Strings

By Peter G. Brown

A young just-graduated student decides to escape his background by experimenting with sex, psychotropic drugs and playing violin for a rock band. Influenced by the band leader and guitarist, he becomes part of this post-grad hippyish community of musicians and their girlfriends, roadies and supporters. But his parents particularly his mother - want him to have a proper career and what will become of his high-minded, virtuous yet confused and contradictory relationship with his girlfriend?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Mar 28, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483608181

Book preview

Copyright © 2014, 2016, 2017 by Peter G. Brown.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 02/10/2017

Xlibris

1-800-455-039

www.Xlibris.com.au

513335

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Part One: June 1967

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Part Two

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Part Three

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Part Four

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Part Five

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

For Theo Graham-Brown

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

T hanks to all who have been encouraging and helpful, including my son Theo Graham-Brown, my wife Markiza, Dave Russell, and Phil Davies, all of whom read through the text and offered suggestions, spotted inconsistencies, historical anomalies, spelling and punctuation mistakes, errors in proper names and in Dave’s case helped with design. My other son, Rashid patiently gave me lessons in using the apps of Microsoft Word (without which… ha ha! How did we ever manage before with that old typewriter and correction fluid?)

Other people who have helped me with my writing over the last few years are Sharon Bakar and Raman of Silverfish who have published my stories. Not to leave out Cherry Minoza, Cherry Villa, Amy Scott and Joy Daniels of Ex Libris Australia who have been very patiently waiting for me to complete revision and send this rather long work for publication. Best wishes to you all and we hope that in the end a few copies might get sold to the general public.

Grateful Acknowledgement is made for the use of the following:

The Moon and the Yew Tree by Sylvia Plath, from Ariel, published by Faber & Faber (p. 170)

This Wheel’s on Fire by Bob Dylan & Rick Danko, published by Dwarf Music (p. 239)

Love is Strange by Mickey Baker, Sylvia Vanderpool and Ethel Smith, published by EMI Music (p. 539)

White Rabbit by Grace Slick, published by Universal Music (p. 783)

The Mad Hatter’s Song by Robin Wliiamson, published by Warlock Music

(p. 814)

PART ONE

June 1967

CHAPTER 1

A s he entered the bar, Colin thought at first that it seemed unusually empty for a lunchtime; surely that many people had not fled the place in a hysterical post-examination exodus? But then he saw that the doors at the rear were open and the trimmed grass behind was colourfully scattered with groups of people, taking advantage of the warm, sunny weather to relax and be convivial in the open air.

The Union Bar was all done out in bare pine to give it a ‘ranchy way-out-West’ flavour. The counter was on the left, while along the right hand wall and between two aisles in the centre were back to back benches interspersed with plain wood tables. The plastic benches were upholstered with flat, buff cushions with a sheeny surface. The far wall was one huge arched window dissected into vertical and horizontal divisions, down to the three doors below. The grass beyond inclined gently up to a knoll, behind which could be seen the imposing eastern wing of the University Library, three storeys high, uniform with the other buildings on the campus, in the same harsh red brick with plain, rounded arches around the phalanx of tall windows.

Colin nodded to those students inside the saloon with whom he was acquainted. It was an awkward shuddering of the head, a trace of a smile vanishing almost at once from his lips. Groups of people were bantering and guffawing exuberantly, but to him there was something offensive about their merriment. He felt cheated, lost, unknown. His heart seemed to open up from beneath and a tearing sensation deep inside was accompanied by a flush of gloom and hopelessness, of being stranded and also exposed. It was all over. All this was finished. But now what? As he lingered by the bar his body began to impress itself upon him as not being altogether integrated with himself. The sunshine, the gaiety, the colourful summer clothes as perceived by his senses seemed to crack and separate from him, and in the fissure lurked a nameless, ineffable grief. But even to call it this, even this, as a label floated rapidly away, dissolving into nothingness. Something had happened this morning on the World Stage which had broken rudely into his citadel, making more potent the apprehension already existing there.

Rousing himself out of his paralysis, he turned towards the bar. There were a few people leaning, waiting to be served. The particular dread relating to international upheaval and the possibility which he had at first fully appreciated at age twelve or thirteen of the world being engulfed in a nuclear conflagration, complicated his state of mind and threw him out of himself, so that in some way he felt like an insect or a scattered dead leaf. He only wanted to think about Claudia, to turn over the events of yesterday in his mind in order to assess and interpret them more fully, to extract from them the essence of the truth – for only in the truth lies security. But this intruding international crisis dwarfed the incidents of his personal life, rendering insignificant all microcosmic griefs and grievances – and yet, paradoxically reflected and projected them on a grander, magnified scale. He found himself able, in a way that was suggestive of a macabre glamour, to relate himself more effectively to the World, as if he were one of the foreground characters in a grand historical epic, in which his personal fortunes were inextricably and symbolically related to the events being worked out on the greater theatre. As far as Claudia was concerned, it seemed, after all this time – almost two years in fact, that their relationship was finally over, while the Israeli attack on Egypt threatened to herald the end of the world, or at least civilisation as we had hitherto known it.

Although this very idea caused an explosion of panic in Colin’s breast – a concomitant impulse to recklessness was roused in him. What did anything matter? At least everyone was together in this mess. But then it struck him forcefully, as he paid for his drink, in the light of this imminent danger how unnecessary, unfair and cruel were Claudia’s reservations and their application of them to the present circumstances of their togetherness; how ridiculous were the associations in her mind which made her obdurate about indulging in what after all was a simple human pleasure, a giving – and how much he wanted to give. How absurd it was for them not to be enjoying each other in the fullest, completest sense, now that the threat seemed to hang like a ghostly, Damoclesian phantom in the radiant summer sky above them that these days – or today – might be the last. And yet today she had gone with three girl-friends on a long drive across the downs (in preference to spending it with him). He would not see her until tomorrow. And that left only two days before Friday, when, in her usual obstinate, determined way she had arranged to go home to her parents for two weeks. Two whole weeks.

