How to Play the Piano - A Novel

By Alan Coghlan

With a one-way ticket, his studies behind him and the knowledge amassed, Devlin Doyle travels to Vienna to deepen his commitment to the piano. This story follows the events of his stay where practice and preparation play an integral part in a dramatic arc that ends with Devlin dying a figurative death which will leave you wondering what could possibly come next. You will finally experience how Devlin, upon his resurrection, discovers the greater significance of the piano method sketch left by Chopin and how it reveals to him the true nature of music and virtuosity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Dec 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781326108359

Book preview

How to Play the Piano - A Novel

HOW TO PLAY THE PIANO –A NOVEL

ALAN COGHLAN

Copyright © 2014 by Alan Coghlan

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

The lines on page 41 were taken from the poem September 1913 by W.B.Yeats.

Third Revision: 2018

ISBN 978-1-326-10835-9

[e-mail]

Now the dread of possibility holds him as its prey, until it can deliver him saved into the hands of faith. In no other place does he find repose … he who went through the curriculum of misfortune offered by possibility lost everything, absolutely everything, in a way that no one has lost it in reality. If in this situation he did not behave falsely towards possibility, if he did not attempt to talk around the dread which would save him, then he received everything back again, as in reality no one ever did even if he received everything tenfold, for the pupil of possibility received infinity….

-Sören Kierkegaard

The Concept of Dread, 1844

Chapter one

Depths.

Depths.

Icing its depths, the sea’s quiet, brushed-white wind-painted waves, its brushed-white movement began to disappear from view as the Swiss Air Boeing made its ascent through cumulus cloud; and at his elliptical window, at Devlin’s own window seat…the fruits of a swallowed resolve, the fruits of his unyielding, swallowed resolve ambushed him…as a great tidal-wave-of-emotion crashing against his insides…..CRASH!!!!!!!!!! CRACK!!!!!!...YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT!!!!!!!!

It left Devlin physically doubled up and incapacitated for a time. The entirety of his commitment eluded him, however, despite the brutality of this onslaught.

He bent forward and pulled, quite instinctively, on the pouch holding a sick bag and the in-flight magazine and let it spring back in place and folding his arms to prevent further involuntary action, he leaned back and betrayed the faintest glimmer of desperation.

The cranky, barely hushed hummer of turbines rose steady and uninterrupted in his awareness to an obtrusive level and started digging into his ears. He pressed his arms together tightly. It was all he could do to contain his emotion. He would have pressed them together with the hugest violence if such a thing were possible for he had no confidence that he couldn’t just burst, that even the smallest leniency wouldn’t just let what’s uncontrollable out all out uncontrollably.

The funds were there to purchase another one-way ticket home, should he feel such a compulsion. No bridges had been burned. This could be deemed by no objective assessment a fatal turn. In today’s day and age one only had to hop on a plane. All resolutions could be rearticulated null and void. Within the week if he were to so want it.

On a deeper level, however, Devlin knew himself, or not at all when such an assumption was put to the test. His contradictory Aquarian nature was flawed perfection personified. His mouth turned downwards from the aftertaste of floods. Why, the fuck, would he want to lose himself to the fucking bullshit piano? (The profanities were just coming all by themselves, like when one is deprived of sleep.) Who is the best piano player in the world? (Devlin cared.) Evgeny Kissin might be the best. But what’s he missing? He has to be missing something. And that is why Devlin has set off – he has set off to immerse himself in all the turmoil and all the upheaval; to find what’s missing in his playing. Boundless expression is not something which can be contained or bred within the structures of respectability, or familiarity, or guilt numbing routine for the meek and mentally…emotionally…dumb spirits of should-dos – overlooking every single moment in their shallow, should-do approach (and Devlin was one)…two, three-a…one, two, three – and all the while existence and the infinite space of eternity is passing them despite, or because of, their grimaces. Or they were passing it in fine. It all depends on who’s sitting at the centre. Bravo. Well done boy. And is boy distancing himself from the insides of the composer in the process? Without the old toxins in the blood it was a lot harder to say. But Devlin did believe some of them were able to taste and feel life. Not love or struggling. Nothing like that. No. Life. The gift God gave. A tangible quality that art envelopes. The life caught pulsating between Beethoven’s pen strokes. His life was bizarre, as is all of life. A life such as his just emphasised this given. It could be past, present or future. Such moments, one harmony to the next, had an eternal quality, but flickered past like an imperfection; an imperfection because their flickered perfection had not lasted an eternity. Existential might be the suitable expression. Having never looked this up in the dictionary, Devlin rather distanced himself from such pedantry, if pedantry was the right word. Somewhat angry after these forceful, below-the-belt assaults, he pursed his lips.

