Chapter Seven

November 1973
When we got back to London, George did an Iyengar course for six weeks, at the end of which he was beginning on some very advanced asanas, which he used for both concentration and control, believing that they would help his climbing as well as his self-control generally. Whatever his reason, it was impressive to watch him contort himself like a yogi, and hold for great lengths of time poses requiring a great deal of physical strength.
'You've done this before, surely,' I said.
He smiled. 'Not at all.'
'No, I mean, in the far past. In another life.'
He stopped and looked at me quickly.
'Eh? Do you think so?'
I nodded.

But he laughed. 'Yeah, maybe I was Yogananda! Truth to tell,' he rolled forward and sprang up and came to kiss me, 'I don't care if I was or not. Or who I was if we have lived before. All I care about is now. And now is pretty good.'
That made me think. 'Would you care if now was ratty?'
He shook his head. ' I didn't when it was, so probably not. Call me incurious. I'd rather think about what could be than what was. There's only an ego game in that.'
There was something to be said for such a point of view.


Christmas 1973
We went up to Cheshire to visit George’s parents over Christmas. He had put it off as long as possible due to not wanting to subject me to Herb, but when Annie phoned and said that his father had especially asked, we couldn’t avoid it any longer. So with our trusty Ferg in the back, we slung the rucksacks in the car and headed up the M6 to St. Wilfred’s in Mobberley on the 23rd. At least, if it were hopeless ratty, George said, we could escape to Ellen’s on Boxing Day.

It was the middle of the afternoon when we arrived, to a sleeting rain and mud puddles across the glebe. George threw off the hood of his waterproof and knocked at the heavy old door. It was pulled open with a thunderous, ‘Yes!’ by a man who looked like an ill-tempered Santa on his day off, wearing a knitted waistcoat and cardie. Herb, no less. He was very tall, taller than George, and stout, with unmanageable brown hair and jowls, and pale blue eyes that looked out on the world with suspicious disdain. It was hard to believe he was a vicar. I wouldn’t trust him with the welfare of my immortal soul.
‘Hi Dad,’ George said, with some irony. He heard me.

‘Well, here you are!’ Herb said standing back. ‘We were expecting you by lunchtime.’
‘We stopped in Stoke on Trent,’ George said, reaching out for my rucksack. His tone was staccato. Annie came in from the kitchen. ‘This is Claire,’ he put his arm around me.
Herb peered at me, squinting a little.
‘Eh? So this is the chit.’
I had to school my face. I never would have suspected that George got his ‘eh?’ – so perilously close to ‘eh, what?’ - from his father. But I couldn’t laugh.
‘How do you do, sir?’
‘You’re a nice little piece!’ Bundled as I was in petticoats and woollies, wellies and a waterproof, I suppose it was easy to think I was. ‘You didn’t tell me she was a Yank, boy.’
‘I did, actually,’ George murmured.
Annie came over. She was also tall, with Geordie’s colouring and frame. The housewifely attire of apron and cardie couldn’t hide the spirit that shone from her eyes.
‘Don’t pester the boy, dear,’ she said to her husband, and took my hand in one of hers. They were thin and delicate, with long fingers. ‘Welcome, Claire. You two must be chilled through.’
‘We could use a cuppa.’ George admitted. He kissed her cheek.

