go downstairs to find the nappy bag and a change of clothes. I pause at the top of the stairs, heart pounding. I mustn’t stop. The baby grow is difficult. Even when it’s done there are spare poppers and bits of fabric are bunched up, but he’s dressed and clean.
It doesn’t fix the crying.
For five minutes I stop, leaving him with Rene. I drink a glass of tepid tap water and eat chicken in white sauce from the tin. I take tablets for my back. I know there are other tablets I should be taking, but Abigail is the one who doles them out in my weekly organizer.
Still the baby cries.
Using cushions and a blanket from the sofa, I make a sort of crib on the floor, enough that I know he won’t roll away. The water has dried in the sun by now. I put him down; I need to think. Thinking is hard enough, but with the constant wailing it’s impossible. Rene is sitting on the sofa with a guitar in her lap. I’d forgotten about it until now. She is struggling to reach the frets with one hand and get her other arm over the body.
‘This one’s bigger than mine …’ She plays a few wobbly notes, the beginnings of ‘Frère Jacques’, then gives up. ‘Can you play?’
‘Perhaps, a little.’
‘You should play us something. The baby might like it.’
I take the guitar. I don’t want to admit I can’t remember any songs. I can’t even remember the one I played last night. But there are others like that one. Seven of them.
I remember a line from somewhere … The seven ancient modes are not scales in the true sense. They do not specify particular notes. Rather, they are patterns, spacing the notes we can play closer or further apart like the notches on a key. And that is what the modes are – seven keys to this earlier music.
With that, I remember the second song. I sit on the sofa, position the guitar while Rene scoots closer, and start to play. The opening bars see-saw between A minor and B minor. The tune I’m humming rises and falls gently like waves.
The baby stops crying. He watches us, me playing and Rene pressed into my side. I reach the end of the tune and circle back to the beginning, closing my eyes.
‘When did you get so good?’
I ignore Rene’s question. I have a familiar feeling. We are going down. The sea is draining, like water in a lock. It feels like being in a descending lift. It gets stronger as I play, until I daren’t stop playing.
Down, down, down, into darkness.
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