Our Song : Track 1

The Musical Interludes of a Last Chance Romantic

Your Song - Track 1 of 11

The thin layer of dust that, over the past couple of weeks had nestled upon the piano lid's dark mahogany finish now sat on edge, knowing too well that its inevitable demise was close at hand. The scent of spring fresh polish drifted into the room through the doorway of the adjoining Dining Room, and teased the furniture with promises of dust free surfaces and the prospect of feeling the fresh air brushing across their hard, wooden skin once more.
The radio playing in the dining room, hummed the closing rifts of another 1960’s classic. A song that had left the charts a number of years ago, but continued its circulation on the various radio stations targeting the nostalgic desires of audiences from the older generations. The original song writers mostly long passed away, their royalties for each performance passed on to their over indulgent and incredulous off spring.
For Reginald Dudgeon fitted the profile of the typical Radio Two listener, or Radio Coffin Dodgers as his so eloquent of sons Colin had often described it. But it hadn’t always been that way, in fact, it was only in recent years that Reggie had begun to listen to any form of musical radio. Despite being in his early teens during the musical revolution of the sixties, Reggie actually held no particular fondness at that time for music any more than he had for the modern noise samples that played on more popular radio stations today.
Of course, back in his youth, Reggie enjoyed the indulgence of a few alcoholic beverages to raise the merits of a weekend break from work as much as anyone his age, but his more treasured memories of the late sixties didn’t consist of free love or drugged up weekends on crowded fields, but of speeding across the country on the open roads. His 1963 Norton Atlas may have caused a somewhat uncomfortable vibration that would leave him with swollen hands and uncontrollable tremors attributed to the uneven terrain, but the 55 BHP and 6500 revs that came from the single Amal Monobloc Carb were more than enough to encapsulate Reggie’s younger years.
Reggie had also spent much of his youth enjoying the attention of the ladies, swooning over his rugged good looks, and attitude to match Marlon Brando or James Dean. With Mediterranean tan and black handlebar moustache, Reggie would often leave into the night with a fresh pillion passenger clutching her arms around his waist.
Make no mistake, the love Reggie sought was anything but free. It was the challenge that he craved and the adventure often led to new terrains, but little did he know that his greatest and final challenge would be one that saw him re-evaluate everything he thought he knew; and would take place closer to home than he could have imagined.
From his studying his youth, a psychologist may well have identified intimacy issues as the reason for his need to roam; highlighting the lack of communication between him and his father, who spent many nights away from the family home, as playing a key role. It could possibly have been the strict, stand offish parenting style of his mother, or her blatant reluctance to acknowledge his father’s infidelity which may have played a part in Reggie’s inability to build close, trusting relationships. Perhaps he wasn't hugged enough as a child, or with his own parents as role models, had never witnessed an equally balanced loving relationship between man and woman.
But this was the end of the swinging sixties, Reggie never questioned why his appetite for fast bikes and women far out weighed his desire for a steady relationship or career prospects. Instead he continued the reckless path of fun and debauchery. That is, until one evening, when he met a young lady that would go on to tame the wild one and break through his castle walls, though maybe never quite penetrating the Keep.
As years passed and with his biking years long behind him, a now, more than adequate four wheeled Honda sat in the garage. A 1.4 litre Honda Civic hatchback was now what Reggie used for transportation. Not quite as sexy or as exciting as other forms of transport, but enough power to achieve the short cross town journeys to provide necessary parental, and now, Grandparent assistance when requested, and sufficient space in the boot for a vastly aged and mellow Cairn Terrier by the name of Freddy.
Following his marriage to the ever beautiful Valerie Brown, he had traded in his two wheels for four, after all she had often remarked,
You can’t fit three kids on the back of a bike.
A thought that entertained Reggie, as Valerie had always enjoyed his bike whilst they were dating; in fact she had often remarked on the bike being one of the reasons that set Reggie apart from other men she had dated. But of course, such a free loving attitude was no longer as attractive when the kids arrive and the man hits middle age.
