II

‘MUDPILES.’

MacKenzie said, ‘Excuse me, but I could swear you just said “mudpiles”.’

‘I did.’

‘Wherefore?’

‘It’s a medical mnemonic.’

‘To what end?’

‘If you must know, it’s the differential diagnosis of a metabolic acidosis with a wide anion gap.’

‘Oh.’

‘I heard another funny word the other night. Witan. Had to look it up. It’s the quorum of a Witanagemot.’

‘Wita what?’

‘… nagemot. It’s a kind of ancient Anglo-Saxon privy council. I think I’ve just been seconded.’

I had met up with MacKenzie for a pre-concert dinner in a café on Lorne Street behind Queen Street just down from Auckland Museum. She had dressed down. Jeans and T-shirt. She has that ability some celebs have of making themselves anonymous and invisible in a public place. I’ve always been amazed by her sang froid. In just over an hour she and her viola would have to play Auckland Town Hall. I was anxious for her. I must make sure she gets there in plenty of time. I kept glancing at my watch but she was as usual totally unfazed by any impending challenge. She ate a hearty bowl of lasagne al forne washed down with tonic water, and blethered away. MacKenzie has the performer’s temperament. I envy her because it’s something I never had. Bundle of nerves. In contrast, she just loves to perform. Up on stage, she is completely in her element. Of course, she can be psyched up, she can be keen. She would call it nerves. But it’s not. Nerves cripple you. People who get nervous don’t get nervous in case they make a mistake; they get nervous in case they get nervous.

It’s funny how you look upon another person’s talent with awe and admiration, yet regard your own with indifference. I’m hopeless on stage and I’m hopeless on the dance floor. The goddess of the terpsichorean art stood me up. What else? I don’t think I’m very good with kids, except as their doctor. Mary used to have kids climbing all over her. Kids are very astute when it comes to detecting tension. With me, they cry inconsolably and wet themselves.

‘Got some news. But first you tell. You’re up to something. I recognise that preoccupied look.’

I told her about my plan to run the forty-eight volcanoes of Auckland but she shook her head. ‘No. It’s a work thing. I can tell.’

So I told her how I was in limbo, perhaps purgatory, and had time on my hands, and somebody had offered me a job.

‘What sort of job?’

‘Short-term. Zero hours contract. It’s a kind of post mortem.’ And I gave her a potted account of Captain O’Driscoll’s demise, and the suggestion that it looked suspicious. The suspicious people had wanted me to take a look. I’d made a start but wasn’t sure if I wanted to go any further with it. What did MacKenzie think?

She answered without any hesitation. ‘Stick with it.’

‘Why?’

‘Because if you don’t a committee will traipse round en masse ticking boxes and come up with some kind of anodyne report. And that will be that. But if you run with it, you’ll slouch in your chair in committee and grow grumpy and then become a maverick and go off on your own private investigation and in the end you’ll file a minority report. If there’s something to find, you’ll find it.’

Her mobile went. It was Caitlin, phoning from Cheltenham. Caitlin and MacKenzie are great pals. I let them blether away and sat and mused over MacKenzie’s advice. MacKenzie eventually gave me a nudge and offered the phone to me.

‘Caitlin wants to talk to you.’

‘Katie.’

‘Ally-Bally.’

‘How’ve you been?’

And there was a torrent of news all about school and swimming and music and mostly about oboe playing, and I knew she was okay. I had a sudden thought.

‘Met the sister of a pal of yours. Tamsin Fox.’

‘Not Tams’n,’ she corrected me. ‘Tamsin.’

‘T’msin?’

‘No, stupid. Tam-sin. A true spondee.’ And for the rest of the conversation we referred to Tamsin, after the fashion of adolescent drollery, as the true spondee, Truly Spondee, and, surreally, Truce Pondy. ‘She’s in the year behind me. I don’t really know her. Her father’s always dragging her out of school to go off to exotic locations. Is she in New Zealand?’

‘Yep. With her father. I met him.’

‘Weirdo,’ was Caitlin’s assessment. I handed the phone back to MacKenzie. And after they’d hung up I said to my sister, ‘What was your news?’

