Chapter Text
--=ooOoo=--
June 16
‘Jack, have a look at MHC. I think Padraig’s post from this morning might interest you.’
Padraig had referred to the Locatelli quartet, saying the author had ‘created a classic musical mystery, a modern-day Fermat’s Last Theorem, and like that perpetual conundrum, the subject of many a mistaken or even consciously false solution,’ but as it was part of a debate about the place of music in literature, there had been no direct response.
Jack said, ‘He means it’s not going to be solved no matter how much fuss is made, but of course it was solved, 350 years later.’
‘So I took it to mean. Do you tell me it has been solved?
‘Oh, yes, a couple of decades ago, now. You know the Pythagorean theorem, I am sure. If a, b, and c are the legs and the hypotenuse of a right triangle, a2 +b2 = c2, and that is true for an infinite number of solutions - it’s a law. It can be proven in a great many ways, algebraically, by calculus, and so on, and it holds true in a great many circumstances, too, including in higher-dimensional spaces and non-Euclidean spaces, and it applies to objects other than the right triangle, including to n-dimensional solids. But Fermat just commented that he had proven that this law did not hold true for the higher powers, that is that an + bn = cn, or rather xn + yn = zn was not true where n was any positive integer higher than two, so -’
‘Jack - ‘
‘- people could and did produce proofs that Fermat was right for specific values of n, but for three and a half centuries nobody could prove the general case, until it began to be proven for not just specific cases but specific classes of cases, and then someone noticed a link between Fermat’s theorem and the modularity theorem, which stated that elliptic curves over the field of rational numbers are related to modular forms, and by the way that is still unproven, except for semistable elliptic curves, that part was proven in the course of trying to solve Fermat’s theorem. So then -’
‘Jack, please, stop.’
‘Oh -
‘While I appreciate your obvious enthusiasm, I have no idea what you are saying. You have the mathematics, I collect.’
‘It was my focus in university, yes.’
‘It’s another language - that makes three for you, and this one I don’t speak at all.’
‘So it does. Padraig’s wrong anyway. Would you point that out?’
‘Why don’t you?’
‘They think I’m a simpleton, and they have already decided I’m mistaken or even consciously false, as Padraig puts it.’
‘They aren’t that stupid. They would be so pleased to hear about what we are doing. And you could dazzle them with whatever it was you just said.’
‘You haven’t told them about it?’
‘No, I thought -’
‘You thought right, I don’t want to go there. You could say that about Fermat, though. And you could remind them that it was a collaborative proof, in the end.’
Linus, posting on MHC: I find it encouraging that Padraig likened the Locatelli quartet to Fermat’s last theorem. I was discussing this with a friend of mine, who is a violinist of marked virtuosity with a prodigious musical memory and understanding, btw, and he was good enough to explain to me that Fermat’s theorem has in fact been proven, more than two decades ago. I didn’t understand one word in ten, but I did absorb the fact of the proof, and that it was the result of the combined efforts of many people. If that can be achieved after 350 or so years of trying, why may not we unravel the Loc4 mystery? It’s been less than 50 years.
Gabrieli: Oh, not that again. Linus, my lad, when will you stop believing in things that do not exist? Truth, love, the complete Poetics, the Locatelli quartet?
Linus: Surely you will admit it is not possible to prove the negative, in any of those cases?
Gabrieli: I don’t need to prove the negative, I just don’t choose to waste time and brain space on things I can know nothing about. You’re a romantic.
Linus: Not at all. We have significant evidence that the first two exist, the third once existed, and the last could have existed. Good enough for me.
Gabrieli: Good enough for a romantic.
~∙~∙~∙~
June 18, late evening
Stephen sat on the cot in his hut, irresolute. It was too late to pursue any of the several concerns on his mind; nevertheless he reached for the laptop.
- email from [email protected]:
About the clip, I have to say that I agree, there must be another variation or even two between the 2M composite and the restatement. I wish I could help more.
I’ve been thinking, not without shame, about my fallacious notion that warfare and musical virtuosity are incompatible. Of course they are not, but they do in fact draw on rather different parts of the brain, are favoured by differing focus, pace, habit of body. Social perception endorses this difference: we’re surprised or impressed by a big athletic musician or a small stevedore.
- email from [email protected]:
You see exceptions every day.