Colin carried his Guinness across the saloon to the open double doors. It was his habit to drink a pint of draught Guinness at lunchtime if he chanced to be on the campus. But unusually today he had come up for no other reason than that he’d rather be here than languish alone in his flat. He was invariably on his own there since of his two flat mates one spent most of his days and nights at his girlfriend’s place, while the other, who was secretary of the Students Union was so busy that he frequently spent nights as well as days on the campus.

Colin stood on the concrete threshold and surveyed the groups and individuals relaxing on the grass beyond, or standing like himself under the eaves of the building in the shade. He caught sight of Francis Oldfield, a second year student whom he had got to know through their mutual involvement with the Students Union newspaper. Francis had already made a reputation for himself by being a member of the panel representing the University in a nation-wide general knowledge and quick-thinking competition on independent television called Champion Minds, because of his phenomenal command of facts, his extravagant, somewhat fey mannerisms and daring habit of pressing the button before the answer to the question had come to his mind and then, in an ostentatious agony of urgency and suspense, racking his brains for the answer which always seemed to come to him in the last possible split second before the facilitator-chairman – a famous TV presenter – would have buzzed him out and moved the question to the opposite bench.

Colin made his way towards the group Francis was sitting with, picking his way through the verdant interstices between legs, feet, bags, jackets and glasses of beer. They greeted each other; he sat down next to Francis and sipped his Guinness, licking the creamy light brown head. The conversation was on the situation in the Middle East. The other students in the group were all second years; there was Gordon Andrews, who was majoring in International Relations and was a ‘mature’ student, aged about thirty. He was short and thick-set with bright blue eyes, and often – though not today – wore a bow-tie; Ralph Apps, who had also been on the winning Champion Minds team, tall and lean with bushy dark hair and thick eyebrows; and Tim Astor, another International Relations major, with fine, carrot-coloured hair and a wispy natural beard.

It’s air-power really that will decide the issue, Tim Astor was saying, and the Egyptians simply don’t have the air-power.

Oh, that’s not true; the Russians have been supplying the Egyptians and Syrians with MIGs for years, countered Ralph Apps, Nasser wouldn’t have blockaded the Shat-el-Arab if he wasn’t confident of beating the Israelis.

They thought they could beat the Israelis in 1948 and 1956, said Francis in his oddly smug sort of way, his high voice giving his remark a kind of theatrical quality, and look what happened.

But this time the Egyptians are armed to the teeth! Ralph Apps said excitedly.

Suddenly another student whom Colin did not know joined the group and squatted down on Francis’ left. He had a very sloping forehead and bottle glasses, very close-cropped hair and a ruddy, shiny complexion. Jordanians are ten miles from Tel Aviv, he pronounced as if he were trying to make it sound unremarkable. Colin took a gulp of Guinness.

Was that the news? Tim Astor queried.

James told me, I’ve just seen him in the library.

There was a pause. Well, that’s not surprising, said Gordon, that always was their weakest front.

It’s amazing, Ralph Apps said, his eyes glittering.

I think it’s terrible, said Colin.

It’s not terrible if you’re a Jordanian, said Francis pointedly speaking more to the group than personally to Colin.

Or a Palestinian, put in Ralph Apps.

But it’s pretty terrible if you’re a Jew, declared Colin, feeling a perverse desire to provoke an argument, after all that struggle and the Holocaust and everything for Israel to be wiped off the map. That would be a terrible tragedy.

It wouldn’t be a tragedy for some, Francis sliced his words up in self-conscious, ironic laughter.

It would be a tragedy for the world, Colin pronounced with deliberate, provocative pomposity, I think Israel is one of the great modern achievements of humanity in the face of oppression and evil.

You need re-educating, Gordon Andrews said, leaning forward towards Colin in his solid, deliberate, confidential manner.

Why do you say that?

Well, you’re clearly misinformed about Israel in common with nearly everyone else in this country. He spoke in the measured, patient style of a teacher. All were looking at Colin now.

If Israel is such a good thing, why do you think the Arabs are so keen to eliminate it? asked Ralph.

Jealousy, I suppose, said Colin, who now felt he wanted to retreat, to make peace.

It’s not jealousy, said Francis a little scornfully, yet sounding as though he felt he was bathed in light, it’s simply that Israel has no right to be there.

Colin was annoyed by this and his fighting spirit was renewed. But Israel is the land of the Jews. That’s where they belong. That’s where they came from. I mean they must have somewhere they can go, after all that’s happened under Hitler.

Precisely this, said Gordon Andrews, carefully, the Europeans felt guilty about the persecution, about the Holocaust, but for centuries before that. So they expiated this guilt by allowing the Jews to emigrate to Palestine. They connived at that while at the same time promising the Arabs freedom and independence, so as to gain their co-operation in the war against Turkey. You have to understand the diplomatic background. Then there’s the way Israel came into being – illegally – and the way it has developed since 1948. And then there’s the moral question and that in relation to International Law and the way the rights of the indigenous population have been subjugated for the sake of a people that has not been in Palestine and has no cultural or ethnic ties with it for nearly two thousand years, suddenly to invade it and take it over. To the Arabs that’s just Colonialism in a new guise.

The Europeans in this way got rid of their Jewish problem, said Francis.

Yeah, they shifted it onto the Arabs. Gordon looked searchingly into Colin’s face.