Reggie smiled as he wiped the dust cloth across the glass of the picture frame that still held the photo of his wedding day. The two figures were smiling back at him as he listened to the voice of his young wife explaining the need for a more practical family friendly travelling mechanism.
The photo stood in the centre of the dining table, a room now rarely used for its original purpose since the two sons and sole daughter that had emerged from the union of Reggie and Val had moved out to build families of their own. Although the dining room table remained the centre piece of the room, its primary function was now as a surface to display family photos. In total, twenty individual framed photographs stood pride of place on the table, each one increasing the overall time to clean and polish the house.
At the centre of the family cortège stood the faded colour photo of a newly married Valerie and Reginald. Reggie, with his dark brown suit, waist coat and enormous shirt collar, and Valerie with her flowing golden locks, and knee length, white dress. They were stood by the door of the church, the sun shining down over them. The faded colouring of the picture no longer paid justice to the energy and positive atmosphere of the day, now just a distant memory.
Reggie continued to clean around the pictures in the brief, haphazard way that he did, slightly moving them out of position to emphasize the fact that they had been done should Valerie ever question his work rate. This was a trick that he had perfected since the mid period of their marriage, when he attempted to prove he was willing to support Valerie in her search for a career, but unwilling to actually take part fully in the exercise of house hold chores, particularly when there were other, more entertaining activities to be undertaken.
With a final sweep of the cloth, the cleaning of the dining room was finally complete. With the inane chatter of the radio lunchtime presenter in the background, Reggie made his way into the lounge where the piano stood pride of place by the door, against the external side wall of the house. He could see a thin layer of dust had already settled over the piano’s wooden exterior since his previous cleaning excursion. It must have been the mahogany finish that emphasized the pale glimmer of the small dust particles more than any other surface in the house.
Reggie gave a spray of polish into the air above the piano keyboard, safely hidden beneath the wooden casing. The released spray briefly performed its traditional war dance before commencing its descent toward the nemesis below, slowly drifting down on to the dust that had set up colony upon the piano.
With one wipe, a dust cloth shaped path was formed across the front of the piano, leaving a shiny wooden surface behind. The initial swipe was followed swiftly by another and another, as Reggie attacked the dust with the confidence of an Olympic champion, should dusting ever find its place amongst the various other forms of athleticism that featured within the world famous Olympiad. But then, there was a pause. Reggie stopped.
The melodic singing of a piano could be heard coming from the other room. It was a song that Reggie remembered well. The words he could hear clearly in his head and the voice he recognised, not because it was a particular favourite of his, far from it. This particular ballad had failed to impress on Reggie in 1970 when he was just 25 years old, however for Valerie it was something of an icon. He glanced down at the piano once again, with the words of Elton John delving into his mind.
 
I don’t have much money, but if I did,
I’d buy a big house where, we both could live.
 
Reggie gazed at the piano he and his wife had bought after their wedding. It was meant to be for their family, something their kids could learn; at Christmas, they could all sit around the piano singing Christmas carols and the like. But such plans are often born on grand intentions, and never quite come to fruition. Sure enough, Reggie made attempts to encourage the kids to practice, even bringing in a piano tutor for each of them in turn, but a mixture of school work and socialising (the latter being the main cause) often hindered them from making any real progress, and so over the past fifteen to twenty years, the piano remained for the most part redundant, never to realise its full potential.
Reggie placed his hands on the wooden casing and raised the lid off the keys. Sunlight shone from the window across the room, shining on the yellowing ivory. Dust from the air hovered over the keys like a magical beam enticing Reggie to place his hands over the keyboard and play. But what did he know about playing the piano? Instead Reggie took the dust cloth and gave the keys a quick brush before turning his eye down to the stool.
Reggie pulled the small wooden stool back where a number of magazines rested on the fabric. Literature and documents that Reggie had meant to tidy away in the magazine rack for further perusal or simply throw away, but just hadn’t got around to it.
Reggie glanced along the length of the keyboard, then down the high wooden side. He remembered the weight of the piano when it was delivered to the house. They had decided to put it on one of the external walls in one of the two available reception rooms - the first was now designated by Valerie as the family room along with the dining room table, containing mostly children’s plastic toys of all shapes, noises and sizes with one or two half knitted blankets that Valerie had started, but never finished for one reason or another.
