Shadow Music

by Elisabeth Rose

“I finally wrote to Jessica. I found her address in the phone book and got a reply a month later. She’d been away. I must have kept missing her at first because as Celia had said she was in London at the time when I tried to call but had gone abroad for three weeks shortly after. She agreed to meet me…I think she and Celia had discussed me and decided I was all right. We met in a restaurant for afternoon tea. My hair had grown quite long and I tied it back so as not to look too wild and I wore a suit. I don’t always look like this.”

  His glance must have been anxious because Nina grinned. She didn’t seem to mind how he looked but then she wasn’t a seventy-year-old English lady fairly recently widowed.

  “She remembered the music. George had come across it in his mother’s things. They lived in George’s family house and the attic was chock full of suitcases and boxes and crates—sounded like the cliché of an attic, the sort of place the Famous Five would find clues. Every now and again they would have a go at clearing some of the stuff out. Jessica said she was sure they would find some priceless antique or a Rembrandt or something but they never did. She’s a terrific woman, Jessica, bags of energy and a great character. She’d been hiking up mountains in Switzerland when she was away.

  Her mother-in-law was a pianist and all her music was up there, along with other bits and pieces from George and Jessica’s children, who had taken up and dropped music lessons all through their childhood, apparently.

  The music, our music, was in a box of his grandfather’s. That’s Stanley West.

  It caught George’s eye because it was handwritten and he thought it may have been an original composition by Stanley. Naturally he wanted to play it and took the parts along to the next rehearsal of the quartet.”

  “That didn’t go well,” Nina put in.

  “No. Jessica remembered how distraught he’d been when he came home that night. He was terribly upset, she said. She couldn’t understand it and he couldn’t tell her why either. She said it was really peculiar and she was frightened because George was normally a calm, rational man not given to great emotional outbursts. He told her about trying to play the music and she asked him to play it for her. They were amazed by the effect it had on them both. She wanted him to keep playing it but he refused. He must have had a very strong will.”

  “Or he wanted to protect Jessica. Maybe he sensed it was dangerous. Maybe George wrote on the violin part!” Nina sat bolt upright, eyes shining with excitement.

  “Maybe. Jessica didn’t mention that either. She said he was quite adamant that the music be destroyed.”

  “But he couldn’t.”

  “No, that’s what she said. Something, some force, prevented him from actually tearing the paper or throwing it into the fire. He wanted Jessica to do it but she refused point blank. She told me she has no idea why she felt so strongly about preserving a piece of music that she’d only heard once but whatever the reason she suggested he separate the parts if he wanted to stop it being played. George agreed and together they put the cello and flute parts into some other music books in different boxes. That’s where I found them. I’m not sure if they knew they were in with music for the same instrument. I wonder…”

  “But how did I get the violin part and where’s the score? And the guitar part?”

  “Jessica said George split the parts, he thought irrevocably, by sending one to Australia and one to New Orleans. He sent the most powerful, the most dangerous, the violin part furthest, to Australia, but the score and the guitar parts must be important as well. She didn’t know which he sent where and she was sure he’d only sent two overseas envelopes so maybe he sent the others to New Orleans. Seems unlikely though, doesn’t it?”

  “Sending two to the same place?”

  “Yes, especially when he’d gone to so much trouble to separate the rest.”

  “And Jessica didn’t know what happened to the guitar part and the score?”

  “She had no idea.”

  “Did he hear the voices, did she say?”

  “He wouldn’t tell her. He kept insisting the music be destroyed and wouldn’t rest until he was rid of it.”

  “He must have.”

  “Yes. Doesn’t make sense otherwise.”

  Sense? What was he saying? Sense, like Elvis, had long ago left the building.

  “Why did he send the music to Australia and America? And who to? He didn’t just write ‘Anybody, Australiaʼ and post it, did he? Come to think of it that would have effectively got rid of it.”