I’ll give you a short history of Palestine in this century, shall I Colin? Francis said earnestly, in 1900 there were about ten thousand Jews in Palestine, mostly orthodox, living in retreats, living a sort of monastic existence. There was some Jewish immigration before the First World War, but after the war when Palestine became British the British Government issued the Balfour Declaration which made provision for a National Home for the Jews in Palestine. No-one consulted the Palestinians who made up the vast majority of the population, except that during the war they had been bought off with promises of independence once the war was won, just the same as with the Arabs in general. So they were understandably incensed when the Jews started emigrating in large numbers, which was happening partly because of encouragement of the British and partly because of persecution in Poland and Germany. This migration was very convenient for the people in power in Western Europe, who wanted to gloss over the Jewish problem because they supported Hitler against the Bolsheviks.

The Jews bought the land from the Palestinians and absentee landlords in the areas where they settled, Gordon Andrews said, in his relaxed, authoritative manner, and so the Palestinians became landless labourers without rights.

Yes, but the Jews developed the land, asserted Colin defiantly, they irrigated it, they developed industry and agriculture and made Israel into an economically powerful nation out of virtually nothing. These statements brought a barrage of derisive protest from his listeners, who all tried to reply at once. Other people were now listening in to this altercation from the periphery of the group, some standing, some sitting.

It’s complete propaganda! expostulated Ralph, whose dark eyes beneath the bushy brows flashed with excitement, bearing down upon Colin like blades. He began to speak about Israel’s economy but was interrupted by Francis.

Point one: all this development was financed completely from the US. Money has been pouring into Israel from the word go – without American money Israel would cease to exist. Point two: Palestine is, apart from the Negev, one of the most fertile countries of the Middle East – it’s not just desert as Zionist propaganda likes to make out. Point three: Israel is not an economic miracle, it’s an economic MESS! In fact one reason for this war is so as to solve Israel’s problems on the battlefield rather than in the bank.

Israel’s inflation runs at one hundred per cent, put in Gordon Andrews; whenever he spoke, Colin noticed, everyone else tended to fall silent, to make way for him. He added, the balance of payments is absolutely hyperbolical.

But this is largely because she has to spend so much on armaments.

That’s her own fault, retorted Ralph, the Israelis have provoked the Arabs – they’ve fanned Arab hostility rather than made any effort to conciliate them. They’ve always behaved like this – in 1948 the Zionists unilaterally declared the State of Israel in defiance of the UN Partition Plan – which was only unacceptable to the Arabs because the Jews had no right to be there in the first place – certainly not to create a racist political structure – they declared the State of Israel in defiance of Arab and International opinion, and then were surprised when the Arabs attacked them. And even after the cease fire of 1949 the Zionist armies, in open violation of that cease fire, pushed on down to the Gulf of Aqaba, kicked the Arabs out of Um-Rashrash and renamed it Eilat, so they could have an outlet to the Red Sea. That’s the background to the present… He stared at Colin as he finished, a questioning, triumphant look.

But if they have no right to be there and the Arabs want to kick them into the sea, how can they conciliate them, asked Colin, squirming a bit, there’s no place for conciliation.

There’s no conciliation except through compromise, said Francis.

You don’t attack your neighbours, murmured Tim Astor.

The Palestinians have to be allowed to return to Israel with full rights to live there on an equal basis to the Jews – assuming of course that Israel is going to win this war – ’cause if it doesn’t then we’re in a completely new situation. Francis uttered his sawing guffaw, self-conscious, effete.

You have to look at it from this point of view, said Gordon, that Israel is a Middle Eastern country. So it must become a Middle Eastern country. It must sort out its problems without relying on the West to prop it up. Right now it serves only as a Western beach-head.

Oh but that’s not realistic, said Tim Astor in his quiet voice, leaning forward so he could look Gordon in the face, the Arabs want to destroy Israel. Too much has happened.

Nevertheless if Israel is to survive –

But Israel can’t survive, blurted out Ralph, so that Gordon was interrupted for the first time, not in its present form – it’s a contradiction.

That’s exactly what I’m saying.

No, you’re not . . .

A heated exchange followed, the heat and intensity being more on Ralph’s side, while Gordon retained his elder man’s equanimity, although his portly body shuddered a little when he emphasised a point with movements of his arm. Francis tried to intervene, sounding as if he were intent on subduing his bushy-haired companion; he repeated his name several times in order to gain his attention, Ralph… Ralph… Ralph . . .

Finally he threw up his hands, oh, well, you can’t get a word in. He turned to Colin and said, I’m going to get another drink. What would you like, Colin?

It’s ok – I won’t have another one. Look, what I wanted to ask was this (Francis had already got to his knees, but he stopped). Do you think this war will go on very long or will they – I mean the Americans and the Russians – manage to stop it?

No, said Francis decisively, It won’t go on. If Israel is winning they’ll stop it. The Americans are far too scared about losing their oil supplies, they’ll stop it just as they did the Suez war. And the Russians don’t want to get involved in a Mediterranean war. He laid his hand on Colin’s shoulder in a gesture of affection that was slightly patronising. Don’t worry Colin, we’re very unlikely to have a nuclear war this time. His tone however was somewhat jeering.

I don’t know, said Colin, "I saw the War Game about four weeks ago. Only it was on with a film called Four in the Morning which made you feel that life wasn’t worth living in any case."

I hope you don’t feel like that now, said Francis, your exams are over now, aren’t they?

Yes, yes, that’s right – I’m completely free! He parodied, opening his hands in a set-piece empty gesture.

Then we must celebrate – come on, let me buy you a drink.

Colin rose as Francis did. They made their way between the kneeling, squatting, reclining bodies back to the bar. When they reached the counter Colin sank his remaining Guinness.

I think I’d rather go for a walk.

You seem depressed. Francis’ ‘feminine’ solicitude softened Colin’s resistance.

