CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 5
The reading of Amelia’s will took no time, really, for the document covered less than three typed pages. Megan then handed over a slender envelope holding a letter. On the envelope was the one word Ian. She offered to leave and give him time to read, but Ian refused. Amelia’s farewell needed a different setting than a lawyer’s conference room. There followed almost an hour of signing documents, for Ian was accepting ownership of Amelia’s apartment and taking over her mortgage. Which was ludicrous, given his current financial situation. But Amelia wanted him to have it. Her condo and a small sum in her checking account were all she had to give, and she had left everything to him.
* * *
The journey north was pleasant enough, with a crisp, salt-laden wind blowing strong off the unseen Pacific. Ian drove with all the windows down, finding at least temporary comfort in the day. The afternoon sun shone brightly on broad valleys and gently sloping hills. Yet the evidence of drought was everywhere. Verdant lowlands and blooming orchards alternated with parched fields and the white bones of leafless trees. Too many of the slopes held the dark stains of previous fire seasons.
Ian had no idea how he felt about playing music that afternoon. He had not picked up a guitar in almost six weeks, the longest he had gone without playing since forever.
Several of his performances had been adapted into film scores. But he had never helped put one together. He had to assume the work was possible. And that was not the point.
The simple fact was, he needed the money. Megan had assured him anything he made from this point forward could be kept separate from all the pressure the Maryland attorneys were exerting.
And that was not the point, either.
Ian liked how the drive helped him see clearly. Beyond the shame and wounding and loss and stress. By the time he entered the town of Miramar, he felt as if one key element of his day had become clear.
What he had told Megan was the absolute truth. Music was all he knew. But working on the film score represented something far more profound than simply making ends meet. He was entering a new phase. The separation from his former existence was happening. The question he needed to ask now was both direct and perplexing. What form was his life supposed to take?
He followed Megan’s instructions, driving along the town’s northern boundary, up a gentle slope, and into the parking area fronting three apartment buildings. He left one guitar and carried his other two cases into the central structure. Amelia’s one-bedroom apartment was on the top floor, which granted a lovely view over redwoods and magnolias and the rooflines of Miramar’s miniature downtown. He stood in the small living room, smelling his aunt’s fragrance in the still air. Missing her.
An extra set of keys dangled from a hook by the front door. Ian decided to leave hunting for his aunt’s car until later. Danny had stressed the need for punctuality, and he was already late.
Ian took the envelope holding Amelia’s farewell letter from his pocket. He was pretty sure how he wanted to read the letter, and it was not here. Nor would it be on some winding hillside road, or while waiting for the next segment of his day and life to take shape. The woman who had seen him through so much deserved a final moment that was in keeping with the life she had cherished. A good bottle of wine, perhaps listening to one of the show tunes she and her partner had so adored. Ian would toast his best friend amid a nice crowd of happy faces and show no shame over the tears he might need to shed.
For the moment, it was enough to prop the unopened letter on the small dining table. He stared at it for a time, then rummaged through the kitchen for a pen and notepad. He wrote the thought that had crystalized during the journey north.
I am done racing toward the challenges of tomorrow, chased by the mistakes of yesterday.
He left his words there beside the letter. Satisfied with how Amelia would like his first act of defining whatever came next.
The hill holding Amelia’s apartment backed onto a much higher ridge. They were separated by a broad valley containing orchards, horse farms, and a meandering country road. Following Danny’s directions, Ian climbed the steep ridge to the top, then drove north on a narrow lane until it ended at a pair of ornamental gates. Ian rose from the Kia and pressed the buzzer below the camera imbedded in the left post.
“Yes?”
“Mr. Rowe?”
“Who’s asking?”
“Ian Hart. Danny Byrd said I should—”
“Yes, yes, I know all about what Daniel said and what Daniel wants.” The voice was elderly and British and cantankerous. “I have one question I’m going to put to you, lad. Shift over a smidgen so I can see whether you lie with grace. Now then. Answer wrong, and you can bloody well traipse back down that hill. Listen carefully. Are you going to give me trouble?”
