It is decided that my day for busking should be Wednesday.
Wednesday is the day for the farmers’ market in town, and Eric and Silas have a small stall. They sell goats’ milk, eggs, honey and rich Jersey cream, plus such vegetables as have managed to fight their way to maturity through the forests of weeds (there are always many more than I would have thought possible, but Eric and Silas claim to have green fingers). I am quite sure that the cream and the milk are illegal, since the sale of such things is controlled by a raft of agricultural legislation, but Eric and Silas have little regard for rules and regulations, and they have loyal customers who can be depended upon to keep their mouths shut. Their ‘dairy produce’ is kept, literally, under the counter, the surface of which is spread with respectably legitimate vegetables and flowers. Legal considerations apart, their stall is always popular, although I suspect that this owes as much to the novelty of their twinned state as the quality of their produce.
Wednesday, say Eric and Silas, is the best day for me to start as they can give me a lift, and also keep an eye on me. I think this seems a very sensible idea. Blossom, however, does not.
‘What do you need looking after for? Big girl like you.’ This is a long sentence by Blossom’s standards and I detect more than a hint of jealousy.
‘Well, I think it’s very kind of them,’ I tell her.
‘No better than begging,’ she sniffs, wielding her broom as it ploughs its familiar route through the week’s clutter to the bottom of the staircase.
‘I’m not begging, Blossom. I’m earning money. I’m playing for people. And if they like it, they’ll pay. If not, they don’t have to. It’s perfectly straightforward.’
‘My Kaz wouldn’t.’ Kaz is the errant daughter.
‘Well, Kaz probably can’t play the violin.’
‘Wouldn’t want to. Nasty scratchy thing.’ Blossom takes a swipe at a spider’s web.
‘Well, thanks, Blossom.’
Blossom’s bony backside quivers with disapproval as she stops to pick up some piece of debris.
‘Don’t you like music, Blossom?’ I ask her.
‘Nope.’ She drops her findings into her dustpan.
‘None at all?’
‘Nope.’
‘Would you like some coffee?’
‘Make me own.’ She squashes a spider and sweeps up the remains.
‘You do that.’
Trying to talk to Blossom when she’s in this kind of mood is pretty well impossible, but I refuse to let her dampen my spirits. I feel cheerful, and for the first time in three months, I feel well. Gone is the nausea and the exhaustion, and my tummy is still relatively flat, even if there is someone living inside it. Besides, I am looking forward to playing to an audience again, even if it’s only an audience of short-tempered shoppers, and I have my music planned. There will be some Bach, for the more discerning, and some jolly Irish pieces I once played with a dance band, and a virtuoso little number by Paganini (almost impossible, but will anyone notice the mistakes?).
It is the day before my street début, and I am playing through my programme in the kitchen, where Eric is measuring out the plans for the Ark on huge sheets of graph paper, and Silas is finishing off his squirrel. The squirrel, once so squirrel-looking, now looks very dead and rather shapeless, and its tail refuses to stand up in the usual perky squirrel way.
‘That sounds great,’ says Silas, half-way through a piece, but I can tell he’s not listening properly. He whistles through his teeth as he withdraws the stuffing from the squirrel’s tail (wire wrapped in some kind of cotton) and unravels it. ‘I shall have to start again,’ he says. ‘And squirrels are supposed to be easy.’
I decide not to say anything. I have never understood the point of taxidermy; of killing a perfect, beautiful animal and then taking hours and hours trying to make it look perfect and beautiful (and alive) again. Admittedly Silas doesn’t do any killing — most of his specimens are found by the roadside, and only a minority of those are suitable, the remainder being squashed beyond recognition — but it still seems a pointless occupation. No doubt in the hands of an experienced taxidermist, the finished article might be considered very fine, but nothing dead, however well stuffed, can look as beautiful as it did when it was a living breathing creature.
