The Gambler and the Castle Read online

for a second, then it shone bright again. The applause died down. Time passed – how much, he couldn’t be sure, maybe seconds, maybe hours – the spotlight continued to dim and brighten intermittently.

  Ian’s heavy eyelids opened to see the brilliant sun beaming down on him, then disappearing behind something blowing in the breeze. A curtain? His curtain. His head lolled to the side and he saw that he was on the floor between his bed and the military chest under the window. His heart sank as he realised the concert was only a dream. But how much of it was a dream? Had he finished The Gambler in his subconscious? Could he recall the ending?

  He sat up – his hip was in pain from sleeping on the hard floor. But how did he get back to his room? He remembered standing at the fence, waiting for Geoffrey. But then…? He couldn’t recall anything after that. The clothes he had worn the day before were in a wet pile in the corner. And his shoes were there, too, caked in mud.

  He picked himself up with the help of the brass handles on the military chest and looked out his window. It was a clear, sunny day and all the house’s servants had taken to the garden. Most were in the cast-iron garden chairs on the perimeter of the lawn, some were standing on the stone pathway in the rose garden, others were just wandering about doing nothing in particular. The break in the fence was fixed. But even now, in the sunlight, the cemetery looked forbidding and ominous with the shadows constantly shifting about on the ground as the wind rustled the trees.

  Fifteen minutes under a shower of hot water wasn’t enough to bring back the ending of The Gambler. He played the keys on the tiles of the shower wall from the beginning to page six several times. But couldn’t finish. Whenever he had encountered this much trouble he would talk to Pipsie about it and, although she couldn’t help him with the music, she always knew just how to calm him down and how to get him focused again. He needed her here now and resolved to write to her to ask her to come to the estate.

  Clean and shaven, walking through to the bedroom in his towel, he was as surprised to see Hanna as she was to see him. She had the same silver tray with another bowl on it and a teacup of that god-awful tea.

  “Sorry, Ian. I did knock, but I couldn’t hear if you were in or not. And I didn’t see you at dinner last night.” Her eyes wandered over his bare, shapeless upper body.

  “Lost my appetite. Thank you, you can put that down.”

  She laid the tray on his bed and left, shutting the door behind her. He noticed the tea was cold again and cursed Hanna just loud enough for her to hear if she happened to be standing outside his door. The bowl had a small bunch of grapes in it that would do well to quell his hunger pangs, but he was reminded of how the pistachios had hurt his stomach the day before. He picked them up and smelled them, but they had no scent. Poison has no scent, after all, he thought. He flushed the entire bunch down the toilet and emptied the tea into the basin.

  He donned his favourite light-blue cotton shirt, beige trousers, his clean pair of brown leather shoes and a splash of Brut. Today he would write the ending of The Gambler. Whatever it took.

  But several hours of furiously playing through the first six pages took their toll on his head. A migraine set in and the muscles and joints in his hands ached. He tried again and again, pressing the keys harder and faster each time until eventually he couldn’t any longer. He walked over to the military chest, opened the top drawer and brought out his stationery, placing a sheet of unspoiled writing paper on the top surface of the chest. Having not written to Philippa for a while, and without wanting to sound too much in despair, he repeated the opening paragraphs in his head while he cleaned his reading glasses. Finally he was ready and put pen to paper.

  To My Darling Pipsie,

  I have missed you terribly. The house is lovely in every respect, Lord Illingworth would not be displeased with the manner in which it’s being kept, but it is an empty shell without you and I need you here with me. I cannot complete my work alone. Music is in my blood, as you know, but this number is a slippery one and not even the fresh country air can lift me. Only you can understand, as you always have. My deadline with the Sussex Orchestra is hanging over me and I fear I won’t finish in time. Please come to the house as soon as you can.

  All my love for you always

  Ian

  PS: I don’t believe that Hanna can be trusted. I would rather you employ a new head of staff when you arrive.

  He addressed an envelope to Philippa and sealed the letter inside it. Shutting the drawer he heard a quick scraping sound – something small and heavy had shifted about inside the drawer as he closed it. He opened the drawer and saw that it was his wedding ring. He didn’t like to wear it when he played piano as he felt it restricted the movement of his ring finger, but, as he wasn’t going to be playing for a while, he picked up the gold band and slipped it on. The dull gleam of the gold, together with the heaviness on the soft skin of his finger, was familiar and reassuring.

