folk. They brought with them thin white-bread processed-meat sandwiches and thermos flasks filled with tea.
I helped the brass band set up, too. They were the BrigthorpeColliery Band in smart sky-blue cotton blazers. They had already appeared earlier in the season. As I was tightening a music stand, the bandmaster said, “Are you new? What happened to Nigel?”
Nigel, I gathered, was my predecessor in the job. “No idea,” I said. “He cleared off.”
“Shame. Good lad, Nigel was.”
After everyone was settled I slumped into my own deck chair with a printed repertoire program and the band struck up. The pure sounds of the brass band went to work on me at once. My breathing returned to normal. I started to drift into a world where I was half asleep, floating and soaring and falling with the music. These unfashionable musicians carried with them a beautiful sadness even when they played something jaunty and up-tempo. We had the
William Tell
Overture. They played “The Floral Dance.” They were into the largo movement from the
New World
Symphony when I felt someone settle lightly into the deck chair next to me, and I felt sand closing over my head. I lurched awake, opened my eyes, and found Terri sitting next to me. She said nothing.
“I don’t want you to think,” she whispered, “that I’ve come here just because you are here. Because I come here every week.”
Maybe I looked skeptical.
“It’s the only place he will allow me to come on my own where he knows I’m not going to get chatted up.” She indicated the snowy-haired audience with a nod. “But I like it. And I knew you would be here.”
I waved away one of the ladybugs that were becoming a plague. “How?”
She shook her head. “It’s all right. All of it. It’s meant to be. You’ll see. It’s meant to be. But it’s all right.”
The band stopped for a breather and to swig water. The sunlight winked on their tubas and trombones and cornets. Sweat ran down the faces of the musicians and pooled in the crevices of their armpits. Then on a command from their leader they picked up their instruments and started again. I went to speak but she held up a hand to stop me. I looked at my program: Adagio for Strings. Terri sat forward in her deck chair, hands clasped under her chin like someone praying. Every now and then, as the movement began to swell, I stole a glance at her. Then I saw that she was indeed weeping. Not just a pretty tear rolling down her lovely cheek but bitter, bitter tears expressed in silence. I felt my own chest constrict. I wanted to do something but I couldn’t. The music had completely taken her over and it was almost as if she no longer knew I was there.
A ladybug alit on her face, on the angle of her cheekbone. I do believe it was drinking from her tears. She brushed it away.
The afternoon was evaporating in a shimmering haze. I felt very strange. For a moment I hallucinated that the men and women and boys and girls of the band were all made of glass, and their instruments, too. They were transparent and fragile, and I feared for the hammer that could so easily break them. The sun was refracted off the brass instruments, but slowly, and the air was filled with music, fat glass globes of sound rising from the band and drifting across the resort like bubbles blown from a child’s water pipe. I know I wasn’t asleep, and anyway it only lasted for a second or two. But Ifelt like I’d had a glimpse at a world just behind the physics of this one. I’d been delivered into a state of unaccountable bliss, happy just to be sitting next to her all afternoon.
“Do you ever think,” I said, “that you might have someone watching over you?”
“Never,” she said, a little sharply. “Do you?”
“I think I might have,” I said.
“Like an angel?”
“No, not at all like an angel. Maybe the opposite.”
She looked at me sideways. Then she settled back into her deck chair and closed her eyes.
The concert came to an
I helped the brass band set up, too. They were the BrigthorpeColliery Band in smart sky-blue cotton blazers. They had already appeared earlier in the season. As I was tightening a music stand, the bandmaster said, “Are you new? What happened to Nigel?”
Nigel, I gathered, was my predecessor in the job. “No idea,” I said. “He cleared off.”
“Shame. Good lad, Nigel was.”
After everyone was settled I slumped into my own deck chair with a printed repertoire program and the band struck up. The pure sounds of the brass band went to work on me at once. My breathing returned to normal. I started to drift into a world where I was half asleep, floating and soaring and falling with the music. These unfashionable musicians carried with them a beautiful sadness even when they played something jaunty and up-tempo. We had the
William Tell
Overture. They played “The Floral Dance.” They were into the largo movement from the
New World
Symphony when I felt someone settle lightly into the deck chair next to me, and I felt sand closing over my head. I lurched awake, opened my eyes, and found Terri sitting next to me. She said nothing.
“I don’t want you to think,” she whispered, “that I’ve come here just because you are here. Because I come here every week.”
Maybe I looked skeptical.
“It’s the only place he will allow me to come on my own where he knows I’m not going to get chatted up.” She indicated the snowy-haired audience with a nod. “But I like it. And I knew you would be here.”
I waved away one of the ladybugs that were becoming a plague. “How?”
She shook her head. “It’s all right. All of it. It’s meant to be. You’ll see. It’s meant to be. But it’s all right.”
The band stopped for a breather and to swig water. The sunlight winked on their tubas and trombones and cornets. Sweat ran down the faces of the musicians and pooled in the crevices of their armpits. Then on a command from their leader they picked up their instruments and started again. I went to speak but she held up a hand to stop me. I looked at my program: Adagio for Strings. Terri sat forward in her deck chair, hands clasped under her chin like someone praying. Every now and then, as the movement began to swell, I stole a glance at her. Then I saw that she was indeed weeping. Not just a pretty tear rolling down her lovely cheek but bitter, bitter tears expressed in silence. I felt my own chest constrict. I wanted to do something but I couldn’t. The music had completely taken her over and it was almost as if she no longer knew I was there.
A ladybug alit on her face, on the angle of her cheekbone. I do believe it was drinking from her tears. She brushed it away.
The afternoon was evaporating in a shimmering haze. I felt very strange. For a moment I hallucinated that the men and women and boys and girls of the band were all made of glass, and their instruments, too. They were transparent and fragile, and I feared for the hammer that could so easily break them. The sun was refracted off the brass instruments, but slowly, and the air was filled with music, fat glass globes of sound rising from the band and drifting across the resort like bubbles blown from a child’s water pipe. I know I wasn’t asleep, and anyway it only lasted for a second or two. But Ifelt like I’d had a glimpse at a world just behind the physics of this one. I’d been delivered into a state of unaccountable bliss, happy just to be sitting next to her all afternoon.
“Do you ever think,” I said, “that you might have someone watching over you?”
“Never,” she said, a little sharply. “Do you?”
“I think I might have,” I said.
“Like an angel?”
“No, not at all like an angel. Maybe the opposite.”
She looked at me sideways. Then she settled back into her deck chair and closed her eyes.
The concert came to an
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