‘Got to tell you about my new acquisition. I came across it in Dresden. Last month. We travelled up from Leipzig. I was doing Brandenburg 6, with the Gewandhaus. There was a huge conference of gynaecologists in town, and no accommodation. I ended up in a guest house run by an ancient Westphalian captain of industry and his frau. Charming lady. She gave me a room at the back of the house where I could practise and then she told me she had an old viol up in the attic and would I be interested to see it?

‘Well, I wasn’t paying much attention, but I said okay. She took me up two flights of stairs and opened a trap door in the ceiling and let down a step-ladder from the loft. Up we went. Hell of a place to keep an instrument. It was damp and perishing cold. The viola was in an old case buried under a heap of mildewed blankets. I had a quick look thinking I could make some polite noises and get back downstairs. But even in the half-light I could see that it was actually rather a handsome instrument. So we took it down.

‘It wasn’t remotely playable. It did have a couple of old gut strings – the C and the D. But there was no bridge, and the ebony tailpiece was all perished. There was no bow.

‘Still it was easy to see it was a terribly well-made instrument, and rather old. Something about the contour of the pine belly, the grain of the maple on the back, really brought me up short. The volute of the scroll carved to perfection. But most of all, the varnish. There was something deeply mysterious and enigmatic about it.

‘So instead of making a few polite noises I found myself being rather more effusive and enthusiastic. The old Frau said, “Take it with you.” I said I couldn’t do that, said I thought the instrument after all might be quite valuable, and that she should take it to a dealer and find out how much it was worth.

‘She listened to all this quite impassively, and then she said something which I thought was rather touching. She said that she thought an old musical instrument was like a piece of land, that the idea of owning it was really rather absurd. It wasn’t a matter of ownership, but of stewardship. “I have listened to you play,” she said. “You make a wonderful sound. If you, or perhaps one of your pupils, can bring such a sound from this instrument, then it will have been well served. I’m afraid we have not looked after it well. No doubt it will cost something to repair. If you will take it and see to it, it is payment enough.”

‘Sagacious old bird. She made me feel I wasn’t swindling her out of a family heirloom. Quite the opposite. I had a moral responsibility to take the thing on.

‘We played the Brandenburg that evening. I thought it went okay. Then there was a late supper and it was after midnight by the time I got back to the guest house. The old Frau had gone to bed, but the proprietor, the big fat ugly Westphalian, had stayed up. I got the impression he’d sat by the window waiting for my return. He ambushed me on the stairway and invited me into the front room for a glass of wine. It seemed churlish to refuse.

‘The old man held up two bottles, and sort of leered. “Gewürztraminer or hock?” He wouldn’t look me straight in the eye. He had a slack, wet lower lip. “Personally, I think there’s nothing like a good hock.” I chose the Gewürztraminer.

‘I think he’d been at the hock for most of the evening because he was slurring his words a bit, but he made perfect sense and his eyes never lost that awful, sly, lusty look. Anyway, it soon became clear that it wasn’t my body he was after. It was my money. And there was a grotesque sentimental story about the viola having been in his family for two hundred years. His wife didn’t know much about these things and, in short, he couldn’t really let it go for less than a thousand euros.

‘Well, what a bargain that was! I took out my cheque book there and then and asked him if US dollars would be all right. I could see him eyeing the cheque and wondering if he hadn’t miscalculated. “Fraulein, I said I couldn’t let it go for less than a thousand. It may be worth” – he shrugged and tried to gauge my reaction – “10,000? 20,000?”

“So I closed the cheque book and told him that, all in all, it would be better if he held on to something whose sentimental value probably far exceeded its market value. He backtracked like mad and said one thousand would be enough. By then I’d taken such a dislike to him I thought of knocking him down to five-hundred, but decided to quit while I was ahead. We shook hands on it “after the English fashion of fair play”. Then he wrote out a receipt for me on some cheap stationery and I gulped down the rest of the Gewurtz and scarpered.

‘The following morning I skipped breakfast and made an early start as I was booked on a commuter flight to Berlin. The old monster, true to his word, had parked the viola in the hallway but he wasn’t around to help and I struggled to get my luggage and two instruments into the taxi. Just as we were pulling away the old Frau came running out in her apron waving a scrap of paper. I could see she had been crying. The scrap of paper was my cheque. She leaned in through the window and gave it back to me. She said something in German I didn’t quite catch but it included a name. Heydrich. It only occurred to me later that Heydrich had been the man who oversaw the Nazi’s systematic plundering of the great art houses of Europe, before he was assassinated in Prague, in 1944. She said to me again, “I told you you could take it. Only one thing I ask. When, many years from now, you are old and arthritic and unable to play, I ask that you hand the instrument on to somebody, as I have done to you.” And she kissed me on the cheek and pressed my hand. Then the taxi pulled away.’

