made up for her derelict moods.
He loved his daughter, had tolerated behaviour that by any standards had been unacceptable, would always love his child, but now could take no more. Throughout his life he had known admiration and praise and more than a little adoration, it was absurd to think he could change now. And should not have to, would not have to, if not for Anna.
‘I want her home,’ he had said to Juliet nearly two years ago. ‘She’s your daughter, tell her to come home.’
Juliet had said she would write, but had not sounded optimistic.
‘Anna’s no longer a child, Duncan, and you can’t be telling a thirty-year-old how to live her life.’
‘When it’s your own daughter, you can.’
Nearly two years ago and Anna still not home. In the end, and without telling Juliet, Duncan had written himself. It was the cancer scare that had decided him, he simply could not wait until she was ready to return, for then it might be too late. He had a lump, in his bowel of all places, and much more frightening than the attenuated disappointments of the past few years. He had lived with the lump for a weekend; discovered on a Friday during a disgusting procedure and not removed until the following Monday. Throughout the long weekend he had railed at the surgeon who would put his leisure ahead of Duncan’s health, and Anna who was somehow implicated in his misfortune. By the time the results came through, it was as if he’d had cancer, had fought it, and was currently in remission; that the results were negative was immaterial. He had lain on the couch, a rug over his legs and written to his daughter. He wrote of his failing health, his recent surgery, his love for her. He wrote about duty to family and the sacrifices demanded by art. He wrote the truth, and if he made no apologies it was because he believed none were needed. His daughter had left home twelve years before with no explanation either then or since. Indeed, for the first month there had been no contact of any kind; then had arrived a series of postcards – Thailand, India, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Spain, England. ‘At least she’s in familiar territory now,’ said Juliet, whose sister, Sandra, lived near London.
Anna had stayed in England, as far as they knew, for the past twelve years. The postcards had ceased soon after her arrival and were replaced by an occasional telephone call. Not her phone, she was quick to explain, being on the move she had no need of one; and there was no point in giving them her address either, if they wanted to contact her they could do so through her friend, Lewis. ‘But only write if it’s really important.’
A telephone call once or twice a year, and for the past couple of years nothing.
‘She was always a difficult child,’ Juliet confided to her sister, who wondered why Anna never came to visit. ‘You mustn’t take it to heart. It was never easy being Duncan’s daughter; it would have been far better if she’d had no musical leanings at all. She’s had to find her own way.’
And to Duncan, ‘She’s had to find her own way. Don’t be so hard on her. It’d be far worse if she’d never left home like some people we know.’ And they discussed, as they had many times before, Duncan’s nephew, well into his thirties with no plans to leave his parents, no desire to make his own life. ‘Now, we wouldn’t want that, would we?’
And Duncan would agree, although in truth he wanted just that: Anna close by while he worked, the sweet, obliging Anna whose whole world had been her father and his music, the loving child out of whom had grown the intractable, venomous adolescent.
Juliet Bayle watches her husband leave the music room and enter the garden, continues to watch as he stands by the roses picking off the dead bits and tossing them on to the road, watches as she has on so many occasions when his music has been out of reach. Although this has been the worst period ever, the long days dragging, and months dissolving into years, and all the while his silence deepening and she growing evermore desperate.
He shuffles his feet through the gravel and shoves a hand deep into a pocket. It must be cold out there with no sun and a pre-winter blustering, and Juliet leaves her chair to fetch him a coat. Then stops. All too soon his problems become her problems, his frustrations her frustrations; she no longer knows how to help, or rather has nothing new to offer. In the old days, cups of coffee and reassuring words would smooth the creases of a bad day, but now he is more likely to turn on her and accuse her of fussing. She presses her palms against her eyes, sees superimposed on the inky clouds small golden explosions that expand with a violence until they fill her field of vision; she sighs and sits down again, he may be cold but she has no strength for his attacks today. She is sleeping badly, her energy is wasting in the grey hours and, worst of all, the voice upon which she relies to maintain her optimism is growing fainter, or perhaps is simply being drowned out by other noise. She makes a note to ring the doctor for some sleeping pills – not her customary solution when life is difficult, but these are extreme times with Duncan stumbling from silence to silence and needing her more than ever.
‘How do you do it?’ her sister had asked years ago when she and her husband were visiting from England. ‘I mean Duncan. How do you manage to live with someone so – ‘ she paused for the right word, ‘so sensitive?’
Juliet had laughed, for Duncan had been on his best behaviour throughout the visit. Nothing to do with Sandra and Don, rather he had been working hard, his second violin concerto had been well received, and Anna’s usual squalid behaviour had inexplicably declined which meant she spent more time with her father. Juliet had taken a moment to consider, then had talked about the sensibilities of the artist, how in order to work creatively a certain vision was required, a sensitivity to the world. ‘Artists need to be aware of nuance,’ she said, ‘of the subtle details that other people take for granted. After all, if they saw only what the rest of us saw, floated along in the same vague, unseeing way, there would be no artists.’
‘But don’t you find it a strain, always having to be on the alert? Always so attentive?’
Again Juliet had considered her response, for living with Duncan could be a strain. He might well be sensitive to nuance, but at the same time his artist’s temperament made him vulnerable to the push and shove of ordinary life. When they ran out of milk, he was not the one to go to the shop; when the plumber came to repair the guttering, Duncan must not even know there had been a leak; when money was short, as it had been early in their marriage, to tell him would only send shivers through his work. Juliet had long believed that while the creative person makes demands, there is ample compensation, and both factors, the demands and the rewards, form in the heart of creativity. She had made her choice years ago: she wanted the advantages of living with an artist and was prepared to respond to the demands, indeed, regarded this as her contribution to the creative process. Sandra, who had always pursued her own interests, was not one to appreciate the sacrifices required for art. When finally Juliet answered, she was unequivocal. ‘Of course it’s not a strain living with Duncan. Far from it, I’m richer and my world is richer because of him.’
Which was true. Without Duncan, Juliet’s life would have been a bland, textureless monochrome; even as a child, she knew that left to her own resources, hers was a trajectory to mediocrity. Although now, looking back, Juliet was able to detect in the child inchoate murmurings of what would become the talent of her adult years: a talent to serve. And Duncan Bayle had turned out to be an ideal target for her ministrations. Theirs had been a union of almost biological perfection; she shaped the private world while he carved the public, she attended to his earthly needs leaving him free for the creative ones. Few great talents mature in isolation, and while it might have become a truism to refer to the woman behind the great man, Juliet was convinced that in all but rare cases, there is a wife or a mother or a girlfriend or a daughter acting as a scrim between the great man and the outside world. Duncan needed her, and if he had been a different sort of person would have shown his gratitude. That he did not, Juliet had long ago decided, was part of his charm; few people are so secure in their success that they can take their support for granted.
Although not at the moment, not secure at all. He is still standing in the garden, his face slack, his large frame slumped and haggard. This is what it means to be shrivelled up by failure, Juliet thinks, and turns away. Soon he will return to the music room, not to his music – his patterns