Ian liked the man already. “No. No trouble.”
“Because I’ve heard all I care about you and your antics.”
“No antics. Not today.”
But the old man wasn’t done. “I’m in no mood for some star traipsing in here, putting on fancy airs and acting like king on the hill. You’d be asking for trouble, mark my words.”
“I’ve had all the trouble I can bear,” Ian assured him. “All my fancy airs have been stripped away.”
“That bloody well better be the truth, or you and Daniel are both going to catch the sharp end of my tongue.”
“Are you going to let me in, Mr. Rowe?”
The gates buzzed. “I’m making a terrible mistake. I can feel it in my bones.”
The estate was California modern and contained several single-story structures of stone and wood and glass. A bespectacled man in his late sixties or early seventies stood on the flagstone walk, his ratty sweater buttoned up incorrectly, reading glasses dangling from a cord around his neck. He scowled as Ian rose from the car, then said, “I suppose we might as well get this over with.”
Ian collected his guitar case from the trunk and followed the man past a narrow lap pool to a cottage by the rear wall. Its stone fa?ade was almost lost behind a veil of some climbing flower that Ian did not recognize.
According to Danny, Arthur Rowe was a highly successful editor of big-budget films. He had retired to Miramar and now treated Danny Byrd’s projects as a well-paid hobby. Danny considered himself the most fortunate of producers and treated the editor with the reverence Arthur expected and probably deserved.
Arthur unlocked the front door and said, “I suppose you’ll be wanting tea or coffee or some such. Don’t go asking for champagne, because you won’t bloody get it.”
“Coffee would be great.” Ian stepped through the entrance and gaped. “Whoa.”
The structure contained a full-scale recording, mixing, and editing studio. Its two rooms were divided by a glass wall, along which ran a digital mixing board, four massive flat-screens, two freestanding keyboards, and an array of electronic editing equipment. This front room also featured a kitchenette, sofa, leather captain’s chairs, and a long table. Speakers shaped like narrow pyramids rose on either side of the mixing board, while four JBL professional-grade boxes hung from the room’s four corners. Two rear windows overlooked a steep descent, the town of Miramar and, farther out, the glistening Pacific waters.
The second room, the recording studio, held more equipment. Everything had been laid out with a delicate precision. Ian took in the dozens of mikes and stands, the movable walls for either singers or drums, the Steinway grand. “This is an amazing setup.”
Arthur busied himself at the coffee maker. “This is hardly the first project that’s entered into last-minute meltdown.”
“I’ve recorded albums in worse studios.”
The old man was clearly pleased. “I very much doubt that.”
“With a full symphonic orchestra.”
“Now I know you’re pulling my arthritic leg.” Arthur kept his back to the room as he continued, “You do understand we won’t be using everything you play.”
“Of course.”
“And there’s no score for you to work off.”
“Right.”
“We’re after secondary melodies. Musical bridges that come and go as the story requires. Woven into the film’s tapestry. A gentle pastel thread that’s always heard but seldom consciously acknowledged.”
“That is beautifully put,” Ian replied.
“I’ve wanted to say that for such a long time.” Arthur handed Ian a mug. “Sit yourself down and let me play the initial songs we’ve selected.”
The first was Pink’s “What About Us,” a melody Ian had loved from the very first hearing. The second was Major Lazer’s “Lean On,” sung by Elise Trouw and backed by the Scary Pockets studio band. Long before the second song ended, Ian understood why Danny’s former music director had selected both the tunes and the order. The two songs shared a distinct harmony and the tempo trended upward, hopefully drawing the audience with it.
When the second song finished, Arthur asked, “Again?”
“Not yet. How long is the gap between those key scenes?”
Arthur studied him a long moment, then replied, “Nine minutes, eleven seconds. Too long for the score to go silent.”
“How long should my filler run?”
“No idea, lad. Can’t answer that until we hear whether you’re able to give us something we can use.”
Ian nodded. That made sense. “Can I hear the other songs?”