He was served a portion of chocolate, chocolate chip Häagen-Dazs as his in-flight snack. Damn fine nation Swiss Air. With the state he was in he didn’t even check out the stewardess. Perhaps his indifference made him more attractive and windswept. This was his consoling afterthought. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it. (They cascaded.) It (everything) was anyway over.

Another tidal wave hit and overwhelmed him. He had, again, to turn his mouth downwards to contain it, and he would have turned it down with the hugest violence if such a thing were possible. Ironically, the feeling containing it was similar to the feeling Devlin would get when trying to strain his way through constipation – with emotion laden, reddened grunts. Uugghhhaahh. The plane had left oceanic airspace and was now flying over mainland Europe.

Devlin ate the chocolate, chocolate chip ice cream and relished its compassion. He would land in Zurich and from there a connecting flight would bring him to Vienna.

Two weeks ago he had had no idea he would be going. A friend had been visiting Vienna with an orchestra. She’d said she had to tell him; that all the while she’d been there the thought that she must tell Devlin about Vienna had never left her. The act of describing this along with hand gestures seemed to be absolving her from a heavy burden; a karmic baggage. Devlin was one who believed in a certain magic hovering about in the air and coincidences, he believed, belonged to this magic. This, he decided, was a coincidence since he had already been nurturing the thought of going somewhere. The next day found him in the travel agents buying a one-way ticket. A silly moment had passed between himself and the lady at the computer as he requested the ticket. Maybe it had made him attractive. Fuck it.

There were no delays in Zurich. He didn’t even have to walk to the next plane; just moonwalk on his spot on the moving floor; the customer line; the passenger belt, right onto the jet and on to Vienna.

Horowitz never took part in piano competitions. He just played concerts. As his reputation grew so did his public. That was Devlin’s inspiration. In a nutshell. Fuck it. That was the way he was going to do it. Live and practice in Vienna so he might later give a few concerts in some small venues there. It would simply be a continuation of something he had begun in Ireland. Fame and success, though, were not the aspirations of his strategy. His theory and intention was, ‘Fuck everything up and when you put the pieces back together you’ll be a stronger, better person.’

For Devlin it was all about being strong. This belief had, in fact, planted itself so deep inside his consciousness – so deep, that it would be easily forgotten or overlooked under the muck of even the smallest distraction. If he could just manage to play a concert. Such an outcome would be enough for Devlin to consider it having been worth his while. He would hold out in Austria for three years, longer than the kangaroos had, and if nothing unforeseen happened in this time span he would return to Ireland. A year to settle, a year to prepare and a year to do something seemed to be about right timetable-wise. In Austria they print on their T-shirts with big, bold, monstrous type that there are no Kangaroos. There’ll be Devlin though, arriving on their doorstep, latching on and hopping mad. And what then, after the three years are up? What then? He would then keep going. He would grab the handles of the plough and he would not look back and he would continue to practice and give concerts wherever and whenever possible. Somewhere inside he had faith that a rightness belonged to anything he had ever actually managed to finish. He knew it was crap. It was all crap. All the same, it definitely was his path. That, whether it be faith, or Karma, or crude lumps of manufactured inevitability; that such things materialise alone through hindsight and, as theories, exist only in hindsight is very, very probable; it is, however, on the other hand, virtually impossible to comprehend the alternative. The second plane trip was proving to be harder than the first. He could almost visualise the alternative slipping away from him; waving seductively over its shoulder as it did so. Woe is Devlin. This trip could have been the fleeting alternative.

It looked to Devlin like Vienna, or Wien as he’d have to start calling it, was going to meet his imagination for the number of individuals, in the plane alone, donning instruments. Is donning the right word? A mean, vicious, cello-toting woman? He’s packing Bassoon? When the reed’s around the corner be ready to blow. He was asked by a violin player, a male violin player (yes there was even one sitting next to him) whose phallic presence of his instrument was suffocating Devlin, a piano player (pianist being a term he disliked enunciating), where the concert house was. The fiddler was from Japan. That was Devlin’s guess.

