‘No. Is easy. Just listen to me. Every Grumpy Boy Does Fighting. Those are the line notes. Just count, EFGABCDEF. Easy!’
‘How is anything that doesn’t start on A easy? And I thought you said music started with C.’
‘Is detail,’ said Alexei, waving his hand. And he brought his fingers down to play, slowly, and with infinite patience, so she could write it down. She was going back to work part time, opening a satellite office in Mount Polbearne to deal with the ever-rising birthrate. Nazreen was delighted. So she needed to practise her calligraphy. But she was still part of the bakery, of course.
He played a gentle soft tune that Marisa thought was beautiful. She had a secret theory that he was only a bad composer when he was filled with unhappy and angry thoughts and that when he was happy he might be rather a good one, but it sounded egotistical to say it, so she hadn’t mentioned it yet.
‘Is for you,’ he said. And made her write For Marisa on the page.
Reuben had been as good as his word, and had immediately sent over the huge piano. It didn’t remotely fit in the chalet, of course.
It did, however, fit if you knocked both chalets together.
The day the wall came down, Alexei and Marisa were on separate sides. Brick by brick came out – ‘This is a right cowboy job,’ observed the builder. ‘No wonder there was no noise insulation.’ – and as soon as the wall was gone, both of them covered in brick dust, she had leapt through the gap and straight into his arms.
She was addicted to him, completely. His calm, quiet control. The absolute mastery of his fingers, of rhythm; his intense connection and extraordinary physicality. She had never known anything like it. He uncovered in her a completely new ability to make the most extraordinary amount of noise.
She was profoundly grateful they had no neighbours.
That night he sat her down with his own laptop.
‘There is someone I want you to meet,’ he said. ‘She speak no English, I will translate for you.’
‘Okay,’ she said, happy as ever on his big lap. She leaned over.
On the screen, a tiny, dark-eyed woman in a headscarf was peering confusedly into a camera.
‘Alexei? Alexei?’
There followed a long outpouring of Russian.
‘What’s she saying?’ said Marisa. ‘What is it?’
‘Oh,’ said Alexei. ‘She wants to know if you are from good family. What I am eating. But. Mostly. She is very disappointed in my hair.’
Outro
I thought I’d write an outro rather than an intro in case I accidentally spoiled anything before we’d even got started, which would be rubbish. But it seems a bit weird, like popping up after the credits. Anyway. Hello! Jenny here. My publishers thought I should talk about this book for a little bit, just because it comes at such a strange time, and why we chose to set it in a non-COVID world. Originally, in the spring of 2020, when I thought everything might be a little quiet for a couple of weeks (ahahahaha), I proposed writing a little book about the lockdown – the first lockdown, in the UK, and promptly did so. Of course, what I, and so many other naive people (my husband says he wants it made clear here that he always said it would last for much, much longer so I am putting this in to say yes yes you were right, smartie-pants ), didn’t realise is just how very long and miserably it would drag on, well past the point where it was interesting or fun for me or for anyone else. So, come August, we made the painful decision to scrap the whole thing and start again from scratch, and I hope by the time you have this book in your hands (I’m writing at the beginning of December 2020), things will be looking a lot brighter for everybody, and that it has not been too hard on you and your family.
Writing about long grief is something I have been interested in for some time. There seems to be an idea in our culture that you should be sad and get lots of attention when you lose someone but after a few months you should more or less just get on with things, and of course grief doesn’t work like that at all. My mother died five years ago and I still have days when I’m as completely furious about it as if it happened yesterday. So I started to write a story about Marisa, and we took that horrible stupid disease out of the equation altogether because I want to forget it as soon as possible. No trace of it remains, except one tiny bit I really liked and left in: when Alexei and Marisa are throwing kitchen implements at each other over their balconies. Obviously there’s no specific reason for them to be doing this in a non-COVID world, but it always made me laugh.
I have made a little playlist of the music Alexei plays, by the way, if you’re interested: it’s on Spotify and the link is www.tinyurl.com/alexeiplaylist. None of his own compositions feature.
Acknowledgements
Huge thanks to Jo Unwin, Lucy Malagoni, Rosanna Forte, Milly Reilly, Donna Greaves, Joanna Kramer, Charlie King, David Shelley, Stephanie Melrose, Gemma Shelley and all at Little, Brown; Deborah Schneider, Rachel Kahan, Rhina Garcia and all at William Morrow; Felicitas von Lovenburg, Jennifer Lindstrom, Lina Sjogren, Vivian Leandro, Kjersti Herland Johnsen, Nana Vaz de Castro, Ambre Rouvière, Alexander Cochran, Jake Smith-Bosanquet, and Kate Burton. I am very lucky to be surrounded by so much extraordinary professional talent, and I am truly grateful.
Storm Brian incidentally is named for Brian Murphy, my dear friend Karen’s father who successfully bid for it in aid of motor neurone disease research. He is the least stormy person I have ever met, so I hope he enjoys being a terrifying force of nature.
A few people were particularly kind with their listening ears during some unusually complicated bits of writing this: thank you James Goss, Maddy Wickham, Sandra Tjolle, Marianne McGlynn and Major Kat.
It’s no surprise really that so many writers play the piano – something solitary and difficult that involves long lonely hours perched in front of a keyboard, you say? – and I found a huge amount of comfort from playing a ferocious amount during lockdown. A variety of teachers and players kept me company (none of whom, I should be clear, are remotely like Alexei, except in how much they encouraged me, a terrible pianist dreaming one day of reaching mediocrity). So, thank you: Liam O’Hare, Martin Cousin, Georgi Boev, Martin Prendergast, Ron Alcorn, Siavash Medhavi and Fiona Page. Thanks also: Mr B & bairns, Lit Mix, the Weegies and family and friends near and far. I cannot express how desperate I am to see the ones who are far, and my fondest hope, dear reader, is that by the time this book comes out, we will all be hugging the ones we love. If by chance this book is accompanying you on a voyage to reunite with someone – I WANT PICTURES. A Come find me on Instagram at @jennycolganbooks or Twitter at @jennycolgan.