* * *

It’s only a five minute walk from Lorne Street to the Town Hall. We got there at five past seven. I think MacKenzie would quite happily have stayed in the café for another twenty minutes, then wandered back over, tuned up her viola, played an E major scale in four octaves, taken a couple of deep breaths, and walked on stage. I was the nervous one. So I was relieved to deposit her at the stage door with some time to spare, and go back round to front of house.

Built just over a century ago on the wedge of land between Queen Street and Grey Street on the south-west corner of Aotea Square, the town hall is a beautiful and much loved edifice. The ground floor is in dark volcanic basalt contrasting with the paler Oamaru limestone of the upper part of the building. The interior was extensively restored in the 1990s, partly to meet earthquake standards, but lots of period features – English ceramic surfaces, tessellated floors, and glazed ceramic wall tiles – have been retained.

The grand hall itself is modelled on the Gewandhaus, with a balcony extending round three sides. I wondered if MacKenzie would appreciate the resemblance. The stage is dominated by the magnificent organ, itself very recently rebuilt by Orgelbau Klais of Bonn. The ceiling is ornately beautiful.

I bought a programme, walked upstairs, and took my seat, on the left, towards the rear of a hall that was already well filled. They’d opened the choir stalls beneath the organ where people were filing in. A sell-out. I wasn’t surprised. Kiwi girl with an international reputation. Also, it has to be said, MacKenzie is very marketable. Even her twin brother can see she’s easy on the eye. Whilst no doubt this contributes to her commercial viability, it hasn’t always been plain sailing for her. Once she started to expand her solo horizons and step out from the cloister of the Bax Quartet, it took a long time for the pundits to believe she was a serious musician. Well, as MacKenzie said, ‘I’m not going to apologise for the way I look.’

I skim-read the programme notes. For the first half, she was entirely on her own. Unaccompanied Stravinsky, and J. S. Bach, both her own transcriptions. I marvelled at her naked courage. Girl and a viola.

By 7.30 the hall was filled, all but for a phalanx of about ten front-row seats across the rear balcony. I thought I knew what this meant, and clicked my teeth with annoyance. It would be some corporate junket. Some conglomerate with more money than sense would have bought up a swag of the best seats in the house for some jamboree and then not bothered turning up to use them, while students queuing outside wouldn’t be able to get in.

The house lights dimmed and the tall girl with the long black hair walked on. She had discarded the jeans and T-shirt for a very beautiful floor-length evening dress in black and gold. The rich, deep, brown-red varnish of the belly of the viola was almost luminescent in the limelight. Then the graceful but unstudied bow, and the dazzling, incandescent smile. My nerves suddenly vanished. She was in her element.

She had transcribed the Stravinsky ‘Three Pieces for Clarinet’. I thought they worked very well on the viola. She played the first movement low-key, moderato, with the utmost simplicity. It seemed to be a kind of exposition of the genius of the viola from its dark low register through its mellow middle range and up into the poignant, passionate upper echelons. Then the second movement exploded in a virtuoso display punctuated by quirky adaptations of Russian folk melody before returning to the opening virtuosity. The last movement was funny and jazzy, and I swear MacKenzie made her viola sound like Benny Goodman. The touch of ribaldry that closed the piece made the audience laugh. Warm applause. The house lights went up. MacKenzie took her bow and left the stage, presumably to prepare to climb a mountain. The Bach ‘Partita No. 2’. MacKenzie had transposed it down a fifth into G minor, and hang the consequences.

There was a slight hiatus. The corporate conglomerate arrived. I’d done them an injustice; they were merely fashionably late. It was a replica of the group I’d seen traipsing through Auckland International a few days before. Phineas Fox had booked the best seat in the house. Once again the entourage formed a symmetrical array around him. I noticed they all remained standing until Fox himself sank into the plush red upholstery, then they all sat down in synchrony. It was like watching a head of state occupy a royal box. It was a performance. I found it utterly absurd. Then I forgot all about them.