Well, I am a bit, feel a bit empty, Colin smirked ruefully, you know, the international situation and what I’m going to do in the future – I haven’t got a job yet you see.

Why don’t you stay here?

I don’t think I’ve got a good enough degree to do research.

You need cheering up, Francis emphasised enthusiastically, let me get you a drink.

No, really, Colin still did not feel he knew Francis well enough to share with him the subtleties and nuances of his present melancholy mood. I’ll see you Thursday. I’ll come and help with the paste-up.

Oh, that’s great. That’ll be good. I’ll look forward to that. You’ve been fairly missed since you stopped coming.

CHAPTER 2

C olin made his way along the tarmacked walkway that ran in front of the library, past the School of English and American Studies, the School of European Studies and the School of Educational Studies, and up a slight incline marked by a flight of steps to the Brandon Halls of residence. The walkway led finally to a stile which marked the boundary of the campus.

Colin sat for a short while on the stile, gazing at the wide field of buff-coloured wheat. At the edge of the field were a few scattered poppies. Beyond the stile the path became a public footpath which skirted the field and eventually led to into a copse of deciduous trees. He could see the shade beneath the trees. He decided he would follow the path to the trees and then return to the Students Union Building and see how he felt by then. The Guinness was warm in his stomach, his brain felt pleasantly embalmed by it, as if all ripples and folds had been smoothed out. The sun graced his eyelids, the warm summer air caressed his face and hair as he moved within it. Reassured by what Francis had said he felt at last able to turn his mental attention to the real pre-occupation of his heart: Claudia.

The question he chose to ask himself was: what were her real feelings? It seemed to him as he walked along the edge of the field feeling the warm sun burn his left forearm, smelling the resinous, bitter scent of green vegetation and the sharp, peppery odour of stinging nettles, that either she had been lying to him all along, stringing him along as a sop to help him pass his exams, or alternatively she had changed her mind – or rather her heart, suddenly as it were, without cause or explanation. Colin stopped. He bent down and picked an ear of corn and broke off all the seeds methodically. The hint of betrayal sped up his heart. His mouth became dry and he felt a chill around his neck, beneath his ears.

He had to admit that the first hypothesis seemed more plausible than the second. Inconsistency and caprice was not a trait he had observed much in his girlfriend. But calculation was – he had to admit – almost a hallmark of her personality. Furthermore, her capacity for altruism, for considering other people and not hurting their feelings went a long way, as an attribute, to make up for her evident deficiencies when it came to other kinds of emotion. He recalled how she had declined to go with him to the Summer Dance about this time last year, out of compassion for her room-mate, now flatmate Sandy, who had just the week before been jilted by her boyfriend – one Simon Neilson, a musician and member of the most accomplished of all the four University bands. Simon, a somewhat flamboyant and debonair character, cultivated an image of being a man of great ideas, ambitions and zeal. He had the added gift of being able to talk to anyone about anything, even if they were complete strangers to him. There was no shyness about Simon. Colin had at times envied him.

Colin strolled idly along, as a third-year undergraduate couple approached him along the narrow path (undergraduate? He would soon not be that; he would not even be a student). As they drew close to him the girl who was in front looked back at her partner and expostulated, If only he hadn’t behaved so badly, and the man remarked back, What do you expect from…? Colin could not catch the name as he drew aside to let them pass. The girl was wearing a plain pillar-box red skirt and cream embroidered blouse. She looked as if she had stepped out of an office. Colin nodded to her. He remembered her wearing jeans and a ragged looking sweater, slinking about the campus, a sullen look on her artificially pale face. Now we are all reverting to type, he thought as the valedictory mood swooped over him.

But to get back to Claudia… Colin concentrated on what he was about to charge her with: disingenuousness. It seemed to him on examination that she had never committed herself to their relationship. She had only said, on occasions, variations of let’s get the exams over first. Then we can discuss it when we’re in a more relaxed frame of mind, when we can give our whole attention to it, and, if I say anything definite now, then you’re going to hold me to it, aren’t you? I know what you’re like (Colin winced at the memory of this phrase). I don’t know how I’m going to feel after the exams. When he protested at this, she replied, oh, look, I don’t mean that my basic feelings are likely to change – I don’t mean that, it’s just that… She was lost for words, irritated, struggling for an explanation. "Look, I need to be completely free of any other kind of… of thing in my life at the moment so I can devote my whole attention to work and the exams."

The proposal he had made was that they should go on a holiday in Europe together.

Yes, he decided, throwing away the denuded corn stalk, it was wrong of him to interpret events the way he was doing now. Claudia was just the same as she’d always been. She’d never promised him a rose garden (where did that phrase come from?) He had to give her the respect she deserved for she’d always been honest with him. Her basic feelings hadn’t changed. What had happened was that in the absence of vigilance on the part of his restraining, critical faculty, due to his pre-occupation with various periods of his degree subject, history, an ideal notion, like an aberrant though benign tumour had germinated and taken shape in his heart that after the exams he and Claudia were really going to get together and that meant sexually and in every other way: they were going to do things together, go on trips, parties, holidays, live together, possibly work together, be inseparable companions in a truly symbiotic relationship. This ideal had, without his being fully aware of it, sustained him during the long arduous weeks of revision and sleepless nights poring over books, the extreme pressure of concentration required of him. The pain and depression he was now experiencing was nothing more than the lancing of this pleasant but mischievous growth.