Ian drank his coffee and listened as the soundtrack took shape. Arthur’s only comments were to offer the time between melodies. Moxura’s “Love of My Life” was followed by Joss Stone’s edgy version of “I Put a Spell on You.” Then came Paul Carrack’s “How Long.” Several more melodies followed, ending with Fleetwood Mac’s “Go Your Own Way.”
When the room went quiet, Arthur asked, “You want the story?”
“Not really. But it would help if you could give me the emotional threads between those first two songs. I’d like to focus on that initial bridge, please.”
Arthur tapped a keyboard, drew up a script with his notes in yellow along the side. “The first song begins inside a mounting emotional storm. The two main characters come as close as they possibly can to an almost torrid love scene. They both want to get it on. Desperately. But there are issues. So in the end they don’t.”
“Got it.” Ian rose from his chair. Unlatched his guitar case. “And the setting for the second melody?”
Arthur was watching him now. “Our poor lad grows suspicious that things aren’t what they seem.”
“Tough.”
“He certainly thinks so. As the story develops, things go from bad to worse. Then the lady gets herself into a truly desperate pickle, which is when he finds out he had the whole thing wrong. There’s a great deal of drama going on, mind. Action and risk and some very nasty types.” Arthur was watching him as Ian tuned the instrument. “Shall I run through the songs a second time?”
“Let’s go ahead and get me miked,” Ian replied. “Then play me just the first song.”
Arthur cocked his head to one side. As if needing to inspect Ian from a different angle. “Sure about that, are you?”
“I am, yes.” He opened the door leading to the recording studio. “Soon as you’re ready, why don’t we take this music for a stroll?”
* * *
Ian settled onto the padded stool at the center of the recording studio and positioned the three mikes according to Arthur’s directions: One was directly in front of his instrument and not quite touching the central sound hole. The second was a foot farther back, while the third was positioned ten feet away, high up and pointed straight at the ceiling. The result would be a deeply resonant sound, one Ian had loved from the very first time his music had been taped.
Arthur was seated behind the mixing board on the glass wall’s other side. He insisted on minute adjustments to both the mikes and Ian’s tuning until his guitar completely matched the song’s harmonics. Ian came to admire the editor’s professional demeanor. Gone was the caustic grumpiness. They were moving in sync. Like they had worked together for years. Which was both good and bad. Good because Ian assumed whatever he played would be precisely recorded. Bad because the work pushed Ian further and further into unwanted memories. He knew there was nothing to be done about it. He endured as best he could until finally Arthur said, “Ready for take one.”
“Play the first song.”
“And the second?”
“Not necessary.” Ian tapped the side of his headphones. “Play it only through these. Go ahead and start recording now.”
Arthur’s glare returned. “Ordering me about now, are we?”
Ian was almost grateful for the need to retreat from all the hard memories. “Let’s pretend I inserted a ‘please’ where you think best.”
“Right, then.” Arthur’s hands became busy with his board’s many controls. “Take one, beginning in three, two . . .”
* * *
Ian had identified three riffs, or repeated musical patterns, that formed the key emotional threads to that first song. When the melody ended and his headphones went silent, he began repeating them. First one, then the other, then the third. They were simple enough to form a background to his rising memories. He did not welcome the recollections, but here on this hallowed ground, he did not even try to push them away.
Originally, a riff was known as an ostinato. In classical music this formed a subtle repetitive phrase intended to help the listener feel comfortable with the symphony’s more complex structure. The ostinato would be played by one instrument after another and would remain in the background until the final climactic movement, when it was taken up by the entire orchestra and shouted in farewell.
The term riff was first used by jazz musicians in the twenties. These musical patterns were usually less than four bars long and were intended to stand out from the very beginning. Riffs formed the foundation for most instrumental solos, as well as becoming a key element that was repeated by the singer, often in the refrain.
When he was ready, Ian returned to the first riff and began weaving a tapestry of his own. What about us? Pink sang in his head, and he formed contrasting patterns in response. What about us? He tried to focus on his music and succeeded at least a little. The memories remained a soft chorus in the background, but for this brief period, they remained free of their heavy emotional burden. Still vivid enough to call across the years. Drawing him back to the early days.
