For the Love of Music (Sixty Minute Romance) (3 page)

There was a knock at the
door and a man in uniform came in.

“Your lift has arrived,
Sergeant.”

“Thanks, I’m coming now.”
He shouted back. Ed packed his guitar away into a hard case with his music. The
driver took the guitar and went on out to the car.

“I can’t wait to get my
own car, it’s coming in a few weeks. So do you want to do this again?” Ed
wanted a definite ‘yes’ from Anne.

“Same time, same place,
next week?” Anne asked, she was still recovering from the experience of playing
such good music together with Ed.

“Suits me.” Ed went after
his lift in his wheelchair leaving Anne and Gail looking at each other.

“You never told me you
could play like that.” Gail said, still mopping up her face from her tears.

“You never asked.” Anne
replied.

The following four weeks
went as planned with Ed and Anne playing together at the old concert hall. Gail
was not needed anymore as a chaperone and Anne went on her own. As the weeks
had gone on, they had started chatting to each other and generally getting on
well. They had a lot in common. They had both played their instruments since an
early age. They had also both studied at Music College.

They needed short breaks
between pieces, because when they played the music together, they both became
totally consumed and involved in the music. They couldn’t think of anything
else but the music. Anne started looking forward to the sessions each week and
began to think that she was getting at least as much benefit out of them as Ed
was.

Ed stopped being quite so
blunt and forthright, and even showed signs of appreciation for what Anne was
doing in playing with him.

On the fifth week, Ed brought
two friends with him. His plan was that they would  just sit and listened to Ed
and Anne playing together.

“I hoped you wouldn’t
mind. These are just about the only two sensible guys from Mandeville I could
bring. They like hearing me play solo and wanted to hear us play together.” Ed
said.

“Well, I do mind Ed! I
hope you are not showing me off to your mates for fun.” replied Anne. Anne knew
that Ed did not understand subtleties in conversation. So she always spoke the
bare truth to Ed, knowing that he would respect and understand it.

“Way to go Sergeant. We
are all in trouble now.” The two guys enjoyed Ed’s embarrassment and discomfort.

“Well, thanks for that
honesty. Will you tolerate them for today?” Ed asked in his direct manner.

“Let’s get on, shall we.”
Anne replied harshly but with a slight grin in the corners of her lips. She
wanted to play music. She had been looking forward to it.

The two guys were an
intrusion to the normal proceedings but they were well behaved. The friends
didn’t interrupt Anne and Ed once, as they worked through some Latin American Salsa
and some gentle Pop ballads. They had discovered over the weeks that they both
liked a wide range of music. They had played Classical and Pop music, as well
as some Latin music and a Shostakovich Jazz piece.

At the end of this
particular session, they received a polite and genuine round of applause from
Ed’s friends. It had been a good session.

“Good stuff Sergeant. You
weren’t kidding, were you? She’s a cracker.” One of the guys had said too much
again.

Anne looked directly at Ed.
Ed wanted to look away, but he was held in her gaze and tried to apologize with
his eyes. For the first time, Anne knew for certain, that Ed had been talking
about her to his colleagues and friends. She wondered how far his thoughts and
conversations had gone. She had talked briefly to Gail and Jayne about their
music sessions, but she had not thought about anything other than that. She was
helping out a man who desperately needed it. Anne was the best person for the
role because of her musical ability.

Now there were some warning
bells going off inside her brain that she did not want to hear. She decided to
ignore the bad thoughts and vibes, and pretend that they weren’t happening.

“I enjoyed today’s session
Ed. Thanks.”

“Me too. I won’t bring the
rabble again. That was a bad idea.” Ed replied. He was seething inside, he
couldn’t hide it.

“I agree. Thanks for
understanding.” Anne shook Ed’s hand and he packed away his guitar and music.
Anne left in a bit of a hurry leaving Ed to tidy up with the help of his
friends.

As she was setting off for
the railway station to get home, she realised that they hadn’t agreed their
next session. Anne would not be able to come the following week but she hadn’t
told him. So she returned to the old concert hall and walked in. At the end of
the corridor she could hear some loud shouting and a lot of swearing. She was
uncertain what to do, but decided that she had to arrange things with Ed.

She pushed open the hall
door, to find Ed sitting on top of one of his mates, punching the life out of
him. She dropped her music folder on the floor in shock and screamed something
unintelligible out towards Ed. His other friend was trying to separate them but
without success. All three of them were howling and shouting with the worst
language you could imagine and more. The level of violence from Ed was
terrifying and Anne watched for a moment in total terror. All of this scene
took place in about two seconds, but seemed as if it was in slow motion. Ed was
first to see Anne at the door. He stopped hitting the guy he was sitting on and
got squarely punched on the jaw for his troubles. Ed thumped him back twice
more and his resistance ended.

The other friend pulled Ed
off and tried to see what damaged had been caused to his friends face. It did
not look good. Ed’s face was badly cut up and his left eye was swelling up with
heavy bruising. He was also pulling his false leg off as he was in agony with
pain from it. Anne could see that the leg had almost come off anyway.

Anne spun around and
closed the door quickly behind her. She heard Ed shout out her name behind her
but she walked away very fast to get out of there. The entrance door to the
building was opened for her by the driver Ed used each week.

“They are fighting in
there. You had better hurry.” Anne said to him breathlessly.

The driver immediately ran
down the corridor to see what was going on. Anne walked out onto the streets of
Harrow. She hardly knew what to think had happened in the hall. She feared that
somehow she was the cause of the fight. She was also shocked, at the level of
violence she had witnessed, in those few seconds. Anne realised, then and
there, just how much help Ed needed to return to normal life. Anne decided to
get a coffee in a café near to the station, to try and calm down.

