If There Is Something

“If There Is Something” is a recurring musical cue associated with a scene in which Victoria’s voice and appearance become almost otherworldly. Its return among the book’s listed songs makes the title part of a musical pattern that accompanies the narrator’s encounters and recollections.

Appearance in the Narrative

The song is identified with a scene in which the narrator hears Victoria singing behind a closed door while a client is in the shower. As the narrator goes to fetch fresh towels, she stops with her ear against the partition, captivated by Victoria’s vocalizations rising above the soft music. When the client catches her listening, he calls Victoria “the grande,” but brushes aside the narrator’s question about what makes her performance so enchanting, saying he does not want to reveal the other women’s specialties.

The narrator finds this discretion striking: the client treats Victoria as a colleague whose particular skill should be protected, whereas the narrator admits she herself is less reserved. The scene turns from sound to image when Victoria appears in the narrator’s imagination with long, almost white hair and a silk robe covered in stars. She becomes a witch riding a white swan at night, an apparition that might vanish in a blink and that the narrator associates with Marc Bolan’s singing.

Recurrence and Significance

The title appears twice in succession beside the same folio reference and is listed again near the end of the book’s sequence of music cues. This recurrence gives the song a place in the novel’s musical structure rather than leaving it as a one-off accompaniment. Its association with Victoria’s voice and uncanny, fleeting appearance supports an atmosphere of enchantment, while the scene’s contrast between the client’s discretion and the narrator’s absorbed curiosity keeps that glamour rooted in the social world of the house.