Seven years old, in second grade at the boarding school where his grandparents had deposited him. His class trooped dutifully into the music room. The previous year, they had endured hours of musical appreciation in this classroom, listening to classical music, which most students hated, being interrupted by lectures, which they hated even more. The teacher, Monsieur Lachard, was an acerbic Huguenot who drank. Most of the students loathed Mon-Sewer. The feeling was mutual.
Today the front table was lined with a variety of instruments. Ian endured a dozen or so students who trooped dutifully to the piano in the corner and hammered their way through one awful melody or another. A few others then selected instruments and were defeated by the violin or the flute or the trumpet.
Ian waited.
Finally, the class was dismissed. Ian remained seated as the students gleefully departed. When it was just the two of them, Lachard began wiping down the instruments and packing them away. Then he pretended to notice Ian. “You there in the back. What’s your name, boy?”
“Ian Hart, sir.”
“I suppose you want to torture me, as well, eh?”
Ian nodded and pointed to the miniature six-string guitar propped on its stand. Waiting patiently in the corner, almost hidden by the portable blackboard on rollers.
Lachard glanced at the instrument, snorted softly, then went back to cleaning the trumpet’s mouthpiece. “Go on, then.”
The music room was always open, as Lachard’s piano students were required to practice at least three hours each week. Ian came before breakfast, when the classrooms were empty and the halls silent. His love for the guitar was already a living, visceral thing. Now he touched the strings one by one, making sure they were still in tune.
That alone was enough to turn Lachard around.
Ian played a rendition of Franz Schubert’s “Erlk?nig,” a song he had loved from the very first hearing. Schubert was best known for combining classical structures with the romantic. He died at age thirty-three, most likely from syphilis, leaving behind more than six hundred compositions. “Erlk?nig” was a chamber piece designed around Goethe’s poem by the same name, and was one of the instrumental pieces that established Schubert as a genius ahead of his time. Ian had heard some of this in Lachard’s lectures. He was most likely the only student that had paid careful attention, hidden there in the rear row. He had loved Schubert’s striking use of ostinatos, especially the one depicting the furious gallop of horses that formed the poem’s rhythm.
When he finished, Ian discovered Lachard had seated himself behind the front table. There was a moment’s silence, and then the teacher demanded, “You accelerated after the coda. That was a mistake.”
Now that he had finished playing, Ian could not stop trembling. “I don’t understand.”
Lachard squinted angrily. “Who teaches you?”
“No one.”
“Don’t you dare lie to me, boy.”
“I come in before breakfast. I sit here. I play.”
Lachard studied him a long moment. Somewhere beyond the closed door, a pair of students shouted their laughter. A bell rang, signaling the start of the next class. Neither of them moved.
Finally, Lachard demanded, “When is your free hour?”
“Two o’clock.”
“Can you read music?”
“No, sir.”
Another long silence, and then Lachard rose and opened the rear cabinet and sorted through stacks of well-worn texts. He drew out one the size and shape of a child’s coloring book. “You will memorize every page.”
The cover was creased; the pages were sticky from a multitude of hands. “Yes, sir.”
“Give me the instrument.” He propped himself on the table, then raised his left leg to support the guitar’s body. He played an exercise with drumlike precision. “Did you see what I did?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Show me.”
Ian took the instrument and copied Lachard. Or tried to.
“No, no, no. That is rubbish.” Lachard seemed genuinely angry. “You do not interpret.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You play the exercise exactly as I did. You do not weigh the notes. No emotion, no interpretation, no lazy actions. That way leads to wrong habits. You do it exactly as I do. Each note precisely the same as all the others. Give me the instrument.” Ian did. “Now listen carefully.” Lachard played the exercise through twice more. “Now you.”
Ian tried again.
“No, that is awful. It is lazy. It is a child’s method. You will come in every morning, and you will play this. For one hour. Nothing more. No exceptions. You will learn discipline and good habits. Your time of lazy playing is over.”
