Authors: William Coles
All afternoon I’d been twitching to have a look. But I’d saved it up, delaying the moment, knowing the wait would make it all the sweeter.
First I studied the cover, in red and black Gothic script, which showed that the music was a classic.
J.S.Bach, The
Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1, Prelude 1, C Major.
Underneath were the words from Bach’s original folio:
‘
The Well-Tempered Clavier,
Or
Preludes and fugues in all tones and semitones,
in the major as well as the minor modes,
for the benefit and use
of musical youth desirous of knowledge
as well as those who are already advanced in this study.
For their especial diversion, composed and prepared by
Johann Sebastian Bach,
currently Ducal Chapelmaster in Anhalt Cothen
and Director of Chamber Music,
in the year 1722.’
In the top right corner, written in faded pencil, was her name. India James. I touched the lettering, imagining how she’d been as a ten-year-old.
I turned to the first page. The music was strewn with pencil jottings and several hand-written numbers under the notes. These numbers would have helped India learn the correct fingering—and now, just over a decade later, they’d be showing me the way. Note for note, India and I would be learning the First Prelude together.
On the next two pages were some more pencilled numbers and, at the end, just the one word ‘Knock-out!’ I liked that.
The back-page had no music, but a short history of Bach and
The Well-Tempered Clavier
.
I devoured it, can still remember it almost verbatim. I was sharing a musical Communion with India.
There are several theories about why Bach wrote his two books of Preludes and Fugues. Some say it’s an encyclopedic compilation of every possible type of fugue. Others believe it’s Bach’s celebration of the better-tuned claviers that were just being introduced in the early 18th Century.
As for the word Fugue, it derives from the Latin ‘
fugo
’, which means ‘flee’ or ‘chase’, and, when you listen to the pieces, that’s what they often sound like, one hand imitating the other, hunting it down.
Only when I had committed every detail to memory did I start to study the music itself. The notes were well-spaced, which made them easier to read and, better still, it was in the key of C Major. No black notes.
To explain, piano pieces come in 24 different keys, and these keys vary in difficulty. One of the most difficult is B Minor, which has five flats. The easiest by far is C Major, with not a single sharp or flat in the entire octave. For mediocre players like myself, finding that a piece is in C Major is like seeing a bright-green ‘Go’ light; it means all the sharps and flats will be flagged up along the way and there will be no hidden bogeys.
That isn’t to say that a piece in C Major can’t be wretchedly complicated, though when I started to study the First Prelude it didn’t look too difficult. I hesitate to use the word easy, but it was eminently do-able.
For that and that reason alone, it remains one of my favourite preludes in
The Well-Tempered Clavier
; in fact, second only to Prelude 17, the first piece that India played for me.
The First Prelude was also a delightful introduction to Bach. It was a piece of music that I could tackle with a fair degree of confidence. Only later would I discover that
The
Well-Tempered Clavier
contains many, many fugues and preludes that would tax even a concert pianist.
And the melody of that first prelude?
It was sublime. Today you can hear it on any number of radio adverts; Schubert used the tune for his
Ave Maria
.
Just like it says on the cover it is, above all, an even, well-tempered piece, each note carrying the same weight and each bar just slightly different from the one before it. Of all the pieces that I’ve ever known by heart, it remains the only one that I can still play from memory.
The normal routine when you start to learn a piece is to begin with the right hand (usually with the melody), then practise the left hand (with the beat), and only then do you put the two together.
But, like everything else in my life, I am incapable of any such discipline; always I dive in with both hands together, a bundle of impatience, optimistically expecting that everything will work out just fine.
The surprising thing was that, on this occasion, it did. Maybe India’s spirit was standing over me as I plonked away in the Timbralls dining room, but, right from the start, the First Prelude was sounding quite similar to how I imagine Johann Sebastian would have first intended. There were admittedly a few fluffed notes but, although I was only going at half-speed, I found I could keep up a steady rhythm.