‘Excuse me, can you tell me please Musikverein?’ he asked, pointing to the word in a brochure with a map. ‘You know where Musikverein is?’ he elaborated.

Devlin’s response flashed turbulently in his thoughts, spewing from his emotional distress. ‘I’m on the plane too pal. I’ve got a map. You’ve got a map yourself there I see. I’ll be using mine you fucking moron. Cop on and use it. You don’t have to be so fucking eager. You’ve anyway got your instrument lying across your lap, or is there a Tommy gun in the case? Wait till you’re at least in the fucking country. Where, the fuck, do you think my instrument’s stuck? Not up your fucking ass that’s for sure!’ That’s what Devlin wanted to say. It really was.

‘No, sorry. This is my first time going to Vienna,’ was what he actually said. Taking a futile, yet well endowed, good intentions look into this guy’s map was probably the only way within the confines of manners for Devlin to illustrate something like, ‘I have to look in a fucking map too. They do work these things. I don’t have to ask anyone for directions when I have one of these.’ (Little secret.) Devlin can, however, only mirror another’s stupidity. One deliberate, only for show, feigned study of the map for fear of being rude and a ‘I don’t know, sorry’ and Devlin will keep the secret to himself. Jap’s hand stroked his flute or fiddle case or whatever it was as Devlin glanced at the map and, as Devlin prematurely drew a blank, Jap’s eye drooped back to the map.

Another tidal wave pounded Devlin fucking vehemently. All the feeling was concentrated somewhere near the bump of his Adam’s apple. ‘If you want what you want you’ll have to deny yourself any sense of purpose. There is quite a large fundamental difference between pursuing and chasing.’ He was definitely waiting for these…fucking tidal waves to subside a bit.

He took a quick glance at Jap-boy who was neatly dressed in a shirt and trousers. It was an ensemble which could not have been worn often. His attire had a cleanness to it which is lost after it’s passed x number of times through the washing machine. A quick look at his own clobber prompted Devlin to think of the time he went to primary school. An extracurricular computer course had been introduced, this was in the late eighties, for which one had to take an aptitude test to qualify. Devlin had had the sufficient store of aptitude required and had joined the chosen few who would learn the computer language logo. On the first day of the course though, he had found himself unable to work the logo. The thing was, he hadn’t been able to find the zero button, so he had used the o button instead and the computer hadn’t known what the hell he’d been on about. It had been the diagonal line that penetrated the computer zeros at the time that had thrown him well off the scent. Believe it or not, the computer had even said, ‘I do not compute’ and had rasped him with a big logo tongue on a continuous loop without sound after Devlin’s last straw had included typing the technical terms ‘Work…Or else!’ But it hadn’t. Not really. That would have been amazingk. No. It had done not one thing. None of his fellow course goers had had any such problems working their logo. He had almost belonged then and had even beaten another poor sap to the place in the course.

Devlin had no perception of how his own outfit looked, but he guessed it screamed a charitable ‘nearly’. It was certainly well worn and oft washed. He despised buying new clothes, so when necessity demanded he would buy a few items which would look as nondescript as possible. This meant not old, not new, not in fashion, not out of date, not expensive, not cheap – nondescript without trying to look nondescript. Once he found a few pieces close as possible to his wants, he would wear those continuously till all sense of their style were lost to him and he would then finally feel comfortable in them. It was not a speedy process and not one he was ever in a hurry to repeat. He was a functional, unfinished being and he needed a functional, unfinished style. Perhaps Devlin was flirting with the sunny side of homelessness. He hoped not.

Apart from the few clothes, a towel and the sleeping bag in his backpack, Devlin had a rucksack with him that contained his savings, a minidisc recorder, the notes of the first pieces he intended to learn and a book on music by Pierre Boulez he intended reading and rereading from cover to cover and he’d really get it. That was his inventory and he had no real plans of extending it. He wanted to live like a monk and had committed himself with very good heart to a vow of poverty. All his belongings had been left behind with no instructions that they should be held on to or intact when he returned. This was streamlining. He had given blame for his inertia to the stuff. As well, he wanted possessions he was happy to have, that had an importance and quality, a collection that was uncontaminated by the mediocre or bored, impulse purchase.