To the peaceful, mesmeric music of insects and the swishing of the breeze in the foliage above his head, Colin was having to admit that on the many occasions during the two and a half years that they had been – to use this misleading euphemism – ‘going out together’, when the subject of sex had been unveiled between them, he had always in the end agreed with her that it would be far better and nicer and more exciting – not to say more truly real, as well as more prudent – if they both saved it up for the night of the wedding. As to whether that wedding would be their wedding was never solidly averred. It was always assumed – an assumption that hovered in the air above them and not owned by either he or Claudia – that after the exams, after graduation, after both their careers had been settled, the future plotted, various contingencies adjusted harmoniously (all this being extremely vague, not at all rendered precise through the accurate juxtaposition of words – hardly any language was exchanged on the details of any of these abstruse concepts), when everything that intervened whatever that might be had been cleared out of the way, then yes – then would their relationship be consummated, be realised, and finally reach its culmination.

Now that this vague dreamy mass was focusing itself clearly, the contradictions and anomalies became correspondingly glaring, bordering on the nonsensical. How could he have believed it would just happen – just like that with everything solved? In this paradigmatic model he had not even considered contraception. And yet he knew that the risk of children was quite out of the question for Claudia, who had been accepted provisionally for an MA. For that matter the prospect of progeny would have been a horror for him, had he ever considered it in a way that truly linked it to his life, which he had not.

Colin considered with increasing sharp anxiety this minefield of misunderstanding. He realised that it was only when he became worried that he and Claudia – perish the thought, might actually… he envisaged it, glimpsed it as though far down a darkening tunnel built out of the sequence of months that made up the rest of the year. What would he be doing? He had as yet no job. Despite applying for nearly twenty it had not as yet been his fortune to receive a single invite for an interview. And yet he was secretly glad. It disgusted him to have to admit it to himself, but the truth was that his enthusiasm had been dampened considerably by thoughts that had been unleashed by a remark of Claudia’s during a discussion that had taken place towards the end of the Easter vac (they had both stayed down for the whole of it to better study and revise), before the ever increasing propinquity of the finals had shoved such stray mental recreations into the shadows. But now that memory was pulled out again fully into the light.

What happens if you get a job in another part of the country? Colin was thrown off balance by these words because it was her saying them, which brought preternatural vividness to the presentation before his mind’s eye of himself alone in a small town, remote from friends or connections. What especially ached like a bruise inside him was Claudia’s tone which implied she viewed such an arrangement with equanimity. He thought: she’s stronger than me, so I suppose I shall have to grit my teeth and try to develop an equal fortitude.

I don’t want to be a grass widow, you know, she added.

What was she saying? In some sense she could not take it. Did she then mean…? Was this a pretext, an excuse held as a kind of threat – or just like an escape clause. He stared out of the window of Claudia’s room, at the terrace row opposite. He neither wanted to reinforce her apparent argument by aping it, nor reveal to her the paramount significance of their relationship in his life by a remark such as, oh, well – I shan’t accept any position that is too far away from here. He was especially concerned not to appear lacking in independence, courage and drive, and they both knew that the positions he had applied for were dotted about the map. One was as far north as Lancaster.

The nefarious hope even leaked momentarily into his mind that she would not get the necessary grades to qualify her for the research post, which might mean that if he got a London position she might come with him – they could live together in the anonymity and freedom of the city – she would have no trouble getting some sort of glossy job there.

He had to admit now, in this delightful summery, sylvan setting that whenever he became insecure about Claudia’s affection for him, his ordinary physical urges, normally restrained by the bait of a future vision of togetherness, but even so compounded to an intensity by desire for her who was specially, almost exclusively beautiful to him, joined forces with a peculiar notion in his mind to form a potent, earnest, one might say deadly alliance. This was the notion that if he could only ‘clinch the deal’ with a ritual, irrevocable act of love, Claudia would mentally and emotionally as well as physically surrender to him and be his for the rest of their days and therefore it would not matter if they found themselves, in pursuit of career on opposite sides of the globe for a protracted period of time. She would always come back to him because she would have his brand indelibly printed upon her.

Colin was critically aware of this striking notion. But this awareness did nothing to loosen its seizure on his imagination. He was embarrassed, revolted, even sickened by the pernicious absurdity of its simplicity and absoluteness. And yet absolute it was, like an article of faith that no amount of scientific refutation could expunge from the heart of the believer.

By now he had traversed the edge of the field and reached the copse. But his eyes were as though glazed, his other senses proof against the delights of this idyll. He observed the ivy-clad trees, even looked up at the canopy of leaves swaying out of rhythm with itself, through which sunlight cascaded like jewels onto the rich, leafy, pliant bed, daintily decorated here and there with clusters of bluebells. But his reception of this beauty was more or less mechanical. His inner senses were not touched by it. They had been put out of action, as it were, fused by the excessive voltage of emotion, which anxiety, generated by thought had released in him.

He became quite abstracted and soon found himself back at the stile; and then he was returning along the rough path past the twin halls of residence, burgundy brick in the radiant afternoon sunshine. One thought now obsessed him. It seemed a matter of life and death that this consummation should happen – life if it did, a sort of death if it didn’t. For the first time he had, on the edge of the corn field, looking up towards the brow of a hill thronged with a million yellow stalks, fully faced the appalling prospect that it might never be achieved. This possibility – nay probability was like a gorge, a chasm that lay just beyond the next step he took. In the middle of the campus was this chasm – you couldn’t see it, but you experienced it. It was a metaphysical chasm. It was part of you, you carried it around with you – like the blot on a railway carriage window, it travelled with you.

The conversation of the previous day ran like subtitles, printed in shadow relief over the dark vision of this chasm. The same old arguments, reminders, distasteful contingencies cited, the same feelings of helplessness and impotence. But this time, with the obstacle of the exams out of the way, the condition was that they must decide or discover what they were each henceforth going to be doing, and where in the country or even beyond they were each going to be living. Not both, each. And the worst had come at the end.

In any case, she had said, in an almost insouciant tone, I certainly can’t sleep with you now, I’m completely unprotected.

