The Inside Out Man Page 18

  Mozart? Really?

  Never much liked his stuff, he said with a sneer.

  But you respect him, though … as a genius, I mean?

  Are you telling me or asking me?

  I felt a mental jolt, and said, Just asking.

  Howard tipped his head back and finished the last of his tea, holding the position, cup to mouth, as if waiting for something. Then with a sigh he put his cup down, and continued.

  The man spent sixteen years of his life noodling, and created his first really honest piece of work at the ripe old age of twenty-one. Hardly the stuff of prodigy. He gave a snort as he seemed to reshuffle his thoughts. And then he said, But that’s not even the half of it. Mozart’s far too cutesy, much too light. And when he does occasionally attempt a bit of dark, or depth—well, it’s phoney. Flat. Forced. His music doesn’t take you anywhere.

  After a silence, I volunteered: I’m a pianist too.

  Is that so?

  Unsure how to read his tone, I went on anyway: Not classical, though. I play jazz.

  And where have you played?

  Bars. Clubs. A couple of corporates.

  Right.

  I waited for another question, but Howard said nothing. Clearly uninterested in the career of a back-alley key-beater, he made himself another cup of tea. He probably didn’t even consider jazz to be real music. I switched the topic.

  Why d’you think your father wanted you to come? This is a helluva way from Prague. I paused, rather recklessly said, He’s not even here.

  Well, said Howard, my father and I aren’t in the habit of being in the same place at the same time. We’ve always been close in a like-minded sort of way, but we’re also autonomous individuals. He has the life he wants to lead, and I have mine.

  I took advantage of the space he’d opened up, asked about his mother.

  They got divorced when I was six. I moved in here, with him. Which was fine. He was a busy man, in and out, but he made sure I got what I needed. I enjoyed piano, so he arranged private lessons with the best in the business. Ernest Gergiev. Charlotte Pavlovna Kantor. Right here, in this house.

  I hadn’t heard of them, but didn’t let on.

  He sat me down one night—I was ten or so—asked how far I wanted to take this. I told him I wanted to be the best in the world. And that was enough for him. I had a six-month stint at the Royal Academy of Music, before being invited to the Berlin Festival, where I gave my debut performance—Chopin’s Piano Concerto 1 and 2. And after that, well, I was set. Thirteen years old, and on my way. Me and the big wide world.

  He let you go off on your own?

  He gave another of his cackles. Whatever had amused him, I wasn’t up for it. I drained the last of my coffee, cold and sugary as it was.

  You tell me, he then said. When are we ever not off on our own?

  He got up from the stool and took his tea cup and saucer to the sink. I watched him, this young man, barely an adult, and felt envious of him—his life of privilege, and support, and opportunity. And I realised why he’d made me question him. It was to make sure I knew about it all.

  His back turned to me, Howard said: Another cup?

  No, thank you.

  He rinsed his own and placed it on the drying rack, with the saucer slotted in alongside. He grabbed a nearby dish towel.

  But you still haven’t answered my question, I persisted.

  And you have vays of makeeng me talk, I suppose. Mockery in his eyes, he glanced over his shoulder at me. Then he dried his hands and hung the cloth on its hook. Now, which question would that be?

  Well, I was interested to know why your father wanted you to come down here, so far from Prague?

  Taking his seat again, he said, To decide.

  Decide what?

  Whether I’m interested in this house, whether it’s something I’d like to keep. Or whether he should get rid of it while he can.

  How d’you mean—while he can?

  The smile was back. He didn’t tell you, did he?

  I don’t know what you’re talking about.

  Well, Bent, what do you know?

  Know about what?

  About my father, he said, barely concealing his exasperation.

  Not much, apparently.

  How long have you been here now?

  I shifted in my seat. It was as if a restart button had been pushed, and a tape was running in my head. So much had happened; so little had happened. I couldn’t even recall the order of things any more, what I’d done first, last, or in between. Time was a jumble, a knot of moments in my head. My best guess at how long I’d been in the house was three or four months, but I couldn’t be sure. For all I knew, five goddamned years had gone by.

