Sunrise By the Sea by Jenny Colgan

Chapter Fifty-six

‘Marisa!’ He stood up. ‘There you are.’ He frowned. ‘You work every night now?’

‘Not Sundays. I can’t believe you haven’t eaten our pizza.’

He patted his stomach sadly.

‘I think pizza is not for me.’

‘You’ll like mine.’

‘That is exactly what I am thinkink is my problem – I will like it too much. But! You did not do this.’

He was waving the note.

She smiled. ‘I did.’

He shook his head. ‘But! Is amazink!’

‘Oh, it’s not . . . could you read it?’

‘Of course!’

She had done her best; decorated the paper with leaves and birds.

And it said, simply, ‘Please play at night’.

‘You are never here at night.’ His face fell as he held the beautiful card. ‘So you don’t have to hear my terrible noise.’

‘No, just that you can . . .’

He shrugged. ‘But I have nothing to play.’

‘What do you mean? You can play anything!’

His head tilted to one side.

‘I mean this . . . it is so beautiful.’

‘No, forget about that,’ she said. ‘What do you mean you have nothing to play?’

‘My music . . . It was lost in the mud . . .’

‘But don’t you have copies?’

Gradually she realised, and saw at last why he had been so upset.

‘That was your music . . . You wrote it?’ she said. ‘Of course! You are trying to be a composer! Oh my God. I am so sorry.’

He shrugged.

‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘So when I was complaining . . . that was your own compositions?’

‘I am very unsuccessful composer.’

Marisa closed her eyes. ‘For that girl?’

He shrugged.

‘And you lost your music. Oh God, I am so sorry. I am so sorry.’

‘I think it was way of saying, Alexei, no more composink for you. Is no good. She does not love you; nobody loves your music.’

‘No,’ said Marisa. ‘It was me! I was so sad and I couldn’t bear it and . . . maybe I just didn’t know how to listen.’

‘You hated it,’ he said sadly.

‘I know nothing about music!’ said Marisa. ‘I think we’ve established that.’

‘No, your first note was right.’

‘My first note was a mess. This note . . .’

Alexei looked at it and smiled. ‘Your spellink is many wrong.’

‘Well, I’m very sorry about that.’

He picked it up and turned away. But Marisa was so tired of being misunderstood, and so sorry for what had happened.

‘Have you eaten?’

‘You are hungry?’

She smiled.

‘I don’t eat pizza every day.’

He frowned.

‘But it is my turn to feed you. Come, come.’

She wasn’t tired, just a little enervated. She wanted to go in, very much, wanted them to be friends again. ‘Going into that strange man’s house late at night is a very very bad idea,’ she could hear her nonna sitting on her shoulder.

Okay, she thought. Well, if she was all mucky and sticky from work, she couldn’t possibly misbehave herself again. So.

She glanced at her watch.

‘I mean, if you don’t have anything in . . . it’s late.’

‘It is late. But yes, I have food for you. Come!’

He looked nervous as she lightly climbed his blue wooden steps, her hair swinging in her ponytail, that had got messier and messier as the night had worn on. She was pink-faced from walking up the hill, and any make-up she’d applied earlier had long worn off.

She looked fresh-faced, and busy and young. Her mother would have suggested about a foot or so of thick black eyeliner, but she looked rather lovely as she was.

Inside the house, with its usual ramshackle collection of books and papers and musical instruments and tasselled coverings on the tables, and lamps everywhere, there was no smell of cooking, Marisa noticed, as she walked over to wash her hands without even thinking, because of course the sink was in exactly the same spot as in her own apartment.

‘Oh!’ she said.

‘No, is fine.’ He gestured. The soap smelled good, of almonds.

‘Do you actually have food?’ mused Marisa looking around.

‘Yes! Sit!’

As she sat down he went into the fridge.

‘No vodka,’ said Marisa immediately. He popped his huge head back round the side of the fridge.

‘Nyet. Nyet vodka for you,’ he said mock severely and then, to Marisa’s extreme surprise, brandished a bottle of Champagne with a label shaped like a tri-pointed shield.

She blinked. ‘Seriously?’

He looked at it. ‘I think so.’

‘But that’s . . . that’s Champagne.’

‘Yes!’ he said. ‘Very important.’

He popped the bottle without asking her, and Marisa felt a little fizzy herself, just at the very idea. Champagne! It reminded her of so many happy times, happy days, excitements, parties, weddings, everything that seemed to have vanished for her recently. Hearing the pop – and the fizz, and the mumbled growling from Alexei as it went all over him and he couldn’t stop it – felt like it was unleashing something inside her. She found herself smiling and clapping her hands together. He realised how seldom he had seen her smile. He bit his lip to stop himself grinning too enthusiastically and poured them two glasses, bringing hers over.

