The Devil's Trill Sonata (17 page)

The final piece was Tartini’s masterpiece, or his one-hit wonder in modern terminology. And one of the rare violin sonatas that Darren had genuinely liked the first time he’d heard it. The Devil’s Trill Sonata.

* * * *

The end of February was a wet and miserable affair, drearily cold in that in-between fashion: too hot for winter coats, too cold for anything less. The trip to London had been kind of fun, attracting odd looks from Southampton Central (unused to the finery of evening wear amongst the hoodies and Chinese students) and slowly shifting, the farther the train went, until by the time they reached London Waterloo, nobody apparently found them odd at all.

Darren found Rachel odd. Awkward and gangly, she apparently did actually know how to clean up, and had donned a well-cut suit and pale-coloured blouse that hid the odd angles of her shoulders and smoothed out her long limbs until she looked elegant instead of lanky. She looked pretty, even, and slightly fierce in that woman-in-the-boardroom way, quite unlike her usual primary-school-teacher-and-general-bum appearance. (He did, however, value his life more than to
tell
her this.)

The concert was in actuality the final rehearsal, probably hence this Tony’s sister-in-law had managed to get cheap(ish) tickets. Darren didn’t really care. In his experience, the final rehearsal and the first performance were more-or-less the same. The pressure was on to perform well
way
before this point. They settled into their seats a moment or two before the curtains went up, Darren having been suckered into buying the first round of drinks at the theatre bar in exchange for a free concert, and then…

And then a single violin began to hum gently in centre-stage, and Darren felt…

He felt young, suddenly, the live music shaving nearly nine years off him until he remembered Father presenting him with the violin and telling him that it was time to grow up. And yet he felt old, in the natural way his ear followed the first arch and plunge of the pitch, the notes appearing in his mind as they leaked from the strings even though he didn’t, at first, recognise the actual sonata. It was strange: he was old, and he was young, wrapped in the strings, and something
shifted
inside.

He had been to countless concerts since early childhood. Father had known from the very beginning that Darren would be a musician, and had taken him to see the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra when he’d been only four years old. He didn’t remember much of it, and until he was ten the focus had been on piano concerts given by soloists playing slightly more modern compositions, but his teenage years had been here, listening to countless sonatas and concerti, played by musicians he couldn’t hope to name. He had been destined to be one of them.

Jayden had taken him off that path, and in the darkness of the theatre, Darren both loved him and hated him for doing it. The violin had been a curse, his moods bound to the strings and a thousand wheedling and mournful classics. He had been commanded by it, led by the bow, driven by the sound. But it had also been
simpler
. He had known, then, what was going to happen. He had known what he was supposed to do and who he was supposed to become. He had known how things would play out. He hadn’t…

He had not
drifted
like he had since September. He had not lived day-to-day, but had had a concrete future. The future now was like a sandcastle before the incoming tide, and if only to himself, Darren could admit that he was afraid of that uncertainty. He was afraid of things ending with Jayden; he was afraid of his training ending and a forty-year career yawning in front of him. He was afraid of time; the music had been time
less
. When he had played, it had been all he would ever do, and there’d been a simplicity in that. Being free from the music also meant being limitless, and…

And this was the price of freedom: not knowing what to do with it. Having nothing to steer him. Darren was drifting, and he knew it, because sitting in the dark and listening to the orchestra tidily lift their instruments and open into the dark marches of a thunderous saga, he felt the weight of gravity wrapping itself around him like a blanket, an anchor, a rudder for the ship. He felt the guidance of the music, and he shifted inside, as if turning towards it without moving.

He was bound to this: the swell and chorus of thirty, forty instruments in perfect harmony, and the terrible fall as the pitch plummeted. He was tied to the high, terrible shriek of lonely violins, and the deep boom of a threatening horn, like the tide rushing to claim the crying cliffs. His heart picked up, hammering in time to the crashes and bangs of waves on the shore, and his ear strained towards the low note, almost unheard under all the chaos, that whispered for calm in the eye of the storm. When the music faded away, it was like the colour bled out of the grand theatre after it, trickling out of the world like a leaky sink, and then the light came down on a single violinist, poised in centre-stage, and it was like looking at
himself
.