  I gave an embarrassed shrug.

  Howard was immobile as he asked, Did he at least say when he’d be back? Or did you just commit yourself to staying here, in the dark and the dust, for some indefinite period of time?

  A year, I said. He said he’d be away for a year.

  And when exactly did he say that?

  April seventeenth.

  Hey, we’re getting somewhere. And did he tell you where he was off to?

  I thought about the body upstairs, breaking down cell by rotting cell.

  No, he didn’t, I said.

  Gone to tick some items off the list, most likely.

  What list?

  Our last list of all. The things we still want to do in the world … to get out the way, you know, before we kick it. I felt he was reading my face, closely studying my reactions as he went on. One year, that’s what they gave him. One short and shitty year to indulge in all those fabulous foods, those exotic drinks, to bed a thousand and one wild women, to wake up to drunken sunrises in a hundred strange locations … all the while, a big fat tumour in your chest telling you you’ve got twelve months to wrap it all up—where would you even begin?

  Howard’s news affected me in a way I’d least expected: guilt. Until that moment, it felt as if everything that had happened to Leonard had been his fault. He’d chosen to go into the room. He’d abandoned the world, though still expecting favours from it. He’d been the arrogant, masochistic maker of his own fate.

  Somehow, however, the news of his death sentence changed everything.

  Perhaps there was no experiment at all. Perhaps Leonard had seen the room as some kind of burrow. A place a dying animal might go—away from the pack and the predators—to keel over in peace.

  Or perhaps the room was a way for Leonard to kill time itself—his new enemy. Perhaps without clocks and calendars, there’d be no sense of movement. No advancement. Had he gone in that room with the hope of making his final days seem longer, a slower crawl to the end?

  Had he really been that desperate?

  So goddamned insane?

  I couldn’t say. I couldn’t say anything.

  Staring back at his son, sitting across from me, explaining to me how I’d allowed a man to starve himself to death for nothing, I didn’t say a word. Couldn’t.

  I listened, but said nothing at all.

  57.

  Howard had settled into the house like a fresh coat of paint on the walls. The good thing was, he had no need to use the front staircase, since he stuck mostly to his side of the house. It also helped that he had his own daily routine. Not merely predictable, but rigidly regimental.

  He had no noticeable vices. He didn’t drink. He didn’t smoke. He was in bed by ten o’clock, and at around five-thirty each morning he was awake and ready to swim twenty-five lengths in the pool (I, on the other hand, awoke at dawn after agonisingly long and torturous nights). After his swim, Howard took a towel and lay on the lawn, either napping or thumbing his way through a novel. And in the afternoons, after a healthy, meticulously made lunch, he’d do one of two things: take a long solitary stroll around the estate, or head up the back staircase towards the piano room, where he’d flex his fingers for a good hour or two.

  Big, bold classical pieces resounded th
rough the house.

  I’d recognise a sonata here, a concerto there—mostly from my early days of tuition—but whether Howard was conjuring Brahms or Chopin or playing his own compositions, he was brilliant.

  Just as brilliant as I hoped he wouldn’t be.

  58.

  It was on the fourth day of Howard’s stay that Leonard came back to haunt. I was in the library at the time, pretending to read a book on World War II fighter planes, watching Howard through the French doors. He was getting his regular noon sun, wearing nothing but board shorts and black sunglasses and reclining on a long white lawn chair. As far as I could tell, he was unaware of me watching him. Or he simply didn’t care. He had that confident, languorous attitude of youth—a youth I was all too aware I’d never experienced—the youth of jeans commercials.

  I sat wondering as I surreptitiously watched him. Did Howard have friends? Had he told anyone he’d be here? Was there anyone, either here or in Prague, who knew the location of this house? A girlfriend? A boyfriend? If he were suddenly to vanish, I went on to wonder, to poof into thin air, would anyone miss him, notice his absence, come looking for him?

  That’s when I caught my first whiff.