It had always amazed Reggie that the Grandchildren had managed to occupy the largest of the four upstairs bedrooms with toys and games, and yet there were still enough to fill up an entire dining room as well. There were teddies and robots and dolls, some of which required batteries and some which didn’t, some which talked with annoying American accents and some that didn’t appear to have an off switch, and one, the most annoying of all; to the untrained eye an inoffensive baby boy doll, but would make all manner of suspicious noises at random times, particularly throughout the night. The manner of these noises, often resulted in a tired and weary Reggie clambering down the stairs in his boxer shorts, dressing gown and slippers clutching the handle of a hefty one wood gold club with both hands, and slung over his shoulder in search of intruders.
If it wasn’t for the inevitable tantrum from one of his three granddaughters as well as (though Reggie vehemently attempted to deny it) two of his grandsons, should this particular article have met an untimely end at the hands of a single golf swing, he may well have taken out some of his tired frustration on the small plaything. But, though he would never admit it, age had softened Reggie, and he had found all too many times a certain sense of satisfaction and sentimentality at the sight of his happy grandchildren playing with the numerous toys laid out for their entertainment.
The dining room featured as one of the three separate extensions that the house had undergone whilst under the ownership of the Dudgeons, with additions to both the lower and upper tiers creating a forth bedroom. It had previously been used as a study during the childhood of Reggie’s children, but now featured as a guest room for whichever offspring wished to fill a spare weekend. With the exception of their daughter Louise, who had remained close, living in a flat across town from Reggie and Val with her son.
The third extension was to the rear of the garage, originally as a place to put his newly acquired bike when he retired, but that had never come to fruition and now, with a large cat flap, was the home of Freddy. Freddy rarely used the cat flap, partly owing to old age and partly because he found it much easier to bark across the garden until somebody came out and provided him with a more personal access to the annex.
For Reggie, cleaning was one of the main chores he had inherited responsibility for on retirement, the other being the weekly grocery shop at the local supermarket. Of course, he had various other jobs such as DIY and mowing the lawn, but these were a lot more sporadic (particularly the lawn mowing), and certainly not required to be conducted with as much discipline as the former.
Reggie felt an all too familiar faint sensation down his body as he paused for a moment to gather his strength. A sharp bolt of lightning shot through his skull, causing him to bend over in pain, his upper torso trembled and his breathing grew heavier as the increased intake of oxygen seemed to act as a form of pain relief.
The pain didn’t last long, after all, Reggie was becoming accustomed to these sudden attacks that had now become more of an inconvenience than anything else. He raised his body back up as instantly as he had dropped and perused the room at his handiwork.
Where had I got to? He wondered.
Reggie struggled to see where he had already been and what parts of the room were still awaiting his attention. He could see that the piano had been cleaned, not because of the shine of the light that glanced off the dark wood, but because of the small cluster of objects on the far side of the lid.
Reggie had developed the strategy of deliberately moving and leaving objects to prove to Valerie, and later in life to remind himself, that he had in fact cleaned when asked to do so. He figured that the only sane reason to move an otherwise inanimate object would be as a result of necessity to gain access to the space that it had previously occupied. Therefore, if the object had been moved, it would suggest to Valerie that the space from whence it had been moved had been cleaned. What other reason was there to move it?
It was a logic that had paid dividends when Reggie had felt less inclined to work his way around an entire room that did not actually need cleaning, particularly as Valerie’s necessity for a regular cleaning routine seemed to overrule the actual physical requirement for the activity to take place. By moving certain objects without actually partaking in the rigmarole of cleaning the surface, it gave the impression that the chore had been completed, and the fact that the surface appeared to be clean meant Valerie was never any wiser to the scheme.
Valerie never raised any suspicions of such working practices, and so Reggie continued, and domestic harmony was maintained. Though sensibly ensuring that a more thorough job was conducted on alternate occasions, to ensure there could be no complaint of his shoddy workmanship.
Piano? Done.
Windowsill? Done.
