Song for a Lost Kingdom, Book I

by Steve Moretti

  As a psychiatrist, Jackie had an unfair advantage. She regularly used techniques to draw out the inner feelings and emotions of her patients. And as a well-preserved woman in her early fifties, already dressed for seduction, this was almost too easy. In just ten minutes, Jackie had gotten Angus to open up about his life’s passion and what he would consider to be the perfect companion.

  “Jacqueline, I’ve never talked to a woman like you before,” he stammered, leaning in, unable to take his eyes off her. “I hope you don’t think me a complete dolt.”

  “Maybe no one’s figured out what makes your engine roar,” she teased, taking a sip of her wine and licking her lips.

  “Noo, you’re right about that,” he responded. “Mah motor’s barely ever been started!”

  WILLIAM COULD BARELY contain himself.

  The items in this little ancient library were an intoxicating elixir of artifacts that connected him directly to the people and events of Kinnaird over the last five hundred years. As he read the list of documents, journals, letters, wills, deeds and maps, each in their own boxed container, he fought against his desire to study them all. He bent down to examine the label of a flat box labeled 10 May 1525 ~ James Strathauchan of Monboddo when his mother shrieked loudly.

  “Will, over haur! Look!” She pointed to a clear plastic container. It was labeled 1765 ~ Sir James Carnegie, 3rd Baronet.

  William rose stiffly and peered up at the container. It looked heavy, and was loaded with papers and books.

  “Hurry,” his mother urged him.

  He knew he shouldn’t be doing this. These were fragile, important documents that should be carefully handled and preserved. They were rare ‘primary sources’ to an historian, akin to a perfectly preserved fossils for a palaeontologist.

  “Mum, this is wrong. We should be getting permission to do this, maybe talk to the owners and do this in a proper way. I don’t know if I can be part of this.”

  He expected a blast back from his mother. But rather than fight, she dropped her head. He could hear her breathing, shallow and strained. Suddenly she seemed small, fragile.

  He rested his hand on her shoulder. She placed her hand on his and looked at him. A long moment of silence followed, before she spoke. “Can you help me?”

  He hesitated thinking about all she’d been through in the course of her life. Was she going to die with her heart broken by her only son?

  “Okay, Mum,” he said, studying the box that might bring his mother some resolution.

  William hoisted it from the highest shelf in the alcove and sat it down on the tiled floor. He opened the lid carefully and set it aside. The documents were divided in two sections. He began looking through them carefully, starting to wonder if this was going to end badly.

  She seemed to sense his doubt. “Ah know it’s thaur, Will. I’ve seen it in mah heid,” said in a tiny voice.

  He kept searching, getting near the bottom of the first stack. And then he saw it - a thin cloth-stitched notebook with faded lettering and an amateur looking rendering of what looked like a stringed instrument. In the corner of the cover page was scrawled lettering:

  Seventeen Hundred and Forty-Five

  William picked it up gingerly and opened the notebook to the first page. It was a handwritten musical score, some of the ink smudged slightly, as if it had been written quickly. He turned a couple of pages and then handed it to his mother, amazed that she had been right all along.

  “I think we found it.”

  5

  THERE WAS KNOCK on the glass door of her office. It opened before Adeena could get up.

  “Dee, drinks after work…” Tara had a way of commanding, even when asking a question.

  Adeena was not as much of a ‘Thank God it’s Friday’ girl as her colleagues were. Although she loved weekends, she didn’t normally see the last day of the working week as a cause for special celebration. But this week was shaping up to be one where she could use some alcohol therapy.

  It had been four days since her audition for the NAC Symphony Orchestra. If not for the Duncan Cello and Philippe’s love-making heroics in her office, this would go down as a week to blot from existence.

  “Yup, I’m down for it,” Adeena said. “Should I ask Philippe?”