  At first, I tried to convince myself it wasn’t what I thought it was, that I’d imagined it. But then a second whiff wafted in the air. I put the book down on the table beside my chair, tilted my head, sniffing left, sniffing right. I juggled dimly hopeful alternatives: a blocked drain in the sink; stagnant water outside in the garden; a refinery down the road …

  But no.

  This smell, it was sickly sweet.

  Faintly fruity, but like no fruit I’d ever smelt before. A scent designed to draw flies and necrophagic insects. The stink of some forgotten thing demanding to be remembered again. I got up, opened the windows. I took another sniff. This time, there was nothing.

  Was I just smelling the memory of the smell? I couldn’t tell. Regardless, I knew it would come back soon enough. Get worse. Become unbearably bad.

  Howard rose from his lawn chair, his tanned skin gleaming in the sunlight. He took a long drink from a bottle, grabbed his towel, threw it over his shoulder, and walked towards the house. My eyes swivelled as my head spun round, half expecting to see the smell arrive, walk into the room like a tall man with a terrible secret to tell.

  I took one final sniff before Howard sauntered in, eyeing me. I was standing in the centre of the room, gawking at him dumbly. I probably couldn’t have looked more suspicious if I’d been crawling on all fours, sniffing at the skirting. He went by without saying anything, flipped his sunglasses up on his head, and stopped at the drinks cabinet. He slid out an ice tray, popped three cubes into a highball. Then he emptied the rest of his bottled water into the glass, looked back at me, and downed his drink.

  So, Bent. Things haven’t turned out quite the way you expected, have they?

  Saying nothing, I picked up my book and sat down.

  It’s just that … Jesus, a whole year in this house? All by yourself? Quite a commitment, that. No wife. No kids. Not much of a career going. You must have really been … available, huh? Agreeing to this, I mean.

  Your father made me a good offer.

  I’m sure he did. Howard sank into an armchair with a sigh, raised his legs, and draped each over an armrest. I’m sure this was all very alluring. The chance to live the life of a rich man. To wake up and somehow believe it’s all yours, that it belongs to you. Guess it’ll be tough going back, huh?

  I’ll survive, I said.

  Hmm. He sank deeper into the armchair. After a long pause, he said, It’s funny that you play jazz. His legs dropped, both feet in front of him, as he sat upright and looked at me hard. The fact my father hired a jazz pianist for the job. I was into a bit of jazz myself—when I was younger. He looked away, seeming to ruminate. A strange type of music for a kid, don’t you think? Anyway, it was only in my teens that I switched to the classics. Maybe it was my choice, maybe it was my father’s. He was a jazz fan, after all—loved it, really—he just thought it would be better if I followed a more, well, lucrative, line, y’know? Something that would take me places, with better company than a bunch of drunks and dopeheads. With a wry smile, he went on, Hey, maybe the old man was getting sentimental in his old age. Maybe having you here was his way of looking back on his life. Some kind of repentance, maybe, for the choices he’d made on my behalf.

  After a short silence, he shot me glance and said, So, what’s your take on it all?

  My only answer was to ask if he regretted it.

  Regret what?

  His choices, I explained. The ones he made for you.

  Who knows? I mean, I’ve played for massive audiences. For royalty. In the most prestigious halls on the planet. It’s hard to write it all off. Left to my own devices, I might have gone nowhere. Accomplished nothing. Found myself wandering aimlessly, renting someone else’s life for a year. You know, just grabbing at the chance to be in the presence of greatness while wondering where oh where I’d gone so horribly, horribly wrong.

  There was nothing subtle about this taunt—he was jabbing head-on. Was it just a rich kid’s boredom, with me the new chew-toy? Some dumb unwanted thing brought home by Dad? I got up from the armchair and crossed the room to the cabinet, where I poured myself a whiskey.

  Just then, like a cruel playground accomplice, the smell wafted in, a ripe rot reminding me that I couldn’t really afford—not at this stage, anyway—to lose my shit, put two to the kid’s jaw. Relaxing my fists, I picked up my glass. I looked back at him, but he seemed oblivious to the smell.

  I’m just playing with you. You know that, right?