Coffee table?
There were a number of letters sprawled across the coffee table in the centre of the room, along with a newspaper and old television guide. Most of the letters appeared to be bills or some sort of similarly official, fiscal related documentation. The dull printed wording was unmistakable on the long brown envelopes. Now was not the time to read about his fantastic opportunity to borrow £20,000, all at the competitive rate of an arm, leg and a single hair plucked from the head of his first born.
Reggie lifted the scattered documents and piled them together, placing them to one side of the coffee table and allowing him to sweep the duster across the wooden surface. As he did so, something caught his eye on the top of the pile of letters. There was an envelope addressed to Mr R. Dudgeon.
The letter consisted of a small white envelope with address scrawled hurriedly across the front, dropping down as it scrolled across the paper. Reggie also noted that there was no stamp, meaning that this letter had been posted by hand, despite the fact that the entire address had been written onto the envelope.
There were some clues as to whom the letter had come from. Reggie had read somewhere that when a written line in freestyle drops, the person is a pessimist, and when it rises they are an optimist. The letter also had an unkempt, crumpled look, with all four corners curled over. Whoever had posted the letter had paid very little attention to keeping the envelope in any acceptable condition. Clearly it had been stuffed in a pocket, or left in a bag for some period of time before eventually being posted through the letterbox. But when it had arrived on his doorstep, Reggie had no idea.
Whenever it had arrived, Reggie’s assessment of his primary observations did not bode well for the contents of the letter. But he knew he should open it. After all, it was the only letter that hadn’t come with a If not delivered, please return to … message on the back, along with the fact that it felt like a perfectly reasonable distraction from his chores that had already begun to feel wearisome.
Reggie gave a yawn then rubbed his eyes. It was true he wasn’t getting as much sleep as he would like, and this was possibly attributing to the increase in frequency of headaches that he was suffering. But the mundane activity certainly didn’t assist either, and with another yawn he raised the envelope to his eye line.
As Reggie opened the letter, noticing that this took very little effort owing to it being almost half pealed open already, he saw just a single piece of note paper folded in half and slipped in. The note paper contained a page of blue scrawled handwriting, like the author of the letter had written it whilst sat on a naval ship navigating the high seas; the words were shaky and at times illegible. Yet again the writing seemed to drop slightly at the end of each line, not too dissimilar to his own style.
The letter commenced;
 
Dear Mr Dudgeon,
An appointment has been made for 0900 hours…
 
As Reggie read through the letter he noticed that the handwriting was rapidly diminishing in size until it was impossible to read with the naked eye. He re-read the opening segment of the note again but couldn’t make it through the first line.
Reggie searched around the room, moving things that were part of the cleaning rota and setting them aside in search of a magnifying glass. He knew he had one somewhere, he had used it only a short while ago to identify a specific type of bug in the garden. The thought suddenly struck him, he had left the glass in the green house.
With a determination that far outweighed his desire to complete the cleaning duty, he rushed to the green house in the rear garden, and located the required visual aid between two flower pots on the side. He then returned to the lounge and proceeded to read the letter from where he had finished. The words weren’t clear, but he could make out a small number of them beneath the original line;
 
 …our specialist following on from the recent scan…
 
Yet again the writing proved to be too small. As Reggie examined the apparent faint lines that appeared to represent words too small to read, he identified a further five or six lines which he had not even seen prior to the use of the magnifying glass. He pulled the glass away and stared at the page, the lines were practically invisible to the naked eye.
His eyes bore into the paper, so much so that the strain on his pupils began to cause a sharp throbbing pain in his forehead. There were two more very faint lines beneath those that he had previously been able to see, however that still left a further two or three lines visible only with the magnifying glass.
He found himself yawning again, all this frowning was causing fatigue to set in, and his mind quickly drifted to the thought of setting himself down on the sofa for just a couple of minutes. Realising that it was partly this tiredness that was causing his eyes to blur he gave them a wipe with his hand then lifted the note once again to attempt to read its contents.