She looked at it. ‘I have done nothing to deserve this,’ she said.

Alexei shook his head.

‘Look at what you have done,’ he said quietly, those brown eyes as steady and thoughtful as the rest of him was full of motion and energy.

‘The little girl who hides and is silent like tiny mouse. And now she work, she laugh, she moves. She makes most beautiful notes. Of course – of course – we must have Champagne.’

She looked at him, and they swapped a look then, and her heart beat a little faster as they raised their glasses.

‘Za zdaróvye,’ she said.

‘Salute.’

And they looked at each other steadily as they drank, and the champagne exploded inside Marisa like fireworks, and suddenly she felt herself tingling all over.

The toaster pinged, and he quickly went over to it. His huge hands fumbled with a tea towel, and he pulled out four slices of toast.

Marisa grinned. ‘We’re having toast?’

‘What is wrong with toasts?’

‘Champagne and toast?’

She thought about it.

Well, Maybe . . .’ she said.

‘Not just toasts!’

He jumped up and opened his fridge and pulled out a little glass pot of white stuff. Then he grabbed some grass-like shoots and a pair of scissors. He put these down on the table.

Then finally, reverently, he pulled out a tin and a tiny mother-of-pearl spoon.

Marisa’s eyes went wide.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Is that what I think it is?’

He held it up to one of the lights. The gold tin shimmered.

‘Da, of course,’ he grinned. ‘My friends they do not forget me.’

He shook the large tin of caviar happily.

‘So! We have smetana! We have toasts! We have . . .’

He looked at the chives balefully, then waved his hands, as if the concept of even trying to learn the word would be for ever uninteresting to him.

‘Green thinks!’

And reverently, he opened the tin.

‘I think I should tell you,’ said Marisa, ‘I haven’t tried caviar before.’

His eyes were completely startled.

‘But you are cook! You care about food!’

‘I know, I know,’ said Marisa. ‘We don’t really eat it in Italy. And . . .’

To say that she had always thought it looked weird and slimy seemed frankly a ridiculous thing to say. What a coward she was.

She heard that little voice inside her head calling herself a coward and clamped down hard on it. She was not being a coward tonight.

‘And?’

‘I . . .’

She felt herself go pink.

‘No reason. I was a bit squeamish about it.’

‘I do not know this word. You mean squashink of eggs?’

‘Something like that,’ said Marisa.

‘Okay. It is okay to squash them. There are no babies inside eggs. Just like chicken egg. But much much much more delicious.’

He deftly spread the white stuff – sour cream – on the thinly sliced toast, snipped off a few ends of the fresh chives, then dolloped a large amount of the tiny black marbles in the middle of it. Then he proffered it to her.

‘Um,’ said Marisa.

‘Is very, very good with Champagne.’

Marisa took a swallow of her drink. The Champagne was so delicious. Alexei was watching her and she found herself giggling and unable to steel herself to eat.

He held up his hands.

‘Ah, no. I have got it wrong for Marisa. Always I get it wrong for Marisa.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I play too loud, I shout, I do not say good morning, I get cross with you.’ He looked at the floor. ‘I do not always haff words for you, Marisa.’

His voice had gone very low.

‘And the language I speak you do not hear.’

He glanced at his piano.

‘And the language you speak we do not share.’

With this he looked at the food. Then he looked back at her sadly.

‘I wish I knew how to talk to you, Marisa.’

Marisa was suddenly flaming-red, embarrassed and confused and completely at a loss. This wasn’t in the CBT handbook. Nothing like this. Nobody had ever spoken to her like this before, ever.

In utter confusion, she popped the toast straight into her mouth before she could think of another thing.

The saltiness of the fish contrasted with the sharp creaminess of the sour cream, the fresh shock of the chives – and of course the bread was Polly’s from the bakery, so even the toast was absolutely perfect. Her eyes shot open.

‘Well,’ she said, looking completely shocked.

Alexei had been staring at the floor after his long speech but now he looked up at her.

She swallowed, covered her hand with her mouth, went to take another bite.

‘This is . . . this is amazing,’ she said.

His face cracked into the broadest grin and he immediately started spreading more sour cream on the toast, and heaving big lumps of caviar with the tiny, delicate mother-of-pearl spoon.

‘Yes!’ he said, pouring her more Champagne. ‘It is wonderful!’

