By Kimon de Greef
I had a friend, up until about six years ago, who was a musical genius. He could compose a track out of anything. His name was William and he was short and very thin, with rust coloured hair and watery blue eyes. We would be walking together through the fields behind his parents’ house and something would happen, like a guinea fowl getting startled by the dog, and he would say, “That bird just squawked in G minor”. He always spoke softly, like he was listening out for something inaudible.
I had a friend, up until about six years ago, who was a musical genius. He could compose a track out of anything. His name was William and he was short and very thin, with rust coloured hair and watery blue eyes. We would be walking together through the fields behind his parents’ house and something would happen, like a guinea fowl getting startled by the dog, and he would say, “That bird just squawked in G minor”. He always spoke softly, like he was listening out for something inaudible.
Any sound could spawn new musical ideas. Anything was possible. He would sit in his small, dark room with the curtains drawn and wires and microphones snaking everywhere, with a pile of instruments on his bed (I don’t know if he ever actually slept in it) – and he was like a manic, electric octopus, plugging things together and pushing strange buttons and making the most incredible, fantastic sounds. I visited once and he didn’t even greet me, just thrust two wet towels into my hands and said: “Here, hit these as hard as you can against the door please, in time with the beat.” I only got it right after three attempts, and he insisted on re-soaking the towels each time.
I don’t know which song my towel thumps ever ended up in because William made so many. At any given time he was working on at least four, and he finished two each week. He was very strict with himself and worked to tight deadlines, which was strange because he seldom played his music for anyone else.
“I have to hone my sound,” he’d tell me when I asked him. “It has to be perfect, it must be coherent and whole – and then I’ll release something.”
William was home schooled and hardly had any friends. It was just me, really, and a tall, pale girl called Veronica whom I hardly ever saw. She used to be allowed to listen, too – “She thought this one was a bit messy,” he confided once, before playing me a new tune – and perhaps recorded vocals once or twice, although I’m not sure about that. William was always quite reluctant to talk about Veronica and I knew from past experience not to push him.
The only other person who regularly visited William’s bedroom studio was his tutor, Alex, who besides teaching him mathematics and history also “helped during the mixdown process” – whatever that meant – and provided technical assistance transferring recorded clips to William’s custom-built computer. Alex was incredibly strange and I can’t say I ever liked him much. He had a sharp, hooked nose and thin black eyebrows that slanted towards each other like rigid, straight-backed little caterpillars. His hair, which was streaky and black, was always neatly tucked behind his small, pointy ears.
“I don’t think you appreciate just how important I am to this whole creative process,” he once hissed at me after I’d taken offence at being asked to leave. “Without me, William’s music is nothing – so get the fuck out of here, child.”
If I ever complained about how awful his tutor was William would shush me. "He’s right, you know,” he’d say. “Alex is extremely important to what I do.”
One afternoon I went over to visit and Alex was still there, so I steered clear of the bedroom and went to wait outside in the garden instead. It was a chilly day and the sky was filled with low clouds, and there were wet leaves scattered across the cement paving. I zipped my jacket up to my chin and sat down on a small wooden bench. Earlier that week William had given me an MP3 player with some of his latest tracks loaded and I decided to listen to them again, so I switched the small device on and plugged in my headphones. I heard the thin sound of a pen scribbling on paper, and then a low voice speaking words I couldn’t understand, and underneath it all rose deep chants from a men’s choir, and then a fine, high-pitched bell...
William’s mother was standing in front of me in a blue apron with her mouth moving. I pulled the headphones off.
“I said it must be nice sitting out here while your friend’s packing,” she said, with her lips tight and her forehead creased. I replied that I didn’t know what she meant.
“He must not have told you yet then,” she answered. “Go on inside and ask him.”
“He must not have told you yet then,” she answered. “Go on inside and ask him.”
William’s room was even more chaotic than usual, with large cardboard boxes arranged haphazardly across the floor. Coils of microphone cabling had been wound up and tied in place with small Velcro straps. William was sitting on his bed holding a guitar.
“Hello Chris,” he said when I greeted him. “I can’t find the case.” He was sitting on top of it and hadn’t realized so I pulled it out and helped him slide the guitar inside.
“Mate, what’s going on?” I asked. “Why’s your room like this?”
“I’m leaving, Chris. Alex is moving to Johannesburg and I’m going along.”
I saw Alex behind the computer unplugging some kind of mixing desk. He didn’t look up even though it was obvious he’d heard his name.
“You’re going along? Where? What are you going to do?”
William looked a bit helpless. “I don’t know. We’re going to make music and I’m going to enrol at school there. I’m going to live with my aunt.”
“Your aunt? Which aunt? And what do your parents think?”
“I’m eighteen now. It doesn’t matter.”
I looked him straight in the eye and his expression didn’t change. In the background I could hear Alex shuffling around packing up equipment.
“I need him to do what I do,” William whispered. “I don’t think you understand, man – without Alex and his expertise I can’t make music and I have to make music because that’s all I ever think about.”
He closed his lips tightly together. More than ever, his expression was of somebody whose mind was far, far away.
“I’m leaving because I have to, my friend. Thanks for always helping me get around.”
I noticed Veronica then, sitting on the floor below the window. The curtains were drawn – they always were – and she looked like nothing more than a thin, pale smudge in the gloom. In a quick movement she leaned forwards and the light caught her face.
“It’s his decision, Chris. What can we do?”
I wish William could have seen her face, then, with the thin dark lines etched beneath her eyes. But William couldn’t see anything, because he was blind.