MacKenzie came back on stage, bowed briefly, and without preamble embarked on the great five movement edifice that is the ‘Partita in D minor for solo violin’ by J. S. Bach, transposed down a fifth for the rich alto voice of the viola. It was an unapologetically romantic performance with full-bodied tone and vibrato extending through the semiquavers of the Allemande and the triplets of the Courante. She played all the repeats. I realised that apart from anything else this was going to be a remarkable feat of sheer stamina on the viola. During the Sarabande there was perhaps a nod to the authentic school, a more distilled sound and only an occasional trace of vibrato. The intonation was perfect and the instrument remained sonorous. MacKenzie took a brief pause before launching into the Gigue, which she played presto. Her viola, with all these implied falling harmonies sounded like a symphony orchestra. The mighty Chaconne followed immediately.

And she embarked on a journey. It was even a physical journey as she moved about the stage, lost in the music. Of course I’m biased, but I do believe the audience was spellbound. And during that extraordinary extended passage of split chords across the four strings, it was as if the entire resonant building had become the instrument. A restatement, transmogrified, of the opening theme, and then a more serene passage, sulla testiera, offering a kind of respite in the major key. But again rising to great heights.

Back into the minor, another period of calm and respite, before the final stage of the journey, culminating in the reiteration of the Chaconne’s theme. The last dotted minim died into silence. MacKenzie held her posture, the tip of the bow never leaving the string, and there was prolonged, utter silence. Then it was if she were slowly emerging from a trance.

The applause was intense. At the third recall, Fox was on his feet. Standing ovation. His entourage dutifully followed. Pain in the neck.

I’d thought to go backstage during the interval but decided not to. MacKenzie must be occupying some sort of zone I can only guess at. Leave her to it. I’ll see her afterwards. The audience about me dispersed to the bars and I was happy to stay where I was and let the Chaconne echo on in my memory.

But as it turned out MacKenzie came looking for me. She must have gone round to front of house and come up to the rear of the balcony because she suddenly and unobtrusively slipped into the seat beside me. I say unobtrusively; but I was aware of the awe of those still seated nearby, staring at the apparition in black and gold.

‘MacKenzie, that was absolutely wond–’

She laid a hand on my sleeve. ‘Need your help. Emily’s got the bott.’

‘Emily?’

‘La Tourneuse des pages. She’s throwing up out the back. Can you turn for Alexei?’

‘Oh, Lord. Well, I suppose so. OK.’

She looked rather dubiously at my attire. ‘It’ll have to do.’

‘Oh, thanks very much.’

‘Let’s go.’

So I had the best seat in the house for the second half. It was a vertiginous experience, one moment being an anonymous audience member, next moment a part of the show. Well, a stage hand anyway. It was a bit like treating a patient on board a 747. I tried to make myself as invisible as possible.

There were two works. English music. They played the posthumous Vaughan Williams Romance in E Flat. At least I didn’t screw up and knock the music all over Alexei’s hands. He gave me a wink as the piece closed. I stole a glance up at Fox. He had a look of theatrical rapture. I wondered if he was falling in love with my sister. Directly behind him sat bullet-head the bodyguard. I wondered if he ever let Fox out of his sight. Then Alexei and MacKenzie left the stage, leaving me stranded and feeling like a prat.

When they came back on and were tuning up for the final piece, MacKenzie flashed me a grin and whispered, ‘Oh my godfathers!’ We closed (‘we’ – ha! I’m getting delusions of grandeur) with the Arnold Bax viola sonata. Beyond a vague acquaintance with the tone poem Tintagel, I knew next to nothing of the eponymous hero of my sister’s group. It was a privilege for me to hear the Bax sonata at such close quarters and indeed to be able to follow the music from Alexei’s copy. I realised I would need to keep my wits about me. Lots of notes in both the viola and piano parts.

I thought it was the most beautiful thing. It didn’t sound particularly English to me. It was more Celtic. It had a wild, pagan feel to it. Maybe it was the Irish connection. Bax was knighted, and was Master of the King’s Musick and all that. Yet I had a feeling he was something of an outsider.