Just as before, there was little improvement; Reggie raised the glass to his eye and brought the page into focus. Desperately he tried to make out further words down the page to be able to bring the note into some form of context, but the words danger, companion and gravest concern seemed to be the only ones that identified themselves upon the page.
What danger could he possibly be in? Was this some sort of threat towards him? Reggie squinted as if such an action might assist to force some much needed additional light through his corneas to identify the remaining words between those that he could recognise.
There were five further lines, and yet there was no comprehensible way that they could have been scrawled by any man made pen. It was of course an assumption that the prose had continued at all, and it wasn’t just a set of lines; but even as lines, these appeared too fine to barely see, let alone scribe.
It baffled Reggie to even consider such a pen that could distribute ink in such a way that could leave the faintest of trails behind. The finest point in existence. So sharp it could pierce between the individual fabrics of silk, and yet so fine that it would break at the very touch of cotton.
And then Reggie noticed at the very bottom of the page, writing that was just about readable. He stared, moved the glass back and forth trying to find the optimum point of magnification, and then with the words in focus he read:
 
Specialist appointment…0900 hours…Sienna Place Surgery, Peterborough.
 
There was no more writing. There had been a further five lines that Reggie had failed to read, the last couple he was only able to see with the aid of the magnifying glass. He screwed the letter up and dropped it on the coffee table.
Peterborough? At nine o’clock? What would somebody want with me in Peterborough? I’ve no interest in responding to any sort of threatening letter.
With that thought, Reggie then turned around and glanced at the piano again.
How hard can it be?
Reggie walked away from the table and back over to the piano where he raised the wooden covering from over the ivory keys and placed his finger over a note. He pressed down lightly, but there was no response. He pressed again, and still no response. He made a third attempt, this time pressing the key harder, and all the way so that it pressed against the wooden frame. The piano gave a heavy sounding dun!
Is that really how it should sound?
He looked down at the key he had pressed; it was a long, yellowing, ivory piece with small black note to its left and white note to the right. He had once seen Colin play his little electronic Casio keyboard with little letters identifying each note individually. Why don’t they do that with all keyboards?
Reggie hit the note again. Dun!
Was that C? What does C sound like? And why would C be the first note I think of? Why not A? Alphabetically that would make more sense. But then if selecting a note at random, then why not D or F?
Reggie hit the white note immediately to the right of the one he had just struck.
Dun!
The pitch was slightly higher than the previous.
“Reggie! That doesn’t sound like cleaning! Stop procrastinating”
It was true, Reggie had no interest in playing the piano, never had, and yet at this moment in time when the alternative was to continue dusting, he had found studying the piano an interesting source of entertainment.
But of course, the tone in Valerie’s voice suggested that this was not a woman to be messed with, he had learnt that over the past twenty nine years (and fifty one weeks). Reggie turned back to the coffee table, only to see the piece of paper that had been scrunched into a ball, now laid flat on the table as if only just removed from the envelope.
Reggie examined the paper, there was no sign of any creasing other than the initial one across the centre from where it had been folded and placed into the envelope. It was as if it had never been touched, let alone screwed up and dropped. The act resembled a magic trick, where the magician pretends to tear up a piece of paper only to reveal the aforementioned article back in its former glory as if the destruction of the said document had never taken place. 
But of course, it had to have been touched, because it had been taken out of the envelope. It was entirely possible that he hadn’t screwed the paper up, that he had intended to do so, but in being distracted by the thought of tapping at the piano, he had just dropped the paper to where it now lay. That type of thing was happening more frequently in recent days, with his insomnia starting to take hold of his mind, Reggie was frequently finding his memory of events lacking in detail, and sometimes completely inaccurate.
On one recent occasion, Reggie had found himself trying to pull on a second pair of trousers over the originals that he had forgotten that he’d put on not five minutes earlier. It wasn’t that he was turning senile; Reggie in fact had all his faculties and regularly competed competitively with the younger members of the local Chess Club; but Reggie’s mind would often wander, often drift from the circumstances of reality to more dysfunctional scenarios. His daughter would suggest he was afraid of facing facts, that he lived in his own little world; but in a world where paper irons itself out and moves without permission, Reggie would rather live in an unstable world that at least he understood.