He would, however, buy a mobile phone. Aside from having booked the first few nights’ accommodation this was his only practical plan of action. With no residence one must be contactable. This was something he had learned while briefly residing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. You always have to leave a telephone number. It was only down to present circumstances though that he would purchase a mobile. From day one of the mobile phone era the concept of continued accessibility had certainly disagreed with his personal tastes. Accessibility theory was supported by the observation that very few of the first mobile phone owners did any calling. They’d leave the phone on the pub table and wait to be called, leaving it up to the caller to shoulder the extra mobile call costs while at the same time looking in demand and fantastic themselves. This was their contribution. ‘Humankind, I’m ready for your call.’ The callers then figured out it was cheaper from mobile to mobile and got one too. There’s a well-targeted, core customer group for you. In the present climate, however, this present move was a brainstorm.

Devlin had gone and stripped himself, he had cut himself off against the ropes with only himself and the hope he could defeat himself within a ring constructed of his own desperation and, living a life devoid of distraction, achieve something where he may feel like an acceptable human outcome. It had appeared to Devlin, who had always tried digging for the thread, that successful people, artists, left, and while they were away mysterious things would happen to them, like they were granted enlightenment in compensation for their selflessness (what is that?) and that this was the key, the turning point in any of these celebrated lives. Even cowboys found the ability to dance when the ring of bullets ricocheted around their boots. Funnily enough, Devlin discounted the talent of these successful people, despite his own lack of it being, all too often, the all-glorious and trumpeted reason for his own, all too numerous, bouts of self-persuaded inactivity. On a deep level the concept of possessing talents of his own was absurd. On a deeper level his own sense of person was supersaturated with talent and at his core was a switch flickering between the two; leaving him ultimately (or penultimately) with nothing – with lukewarm water. ‘It is a move like this that will finally flick the switch.’ It wasn’t a move on his part for success. It was a move to failure with closure. He wanted to stop the switch and he couldn’t help his annoying, nagging, Chinese-torturing hunch of where it would land.

So his items were choice items. He felt efficiently prepared for the ordeal – to-the-point and taut. Rucksack was to Devlin like what utility belt was to Batman. Each item had their purpose, their validation, and could be milked. ‘Use the whole Buffalo,’ he would be told, ‘nipples an’ all.’ There was no excess left, and further acquisitions would be just as valuable, unless he should later forget his intentions. Frivolous regrets would be his past and his frivolous present would be shaped by ones of a weightier sort.

Devlin’s head fell on the headrest and turned to the window. He would have sighed had the emotional attacks allowed it. Boarding time in Dublin airport had not been early. His father and brother had seen him off. He’d had to leave quickly. There had been no other way. It had not been easy and it had been then the landslide that had started the tidal attacks, had come tumbling down. The midday departure had allowed him to stay out late the night before and into the early hours of that morning with good time friends, enjoying an abandonment that only comes at a price. ‘So you’re going to Vienna. Far out!’ Devlin raised the flip-down table and tried changing position in his cramped area for the sake of his cramped ass. Another tidal wave came.

It was dark as the Boeing approached Vienna airport. There was nothing to see out the window except the luminous template of what could be any city around the world. A tired sight for any weary traveller. This didn’t deter Jap-boy from trying to lean over and eagerly scour the spread for more clues and head starts. Devlin squeezed against the back of his seat, keen to avoid any coincidental physical contact. He wondered how Jap’s life would unfold, or rather, he posed himself the question by rote. Eagerness is not appropriate in life. It’s like a bad debt. There are no suitable returns for eagerness. It is very possible eager beavers rather lacked disappointment than having gained something extra in their character. They never really thought it’s not enough of anything. Devlin’s distaste was laced with a covert hope in a frustratingly close connection which he could nearly ‘now you don’t’ see, so his was a ‘don‘t fucking jinx it’ stance. Is Jap going to sleep tonight? Devlin imagined not. Too many tomorrows and next weeks to get a head start on. The landing, tonight, the next morning, the next day, the week, fortnight, month, Musikverein and the head start home. Are we there yet? The flight definitely felt different than the norm. ‘Ah, it is distasteful and lonely.’ Devlin had almost said it out loud. It felt abstract; all distasteful and out there. ‘Why am I pushing myself to this?’ he thought.