And so it began.
* * *
Ian remained captivated by Pink’s plaintive melody for what felt like hours but probably was only a few minutes. Then Ian gradually shifted to Elise Trouw’s softly lyrical version of “Lean On.” Ian gently pushed the tempo and elevated the harmonics, and they flowed upward, carried by the melody only he could hear, until it was time for the second song to take center stage.
Finish.
When he went silent, Arthur sat behind the mixing board, watching him through the glass partition. Immobile.
Ian leaned forward and asked through the guitar’s upper microphone, “How was that?”
Arthur jerked slightly, then glanced at the digital timer on the wall. He touched a lever on the mixing board, and his voice came through speakers embedded on either side of the connecting window. “You played for nineteen minutes, seven seconds.”
“Far too long,” Ian said. “Sorry. I was having fun.”
“Were you now?”
“It’s been a long time . . .” He waved that aside. Not yet. Not here. No need to break the happy spell. “Can you use it?”
Arthur scratched the hair curling beneath his earphones. “You do realize we’ll cut that down to two, maybe three minutes.”
Ian nodded. “Sorry to give you extra work.”
Arthur squinted at him. “I’m thinking we’ll add electronic keyboard, maybe a stand-up bass and flute. One segment was crying out for some backup power.”
“Sounds like a great idea.”
“Does it now?”
“What’s the matter, Arthur?”
“‘What’s wrong?’ the man asks. Well, lad, I’ll tell you. When Danny called to say he was sending you up, I insisted he was making a terrible mistake. We don’t have time to work with some vagrant star like your good self. And I won’t put up with tantrums. I told Danny I had left all that sordid mess in LA. Along with stars who think they know enough to tell me my business.”
Ian leaned his guitar on the neighboring stool and used a towel draped over the music stand to wipe his face and neck. “I’m glad he insisted.”
“Not only that, Danny used the one argument I had no choice but to accept. He said even if you proved to be the complete and utter pain I knew you’d be, all I needed to capture was thirty seconds. Less. Then I could boot your good self out on the street. We’d still have Ian Hart’s name to use in the film’s publicity. Right in the middle of all the world dining on your misery. Surely I could hold my breath through a thirty-second take, Danny said. Now I ask you. How in blazes was I supposed to argue with that?”
“That’s a tough one.”
“There you are. So now I’m sitting here behind my little apparatus with nineteen minutes of solid gold. Shame on you, lad. I hate being made to look like a cantankerous old sod.” He began shifting the mixing board’s controls. “What say we go for a take with songs three and four?”
* * *
Two hours later, Arthur sent him away. There were decisions to be made, he said. Choices that didn’t involve a musician who was intent on making Arthur eat his words. Arthur moaned over how Danny would no doubt laugh himself silly and then remind Arthur for years how wrong he’d been about Ian. Arthur said all this while resting his hand on Ian’s shoulder, accompanying him back around the house.
When they entered the forecourt, Arthur stopped and squinted at Ian’s ride. “And what exactly is this?”
“A rental. Old and tired and smelling of too many other hot drivers.”
“It’s a death trap with four tires. An insult to good cars everywhere.”
“With my financial situation, it was all I could afford. I’m pretty sure my aunt has a car I can use.”
“A unicycle would be an improvement on that.” Arthur watched him settle his guitar in the trunk. “And what were you planning to do tonight? That is, assuming you make it down the hill in one piece.”
“Stop by the grocery, go to my aunt’s place, open cans, and collapse.”
“No, no, we’re not having any of that.” He pointed at the unseen town beyond his garden wall. “You hop on down to Castaways. Ask anyone in town, and they’ll tell you where to go.”
“Arthur—”
“Tonight’s a special occasion, one you shouldn’t miss. There’s a local pianist, another star who doesn’t put on airs. I have a place reserved at the bar, but now with what you’ve just handed me, I’ll be too busy to attend. I’ll call and set you up. Go have yourself a good meal on Danny. You deserve it.”