Ocarina Davenport and the Magic CD

Ocarina Davenport walked into my office with no fanfare one Monday morning, nearly ten years ago now. She seemed nervous and pale, but I’m used to that - when you’re one of the top A & R men in the business, people are always a bit tense. They know you have the power to fulfil their pathetic dreams - or crush them without a second thought.

  My first impressions of her were poor. She was hardly Rock Goddess material. Short and a bit plump, with glasses and lank hair. A bit like a dark version of Thelma from Scooby Doo. She held a demo CD clutched tightly in one sweaty hand, and couldn’t seem to stop blinking.

  “Bryan told me you had something special for me to listen to,” I said encouragingly. Might as well give the girl a break.

  “Yes…Yes, it is special,” she said with a funny little catch in her voice, and handed it over.

  I popped it in the CD player and leant back in my chair, folding my arms behind my head.

  I had been expecting something singer-song writery. Something dreadfully earnest and acoustic. Or maybe something dreadfully earnest and electronic - the kid looked like a geek. What I wasn’t expecting was chaos. A huge roar of white noise, like every instrument in an orchestra playing at once, at top volume. I winced and reached towards the CD player to turn the damn thing off, when a little whispery thread of melody caught my attention, like a tiny silver sliver of sunlight. I listened through to the end, and followed that sweet sad little melody as it wove in and out of the angry overbearing noises that threatened to engulf it at any moment, but somehow never did. It seemed to me to be saying something amazingly profound, but I wasn’t quite sure what. When the track had finished I was surprised to find my face wet with tears.

  I looked up at the girl. “Wow.” I said.

  “Yes.” She said, and smiled wryly, a bit more confident. “Now listen to it again.”

  I gave a little smile of my own at her presumption, but nonetheless pressed the play button once more.

  If I had been surprised last time, this time I was astonished. I had been holding myself ready for that first blast of white noise, but it never came. Instead, the single voice of an oboe played a jaunty rising and falling melody that reminded me of a stream burbling through a placid summer meadow. After a few seconds other instruments joined in, fleshing out the scene. It was no less impressive than the other track (hold on - the CD only HAD one track on it…), just different in mood, altogether lighter and more playful.

  “What the…?”

  She giggled at my baffled expression. “Just play the track again,” she suggested.

  The third time the track was sober and elegiac, almost icy, yet with an underlying wistfulness. Again, I got the feeling that the music was trying to convey something timelessly profound, but it was just beyond my reach.

  All in all, I played that same one track CD fifteen times that morning. Each time it was totally different. Each time it was totally wonderful. Ocarina watched me with growing amusement.

  “How the HELL did you - ?”

  “I think that’s enough for now,” she said, all trace of her previous nervousness gone, and reached over and removed the CD from the player. She scribbled down an address on a bit of paper and pushed it across the desk at me.

  “Meet me here, Saturday, at noon sharp,” she said, and was off and out the door before I had a chance to question her further.


I stared at the address she had given me. Davenport House, Bingham, Surrey. Blimey! She must be one of the Davenport kids! But they were all supposed to have disappeared or something weren’t they? It had been in the papers a couple of years ago. I hadn’t paid it much attention at the time. I pressed the intercom button and told my secretary: “Everything you can find on the Davenport mystery. On my desk by tomorrow morning.”

  It made extraordinary reading. Miles Davenport, last son of a family of gently fading nobility, had been a maverick from the start. Whilst his older, sensible brother, Arthur, had devoted himself to the estate, Miles had run wild - there were stories of orgies, drug-taking, gambling…the usual…culminating in his departing for America in disgrace at the tender age of 24. When he reached the States he became embroiled in a religious cult and had no contact with his family for several years. In fact he would probably have stayed over there for good, had events not taken a tragic turn. Arthur lost control of his Land Rover whilst driving his parents on a day trip to the seaside, and ploughed into a wall, killing all three instantly. Miles lost no time in returning to take up his inheritance.

  Then things started to get weird. The village gossips had a field day as Miles installed more and more women in the family mansion. He had a harem of over a hundred, some of whom, to the consternation of the villagers, looked “foreign”. It seemed he was set on replicating his American lifestyle, and bringing a little bit of dodgy spirituality to the Surrey countryside. They kept to themselves, though. No one was allowed in or out and deliveries were left at the end of the drive. Later, when children began to be born, the same isolation applied to them too. Several private tutors were engaged to school his growing army of kids - they also entered the estate, and didn’t come out again.