  “You’re right. It’d sit in the dead letter office forever. No. He sent it to friends and told them to get rid of it. I spoke to the friend here in Sydney, I rang him, and he said he’d shoved it in a box in the garage and forgotten about it and then a few months ago had had a clear out and sent it along to a church fete. That was after he got over his surprise at some English nutter ringing him out of the blue to ask about something that happened over twenty years ago. I’m amazed he remembered but he said it was such an odd thing George had done that it stuck in his mind and he never got a satisfactory answer from George himself. I didn’t enlighten him either. He said the music arrived in a sealed envelope which George asked him not to open and he hadn’t, but his son did when they were getting everything together to take to the church fete.”

  “Which is where I found it. Wow.” Nina shook her head. “It’s amazing.”

  “I was incredibly excited when he told me he’d handled it or at least his son had, so recently. I decided then and there to come here to find it. It didn’t seem crazy at the time, it seemed the next logical step and I booked my ticket as soon as I got off the phone. He gave me his address but I didn’t tell him I was coming to Sydney. I thought I’d ring when I got here and talk to the son, John.”

  “What about the New Orleans envelope?”

  “Jessica gave me the person’s name but they only had a PO box number and she had long ago lost touch with them.”

  “But when did you play for your yoga teacher?”

  “While I was waiting for Jessica to reply. I’ve made it seem sort of like a detective story but you must remember that all the time the voices were there every time I played and I had this terrific compulsion to keep listening to them. It’s close to eight months now but it’s incredibly frustrating because I kept getting the same snippets of conversation. Jasper would say, ‘She’s dead, man.’ Piers would yell, ‘No, no. She will live.’ Jasper would yell hysterically, ‘Piers, she’s gone.’ Piers would scream, ‘Mira.’ And then start cursing Jasper and Michael and Jasper would say again, ‘She’s dead.’ And it would go on like that. It still does.

  I don’t know if that’s what my yoga teacher heard or if that’s what anyone else heard—Sylvia or Charlie or George. I thought my yoga teacher might be able to help me through meditation. She was more advanced at it than I am. Maybe I should have gone to a clairvoyant, too. Should go to a clairvoyant,” Martin corrected.

  “My Tai Chi instructor suggested it.”

  “I always think psychics are such frauds. There are lots of them in London, at all the street markets with their cards and their beads and scarves and all that paraphernalia. What a joke.”

  “Mine wasn’t like that. She was very ordinary. I didn’t say anything about why I’d come and she rabbited on about how I would meet the tall, dark man, a traveller and there was love involved. Also a mystery, but she couldn’t say exactly. Standard stuff, I imagine. Not a word about the music or the extra voice in my head. Not that I really expected anything.” Nina stopped. She stared at him with a new awareness in her face. A frown passed across her brow like a shadow but she didn’t say anything.

  “Nina. It’s real. We both know that.” Martin drank the last of his beer. “I’d booked a ticket for ten days ahead, just enough time to get organised and talk Sven into staying in my flat. I had no idea what I would do when I got here. The flight was hellish.

  I felt like a zombie and it’s so hot here even at night. It was sleeting in London when I le
ft. I got the train into the city in the late afternoon and sat in that park, is it Hyde Park? Lay on the grass, actually and went to sleep with all the other odds and sods there. I didn’t mean to I was trying to get my head together and work out what to do and the trees and grass and sunshine were so inviting after that plane trip. I meant to look for a cheap hotel but I woke up early in the morning, yesterday morning, and eventually found a café to have breakfast and a kind of wash. It was too early to find a hotel room so I phoned George’s friend, Alan. I wasn’t even sure what day it was because of the time difference.”

  “It’s Thursday today.”

  “Thanks. I know now, actually, because I read your newspaper. Luckily Alan was home, he’s retired, of course, and he gave me his son’s number and I got onto him at work. John ran the stall all day and remembered you because you flirted with him and you were pretty.”

  “What? I did not. You’re making that up!” Equally amused and outraged, but Martin wasn’t sure at which part of his report.

