The Gambler and the Castle Read online

saw the sound was coming from his wedding ring striking the stone bench. He tapped the ring on the bench again. It produced a note higher than he would have gone for. It would change the direction of the composition, but maybe it would work.

  He hurried back into the house to get to his piano, but just as he was turning into the passageway he saw Geoffrey speaking to Hanna in the study. The Polish wench was sitting at the desk and had in her hands the opened letter Ian had written to Philippa. He marched into the study, shoving Geoffrey to the side, and snatched the letter out of Hanna’s hands.

  “Who gave you the bloody right!” He folded the letter closed.

  “Ian, what have you been up to?” Hanna asked with annoyance in her voice.

  “What do you mean, what have I been up to? I can do whatever the bloody hell I please!” Ian faced Geoffrey. “And a great help you are! You can sod off, you wiry streak of piss!”

  Many of the house’s servants had heard the commotion and were standing with their mouths agape as Ian left the study and headed toward his room.

  It didn’t take long to pack his clothes and The Gambler into his brown leather suitcase. He marched back down the passageway, suitcase in hand, and upon entering the hall he looked out to the patio where Mrs Walters was sitting. She was looking at him. He waved at her, and her hand lifted, waving back. Ian was stunned. Without a moment’s hesitation he walked outside, grabbed the handles on the back of her wheelchair and pushed her into the house, through the crowd of house servants and toward the front door. When Ian would remember this moment years later, he would be sure he had heard Mrs Walters let out a squeal of excitement.

  “Don’t you worry, Mrs Walters. I’m not leaving you here,” he said as they approached the front door.

  “Mr Hawes!” Hanna bellowed from somewhere behind him. “What do you think you are doing? Let go of Mrs Walters immediately.”

  “I’m going home! And I’m taking Mrs Walters with me!”

  Hanna must have run – a sight that would instil fear in even the bravest of composers – because suddenly she was next to Ian and taking hold of the wheelchair from the side.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” she snarled, exposing her carnivorous teeth and breathing a fresh whiff of her halitosis in Ian’s face. With the two of them struggling to take control of the wheelchair Mrs Walters shrieked in fear and gripped the armrests as tightly as she could.

  Being heavier than Ian, the housekeeper muscled her way between him and the wheelchair. Before he could do anything about it four arms wrapped around him from the back and pulled him to the floor. Ian struggled to break free, but the two male servants were on top of him now and in the process of pinning his arms and legs down.

  Ian screamed as loud as he could and struggled in vain to break free.

  “Hold him there!” Hanna shouted as she ran off, returning a few seconds later holding a syringe with a long needle on the end of it. Ian had seen that injection before, he couldn’t remember when or where, but it frightened him.

  “No!” He wriggled and writhed. He couldn’t understand why the rest of the staff were just standing around watching as the two male servants held him captive. Hanna bent down and spiked the needle into Ian’s arm.

  “I knew you were up to something,” the fat bitch said. Ian felt pins and needles tingling where she now pulled the needle out. His muscles went dead and his head felt as light as a balloon. “I wouldn’t mind just leaving you to your own devices. But it’s too dangerous when you involve others. Understand?” she asked.

  But he couldn’t speak. The servants placed his swirling head on the ground and as his vision blurred and faded he saw the faces of all the staff members looking down at him. Mrs Walters was crying.

  But he felt at peace. And then he fell into darkness.

  Ian woke up in what looked to be a hospital room. He recognised it as the house’s sickbay. Early morning sunlight half-penetrated the cloud cover, sending a dull grey glow through the blinds. The clock on the wall had just ticked past eight.

  Ian pulled the blankets off him and sat up. His head felt clear and his thoughts were completely coherent. The male nurse sitting at the desk near the door put his magazine down and was about to stand when Ian put his hand up to him.

  “It’s okay. I’m alright,” Ian said. He tied the front of his gown and took a moment to remember what had happened the evening before, and pieced together the events that had led up to it.

  The thought of it all was depressing. The sight of his wedding ring was heart-wrenching. But he left it on. He placed his bare feet on the cold tiles for a second before sliding them into the slippers someone had thoughtfully placed there for him.

  Ian knew that his legs would give way if he tried to stand. A walking frame with wheels was next to the bed. He used it to steady himself up onto his feet and felt the eyes of the male nurse on him as he walked by the desk. He opened his mouth to apologise, but in the end just nodded his head and left the room.

  A few residents were sitting in chairs in the passageways, blankly staring at nothing in particular. Ian’s legs slowly started to regain their strength and his stomach growled with hunger. The main entrance hall was deserted, as was Hanna’s office. From here Ian could see the patio where a number of residents were sitting in the garden chairs, either reading or crocheting or just existing, while two of the home’s nurses were handing out medication and checking blood pressures. Geoffrey was on the ladder, fixing the gutter.

  Ian made his way down the passage toward his room. Mrs Walters was sitting in her usual spot. Injected into her forearm was a drip-feed hanging from a stand next to her wheelchair. She didn’t look at him, but Ian could see the corners of her mouth curl up in a near imperceptible grin.

  Ian entered his bedroom, shut the door and slumped down on the firm bed. The single-sized bed took up most of the space in the room. The rest of it was taken up by a cupboard in the corner and the dilapidated old pine chest of drawers under the window. And, of course, the desk where he sat almost every day. A strip of plastic, painted black and white like piano keys, lay across the top of the desk. The kind of piano plastic strip one might find babies crawling about in a nursery.

  The curtains were open and he could see the back garden all the way to eastern fence and into the cemetery where his Pipsie was buried.

  The sight of it all, and the memory of moving here when Pipsie had passed away, moving here so that he could be close to her, stole what little strength Ian had left in him. Only two things in his life had ever made sense to him. And now he had neither.

  Hanna entered his room holding a tray with a small cup of pills and a glass of water on it. She measured his blood pressure and asked him a few questions, but he wasn’t listening. He simply nodded and swallowed his medication.

  Was this what his life had become? Sterile, hospital-like rooms, cheap wooden furniture, living on death’s doorstep? At least the hallucinations gave him some sort of purpose. But the medication kept them at bay. And rightly so.

  When Hanna left, Ian hung his head and wondered how he would ever continue with this. Death would be far kinder. The cheap slippers on his feet were embroidered with the words: “Illingworth Home for the Aged”. He kicked them off and noticed his brown leather suitcase was standing on the floor at the foot of the bed. He opened it and retrieved his music book. The title on the front page was written in his own messy handwriting: The Gambler.

  He dared not open it. It could be full of nothing but illogical squiggles and doodles. Or it could be genuine. A masterpiece. He couldn’t be sure, but either way it didn’t matter. Nothing would ever come of it. He had lost his ties with the orchestra years before. At first he would receive kindly worded rejection letters from his old friends. Then they stopped responding and he would receive those generic rejection letters sent from the secretaries. And in the last year or so, nothing at all.

  Ian lay down on the bed and closed his eyes, clutching The Gambler to his chest. But he reall
y longed to be holding his Pipsie.

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