‘Oh, that was good,’ she said, after half the caviar tin had been devoured, and Alexei had looked at it regretfully and Marisa had said, yes, but think how happy you will be tomorrow that you left some and he listened to that and nodded at the sense of it, and they refilled their glasses, and she sat back quietly on the sofa, her shoes off, her feet tucked underneath her.

His eyes were thoughtful, watching her. ‘You are always so quiet.’

‘I am so quiet because all the voices in my head were shouting at me at once all the time, any time I tried to do anything. I didn’t have room to make my own noise.’

The Champagne had loosened her tongue. But it was also that way of his again; the easy slow way he had of tilting his head, of listening and weighing and measuring every word he heard. Perhaps that was being a musician, she thought; having very strong listening skills so that you heard not just the words but the spaces between the words.

‘I was trying to hide from the voices that were so loud . . . that told me every day about everything I couldn’t do and every way in which I was failing and no good and . . .’

She looked into the glass.

‘Well, it never worked. And I am so sorry I was so cruel about your music. It felt like something else shouting at me. Even though I know it wasn’t.’

He looked at her. ‘It must haff been so hard for you.’

‘What do you hear in your head?’ she asked. ‘Genuinely curious.’

He blinked. ‘I do not think of it.’

‘No,’ said Marisa. ‘I suppose healthy people never have to.’

He was playing with the tiny mother-of-pearl spoon in his huge hands, turning it over and over as he contemplated the question in his slow way.

Then he grinned suddenly and she noticed he was tapping the spoon on the table top.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘I suppose I think in my piano. So! If I hear thunder I think, well, crash crash that is Rachmaninoff, and if I hear rain I think well Debussy is here, he is playing in the raindrops, and when I hear a police car I think, well, modern music is full of challenges . . .’

Marisa looked at him. ‘I like you,’ she said simply.

‘That is good,’ he said. ‘Truly or because I live next door?’

‘Truly,’ said Marisa. She laughed. ‘My grandmother wants to meet you.’

He looked from side to side.

‘She is livink here? She is even quieter than you? She is in cupboard?’

‘No!’ said Marisa. ‘We Skype. Like, a lot, like most days. She’s in Italy.’

‘Oh!’ He nodded. ‘I hear you one night! Talking.’

He smiled rather roguishly.

‘Is much noise. You must stop. I write note.’

Marisa stuck her tongue out at him. He raised his arms.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘She can meet me. You want her to meet me? Now?’

‘It’s late! In Italy it’s very late.’

Mind you, thought Marisa, her nonna stayed up half the night, she knew that already.

‘I want your babushka to approve. Is important. Family.’

He dug under a large pile of papers until he found what he was looking for: a large old black laptop that looked a zillion years old.

‘You can call her!’

Then he opened it and Marisa stared at the neatly laid out keyboard – all in Cyrillic.

‘Ah,’ she said. Alexei frowned.

‘Ah. I see problem.’

‘I could get mine. This is ridiculous!’ said Marisa, giggling.

‘Go fetch computer grandmother!’

Marisa slipped back into her own house, gulping the cold air eagerly as she did so. Everything seemed to be moving very quickly. She was slightly drunk, which was probably why it seemed like a good idea but . . . She leaned against the door. Oh my God. Was this the stupidest thing . . .

She looked around. Her spotless house that hadn’t changed an iota since she’d moved into it. Compared to Alexei’s warm, messy, human, personal space, it felt clinical; empty. Cold.

Tonight, she didn’t want to feel cold.

She checked her bra quickly. No. Don’t be stupid.

She looked at her face in the mirror though. Her cheeks were rosy pink, her eyes were sparkling from the Champagne. She looked . . .

She looked all right, she told herself firmly. If she was talking to a friend instead of herself she would be so honest and so kind, and say such nice things and tell her she looked lovely.

‘You look lovely,’ she breathed.

She didn’t change her bra. She did use a bit of mouthwash.

Then she grabbed the laptop, her fingers slightly shaky.

Just as she did so, she heard from next door the gentlest, sweetest melody playing. It sounded like a lullaby, soft and simple, but repeating, the tune twisting round and back on itself, changing and become deeper and more melancholic, or lighter and frothier, every time it moved up and down the piano. It was completely hypnotic and quite lovely.

She was about to head back, but before she did she leaned, full length, against the wall, spreading out her arms and her fingers. She could feel the vibrations of the music through the plaster, feel it move through her whole body. She felt, suddenly, filled with it, consumed with it; the voices in her head quelled, simply following the tumbling cascading melodies reaching out to her in a perfect moment of knowing that all she had to do was to walk two steps down and two steps up and she could fall into the house and the arms of the man who could make that sound on a piano; and if he could make something so pure and so beautiful out of an old piano, what on earth could he make out of her?