The Stranger's Child - Alan Hollinghurst [140]
“Ah!” No, this man was about fifty, but with something boyish in his wide bony face as he turned his head and listened. Paul looked at the tufts of badly cut hair, thick and greying around a sun-blistered bald patch. “Well, yes indeed,” he said, “and Senta’s … Ballad, always her favourite.” They heard the music grow very emphatic and loud, Paul pictured Mrs. Keeping shaking herself to pieces, and then at once there was applause. He thought someone else might come out and help.
“Will you …?”—he gestured into the hall.
“Yes—thank you.” Now they could talk normally. “Hello, Barbara!” said the man. One of the women had come out from the kitchen.
“Hello, Wilfrid,” she said. “You’ve missed your dinner.”
“That—doesn’t matter,” said the man, again with his air of monkish simplicity and tiny hesitation.
“We weren’t sure we’d be seeing you,” said Barbara, with the same odd lack of respect. “Mrs. K’s got a concert on so you’ll have to be quiet.”
“I know—I know,” said Wilfrid, frowning a little at Barbara’s tone.
“Would you like to go in?” said Paul. He watched the man watching the people inside, one or two faces turned, while Mrs. Keeping was announcing the next item. His brown suit must once have been someone else’s, all three buttons done up, the sleeves short, and the trousers too, and a sense of large square objects trapped in tight pockets. Paul wondered if the other guests knew him and a scene was about to occur that he would be blamed for.
“Is she going on long?” said Wilfrid, pleasantly but as if out of earshot. There were one or two more curious glances.
“I don’t really know …,” said Paul, detaching himself.
“Have you had something to eat?” said Barbara, softening a little. “Or do you want to come into the kitchen?”
“I think perhaps …”—Wilfrid gazed at her and flinched. “Is it an awful bore?”
“Ah, that’s all right.”
“I got a lift into Stanford, and then the bus, then I walked up.”
“Well, you must be hungry,” said Paul, adopting the condescending tone. He could hear Peter saying something, in his Oxford voice, making them laugh, and he realized that something had happened, and the voice was now a trigger to jolts of excitement and anxiety that ran through him and made him half-unaware of anything else that was going on. The music began. Wilfrid followed Barbara, but turned in the doorway, came back to the hall table, took a small parcel in shiny red paper out of his pocket and added it to the base of the pile. When he had gone, Paul looked at the label: “Happy Birthday Mummy, Love Wilfrid.”
The little puzzle of this didn’t hold him long. He leant in the doorway to listen, or at least to watch Peter play. This must be the Mozart, surely. He thought there was something daft but also impressive and mysterious about big clever Peter stooped over this dainty but tedious piece of music and giving it his fullest attention. The large hands that had recently stroked his knee under the table were now hopping and pecking around on the deep end of the keyboard, in a remarkable show of fake solemnity. Mrs. Keeping was having more fun up at the other end, making Peter look like an anxious but courtly attendant; her nods and grimaces now seemed like slightly impatient instructions to him, or tight-lipped confirmation that he had or hadn’t got something right. And turning the page was a bit of a worry, with both players busy at once. After a minute Paul noticed that Peter did any pedalling that was called for, and got interested in his legs as much as his hands. Mrs. Keeping’s legs jumped as she played, and Peter’s occasional toeing of a pedal was like a courteous version of the footsie he’d just been playing with him under the table. Paul was warmed by this secret, and admiring of Peter, and jealous that he couldn’t play with him himself. At the end he applauded loudly, and made a point of making the very last clap, as they used to at school.
After this there was a very odd piece, which Paul thought from the awful grin on Peter’s face must be someone