He was always making tests for himself. Little was done for the sake of enjoyment and if, it quickly died. Pushing himself to things that were hard, just because they were, did very little to improve his situation. He never seemed to get that though, so he considered the fact that he forgot everything to be one of his greatest problems. His memory was select, or maybe not even, he couldn’t remember which, and it was a foe that was always volleying him within the weightless confines of limbo. One step after the other had been lost in forgetfulness.

One last shuffle in his seat and the Boeing touched down.

A generic passenger mass traipsed out of the plane, thanked the crew and walked down the stairway to the airport bus that would take them to the main arrival area and the baggage claim.

His precious rucksack had come with him on board as his item of hand luggage. Something of the sort was necessary since he had holes in all the pockets of his trousers. Why? He did not know. Maybe it was his keys that did it or maybe he just stuck his hands excessively in his pockets or fingered the stitching too much. It meant, however, having to always find an alternative, like a jacket pocket or a rucksack. He didn’t use jacket pockets for his hands because they were too high up and he preferred sinking them in his trouser pockets with a full, outstretched weight that exploited the complete capability of their support.

Devlin found comfort in the baggage claim. He counted the one, two, three, six, eight, nine conveyer belts. This was his last repose, his sanctuary which, like him, belonged to nothing. Nobody at this stage was ever there yet. Everybody was only ever ready to leave. There is a point in a journey where it is only about the destination and the baggage claim is exactly that point. It is only ever emptying. The ‘almost there’ part. That last little detail exactly on the outer rim. Beyond the divider was ‘there’ and it was an arena of reunions, connections, introductions, embraces of the fond and feigned kind, of people meeting people, people who need people. Devlin’s kinship with the baggage claim was heightened at that moment. He had connected and it was such a comforting feeling that he wanted to join his backpack on the conveyer belt and sit with legs crossed contemplating it. Still, he reluctantly lifted it off when it came and found himself, despite himself, indulging in a smug little sideways peek and a sideways smile at Jap-boy who happened to be waiting next to Devlin for his luggage and was still anxiously darting unrequited glances for it back and forth along the conveyor belt. The smile in Devlin’s throat at his little inner comedic performance clashed sorely with the distasteful feeling that he now had to part with the comfort of the area. The last of its consolation still accompanied him through the ’there’ arena where it hollowed him out and reverberated another colossal tidal wave. Devlin was very unhappy with himself and had already bid a hapless farewell to the coast.

Chapter two

He strode purposely through the arrival gates. Nobody was there to meet him. None of the people sporting those little sheets of paper with surnames written on them had spelled his; so instead, he primed himself for the looming alternative. He focused and centred himself like you do when you get the feeling you’re being followed as you walk home alone in the dark.

To his right was a Mozart cafe in a Hundertwasser style with matt white pillars and holes that looked like they’d been shaped on a potter’s wheel and that were plastered with broken bits of shiny tiles in bold colours which gave the overall impression of a berry muesli radio sprayed mosaic. The air around the coffee drinkers was dense with smoke. Of everything else was Devlin’s vision protectively blinkered, so he did not notice the one body greeting the other with any warmth or any affection.

Taxi and car hire signs dominated the left hand side. Devlin had read some warning or advice, perhaps a lonely planet tip, so he looked past these in hope of finding a not so conspicuous minibus service and there, next to one of the exits, was a plain counter for exactly the thing the lonely planet had tipped him off about.

Another plan of his was not to avail of public transportation from the get go. The extra bit of cash it would take to get to the hostel without having to think, chase or lug was welcome and worth it. (What the fuck was he thinking? This was his whole fucking life he was gambling with; past, present and future!) Taxis were, all the same, a little steep, so this was the perfect go-between for a man like him – a one on the fence. It was a car pool ideology. You got dropped at your destination but they piled others into the minibus with you and you had to suffer their drop-offs before your own. Devlin didn’t mind that though. He was not in any particular hurry.

‘Sprechen Sie Englisch?’ he said to the woman at the counter, with his big clumsy voice choking away on the words. This was practically his only German, despite him having learned it as a subject in school. He had never come to the realisation that German was, in fact, a real language and not just a subject in a textbook. Had he realised, it may, looking back, have given him an approach or a frame of mind which might have led him to actually learn something of it. If only he had seen it as a means of communication. In school it had been very uncommunicative.

The woman nodded.

