Wow! Their worlds were more divergent than she had supposed. Adeena needed help alright, but it would probably involve a crack SWAT team from a mental institution.
“Dee, wait, wait!” Tara interrupted Adeena’s story. “Can I be perfectly honest?
“Of course.”
“I am really worried.” Tara strung her works together carefully. “You have a rare gift, and when I saw you that night at the NAC, I realized that I’ve never before appreciated your musical talent. Dee, you’re an artist and you have a career just waiting for you to claim it. A life on stage, performing. You can go as far as you want. I really mean it. You are totally fucking amazing!”
“Thanks, Tar,” Adeena replied in small voice. “So then, why are you worried?”
“Because I think you’re losing touch with reality. You threw away a life with Philippe, and now you’re going to do the same with your career, your future.”
“I wouldn’t have made him happy, Tar. I had to set him free, so he has a chance to find someone else.”
Tara felt a warmth inside. She dared not think of what might be. Her heart was her weakest organ. “You crushed his dreams, Dee. He loved you so much.”
“He’ll be okay,” Adeena said simply. “But there’s another reason I had to break it off, Tar. There’s someone else I care about.”
Tara’s mind raced, fearing the worst. “Not that guy from your dreams, I hope.”
There was a pause on the line. “It’s not a dream,” Adeena said, her voice growing more determined. “I know you have no way of understanding how this could be, and I really don’t get it either, but I need to be with him. He sees what’s inside me and I know it’s probably impossible, but I have to see him again, before it’s too late.”
Tara listened, fighting the programming in her mind that rejected everything Adeena was telling her. First, that she travelled back in time when she played the Duncan Cello, and second that she had the same soul as a woman in the past who was in love with a doomed man. Can something like that reach across time?
“Tar? You still there?”
“Yeah, Dee. I am.” Tara sighed, blowing out her frustration and shaking her head. “Adeena, I really want to believe you. And I want to help you. But I’m just not sure I can.”
“Not sure you can believe me?” Adeena asked. “Or help me?”
“Both.”
AFTER SHE HUNG up the phone, Tara sat staring blankly, looking around her office. She felt beaten, bruised. The long phone call had taken her from the heights of dizzy excitement about the job interview to the depths of a dark world. Her eyes settled on the cello case in her office. She kept the imposter cello here now, not trusting anyone else to guard it.
It seemed to sit there, smiling back at her.
Tara needed to walk. She wandered down to the Art of Rebellion exhibit and watched a crowd admiring the real Duncan Cello. A young couple was taking a selfie with it in the background, and an old man just stood and stared at the old instrument, lost in his private thoughts.
She walked closer as the couple finished with the photo and moved on. She took their place directly in front of the cello. She looked over the old instrument that had become such a central figure of her best friend’s life, and curiously had helped propel Tara’s career to a zenith.
Was there more to the world than she understood?
28
THE BATTLE OF Culloden was horrific. Its deep scars remained long after the savage fifty-three-minute massacre ended on April 16, 1746.
Adeena shivered as she read the article about the bloody battle from the magazine her parents gave her. She shook her head at gloomy pictures of the marshy ground where over a thousand exhausted men rushed to their deaths, holding only swords and shields to meet the onslaught of British cannon and rifle. Why the Prince chose the water-logged moor for his final showdown was mostly unknown and widely debated.
She remembered his boyish charm, and naturally commanding presence. To picture him on this tragic day, with James near the front line of death was something she didn’t want to dwell on. But it was impossible for her to let it go. She grew more infuriated as she read how the Jacobites were near starvation – cold, weak and desperate, while the British army dined on beef and brandy the night before, and approached the whole affair after a hearty breakfast as something akin to a leisurely sporting contest.
What a waste! So much blood, shed for nothing. Had Katharine’s music played a part in this? Inciting men to fight when they should have fled?
She closed the magazine, laid back on her hospital bed and closed her eyes. She saw the Prince at the Drummond Castle ball, appointing the eager James as his lieutenant - young, proud and determined.
“Ready, Adeena?”
She opened her eyes to see the new shift nurse she met this morning. “Ready?”
“Your CT scan. It’s this morning,” the nurse reminded her. “They’re running a little late. Just wanted to check on you. Still okay with the IV?”
Adeena looked at her left arm attached to an intravenous tube. “Yeah. It’s fine.”
“Good. Shouldn’t be too much longer. We’ll take you down to radiology once I get the word.”
“Don’t rush on my account,” Adeena smiled. “If somebody wants my spot, it’s all theirs.”
The nurse grinned. “Back soon.”
Adeena frowned thinking about the procedure. Her physician, Dr. Lochiel, explained they would be doing another session in that awful machine, the CT scanner. She really didn’t like the feeling of lying on the narrow table and being slid into the mouth of the monster.