  “I’m not. That’s what he said. He remembered you were really taken with that handwritten part and particularly the writing on it. He said he would never forget the look on your face when you touched the music, as if the page attached itself to you. You looked as if you’d finally found something you’d lost. You bought it, of course. You’d told him where you worked and there you were.”

  Like an angel standing behind that counter in her pale blue summer dress smiling at something her colleague had said. He knew instantly she was the one.

  “And here we are. Martin, that’s an amazing story. It’s unbelievable.”

  “I know. But it’s true.”

  Martin stared into her eyes. Brown eyes unwaveringly met his. Both knew what the next step was, fearful though it might be.

  “You said earlier that you know their names and how many there are and what they talk about but…who are they and what do they want? Why choose us?” Her voice quavered on the last words. “Why are we suitable?”

  “I have absolutely no idea.”

  He stood up and held out his hands to her. She grasped his fingers and rose to her feet. Her hands were warm, slightly moist. She looked up into his face with those beautiful dark brown eyes and he couldn’t resist. He kissed her gently on the lips and she accepted the kiss for what it was, a gesture of solidarity and acknowledgment that they were in this together, even though the touch of her mouth on his nearly smashed his self restraint into tiny pieces.

  “You know what we have to do, Nina?”

  She nodded. “I’ll get my violin.”

  Martin squeezed her fingers without taking his eyes from hers. “I’ll get my flute.”

  Nina followed him to the spare room where he opened his suitcase. He withdrew a large envelope from the compartment inside the lid and produced the two parts. She opened the wardrobe where she stored her music and took the page off the top of the pile. It tingled against her fingertips, with repressed excitement this time but she handed it to him wordlessly, fighting the reluctance which almost overcame her.

  Martin studied the handwritten warning across the top. She’d forgotten he’d never seen it before.

  “Jessica would recognise George’s handwriting,” he said.

  Nina gritted her teeth and almost snatched it back, unaccountably and overwhelmingly terrified he would take the music, her music, away from her.

  “I won’t keep it, Nina,” he said calmly and began to unpack his flute.

  “I’m sorry,” she muttered, ashamed. If anyone understood this obsession, Martin did. She took out her violin. Her stomach churned with apprehension. Two instruments, what power may be unleashed? What danger? Martin had played two parts together and survived but he hadn’t heard the violin part.

  “What do you think will happen?” Despite her best efforts her voice wobbled.

  “I’m not sure. I played two parts but they were the flute and cello. Your part is going to make it completely different. Piers is the leader.”

  “I’m not a very good player.” Her violin was slippery in her fingers.

  Martin was a highly trained, professional musician. What would he think of her meagre, amateurish ability? He smiled. “Piers doesn’t seem to mind. He chose you to play it, didn’t he?”

  Nina fiddled with the tuning pegs on her instrument. It sounded ridiculous stated so plainly. She hadn’t even hinted to Martin how she felt about Piers. “I don’t know why he didn’t pick a better violinist.”

  “It must be a combination of factors that coincide in you.”

  “We won’t be able to play for very long. It’s after eight thirty now, I don’t want to upset Florence. She’s my next door neighbour. She doesn’t mind but…”

  “Nina.” Martin put his flute on the bed and rested his hands on her shoulders. Strength flowed into her body through his fingers. “It’ll be all right. I know how to control this and so do you. I’ll be here. I’ll stop it if it gets too…” He hesitated, searching for the right word.

  “Scary? Out of control? But Martin what if you can’t?” Nina stared up at him. “It might be too powerful. Piers might…” But she didn’t know what Piers was capable of.

  He squeezed her shoulders. “Trust me.”

  She gazed into his eyes for long seconds until Martin dropped his hands and turned to pick up his flute.

  “Do you have two music stands?”

  “No, but I know the first section by memory,” said Nina. “We can fold my part so I can read the last page. They should both fit then.”

  “Right.” Martin arranged the music carefully. The flute part was written in the same hand as the violin but with the occasional bars rest. The second section looked far less complicated than hers.