‘I need to get here,’ continued Devlin as he produced a piece of paper on which he had written the address of the Hostel, pre-empting any time wasting pronunciation difficulties and subsequent confusions. A little quarter laugh and a smile were thrown in to counter his bluntness.

‘Ok, the minibus stands outside this door,’ she said pointing with her pen, ‘and it will leave in fifteen minutes. You can show the driver the address. It costs 300 schillings.’

Devlin presented the woman with three green notes and another smile. Handing him a receipt she said, ‘Show this to the driver as you get on. Thank you.’

Devlin took the receipt and thanked her; again smiling the while. He always tried to be as warm and genuine as possible to blank strangers on short encounters which could probably be considered inappropriate given his closer relationships. On an abstract level he behaved differently. The general, the mass, devoid of individuality, was always something he naturally despised, and he knew no boundaries to the baseness of the verbal onslaught he could bombard it with. His disrelish shed, however, one-on-one. Perhaps niceness and decency had to come out somewhere and were as fundamental to a person as their flip sides. Some people choose cats to dote on.

300 schillings. Three snots. He had no idea how much this was in the Irish Punt and he had no great desire to work it out. Perhaps he had beaten the taxi trap, perhaps not. Suffering the other drop-offs may not be for the extra bit of money in your pocket but rather for the part that nurtures and pacifies that inner cheap, blinkered schmoe.

Devlin was the last to be dropped off as he had deliberately chosen the remotest hostel in Vienna. A retreat from the city for the first few days, he had figured, could help shoulder the burden of the ordeal.

When the last of the other passengers, honeymooners in their early thirties, were dropped at their Hotel, the driver invited Devlin to sit up front. Devlin accepted, even if he would have rather stayed sitting where he was at the very back till they got there but to refuse would have anyway spoilt the peace of his quiet freedom.

It looked like the driver was more or less off duty now. ‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ he asked in reasonable English after Devlin had moved up front.

‘No, I don’t mind.’

He offered the open packet to Devlin with a nod. Devlin declined. ‘No thanks, I don’t smoke.’

This wasn’t exactly true. Albeit not a full-fledged smoker, he had recently enjoyed the odd cigarette with increasing regularity but was still, theoretically, in the bud nipping stage, and since this trip was primarily intended to make him a better person, with his resolution to leave everything that was not better behind him in Ireland, he declined.

The driver seemed to be pushing for conversation or was, at least, expectant of it which really had the exact same effect. Devlin succumbed to the conflict obligation was posing. He took the lead, reverting to his repertoire of the usual taxi banter, since he lacked the patience to share space with someone who, on the one hand, waited for conversation but was, on the other, apparently incapable of giving it a kick start with more than just an unfaltering look of expectancy. How can they stomach it? This continual recitation of résumés did nothing for Devlin. Some people never seem to mind it though. Of course, this guy enjoyed the vantage point that he would never need be presented with that bastard ‘What do you do?’ given that he was in the process of doing it and, spared this stomach churner, probably relished nipple crippling others with it.

‘Do you have many runs left tonight?’ Devlin asked.

‘I’m sorry, I do not understand.’

Devlin rephrased. ‘How long do you still have (diarrhoea) to work tonight?’

‘After I bring you, I’m finished. It is late and there are no more planes today. Your plane was the last.’

‘Oh, that’s good,’ said Devlin upbeat. The upbeat was genuine enough. When in the process, Devlin didn’t mind conversing too much, it was more the pre and post that irked him. The upbeats, downbeats, sympathising and encouraging turns belonged to the dynamic, the interpretation of conversation making, so the upbeat was genuine in the sense that Devlin wanted to perform his side of the conversation as good as possible, and good dynamics support good rhythm. It takes two to tango though. ‘Is the hostel far out?’ asked Devlin, dead pan, eighteen seconds later.

‘Excuse me?’ responded the driver shaking his head.

‘Is the hostel far away?’

‘Not very far.’

‘How long will it still take?…Y’know, till we get there?’

‘Maybe ten or fifteen minutes.’