In reply Colin, a state bordering on desperation having come upon him, had let go all his cool and ignobly revealed by a fumbling utterance the presence upon him of a little polythene packet, disfigured by grit, which he could not ever have admitted to her had been with him, carried around in his pockets for a little over two years. Just in case, he had always told himself… Claudia’s response to this revelation? She stared at him, her pale green eyes incredulous, almost pitiful. And then she looked away. She spoke gravely, uneasily, I always thought you wanted to save it up for marriage.

I do. But I love you – I mean it’s what you want. He gazed at her profile. They were sitting perched on Claudia’s bed. He was clutching her limp, moist hand. I don’t mind. It’s only because I love you so much.

The presence of the little package, so precipitously and clumsily disclosed to her, to whom he was now swearing the most noble of sentiments, had become hideous to him. It was as though it were giving off a bad smell from the recess of his inside jacket pocket. The mention of it had been like a swear word which had been uttered between two lines of a sacred text. He would have taken off the jacket, but such a move seemed too indelicate. She might take it as an indication that the assumption still persisted in his mind that it was going to happen now on this bed.

Never mind about it, he added, of course I accept how you feel – of course I don’t want to force you into anything you don’t want to do.

Claudia squirmed, struggling to justify herself. Colin let go of her hand, which she seemed hardly conscious of. It’s not that I don’t feel for you in the same way as I’ve done for ages, she declared in her matter-of-fact way, yet worn with awkwardness, it’s just that . . .

What? Colin coaxed, staring into her face.

I… don’t feel ready to give up my independence.

You’ve never said that before.

I’ve never considered it this way before.

Colin looked away at the blue counterpane and the straw-coloured wooden bed-head. His eyes travelled upwards, finding refuge in the Canadian travel poster on the wall above, the ski-slope, the cold, greenish sky, the pine trees dolloped with snow. He faced her again.

So does that mean . . .?

Claudia suddenly jumped up from the bed. She took a tight circle round the room. I don’t know Colin, I wish you’d stop harassing me about it.

I’m not harassing you. The pejorative word hung offensively, outrageously, brushing against his most sensitive parts like a cold, clammy rag. I love you.

Look, please… She sighed, her face lined with vexation. She approached him and took both his hands. Just give me time. I’m sure we can work something out. Everything’s so uncertain, the exams are only just over, I haven’t even recovered normality yet.

I’m sorry, Colin embraced her, drawing her towards him. Please forgive me. I won’t mention it again.

And they had finished up with kissing and cuddling in a way so familiar that it had almost lost its savour, become insipid. Because it lead nowhere it had become sterile. Only afterwards, as he lay in bed alone in his own flat did the ominous sense steal over him of a curious alteration in the quality of their togetherness. Why had he said, I won’t mention it again, almost promised her that? What had she meant by work something out? Worst of all was this statement about losing her independence. Colin drafted an amended version of the dialogue in which his reply was: but Claudia, I’ve already lost my independence, I’ve lost it to you, so now the least you can do is commit yourself to me, to ‘us’. Don’t you realise how badly I feel to hear you say that? The tension increased in him as the speech continued, like tightening an already taut cord to breaking point. He felt sick in his heart. A cold icy flavour like ether edged his viscera, awakening a dark, ugly chimera of melancholy. So many times, so many times they had slept together, wearing night clothes and underwear, or like sardines with heads at opposite ends of Claudia’s three-quarter bed. But for some reason, on this night, after the embraces were over, he felt that he couldn’t. Was he punishing her? Was it through spite? Yes it was clear: he had felt a sensation like an insect bite in his heart and all up his face like a rash. It was an emotion he could not bury, did not know how to cure. Except to take it away with himself and store it like a dangerous captive animal in its own private enclosure.

He had lain in bed until around eleven, brooding on all this, quite hooked to it, his state of mind pessimistic and bitter, speculating on manifold fantasies, some rank outsiders, some favourites in terms of probability, though certainly not in terms of his desire. Finally he had stirred from the horizontal and reached over to turn the radio on just in time to hear the programme interrupted by news of the Israeli pre-emptive strike against Egypt.

Colin reached the Students Union Building again. It was in the same uniform red brick as the other buildings on the campus. It was built in the form of two identical blocks joined on the first floor by the undergraduates’ lounge, the ballroom and a clutch of offices. Beneath this upper storey expanse was a long rectangular shallow pond flanked along each side by twin colonnades of rounded arches, inside of which ran twin covered walkways. Colin trudged down the right-hand colonnade then half way to the end turned right into a stair well. He could hear piano music which sounded like Mozart and as he mounted the steps identified that composer’s sonata in F.

It was not often that the grand piano in the small lounge was played. Whoever was doing so possessed a neat yet fluent touch. As he approached the snack bar he conjured up a picture of a prissy, conscientious female, the type one never saw outside the library. The bar was closed. He looked at his watch: three twenty one. I’ve got nothing to do, he thought, I can listen to her, maybe have a chat.

Entering the room he saw that the pianist was no staid, serious minded female of his imagination, but Simon Neilson.

CHAPTER 3

S imon looked up at Colin across the light-reflecting expanse of the grand piano with that curiously laughing, questioning yet rebuking look of his eyes, which was not so much an expression as a permanent characteristic, to do with the way his eyelids drooped away towards the outside of his face. Simon was good looking but his face depicted irony. His lips as well as his eyes contributed to this; they curled down at the edges of a wide mouth. As his eyes dropped to the keys his face became solemn and studious, which contrasted with the gaudy, high-collared shirt he wore in seersucker stripes of red, yellow and purple.

