Out of my horn!
`Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn.' Charlie Parker.
Cue: Schubert waltz.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the life and thoughts of an exceptionally singular woman. Tonight, we journey through the mind and eyes of a woman known to love life, light and laughter. She has a reputation for wit, impertinence and great beauty, not to mention intelligence and charm. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present . . .
Cue: End waltz.
OK, OK, that's quite enough, if I do say so myself. No need to carry on like that. If it's quite all right with you. I'll start again, shall I?
Cue: Mozart sonata.
I am Elizabeth Bennet-Darcy. I usually leave out the Bennet part, but as part of what I have to say does indeed concern my pre-married life, I will include it anyway. Please ignore the above nonsense. That can be credited entirely to my dear husband. When I blow my own horn, it really doesn't sound like that at all.
What's that?
Oh, you want to hear what comes out when I play it?
To put it mildly, I am rather unique. I have many different interests, and rather decided opinions. I need to constantly be learning, but I also need to constantly be doing. I dearly love to laugh at others, but I equally love to laugh at myself. Medicine and the human body fascinate me, but so do business and numbers, hence my two degrees: ICU nursing and business. I'm a mother, but I am also a career woman.
But possibly the strangest thing about me is how I categorise my thoughts. I think in sounds, melodies, harmonies. Doesn't make sense to you? Maybe this will help. I recently came across a brilliant quote by Charlie Parker, which says `Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn.' That encapsulates what I hear when I meet someone new. Or someone I'm long familiar with (just that after a while I block out the music.)
Take my dear husband as an example. The first time I met him was at a job interview. I had just spent a year in a hospital in rural South Africa, setting up a clinic for AIDS babies. It was the most heart-breaking thing imaginable, so you can understand that when I started looking for a new job, I had no interest in anything too emotional, but not anything too detached and business-like either. So when my sister Jane said they had an opening at her company, BioWorld, it seemed pretty much intended for me.
Anyhow, I arrived for my interview in a silver-grey business suit, with my long curls flowing over my shoulders. From the moment I walked into his office, I could see William Darcy was taken aback. He had clearly expected a dowdy, serious woman with more academic savvy than people skills. Well, was he ever going to be proven wrong.
This music business can be very useful, because it usually gives me some indication of what the person is after, and how I should relate to them. Which is wonderful, when I hear and interpret correctly. But, unfortunately, from the first chord, Will began confusing me.
What I heard when I walked into that office cannot possibly be translated into words, although I can try to describe some of the many elements involved. To begin with, it was loud. It was the strongest reaction I have ever had to anyone, which is hardly surprising when I look at it now, but at the time it was extremely disconcerting. It was also very melodic, with many instruments contributing to the cacophony. Two instruments did seem to predominate, though - the deep notes of a cello and the sweet undertones of flute.
But, as I said, the concert in my head can be as misleading as helpful. At our first meeting the cello was dominant, with the gentler flute almost entirely lost to its strident sounds. Unsurprisingly, I took this as a warning, so when the lighter notes became more apparent later on, I simply ignored them.
Blowing my own horn is not a pastime I indulge in (Will usually does it for me), but, as it turns out, my music was just what the company needed to finally become fabulously successful. We were making money, putting out new and innovative product lines, and most importantly, we were having fun doing it.
Those dreary executive meetings became a blast. Jane would bake cookies, I would make salad, and Will or Charles would supply pizza or pasta, depending on who was buying (if it was Charles, it was pasta for Jane, and if it was Will, it was pizza for me, I later realised.) We would spend meetings throwing little bits of paper at each other (with the result that we emerged looking as if we had been in a snowstorm, but never mind.) Just for the heck of it, we produced splints in psychedelic colours, and wheelchairs with hand-painted backs. And we just laughed, and laughed, and laughed.
During those couple of weeks, I felt like I was at a full-time jazz recital. The music was just too good. Indeed, it was so clear that I managed to transcribe some of it. The melody associated with Will became softer and lighter, with the flute becoming ever more pronounced. I walked around as if on a cloud of perfect harmony. But I should have known that it was, in fact, too good to be true.
Will became obsessed with our success. I'm told that he wasn't actually like that before I arrived, but how was I to know? He started keeping us later and later, then weekends. Then he sent Charles off to the cross country branch, which was, in Charles' words, `a room with a million useless piles of paper'. The cello came back with vengeance.
And then Will committed his final folly. Most people would not consider this to be particularly incriminating, but to me it was unforgivable.
He asked me out.
The issue was not that he did it, but how he did it. He implied that I was inferior, and that he was above dating a mere employee. He also managed to sneak in a few barbs about my sisters (something that he generally leaves out in his retelling of the story, as they are now his sisters too.) And, to seal his doomed fate, he was insufferably arrogant to boot!