The great beauty of the Prelude for an amateur is that, until the final chord, the right hand and the left hand never have to play a note at the same time. Above all, it’s a very tranquil piece.
Within thirty minutes, I was smitten. I loved its simplicity.
I was also aware of its intimate connection with India. Like me, she’d started her
Well-Tempered
career on the First Prelude. She’d have used the same fingering to play the same notes, would have practised the same teasingly tricky bars over and over again, and would have spent a good hour honing the splendid ending.
At times, I was so absorbed with the music that I would forget all about India.
Then something would gun my memory and I would savour the marvellous, the monstrous, events of that afternoon. There were some things, like my greasy hands and my foetid tailcoat, which made me cringe. But for the most part I basked in my memories, sunning myself with the recollection of dappled arms flowing over the keyboard.
Supper, homework, bed at 10.30 p.m. and, when I clicked the light off, I allowed myself for the first time to dream. To fantasize.
But they were chaste thoughts with nothing overtly sexual. With clothes staying on and hands remaining dormant in laps.
Nothing could ever come of it I reminded myself—I would never be anything more to India than another of her gawky pupils.
But, nevertheless, with lips pursed together I blew her a kiss.
THE MORNING ALARM rang at 7 a.m. and, the moment I woke, I was aware there was something different about the day, that something golden had come into my life. Then I remembered; I remembered India, and in an instant I was skimming through all my memories once more, which were just as fresh as the moment they were first minted.
There was no time for dawdling. In the summer, Eton likes to give its boys a flying start to the day with a division that starts at 7.30 a.m. I had my routine down pat. To have a lightning shave, brush my teeth and don my uniform took fifteen minutes.
The starched collar can be a beast for the junior boys when they still haven’t got the hang of popping the gold stud through the tight eyelet. But after four years I could do it blindfolded, and could slot home the short stumpy white tie in two seconds flat. The first time I wore a starched collar, it almost felt like a shackle. Its edge chafed against my skin and the front stud pressed tight into my neck.
But, like everything else at Eton, you get used to it, and are even left bemused when a gaggle of tourists start hosing you down with their cameras. After just a short while at the school, both the boys and the masters forget what an extraordinary spectacle they present to the rest of the world.
I grab the books and file that I need for the first division, and shrug on my waistcoat and tailcoat in one, doing up the buttons single-handed as I trot down the corridor. To us, the tailcoats were nothing more nor less than a school uniform. Eton’s schoolboys had been strapped into this weird garb when they’d gone into mourning at the death of King George III and, so the story goes, some 160 years later they were still mourning the death of Farmer George. I suppose we should have counted our blessings—at least we no longer had to wear top hats.
Cufflinks are also inserted while on the hoof and when I’ve hit the hall there’s time for one quick swill of tea before I’m out of the front door.
Boys have to look the part when they’re out of the house, otherwise monsters like Savage take great pleasure in fining them, or administering any number of tedious punishments. Shoes need to be polished black and laces tied; waistcoats must be buttoned, except for the last button which must remain undone (a hang-over from George IV, Georgie Porgie, who was apparently so fat that he couldn’t fully do up his waistcoat); the tailcoat has a button, but this is merely for show and must never be used; cuffs must be cuffed; ties correctly tied; socks in keeping with the general assemblage; and hair kempt, well-groomed, undyed, and neither too short, too long, or too
outré
. It goes without saying that all senior boys had to shave.
My early morning lesson was Economics, which, along with Divinity and English, was one of the three A-levels that I was due to sit the next summer. However you slice it, Economics is never going to be a subject that makes your spirits soar.
But, that week, and that term, all my A-level subjects began to strike the most unexpected chords with my personal life.
That particular morning, for instance, we were being told about the celebrated law of supply and demand. And, as it happened, we had a prime example on our doorstep: when the supply of girls is minimal and the number of boy buyers is vast, then demand will go into orbit.