Colin had never got to know Simon during the past three years. Something raffish and untrustworthy about the man caused him to withdraw. He might be dangerous in some kind of way. Yet at the same time Colin rather looked up to him, had a sort of confidence in him, and enjoyed being in his company say at a party. He was certainly fashionable and ‘cool’ and was accepted as such by those who did not necessarily take to him or what he represented.

Colin only remembered one involved conversation they had had together, about a year ago during the time of his break up with Sandy. As Sandy was sharing a room with Claudia, and Claudia being what she was where others’ troubles were concerned, Colin had suffered an earful night after night, episode after episode of heartbreak and distress, of patience tried almost beyond endurance. The famous phrase of Sandy’s, passing through Claudia’s critical intellect was transformed into a leitmotif of the whole situation, and always came to Colin’s mind whenever he recalled those days. One night in a particularly dreadful mood of desperation Sandy had let slip that she would go to the ends of the Earth with him. Shortened to Ends of the Earth this statement became their label for that condition of the heart, that stage in a relationship usually and unfortunately when only one of the two partners felt this intense dedication to the life of the other.

Colin was reminded of all this sharply and harshly as he watched Simon’s not quite visible hands dancing along the keys. He was playing something by Debussy now. That night they had gone for a drink together for some reason – ah, yes, that was it, Claudia and Sandy wanted to be alone together – or rather Sandy wanted to be with Simon, but Simon had wanted to get away, so Colin had agreed to accompany him. Then over pints of beer he had asked Simon the leading question: why had it not worked out? Simon was shifty. He became flippantly philosophical, uttering in a subtly tongue-in-cheek style many generalisations, many pearls of wisdom. Colin’s memory recalled: nothing is guaranteed in this World, nothing is sewn up, nothing is certain. A person can be perfectly truthful and honest on one occasion, yet on another occasion contradict himself completely. But on both occasions he can be acting with complete sincerity and faithfulness – ah, yes – a flash of memory lit up his mind. Simon had talked at length about faith, keeping faith. Faith was what mattered, not consistency. Faith meant being true to oneself, rather than consistent.

The affair of Simon and Sandy confronted him as he watched the other, generating a sort of force-field of circumspection. But on a more surface level of casual encounters he was fascinated, and allowed himself to skirt the instrument so that he was now looking down directly onto Simon’s fingers. Finishing the piece by Debussy (which he was playing without music) Simon gazed up into Colin’s face with that invasively impudent, yet reassuringly absolving expression. Colin quickly said defensively, I didn’t know you could play classical piano.

Simon was slightly vexed at this, a faint frown passed across his face. I’ve played piano since I was a kid.

Colin skimmed frenetically through a file in his mind, can you play Mozart’s Violin Sonata in E Minor K.304?

Why – can you play it? Simon was about to get up and offer the stool to Colin. There was irony in this move.

I can play the violin part.

Yes, I know, Simon looked enigmatically triumphant, as if he’d scored a point.

How – what do you know? Colin spluttered, confused.

That you play the violin? Simon smiled reassuringly.

Who told you?

I expect Sandy or Claudia told me once.

Colin pulled at his lip. He felt a bit foolish to have invited Simon to play a piece of music when he had neither his violin nor the manuscript with him. What else can you play – I mean solo piano stuff?

Not much from memory. Only the pieces I learned for the grade seven exam.

When did you start playing the guitar?

About three years ago.

Colin sensed that Simon was squeamish about being ‘interviewed’ like this, that there was a danger Simon’s reaction would be to mock the style of this slightly impertinent interrogation. His reaction was to retreat and also cover himself with a flattering comment.

That’s remarkable.

It’s not all that difficult to learn the guitar if you know piano. You can pick it up in a matter of months, Simon responded absently, tinkling about with his right hand. His tone was a little offhand and superior.

We ought to get together and play some pieces for piano and violin.

Could do. Simon looked up and presented his face to Colin, bright, yet enigmatically ironic. He seemed to be testing Colin in some recondite field.

I suppose you can play rock piano, said Colin as Simon let go a blues riff.

I can play rock organ after a fashion – yeah, said Simon deprecatingly.

I’ve never played anything but classical music.

It’s easy enough to play rock music. Once you know the chords you just improvise. Simon seemed to be condescendingly allowing the conversation to be conducted in Colin’s favour.

I’ve never been able to improvise, Colin said gloomily, I’ve tried many times but it never works out. I don’t seem to know what to do.

You just play the notes that fit in with a particular harmonic sequence, said Simon looking up again at Colin, giving him that characteristic absolving smile, you know about harmonics, don’t you?

Oh yes, I studied music theory.

You passed all your grades, did you?

Oh yeah.

Well then you know it all. What’s the difficulty? Simon gazed brightly at Colin.

Nothing except that when it comes to it, I don’t know what to do – no ideas come to mind. I suppose I’m not creative.

Maybe you’re not.

This remark annoyed Colin. It was as if Simon, after building him up for a time, was now intent on knocking him down.

I haven’t played the violin for ages in any case. Just that now the exams are over, it suddenly seemed a good idea.

Then it is a good idea. Simon flourished another blues arpeggio and looked up at Colin with his impudent, quizzical yet piteous gaze. Anything that seems a good idea is a good idea. There’s no need to be apologetic about it.

Colin blenched inwardly. I wasn’t being apologetic.

Simon did not react to this except to turn away, transferring his full attention to the piano keys.

Suddenly he began to play a piece which Colin identified as one of the Beethoven Sonatas but could not remember which. Meanwhile some other students, probably first years because their faces were unfamiliar to Colin entered the room in a bunch. They stood around idly, leaning against the window, keeping their distance from the piano but clearly lingering on account of the music. They were not talking much to one another. Colin wished fervently that he had his violin and music with him. Then he and Simon could have staged an impromptu concert.

