Fine Beyond Fine

Christa Kingdom was the younger child and only daughter of a family doctor, who was generally known as Dr Frank, to distinguish him from his father, Dr Kingdom, who was now semi-retired, and a computer programmer called Emma. She and her brother Darren had a happy childhood, with holidays by the sea, shelves overflowing with books, their grandmother’s exquisite chocolate cake, and often the sound of lovely music . Frank and Emma had good, and varied taste in music, and had every intention that Christa and Darren should grow up that way, too. If either of them showed musical talent, it would be encouraged and nurtured, just as any talent they had would be. Darren initially appeared to be the more musical of the two – he played the flute in the school orchestra, and had been a talented boy treble. Though his voice was currently at the just breaking, swooping up and down, growling and squeaking stage, it promised to develop into an equally pleasant light tenor. He would likely never thrill audiences of thousands, but if he chose to carry on singing, it would bring enjoyment to others and himself. 

     But it was not Darren who felt his life change forever and in a single second when, a couple of days after Christa’s twelfth birthday, Emma put on an old-fashioned vinyl record of Aida. Christa often thought afterwards that it could not have been the first time Verdi had been played in the house – surely not! But it was as if a whole forest of shimmering fluorescent light bulbs went on, and somehow the light filtered through her ears, too, and through her veins, suffusing her entire body. Whether it was the resounding triumphal march, or the tenderness of Celeste Aida, it was as if her whole life hitherto had been in a state of suspended animation that was not, in itself, unpleasant, but seemed bland and futile and unnecessary. For once in his life, Darren (who loved his sister dearly, but had a nice line in sarcasm, too) was genuinely concerned and not teasing when he asked, “You okay, Chris?” She rather liked her full and slightly unusual name, and often made her objections to it being abbreviated made known. But this time, she made no comment on the matter. She made no comment at all. If anyone had asked her, she would have said, yes, she supposed she had heard, Darren speak, but it was as irrelevant as a fly landing on the coffee table, or a muffled footfall on the other side of the street. 

     “Christa, your brother’s speaking to you,” Frank said, gently but firmly. Though lenient in many ways, Frank and Emma were particular about good manners. Somehow that got through. Darren repeated his question though he had probably already lost interest, and Christa replied, “Yes, thanks. I’m fine. I’m absolutely fine.” And she was. Finer than she had ever been in her life. Finer than she could ever have imagined being  

       “Fine” was feeling better again after a bout of chickenpox, or being allowed up late to watch something on TV live (last year she’d had quite a thing about show-jumping and had been indulged). “Fine” was unexpectedly doing well on a maths test, or discovering that an extra little trip to the seaside had been shoe-horned into the half term holiday. 

     This was hundreds of thousands of times beyond and greater and deeper and longer-lasting than fine. 

     Her relatives and friends had always thought (and Christa wouldn’t have argued with it herself) that she was a “sensible child”. They didn’t mean it as an insult or a put down, but meant she took things with equanimity, didn’t act up over trivial little matters, didn’t fret too much over what couldn’t be helped, and (if you didn’t count an odd fairly mild fad for show-jumping) didn’t develop fixations. She was a comfortable sort of child, and, for the most part, comfortable with herself.

     What she felt now wasn’t comfortable. And she didn’t want it to be comfortable. When Frank asked, as he or Emma often did, if anyone wanted an encore or a bit more music, Christa barely let him finish his sentence. “Oh, Dad, please, more Verdi!” she exclaimed. He obligingly put on Il Trovatore. He and Emma exchanged a smile. Later that evening, when the children were in bed, he said, “Well, it looks as if Christa has decided to have a composer crush!”

     “I was about her age, or not much older, when I got this massive thing about Chopin” Emma said. “Mum still says he was my first boyfriend!”

     “Well, I’m very glad he wasn’t your last,” Frank said, giving her a kiss.”Shame she couldn’t have lighted on old Guiseppe a week or so earlier, it would have made the business of birthday presents far easier!”

     Nobody saw it as anything to be remotely worried about. She was at the age when children DID stop having quite such butterfly minds and to develop objects (or more likely) people of adoration – attainable or unattainable, living or dead. 

     At first there was something quite touching about it. Her ability for conversation steering made her parents wonder if she had a future as a lawyer or diplomat – or perhaps a chat-show host! Once, her grandparents had come round for tea, and they were discussing redecorating their bungalow. “We’re thinking of pale green paint,” her gran said, “I know some think it’s unlucky, but to my mind that’s just nonsense. And it’s ever such a lovely, fresh colour.”

     Christa knew a chance when she saw one. “Did you know that the Italian for green is “Verdi”, Gran?” she asked. She thought of adding “the composer”, but that would be tantamount to admitting that some people may possibly not have heard of him, and whilst that was maybe permissible in a child, surely every adult had. 