- email from [email protected]:
You’re awake, good. I thought it was too late over there.
Exceptions, certainly, but those perceptions are built into our history, literature, mythos - experience doesn’t shake them.
Do you know William Lawes’ music? Lovely: wit, depth, charm. He spent most of his life in Charles I’s court, as performer and composer. When he enlisted to defend the king, during the Civil War, he was assigned to what was considered a mostly honorary post, the King’s personal guard, because he was valued by Charles as a musician and friend. And then he was killed anyway.
- email from [email protected]:
Did he go down fighting in the last battle, heroically?
- email from [email protected]:
No, that’s how I would have written it, if he had to die at that time. But alas he was killed in a trivial little skirmish. My point: there’s no reason to think his death is more deplorable than that of any other man or woman, BUT I DO because it precluded the composition of who knows what wondrous music. Equally there is no reason to think his death in battle is more terrible than that in any other manner – except in the article of his personal experience, of course – BUT I DO THINK THIS. Because even though he chose to be there, his place seems to me to have been elsewhere, doing what he did best, not getting killed doing something useless that he wasn’t particularly skilled at.
- email from [email protected]:
I think it’s his right to choose what he did. He wanted to defend his king, out of whatever motives he may have had, loyalty, love, duty, who knows? and was willing to risk his life doing so. Of course it’s sad he died, more sad than that we don’t have his music, in human terms. But his choice.
- email from [email protected]:
I can’t argue with that. But sometimes I listen to the viol consorts and want to weep for the waste of it all.
- email from [email protected]:
Turn on skype, please, if you can get video.
- email from [email protected]:
okay.
‘You look terrible. Don’t you ever sleep?’
‘Thank you very much. Is that why you asked me to turn this on?’
‘No, I want to play something for you. I think this is where the second movement goes after the last bit I recorded.’
Jack played, picking up in the middle of a phrase; after several bars he lifted the bow and stood unmoving, then turned to the webcam.
‘Well, maybe not. I have to think about it some more. Lie down, why don’t you? I’ll play something else.’
Stephen looked at him thoughtfully, nodded, then put the computer on the table and stretched out on the cot with a deep sigh.
Jack adjusted the tuning, then began the lovely air that introduces the Goldberg variations, sounding very sweet and simple on the violin.
‘Very apt, my friend. I thank you,’ he murmured. Then, yawning, ‘See you tomorrow.’
The music continued to accompany him as he drifted down, down into peaceful sleep.
~∙~∙~∙~
June 20
Stephen: Dodgy connection tonight, don’t think it will support skype. Progress?
Jack: I’m working on it right now, the individual entries towards the end of the fourth.
Stephen: ok, I will leave you to it. Upload it when you can, of course.
And thank you for last night. That was – awesome.
Jack: My pleasure. IDGHP ‘)
Stephen: ??
Jack: It just means something is very, very good.
Journal entry, 20 June 20--
… It was obvious he had been asleep, or at least in bed - it’s three hours later there, after all - but he sounded and looked perfectly calm and alert. It was the curious sensation of the world, too, being gently chided for looking tired, perhaps for being sad, I don’t know, and then sent to bed and soothed into sleep by a very lovely impromptu rendition of the variations. I’m astonished that I actually slept. Music does indeed have charms.
Putting the journal aside, Stephen logged into FindingLocatelli; there was a new upload. This picked up the fourth movement where the violin, solo now, sank into a whisper; then increasing volume, notes, speed, representing the second violin’s entry, and now Jack humming, for the viola; then his rich, full bass going pom, pom-pom-pom, poom, unmistakably the cello; and driving onward, pointing towards the final resolution.
I hardly know what to write. It is difficult to believe a single violin and voice can so convincingly sketch a quartet. Over the last weeks I have been gradually brought to believe this is an accurately remembered, genuinely unknown piece he is reconstructing, and that it may be Locatelli, or something like; there are certainly many characteristic touches. But here I surrender. I am converted, I yield: this is the authentic article, genuine Locatelli without a doubt, just as described in that extraordinary passage, and I recognised it with a bit of a frisson. There is something uncanny about it, happily so: as if the composer were speaking from beyond the grave.
I have no idea at all what to do about it, save continuing to watch this reclamation, resurrection, whatever it is, and asking for more.