Simon stopped playing, craned his neck to look around at his new audience, then began a new piece which Colin immediately recognised as the very famous Für Elise. At first he played the main theme straight, but soon he was altering the timing, playing the beginning slow, then speeding it up in an increasingly exaggerated alternation, putting in extra repeats of the first two notes, eventually repeating it over and over again in a manner more and more stilted, introducing an ever increasing number of deliberate errors.

Some of the students in the room were looking at him intently and smiling. One young man burst out laughing, which was infectious because very soon everyone was chuckling and giggling, mostly in an embarrassed, furtive way. Simon completed another cycle of the main theme, accelerating it absurdly at the end, finishing up by bashing his hands about the keys in a succession of horrible discords.

Abruptly he stood up and closed the piano with a bang. A complacent, secluded sort of smile pulled at his lips. One of the students, a young woman, clapped rather limply, but they mostly seemed to want to pretend they had not been listening.

Simon began to walk away towards the exit, but then he turned back to Colin. Are you going back into town?

Yes.

Simon hardly uttered the word good. He walked straight out of the room, passing close by some of the students. One or two of the females gazed curiously after him with a wistful admiration. The men however were too proud or vain to want to acknowledge his talent. Colin felt uncomfortably in Simon’s shadow as he followed him out and down the stairs.

As they walked in silence along the cloistered walkway and then out onto the path that led to the underpass beneath the railway lines, he felt he must allude to the piece in some way. He sensed that Simon was expecting this, although he would never for a moment reveal in word or gesture that he depended on nourishment from the response of an audience. On the contrary, Colin felt, this man would deny it resolutely, contemptuously, but disguised in the elegant style of facile philosophical statements.

I thought the way you messed up that piece of music was very clever, Colin finally spoke, looking up at Simon who was slightly taller than he was.

It’s nothing, Simon almost snapped, frowning superciliously. But he added, it would be impossible to play it straight.

Why?

It’s been done to death. Completely ruined.

What do you mean?

Simon seemed irritated but disguised it as big brotherly affection. He smiled. "Well, you know, you’ve studied music. There are some pieces in which too much familiarity, too much practising on when you can’t play the instrument sufficiently well, leads to a kind of distorted consciousness. The piece kind of preys on you – you have to ridicule it to get it out of your system. It’s like when you learned that Blake poem in school. You know –

"Tyger, tyger burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

You end up being unable to appreciate it – in fact you’ve become allergic to it.

I never learned that at school.

Well any poem you had to tear to pieces in a comprehension exercise. It has the same effect.

You’ve got a good act there though. Those first years were enjoying it.

What – as a musical comedian? Simon inspected Colin. The idea seemed to have made an impression on him. I’ve often thought of introducing comedy into our act – like the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. But I don’t think the others are interested. I think they just want to play straight rock’n’roll… in so far as they are interested at all in playing music.

Colin was appreciative of these obliquely offered confidences. He was to some extent flattered, and his appetite whetted for further morsels. Something about this companionship was exciting him, though he had yet to analyse exactly what it was.

"What are they interested in?" He asked.

"Oh, their careers, Simon tossed this out with insouciant contempt, well, not so much Peter – though he’s a borderline case. He hasn’t really come down on one side or the other. But the others . . ."

It’s a big problem though, what to do, what sort of career to choose.

They came to a halt on the platform. Colin peered down the line to his right but there was no sign as yet of a train. The station was a tiny halt, which Dr. Beeching in the early sixties would have rendered extinct with no more ado than the stroke of a pen, had it not been for the impending new University, as well as the Teacher’s Training College on the opposite side of the valley.

Simon regarded Colin intently, as though his anxieties were a matter of poignant concern for the student rock musician. Why? Are you worried about it?

Yes, of course, it bothers me a lot – the whole necessity of earning a living and committing myself. Colin felt a sense of relief at this opportunity, like a fruit falling into his lap.

You make too big an issue of it, said Simon, as if he had many years of experience behind him of listening to Colin’s problems. Everything happens as it’s supposed to happen. There’s no need to worry about earning a living. Money is a big bogey. Once you stop worrying about money you can start living. The money’ll look after itself.

The question Colin wanted to ask Simon almost seemed to be outlawed by these last remarks. Nevertheless Colin was determined to put it. So what do you intend to do when you leave this place?

Without a pause for thought, Simon replied, I’ve always been determined to become a professional musician.

Colin looked at Simon, standing in his rainbow shirt and wine coloured corduroy suit, the jacket of which had been taken off and was held on his forefinger over his shoulder. The excitement he felt suddenly took on an identity, a distinct shape. Some part of him that had always remained inaccessible, in a shadowy alcove inside him, was represented by this figure which, like one of the chords Simon had struck on the piano, had caused a harmonic echo to resound in Colin’s heart. At once he felt he had something in reserve that had hitherto never been considered: if the relationship with Claudia petered out, if their marriage never in the end took place, if he failed to find an acceptable career, then there was always – music. Even the possibility of a nuclear conflagration seemed no longer to fill him with alarm – as if music possessed some supernatural power to protect him from its wholesale destructiveness.

Just for curiosity’s sake – or perhaps because he was afraid of leaving the subject isolated in himself, a potential threat to what was promising to be a salvation from his lowness and vexation – as though to allude openly to it might serve as a neutraliser, Colin asked, Have you heard the latest about the War?

Oh yes, Simon said, looking away from him towards an oncoming train, "I do listen to the news you know."

What do you think?

Israelis’ll win – they always do.

Doesn’t bother you then – I mean the danger we’re all in?

Simon turned back to him with that mocking yet forgiving smile, I never worry about nuclear war. If it happens it happens. Then the human race as a whole will have deserved it. If it doesn’t happen – well, then everything’s hunky dory! We can celebrate!

"That’s a