Because that was how he would have been, in a different world. In a world where Jayden had never opened the storage room door; in a world where he had brushed off this curious blond in a Woodbourne uniform…in those worlds, there was a different him. A man who stood centre-stage, with a violin and bow, ready to perform the most difficult of pieces and inevitably fail, and who would careen into disaster and death without a single misstep. Whose moods would destroy him because they fed off the music, and whose music would outlive him because it fed off the moods.

In those worlds, there was a man doomed. Trapped in his seat, Darren half-wondered if the end was the same in every world, but in this one, the means to get there were simply different.

The first demanding note of Tartini’s masterpiece drifted into a silent room.

Tartini was a good musician, a good violinist, but never exceptional—aside from this piece. A sonata for a solo violinist, peppered with trills that were almost impossible to perform perfectly, much less many of them in a single performance. Sharp halts and jolts, easy to slice and maul with a single wrong twitch of the bow arm, and yet jarring and beautiful to hear if performed exactly as prescribed.

The sonata had been born of a dream. Tartini had had a dream, in which the devil appeared to him and played exquisite music on Tartini’s own violin, the most challenging and terrible and
wonderful
music that he had ever heard. When he’d woken, he’d attempted to replicate the sonata, and he had failed. The result of his attempt was considered by many, including Tartini, to the best work he had ever written—but it was all a sad and substandard mimicry of the devil’s far more skilled hand.

Darren knew the feeling. Damnation wrote the best music. Damnation
owned
the best music. He had been best when the moods had taken him; his best performance had been when he was just fourteen, and his violin teacher had decided then and there he was fit for music college when he was older.

He had attempted suicide the same night.

And with Tartini’s damned and brilliant work stammering and stamping around the cavernous theatre, Darren felt the darkness settle into his skin like a physical touch, as real as Rachel’s hand on his forearm. He felt the swell of the age-old sickness bulging at the insides of his skull, and slowly, like dying, he felt sensation leeching away from his fingertips and creeping up his arms.

For the first time since he was sixteen, he let the music truly take him.

Jayden was worried.

Well, not freaking-out-worried, not yet, but…still worried, a bit. Kind of.

Darren had been quiet. Well,
quiet
quiet, proper quiet, really quiet. Silent, really. He hadn’t been replying to texts very quickly, and when he had it had been short and almost rude, but there hadn’t been the angry vibe to it, exactly. Jayden didn’t think he was pissed off, really, but if he wasn’t, then…

Jayden had taken to trying to make up for his absence. He just couldn’t afford to Skype much, or even squeeze in proper phone calls. The exams were looming, and he hadn’t got through nearly the amount of coursework he needed to, but…still. He took to texting during lectures and seminars, between study groups and meals.
In
meals, a lot of the time, because Darren was most likely to reply (if he did at all) during breakfast and a late-taken dinner, maybe because of his work patterns.

They were just little texts, little
love you
s and
miss you
s between the rest of Jayden’s university life, and occasionally the odd
you’re quiet, are you okay?
in the hopes of prompting Darren into talking to him. Even a little bit, because he’d gone so
quiet
, and Jayden couldn’t help feeling a little bit like he was being…being shut out, almost. His latest had been a bit desperate-sounding, but honestly, if Darren didn’t shake it off soon, Jayden
would
be desperate, because this was all wrong, and the distance warranted a little
call me later? I miss you xxx
.

“Is there a good reason for him to be quiet?” Leah asked on one of the joint efforts she and Tim had of accosting Jayden after lectures and putting pints of lager in front of him. Things were a little tense since their argument, but Jayden didn’t have the heart to pursue it, and Tim was a calming, mediating force between the pair of them. “You said he’s in training. Does he have exams or something coming up, like us?”