~∙~∙~∙~
June 24
Stephen returned to the hut quite late in the evening. He looked into his tiny larder with no interest, then turned on the computer. Seeing that Jack had called - twice - earlier in the evening, he logged into FindingLocatelli, intending to leave a brief message. There was a post from less than an hour previously.
Jack: Getting too late to call. I’ll be awake, if you want check in here.
Stephen: Sorry, not at my best. Bad bad day.
Jack responded almost immediately, before Stephen could decide to close it down.
Jack: Is it still about Lawes?
Stephen : No, but it is about an innocent who was in the wrong place, at that. An eight-year-old kid, had a compound, comminuted fracture of one leg, and we - I - decided to try to save it. This was more than two months ago, Jack. Today we - I - had to take the leg off.
Jack: Is this the same as or different from William Lawes?
Stephen: ???? What’s the connection?
Jack: Because it grieves you that something bad happened to someone you care about. You should remember he is probably alive because of you.
Stephen: She
Jack: ok, she, too bad she will have to cope with a disability, it’s not perfect, but so much better than dead. She gets to have her future.
Stephen: It’s not that simple. Beatriu put up with so many cycles of it seeming to heal and then deteriorating again, so much unnecessary pain and boredom and missed opportunities to do anything better than hang around this fucking place. The only possible excuse for that is if she gets to keep her leg. And she doesn’t.
Jack: Did she cry all the time?
Stephen: Oh, no, hardly at all. Less than I would with my tibia in sixteen pieces, probably. She’s a bright little thing, tough as nails, chattering all the time. Very silly of course, little girls are. They giggle, you know.
Jack: I know. I have a couple of them. They are tough, and they learn from everything. Maybe it was more important for her to know you people tried really hard to save her leg, rather than just whipping it off, than it was for her to do something else with the past two months.
Stephen: … I can’t think of a single thing to say.
Jack: Then let me say something. You will no doubt be seeing her again?
Stephen: Of course.
Jack: Then find a way to reassure her that she has in no way failed or disappointed you, because I would bet when she grieves her leg that will be part of it.
Turn on the skype, will you?
Stephen hesitated, then complied; he saw Jack peer at him, then nod.
‘Listen,’ he said, and picked up the violin, never far from his hand.
Turning slightly away, he played one of the D major consort suites, his eyes closed or carefully fixed on the violin, as Stephen lost and then regained his composure.
‘But, do you see what I mean?’ he said, as if he had been explaining something. ‘It’s still here, it’s still beautiful. When Lawes was killed, what happened today where you are, one potential future was lost, but not everything. We still have some of his music 370-odd years later, and all his incalculable influence on composers since his time, and she will probably grow up to be a brilliant surgeon or another Picasso or …..’
‘… or a serial killer, don’t forget. I get it, Jack, and I thank you. It’s sometimes hard to let the world go on in its own way, when I know so much better how it should be.’
‘Ah, well, that’s a trick, isn’t it.’
~∙~∙~∙~
June 26
Stephen: … so I said only her courage kept us hoping that we could save her leg, with such a disastrous injury. She brightened at once, such an endearing creature. Thank you for that, Jack.
Jack: If you felt proud of her it would have shown anyway, but you were so miserable I thought she might have gotten that instead.
Stephen: I’m not so sure, there’s a professional reserve I try to maintain. People seem reassured by it, but I could be wrong. In any case I’m grateful for your insight. It must be very agreeable to have daughters at home.
Jack: They are really delightful, twins. I skype with them and all that and see them when I can. But they are in Africa, I’ve never lived with them. The racing, you know, there were a lot of girls …
Stephen: You had groupies! Of course you did.
Jack: Well, yes, I have to admit …
Their mother and her husband are friends now, I get to visit. Not as much as I would like, of course.
Stephen: Difficult.
Jack: Not as much as you would think. I keep reminding myself that if I were married to their mother I would still not be seeing them all that often, so it’s good they have a stable home and a father who is present.
FWIW – bugger, I forgot what I was going to say. I’ve used FWIW for years, it seemed to work in context, and just now when I typed it I thought, ‘From What I ... wait, is remember spelt with a W?’ so looked it up, the acronom I mean. Damn and blast.
Stephen: can it be that nobody has ever corrected you on these things before? Where have you been writing?
