husband, Guy’s mother had quickly seemed boring. She was unsporty, a joiner of societies, with the East Anglian habit of gentle humour and a vague way of expressing herself. Too soft and mussy in the mornings, kept her nightgown on till lunch time, always the first to look tired in the evenings. She took her wedding photos off the mantelpiece and put them in a drawer, and Guy found them in there, removed from view, and saw that in all the photos his mother had had a surprised look - outside the church porch, at the reception, in the back seat of the car.
And to fill the space his father had left, Guy’s mother bought a piano. Lessons followed, scales and chromatics, practice and practice, making Guy fill the house with new noise. ‘You’ll thank me one day,’ she would say, mantra-like, and he supposes he does, now, even though he certainly didn’t back then. It seemed she’d anchored him to the largest, most unmoveable piece of furniture in the house. There’d be no more running off.
Years of piano practice left no mark at all, had no place in his memory, but a performance he went to aged thirteen did, at Orford Church. He remembers how shadowed and magical the church had seemed, filled with an air of expectancy, with the stained-glass windows looking like the mysteriously opaque images in his father’s slide boxes, before a light was shone through them, and the cast dressed in robes from Japanese Noh theatre, sitting patiently by the raised platform which served as a stage. Then the opening plainsong of Benjamin Britten’s Curlew River , so monastic in sound, Te lucis ante terminum , and the cast walking dreamlike into their places. The drum, beat with a finger, sounding like rainfall, the strange dissonant chords.
He had seen his mother cry that night, in profile; single tears moving slowly down her cheek, illuminated in the soft light of the performance, each tear forming like wax welling from a candle, as the Madwoman’s grief became evident on stage. Guy had listened to the music and realized, for the first time, music was all he ever wanted to do. There, in that church, the strange layers of Britten’s sound, simply embellished by each new voice and instrument, pared down, textured, it had truly inspired him.
Music’s filled his life ever since. He has it within reach, always, a necessary addiction, not in neatly ordered CD racks and bookshelves, but in piles scattered here and there, like snacks. A messy heap of scores and arrangements on top of the piano in the Flood ’s saloon, open CDs on the table, scraps of treble clef notation on corners of the newspaper. He whistles. He hums. He goes over melodies, messing them up with quirky modulations. Without that concert he might never have discovered this language. Might never have viewed the five lines of the bass and treble clefs as endlessly stretching out like the lanes of a racetrack, in perfect and unquestionable parallel for all eternity. The E line will never rise to cross the G. These geometric washing lines on which music notes are hung - they never alter. It is certainty in a life that lost its certainty. Like that Middle C, alone on its little peg of a line below the treble clef, so important, but pushed out nonetheless. Ignored. He’s always felt sorry for it, really.
Guy stands naked, examining his reflection in the full length mirror on the back of his wardrobe door. The same mirror the original Dutch bargeman may or may not have bothered to look at. A reflection isn’t always necessary, especially at sea. Guy looks at how pale his belly is - it’s a little podgy too - he tries to lift it, then breathes in and turns to the side. Mm, getting hairy on the shoulders, that’s something he hasn’t noticed before. But he looks strong, he’s always had that.
He’d tried to sleep in the afternoon, but had been unable to. Maybe it was the turning of the tide that heralded his unease, a direction under the boat that swung the Flood on its
And to fill the space his father had left, Guy’s mother bought a piano. Lessons followed, scales and chromatics, practice and practice, making Guy fill the house with new noise. ‘You’ll thank me one day,’ she would say, mantra-like, and he supposes he does, now, even though he certainly didn’t back then. It seemed she’d anchored him to the largest, most unmoveable piece of furniture in the house. There’d be no more running off.
Years of piano practice left no mark at all, had no place in his memory, but a performance he went to aged thirteen did, at Orford Church. He remembers how shadowed and magical the church had seemed, filled with an air of expectancy, with the stained-glass windows looking like the mysteriously opaque images in his father’s slide boxes, before a light was shone through them, and the cast dressed in robes from Japanese Noh theatre, sitting patiently by the raised platform which served as a stage. Then the opening plainsong of Benjamin Britten’s Curlew River , so monastic in sound, Te lucis ante terminum , and the cast walking dreamlike into their places. The drum, beat with a finger, sounding like rainfall, the strange dissonant chords.
He had seen his mother cry that night, in profile; single tears moving slowly down her cheek, illuminated in the soft light of the performance, each tear forming like wax welling from a candle, as the Madwoman’s grief became evident on stage. Guy had listened to the music and realized, for the first time, music was all he ever wanted to do. There, in that church, the strange layers of Britten’s sound, simply embellished by each new voice and instrument, pared down, textured, it had truly inspired him.
Music’s filled his life ever since. He has it within reach, always, a necessary addiction, not in neatly ordered CD racks and bookshelves, but in piles scattered here and there, like snacks. A messy heap of scores and arrangements on top of the piano in the Flood ’s saloon, open CDs on the table, scraps of treble clef notation on corners of the newspaper. He whistles. He hums. He goes over melodies, messing them up with quirky modulations. Without that concert he might never have discovered this language. Might never have viewed the five lines of the bass and treble clefs as endlessly stretching out like the lanes of a racetrack, in perfect and unquestionable parallel for all eternity. The E line will never rise to cross the G. These geometric washing lines on which music notes are hung - they never alter. It is certainty in a life that lost its certainty. Like that Middle C, alone on its little peg of a line below the treble clef, so important, but pushed out nonetheless. Ignored. He’s always felt sorry for it, really.
Guy stands naked, examining his reflection in the full length mirror on the back of his wardrobe door. The same mirror the original Dutch bargeman may or may not have bothered to look at. A reflection isn’t always necessary, especially at sea. Guy looks at how pale his belly is - it’s a little podgy too - he tries to lift it, then breathes in and turns to the side. Mm, getting hairy on the shoulders, that’s something he hasn’t noticed before. But he looks strong, he’s always had that.
He’d tried to sleep in the afternoon, but had been unable to. Maybe it was the turning of the tide that heralded his unease, a direction under the boat that swung the Flood on its
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