The Courage Consort Read Free Page A

doe froze to attention, like an expensive scale model of a deer added as a pièce de résistance.
    Catherine stood gazing while Roger took care of her suitcase somewhere behind her.
    'It all looks as if Robin Hood and his Merry Men could trot out of the greenery any minute,' she said, as the director ambled up.

    'It's funny you say this,' he commented. 'In the sixties there was a television series filmed here, a sort of French Robin Hood adventure called
Thierry la Fronde.
This smooth road through the forest was perfect for tracking shots.'
    The director left her deer spotting and hurried off to unlock the front door, where the others stood waiting. They were arranged in a tight trio around their bags and cases, Ben at the back and the shorter men in front, like a rock group posing for a publicity shot.
    Jan worked on the locks, first with a massive, antique-looking brass key and then with a couple of little stainless-steel numbers.
    'Presto!' he exclaimed. Never having seen a conjurer at work, Catherine took the expression as a musical directive. What could he want them to do
presto?
She was in a somewhat
adagio
state of mind.

    The château's magnificent front room, all sunlight and antiques, was obviously the one where rehearsals would take place. Julian, as he was wont to do, immediately tested the acoustic with a few
sotto voce
Es. He'd done this in cellars and cathedrals from Aachen to Zyrardów; he couldn't help it, or so he claimed.
    '
Mi-mi-mi-mi-mi,
' he sang, then smiled. This was a definite improvement on Ben Lamb's rather muffled sitting room.
    'Yes, it's good,' smiled the director, and began to show them round.
    Catherine had only been inside a couple of minutes when she began to feel a polite unease finding a purchase on her shoulders. It wasn't anything to do with the atmosphere of the place: that was quite charming, even enchanting. All the furniture and most of the fixtures were dark-stained wood, a little sombre perhaps, but there was plenty of sunlight beaming in through the many windows and a superb smell, or maybe it was an
absence
of smell: oxygen-rich air untainted by industry or human congestion.

    All conveniences, both mod and antique, were on offer: Giraffe upright piano, electric shower, embroidered quilts, microwave oven, fridge, a concert-sized xylophone, an eighteenth-century spinning wheel, two computers, a complete prewar set of Grove's
Dictionary of Music and Musicians
(in Dutch), an ornate rack of wooden recorders (sopranino, descant, alto, tenor, plus a flageolet), several cordless telephones, even an assortment of slippers to wear around the house.
    No, it wasn't any of these things that troubled Catherine as she accompanied her fellow Consort members on their guided tour of the château. It was entirely to do with the number of bedrooms. As the director escorted them from one room to the next, she was keeping count and, by the time he was showing them the galley kitchen, a burnished-wood showpiece worthy of Vermeer, she appreciated there wasn't going to be any advance on four. One for Ben, one for Julian, one for Dagmar, and … one for herself and Roger.
    'The shops are not so accessible,' the director was saying, 'so we've put some food in the cupboards for you. It is not English food, but it should keep you alive in an emergency.'
    Catherine made the effort to look into the cupboard he was holding open for their appraisal, so as not to be rude. Foremost was a cardboard box of what looked, from the illustration, exactly like the vegetation surrounding the house. BOERENKOOL, it said.
    'This really is awfully sweet,' she said, turning the almost weightless box over in her hands.
    'No,' said Jan, 'it has an earthy, slightly bitter taste.'

    So there were limits to his ability to understand his visitors from across the channel, after all.
    ***
    I T WAS AROUND NINE O'CLOCK in the evening, almost nightfall, when Dagmar finally showed up. The director had long gone; the Courage