Free The Courage Consort by Michel Faber

flügelhorn and ring modulator…'
    'Yes, but can you remember
anything
about Fugazza's piece?' pursued Roger.

    The director frowned: for him, dwelling on musical events that were in the past rather than the future was obviously quite unnatural.
    'I only remember the audience,' he admitted, 'sitting there after four hours of singing and whispering and noises going bang without warning, and finally it's over, and they don't know if it's time to clap, and soon they will go home.'
    Roger was getting politely exasperated.
    'Well … if you haven't heard
Partitum Mutante,
what makes you think it'll be any better?'
    Jan waved a handful of fingers loosely around his right temple.
    'He has since that time had a big mental breakdown,' he said. 'This could be a very good thing for his music. Also, public interest in Fugazza is very high, which is good for ticket sales. He is very famous in the Italian press for attacking his wife with a stiletto shoe at the baggage reclaim of Milan Airport.'
    'No!' said Catherine incredulously. 'Is she all right?'
    'She is very fine. Soon I think she will be divorced and very wealthy. But, of course, the music must stand or fall on its own qualities.'
    'Of course,' sighed Roger.
    Later, when the director had left, Roger stood at the window, watching the yellow minibus dwindling into the distance, on the long black ribbon towards Brussels. As he watched, the sun was beaming through the windowpanes like a trillion-watt spotlight, turning his silver hair white and his flesh the colour of peeled apple. Every age line and wrinkle, every tiny scar and pockmark from as far back as adolescence, was lit up in harsh definition. Eventually the intensity of the light grew too much for him; he turned away, fatigued, blinking and wiping his eyes.

    Noticing that Ben Lamb was still sitting in the shady corner of the room, and Catherine lying sweating and sleepy on the couch, he allowed himself to express his first pang of doubt about the value of the project they were all engaged on.
    'You know, I'm really rather tired of this glamour that madness is supposed to have, aren't you?' he said, addressing Ben. 'It's the little marks on the score that ought to be sensational, not the behaviour of Italian lunatics at airports.'
    Catherine, not happy at the disrespect with which madness was being tossed about here, said, 'Couldn't this Pino fellow just be young and excitable? I wouldn't presume to judge if anyone was definitely mad. Especially an Italian I've only met once. He surely can't be
too
barmy if he drives a Porsche and wears Armani.'
    'Poetically put, dear—if somewhat mysterious in reasoning,' remarked Roger.
    'No, I meant, he's obviously not … um … otherwordly, is he?'
    There was a pause as the men pondered the significance of this word.
    'What do
you
think, Ben?' said Roger.
    'I think we should sing as much as we possibly can in the next four days,' said Ben, 'so that, by the time of the premiere, we can at least be sure of being less confused than Mr. Fugazza.'
    ***
    A ND SO THEY SANG , as the sun blazed in the sky and the temperature inside the château climbed towards thirty degrees Celsius. It was worse than being under a full rig of stage lights; all five of them were simmering in their clothes.
    'We'll end up performing this in the nude,' suggested Julian. 'That'll put some sensuality into it!'

    The others let it pass, appreciating that he was a man on heat.
    When, at last, they were all too tired to go on, Roger and Julian went to bed—not with each other, of course, though lately Julian looked as if he might soon consider anything, even his fellow Consort members, as a sexual possibility. His initial disgust at seeing Dagmar breastfeed had, with the passing days, softened to tolerance, and then hardened to a curiosity whose keenness embarrassed everyone except himself. Dagmar, usually indifferent to the petty libidos of unwanted men, grew self-conscious, and the feeding of