Fergus shook himself off behind us and whined. I heard George thinking Yes I want to leave too.
‘You still have that animal?’ Herb said. ‘Would have thought London would be bad for it.’
‘We’re out a lot, up to Forres,’ George said reluctantly. Ferg was the perfect excuse to break up this uncomfortable beginning. He whistled to the dog. ‘Come on, you playboy, go in the kitchen. Go on!’ The dog went and we followed him into the spacious old kitchen. Ferg plopped himself before the range in the immense inglenook.
‘Give me your jacket, darling,’ George said, ‘and I’ll take it upstairs with our things.’
I nodded and he pressed my hand when he took it. Annie poured out a mug of tea and handed it to me.
‘Sit down, dear,’ she said to me.
‘Thanks Ma,’ George said, and disappeared.
While he was gone, I shucked off several layers and hung them over the drying rod before the range with the tea towels and odd socks.
‘You’ve done that before,’ Annie said approvingly.
‘My sister has a farm.’ I smiled over my shoulder.
‘You’re very skinny, without all the padding,’ Herb said appraisingly. ‘Is he feeding you?’ How was I respond to that? I untucked my hair from my waistband and sat with them at the table beside the back door. It was covered in oilcloth, and held an assortment of jam and a crock of butter. At least they weren’t pretentious.
‘Did it take you a long time to grow your hair that long?’ Annie asked.
‘Three years,’ I said.
‘It’s lovely. Very old fashioned. My mother had hair like that, until the day she died.’
I smiled. ‘George likes it too.’
‘George said that you have graduated now,’ Annie said.
I nodded. ‘Yes. But I have no reason to go to New York for the ceremony and every reason to stay,’ we smiled at one another.
‘Claire was on exchange from Juilliard, Herb,’ Annie reminded him. ‘On scholarship like our Geordie.’
‘Huh!’ Herb huffed. ‘So you play old music as well?’
‘I do.’
‘We couldn’t persuade you to play at midnight communion, could we?’
I was astonished. ‘Our music director’s got the rheum.’ Ah well, that let fellow feeling out. ‘I’ll ask George if he wants to,’ I waffled.
‘Do what?’ he said behind me. He put his hand on the back of my neck and sat down heavily in the chair. He was in a really bad mood.
‘Play for Midnight Mass.’
Herb raised his eyebrows. ‘High Church?’
I shook my head.
‘Oh my God,’ Herb said. ‘A Papist!’
I looked at him squarely. ‘Worse: an Irish Catholic. Lapsed.’
George clamped his hand on my leg under the table. Annie was smiling, her eyes full of mischief.
‘You’ll like the Wren boys then, on Boxing day,’ she said.
‘Yes!’ Oh we were very much attuned. ‘I did that last year at my sister’s in Wales. The dance was a pip.’
Herb harrumphed. ‘Pagan rituals.’

‘Where’s Geoff, Ma?’ George leaned over and took three slices of bread, and slathered them with butter and jam. His brother, who was seventeen.
‘Down at the union hall, setting up for the dance.’ Annie said winking at me. ‘I expect he’ll be home for supper. If he isn’t, he’ll be at Mary’s.’
‘Little tart,’ Herb said. I couldn’t help staring at him.
‘All the girls wear miniskirts now, Herb,’ Annie said.
‘But they don’t all run about on motorbikes,’ he said. He looked at me. ‘You don’t drive a motorbike, do you?’
‘I don’t even drive a car.’ I said. And I didn’t wear miniskirts. Even at school, though everyone else did.
‘But she climbs,’ George smiled puckishly. ‘And skis.’ Well done, I thought at him.
Herb looked at me dubiously. ‘Like that?’ I was wearing a long wool skirt and a Fair Isle.
‘No, in trousers.’
‘Aren’t you frightened?’ Annie asked.
‘No.’
‘Did he put you up to it?’ Herb asked nodding at George. So he not only starves the girl but also coaxes her to dangerous sport.
‘No,’ I laughed, ‘my father did, when I was six. I learnt to ski at Chamonix, and climb in Yosemite.’
‘Must be rich, gadding about the world. What does he do, your father?’
‘He’s dead.’ I could be blunt with him; he would take it. ‘He was an investment banker.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Annie.’ Your mother must be heartbroken.’
‘No, they died together.’
‘I’m sorry.’

Herb drank his tea. ‘Speaking of work, what are you going to do now that you have responsibilities?’ He asked George. ‘Can’t gad about playing music.’
I felt a ripple of tension and an echo of George’s old anger suppressed. He took a deep breath. This was an old argument, and touched on the crux of their problems with each other.
‘We still have money from our scholarships,’ George murmured very evenly. ‘And I have the job at the shop.’
‘At twenty quid a week!’ Herb slapped the table.
‘It’s enough.’ He shook the hair from his face. I could hear it, old echoes, Get a job, cut your hair, be respectable. ‘Even without our scholarships, it’s enough.’
‘It won’t be if you have a family to support.’ Herb looked at me, as straight and even as I had him. ‘If you don’t already.’
‘Herb!’
George swallowed hard and tightened his hand on my leg. ‘Take that back. Apologise to her,’ he said quietly. ‘You do her a wrong. You do us a wrong. We certainly didn’t have to get married.’ He looked at me, his eyes gone steely. In the old days, he’d have overturned the table for such a remark. Then the penny dropped. He hadn’t told them we’d known each other a week. I nodded.
‘Well,’ said Herb. ‘That’s good, anyway.’ That constituted an apology. We looked at each other.
‘And even if it weren’t, ‘ I said, ‘I have a trust fund. I’ve never used it. But it’s there.’
They stared at me, one and all.
Oh well done, George telegraphed to me. Brava.