Devlin considered himself to be in a very good position to make an educated guess as to whether the conversation would be getting better and if it was going to have justified the effort it took to have it; but what the driver had been looking so expectant for was beyond him. ‘Would it not be nicer to drive in silence with your own thoughts?’ he thought. Maybe it wasn’t. The cigarette might be enough and the conversation may just be serving as a bit of background noise, an alternative to the radio. Devlin looked on as the driver took an involved and indulgent drag from his cigarette and then blew the smoke out the window. It was very unfair and selfish. Devlin tried to transmogrify the feeling he’d like to be enjoying one too to a glad I didn’t feeling and ignore the paranoia of being used, of being reduced. Use people and love things.

He shifted his gaze back out his own window. It was dark, so his view was hindered by the beams of headlights, both real and reflected. Had it been daytime he might have been able to comment on what he saw. Always keep the talk out there. That was his objective. He had a hollow, irrational fear that his own disorientation would transmit to the driver and affect his ability to navigate the minibus in the dark. ‘It’s very hard to see anything when you arrive at night. It’s a pity, you know, when you’re driving through. It’s normally a great way to get a first impression and a bit of a feel for the city.’

‘Yes, in the dark you see little,’ replied the taxi driver.

Devlin had exhausted his arsenal of taxi driver questions and depleted his reserves of enthusiasm. He did manage to muster up a short coda of observations, in face of the lingering air of expectance, about the plus sides of the driver’s job. Those of the it’s not bad, that, or it’s good the way or it’s nice when kind, because he probably anyway never got to hear them being Austrian and all.

‘Are you here on holiday?’ asked the driver after he had thrown the cigarette butt out the window.

Innocent enough, but to Devlin these questions just got his goat. He had generally spent a lot of time working on conversation prompters which threw the talk out there, which tried to latch it onto the wide blue yonder and its like. When no one took the bait he felt cheated, like he, at this point, had lost. He answered with a subtle tone of defeat which may have had a similar ring to it as modesty would. ‘No, (pause) I play the piano, (quietly spoken) and I came here to try and get some experience, maybe play a few concerts somewhere, so heh, (half laugh) yeah, that’s all.’

He could have said yes to the holiday but the fact was he wasn’t on holiday and would never have come for one, so to pretend otherwise would have been much too inappropriate. It knocked the wind out of his sails to sum up his actions so. Not that there had been wind in his sails. Wind in his sails was not what was moving him. It would have knocked the wind out of them though had it been like that.

Basically the summation had been correct. There was definitely more to it though. This was Devlin’s private revolt against success. He would do what he wanted to do despite being a nobody. He’d come to Vienna, work to pay his living costs and use the rest of his time to practice, to improve and be a monk, or an artist, or live his own life, whichever was the more appropriate. It was in the spirit of van Gogh, of the composers of old, in the spirit of Mozart he was doing this. He wanted to be master of his life; be totally artistic without ever having to make it. A lot of people tut and shake their heads when divulging their stance on music or art. You know it’s very hard to make a name for yourself. There are really only the few exceptionally outstanding people who do. Fuck off. He’d fucking do it and not be exceptionally outstanding; he’d do it without a name and he would shove it in their faces. Their preoccupation with making a name was so fucking superficial, ignorant, short-sighted, so fucking vastly inferior to his doing it ideas and he’d fucking show them. And after that, if nothing happened, he’d go back to Ireland and keep on doing it and show them there too. Work somewhere, regardless where, for the roof over the head and the food on the table and then practice, give concerts, his own concerts, whenever and wherever he could.

He had developed an idea in college by which he began giving his concerts specific themes. Each recital would have its own individual motivation, its own slant and he himself would reflect and embody its essence. His life would change in accordance to the flavour of the approaching concert and he would write autobiographical program notes or supportive notes illustrating the overall character of the recital and not of the individual pieces. The event would be the culmination of a phase in his life, of a type of creative working and creative living. He would create his phases with antennas out, open to coincidence, and etch his own very personal, original and open place within such a rigid, narrow and homogenous occupation without having to resort to the tactics of avant-garde. This had given him the impetus for these ridiculous lengths. Perhaps there was wind in his sails after all. ‘I’ll be just doing it’ he had explained to others ‘exempting myself from the exterior value system. It will be just that, what it is, on its own; in isolation.’ He’d show those who hyped the imprisonment and conformity just what sort of freedom was there to be captured by someone with a brain. ‘Look at you; you’d rather pass judgement than think.’ He’d turn that music into something different, give it new purpose. Just as the notes were the composer’s tools, so too would their pieces be his. He’d be a living embodiment of Picasso’s blue period.