  “Sure. Mercury Lounge on the market, after . . .” The phone on Adeena’s desk rang, interrupting Tara. “After work,” Tara said completing her thought. She spun around to leave. “Tell Philippe.”

  “Okay, see you later,” Adeena said, picking up the phone. “Research Services.”

  “Adeena?” It was Walter.

  “Hi Walter, how are you?” she said, worried what news he might be bringing.

  “I’m okay,” he responded. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m fine. So what’s the deal, Walter?”

  There was a long pause. “Well . . . you didn’t quite,” he hesitated. “You didn’t quite make it.”

  Adeena froze.

  “It wasn’t your playing. That was perfection. Friedrich admitted your technique was good, even excellent. But he’s not looking for just any cellist. He wants someone to groom – a soloist, to show off his compositions.”

  “Compositions?” Although she could barely talk, this surprised her.

  “Yeah – supposedly. But his work hasn’t been well-received, to put it mildly. He told me on our tour of the UK last year he spends all of his spare time working on something he thinks is going to be huge.”

  “Really? I wouldn’t have guessed,” Adeena replied, thinking she might have misjudged the stern-faced conductor.

  “Yup. But to tell you the truth, anything he’s brought to the orchestra has been… well, embarrassing.”

  “Did he say anything else, Walter?” She hesitated, “anything else, about me?”

  Silence. She could almost see Walter organizing his thoughts for another one of his Pumpkin pep talks.

  “He did like your outfit,” he finally responded. “And . . .”

  “And what? What did he say?”

  “He just, well, he thinks you’re a little too cute. He said that you’re more about ‘perfect hair and a perfect smile’ and playing Bach in E Flat to impress him,” Walter finally blurted out, as if he needed to purge the poison inside. “But Adeena, he doesn’t know you the way I do. I tried to tell him he was wrong, dead wrong. But he’s very stubborn. He’s decided on two candidates from Europe for the short list.”

  As she listened, Adeena felt her senses numb. Her dream was being crushed and buried. Lost forever. All her hopes for becoming a professional musician were being exorcised from her soul. As she glanced at her tear-stained reflection from the mirror on her desk, she vowed that it was finally, completely, once and for all, over.

  The dream was dead.

  AS TARA WALKED beside her leaving the gallery, talking incessantly about plans for the weekend, Adeena thought she finally understood the whole TGIF thing. But shouldn’t it be TGIF-F?

  Thank God It’s Fucking Friday.

  Tara finally paused long enough to notice Adeena was not listening. “Didn’t you hear me Dee?”

  “What?”

  “This weekend? Montréal? You? Me? Shop till we drop?” Tara was staring intently at her as they waited for the light on Sussex Drive to change so they could cross the street to the ByWard Market.

  “Not sure about that, Tar.”

  “Be–cause?” Tara asked, stretching the word over three paces as they crossed Sussex Drive.

  “I’m planning on canoeing over Niagara Falls.”

  “You’re so melodramatic my dear,” Tara replied. “I’m surprised you chose music and not acting.”

  Adeena stopped when she reached the sidewalk. “I’m not a musician anymore. I’m not really anything. Just your galley slave working the nine-to-five, doing my job while the whole fucking world passes me by.”

  “Would you chill, please?” Tara was getting impatient. “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s over
Tar. I’m giving up on music, putting away my cello. Maybe Philipe will marry me and I’ll produce a family of fat sheep to graze away their lives, waiting for a fun afternoon at the abattoir.”

  Tara winced. “He’s a good man, Dee. Why can’t you see that?”

  “It’s not him Tar, it’s me. I’m the one who’s completely fucked up. I don’t deserve to be with him, let alone be his wife. I don’t think he would want to marry someone who spends all their time trying to get perfect fucking hair anyway!”

  Tara took her hand and started marching down George Street towards the market. “Adeena Stuart. You’re coming with me and I’m getting you piss drunk!”

  THE MERCURY WAS a club Philippe always enjoyed when he had the chance, particularly after a day of wrestling with politicians and their minions on Parliament Hill.