And it’s all such a palaver. There are the tools and the chemicals and the stuffing materials, not to mention the copious notes which Silas has made on his several visits to Nigel, the local expert, and which are now strewn around the kitchen. Silas’s manual tells him that he should be able to do a squirrel from start to finish in a couple of days; Nigel, being kinder, says give it a week. So far, it’s taken him nearly ten days, and all this work to produce something which looks like a cross between a guinea pig and a monkey.
I put down my violin.
‘It looks very — fat,’ I say, eyeing Silas’s hapless victim.
The squirrel squints defiantly back at me through its new shiny glass eyes, its empty tail hanging limply at its side.
‘Do you think so?’ Silas pauses. ‘It doesn’t really look like a squirrel any more, does it?’ he adds forlornly.
‘Well...’
‘It’s a good effort,’ Eric says, but even to me, his tone is ever so slightly patronising.
‘Oh dear. Nigel said to beware of over-stuffing. He said that was the commonest beginner’s mistake. But I thought a squirrel ought to be nice and plump. Bugger.’ Silas runs his hands through his hair, and the nice plump squirrel/guinea pig/monkey topples over onto its side. ‘Perhaps I should concentrate on the badger.’
Eric and I agree that this is an excellent idea, not least because the hide of the said badger has spent the last two days floating in a mixture of noxious chemicals in the only bathtub. Both Eric and I are longing to be able to use the bath (although I suspect that like me, Eric’s not sure about using a receptacle which has recently played host to such a grisly occupant).
‘The badger might be easier,’ Silas says, cheering up a bit. ‘A bit more to get hold of. The squirrel was very fiddly.’
‘Very fiddly,’ Eric and I agree.
‘What shall I do with this?’ Silas holds up his squirrel.
‘Finish the tail, put it down to experience and give it to Blossom,’ I suggest. Blossom has been quite complimentary about the squirrel and it’s her birthday next week.
‘Good idea.’ Silas looks relieved. ‘I could tie a ribbon round its neck and it might look quite festive.’
‘Very festive.’ I hesitate for a moment. ‘If I play through the rest of my programme again, could you tell me what you think?’
‘Sorry, Ruth. Yes, of course.’ Silas puts aside his squirrel and sits down, folding his hands in his lap. ‘Play on. I’m listening.’
This time, they both listen attentively, and as usual, applaud enthusiastically when I’ve finished. I’m not sure that my uncles are the most discerning of audiences, but no-one could say they aren’t encouraging.
‘Very good. Very good indeed,’ Silas says. ‘Isn’t it amazing that a few pieces of cat gut and some horse hairs can make a sound like that.’
I can see that he’s still in taxidermy mode, but he does have a point. I wonder, not for the first time who first decided to try this particular combination — wood, gut, horse hair — for music-making, and pay silent tribute to them. Whoever it was must have been a genius.
We all stop what we are doing, and start to get ready for market day tomorrow. Eric and Silas have to prepare the produce for their stall, and I must look out something suitable to wear. I’m not sure what the dress code is for street musicians, but respectable poverty seems safe and easy, so I settle for a pair of old but clean jeans and a Save the Dolphins tee shirt (after all, everyone loves dolphins, don’t they?).
On Wednesday morning, I feel quite excited. At last I can take a bath (the badger is drying out in the kitchen; Eric kindly let me have the first go, but not before he’d scrubbed the bath thoroughly with disinfectant, muttering darkly about badgers and TB). Do I wear make-up? I decide not, but I have washed my hair and I tie it back in a neat ponytail. Mr. Darcy, who has settled himself comfortably in his usual place by the Aga, is not pleased to be disturbed, and has to be dragged out to the Land Rover, growling and complaining. It’s a bit of a squeeze, what with the sacks of vegetables, the pots and jars of dairy produce and several buckets of early chrysanthemums, and I sit squashed between my uncles with my violin on my lap and Mr. Darcy lying across my feet. But physical discomfort apart, it’s a beautiful morning, the sun is shining, and there should be plenty of punters. It seems a promising start.
