me back to the Peabody House in an instant, I know the foundation of the tale is true, no matter how much it has been embroidered over the years by my father, my publicist, and the journalists who've spoken to them both. Frankly, I myself no longer answer questions about the Peabody House. I say, "That's old ground.
Let's till some fresh soil this time round."
But journalists always want a hook for their story and, limited by my father's firm injunction that only my career is open for discussion when I'm interviewed, what better hook could there be than the one my father created out of a simple stroll in the garden of Kensington Square:
I am three years old and in the company of my grandfather. I have with me a tricycle on which I am trundling round the perimeter of the garden while Granddad sits in that Greek-temple affair that serves as a shelter near the wrought iron fence. Granddad has brought a newspaper to read, but he isn't reading. Instead he's listening to some music coming from one of the buildings behind him.
He says to me in a hushed voice, "It's called a concerto, Gideon. This is Paganini's D
Major concerto. Listen." He beckons me to his side.
He sits at the very end of the bench and I stand next to him, with his arm round my shoulders, and I listen.
And I know in an instant that this is what I want to do. I somehow know as a three-year-old what has never left me since: that to listen is to be but to play is to live.
I insist that we leave the garden at once. Granddad's hands are arthritic and they struggle with the gate. I demand that he hurry 'before it's too late'.
"Too late for what?" he asks me fondly.
I grab his hand and show him.
I lead him to the Peabody House which is where the music is coming from. And then we're inside, where a lino floor has recently been washed and the air stings our eyes with the smell of bleach.
Up on the first floor, we find the source of the Paganini concerto. One of the bed-sitting rooms is the dwelling place of Miss Rosemary Orr, long retired from the London Philharmonic. She is standing in front of a large wall mirror, and she's got a violin under her chin and a bow in her hand. She isn't playing the Paganini, though. Instead, she's listening to a recording of it with her eyes closed and her bow hand lowered and tears coursing down her cheeks and onto the wood of her instrument.
"She's going to break it, Granddad," I inform my grandfather. And this rouses Miss Orr who starts and no doubt wonders how an arthritic old gentleman and a runny-nosed boy come to be standing at the door to her room.
But there is no time for her to voice any consternation, for I go to her and take the instrument from her hands. And I begin to play.
Not well, of course, for who would believe that an untrained three-year-old no matter his natural talent could possibly pick up a violin and play Paganini's Concerto in D Major the first time he's heard it? But the raw materials are there within me the ear, the inherent balance, the passion and Miss Orr sees this and insists that she be allowed to instruct the precocious child.
So she becomes my first violin instructor. And I remain with her until I am four and a half years old, at which time it is decided that aless conventional manner of instruction is required for my talent.
So that is the Gideon Legend, Dr. Rose. Do you know the violin well enough to see where it lapses into fantasy?
We've managed to promulgate the legend by actually calling it alegend, by laughing it off even as it is told. We say, Stuff and nonsense, all of it. But we say that with a suggestive smile. Miss Orr's long dead, so she can't refute the story. And after Miss Orr, there was Raphael Robson, who has limited investments to make in the truth.
But here's the truth for you, Dr. Rose, because despite what you may think concerning my reaction to this exercise in which I've agreed to engage, I am interested in telling you the truth.
I am in the garden of Kensington Square that day with a summer play group sponsored by a nearby convent, populated by the infant inhabitants of the square, and directed