The doctor mentioned they would use a new dye and a gas that she would inhale while they did the scan. He said it would help them follow the trail of what was going on inside her head, with the growth they still didn’t understand.
Must be a regular wonderland in there, she mused. My brain is totally fucked up. They must so love using me as a guinea pig. She closed her eyes wishing she could be anywhere else right now but here.
“Dee!”
Adeena opened her eyes with a start. “Tar?”
“Special delivery,” Tara said presenting her with a towering Starbucks latté, topped high with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles. “Thought you might like a change from hospital dishwater.”
Adeena sat up on her bed. “Thanks!” She took the cup from Tara, tasted a bit of the whip cream with her tongue and took a long sip of the warm coffee. “Oh! Now that’s heaven, thanks!”
Tara sat on the edge of the bed. She looked at Adeena strangely. The two women said nothing for a few seconds. But Adeena could see a smile on Tara’s face that she hadn’t seen in a very long time. “What’s with you, Tar? Win the lottery?”
“Nope. Better!”
“Huh?”
Tara couldn’t hold it back any longer. “They want me to run the Gallery!” she finally burst out. “You’re looking at the new Director of the National Gallery of Canada. Well ‘Director-designate’ at least.”
Adeena was stunned. She put down her coffee to give Tara a hug, but felt the restraint of the IV tube pulling her arm. Tara leaned in and they did their best to embrace each other. “Congratulations, Tar! Glad I didn’t screw up your career.”
“Not at all! They thought I planned the whole thing. You won’t believe what our little escapade has done for the Gallery. We’re famous!”
Adeena chuckled. “So you’re going to be the big kahuna now. ‘Cause of me?”
“Guess so,” Tara nodded her head still smiling. “I suppose I should thank you.”
“You really should,” Adeena joked before turning serious. “You know I didn’t want to lie to you. It’s hard to explain why, but I felt it was mine to take, and somehow it would be okay.”
Tara only smiled in response to Adeena’s relief. “Tar, you’re going to be a great director. The Gallery is so lucky to have you.”
“Thanks, I appreciate that.” Tara looked down gathering her thoughts for a mo
ment. “Something else though, I need to ask you, to make sure you’re okay with it.”
Adeena took another sip of her coffee. “Okay, with what?”
Before Tara could respond there was a light tap on the door. Adeena looked up and saw Philippe standing just inside the room holding Adeena’s Bam cello case.
DR. BENJAMIN LOCHIEL couldn’t stop fidgeting as he waited beside Dr. Chung. The imaging system was taking forever to complete its calibration cycle.
“We’ll see three-dimensional scans building in real-time with this,” Dr. Chung said, pointing to a display of progress bars on the flat screen that covered almost the entire wall of the tiny control room attached to the radiology suite. “Once we start scanning, the isotopes in her system and the neural gas she inhales will give us a moving picture of what’s happening with the tumour.”
Benjamin looked at his watch. These machines opened a window into the brain he could not have imagined when he started his medical career more than twenty years ago. Now in a few minutes, he would get to see the next generation of imaging technology and maybe, understand how the cells of an explained secondary cortex were multiplying inside his patient’s head.
“You think it’s all going to work?” he asked as Dr. Chung leaned over to start inputting a series of numbers and values into an intimidating-looking screen. There were so many separate windows on the monitor display it looked more like they were attempting to land a man on the moon, than look inside someone’s mind.
“It should,” Chung replied without looking away from the screen. “Give me another few minutes to get this set and then call down for your patient.”
PHILIPPE BARRICADED THE door to Adeena’s room with the back of a chair, as instructed.
Why he was here, involved in all of this, was something he didn’t want to dwell on too much. He was still recovering from last night.
Tara had called him, distraught and needing to talk. He met her at the Gallery, inside her office where he had held her in his arms the night of Adeena’s debut performance.
“Come in, Philippe,” she said. “Thanks for dropping by. I need some advice.”
“No problem,” he said as Tara moved towards him. He held his breath, admiring her as if they had never met before. She came closer and though they would usually embrace in friendship, she stopped just before reaching him.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he replied. “I’ve done a lot of thinking. Adeena’s right. I need to let her go.”
Tara took his hands in hers. She stared at him and he studied her face. Did her eyes look wet? “You’re a good man and I’m so sorry to have to call you with my problems. I have a decision to make, and I just need someone to talk to.”
“Tara, it’s fine.” He wondered if she had felt anything the last time he had been here, in her office, holding and comforting her. It was not something he was proud of, but it was a feeling for her that he had not acknowledged existed within him. Maybe he simply pushed it aside? Or was it just a chemical reaction, a one-sided feeling on his part.
Or maybe, it was nothing.
“Philippe, I…” Tara hesitated, still holding his hands.
Her eyes were wet now. He wanted to hold her. “Shhhh, it’s okay.” He put his arms around her and she moulded herself against him. He could feel her crying, and he pulled her closer. “Let it out, Tara,” he whispered.
