’t work out. But my mother, she never stopped believing it. And every time she felt down, maybe like you are tonight, you know what she did? She put on your records and sang along. All those long winters, in that tiny apartment of ours, she’d sit there, knees tucked up under her, glass of something in her hand, and she’d sing along softly. And sometimes, I remember this, Mr. Gardner, our neighbours upstairs would bang on the ceiling, especially when you were doing those big up-tempo numbers, like ‘High Hopes’ or ‘They All Laughed.’ I used to watch my mother carefully, but it was like she hadn’t heard a thing, she’d be listening to you, nodding her head to the beat, her lips moving with the lyrics. Mr. Gardner, I wanted to say to you. Your music helped my mother through those times, it must have helped millions of others. And it’s only right it should help you too.” I did a little laugh, which I meant to be encouraging, but it came out louder than I’d intended. “You can count on me tonight, Mr. Gardner. I’m going to put everything I’ve got into it. I’ll make it as good as any orchestra, you just see. And Mrs. Gardner will hear us and who knows? Maybe things will start going fine between you again. Every couple goes through difficult times.”

Mr. Gardner smiled. “You’re a sweet guy. I appreciate you helping me out tonight. But we don’t have any more time to talk. Lindy’s in her room now. I can see the light on.”

WE WERE GOING BY A PALAZZO
we’d passed at least twice before, and I now realised why Vittorio had been taking us round in circles. Mr. Gardner had been watching for the light to come on in a particular window, and each time he’d found it still dark, we’d moved on to do another circle. This time, though, the third-storey window was lit, the shutters were open, and from down where we were, we could see a small part of the ceiling with its dark wooden beams. Mr. Gardner signalled to Vittorio, but he’d already stopped rowing and we drifted slowly till the gondola was directly beneath the window.

Mr. Gardner stood up, making the boat rock alarmingly again, and Vittorio had to move quickly to steady us. Then Mr. Gardner called up, much too softly: “Lindy? Lindy?” Finally he called out much louder: “Lindy!”

A hand pushed the shutters out wider, then a figure came onto the narrow balcony. A lantern was fixed to the palazzo wall not far above us, but the light wasn’t good, and Mrs. Gardner wasn’t much more than a silhouette. I could see though that she’d put up her hair since I’d met her in the piazza, maybe for their dinner earlier on.

“That you, sweetie?” She leaned over the balcony rail. “I thought you’d been kidnapped or something. You had me all anxious.”

“Don’t be foolish, honey. What could happen in a town like this? Anyway, I left you that note.”

“I didn’t see any note, sweetie.”

“I left you a note. Just so you wouldn’t get anxious.”

“Where is it, this note? What did it say?”

“I don’t remember, honey.” Mr. Gardner now sounded irritated. “It was just a regular note. You know, saying I’d gone to buy cigarettes or something.”

“Is that what you’re doing down there now? Buying cigarettes?”

“No, honey. This is something different. I’m gonna sing to you.”

“Is this some sort of joke?”

“No, honey, it isn’t a joke. This is Venice. It’s what people do here.” He gestured around to me and Vittorio, like our being there proved his point.

“It’s kind of chilly for me out here, sweetie.”

Mr. Gardner did a big sigh. “Then you can listen from inside the room. Go back in the room, honey, make yourself comfortable. Just leave those windows open and you’ll hear us fine.”

She went on gazing down at him for a while, and he went on gazing back up, neither of them saying anything. Then she’d gone inside, and Mr. Gardner seemed disappointed, even though this was exactly what he’d suggested she should do. He lowered his head with another sigh, and I could tell he was hesitating about going ahead. So I said:

“Come on, Mr. Gardner, let’s do it. Let’s do ‘By the Time I Get to Phoenix.’”

And I played gently a little opening figure, no beat yet, the sort of thing that could lead into a song or just as easily fade away. I tried to make it sound like America, sad roadside bars, big long highways, and I guess I was thinking too of my mother, the way I’d come into the room and see her on the sofa gazing at her record sleeve with its picture of an American road, or maybe of the singer sitting in an American car. What I mean is, I tried to play it so my mother would have recognised it as coming from that same world, the world on her record sleeve.

Then before I realised it, before I’d picked up any steady beat, Mr. Gardner started to sing. His posture, standing in the gondola, was pretty unsteady, and I was afraid he’d lose his balance any moment. But his voice came out just the way I remembered it—gentle, almost husky, but with a huge amount of body, like it was coming through an invisible mike. And like all the best American singers, there was that weariness in his voice, even a hint of hesitation, like he’s not a man accustomed to laying open his heart this way. That’s how all the greats do it.

We went through that song, full of travelling and goodbye. An American man leaving his woman. He keeps thinking of her as he passes through the towns one by one, verse by verse, Phoenix, Albuquerque, Oklahoma, driving down a long road the way my mother never could. If only we could leave things behind like that—I guess that’s what my mother would have thought. If only sadness could be like that.

We came to the end and Mr. Gardner said: “Okay, let’s go straight to the next one. ‘I Fall in Love Too Easily.’”

This being my first time playing with Mr. Gardner, I had to feel my way around everything, but we managed okay. After what he’d told me about this song, I kept looking up at that window, but there was nothing from Mrs. Gardner, no movement, no sound, nothing. Then we’d finished, and the quiet and the dark settled around us. Somewhere nearby, I could hear a neighbour pushing open shutters, maybe to hear better. But nothing from Mrs. Gardner’s window.

We did “One for My Baby” very slow, virtually no beat at all, then everything was silent again. We went on looking up at the window, then at last, maybe after a full minute, we heard it. You could only just make it out, but there was no mistaking it. Mrs. Gardner was up there sobbing.

“We did it, Mr. Gardner!” I whispered. “We did it. We got her by the heart.”

But Mr. Gardner didn’t seem pleased. He shook his head tiredly, sat down and gestured to Vittorio. “Take us round the other side. It’s time I went in.”

As we started to move again, I thought he was avoiding looking at me, almost like he was ashamed of what we’d just done, and I began thinking maybe this whole plan had been some kind of malicious joke. For all I knew, these songs all held horrible meanings for Mrs. Gardner. So I put my guitar away and sat there, maybe a bit sullen, and that’s how we travelled for a while.

Then we came out to a much wider canal, and immediately a water-taxi coming the other way rushed past us, making waves under the gondola. But we were nearly up to the front of Mr. Gardner’s palazzo, and as Vittorio let us drift towards the quay, I said:

“Mr. Gardner, you’ve been an important part of my growing up. And tonight’s been a very special night for me. If we just said goodbye now and I never saw you again, I know for the rest of my life I’ll always be wondering. So Mr. Gardner, please tell me. Just now, was Mrs. Gardner crying because she was happy or because she was upset?”

I thought he wasn’t going to answer. In the dim light, his figure was just this hunched-up shape at the front of the boat. But as Vittorio was tying the rope, he said quietly:

“I guess she was pleased to hear me sing that way. But sure, she was upset. We’re both of us upset. Twenty-seven years is a long time and after this trip we’re separating. This is our last trip together.”

“I’m really sorry to hear that, Mr. Gardner,” I said gently. “I guess a lot of marriages come to an end, even after twenty-seven years. But at least you’re able to part like this. A holiday in Venice. Singing from a gondola. There can’t be many couples who split up and stay so civilised.”

“But why wouldn’t we be civilised? We still love each other. That’s why she’s crying up there. Because she still loves me as much as I still love her.”