When we arrive at our destination, Eric and Silas park me outside Boots, and go off to sort out their stall. I set out my music and tune my violin, placing its empty case invitingly open for any contributions. Mr. Darcy lies beside me looking appealing. He has that doggy knack of resting his chin on his front paws and raising his eyebrows one at a time, rolling his eyes tragically at passers-by. If my playing doesn’t do the trick then Mr. Darcy’s theatricals can hardly fail.
But I have forgotten how hard busking can be. It’s not just the lack of eye contact or even the being ignored, but the way people take a kind of detour round the busker, leaving an arc of empty pavement in a relatively crowded street, as though it’s contained by an invisible fence.
‘You need some change.’ Eric has returned to see how I’m getting on. ‘Here.’ He empties the contents of his pockets into the violin case, leaving a respectable collection of coins, some keys and a grubby handkerchief. He retrieves the handkerchief and the keys, and shakes the money about a bit. ‘See if this’ll do the trick.’
I thank him, and play on. Sure enough, the coins begin to arrive, among them some pounds and even one five-pound note, and my confidence grows. I smile as I play (I remember this used to help in my student days) and gradually I begin to enjoy myself. One or two people even stop to talk, to ask about the music and make a fuss of Mr. Darcy and generally pass the time of day. A man from the greengrocer’s offers Mr. Darcy a bowl of water and an elderly woman buys me a sandwich in a plastic wrapper and says something about homelessness being a disgrace (do I look homeless?). The church clock strikes one o’clock, and I decide to take a break.
And it is then that I see Amos.
At first, I think it’s just someone who resembles him, but this is unlikely. Amos is huge; six feet five and broad-shouldered, with a particular loping walk. He has his back to me, and must be twenty yards away, but when he turns, it is Amos’s face, Amos’s beard, Amos’s familiar furrowed brow distantly reflected in a shop window. I feel a swell of joy and of longing, for while I haven’t given a lot of thought to Amos over the past weeks, suddenly I know that of all my friends he is the one I most want to see. I want to see him and feel him and talk to him, and most of all, I want to tell him about the baby. He may not be pleased — in fact I’m pretty sure he won’t be — but I’ve decided that he has a right to know and to choose whether or not he wants anything to do with his child.
Amos begins to move away again, and I am faced with a dilemma. He is walking fast, and I know that I’ll never catch him up carrying a violin case and leading a reluctant dog. On the other hand, I can’t leave them unattended. The violin is my most precious possession, and Mr. Darcy can’t be depended upon not to go walkabout if I leave him. For a moment, I hesitate, and in that moment, Amos quite simply disappears. One minute he is striding away up the street, and the next, he has vanished. I decide to abandon my patch and go after him. Clutching my violin and dragging Mr. Darcy on his lead, I hurry up the street, peering into shops and down alleyways, vainly calling Amos’s name, and attracting some very odd glances in the process. But to no avail. My mission is hopeless; Amos could be anywhere.
I lean against a wall to get my breath back, and tears roll down my cheeks; tears of disappointment and frustration and, yes, tears of longing. Because something lost acquires many times the value it had before, and it would seem that I have just succeeding in losing Amos. Of course, it’s quite ridiculous to get so upset. When I awoke this morning, nothing could have been further from my mind than Amos, but now that I have seen him — so nearly missed him — it seems unbearable that I’ve been unable to speak to him.
And it was such a coincidence. What is Amos doing in this little market town? I believe that he has an aunt in Wiltshire, so he could be visiting her, but even then it’s amazing that our paths should so nearly have crossed. I could look the aunt up, but of course I don’t know her name. I could phone Amos, but he’s recently changed his mobile number, and I don’t even know where he’s living at the moment, or where his parents live.
Suddenly the day has lost its shine. Even the fact that I have managed to earn nineteen pounds and forty-six pence (not at all bad for a morning’s work) fails to lift my spirits. As I return to my post and share my sandwich with Mr. Darcy (who perks up considerably), I ponder my situation. And by the time the church clock strikes two, I have made a decision.
Somehow, I am going to find Amos.