“I don’t know,” Jayden admitted. “He doesn’t really talk to me much about his job.”

Leah hummed, mouth twisting to the side. “Well, is everything okay with his family?”

“He doesn’t really talk to them much.”

“You mentioned his folks are getting divorced, though,” Tim said.

“Yeah, but he doesn’t
like
them,” Jayden insisted. “I mean, you know, he thought it was funny and everything.”

“Huh,” Leah said and smirked. “Takes all sorts.”

“Yeah, well, his half-brother is only like four years older than him, so, yeah,” Jayden mumbled, flicking through his phone inbox. Darren hadn’t texted him back in three days. His Facebook account was active, though, he’d left a status last night, so maybe he
was
just distracted by work. Maybe.

“Nice,” Tim said and grinned.

“Back on track,” Leah said, punching Tim in the arm. “Why are you
worried
? You obviously are.”

Jayden sighed. “He has depression.” The words sounded hideous and stark, and he wanted to take them back and use one of their euphemisms, but…but it
was
depression, and he
hated
it. He
hated
it.

“…Ah.”

“Yeah, he’s…ever since I met him, you know, he’s had these days, these moods he gets into…”

“So when you say he hasn’t been texting you back…”

“Oh, no, God no, he’s not…no!” Jayden protested immediately. “No, he’s, you know, he’s been talking to people on Facebook and things, and he got tagged at a pub with some of his colleagues the other day, so, um, no, but…”

“Okay, so he’s not in any actual
danger
right now,” Leah said. “But you think maybe one of these moods has crept up on him?”

Jayden hummed and nodded, tapping out a Facebook message in the hopes of reaching Darren there. Maybe he was just having phone issues? It wouldn’t be the first time; he had really shitty luck with phones.
Call me soon? Or tell me when you’re free this weekend and I’ll call you. Love you x

“So what’re you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Jayden admitted. “I mean, I’m texting him more and everything, but I don’t have time to really call him for a long time and wring it out of him, and I can’t actually visit with exams on top of us, and…”

“
Make
time,” Leah said.

“I’m trying,” Jayden said.

She frowned, looking startlingly like Ella for a moment, but Tim—who Jayden was learning was a kind of hippie pacifist unless you advocated fox-hunting—jumped in before she could say anything else, with a huff and, “Yeah, it’s hard juggling everything, right?”

“Mm.”

“But I mean, if he’s depressed and shit, maybe you should tell someone near him he seems a bit weird?” Tim suggested. “His brother or someone?”

“His brother is the last person you should tell
anything
,” Jayden said fervently. Scott had outed Darren to their extended family, including an apparently scandalised aunt, with a Christmas Eve photo of Jayden catching him under hand-held mistletoe. Jayden had just wanted to kiss his boyfriend. Within about five minutes, his boyfriend had been more preoccupied with trying to kill his older brother.

“A housemate, then? A colleague?”

Jayden chewed on his lip. “He’s really private, I don’t know if anyone else in Southampton knows he has depression.”

“You don’t have to say he does,” Leah pointed out. “Just text his housemate asking her to check on him because you’ve not heard from him in a while. Easy.”

Jayden flicked over onto Rachel’s Facebook. She had a picture of Darren on a night out in some random pub that he particularly hated because there was some short, blonde girl (tagged as
Jodie Luckygal Dawkins
) with a big chest pressed up against his arm and looking like she really wanted to get closer. He opened a new message to Rachel, obscuring Jodie’s beaming face, and hesitated.

“What do I say?” he asked.

“Just that,” Leah said. “
Darren’s being weirdly quiet, can you just check on him for me
? No need to mention anything. Could be totally innocent, could be asking if his phone is lost or he’s doing overtime or whatever.”

Jayden typed out her message laboriously. It felt a little weird, because he’d never met Rachel and he had the urge to introduce himself, even though
surely
Darren had talked about him with her, and anyway, she would go on his Facebook page and see their relationship status, right? She’d know his
name
if nothing else.