FACING THE MUSIC
Andrea Goldsmith was born in Melbourne
in 1950. She has lived and worked in the
United States and Britain. Her two other
novels, Gracious Living and Modern Interiors, are both published with Penguin. http://andreagoldsmith.com.au
First published by Penguin Books Australia, 1994
Copyright © Andrea Goldsmith, 1994
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the author.
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Goldsmith, Andrea, 1950–
Facing the music.
ISBN 0 14 023072 6. (pbk)
I. Title.
A823.3
eBook edition published by Andrea Goldsmith, 2013
ISBN 9781742982748 (ePub)
Digital Distribution: Ebook Alchemy
In this world, who can do a thing, will not;
And who would do it, cannot, I perceive.
‘Andrea del Sarto’, ROBERT BROWNING
ONE
For most of his sixty-seven years, Duncan Bayle had known only the benevolent side of life. A devoted and ambitious mother, the early departure of a good-for-nothing father, and the death in infancy of his only rival, a sister, had nurtured his gift, transforming a talent that might have remained forever cramped and ordinary into something glorious. And while this had taken considerable time – his first major piece for orchestra had not appeared until he was well into his thirties, and Heritage Cycle, the work that had launched him internationally, took a further nine years – a slow start had not proved a hindrance.
The robust attentions of his mother had protected him throughout childhood and beyond. Marie Bayle had juggled the competing evils of early exploitation and musical oblivion to arrive at what she considered to be intelligent compromise: a regimen of private study interspersed with the occasional performance. She had permitted him friends of a quiet, admiring sort who knew what it was to be special; she gave detailed directives to his teachers and kept a stiff-necked watch over their work. People were quick to criticise, growing boys needed their independence, they said, particularly in the absence of any male influence. But Marie Bayle ignored them, she would do whatever was required to protect her son from the travesties of life, specifically, those mean-spirited and passionless people who could permanently disable a sensitive, young mind. It came as no surprise then that Duncan Bayle attained manhood in the belief that life was easy, the world was kind, and he was located at its centre.
Following Marie Bayle’s premature death from a cerebral haemorrhage, Duncan’s sweet existence was threatened, and if not for Juliet Leonard, a primary school teacher and longtime neighbour, he might have collapsed under the demands of modern life. But fortunately, Juliet stepped in. Each day after school, she would shop and clean and cook for him, do his mail and make his phone calls, and then withdraw next door to her elderly parents and disabled brother. After six weary months and Duncan silent about the future, Juliet suggested they should marry. Duncan saw merit in the arrangement, and soon after, Juliet Leonard became Juliet Bayle and moved next door.
Like Marie Bayle, Juliet worked to ensure that nothing impeded the full expression of Duncan’s genius. And she was prepared to wait. She would go to her job each morning in the full knowledge that when she returned Duncan would be a little closer to realising his destiny. So finely-tuned were her ambitions for him, she was able to find progress even on those days Duncan was prepared to dismiss as a waste. With each new piece, his destiny, hers too, became more focused, and it was exquisite. She regarded his gentle, unfurling life rather like the mysterious growth of an exotic fruit, which, after years of slow maturation, suddenly blooms with a staggering magnificence. First to appear had been Pacifica, splendid at the time, but in retrospect something of a phantom blooming, and then the brilliant Heritage Cycle, after which there had been such abundance, such diversity, that even his early critics had been forced to revise their opinions.
There is a scent to success and it is wondrously powerful; it works like a pheromone on others, while acting as a catalyst for new work. In time, the successful person tends to accommodate to success – which matters not in the least as long as the work continues. Success had been as much a part of Duncan Bayle as was his attractiveness, and both were qualities he had long taken for granted. But about a decade ago, and a year or two after his daughter left home, Duncan Bayle’s music began to falter. At first he had been little bothered, it was only when the problems persisted that he started to worry. He tried different work schedules but to no avail; he went on holiday, but the ideas collapsed on his return; he took more pupils but they sucked his energy. No matter what he did, the spluttering rhythms and wheezing melodies continued; he was left to watch his perfect world grow pale, and he did not like it at all.
Each day, following breakfast and a short walk, he entered the music room to work. This had been the pattern of a lifetime and the only way of producing his music. ‘How do you manage it?’ people would ask, expecting to learn the alchemy of creativity, ‘every day, by yourself, the same room, the same four walls, how do you do it?’ Only rarely would he answer with the truth: that he loved the routine and the long hours alone. Even the fallow periods were relatively free of pain as experience had taught him they would eventually pass. And so they had until now – the most stubbornly unproductive period ever, made worse because the music was there, breathless behind the silence.
It was to be his greatest work, his Fourth Symphony and an evocation of the twentieth century. He was wanting to portray nothing less than the very essence of mankind, had known the work would take two to three years, perhaps even longer given his other commitments, but after more than a decade, all he had was a heap of unruly manuscript and time snapping at his heels. He knew he was not the only artist to view the century’s close as a convenient ticket to posterity; already there was a jostling for positions, with the flashy front-runners waving their advantage and those trailing behind hinting at surprises. As for Duncan Bayle, he was unusually quiet, so much dithering and fretting and still no closer to finishing his symphony. As the music grew more sluggish and the months passed into menacing years, it was his daughter he blamed, it was Anna who had hobbled his art.
‘She’s never thought of anyone but herself,’ he would say to Juliet at the end of yet another grim day in the music room, and Juliet, whom he knew to be as concerned as he, was quick to agree. Although such agreement as hers was of little value, for if she really understood about Anna she would have demanded her return long ago. As it was, Juliet had done nothing, leaving Anna’s absence to stretch into twelve gaping years.
Now, as he sat at his desk, Anna not the symphony on his mind, he was beset by his daughter’s double betrayal, for it was not simply the fact of her absence that was so upsetting, it was also the circumstances of her departure. She had left without explanation, without cause as far as he could see, and apart from an occasional phone call, behaved as if he and Juliet did not exist. Anna would return, of that he was sure, it was a matter of maturity and she had always been wild, but in the meantime he was worried and distracted and who could blame him for being unable to work?
Although such reasoning as this made the long, parched days no easier. He was a composer, an artist, and without his work he was lost. He rose from his desk and walked to the piano, stood a moment his hand on its surface, then on through the French doors and out to the verandah. Leaning against one of