  Mrs Walters was sitting alone in the middle of the passageway, just as she had been the day before. Ian locked his door and walked over to the back of her wheelchair. He grabbed the handles and started pushing the old lady along. She made no sound and he continued all the way to the main hall where he turned and wheeled her out of the back door and onto the patio.

  Everyone was out in the garden enjoying the sun. When the rays warmed Ian’s face he felt a burden lift from inside of him. The warmth seeped through his shirt and the heat felt good on his skin. For a brief moment he forgot all about the grapes and the cemetery and The Gambler and the deadline. All he wanted to do was bask in the sun. Nothing else mattered right now. Avoiding Hanna’s glare, Ian wheeled Mrs Walters between some of the older matrons sitting in the cast-iron garden chairs.

  Geoffrey was standing at the far corner of the house with his back to the rest of the staff, drawing on the last of his cigarette. Ian walked over to him and Geoffrey must have heard him coming because he turned around and smiled.

  “You alright, Mr Hawes?” the groundsman asked, balancing himself with one hand on the wall as he lifted his foot up, rubbing the lit end of the fag along the underneath of his shoe until it was extinguished. Ian wanted to ask him what had happened at the fence the night before, but thought that if the groundsman did have anything to say about it he would have said it already.

  “I need you to send a letter for me, Geoffrey.” Ian held out the envelope, which the groundsman accepted with hesitation.

  “Who’s it for?” The colour drained from his face as he read the name on the front of the envelope.

  “What’s the matter?” Ian asked.

  “Nothing,” Geoffrey said.

  “Can you do it for me? Don’t tell Hanna about this, you hear?”

  “Yes, Mr Hawes.” He nodded his head like a schoolboy to a headmaster.

  Ian stole a glance at the cemetery and returned to the throng of sunbathers. He found an empty spot for himself next to one of the old cooks, whom he didn’t know the name of, on the stone bench near the rose garden. The stone bench was more comfortable than it looked, and, to top it all, a light breeze brought with it the sweet scent of damask roses.

  Dennis was pruning the rose bed. Doing a god-awful job of it. Andrew, the head gardener, came over to Dennis and gave him a flurry of instructions, the first being to stop killing the little darlings. Ian surveyed the flower heads and spotted enough of them to make a fine bunch for when Pipsie arrived.

  The old matrons around Mrs Walters sat mostly in silence, but when the infrequent bit of chatter did start up Mrs Walters’ face would crease into a smile and her head would nod ever so slightly. Even her eyes were glistening, no longer vacant, blinking regularly and once in a while catching one of the matrons’ moving hands. As irritating and out of her mind as she was, and traitorous as Ian suspected her to be, he couldn’t help but feel good for her right now, and deep down he wished he could make it sunny for her every day. It was exactly what she needed. Not sitting alone in that dreary passageway doing the devil
’s labour.

  Thinking of which, he looked across at Hanna and noticed that she had been watching him just as he had been watching Mrs Walters. Something else caught her attention and she walked off toward the house.

  “Are you playing spiders?” asked the old cook next to Ian. Her smile was missing a few teeth on either side.

  “I beg your pardon?” Ian asked.

  Her eyebrows lifted as she asked, “You playing spiders?” He followed her widened gaze down to his hand on the stone bench between them. Without realising it, his fingers had been tapping over the surface of the bench as though playing The Gambler on the piano, making his hands look like large spiders dancing about.

  He grinned at the old cook and folded his arms. He looked away and his eyes settled on the cemetery on the other side of the eastern fence. The very sight of it sent ice down his back.

  Later in the afternoon, once the old cook had wandered off, Ian put his hands down and played The Gambler on the rim of the stone bench. He shut his eyes and faced the sun as it neared the horizon – the insides of his eyelids turning to bright orange and yellow and white, like molten gold.

  When he got to the last note on page six he heard a clink of metal on stone. He played the last note again and heard the same sound. He opened his eyes and