Reggie once again studied the flat piece of paper that lay in the centre of the table. It was clear that this particular piece of paper had never been so much as mishandled let alone screwed up into a ball and tossed aside - accepting the possibility that this particular sheet of paper had been recycled from other sheets of paper which had in their own life cycles been disposed of in a manner such as that which was experienced moments earlier. But this particular sheet was crisp; with just the one crease line across the centre, asserting a question over whether what had happened earlier, had in fact taken place as believed.
Reggie glanced at the formation of the lettering, at the way the letters of each line appeared to get smaller on each line. Had this also been just a progression of his over active imagination? Were the tiny dotted lines to the bottom of the page anything more than just that, dotted lines? Reggie was convinced he had used a magnifying glass to read the bottom lines, and sure enough, sat on the table beside the paper was the very magnifying glass that Reggie had used to read of the proposed meeting in Sienna Place.
Should he screw it up again?
What do you mean again? You didn’t do it the first time you crazy old man.
I thought about it.
Thinking about doing it and doing it are two very different things. Just by thinking about the cleaning doesn’t get it done does it? Take a look around you.
Reggie shook himself as he suddenly remembered the reason for why he was in that particular room in the first place. He looked around the room, it wasn’t exactly dirty, just needed a bit of a tidy.
For some reason, he then lifted the piece of paper from the table, and this time, folding it over twice, placed it in his pocket. There was no reasoning behind why he had chosen a completely different action to his initial instinct. Perhaps, subliminally, he believed that his initial failure to dispose of the article was some sort of sign that he should pay more attention to the message, and take a closer inspection when he felt less inclined to fall asleep, or maybe he did not wish for it to come under the scrutiny of the other co-habitant of the address. However, if this was his thinking, then it was occurring deep inside his subconscious, far from any rational thinking. For Reggie’s mind was now firmly back on the task at hand, cleaning the house.
It wasn’t a noisy job, but the intensity of mind in which he went to work was perhaps the reason why he had not noticed the opening of the front door, or the sound of footsteps advancing upon him across the wooden flooring.
“This must be a first.” came a voice from directly behind him. Reggie leapt forward, having been engrossed in the dusting of the tiny intricate and delicate wings of a small angel ornament that rested on the window sill, the appearance of a voice from behind him caused his ageing heart to jump a beat.
“What the hell!?” He spun around and stared fiercely at the female intruder that had crept up behind him.
There was a brief pause of silence, as he stared at the female figure dressed with shiny silver watch dangling from beneath her black jacket, and hanging from the blue lapels of her uniform. Reggie gave a huge exhale of breath and beads of sweat immediately formed across his forehead.
“You OK Dad?” The young lady stood within a metre of Reggie, smiled somewhat nervously as she looked on at the shaking figure of her father.
“Good God Louise.” He barked, now breathing heavily and his body starting to quiver. “Don’t ever … jump up on me … again!” He struggled to fit words in between the heavy intakes of oxygen.
“Sorry Dad, here come sit down.”
“I’ll… be … alright.” He paused, as Louise tentatively stretched out one arm towards her stumbling father, who had begun to stumble a couple of steps forward. “I said I’ll be alright!” Reggie snapped, causing Louise herself, to step back in shock.
There was a short pause as father and daughter stood less than two metres from one another. Reggie’s breathing began to slow to a more Regular pace, and with the palm of his right hand, he wiped away the beads of sweat that had now amassed across his forehead and brow.
“You OK Dad?” Louise asked again, trying to engage her father’s eye contact.
Reggie instantly dropped his head, looking to the ground and a small smile appeared; the corners of his mouth slightly upturned, but hidden from the concerned eyes of his daughter.
“Dad?” Louise asked again, leaning forward to recapture her father’s gaze when she spotted the hints of a smile appearing within the hidden crevices of his face. She began to smile. “Dad?”
“Yes, yes.” He responded and raised his head to reveal sweat once again covering his forehead, and small beads dripping down his cheeks, but now with a broad smile spread across his face. “I’ll be alright.”
