There was no need to beat around the bush with David, and so Jasper Gwyn said simply that he needed something to use as a soundtrack for his new studio. He said he wasn’t capable of working in silence.
“You never thought of some good records?” David Barber asked.
“That’s music. I want sounds.”
“Sounds or noises?”
“You didn’t use to think there was a difference.”
They went on talking, walking in the park, while Martha Argerich chased squirrels. Jasper Gwyn said that what he imagined was a very long, barely perceptible loop that would just cover the silence, muffling it.
“How long is very long?” asked David Barber.
“I don’t know. Fifty hours?”
David Barber stopped. He laughed.
“Well, it’s no joke. It will cost you a certain amount, my friend.”
Then he said that he wanted to see the place. And think about it a little, while sitting there. So they decided to go together to the studio behind Marylebone High Street the next morning. They spent the rest of the time recalling days gone by, and at one point David Barber said that for a while, years earlier, he’d been certain that Jasper had gone to bed with his girlfriend. She was some sort of Swedish photographer. No, it’s she who went to bed with me, said Jasper Gwyn, I didn’t understand a thing. They laughed about it.
The next day David Barber arrived in a broken-down station wagon that smelled of wet dog even from a distance. He parked in front of a hydrant, because it was his personal way of protesting the government’s management of cultural funds. They went into the studio and closed the door behind them. There was a great silence, apart from the gurgling pipes, naturally.
“Nice,” said David Barber.
“Yes.”
“You should pay attention to those water stains.”
“It’s all under control.”
David Barber wandered around the room for a while, and took the measure of that particular silence. He listened attentively to the pipes, and assessed the squeaking of the wooden floor.
“Maybe I should also know what type of book you’re writing,” he said.
Jasper Gwyn had a moment of discomfort. He wasn’t yet used to the idea that it would take a lifetime to convince the world that he was no longer writing. It was an astonishing phenomenon. Once an editor he met on the street had complimented him warmly on his article in the Guardian. Immediately afterward he had asked, “What are you writing now?” These were things that Jasper Gwyn wasn’t able to understand.
“Believe me, what I’m writing isn’t important,” he said.
And he explained that what he wanted was a background of sound that would change like light during the day, and thus imperceptibly and continuously. Above all: elegant. This was very important. He added that he wanted something in which there was no trace of rhythm, but only a becoming that would suspend time, and simply fill the space with a journey that had no coordinates. He said he would like something as motionless as a face that is aging.
“Where’s the bathroom?” David Barber asked.
When he returned he said that he accepted.
“Ten thousand pounds plus the sound system. Let’s say twenty thousand pounds.”
Jasper Gwyn liked the thought that he was using up all his savings gambling on a profession whose existence he wasn’t even sure of. He wanted somehow to put his back to the wall, because he knew that only then would he have a chance to find, in himself, what he was seeking. So he agreed.
A month later David Barber came to install the sound system and then he left Jasper Gwyn a hard disk.
“Enjoy it. It’s seventy-two hours, it came out a little long. I couldn’t find the ending.”
That night Jasper Gwyn lay down on the floor, in his copyist’s studio, and started the loop. It began with what seemed a sound of leaves and continued on, moving imperceptibly, and coming upon sounds of every type as if by chance. Tears came to Jasper Gwyn’s eyes.