     “Yes, that’s interesting, isn’t it,” Gran said, pleasantly, and then started discussing the wallpaper and something called the soffits. Christa wasn’t sure what a soffit was, and, interested in words, would normally either have asked or looked it up. This time she did neither, on principle, and decided that whatever they were, soffits were stupid.

     He wasn’t the only composer she listened to. She didn’t have that much choice in the matter, as already, in a mild but irritating way, Frank and Emma had made it plain that there was to be variety in the household concerts. Christa discovered that, if she had to listen to other music, she preferred it not to be opera at all. When it came to other opera composers, Puccini was too sentimental. You only had to look at the respective death scenes of Violetta and Mimi to realise that. Some would have said that, especially on video, the more realistic portrayals of the former were a bit much for a child Christa’s age, and if it had been a movie instead of an opera, it would probably have been a 12A, if not a 15, never mind a PG. True, she was a doctor’s daughter (and granddaughter!). Rossini was too superficial, and Wagner too – well, Wagnerian! She couldn’t even get that excited about Mozart, though she liked some of his orchestral music. Yes, in the operas too, the music was lovely, but the plots were just too convoluted and silly.

     Emma and Frank subscribed to the notion that “the first flame burns brightest” and expected that, gradually, their daughter’s Verdi obsession would wane and temper. At first they were sorry about that, as it was her quirk, and they cherished their children’s quirks. They supposed he would always be her favourite composer (though you never knew, sometimes it went the other way) but in a quieter and less all-inclusive, intrusive fashion.

     They waited for that to happen, and it did not. She did not only listen to the music, though that remained the absolute love of her life. She read everything she could get her hands and eyes on about him, from “Children’s Guides” to academic tomes and four volume biographies. Pictures of Verdi, along with scenes from his operas, more or less filled her bedroom wall. As she came to an age when she had more control over her own music, she bade goodbye to other composers without a shred of regret, though on occasion she still listened to Bach. In all honesty, though, she wouldn’t have missed him. 

     Like her brother, she had a good singing voice, but had no interest in joining the school choir, and had never been interested in learning how to play an instrument. She also didn’t include music in her GCSE choices. Nobody was surprised, and nobody tried to persuade her to change her mind.

          Frank and Emma had started to become a little worried and to wonder if their daughter’s “thing” for Verdi was quite as harmless and even positive as they had first thought. But for the time being, they didn’t say much, at least not to her. They might have done if her schoolwork was suffering badly. But her marks, if not generally outstanding, were no cause for concern. She also showed no signs of being bullied, and though she wasn’t exactly the school’s “Miss Popularity” she was by no means reclusive. On the right subject, she could be positively chatty. 

     It was Darren who first “came out with it”. He and Christa were still close though, as Frank put it, they had their moments. Frank was going up to university that September, and had evidently decided that it was now or never.  There was something very direct about Darren, and he wasn’t the type to say anything behind his sister’s back he wouldn’t say when she was present. Afterwards, Frank and Emma thought it might have been better if he DIDN’T stand by such principles, but they didn’t say so. 

     “I can’t carry on not talking about this,” he said. “Christa, it’s getting a bit silly. And don’t give me that look. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

     “Oh yes,” Christa said, sardonically, “I have committed the great crime of having a favourite composer and daring to say so, and that makes me a candidate for the loony bin, right?” Normally, Emma or Frank would have gently pointed out that such terms as “loony bin” were now considered inappropriate and a good thing too. With that almost preternatural communication that comes between two people who have been, in their own quiet way, soulmates for decades, Emma sensed that Frank was on the verge of saying something, and she put a hand on his arm, and he understood. Perhaps they both sensed there were more important things to discuss than an odd politically incorrect use of language. 

     “Don’t be such a drama queen,” Darren said, the words more unkind than the tone. “Nothing at all wrong with that. I’m quite partial to him myself, actually! But when did you last voluntarily listen to anything else – and don’t quote me a few minutes of Alibi Bach!”

     “I don’t see it’s any of your business,” she said, passing over the thought that though she’d heard of most of the Bach family, she didn’t know Alibi was one of them. No doubt their parents were hoping one of them WOULD defuse the mood, of their own volition. But she wasn’t playing ball. Ball, she thought, A Masked Ball. Even though it wasn’t her favourite work of his, there was not one note she didn’t like and regard as one of fire and genius that enhanced the world. And her life.

     “You – know people are talking about you, Christa,” he said.

     “Better than being ignored! Darren, I love you to bits, and I don’t want to fall out with you, especially when you’ll soon be going off to university but – please, back off!”

     Even though Darren was now legally an adult, and Christa not so far off, Frank and Emma knew they ought to say something. Emma went for even-handed, the unacknowledged last refuge of someone having a conversation they really didn’t want to. “I – think you’re making a bit of a mountain out of a molehill, Darren. But Christa, there’s some truth in what he says. I mean – you don’t want to be a singer – you’ve said yourself, and it’s to your credit, that you have a good voice but not a great one. And anyway,” that phrase when in hole, stopped digging wedged in her mind like a piece of chewing gum in a slightly loose tooth, “Singers – have to – sing more than one composer.”