She cried and he just held her. Finally, she lifted her head from his shoulder and looked up into his eyes. She whispered, “I care about you. Is that bad?”
“No. No, it’s not bad,” he said gently. “I have to tell you, I felt something too, last time I was here, in your office.”
Her mouth opened and a look came over her he would never forget. It was wonder, joy, hope and regret - all bound together. “I have too, for a long time,” she said simply.
Philippe knew it was true.
He just hadn’t let it get through his armour. Adeena was the wily woman he tried to fashion into what he longed for in a partner, while Tara was always in the background, trying to help him sort it all out. He was rushing so fast head-long into traffic, he never considered how much better it could be going the other way.
Now it was his turn. His eyes teared up. No words came to him.
No words were necessary.
ADEENA SAT STUNNED in her hospital bed, looking at Tara and Philippe holding the Bam cello case.
“You brought the Duncan?” she said in disbelief.
Tara smiled. “I finally realized that colouring inside the lines limits your creativity.”
Philippe opened the case and gently lifted the Duncan Cello. “Tara called me last night and,” he hesitated a second, as if he wasn’t sure how to finish his thought.
Tara jumped in. “And we both agreed that we want to help, even if we don’t completely understand it all.”
“But, isn’t this going to screw things up for you, Tar?” Adeena asked.
“Hey, I’m supposed to be using ‘new thinking’ remember?” she smiled. “And I also decided last night that I’m taking a holiday before I start my new job. If it gets approved, of course.”
“She wants to go to Greece,” Philippe added. Adeena looked at her two friends. Were they blushing?
“You’re going with her?” Adeena smiled.
“If that’s okay with you, Dee?” Tara asked timidly.
“Of course! Yes, yes of course.” Adeena replied. She wondered why she felt no jealousy, no regret, not a single negative feeling. There was only happiness that these two had found each other, and in a way, it was because of her. “You guys deserve a break. Together.”
Tara and Philippe were glowing, and Adeena could almost feel the heat from her bed. But she had no time to dwell on it. She looked up at the clock on the wall, and then down at the catheter in her arm. “Tar, I need your help to get this off.”
Adeena began to pull away at the tape holding the needle. “Just pull this out for me.”
Tara looked horrified. Phillip set the cello aside and stood beside Adeena. “Let me.”
In one swift motion Adeena pulled the tape off and Philippe removed the needle. “My mom’s a nurse,” he said. “I was in the hospital a lot as a kid, and she actually showed me how to do this.” Adeena put the tape back over the vein where the catheter had been inserted into her arm.
“You missed your calling, Philippe,” Adeena grinned. Freed from her restraint, she quickly scrambled from the bed. “I need to play the cello, before they come to get me.”
Tara and Philippe hesitated. Adeena could see doubt in their eyes.
Or was it fear?
“Please,” Adeena pleaded as she reached in the case for her bow. “I need to play. Right now.”
JACKIE WAS STILL upset from fighting traffic getting to the hospital this morning. An accident in one lane of the Queensway backed things up for miles, curious rubberneckers all slowing down to gawk.
She looked at her watch. Damn! She wanted to see Adeena before her procedure. Poor kid had been through so much. A mother-daughter spa day would be good for both of them. Jackie was looking forward to seeing the look on Adeena’s face when she told her it was all set-up for Saturday.
Jackie smiled thinking about it as she approached the room. And then her smiled turned to confusion. She thought she heard music. Faint at first, it grew louder as she got closer to the end of hall and Adeena’s room. Now she could hear it clearly. It was the music Adeena had rehearsed so often at the lake.
As she reached the room, she noticed the door was closed. That’s odd, she thought, knocking lightly before trying to open the door. It was stuck.
“It’s okay, you can go in,” a nurse said as she approached. “We need to take her up to radiology.”
“I can’t seem to open it,” Jackie replied. “It’s stuck somehow.”
“What?” Now the nurse was confused. She tried but couldn’t get the door open. “Ms. Stuart? Can you open the door please?”
/> No response. But the music inside the room seemed to grow louder.
The nurse tried the door again, pushing the handle back and forth. “Open the door. Now!”
ADEENA WAS WARMING up, getting ready to begin her journey.
Tara and Philippe looked on as she played, their faces taut. As Adeena began finally began to play the score, releasing the music inside of her that flowed through every vein, her friends watched carefully. She could see how the music touched them too and she hoped they would find happiness with each other.
Adeena heard muffled voices outside her door. She had to hurry. She closed her eyes and began to play in earnest, concentrating on the movement of her bow across the strings, urging the sound to rise from the cello.
Clouds and fog spun inside her head. The music lifted her from the chair.
And then she was gone…
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Acknowledgements
There are many people to thank for the book you are reading. This has been a team adventure from the beginning.
Song for a Lost Kingdom, Book I Page 32