She turned over in her
mind what could have happened to cause the fight. As she went through what had
happened earlier, she began to think that Ed was hoping for much more than
music therapy from Anne. Then she dismissed this idea straightaway as
ridiculous.

The next morning, Anne
went to work as normal. She had got home very late last night. After consuming
a very large glass of vodka, she had fallen into bed fully dressed. She
overslept and as a result was not looking her best today.

“My, oh my, what happened
to you?” Jayne was on her usual form, wanting to know everything that was going
on in her colleagues’ lives. Anne was always so cool, calm and collected, that
to see her in a state of disarray was something worth gossiping about.

“Was it your man in
uniform? Did he make an inappropriate advance last night? Did you make sweet
music together?” Jayne was on top form today.

Mercifully, the phone on
Anne’s desk rang and Jayne was left to try and interrogate her later on.

“Hello, Anne Richardson?”
Anne swished her long brown hair behind her shoulders and pulled up a chair to
her desk to take the call.

”Speaking.” She said.

“Hello Miss Richardson. My
name is Colonel Hatch. I’m calling you to apologise for Sergeant Makin and his
behavior yesterday.” Anne remembered the Colonel from the concert last month.

“Hello Colonel. I can’t
talk at the moment as I have work to do. Can you call me another time? I have a
desk full at the moment.” Anne lied; she didn’t want to hear from Colonel
Hatch. That meant that word had got back to him from Ed, or his driver, about
the fight from the night before.

“I’ll pick you up for
lunch at noon, prompt. You are allowed a lunch break I presume?” The colonel
was being pushy.

“I…, Um…, I’m not sure
what I’m doing today.” Anne was in complete confusion about what to do.

“Great, I’ll see you then.
Don’t worry. I don’t bite, but I do need to see you for a few minutes to talk
about Sergeant Makin.” The Colonel put the phone down before Anne could refuse
or reply.

Jayne looked over towards
Anne.

“Do you want to talk about
it?” she asked.

Anne looked at Jayne and
shook her head.

She then spent three hours
of the morning doing the best zombie impression ever. She took six phone calls
and attended a scheduling meeting without knowing what she was doing. She made
her eleven o’clock cup of coffee and put salt in it by mistake instead of sugar.
She had to make it again.

Even Stanley, the office
nerd, spotted that all was not well with Anne. This was because he was copied
in on all Anne’s emails for the morning. This included the very long, and extremely
personal, e-mail she had sent to her best friend Sandy.

‘Anne, did you mean to send this email to me?’
Stanley replied with her
original email included.

‘No Stanley, have you read it?’
returned Anne by email.

‘Of course I have read it, I read all my emails.’
Stanley was that kind of
guy.

‘You can delete it, if you don’t mind, thanks.’
Anne was brought out of
her zombie state after this.

She looked over towards
Stanley’s workstation on the other side of the office, to see him shrugging his
shoulders and grinning from ear to ear.

The Colonel arrived
promptly in reception, at two minutes before noon. Jayne was in reception and
offered to pass on the message to Anne that he was there. She flew up the four
flights of stairs, to ensure she was first to tell Anne that the Colonel was in
reception to take her out. There was a sense of victory in her message. She had
finally found out something about Anne, that no one else knew. It was not very
interesting but it would keep her occupied all afternoon, telling everyone else
about Anne and the Colonel.

Anne made the Colonel wait
for ten minutes, before walking slowly down the stairs to meet him.

“I’m sorry to have kept
you waiting, Colonel. I’ve had a very busy morning.” Anne lied to him for the
second time that morning.

“Hello Miss Richardson,
I’m grateful that you have found the time to see me.”

Anne thought to herself
resentfully,
‘You didn’t give me much choice!’
.

The Colonel opened the
front door and they made their way to the staff car awaiting them. He opened
the door for Anne and helped her in. Then he walked around the car to sit in
the back with her. Anne was beginning to realise that she had no idea what the
Colonel wanted to say or the full reason for his unwanted visit.

“I hope The Dorchester
suits you, Miss Richardson?” The Colonel asked.

“I don’t mind where we go.
It won’t take too long will it?” Anne was not a happy bunny!

Twenty minutes later, the
car pulled up to The Dorchester Hotel and Anne was guided into the grand
reception by the Colonel.

“Good afternoon, Colonel.”
The Maître d’ said to him, as they walked through reception towards the
restaurant.

“Good afternoon, Arthur.” Returned
the Colonel.

“You’ve been here before,
Colonel.” Anne said.

“Yes I have. Arthur is one
of my success stories.” The Colonel said with unhidden pride.

“One of your success
stories?” Asked Anne with suspicion.

“Yes, Arthur was
discharged two years ago. The Manager here was good enough to employ him.”

They turned towards a side
table, that was slightly more private than the others, and the waiter sat them
down. He handed out menus and took their drinks order. The Colonel turned
towards Anne and got straight to the point.

“I need to catch up with
you about Sergeant Edward Makin. How has it been going?”

“It had been going very well,
I think, until yesterday. The fight was terrifying to witness.” Said Anne. The
pace of their conversation was painfully slow and mundane.

“I was informed of it,
immediately Sergeant Makin returned to Stoke Mandeville last night. I have seen
him in the casualty ward this morning. He in is a sorry state and very
concerned about you.”

“Well he didn’t want to
get into a fight then did he?” Anne’s frustration came out badly.