  I tossed a smile his way, took a sip of my drink. A bit of banter. Sure.

  Hey! That’s brilliant! You’re a real stand-up guy, you know that? In one swift movement, he pushed himself up from his armchair, stepped across to a couch, hopped over the back of it, and came and threw an arm around my shoulder. I can see why my father likes you, Bent. You’ve got class, character. Your generation—we can learn a thing or two from you guys. He let go of my shoulder and began walking in circles in the centre of the room, waving his hands in the air. I tell you, Bent, some of the people I know—man, they’re so fuckin’ sensitive! And touchy! You’ve got to tip-toe around everyone. Politically correct, passive-aggressive sycophants, fibbers, phonies—

  He stopped dead, his chin went up, and he took a big sniff. Howard’s eyes flicked to one side of the room, then the other, and then back at me.

  I was clutching the glass so tightly I thought I’d crush it. My head raced for excuses as Howard stood motionless in the centre of the room, before whatever spell possessed him vanished, and he cast the last despairing glance of a man marooned in a distant, unreachable world.

  That’s when Howard turned to look at me, dead in the eyes, and said, I’m very tired now. I think I’ll be going to sleep.

  And then he left the room.

  59.

  Grey clouds collected, converged, threatening to empty their contents. The wind picked up, seeming to stumble like a drunk at a party as leaves on the lawn whirled and fell and the surface of the lake splintered like broken glass. A wooden lawn chair tipped over. A tiny pink cocktail umbrella tumbled across the patio, like the roof of a small house caught in a tornado twisting off to Oz. On the other side of the pool, a branch was ripped from a tree and made to do an undignified solitary jig.

  A loud mess of a day.

  Perfect weather for getting rid of a body or two.

  I hadn’t seen Howard for a while, not since he’d drifted out of the library in some kind of stupor, off to his room, maybe to hibernate. The smell had got worse (it certainly wasn’t going to get any better in a hurry), but with a few open windows I managed to halt its spread. I worked out what I’d need: black refuse bags. Duct tape. A pair of scissors. A spade. A carpet. Once I’d slid the body downstairs, it’d all get trickier. I’d have to drag him outside—the back door would be best—and
head to the woods, where I’d give Lenny his belated burial. After that I’d return, take a shower, pack my things, climb into my Cressida and hit the road without so much as a squint in the rear-view.

  That’d be the sequence.

  The exit plan.

  Passing Howard’s door, I tilted my head, listening for sounds of movement. Nothing. I carried on to the kitchen, opened the cupboard below the sink, pulled out some black bags. I was relieved to see a roll of duct tape—and there was even a can of air freshener. In a drawer I found a pair of heavy-duty scissors. I put it all into a bag before checking the carpet in the library. Wide enough to wrap him in. Perfect for the job.

  I was making good progress, I thought, and about to head to the shed for my spade, when I was thwarted by the last person I’d have expected: Beethoven.

  His fifth rolled down the corridor, winding its way through the rooms, reverberating off the walls. Soaring. Surging. Collapsing. I hadn’t heard the piece in more than twenty years, and I’d either forgotten its mischievous splendour or never heard it played in such a confident, effortless way. It almost made me forget a most important fact: Howard wasn’t in his room.

  He was upstairs, at the piano.

  Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the music stopped.

  I cocked my ear to the silence.

  As if on cue, the phone rang. I listened as it went on and on, and then I snapped out of it, flew upstairs, flung open the bedroom door, and picked up.

  A soft and familiar voice: Bent?

  The air was sucked right out of my lungs.

  Jolene?

  I sat on the edge of the bed. It had been weeks since I’d heard her voice. All I could tell was that she was smoking—her lips lifting lightly off the butt, a breathy exhalation—as she said, I don’t even know where to start.

  Unable to say a word, I waited.

  God. I’m just so sorry, she said. So sorry. But I didn’t know who else to call, and I needed to call someone. I’ve been sitting here on the couch, in the dark, for hours now. Another pause. Bent, can I talk to you? Would that be okay?