Jack: Blog
Stephen: I’d like to read your blog.
Jack: It’s an internal blog, internal to the ship, I can’t give you access.
Stephen: That explains it –who would correct the captain?
Jack: more likely nobody actually reads it. I could copy bits for you, if you like. What would you want to read about?
Stephen: Did you blog when you were sailing that ship around the Southern Ocean, alone?
Jack: No, no time for it. And it was a boat, not a ship.
~∙~∙~∙~
Late June – mid July
Journal entry, 11 July 20--
Over the last weeks we have fallen into a pattern of emails or talking nightly, and playing more times than not. We continue to explore the repertoire we have in common - how grateful I am for online scores - and as we have come to understand one another, musically, we have begun to improvise. Jack excels at this, of course, as I have learned to expect. I am imperceptibly losing my self-consciousness, whether due to use or to some inapparent aspect of Jack’s ever-present consideration I cannot tell.
We have been playing the two Locatelli sonatas we both know by heart, without a word of reference to the quartet, for over a week now.
~∙~∙~∙~
July 14
Well into an evening of music, Jack, who usually proposed the next piece by beginning it, sat quiet for a while, and then said, ‘I won’t say I’m stuck, I’m not, but I need to play the quartet with something other than my computer. Will you try it? Please, Stephen.’
Stephen hesitated.
‘If you please, I will, most happily. Soul, I have been playing along with your clips for many weeks now.’
‘Ah, really? That’s great, let’s play,’ and he turned away, making a bit of business of retuning.
Journal entry, 14 July 20--
… so we tried the first movement. It was not a success. I was at my worst, self-conscious and fumbling, appalled at the insensitivity of my confession. Jack barely skipped a beat before his reply, but he cannot lie, even if he had the will - his face is utterly unguarded, and he knows it, the creature - he was clearly taken aback, and he turned away; but before he did so I saw disappointment as well as surprise. How can he have lived this long, doing the things he does, and still believe anyone else could be as ingenuous as he is? Far less his accompanist, who left his own innocence behind so long ago.
I had not considered that he might perceive my playing with the clips as evidence of an unwillingness to engage with him in this endeavour, as a lack of candour, as of course it is - the latter, the habitual latter, not the former.
~∙~∙~∙~
July 15
Stephen: Jack, I apologise, unreservedly, if I seem to have failed in the article of candour. I had no such intention. I could not resist the opportunity to play with the clips, but I was so determined not to interfere with what you were doing, I didn’t think it through.
Jack: Don’t trouble yourself, I understand. I was just surprised. I had asked before, you know, for you to play it with me, so I guess I’m glad you were doing it even though i didn’t get to hear it.
Stephen: You wouldn’t have wanted to hear most of it, anyway. You seem not to understand how powerful your own gift is. You are gracefully sailing away with no apparent effort, and I am far behind, rowing my little dinghy with no great skill.
Jack: LMFOA!
Stephen: ???
Jack: Oh, come on, that one’s common.
Stephen: Well, yes, I have seen it, but so many people misspell it.
~∙~∙~∙~
Journal entry, 17 July 20--
After that rocky start, we have been doing little else but explore the quartet in the last few evenings. Jack proposes a phrase, usually but not always an established one, and I improvise a cello or continuo part. He never overtly rejects anything, rarely speaks indeed, but he goes back and repeats the phrase, so I try something different. But now I come to write that, I realise he does just the same if he approves it. There is a palpable difference between an unsuccessful attempt and an accepted one, but I cannot tell in what the difference lies. I do look at his face, maybe that is where I find it.
The quartet is coming along, indeed. The feeling is growing on me that it is now approaching a correct and tolerably complete framework, in that there are no major themes missing, many of the variations and some of the ornamentation have been settled on to Jack’s satisfaction.
It’s extremely gratifying to feel myself a part of this project; by his generosity it is now a fully cooperative endeavour. In addition to supplying the continuo, or some of it, I am able to comment on the historical context, and I get to write out the ever-changing score - I may perhaps be more familiar with music theory, or at least he lets me think so. I am deeply engaged, even dreaming about it on occasion.
~∙~∙~∙~
July 23
Stephen: You are getting later. Have you moved?
