Lamplight in the Shadows (31 page)

James stood at the open first-floor window and gazed at the scene below. The market place in Bishopsworth was always quiet on a Sunday morning save for a few dog-walkers and the occasional man walking back from the newsagent's with the Sunday papers tucked under one arm.
It is always men who do that
, thought James.
Why don't women collect newspapers?
He continued to stand and idly ponder that question for a few moments before being distracted by the appearance of the road sweeper, diligently clearing the detritus from the previous night's revelling. A light breeze caused a discarded pizza box to scurry across the road, producing an involuntary chuckle from James as the street-sweeper chased after it.

The same breeze brought the sound of the church bells from the local parish church to the window, as the ringers worked their way through their repertoire for half an hour before the morning service. As he listened, the voile curtains fluttered and he imagined them being twitched by the musical notes from the bells as they tumbled into the confines of his living room.

He turned and faced the room. The flat had undergone a recent transformation and looked more homely than its previous bare existence, when it served as nothing more than a place for when he was on-call. Well, almost nothing more. There were also the Thursday afternoons spent with Anna, of course; those magical days of carefree behaviour when nothing seemed to stand between them and their love, and everything seemed possible. He sighed.

It was a little over one month since that horrific Saturday morning with Janice. His mind rewound to the scene of destruction and he shuddered. Bad though it was, it could all have ended so horribly. After she left, he sat for an indeterminate time on the floor of the master bedroom, staring at the empty landing where Janice had only a short time earlier run amok. He had never previously known such rage, especially not directed at him. Time having passed, and with no sign of Janice returning, he had finally quelled his palpitating heart and stilled his tremulous hands, gathered his thoughts, cleared the mess of splintered wood from the carpet, removed the broken blade from the door and deposited the rubbish in the dustbin. He then retrieved two large holdalls and a suitcase from the loft, filled them with his clothes and loaded them into his car. A box of books and essential paperwork followed. Lastly, he took a walk around the small house, touching various items of furniture – the two-seater sofa, the armchairs, the folded dining table that had seen so little use – they all contained memories; memories of a life of naïve hope and expectation; a story whose planned ending was now not to be. With one final look behind him, he had closed the front door, the distinct click of the Yale lock adding a touch of finality to his departure.

Since then, the Bishopsworth flat had become his home. He had not seen Janice again. Nonetheless, he had managed to arrange collection of his upright piano and a few more books by a local removal firm. Somewhat surprisingly, they had arrived one week ago, the books intact and the piano undamaged. He had harboured visions of the books having been torn or something noxious poured into the workings of the piano; but nothing of the sort had happened. Perhaps it was the fact that he had offered to leave everything else for Janice without a fight and no need for recourse to solicitors. Whatever the reason, the piano now stood against the far wall of the living room of the flat, next to a slightly battered MFI shelving unit he had paid the less-than-exorbitant sum of £3 for at the local charity shop. Next to the piano, the shelves contained his only other treasured possessions: the numerous books that had accompanied him for years from home to medical school, then through the various hospital accommodations of his junior doctor years. They were like old and trusted friends.

The thought of them made him walk across to the shelves, where he idly touched the spines of several books.
The
Story of San Michele
by Axel Munthe – a book given to him by his father when he had started medical school.
Anna Karenina
by Tolstoy – that he had taken a whole year to read, from one summer to the next, whilst in his second student year, it being his means of escaping from the complexities of the medical texts and relaxing him to sleep.
Doctor Zhivago
by Boris Pasternak – the tale of beleaguered love and anguish of an aristocratic poet-doctor; a tale that ends in sorrow, causing James to hold the firm belief that there was scope for an author to write a happy sequel for it. He had seen the film of the book several times and was always affected by the haunting strings of ‘Lara's Theme'. He paused, his finger still on the spine of the book, and glanced towards the piano. Somewhere in the pile of sheet music perched on the top was…

He walked to the piano and started to thumb through the pile of music scores, some new, some partially held together by yellowing pieces of peeling Sellotape. He knew that somewhere amidst the pages was the score for ‘Lara's Theme', rewritten for solo piano. The stack contained all types of music: assorted popular songs alongside Scott Joplin rags, Mozart concertos, Bach's preludes, Chopin's
Interludes
, Beethoven's
Moonlight Sonata,
and many more
.

