The Rainaldi Quartet Read Online Free

watch her shrivel up, watch a part of her die too. I rummaged through the cupboards, found a bottle of grappa and brought it back to the sitting room. Clara hadn’t moved. I sat down next to her, poured a glass of brandy and held it to her lips.
    â€˜Drink, Clara. It will do you good. Come on, try.’
    She opened her mouth and I forced in a little grappa. She swallowed, then coughed as the fiery liquor went down. The spasm seemed to jolt her out of her stupor. She blinked and turned to look at me. I saw a terrible sadness in her face, an inconsolable despair. Her features crumpled and she began to weep. I put my arms around her and let her cry, let the pain flood out in great racking sobs.
    I was still holding her, quiet now, drained and exhausted, when the front doorbell rang. I eased my arms out from behind her and went into the hall. A woman police officer and Clara’s daughter, Giulia, were outside. I showed them into the sitting room.
    â€˜Giulia’s here,’ I said.
    Mother and daughter embraced tearfully and I turned away to leave them alone with their grief.
    â€˜I’ll stay with them now,’ the woman police officer said. ‘There’s a driver outside to take you home.’
    I nodded weakly, aware of how tired I was. I looked at Clara and Giulia holding each other on the settee. Giulia glanced up at me over her mother’s shoulder, her cheeks streaming with tears.
    â€˜I’ll call back in the morning,’ I said.
    My house seemed very quiet and empty when the police driver dropped me off. I went through into the back room and slumped down into an armchair. I was worn out, but somehow couldn’t face my bed, couldn’t face the effort of trying to get to sleep when my mind was in such turmoil.
    I sat there in the darkness, shadows all around me, tears welling up, and thought about Rainaldi, my thoughts running through the half century I had known him in brief, fleeting glimpses, like clips from a dozen films. Seeing him at school with me; sitting beside me in the local youth orchestra; on the day of his marriage, Clara radiant next to him; with our children at a picnic by the river; in his workshop crafting a piece of wood. A palimpsest of memories, each one overlaying the one before, obliterating it so that in the end I was left only with my final image of him – sitting here in my back room, a glass of whisky on the table beside him, his violin tucked under his chin, face alight with joy as he played one of his beloved quartets. That was how I wanted to remember him.
    *   *   *
    I must have dozed off some time in the small hours. I recall feeling drowsy, seeing the clock on the mantelpiece registering 3:15, but then nothing afterwards. When I next opened my eyes it was light outside. The clock read half past eight. I shifted uncomfortably in my armchair. My eyes felt sore, my head thick. I stretched my limbs to ease the stiffness. For a fraction of a second I wondered what I was doing downstairs, then it all came flooding back with a sickening clarity. I tried to shut out the thoughts, the images, but they were too fresh in my mind, too disturbing, to be erased. I pulled myself slowly to my feet and shuffled through into the kitchen.
    I was sitting at the kitchen table, sipping coffee and eating a dried-out bread roll and jam when Guastafeste telephoned.
    â€˜I didn’t wake you, did I?’ he said.
    â€˜No, I’m up.’
    â€˜Are you free any time today? You knew Tomaso’s workshop well. Would you come in and take a look around it for me?’
    â€˜Now?’
    â€˜Whenever you can make it.’
    â€˜Give me half an hour,’ I said.
    I washed and changed my clothes and drove into Cremona. It was a bright sunny day, too bright for my sombre mood, not to mention the ache behind my eyes which I attributed to either lack of sleep or too much alcohol the night before.
    The street outside Rainaldi’s workshop was