‘How long do you want to stay here?’

‘Em, roughly about three years. I figure that’s how long it would take to get some experience and get settled into a new country. Well, I hope to hold out that long anyway.’

‘Do you play classical music?’ asked the driver.

‘Yeah, classical music.’

‘There is a lot of classical music in Vienna,’ said the driver with a bit more animation and the slightest hint of a chuckle.

‘That’s right. Everyone has been here. You’ve had Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Alban Berg. It’s really like what Chicago is to the blues.’

The driver nodded in agreement with smiles and pride. ‘Do you play jazz and blues?’

‘Nah, just classical.’

There was not even a look of mild disappointment on the face of the enquirer at this, not like in Ireland where they’d switch off if it was not American. Devlin wondered if those even listened to jazz or, as he generally suspected, if it was as rare an occurrence as the reaching for the classical moments’ disc was, and then he’d wonder what their look of disappointment was in aid of. Would it be so much better if he played jazz or would they have been then disappointed with his neglect of Liberace or Percy Grainger? The awareness of classical music seemed more far-reaching and widespread in Vienna than it was in Dublin which, for Devlin, might not be so bad.

Towards the end of the journey, the driver had warmed to Devlin’s efforts and in a gesture of good will drove him up the steep and longish driveway of the hostel to its front doors. Devlin had already been preparing to hop off at the gates but the driver had proceeded through them with an ‘it’s ok’ and a confidential nod. He helped him with his bags and Devlin thanked him and said goodbye.

The hostel was quite deserted even though it could not have been much later than eleven. At the counter was a bit of a ‘too cool for skool’ type Austrian with blond semi-spiked hair, semi-goatee, semi-contemptuous air, mtv Berlin video jockey wannabe, and he gave the impression of being in a continual state of readiness in his prejudices to gain some footing on your loweral spinal area upon your very first fuck up.

Devlin got a locker for his rucksack, directions to his bunk bed and was given a few times, a few procedures he didn’t understand and some house rules. When he got to his dormitory he had trouble making his way to his bunk through the dark room full of sleeping bodies, his capacity for night vision being what it was, i.e. very poor. The stumbling and its accompanying sound effects, which were about as discreet as a packet of crisps, aggravated Devlin’s sense of being trapped amidst this oppressive blanket of slumbering quietness. At his bunk he unpacked his wash bag which he had strategically placed on top of his clothes and, stretched thin and taut from the narrow confines, went to the bathroom, brushed his teeth, went to the toilet, pissed, got back to his top bunk, spread out his sleeping bag, undressed to his boxers and T shirt, climbed up, crawled in and slept. The required concentration had helped keep ghosts at bay and the quiet, when all was said and done, turned out to have compensated for the nuisance of having to be quiet.

Chapter three

Devlin woke minus one feeling of having rested. He felt troubled. Britney Spears had appeared in his dreams. Her Sometimes music video had been playing and during one of the numerous synchronised dance sequences she had stopped prematurely, removed herself from the choreographed enclosure of the blissfully unaware backing dancers, approached the camera, or Devlin (for his perspective had been the same) and had reached out to him and said with her head tilted slightly to one side, ‘You miss your family, don’t you?’ Devlin had been taken quite off guard and his initial surprise had come with a distinct physical sensation from her imagined closeness. He’d been warmed by the experience. Then a sense of vertigo had overcome him and his spirit plummeted down to the pit of his abdomen, and estranged in the aftermath he woke parched for a real portion of Britney’s consolation. She had been very white and fluffy and soft and had been alone for him there.

He got up when he woke. Aside from the little rapid eye movement, he had had little comfort through the night. He didn’t own a watch and his no sense of time was disorientating. The reason for having no watch was a toss-up between the reluctance of having the time on your wrist, the captive conformity of it, and the physical discomfort of wearing one. He would buy a watch as well as the mobile. In the present climate he acknowledged its probable necessity. Breakfast was served daily within the space of one ridiculously early hour in the morning and he was not in a position to miss it. He wanted it out of the way so he could concentrate on the other to-dos.

After dressing he felt if his hair was standing up but it felt flat so he just felt scruffy. He had an irritating suspicion the other travellers were giving him funny looks. This feeling didn’t lead to more as it was not in Devlin’s nature to look at anybody he did not