I got lost in the last movement, an elegiac threnody. MacKenzie’s viola was so soulful that I nearly forgot to turn the page. It was only when the last echoes of the viola and the piano died away that I realised that a kind of music phobia that had gripped me for upwards of a year had finally vanished.

Fox was on his feet again.

He came backstage to the green room afterwards. He would. He and his entourage, duly waiting in line to pay homage. The green room had been turned into a flower shop. Literally. I think Fox had made a call on his mobile during the interval and had the entire contents of a local florist’s transported across to Auckland town hall. I tried to make myself scarce but MacKenzie plonked me down on a chair and told me not to move. So I had another ringside seat and could watch Fox having his audience with her.

‘My dear. Phineas Fox.’ He took her right hand in his own and raised it to his lips. The left hand was back in the pocket, firmly under control. ‘Enchanted. Astonishing. Quite astonishing. The Bach. I was transported. We must have you out to Xanadu for a recital. Who is your agent? I’ll have my people talk to your people.’

He was a different man. He had dropped the Midwest, macho, gunlobby persona and had become Phi Beta Kappa, Ivy League, Eastern Seaboard. Could he just switch personalities like this?

He caught sight of me.

‘The hired help nearly neglected his duties. My friend, you really must learn the art of concentration. It pays, in all walks of life, to stay on-message.’

MacKenzie said, ‘This is my brother, Dr Cameron-Strange.’

‘I know.’ We didn’t shake hands. He must have studied me, just as I had studied him. I could see him eyeing me, wondering how he could keep me in my place while staying on-side with my ravishing sister. ‘You took my daughter diving. Quite the buccaneer! It may interest you to know that Devonport Naval Base have dived her in the compression chamber a further three times. She doesn’t seem to have come to any lasting harm. They intend to dive her once more and let her go tomorrow morning. I wonder if you would do me the honour of accompanying her on the final leg of her trip. Dinner chez moi? By way of thanks. I will provide transport as usual. Shall we say 1pm? That will give you a chance to see Xanadu before it gets dark, and perhaps undertake a task in Who Dares Wins. Bring the charming Captain Hodgson. This time we’ll keep the paparazzi at bay for you. To dine and sleep. And you my dear …’ – he turned to MacKenzie – ‘… must also come. I must hear that ravishing sound once more.’

MacKenzie said, in measured tones, ‘That’s a very kind invitation, Mr Fox, but I don’t think my schedule …’

‘I understand the Starship’s latest fundraiser just fell short of target. It would be my pleasure to reverse that, with suitable augmentation.’

‘Well …’

The Starship Hospital, Auckland’s paediatric hospital, is MacKenzie’s private passion. Very astute guy, Phineas Fox. He knew how to buy my sister. He probably knew how to buy me. I must be on my guard.

‘I shall look forward to entertaining you,’ beamed Fox. ‘Excellent!’

* * *

The following morning I dropped in on MacKenzie at her suite in the Langham. It, too, had been converted into a flower shop. She glanced at the latest bouquet and its accompanying greeting card.

‘Dominique was bad enough. This is intolerable. Ally, I’m out of here.’

I teased her. ‘Play your cards right, you could be the sixth Mrs Fox. And who knows, next year, the White House. First Lady!’

‘Bugger off.’

Then the phone rang. Apparently it was a call from Paris.

‘Bonjour, Claude.

‘Oui …

‘Oui …

‘Non!!!

‘Sûr? Certain?

‘Mais ce n’est pas possible! Il était perdu. Absolument perdu!’

MacKenzie had turned pale. I couldn’t make out whether it was good news or bad news. But it was one or the other.

‘C’est incroyable.

‘Très heureuse. Bien entendu. Je vais téléphoner. Demain. Oui.

‘Moi aussi. Je t’embrasse. Au revoir.’

She hung up. She stared at the phone. I said, ‘What is it?’

‘Mozart played the Kegelstatt on it. It’s turned up. After two hundred years.’

‘What has?’

‘The eleventh viola. The Phoenix. Cremona. Faciebat 1699.’

‘What?’

‘There are six-hundred-odd fiddles extant, but I thought only ten violas. The Archinto’s worth a fortune. The Macdonald’s the most valuable musical instrument in the world. It’s literally priceless. But the Phoenix …’

‘What’s the Phoenix?’

‘It’s a Strad.’