doors of the van

Then the pounding came, from inside the truck, as if a tire iron was beating at the sides of the vehicle. It was not a timid banging, not a minor signal. Bang! Bang! it came, and Bang! again. And the voice of authority from some place in space, some regal spot in the universe. "I'm not sitting here the livelong day whilst you boys gab away." A toothless meshing came in his words, like Walter Brennan at work in the jail in Rio Bravo or some such movie.

"Comin', pa," one of them said, the most orderly one, the one with the old scout sash riding him like a bandoleer.

They pulled open the back doors of the van, swung them wide, to show His Venerable Self, ageless, white-bearded, felt hat too loaded with an arsenal of flies, sitting on a white wicker rocker with a rope holding him to a piece of vertical angle iron, the crude kind that could have been on early subways or trolley cars. Across his lap he held three delicate fly rods, old as him, thin, bamboo in color, probably too slight for a lake's three-pounder. But on the Pine River, upstream or downstream, under alders choking some parts of the river's flow, at a significant pool where side streams merge and phantom trout hang out their eternal promise, most elegant, fingertip elegant.

be your father

"Someone he knew?"
"Yeah. Could be strategy. Maybe he fancies you."
"Fancies me? But he's old."
"Only old enough to be your father."
I grabbed my tray and left the table.
I didn't do much work that afternoon. I kept wishing Mark hadn't said what he had said. Old enough to be your father.
The following week I took along a book to read during lunchtime. When I got into the lift on my floor, he was already inside. He greeted me so I had to reply but I didn't smile. We were alone and that worried me. I wondered whether I should get out at the next floor and walk up the stairs to the canteen. Don't panic, I thought. Just because he's stared at you for ages doesn't mean he's going to do anything.
" Well, I suppose one of us should press the button or we'll be here all day, won't we?"
I'd been so busy wondering what he was going to do and expecting him to do something, that I'd completely forgotten to do anything myself. I felt like an idiot and this made me smile and I hadn't wanted to. He smiled back, his blue eyes crinkling right up to the grey hair at his ears and making him look ... nice. Then there was a slap. My book hit the floor. I bent down and so did he, and we bashed heads. At that moment, the lift shuddered to a stop and the doors seemed to fling themselves wide open. I was so embarrassed, I marched out of the lift, straight towards the queue at the counter. I ordered without looking at the menu and took my tray to a table where there was only one empty seat. I breathed a sigh of relief and began to eat. But the salad stuck in my throat when I noticed that everyone else at the table had already finished lunch and they were getting up to go. I glanced over at the counter. He was paying and in a second, his eyes would scan the room to find me. I ducked my head. Waited. Any minute now he'd sit down with his tray.
Short Stories from Australasia. My book appeared in front of my eyes. His fingers were the longest I'd seen and his nails were manicured. I hadn't thought he'd bother.

A painter hangs

A painter hangs his or her finished pictures on a wall, and everyone can see it. A composer writes a work, but no one can hear it until it is performed. Professional singers and players have great responsibilities, for the composer is utterly dependent on them. A student of music needs as long and as arduous a training to become a performer as a medical student needs to become a doctor. Most training is concerned with technique, for musicians have to have the muscular proficiency of an athlete or a ballet dancer. Singers practice breathing every day, as their vocal chords would be inadequate without controlled muscular support. String players practice moving the fingers of the left hand up and down, while drawing the bow to and fro with the right arm-two entirely different movements.

Singers and instruments have to be able to get every note perfectly in tune. Pianists are spared this particular anxiety, for the notes are already there, waiting for them, and it is the piano tuner’s responsibility to tune the instrument for them. But they have their own difficulties; the hammers that hit the string have to be coaxed not to sound like percussion, and each overlapping tone has to sound clear.

This problem of getting clear texture is one that confronts student conductors: they have to learn to know every note of the music and how it should sound, and they have to aim at controlling these sound with fanatical but selfless authority.

Technique is of no use unless it is combined with musical knowledge and understanding. Great artists are those who are so thoroughly at home in the language of music that they can enjoy performing works written in any century.

profound loneliness

I have often thought that if Hollywood stars have a role to play, it is to teach us that happiness has nothing to do with fun. These rich, beautiful individuals have constant access to glamorous parties, fancy cars, expensive homes, everything that spells "happiness".

But in memoir after memoir, celebrities reveal the unhappiness hidden beneath all their fun: depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, broken marriages, troubled children, profound loneliness.

we thought

The most orderly son said, "Sure, pa. Two-three hours." The two elderly sons left the campsite and walked down the path to the banks of the Pine River, their boots swishing at thigh line, the most elegant rods pointing the way through scattered limbs, experience on the move. Trout beware, we thought.

"We been carpenters f'ever," he said, the clip still in his words. "Those boys a mine been some good at it too." His head cocked, he seemed to listen for their departure, the leaves and branches quiet, the murmur of the stream a tinkling idyllic music rising up the banking. Old Venerable Himself moved the wicker rocker forward and back, a small timing taking place. He was hearing things we had not heard yet, the whole symphony all around us. Eddie looked at me and nodded his own nod. It said, "I'm paying attention and I know you are. This is our one encounter with a man who has fished for years the river we love, that we come to twice a year, in May with the mayflies, in June with the black flies." The gift and the scourge, we'd often remember, having been both scarred and sewn by it.

no garbage

"Oh, boy," Eddie said at an aside, "there's the boss man, and look at those tools." Admiration leaked from his voice.

Rods were taken from the caring hands, the rope untied, and His Venerable Self, white wicker rocker and all, was lifted from the truck and set by our campfire. I was willing to bet that my sister Pat, the dealer in antiques, would scoop up that rocker if given the slightest chance. The old one looked about the campsite, noted clothes drying from a previous day's rain, order of equipment and supplies aligned the way we always kept them, the canvas of our tent taut and true in its expanse, our fishing rods off the ground and placed atop the flyleaf so as not to tempt raccoons with smelly cork handles, no garbage in sight. He nodded.

We had passed muster.

"You the ones leave it cleaner than you find it ever' year. We knowed sunthin' 'bout you. Never disturbed you afore. But we share the good spots." He looked closely at Brother Bentley, nodded a kind of recognition. "Your daddy ever fish here, son?"

after the crash

A few days after the crash, he stopped at the table I was sharing with Mark from proof reading, and asked if he might sit down. I said the seats were taken and continued eating. He apologised and took his tray off somewhere else.
"What's your problem, Leanna?" asked Mark.
"No problem. It's just that I like to choose who I share my mealtimes with."
"A bit rough on the old chap though."
I shrugged.
It was Mark who told me more about him. He had gone over to scrounge a cigarette. By the time he came back to the table, I had my head stuck into the news-paper.
"Interesting chap. Sub-editor. Been all over the world," said Mark.
I decided to find the newspaper more interesting and finally Mark shut up and finished smoking.
"Asked your name," he said.
"He what?"
"Yeah."
"What'd you say?"
"Leanna, of course."
I folded the newspaper.
"I've loads of work this afternoon."
"Said you look familiar," said Mark. "Like someone he knew."