‘Huh!’ said Herb, after a moment. ‘It figures you’d pick an heiress, chancer that you are.’ He poured out more tea.
‘I had no idea, until this moment,’ George said. He was working so hard to control himself. ‘It wasn’t high on my list of priorities.’ Well, he could allow himself irony.
Herb changed tactics. ‘Do you have any living family, apart from your sister in Wales?’
I smiled. ‘I’m not an orphan if that’s what you mean. I have a brother in Los Angeles, cousins in the west of Ireland, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles.’
‘Why don’t you just stop grilling her and enjoy her company,’ George muttered. ‘She’s quite a nice girl, actually.’
‘We can see that she is,’ Annie said, patting my hand.
‘We have a right to know what you’ve married into.’ Herb said.
‘Dad, why can’t you just accept that she’s a nice girl and we’re happy and be glad for us? For God’s sake -’ He’d have said more, but the back door opened and Geoff came in, soaked to the skin, lanky, dark-haired, truculent.

‘Hullo!’ His demeanour changed entirely when he saw George. ‘Hey, Geordie brother! Rad!’ They fell over each other in an orgy of backslapping and needling each other. Finally, Geoff looked at me and said, ‘Hey hey, so this is the skirt! Hellacious! Come here, baby! Glad to know ya.’ He gave me a bone-crunching hug.
Well it was a change, anyway.
He was all bones, skinnier than George, with a short haircut and wore a very wet motorcycle jacket. Geoff was a rocker. It was so hard not to laugh. Now I could see why Herb was so much on George’s case. Having both his boys gone counterculture in different ways must have driven him spare.
‘Hi Geoff.’
He came and wolfed down several slices of bread and accepted a cuppa from his mother, gulping it down.
‘I’m going to change, Ma, and then I’m off to Mary’s. Her family’s got a do on tonight.’
‘Is the hall finished?’ Annie asked.
‘Like a festival.’ He looked at me appraisingly. ‘Nice to meet ya,’ he said again, and punched George’s arm, ‘lucky bastard!’ Then he went upstairs, boots heavy on the stairs.

‘I’m sorry my father is such a wanker,’ George said, as we got into bed. It was a single, with just enough room, piled with quilts in the freezing room.
‘That’s all right, I knew he would be.’
‘No, I mean really –‘ He paused and took a shaky breath. ‘Quite apart from being pissed off that he was so rude to you, I’m genuinely sorry that he’s so unhappy. . But I - Oh shit,’ he broke into angry tears. ‘It’s so hard to be with him and not revert to that old rage. I try so damned hard – and inside I’m a wreck –‘
I kissed him. ‘Give it to me, good my lord. Give it all to me, my Geordie. And let it go.’ And so he did, until in the long night at last he slept. In the morning he winced as he sat up.

‘I feel like shit,’ he said, shaking his head. He rubbed his eyes, and looked at me under his hand.
‘Are you all right?’
I smiled and held up my arm. 'Sleeves,’ I said. He looked me over, touched my neck. ‘Oh God, and a scarf too. I’m sorry, baby.’
I shook my head. ‘It’s fine. I’m fine.’
We did our meditation and he had recovered his sense of humour.
‘If you walk like that they’ll know everything, ‘ he murmured before we went down the stairs.
‘Shh!’ I laughed, and he did too.
‘I don’t suppose they’d accept it as an old climbing injury,’ I said.
‘As you didn’t come in with it, no,’ he laughed. He kissed me. ‘Let’s go walk the dog.’
He asked me on our walk if we should play for the midnight services.
'I'm game if you are,' I said.
He shrugged. 'It's a way to show off,' he said, deadpan.

We dressed in our Christmas togs – I had brought my red corduroy dress, and George wore his white ruffled shirt with a loosely knotted cravat and green striped trousers, looking very Byronic. We got the fiddle and mandolin out of the car with no idea what we would play. We went early to go through the music director's stash in the vestry. Then the music director showed up, rheum and all. He knew George's capacities, and so, with the addition of a quickly recruited grocer with a trumpet, we played the Halleluiah from Handel's Christmas Oratorio. Oh, that gorgeous soaring majestic music! A few people even sang. Annie had tears in her eyes. I heard her thought, that her faith in her boy was justified. At the end, the whole place broke into applause. Even Herb couldn't deny George this; we had made their Christmas beautiful and joyous.