Jack: We are in the Bay of Bengal. You don’t have to guess, you know, you could follow us at www.rn.uk/hms-woolhampton.
Stephen: Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.
…
Oh, this is strange. It’s beautiful. Magnificent.
Jack: Do that later, ok? I know what’s on those pages, after all, I’ve seen the pictures. Taken some of them, even.
Stephen: Oh, sorry. It’s fascinating, why didn’t you tell me before?
Jack: It didn’t occur to me.
I can make assumptions, too. You have more free time, you get back home earlier?
Stephen: My part in this mission is winding down, yes. I’m handing off duties and orienting my successors. It’s a gradual process.
Jack: Then what?
Stephen: I go home and recover for a few months, remember what a normal life is like, see concerts and opera, eat in restaurants. Wear something other than scrubs.
Jack: Where’s home?
Stephen: Ireland. Taoibhcoille, in the west.
…
Jack: It must be beautiful.
...
Jack: Are you being evasive, or just back at the RN website? I checked into MHC. Not a word about Locatelli.
Stephen: Ahh, the latter. It’s a gorgeous ship.
About the comm, yes, I know, I go there regularly. The Locatelli debate is long gone. They’re on about early 20th century reproductions of clavichords and harpsichords. They didn’t know enough about them, wrong woods, blah blah, should they be trashed or left out of professional performances?
Jack: Should we do anything?
Stephen: I don’t know. I am very excited about the quartet, but it’s by no means complete, and - I don’t want to subject it to the glare of publicity yet. I think of it as tender and fragile.
Jack: Ha ha. I don’t, but I know what you mean. I think of it as something that is being kind enough to reveal itself, and I don’t want to annoy it.
Stephen: Yes, that’s it exactly.
Jack: I get leave in the fall, a month. I was thinking about going to the Med, Mahon.
Stephen: Sure, Mahon is a beautiful place. I know it well.
~∙~∙~∙~
July 26
‘Jack, I will be leaving for home early on the 2nd; there is a vast number, a mountain, of arrangements to complete, so do not - that is, so be aware that I may be silent for a while.’
‘But you’ll stay in touch?’
‘Of course I will, never doubt it. There are many more duets to be played, and I shall continue to harass you about the Locatelli quartet.’
Journal entry, 26 July 20--
He sounded dejected, alas. I share his feeling, however, or what I presume it to be. I will resume my life, with all its distractions, and Jack will do the same; it’s possible that this remarkable cooperative effort, this intimacy may not survive the change. Although a friendship of some sort will undoubtedly continue, I will miss this most pleasing endeavour, with this splendid companion; it has been indescribably gratifying, a reminder of a time when I could throw myself wholeheartedly into a conversation, a concert, or indeed a friendship. How I hope he has found an equal pleasure in my company.
~∙~∙~∙~
August 1
On July 31st, a catastrophic cyclone came ashore in India, in the state of Odisha on the Bay of Bengal, wreaking destruction for almost two whole days before weakening and moving out to sea. On Songwidth, a banner appeared shortly after midnight on August 1st, appealing for donations to any of the humanitarian organisations whose links were listed, MSF among them.
August 1, evening
Jack: News flash: we are being sent to Odisha. How long do you need between postings?
Stephen received this message in his usual evening location, on the deck, behind him the shambles of his hut, his simple economy reduced to a general disorder containing a few neatly labelled parcels and a shabby pack.
He closed the lid of his laptop and sat, gazing at the sky as the sun painted a succession of colours above the heights, pale pink at first, then gold, red, black. Eventually the planets and the brighter stars appeared, and still he sat there, unmoving.
~∙~∙~∙~
August 4 , morning
After an impossibly busy two days, rerouting his belongings, contacting MSF headquarters, friends, family and colleagues - but, indecisive, uncertain of his ground, not yet Jack - Stephen found himself at El Prat de Llobregat outside Barcelona, waiting for passage on a Red Cross relief flight to Brahmapur.
TEXT from the airport: Jack, I am joining the mission. Can you give me dinner when I get there?
Jack: I am so happy. Will you meet us at Brahmapur? Can you bring your cello? We are to pick up supplies and the first of the Hum orgs there – MSF, RC, etc. on Wednesday. As to dinner: A feast, a banquet, and don’t you wish I may let you go again. IDGHP. LOL.
--=ooOoo=--