The Great Concert of the Night by Jonathan Buckley

Author:Jonathan Buckley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2020-01-14T00:00:00+00:00

July

William calls, buoyant. Unloading the van this morning, he noticed a woman on the opposite side of the road. At exactly the same moment as he noticed her, she looked across at him. She was getting into a car and she looked over the roof, right at him. The way she blinked made him think that she had recognised him. She had long dark hair, parted in the middle, and her face was very pale. Her nose was distinctive too—narrow and straight. Her mouth was small and pretty. The resemblance to the woman in the London café was uncanny; and she definitely gave him a look. “It was like déjà vu, but more solid than that. You know what I mean?” he says. He didn’t try to talk to her. There wasn’t enough time anyway; they looked at each other, and then she drove off. That was enough. “I’ll be seeing her again,” William promises me.

•

Replete with assurances that she would make a most dutiful and faithful wife, most of Adeline’s letters give the impression of having been composed in accordance with rules set out in a manual of letter-writing for young ladies. Their artlessness seems artful. The letter of June 18th, 1854, however, has the freshness of spontaneity. It makes reference to a walk by the river, a walk that seems to have been of great significance in the development of the relationship. A kiss was bestowed. At the close of her letter, Adeline writes: “I fear that the love I feel is beyond my control.” We know, from Charles’s reply, that the letter was written on paper that had been scented with lavender oil. Many of Adeline’s letters were perfumed with lavender or violet oil. After her death, Charles would take the letters from the box in which he kept them, and would breathe the remnant of their scent, I told Imogen. Supporting the letter on her upturned fingertips, as though it were a wafer of glass, she lowered her face to the paper and closed her eyes. If someone were to bottle the perfume of second-hand bookshops, she would buy it, Imogen said.

•

We came across William in the park, on a Sunday afternoon. He was lying on the grass, basking, with his feet raised on a backpack. It appeared that he was asleep. It’s probable that I hoped that he was, but just as we reached the part of the path that was closest to where he was lying he suddenly opened his eyes, as if he’d picked up our scent, and looked straight at us. He waved and stood up, hoisting the bag onto his back. The weight of it made him stagger. Still waving, as though he had something to give us, he lumbered up to the path.

He apologised to Imogen for having talked too much last time. “Tell you the truth,” he said, “I was a bit out of it. Anyway, I just wanted to say sorry. Thank you. I’ll let you get on,” he finished, stepping back.

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