     Darren was in full terrier mode. “When was the last time you read a book – and I’m not talking set texts, they don’t count – that wasn’t about HIM? In some way shape or form? You’ve not been pettish about it and expected to go to – Verona, or wherever – every holiday – but I’ve seen your expression. I’m bored. I don’t want to be here. This is a waste of time. And that business last Sunday when you brought up Domingo meaning Sunday and Placido Domingo singing Verdi – I don’t know what Jen and Jack made of it.”

     “As if I care – we may be stuck with them as our newneighbours but they bore the backside off you, too!”

     “They are very nice people, and that remark was unworthy of you, Christa,” Frank said, whilst secretly hoping that they wouldn’t make QUITE such a point of earnestly entreating him for his advice on their dermatological and gastro-intestinal conditions. When someone said it was so reassuring to live next door to a doctor it rarely boded well.

     “Mind you, you’re not wrong about them being boring,” Darren admitted, as if his father hadn’t spoken. “But the thing is – so are you. “

     “DARREN!” Emma exclaimed.

     “Mum, I’m sorry, but it’s true. Not because she’s stupid,”

     “Who’s she, the cat’s mother?” Christa muttered, with one of Gran’s favourite sayings.

     The conversation didn’t come to a head or to a resolution. It petered out with the surface veneer of being civilised and reasonable. It wasn’t exactly forgotten, but all four of them let it simmer and lob and find its own corner. Christa and Darren hugged when the latter went away to university, and by unspoken mutual consent, no reference was made to either the conversation or the reasons for it. 

     Christa was in the 6^th form now, and allowed to wear more or less what she wanted (though pre-distressed jeans were unofficially off-limits and it was tacitly acknowledged that while lipstick was fine, black or purple really wasn’t a good idea) and though they still, theoretically, had to sign in and out, there were no registers, and if they had no more lessons on any particular day, they could go home. She was doing A-levels in French, German (she was good at languages and thought the school not teaching Italian was ridiculous), history (now she could concentrate more on the bits that actually interested her and had backroads) and mathematics. Gradually, her reasonable proficiency at maths had ceased to surprise her or others, though she’d never really see the point of trigonometry or logarithms. She had given no thoughts at all to her future career – or if she had, she had banished them and put a blissful shroud of music over them. She vaguely supposed she might end up as a teacher or in an office. It wasn’t what she wanted. But she couldn’t have what she wanted. What she wanted was to win or inherit a lot of money, well, enough money, and to finally be able to dedicate her whole life, and all her thoughts, to not doing anybody else any harm whatsoever and listening to his music, and reading books about him,  and initiating conversations about him. Not that money could guarantee the last would always work, but at least she’d be in a position where it would be more likely to.

     She knew her parents didn’t really approve of gambling, and thought you should have to be at least 18 to play the Lotto, but they turned a blind eye to her occasional scratch-card. She wasn’t interested in the Wednesday and Saturday draws and the whole ritual of it.

     She won an odd tenner and once £50, but knew she was out of pocket. That was until the day in early December when the three matching bell symbols told her she had won the jackpot of £750,000. Oddly, she never went through that more or less statutory not believing phase, the having to ask others to check; the arm pinching, and all that.

     Of course I’ll get all the family really decent Christmas presents, she thought, and Darren something he wants for his birthday in January. But once I’ve done my duty with that (she hurriedly replaced her original thought of “got that out of the way”!) – well, I suppose I’ll invest some, but I don’t want to buy a house or anything like that. It doesn’t interest me. And I can forget about all those tedious ideas about teaching and office work – I wouldn’t be much good at them, anyway. I can spend my own life, or at any rate, enough of it not to bother about it for years and decades, only doing things and seeing things and talking about things I’m INTERESTED in. With nobody going on at me “for my own good”. 

     I need never be bored again. Or make any compromises. It’s just you and me, Maestro! She wasn’t going to keep it secret from her family, though she had already decided on “no publicity”, even though the thought of telling the papers and the internet all about how she knew what she would spend her money on and it wouldn’t be something facile and wouldn’t be something boring either, wasn’t without a certain allure. But for a little while longer, it was her precious secret and she could dream her dreams.

     I’m still not myself, she thought, stretching out on her bed. A shock is a shock, even if it’s a good one, and I need time to get used to it. 

     It was disconcerting and perplexing that she felt uneasy and twitchy and – well, empty. But she put on Aida and waited to luxuriate in it.

     Everything would be fine. Absolutely fine, and fine beyond and above and greater and more longer-lasting than fine.

     Wouldn’t it?