  As a relentless investigative reporter, he had developed a homing instinct that could smell shit from ten thousand feet. His sources on the Hill respected him, and while they did their damnedest to protect their political masters, he always found a way to extract truth from the thin gruel of PR pabulum they tried feeding him.

  Adeena’s text to meet her and Tara at the Mercury was perfect timing.

  He had just filed a story on a government minister who had been handing out favours to his buddies in Toronto. Over three million dollars in contracts for “web-development, social media strategies and communication infrastructure options.” With no deliverable other than a five page PDF report with some pie charts, the Minister knew he was in for some tough sledding.

  Philippe smiled as he walked through the doors of the club, looking for the ladies. Levelling a crooked politician with the truth was an art form all its own. And Philippe had mastered it well.

  Now, if only Adeena was as easy to understand.

  He had put the diamond ring away for now, waiting for the right time to pop the question.

  Maybe this weekend?

  TARA SPOTTED PHILIPPE walking towards them up on the second level. The House DJ was getting warmed up with ska and reggae, easing the happy patrons slowly towards the house rhythms that would rock all three levels of the club as the evening progressed.

  “Philippe!” Tara sang out above the music as she saw him looking around. He raised his arm and smiled.

  Adeena watched him walk towards them and noticed the grin on Tara’s face. Why are people so damned happy all the time she wondered?

  “Bonsoir!” Philippe greeted them as he reached the table. “I love this place!” He gave Tara a hug and pulled a stool beside Adeena, placing a light kiss on her lips before sitting down.

  “You got to help me with this one,” Tara said, leaning in towards Philippe and pointing to Adeena, who scowled at them like Winston Churchill without a cigar. “She needs to get happy!”

  “I absolutely agree,” Philippe nodded as the waiter arrived with a tray of colourful martinis.

  Tara raised her glass and Philippe stood up holding his drink. Adeena reluctantly picked up her own.

  “To the most beautiful women in Ottawa,” Philippe toasted the women, clinking each of their glasses. “Who dance better when drunk!”

  Adeena raised the glass to her lips and let the sweet mango martini begin working its magic. The vodka raced to her brain with a pleasure bomb of welcome relief. In one long gulp she finished the drink and sat back. A smile fought with the frown etched across her face.

  The music was just the right mix of walking bass line and smooth guitar. Philippe seemed so relaxed and Tara was just being herself – glowing like a heavenly body on a starry night. Oh, to be just like those two – ready for the cover of People.

  Adeena’s phone interrupted her thoughts, vibrating on the table. She looked at the name on the display:

  Dad

  She grabbed it, got up and walked away from the table.

  ADEENA HAD A hard time hearing anything her father was saying. She shouted into the phone as she walked towards the exit, trying to get away from the background noise. She finally left the club and moved out onto the street so she could hear him.

  “Give me that again. What did you just say?”

  “We found something here that your grandmother wants to you have,” her father explained again. “It’s a piece of music that’s been lost. Lost for quite a while.”

  There was a pause as Adeena processed this, looking over at the fruit and vegetable vendors packing up for the evening.

  “It’s a score that your grandmother and I found at Kinnaird Castle here in Scotland. It was written more than two hundred years ago, and hidden in a wall in the castle. Until this week.”

  She listened to the words, still not understanding.

  “But Adeena, your grandmother is delirious about it. She insisted I send you the music, by courier.”

  Adeena had a flashback of being in her backyard playhouse as a kid drinking tea with her grandmother. She remembered listening in rapt attention to the details of poor Ashlyn from Grandma's dreams. Adeena shivered listening to the stories, like someone was walking on her grave.

  “Really? Why?” she finally responded.

  “I have no idea. I don’t get it. But she’s not doing well, and getting worse by the second. She’s so stubborn! I had to agree to send this to you before she would even let me call the doctor.”

  “Is she going to be okay?”

