Chapter 19

It was Wednesday of the following week when Cal and I got together for our talk. I’d told Kathy about it at school on Monday, and she’d thought it was a good idea to clear the air. As we left school on Wednesday afternoon, Kathy pulled me aside before I started to walk home.

“David,” she said, “about tonight.”

“Yes?” I queried, apprehensively.

“Good luck, I hope you can figure out some way forward,” she said, “much as I like you, you’re not happy at the moment are you.”

“With you yes,” I replied.

“I know but you’re not really truly happy are you?”

“No I’m not.”

“Then do all three of us a favour David, you Cal and me.”

“What?” I asked.

“Do what’s best for you, and don’t worry about the two of us.”

“But what,” that was as far as I got before she placed a finger on my lips, cutting me off.

“What nothing, what’s important right now is you. You need to get your life back online. I like you David, I like you a lot. It would be very easy to fall in love with you, and I suspect very good for me. But what’s good for you? If you decide to go back to Cal, do it with my blessing, and I hope we can remain friends. If you decide that whatever you did have with Cal is over and unrecoverable, then, we’ll see where life takes us. What I’m saying is, David, do what’s best for David, I suspect it would probably be the first time in your life.”

Then she kissed me softly on the lips and started to walk off in the direction of her house. I just stood there looking like a rabbit caught in headlights.

“What’s got you looking all non-plussed?” A familiar voice said from behind me.

“Your sister,” I replied, “I think she just told me that I should decide what’s best for me and not worry about her and Cal.”

“Yup, that’s my baby sister. She’s right David, you’re a great guy, but sometimes you think about others when you should be thinking about yourself. You don’t have to be everybody’s helper, or their doormat either.”

“Thanks pal,” I said.

“Hey, I’m just telling you like it is mate. Would you prefer I not tell you the truth?”

“No,” I replied, “I wouldn’t.”

“Just for once look after number one first,” he said.

“I will mate, and thanks.”

Mike walked off in the same direction as Kathy had and I turned and headed for home.

Just as we finished tea, Cal’s Mum came round from next door.

“Hi, David,” she said as she sat down in the living room, “Cal’s next door waiting for you.”

“Thanks,” I replied, “how is she?”

“Nervous,” she replied, “but I suppose it’s only to be expected.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Well, I think she realises she’s lost her boyfriend,” she replied, “but she’s very, very scared that she’s also lost her best friend.”

We’ll see. Has she discussed what happened with you?” I asked.

“I don’t think I should really tell you,” she answered.

“I don’t want to discuss the details with you, Aunt Mary, just whether or not she has,” I replied.

“Then yes, she has,” she replied.

“Fair enough, I would have expected that.”

I stood up.

“Best go and get this over with,” I said, and headed for the back door.

It’s less than thirty metres to walk up out path, then turn left and walk down theirs, but it felt like a lot longer, and as if I was wading through treacle. I began to wonder whether I really wanted to know the full details of what went on in Munich. Wouldn’t I be happier just not knowing? Could I just accept that it happened and carry on like it hadn’t? Then another thought hit me. If my film career took off, what if we were married with children, and I had to go off for three months or more on a shoot. Could I trust her not to find someone else to ‘entertain’ her while I was gone? And that was my answer, right now I couldn’t.

I knocked on the front door and waited.

Cal opened it, dressed in tight jeans and a school polo shirt. From the evidence she wasn’t wearing a bra.

“Hi,” I said, “can I come in.”

“Of course you can, why did you even knock? You’ve never had to wait to be let in to this house,” she replied, and stepped aside so I could walk in.

“I just thought it was better,” I replied, “so where are we sitting?”

“My room?” she said hopefully.

I looked at her and shook my head.

“How about the kitchen?” I asked, “then if we get thirsty we can get a drink.”

“Ok,” she said sadly, and led the way through.

She seated herself at one end of the long side of the table, so I sat down, next to her, but on the short side.

“So do you want me to tell you about Munich?” she asked.

“Yes,” I replied, “all of it. And not the edited version, the whole truth.”

“Ok,” she said, “I promise I won’t cut out anything you want to know or hold anything back.”

I nodded.

“Okay,” she said, “where do I start?”

“The beginning is usually a good place,” I suggested.

“But I already told you the beginning,” she said, “right up to the party.”

“Just remind me would you, please?” I asked.

“Well, Mum and I landed in Munich on Sunday afternoon, and checked into the hotel we were staying in. Next morning she went with me to the Hochschule while I registered, we were all taken to the student residence we were staying in, and introduced to our room mates.”

“I met yours,” I said, “she seemed a busy young lady.”

“She did do a lot of entertaining of her boyfriend,” Cal continued, “and that was part of the problem. She expected me to be out of the flat when he was there.”

“Okay,” I said, “I could see that she might, where did you go?”

“Well that didn’t become an issue for a few days, that first night there was a welcome party in the Mensa and everybody went. There was food and drinks, and music, and we were all divided into singers and instrumentalists, and there were a few ice breaking games, it was actually a very good evening, even though my shaky German was a bit of a problem.”

