I'm sorry it took a slap on the wrist for you to acknowledge your laziness, but now that you have, we can get back to the important business of writing to one another. Yes, yes, yes, the Softshell is magnificent. Particularly here. Last night I put the cassette on and listened to it in the kitchen while doing the washing up. There was, outside the tiny sound of the tape coming from the substandard player we have above the sink, only a slight humming, a wind through the trees and animals far away sort of sound. You will love it here my love. I'm sorry your work took you away at just the moment the place opened up, but that will (if you know what's good for you) alter promptly. Anne is here this week trying to keep my spirits up. The poor dear insists on imagining problems onto me. I suppose she might succeed if she stays too, too long. Her cousin Daniel has apparently taken up half of her apartment with his books and pictures. It appears that his very bright college career has best suited him for sitting about endlessly trying to learn to play this little African flute he picked up at a flea market downtown. I hate to make poor Anne worry, but I suspect her good cousin has other things on his shopping list.
But back to the music; have you gotten a sense yet under what conditions Peter wrote. I always tried to press him on just those sorts of things, but he was so damned private about composition. One would think his charm would be broken if the secret were revealed. I suppose though that was one of his qualities, his love of privacy. Perhaps that is where so much of the silence in his music comes from. A strange silence. Tell me--is that clonking in the background of the third movement a tuba being struck or a modified car's horn? I'd like to know.
Well, darling, the news is, as one would expect, slim here on the farm. I have been trying to gain insight into the correspondence of the sheep, but they refuse to hand it over. Perhaps a sound beating will loosen their lips. (Ah well, I fear I, too, am far too much of an old peacenik for threats to work.)
Do force your old thief to hand over the goods. I long to show you the new house, the kitchen and the kitchen table (especially the kitchen table). I go to bed sad, Philip--write soon.
Love,
Maragret
The kitchen table was purchased in a small shop at the base of a very steep hill many years before Margaret came into possession of the house. It had been sold to the shop by a group of travelling painters who had illuminated its surface with many wild phantasies. The leader of the troupe later became well known for an oil technique which was to inform Europe's greatest artists for years to come. Before selling the table the painters covered its surface with thick layers of green paint, for they hated to see it go.
