Free Funeral Music by Morag Joss Page B

in a long, hot bath.
    In the lateness of the afternoon the wind rose and it turned cold. Sara gathered some of the fallen peony heads and floated them in a wide glass bowl. She brought in a few logs and lit the fire, and then made tea. Afterwards, she coaxed herself upstairs. In her oversized bathroom, she ran a deep hot bath, pouring in most of the tea tree bath gel, and stepped in, gasping in the intense heat. She groaned and slid under the water, then surfaced, reached for her Floris bath oil and tipped in a decadent quantity, enough to extinguish the scent of tea tree. For a long time she lay absolutely still in the hot, aromatic water and felt some of the day’s taint wash from her. Much later, wrapped in a bathrobe, she rested for a moment in the large cane rocking chair where she sat to dry her feet. She thought of Matthew Sawyer’s widow and children, assuming that he would be married and a father. Her own experience of his death was now effectively over. She had nothing to do now but recover from a momentary shock. For Mrs Sawyer, it was only beginning: the pain, fury and bitterness, followed by loneliness and long, long sorrow. Sara covered her face with her warm and water-wrinkled hands.
    James arrived in perfect time to make large kirs for them both. He let himself into the kitchen and by way of announcing his arrival launched into ‘Ma in Espana’, just as Sara was coming downstairs in a cloud of stephanotis, bare-foot and dressed in grey silk Indian trousers and a man’s collarless white shirt. She was pink and extremely shiny and James, thinking that she looked like a very large baby, judged that this was how she might need to be treated. He saw that a damaged look had returned to her beautiful eyes.
    ‘In da capo mode, I hear,’ she said. ‘Leporello has landed. Don’t you ever get tired to
Don Giovanni
?’
    ‘Probably not as tired as everyone else does. Come here, honeybun.’ James kissed her forehead and wrapped his arms round her. ‘Poor baby. You know you shouldn’t really leave the door unlocked like that,’ he said, rocking her gently.
    ‘This is the country,’ Sara retorted. ‘Don’t be so
Londony
.’ She gave a shuddering sigh. ‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ she muttered into his chest. After a moment’s silence she drew away and said, ‘You saw him last night, didn’t you? At the dinner, in the Pump Room. He did look a bit like Matteo, didn’t he?’
    ‘A bit. Only a bit. Come on, here’s a drink. Do you want ice in that?’
    He wanted only to make her feel better after her horrible experience and like all unconsciously charming people he did not realise how much this was accomplished merely by his presence. He stationed her at the table with her glass and a bowl of olives while he worked happily in the big high kitchen. He enjoyed moving around in its generous space, reaching for the spoons and herbs hanging from butcher’s hooks, putting things he had finished with out of his way. Sara watched, recognising the same impeccable, technical ease that he brought to the keyboard. His movements were simple. There was none of the impassioned throwing around that so many musicians went in for, believing the audience expected it. He directed his energy straight into what he was doing, and focused only on that. Consequently, whatever it was, whether a piece of music, a story he was telling or even, as now, a salad, it contained no jarring element or empty gesture but had a kind of honest life that arose from the deep concentration he gave it. He used his hands perfectly. He seemed to establish a harmony with the things he touched; he got out chopping boards without banging them about, he did not drop and then tread on peeled cloves of garlic and he did not rip the skins off onions as if he were tearing brown paper off a parcel. As he started on the potatoes, Sara thought he was the only person she could happily watch using a knife. The kirs went down quickly and James made more.