There was a row when George refused to sit through the three services the next morning, especially as Geoff wouldn't go either. But as he said, 'I sat through seventeen miserable years of that, and I'm not going to do anything I don't want to do any more.' To his father, all he said was that he had fulfilled his duty and was not obliged to go again. Herb couldn't argue with that canonically, but he did anyway.
At breakfast the next day Herb brought up work again.
'I don't know what I'm going to do,' George said, after a half hour's harangue. 'We haven't decided. I could play with the Early Music Consort, or we could move to Cornwall and sell trinkets to tourists,' he glanced at me. 'Leave off, Dad, we've got time.'
'That's just like you, you haven't changed!' Herb scathed. 'Big ideas and no real plans.' He looked at me. 'You'd better hope this young lady's trust fund is no fancy, because I won't take you in when you come crawling back asking for my help when you're skint.'
'Herb!' This from Annie.

'It's all right, Ma.' George stood up. 'I've had about all I can take of this,' he said evenly. 'Look, Dad, I appreciate your concern, I really do – you want me to do well. Of course you would. But I can't and I won't do it your way. It would stifle me. We'll find our way, Claire and I. I believe that, even if you don't.' He put his hand on my shoulder. 'I'm going to pack up. Finish your breakfast, love, and I'll be back in a tick.' I nodded. He looked up again at his father – a warning not to go on at me – and went out.

'Herb!' Annie said, 'you saw how brilliant he was at the midnight service. He's a world-class performer and could go anywhere. He could be very famous.'
I looked up at her from pushing the hateful rashers around my plate, I had lost all appetite.
'What he didn't tell you,' I said, 'because he really is modest –'
'Huh!' from Herb.
'-Is that he was offered a position at the Philharmonic as principal second violin. He auditioned for it three weeks ago.'
'What does that mean?' Annie asked.
'It means that he would be the assistant concertmaster. The assistant provides leadership for the violin section - for the whole orchestra - and plays some solos in orchestral work. For some concerts, he serves as concertmaster. It’s hardly ever awarded to anyone so young.'
Herb was silent.
'...Is he going to take it?' Annie asked, rather anxiously.
I shook my head. 'He really hasn't decided. He has until next week. His internship runs out at the end of February, so if he does take it, it wouldn't be until then.'
'Why wouldn't he?' Again from Annie.
I was glad Herb hadn’t asked that! I looked at her directly. 'There are other forces moving in his life at the moment. If he chooses this, then he cannot do other things which mean a great deal to him.'
'What things?'
I laid it out as simply as I could: 'God. Social change. A different way of living.' I took a breath. 'He doesn't really care much for living in London. It is a terrific strain. So he's struggling. He will find his way, but I can't make his choice for him. It has to come from inside him, or he will never be happy.'
They were silent. I drank my tea. Then Fergus came bounding in ahead of George. Ferg put his nose in my lap.
'All ready,' George said, and laid his hand on my shoulder. I nodded. He went and gave his mother a hug. Annie was crying.
'Don't worry, Ma, we'll be fine.'
'I know.' She looked at me.
He went to shake his father's hand. After all that. I was so proud of him.
'Be peace, Dad.'
'I know he feels that I've rejected him and his whole way of life,' George said when we were in the car. He yanked the gearshift over and reversed out into the mud with a lurch, then shoved the gear forward again, looking over his shoulder. 'Way of life, yes I have,' he stared at the road and floored the pedal. 'Him...' he was silent for a while. '...Yes I have. Okay, so he's got leave to be upset, but it didn't come out of thin air. He never tried to build any relationship, was never interest in our being anything but just like him; there was no other way.' He smiled a little, ruefully. 'Geoff's been in more fights than I have track marks; that's his way of coping.' He looked at me and sighed. 'Oh, who cares! There's you and me and a whole wide world. Let him be. And let us be.'
And so we left it.

You who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live by
And so become yourself
Because the past is just a good bye.
Teach your children well,
Their father's hell did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picked, the one you'll know by.
Can you hear and do you care and
Can't you see we must be free to
Teach your children what you believe in.
Make a world that we can live in.