I cannot even begin to describe the chaos that reigned in my head. It felt like a heavy metal band was playing at full volume, with a highly discordant cello thrown in somewhere. The flute was timidly trying to be heard, but the rest of the orchestra, if I can even call it that, would not give it a chance. Some description, huh? And my emotions were in an equal state of confusion.
Yet, somehow, I managed to keep my wits about me, and even hear my reply over the noise, for there is simply no other word for it, in my head. I quoted Lily Tomlin at him, and then I listed, and elaborated on, my version of his crimes. I was vocal about his separation of Charles and Jane, and a number of other rumours I had heard. And then I kicked him out of my office.
I went home seething. Poor Jane gave me such a wide berth that I brought her breakfast in bed for a week to make up for it. She deserved it for putting up with my bad temper. My band was so loud that it took me hours to fall asleep, and I awoke feeling like I had slept in the middle of a rock concert.
However, by the next morning, I had resolved to put the infuriating man out of my mind. Never mind that I drove to work with a cello concerto for company. When I arrived, I found him waiting in my office, with a letter for me. He simply put it in my hands and walked out. I didn't see him again for several months.
Will's letter explained everything, from the twisted rumours to his impressions of Jane. By the third rereading, I acknowledged that Jane was extremely cautious and reserved, and when contrasted to most women, could easily be perceived as indifferent. I began to regret my treatment of him.
And as I slowly realised what kind of man he really was, from Charles, whose return caused many mixed feelings in a few of us, and from the other staff with their sterling praise of him, I found my attitude towards him changing drastically. I would like to say that I immediately saw him as the best man I have ever known (which he undisputedly is, by the way), but at first my feelings were ambivalent at best.
While I acknowledged that my accusations against him were unjust, both with regards to the despicable gossip and his treatment of Jane, I couldn't accept that the behaviour I had seen was not his usual, as the other staff insisted. He had been blind and self-absorbed, and I couldn't possibly see how he acted differently at any other time.
Yet, once I began to analyse it a bit, I came up with a completely different picture. I had always associated harsh sounds with tragedy, and it made no sense, even to my justifying mind, that with Will it should be associated with arrogance instead. So I did a bit of poking around, and I found out that his mother had passed away when his sister, a decade his junior, was only a toddler, and his father had been killed in an accident several years ago. Then his sister had been attacked shortly after he had started BioWorld, and he had very nearly lost her, too. BioWorld had been open for almost three years, and yet had only become successful recently. So it was quite reasonable that Will should lose himself in the company's success, given how hard his life had been up to that point.
This description makes it sound as if all this happened over night; let me tell you, it didn't. It took me two long months to sort this all out in my head. In the meantime, the music I associated with Will didn't fade, as usually happens when I am no longer around someone. Instead, it kept playing at very odd times, like when I was checking BioWorld order forms, or doing my make-up, or cooking dinner.
Then Jane decided to send me away for a bit. Our aunt and uncle, the Gardiners, live up in the mountains, where they run a quaint, but highly successful inn, called `Maddy's.' She was determined that I needed a break. It was true; I was physically exhausted from basically running BioWorld single handedly (Will was away and Charles was useless), and I was emotionally exhausted from berating myself about Will. So we planned my trip, and I just got more and more agitated with men in general.
So when Jane burst into my office two days before I was to leave, she didn't find a particularly objective sister. Poor Janie came to say that she thought Charles was interested in her again. He had been speaking to her more and more, and he had been on the verge of asking her out. What was she to do?
As I said before, I was not feeling at all charitable to members of the opposite sex at the time. I strictly instructed her that when he did ask her out, she was to say that she would not put up with anyone who `toyed with her affection'. I told her that I was sick of men and their nonsense, and unless she could stop him from breaking her heart again, which we both knew she couldn't, she was to keep away from him.
And I went off to Aunt Maddy.
As always, my time there was wonderful. Maddy is always finding and trying new recipes for her little restaurant. She does most of the cooking herself, so when I'm there she's always more than happy to let me help. During the day, I bake muffins with the little Gardiners, and at night I sit up late chatting to Aunt Maddy and Uncle Ed.
In fact, it was such a perfect break from everything that had been going on that I almost forgot there was trouble up in the city. Almost, but not quite. I could never forget my Jane. So one evening I phoned her, as per usual, just to see that she was OK, and I was greeted with sobbing on the other end. Poor Janie had just found out that Lydia, our silly little sister, had become involved with a man by the name of George Wickham, who turned out to be the man who had put BioWorld in its financial mess in the first place. They had been arrested for money laundering, and after more than an hour on the phone, Janie and I didn't have a clue how to deal with the situation. Neither of us had the money to bail Lydia out, and Kitty and Mary, as college students, were even worse off. The money our late parents had left us was in a trust that we couldn't access, and in the meanwhile, Lydia was just sitting there. So I did what I had to do, and went down to the restaurant.
