The Voyage by Murray Bail

unshaven critic, who had done nothing in his life but listen to music, or read sheet music, or books analyzing music and the lives and correspondence of the great composers, cut a shabby figure in black, waving his arms about. To Delage, the speaker had every right to be impatient—he was surrounded by the problem! At least Delage could show a way forward with his breakaway piano. “Without renewal,” the mouth sighed into his ear, “everything falls in a heap, stays the same, doesn’t move. Is that really what you want? New movements must be allowed, and there are improvements to old instruments—they are waiting for us all.” At this point, the volunteer-translator began nibbling Delage’s ear and, unable to do two things at once, she stopped whispering the words, they’d hardly spoken, they hadn’t actually met, he didn’t know who she was or what she wanted, let alone, had anybody asked, what she looked like. She had taken the seat next to him. With his eyes fixed on the fearless critic,he could feel her mouth smiling at his confusion, which suggested she was young, perhaps too young, but he couldn’t turn just then to see. If he turned she’d be forced to stop, which would surely embarrass her, and he didn’t want that; on the other hand, without translation he couldn’t understand a word being said, aside from the occasional name, Schoenberg and Glenn Gould he recognized, music was something he didn’t know a lot about, not in the fine details, he was a manufacturer, it happened to be concert grands, a narrow field, although it is amazing how businessmen are self-assured in other, entirely different fields, a businessman will have firm opinions on abstract art, or Russian history, or landscape gardening. The speaker was coming to the end, for all Delage knew, summing up by the look, it was hard to tell, he was moving his arms slowly, horizontally, like von Karajan requiring softness from the horns. In fact, as the restlessness of the audience showed, the speaker had shifted to questions of a philosophical nature, which would not normally interest Delage, who now concentrated on what was being said, while trying to work out the right response to the nibbling of his ear, an incident so unexpected it had become pleasant. “Music and the playing of music is important. Music does no harm, it is said. It’s something conductors like to trot out when interviewed. I’m not sure about it. What is harm? Let us examine ‘harm’—in a musical context—for a moment.” The speaker knew his subject from every possible angle, he thought about little else, listened with his eyes closed, he hardly had time to shave or wash, it gave him an untidy concentrated authority, enough toattract a biggish crowd, although Delage noticed some of the men were nodding off or checking their watches. In Vienna, he was the man to talk to, no doubt about it, Delage decided, he’d introduce himself as soon as his lecture finished, if he could get near him. Perhaps he would write an article about the Delage piano for one of the newspapers, that alone would make the trip all the way from Australia worthwhile. To ready himself, he turned to the woman beside him, breaking the contact with his ear. She remained half facing him and didn’t smile, while he thought perhaps he should smile, just a bit, to ease himself away, not wanting to show disapproval. She had a factual expression, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, slightly long face and blouse buttoned up to her throat, which didn’t look chaste, if anything the opposite. In a foreign city, Delage was having more trouble than usual reading the signs, he resorted to an affected casualness, according to his sister in Brisbane, a nuisance to the rest of the world, she said, to women most of all. “Our hostess, Frau Clothilde—” She immediately nodded, “Her mother was one of Sigmund Freud’s patients, before the war that is.” “Really?” Delage was not sure what