  There was a long silence. “I don’t know, but there’s something else, Adeena. I called Walter and told him about the music that I found and said I was sending it to you. He got pretty excited and he had an idea.”

  “Really? What?”

  “He’s going to call Friedrich Lang, you know, the conductor? Walter thinks he can persuade him to let you audition the music for him next week. Maybe give you another chance!”

  A SECOND ROUND of martinis sat on the tiny bar table. Classic style - Tanqueray gin with a splash of dry vermouth, and a ripe olive on a toothpick. Shaken, not stirred please.

  Tara sipped her drink slowly, feeling her normal sensibilities of order and control being subsumed. She leaned in toward Philippe. “So, you didn’t give her the ring?”

  “No. I couldn’t,” he responded, shaking his head.

  “Why? I don’t get it.”

  Philippe sighed and took a sip of his martini. He set it down on the table and moved his head toward her a little, encouraging Tara to do the same. “Because,” he finally replied, “I realized I was only thinking about myself. You know the kind of day she had, with that bastard Lang? And she was so absorbed with that old cello.”

  “The Duncan Cello? Oh shit! I asked her to start researching it right after yoga,” Tara said, resting her face on one hand. “I should have just told her to go home and relax. She spent four months rehearsing for that audition. She must have been bagged. What was I thinking?”

  “Actually, you did her a favour. You should have heard her play that cello. It was magical.”

  Tara’s eyes widened. “She played it? She played the Duncan Cello?” Tara bristled, sitting straight up and crossing her arms. “Oh my God! I absolutely need to kill her!”

  “Why? She said it should be played everyday. Isn’t it a working instrument?”

  “Philippe, do you know how much insurance we had to arrange to bring that cello to the gallery for just three months?” Tara asked, trying to focus against the martini’s dulling effects on her normally razor-sharp mind.

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “Five million dollars!”

  “It’s worth that much?”

  “Damn right! I had to submit a security plan, find a carrier that would give us a policy, even send a letter from the Deputy Minister to Scotland. This is no regular old cello you can just pick on Rideau Street!” Tara fumed, shaking her head in disbelief.

  “Tabernac!” Philippe exclaimed, taking a sip of his drink.

  As if the DJ knew that his patrons needed to forget the working week, the music began morphing. He started a mix with a heavy backbeat, sa
mpling a range of past and present vocal gems, from the Fine Young Cannibals to Junior J. The change came with with a sharp increase in volume. The pounding bass, mixed with familiar notes from the old pop song ‘She Drives Me Crazy,’ began coaxing folks out of their seats onto the dance floor.

  Tara was silenced for the moment. Further talking was useless, unless she wanted to shout like a complete maniac. She sat drinking her martini, her mind racing, wondering how she would deal with Miss Adeena.

  Philippe sat looking at her. She wondered what he was thinking and why this fine male specimen was still a bachelor. If only, she mused, he wasn’t in love with my best friend.

  If only she had the slightest idea of how to find a man like this; a guy who didn’t come straight from the factory where they made an endless supply of jerks so stupid they challenged the theory of evolution. Maybe we’ve reached our peak as a species, and we’re devolving back into apes she thought, draining the last of the martini. She popped the olive into her mouth.

  “Dance?” Philippe shouted standing up, reaching for her hand.

  Tara smiled. “God yes!”

  MUSIC IN THE Mercury pounded throughout the three-level club. It lifted anyone entering the lounge, washed with colour in waves of fluorescent light. Tonight the music was so loud, it blew right out the front door, assaulting anyone walking by.

  Adeena stood under the deserted stall of a fruit and vegetable vendor directly in front of the club, still absorbing the news from her father.

  Her grandmother was sending her a lost musical score hidden in a castle in Scotland. It hadn’t been seen by anyone for three centuries. And maybe, just maybe, she would get to play it next week in a private audition for the music director of the National Arts Centre Orchestra.