Mangon, who had been lost in reverie, pulled himself together and shook his head.
‘Working too hard?’ Alto pressed. He scrutinized Mangon suspiciously. ‘Are you still sitting up all night with that Gioconda woman?’
Embarrassed, Mangon lowered his eyes. His relationship with Alto was, obliquely, almost as close as that with Madame Gioconda. Although Alto was brusque and often irritable with Mangon, he took a sincere interest in his welfare. Possibly Mangon’s muteness reminded him of the misanthropic motives behind his hatred of noise, made him feel indirectly responsible for the act of violence Mangon’s mother had committed. Also, one artist to another, he respected Mangon’s phenomenal auditory sensitivity.
‘She’ll exhaust you, Mangon, believe me.’ Alto knew how much the personal contact meant to Mangon and hesitated to be over-critical. ‘There’s nothing you can do for her. Offering her sympathy merely fans her hopes for a come-back. She hasn’t a chance.’
Mangon frowned, wrote quickly on his wrist-pad: She WILL sing again!
Alto read the note pensively. Then, in a harder voice, he said: ‘She’s using you for her own purposes, Mangon. At present you satisfy one whim of hers — the neurotic headaches and fantasy applause. God forbid what the next whim might be.’
She is a great artist.
‘She was,’ Alto pointed out. ‘No more, though, sad as it is. I’m afraid that the times change.’
Annoyed by this, Mangon gritted his teeth and tore off another sheet.
Entertainment, perhaps. Art, No!
Alto accepted the rebuke silently; he reproved himself as much as Mangon did for selling out to Video City. In his four years there his output of original ultrasonic music consisted of little more than one nearly finished symphony aptly titled Opus Zero — shortly to receive its first performance, a few nocturnes and one quartet. Most of his energies went into programme music, prestige numbers for spectaculars and a mass of straight transcriptions of the classical repertoire. The last he particularly despised, fit work for Paul Merrill, but not for a responsible composer.
He added the sheet to the two in his left hand and asked: ‘Have you ever heard Madame Gioconda sing?’
Mangon’s answer came back scornfully: No! But you have. Please describe.
Alto laughed shortly, tore up his sheets and walked across to the window.
‘All right, Mangon, you’ve made your point. You’re carrying a torch for art, doing your duty to one of the few perfect things the world has ever produced. I hope you’re equal to the responsibility. La Gioconda might be quite a handful. Do you know that at one time the doors of Covent Garden, La Scala and the Met were closed to her? They said Callas had temperament, but she was a girl guide compared with Gioconda. Tell me, how is she? Eating enough?’
Mangon held up his coke bottle.
‘Snow? That’s tough. But how does she afford it?’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Dammit, I’ve got to leave. Clean this place out thoroughly, will you. It gives me a headache just listening to myself think.’
He started to pick up the dictaphone but Mangon was scribbling rapidly on his pad.
Give Madame Gioconda a job.
Alto read the note, then gave it back to Mangon, puzzled. ‘Where? In this apartment?’ Mangon shook his head. ‘Do you mean at V. C.? Singing?’
When Mangon began to nod vigorously he looked up at the ceiling with a despairing groan. ‘For heaven’s sake, Mangon, the last vocalist sang at Video City over ten years ago. No audience would stand for it. If I even suggested such an idea they’d tear my contract into a thousand pieces.’ He shuddered, only half-playfully. ‘I don’t know about you, Mangon, but I’ve got my ulcer to support.’
He made his way to the staircase, but Mangon intercepted him, pencil flashing across the wrist-pad.
Please. Madame Gioconda will start blackmail soon. She is desperate.
Must sing again. Could arrange make-believe programme in research studios. Closed circuit.
Alto folded the note carefully, left the dictaphone on the staircase and walked slowly back to the window.
‘This blackmail. Are you absolutely sure? Who, though, do you know?’ Mangon nodded, but looked away. ‘Okay, I won’t press you. LeGrande, probably, eh?’ Mangon turned round in surprise, then gave an elaborate parody of a shrug.
‘Hector LeGrande. Obvious guess. But there are no secrets there, it’s all on open file. I suppose she’s just threatening to make enough of an exhibition of herself to block his governorship.’ Alto pursed his lips. He loathed LeGrande, not merely for having bribed him into a way of life he could never renounce, but also because, once having exploited his weakness, LeGrande never hesitated to remind Alto of it, treating him and his music with contempt. If Madame Gioconda’s blackmail had the slightest hope of success he would have been only too happy, but he knew LeGrande would destroy her, probably take Mangon too.
Suddenly he felt a paradoxical sense of loyalty for Madame Gioconda. He looked at Mangon, waiting patiently, big spaniel eyes wide with hope.
‘The idea of a closed circuit programme is insane. Even if we went to all the trouble of staging it she wouldn’t be satisfied. She doesn’t want to sing, she wants to be a star. It’s the trappings of stardom she misses — the cheering galleries, the piles of bouquets, the green room parties. I could arrange a half-hour session on closed circuit with some trainee technicians — a few straight selections from Tosca and Butterfly, say, with even a sonic piano accompaniment, I’d be glad to play it myself — but I can’t provide the gossip columns and theatre reviews. What would happen when she found out?’
She wants to SING.
Alto reached out and patted Mangon on the shoulder. ‘Good for you. All right, then, I’ll think about it. God knows how we’d arrange it. We’d have to tell her that she’ll be making a surprise guest appearance on one of the big shows that’ll explain the absence of any programme announcement and we’ll be able to keep her in an isolated studio. Stress the importance of surprise, to prevent her from contacting the newspapers… Where are you going?’
Mangon reached the staircase, picked up the dictaphone and returned to Alto with it. He grinned happily, his jaw working wildly as he struggled to speak. Strangled sounds quavered in his throat.
Touched, Alto turned away from him and sat down. ‘Okay, Mangon,’ he snapped brusquely, ‘you can get on with your job. Remember, I haven’t promised anything.’ He flicked on the dictaphone, then began: ‘Memo 11: Ray…’
Three
It was just after four o’clock when Mangon braked the sound truck in the alley behind the derelict station. Overhead the traffic hammered along the flyover, dinning down on to the cobbled walls. He had been trying to finish his rounds early enough to bring Madame Gioconda the big news before her headaches began. He had swept out the Oratory in an hour, whirled through a couple of movie theatres, the Museum of Abstract Art, and a dozen private calls in half his usual time, driven by his almost overwhelming joy at having won a promise of help from Ray Alto.
He ran through the foyer, already fumbling at his wrist-pad. For the first time in many years he really regretted his muteness, his inability to tell Madame Gioconda orally of his triumph that morning.
Studio 2 was in darkness, the rows of seats and litter of old programmes and ice-cream cartons reflected dimly in the single light masked by the tall flats. His feet slipped in some shattered plaster fallen from the ceiling and he was out of breath when he clambered up on to the stage and swung round the nearest flat.
Madame Gioconda had gone!
The stage was deserted, the couch a rumpled mess, a clutter of cold saucepans on the stove. The wardrobe door was open, dresses wrenched outwards off their hangers.