Abandoning his search for ‘Lara's Theme', he opened the lid to the piano's keyboard and placed the score for
Moonlight Sonata
onto the music ledge, securing it in place with the little brass clips. After straightening a loose leg of the rickety piano stool, which he had been meaning to wood-glue for such a long time, he sat down, adjusted the stool's distance from the keys and pedals, and stared at the music in front of him. It had been a long time since he had played anything on the piano, his life with Janice not being the easiest of circumstances in which to find the available space to indulge in such passions. He felt the keys under his fingers and imagined the tune's rise and fall.

He could still recollect the first time he had heard the
Moonlight Sonata
played. He had been about twelve at the time and someone had played it as a part of a concert at his parish church where he was a chorister. He had listened from his seat in the front row of the choir stalls, mesmerised as the strains of the piano had lifted into the space of the church and, as if on cue, the cloud of the night's sky had cleared to reveal the image of the moon beyond the clear glass of a window in the transept. It was a magical moment and one that had moved him to learn to play the piano.

The memory of being in a church brought his thoughts back to the present and he realised that the bells had stopped ringing. He glanced at the clock and imagined what would be taking place in the church at that moment. It was now many months since he had attended a service. He had tried to go a few Sundays previously, but got no further than inside the porch. For some reason, he could not bring himself to enter the church itself. It was an overwhelming sense of insincerity that had stopped him in his tracks, a feeling that he did not really belong there anymore, and without really making a conscious decision, his legs had simply turned his body and taken him away into the wilderness. At least that is where he now saw himself: a one-time disciple of Christ cast into the wilderness for his sins, all thoughts of the priesthood fast receding like a banished memory.

Somewhere in the distance, a telephone rang. He was unsure whether it was from the flat above or the one next door. All he knew was that it was not his. He glanced towards where it sat quietly on the floor next to his solitary armchair, as though he half-expected it to be moving if it was ringing.

The thought of a telephone brought his mind to the subject of Anna. Anna who had been so much of the journey that had brought him to this day. Anna who had occupied his mind during so many waking hours over the past few years. Anna whose lips he could still sense from that day under the umbrella in Lincoln. Anna who had reacted badly to his veiled accusation that she might have been behind the telephone call to Janice on that fateful day in April, vehemently and tearfully protesting her innocence. He did believe her, although he was still uncertain as to who might have made the call. In some ways, they had done him a favour, precipitating a speedier resolution to his departure from Janice than might otherwise have been the case. Nonetheless, the accusation had inevitably hurt Anna and she had retreated for a brief while, emotionally bruised. He subsequently sought her out and apologised, an apology that was, in the event, readily accepted. What she could not so easily accept was his desire to be sure of his own feelings and future intentions. How, she had asked, could they have travelled so far together for him not to now know his own mind? From her position, the question was clear. He had to make a decision between her unquestioning love or his love for God. However, he knew that, for Anna, sharing him with God was not an option.

From somewhere far away, the opening strains of the
Moonlight Sonata
interposed and blended with his thoughts until he realised that it was his own hands that had involuntarily started playing. He glanced at the music, found his position, and started the rhythmic rise and fall of the pedal to accompany the phrasing. His body gently moved with the flow of Beethoven's hauntingly beautiful melody. Of course, he knew Anna was right; he had told her as much, but that final decision was one that only he could make. In his own mind he thought he knew the right way forward; he just needed to be absolutely certain before he shared his decision with her, as this time there could be no turning back. He flicked the page and the music flowed on towards the final cadence of the first movement. Somehow, the power of the music brought clarity to his mind. Yes, he thought, he had never felt so certain; he indeed knew what he needed to do. He would telephone Michael Ewing in the morning and afterwards contact Luke Palfreyman to discuss his plans. His mind set, he played the two ultimate chords
sostenuto
, listening with contentment as they faded into the soft silence of the Sunday morning.