“I can understand that, I’ve been told you spent more time in your German class doodling on your note pad than you did listening, you shouldn’t have dropped it for Spanish.”

“Anyway, a few of the girls started dancing in the middle of the floor, you know, that dancing round the handbags thing. Occasionally a guy would come along and ask one of us to dance, I got asked quite a few times, but I always told them no.”

“So at least you managed the first night then,” I said, perhaps not as kindly as I could.

“Actually it wasn’t even in the first two weeks,” she replied, “I told you last time how I met Wolfgang, if you remember.”

“We started on the sessions on the Tuesday and at the end of the week we were given our assignments for the final week. We all had to rehearse, and then perform during our last week a scene from an opera. On the Friday we were told who we would be singing with and what we’d be singing. I drew the love scene from act two of Tristan und Isolde, and Wolfgang was assigned as my Tristan.”

“So that was the start of it, a love scene?”

“No, Wolfgang suggested we get together over the weekend to start rehearsing, but I said no because I wanted to see Munich. So I spent the weekend visiting places I wanted to see in Munich, The Opera House, the Cuvillies, the Prinzregenten theatre, the English gardens. I spent my evenings working on the score, mainly in the foyer of the residence, since most of the time my room mate was making the beast with two backs.”

I chuckled at that description.

“So, that’s week one, how about week two?”

“We really started intensive work in week two,” she replied. “We had the visit to Bayreuth, and tours of the two opera houses there. Yes, there was Wagner’s Festspielhaus, which is a really up to date bells and whistles sort of place, and the Baroque one, which is small, intimate and truly beautiful. Anyway Mondays were visits, Tuesday Singing lessons. On Wednesday they got well known performers to come and give master classes, Thursday was Music Theory and Friday was rehearsals of our pieces.”

“And that’s where you cheated?”

She looked horrified at the word cheated.

“NO, sorry, if you remember that weekend was the weekend you went to the party at your co-star’s house. Wolfgang invited me to a party, and I refused. When he asked why, I told him about you and how we’d promised to be faithful to each other. Well, he said that he was only inviting me to a party, not to sleep with him, and that anyway, you were out in California with all those beautiful girls, did I really think you would hold out?”

“And?” I queried.

“I told him yes, I did think that, but then you were going to a party, so I thought that there was no harm in me going to one either.”

“Which was true,” I said, “so why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t know,” she replied, “I think probably because what you were going to was a family party, in someone’s back yard, with parents and lots of other kids the same age.”

“Actually the girls that would have been attractive were all about three or four years older than me,” I interjected, “but go on.”

“So I was wrong there as well,” she said sadly, “anyway, the party I was invited to was going to be in a student flat, with older kids, and beer and things.”

“Things?” I queried.

“Drugs, pot, I think there was cocaine there as well.”

“And you didn’t think that maybe this wasn’t the place to be?”

“No,” she replied, “I didn’t drink there, and I stayed well away from the drugs. I just listened to the music, and danced a bit.”

“So basically, you went to a party and had a good time?”

“Yes. I left about eleven and went back to my own room.”

“Okay,” I said, “remember that chat our Mums had with us, back at the beginning?”

She nodded, and her eyes clouded over.

“So, then, which of those principles have you broken so far?”

She looked at me aghast.

“The one about being open and honest with each other,” she answered.

I nodded.

“So, week three then?” I prompted.

“Yes,” she said, a lot of her usual confidence seemed to have deserted her at this point, “I suppose week three was when it started.”

“So soon after you left?”

“No, I don’t mean anything happened, but Wolfgang and some of the others, started just dropping little things into the conversation. About you, California, girls, partying, you know, that sort of stuff.”

I nodded to signify that I understood.

“We got to sit in on a rehearsal of Carmen at the State Opera that week, and, of course there was a party at the end of it.”

“To which you went?” I asked.

She nodded then continued.

“Wolfgang and his friends had been at me all week, so I agreed to go, just to get them off my back.”

“And?”

“We’d been there about half an hour,” she started.

“Hang on,” I interrupted, “we’d?”

“Yes, I went with Wolfgang.”

“Like, on a date?” I queried.

“No, but this party was in a different residence, and I didn’t know the way, so he came to pick me up and walk round there with me,” she explained.

“Tell me about Wolfgang,” I said, interrupting her flow.

“What?” she asked, puzzled.

“Tell me about Wolfgang,” I repeated.

“What do you want to know?” she asked.

“Everything,” I replied.

“Well,” she began, “his name is Wolfgang, he’s nineteen, a tenor and he comes from somewhere near Weimar in the east of Germany.”

“Wolfgang what?” I asked.

“Oh, sorry, Wolfgang Riedel.”

“And?” I prompted.

“And what?” she asked.

“What else about him?”

“Er, that’s it, I don’t think I know any more. We never talked about him, always about me. And you of course.”