  He played a few scales to warm his flute and the lush, silvery sound flowed into the room. He was very good, far better than she would ever be. They tuned their instruments together, made some subtle adjustments. Martin drew a deep breath.

  “Ready?” One last look at Nina. She nodded.

  As soon as the first notes sounded the music flowed effortlessly with an instant rapport, an instinctive understanding of the other’s sense of phrasing and nuance. Piers spoke almost immediately. He was pleased, and for the first time Nina heard another voice she assumed must be Jasper’s. He was reluctantly agreeing to something Piers wanted him to do, something connected with Mira, of course, but all she heard were snippets as if it were a bad phone connection.

  Piers said, “Aaahh. This is the way. The powers grow stronger.”

  Then, “Do this for me, Jasper. You must. The music is the key. It is better now. This will work.”

  Jasper said, “It’s madness.” Then, “You have no right.”

  Piers answered, “For Mira. If not for me, for Mira.”

  Jasper. “I’ll try…It’s madness.”

  Piers. “You must.”

  Jasper. “Very well…She’s dead…It can’t work.”

  Piers. “Golden Dawn knows the method…”

  They reached the end of the slow melody and began the difficult section. Martin had no trouble at all with the notes where Nina struggled. Piers willed her on but he faded as she reached her black spots.

  “I just can’t get this bit right.” She dropped her bow in despair and lowered her violin as the room came back into focus.

  Martin stopped abruptly. “What did you hear?” Breathless, eager.

  “I heard Jasper for the first time. Piers wanted him to do something and he didn’t want to but then agreed finally. Piers sounded pleased with me.”

  “With you?” Martin’s eyebrows rose. “Does he speak to you? Personally? I thought Jasper was speaking to me at first but now I think I’m listening in, sort of an eavesdropper on their conversations.” Was that a trace of envy, jealousy in his voice?

  “He does in a way. I’m an eavesdropper as well but I know he knows I’m there playing for him. He encourages me to keep playing…he does speak directly, sometimes.” A flush warmed
her neck. She laid her violin in its case, turning away from the intensity of his gaze.

  “What? What does he say?”

  Nina licked her lips, closed the lid on her violin and snapped the catches. Too intimate. Piers spoke to her. He chose her, not Martin. His love was for her. She wouldn’t share those words. Something else. She turned around.

  “I was with my ex boyfriend. We were in the hallway right outside the door and I wanted to come back in here and keep playing. The music seemed to beckon me…” She stopped, face burning now. Was it guilt at the prevarication or because he might assume she thought Piers was referring to him? Did she think that? Not at the time.

  “Tell me, Nina.” Irritated.

  “Gordon was…well, he kissed me and Piers said quite distinctly, ‘Not him. He’s not the oneʼ.ˮ The words tumbled out in a heap, giving him no chance to interrupt. “I was terrified. I couldn’t believe it. He could have been right beside me it was so loud, close. That’s when Gordon told me I was crazy and stormed out. And when I decided to ask for help.” She finished in a shaky whisper.

  Martin stepped forward without a word and drew her into his arms. Nina rested her head on his chest and sighed.

  “I’m so glad you found me, Martin,” she whispered.

  “So am I.”

  “What did you hear?” Nina lifted her head but stayed in his arms. Nothing had felt so secure for months.

  “Piers. Much the same but stronger. As if he’d gained in power. But…to me he sounds…threatening. He wanted Jasper to do something in connection with Mira but he wasn’t nice about it. He said something I hadn’t heard before…Golden Dawn. Have you heard that?”

  “Yes a couple of times. I heard it too. What is it? It sounds like a brand of butter.” Nina stepped from his embrace, reluctantly. His hand slid down her back as he released his hold.

  “I don’t know. Do you want to play any more tonight?”

  “No. It’s funny, the compulsion isn’t as strong with you here. Do you feel that?”

  “You’re right. Perhaps we’ve diluted it. Can we Google Golden Dawn?”

  “I’m not online at home but I do have an encyclopaedia.”