  After a while, the villagers got used to it, and Bingham life continued its normal placid round - until one day the grocery delivery boy noticed that the gates - usually padlocked shut - were slightly open and swinging gently to and fro in the breeze. He went inside, only to find the entire place deserted. The police investigation could find no evidence of foul play, everyone had just…vanished.

  Well, well, well. Roll on Saturday.


I turned up at the wrought iron gates of Davenport House at noon sharp, as instructed. Ocarina led me up the overgrown drive and through the hall into the library. The walls were plastered with photos of Miles Davenport and his “brides” and children. It struck me yet again how totally unprepossessing he was. A shock of ginger hair, slightly goofy teeth and bad acne. How someone like that could have managed to pull all those stunning women was beyond me. Well, maybe the family fortune had helped - or a little bit of friendly brainwashing.

  “Through here,” she said and led me through a side door into a large room. She switched on the light and I was impressed to find myself in what would have been, five years ago, a state of the art recording studio.

  I waited.

  “Daddy had a vision, you see,” she said eventually. “A world orchestra.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Let me explain.” She paused. “You must have thought my name a little odd, eh? Well there wasn’t only an Ocarina Davenport, but an Oboe Davenport, a Timpani Davenport, a First Violin Davenport - getting the picture? Daddy bred himself an orchestra. A world orchestra. He took a wife from every country in the world and slept with them until they conceived. Then he raised us up to play the instruments we were named after. From the moment we were born we were taught music. We were immersed in it.”

  I was stunned.

  “I was the youngest,” she continued, “so by the time he got to me all the best instruments were gone.” She looked a little sad. “I never quite got into my instrument like the others did…maybe that’s why I didn’t…when the others transformed…left…I couldn’t quite…I wasn’t ready...” I thought she was going to cry. “It’s been so lonely here by myself.”

  She stopped for a moment and pulled herself together. “But I’ve been practicing hard and now I think I can follow them.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t expect you to. You couldn’t.”

  “And the CD?”

  “Recorded here in this very room. The only recording of the World Orchestra ever made - that’s why I got in touch with you. I’m ready to leave now, but I think our music could do people good. I think it needs to be heard. You’re the person to make that happen. Do you think you’re up to it?”

  “Oh, I think so,” I replied dryly. Music like that would virtually sell itself. And in that one CD I had an infinite supply of it. I was going to make a fortune. I was going to be the most successful A & R man this planet had ever known.

  “Then that’s settled. Here you are.” She handed me the CD and I accepted it with trembling hands. “Now if I could ask you to leave the room?” She took an ocarina from her pocket and looked at me impatiently.

  I walked out into the library, still a bit bewildered, but thanking my lucky stars. She poked her head round the studio door. “Oh, nearly forgot! Don’t, whatever you do, EVER play the CD backwards…”

  I nodded dumbly and she closed the door. After a few seconds the sweet bird like tones of an ocarina began to filter through it, played with uncommon skill. The sound gradually faded until there was nothing but silence. I opened the door. Ocarina was gone.

  There’s not really much more to tell. I drove back to London and the first thing I did was visit a sound engineer pal of mine and get him to play the CD backwards. I didn’t even agonise over it. I just HAD to know. Immediately. Curse my stupid curiosity.

  The sound that came out was a soul destroying dirge. The exact opposite of everything that I had heard in my office nearly a week ago; the life, the beauty, the hint of profound secrets. Worse, when I went to play the CD forwards again, all that came out was a sad hiss. The CD would now only play backwards, track after track of terrifying banality and leaden mediocrity.

  Well, I tried to make the best of a bad job. I found a group of likely lads and put out the backwards versions in their name, never expecting it to get anywhere, but feeling I had to make the effort, for Ocarina’s sake.

  It was a surprise to everyone at the record company, myself most of all, when the album was a resounding success. Maybe humanity wouldn’t have been ready for the World Orchestra, maybe the backwards version was all it deserved. That’s what I try to tell myself when I wake up in the middle of the night, screaming.

...And after all, the whole experience wasn’t a total loss. I’m a multimillionaire now and “Coldplay”, as I called the band, are just about to start their second world tour…