Chapter 8
The following morning Alex is up and out of the house before Jake is up. He wakes late, feeling groggy, and makes himself coffee. He rings the office to check in with his boss, and tries to concentrate on preparing for a court case that he is handling for one of his corporate clients.
He manages to work steadily for a couple of hours, but memories of his dream from last night keep surfacing. He stops to clear his head, has a shower, and takes a sandwich back to his desk. He works for another hour, but increasingly finds if difficult to concentrate. The sense of a man being in the house with him that was so strong in the night has gone; but it has been such a common feeling over the last few weeks, he knows it is only a matter of time before it comes back. He is anxious, waiting for it to happen. And somehow Alex is involved. And he realises that the man is Danny. Danny is looking for Alex, she is somehow in danger. Or is it Lizzie that he is looking for? Jake has been wary about describing to Alex the feelings in detail, but she is aware that something is wrong. Up until now there has never been anything that he couldn’t talk to her about. All they know about Danny is that he was a cellist and music scholar, he had lessons from Lizzie, and presumably he fought in the trenches.
Jake checks through his emails to make sure there is nothing urgent, and heads back down to the kitchen. He makes more coffee, and texts Alex to ask her if she can pick up some milk on the way home from teaching.
– – –
Danny goes back into the chapel and takes his cello out of its case. There’s a bench not far from Lizzie’s grave, and he sits down and starts to play. He doesn’t need the music, he knows it by heart; the song she gave to him. He plays it through once, and then starts at the beginning and plays it again. More slowly this time, and differently, improvising as he plays, making the phrases longer, sadder, a variation on the original. He switches to a minor key, slowing it down further until the original tune is lost and it becomes a series of slow discordant phrases.
He stops playing, and for a few minutes it is quiet. He carefully puts down the cello, picks a handful of wild flowers from the long grass at the side of the graveyard and places them on Lizzie’s grave. And then he carefully removes the strings from the cello and the bow and returns the instrument to its case in the chapel.
He removes the rope from the old flagpole in the corner of the churchyard. Methodically he doubles up the length of rope to strengthen it, and winds the lengths together, knotting it at each end. He then twists the strings from the cello and the horsehair from the bow into a loop and secures it firmly to the end of the rope. He climbs half way up one of the yew trees at the entrance of the churchyard. Standing on one branch he throws one end of the rope over a branch a few feet higher up. He secures the free end to the branch he is standing on. He checks his knots carefully, and then without pausing places the loop around his neck and steps off the branch.
– – –
Jake takes his coffee out onto the terrace, needing fresh air. It isn’t really warm enough to sit outside, but he stands for a few minutes looking over the garden. Alex won’t be back for a while yet.
He can hear the sound of the cello playing; but not close, not in the house. The timbre is different, suggesting that it is being played outside. It is coming from further up the hill, notes floating on the wind. He can’t hear it clearly enough to recognise what is being played. He goes back into the kitchen, shutting out the sound. Danny is there with him. Danny is on edge, waiting for someone. He has been searching for someone, it seems, for years. Searching for Lizzie. Waiting for her, expecting to see her, but she is never quite in reach. Jake is watching a film of Danny’s thoughts, seeing what Danny is trying to see. He can see the school, the house, the burned out remains of the conservatory. He can see music on a stand, a bench in a graveyard. A woman is in the film, it could be Alex or Lizzie but she is out of focus. Jake holds onto the kitchen table to stop himself from falling. He shuts his eyes and tries to stop the pictures in his head. His pulse is racing. The film is still playing but the images are breaking up, and he feels as if he has been watching it for ever. The woman fades, almost into the grey background. His phone pings, an incoming text, but he doesn’t move. And the image in his mind strengthens, coming into focus. If he concentrates surely it will become clear. He can hear a soundtrack, music, laughter, can sense the shape of a smile. It is Lizzie, and she is laughing and coming towards him.
– – –
Alex puts her shopping onto the passenger seat of the car, and pulls out her phone. She texts Jake to say she is on her way home, puts her phone down, and reverses out onto the road. She drives off, heading towards the school, and as she does so a car comes out of a side road on her left without noticing her, and rams into the side of her car. Alex’s car is shunted across the road into the face of the oncoming traffic. A delivery van hits her full on, and she spins and crashes into a wall at the side of the road. Someone at the scene calls an ambulance, but she is already dead when it arrives.
– – –
Jake is watching the image of Lizzie in his head, still unable to move. He is overwhelmed by Danny’s presence, all he can do is stand and grip the table. He is shivering, his eyes still closed. For a few minutes he doesn’t feel anything, and then in his mind the image of Lizzie that was so clear suddenly shatters. He hears the sound of a man scream, a deep-throated howl of anger coming from within himself. Danny is distraught, his pain incurable. A surge of rage and grief. And then suddenly Danny has gone. Jake staggers back, as if he has been punched in the chest, losing his hold on the table. He blacks out for a few seconds, and finds himself on the kitchen floor, kneeling, panting. He stays still, eyes closed, and allows his heartbeat to return to normal. Gradually the pictures in his mind, the sounds, break up and fade. As he looks up his sight clears; as if a gauze is drawn back. He can hear nothing. The anxiety, the feeling of dread, have gone.
He stands gingerly, waits a few seconds, and opens a cold can of beer from the fridge. He takes a couple of eager gulps, dribbling like a child, and puts it down, resting on his hands. Then he wipes his face on his sleeve and walks back outside. He checks his phone, sees a text from Alex, and smiles. The sun is on the terrace, warming the autumn afternoon. All is quiet; there’s no one there. Danny has gone. Jake breathes deeply, his muscles relax and he shrugs his shoulders to release them. Then he checks his watch, and takes the rest of the beer back to his desk. Alex will be back soon and he has work to finish.
© Anthony Judge 2022
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