I have to say that up till this point, I was very composed. I had a string quartet playing Mozart to calm me. But as I walked down the narrow streets, the sounds became more and more discordant. By the time I actually reached the inn, I was crying uncontrollably.
Fortunately, the restaurant was almost empty, so I went straight to my aunt and, between sobs, told her what had happened. She was shocked, but not entirely surprised that Lydia had managed to get herself into such a situation, foolish girl that she is. So Maddy called my uncle, and brought me a cup of tea while we waited.
As my luck would have it, who should walk in but Will, my `boss'. (I use the quotation marks because we all know who is really in charge.) He sat at a corner table, seeming not to notice us, and I really thought I was cleared. But, it was not to be. After what felt like a matter of hours, he came over to Maddy and I to greet us. I have to say that he was quite considerate at first, asking what had upset me so much. But as I told him, his expression just became stonier and stonier. When I finished, he quickly thanked Maddy and excused himself.
I hope to never again hear what I heard when Will walked out that door. It was the familiar tune, but transposed to a mournful minor key. The soft, sad sounds of the flute rose in my mind, creating the most tenderly painful song I had ever heard. And as he left, and I though all hope was lost, my heart suddenly confirmed how well suited we were, are and always would be. I could feel my heart slipping out the door behind him.
I cried myself to sleep that night, for Lydia but also for myself.
I stayed with Maddy for a few days more, before returning to the city. I would begin every day by calling Jane at the office, updating her on Uncle Ed's progress on the case. I could tell she was holding back tears through every conversation, and I can guarantee that she started crying the moment I put down the phone. But, being so far away, there was nothing I could do. So I returned home, and we cried together.
Finally, about a week after the whole fiasco began, she was released. At the time I had no idea how it could have happened. Ed certainly didn't have that kind of money available, and the circumstantial evidence was strong enough for the police to keep her in custody. So I phoned Maddy to find out the truth.
What she told me shocked me completely. Will had arranged the whole thing, from start to finish. He had bailed her out, and then arranged for a lawyer to clear her of the charges. We didn't have to worry about paying Ed and Maddy back, something that was a serious concern of mine up till this point. But the alternative actually caused me more confusion. According to Maddy, the reason he gave was that he didn't deal with Wickham before, so it was his duty to do it now. I didn't quite buy that, but I didn't have an alternative explanation. Well, a little voice did whisper that he did it for me, but I discounted it very quickly.
So I returned to work, and I discovered that Jane and Charles were dating again, and they actually became engaged very soon after. I would have said I was furious with her, but she seemed so happy that I couldn't possibly be. As much as I hate to admit it, I was the teeniest, tiniest bit envious of her situation. I mean, she had Charles, and all I had was this constant background music, and there seemed very little chance of it becoming real.
A few days later Will also came back. I took the first opportunity to make an appointment with him. It seemed like a strange thing to do, but it seemed the surest way of forcing him to talk to me.
And it worked. I went in there, and as indifferently as I could, which turned out to be quite emotional, thanked him for what he had done for my poor sister, saving her and our family from terrible disgrace. When I finished, I had tears rolling down my cheeks, and I was ready for him to fire me on the spot (although I never quite figured out the root of that assumption).
His answer couldn't have surprised me more. Will told me that he wanted to earn my love on his own merit, because of who he was, his character and talents, and not because of my gratitude. I have to say that when I heard my next words come out of my mouth I didn't think they were mine, but I will forever be grateful that I said them. I asked him to have dinner with me.
Dinner was very pleasant. We talked about our issues like mature adults instead of hormonal teenagers. We cleared the air, and sincerely enjoyed each other's company. When he asked me if I would go out with him again, I could do nought but concur. We ended the evening in a little café with Jane and Charles.
That night I let my thoughts go wild. To the soft, now cheerful, strains of the flute, with a very muted cello as light accompaniment, I imagined our life together. I heard the chatter at our engagement party. I listened to my tears as we visited our parents' graves the day before our wedding. I strained to hear the cries of our newborn. I listened to the shouts from Will and the kids in the garden as I prepared supper. And all the while I had my magnificent symphony echoing in my head.
Once we were together, it didn't take long for us to promise to be that way for the rest of our lives, like we were always meant to be. We were married soon after Jane and Charles. Will and I lived in the magnificent Darcy family home, and Janie and Charles moved in down the road. Our kids grew up in the park across the street.
Thanks to Will, the music has never left me. He makes sure that every day, however difficult it ends up being, is a joy to hear, and I love him all the more for it. When I eventually, during my fourth and worst pregnancy, transcribed Will's melody, I was delighted to discover that the sounds associated with our kids were all variations of Will's tune.
I could ask for nothing more than for my children to be reflections of their father, who is truly the best man I have ever known.
Finis