There would also be a strange synchronicity with my Divinity coursework, but most eerie by far would turn out to be the uncanny connection with my English classes. For the play we were studying that term, and the play that fate had decided to mock me with, was none other than Shakespeare’s
Othello
.
Now, I find the spectacular irony of it almost laughable.
Twenty-five years back, it was a very different story.
THE ECONOMICS DIVISION ended at 8.20 a.m. and it was back to the Timbralls for breakfast. Whenever I entered the house, I would automatically scan the pigeon-holes to see if there was any post for me and, for the first time that term, there were some letters.
One was a plain white card from my father with a second-class stamp. Tiny black writing, clipped and precise, it was a match for the terse army orders that he used to issue. It read: ‘I have found that you snapped the stylus of my record player. Your allowance has been docked accordingly. In future, I’d be grateful if you could inform me of any breakages. D.’
Charming. I had indeed neglected to tell him that I’d smashed his rotten little stylus. But there are ways and other ways of reacting to your son and heir smashing a piece of your property.
It was all of a piece for my father, who was forever incapable of making the stretch from treating me like a junior subaltern to treating me like a son. I was inured to it all. But I still hoped that one day he might be able to unbend enough to sign one of his curt postcards with the word ‘Love’.
There was also a second letter, which was expensive blue and altogether more interesting. As I studied it, my heart gave a twitch. A round girlish hand, written in brown ink, and when I put it to my nose I could scent a trace of lavender. On the back, there was the outline of pink lips and the letters ‘SWALK’.
I didn’t know the writing. But I knew who’d sent it.
Thrilling. In an instant, all trace of my father had gone from my mind.
I raced upstairs and only when I was in the privacy of my room did I open the envelope—not with my finger, but slitting the edge with a pocket-knife.
My hands were shaking. At first I scanned it, eager to find out if I was still in favour or whether I had been supplanted by some other schoolboy love.
But after a few seconds I could relax. The first words, ‘My dearest darling Kim’, and the close, ‘With ooooodles of love’, gave me the lie of the land.
Taking my time now, I started to read the letter again, soaking up each word, each nuance. I read it once, reached the end and went straight back to the beginning to read it a third, then a fourth time.
She’d written, just as she’d said she would. She was more than up for continuing our fledgling relationship via the Royal Mail. And, when next we met, it seemed there would be more kisses and more hugs. There were even dark hints as to the possibility of . . . other stuff.
Estelle.
It is true that at the age of seventeen, I could fancy any teenage girl that came within ten yards of me. Just being in close proximity to a girl could make me shiver with delight.
Not that I knew what to say to them, or how to behave with them, for that was one area where my Eton education had sadly let me down. But, although their presence turned me into a clueless geek, I loved girls. Any girls.
This said, Estelle was not just any girl. She was seventeen-years-old and gorgeous, long brown hair in a ponytail, flawless creamy skin, and a trim, perfectly endowed body that had left my eyes on stalks the first time I saw her in a swimming costume on the beach in Cornwall.
The previous month, our families had been staying at the same Cornish hotel. I had spent two days gawking at her from afar, before one morning she’d taken pity on me and started to chat. I blossomed. On the last night, at the hotel disco, we had kissed in the corner. It was my formal introduction to girls and the many delights they had to offer.
Estelle had promised to write, but it was by no means a done deal.
So when I read that letter and realised she’d come good, I was euphoric.
Then and there I replied, returning all her hugs and kisses tenfold, and sowing the seeds for our future together. But I didn’t declare my undying love. I didn’t want to slay my golden goose.
It was the first time I’d ever sealed a letter with a loving kiss and I posted it after I’d snatched a couple of slices of toast for breakfast.
Estelle! I was a fizzing bottle of champagne, ready to explode with joy.
I know that my attitude may seem fickle; that one moment I should be putting India on a pedestal and blowing her night-time kisses and the next I am fawning after my holiday romance. But that’s boys for you, and not all of them grow out of it.