Almost with relief as much as anything else, Louise spat out a laugh before asking “Seriously Dad, do you want to sit down? I didn’t mean to surprise you.”
“No, no, no, you just caught me off guard that’s all.”
“Speak for yourself. I had no idea you knew how to dust.” She laughed again as she spoke.
With a sudden look of seriousness on his face of mock offence, Reggie looked directly at his daughter, “I’ll have you know I regularly do the cleaning, and a fine job of it I do too.”
With the tip of her finger, Louise gently scraped it across the surface of the coffee table that stood to her right hand side. In one swift movement, she raised her finger to her eyes, where she frowned with examination of the small white particles that had collected on her skin surface. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, well I haven’t got to that part yet.” He then stepped forwards, and as a matter of pride wiped the cloth across the surface of the coffee table. “Your mother’s in the kitchen if you want to see her,” he responded with a straight face and hurt tone.
Reggie wasn’t quite sure if his tone was entirely for humorous purposes. He was sure that he had cleaned the coffee table, right before reading through the letter he had opened, he had given the table a quick rub with the cloth. Easily sufficient to have removed any dust.
But then, what was that on the table that Louise found? Dandruff?
Of course not.
In the absence of any other sensible answer, the conclusion must have been that he hadn’t in fact reached the table. Had he even read the note that was there? Was it still on the table? Reggie looked down, a number of envelopes lay scattered across the wooden surface of the table along with a newspaper.
I tidied those up he thought to himself. But, more importantly, there was no sign of the handwritten small white envelope. Hurriedly he placed his hand in his trouser pocket, and in between his finger tips felt the soft touch of paper against his skin. It was there, he had at least picked it up as he remembered.
Phew! That was lucky, could do without Louise catching an eye on this. She’ll only start worrying, or worse still, lecturing me on personal safety. Even worse still, insist on coming along and jeopardising the entire operation.
Not that you’re going of course.
Of course. But that is even more reason for her not to know.
Reggie leant over and began arranging the envelopes into a single pile in an attempt to tidy the coffee table.
“Dad, did you hear what I said?”
“You what? Sorry, did you scatter these letters?”
“Letters? No, I’ve only just arrived. Why would I?”
“I’ve already tidied these up before.”
“Clearly not. Listen Dad, I was talking about next weekend…” It should have been apparent to Louise that she was far from having her father’s undivided attention, as he fumbled around with his pile of letters, once again scattering them across the table. “Dad?”
There was something wrong with the letters as Reggie piled them up into a single tower. He had certainly organised these only a few minutes prior to Louise’s arrival, and yet here they were scattered across the table once again.
Why has she been going through my letters? What was she expecting to find? What if?
Then it struck him.
What if she knows about the letter?
What if she doesn’t?
It is of no concern to her, I can’t have her seeing it.
Why not? She might be of some help?
She won’t. She will try to interfere. I can’t have her seeing it.
Is that such a bad thing? Maybe you could do with some help.
Help? What do I need help for?
Finding your letter for one.
I don’t need her help, know it’s here somewhere. I don’t want her going through my letters.
Then figure out where you had it last.
Haven’t we had this conversation before?
If we had then surely you already know the outcome?
I must know, but I don’t remember. Where is it?
Have you tried in your pocket?
Reggie patted down his pockets, but there was no sign of any letter, just an old crumpled tissue.
No sooner had he begun tidying the letters on the coffee table, but he was once again scattering them around the surface in search of the missing letter.
“Dad! What are you doing?”
“There’s one missing, a letter missing from this pile.”
I thought you didn’t want to involve her.
I must find it.
But now she knows of its existence, there’s no denying it now.
Reggie was beginning to look frantic, as if the letter was of immense importance. The red of his cheeks showed signs of agitation.
“What did it look like?”
“It was in a hand written envelope, right here, with the others.”
“What colour envelope?”
“White. It was on this table with the others. Have you had it?”
“Dad? Why would I have one of your letters? What’s so important about it?”
Reggie ignored the question, but instead leant over the table and began flicking through the assortment of envelopes that covered the wooden surface, completely oblivious to the further lines of enquiry being pitched by his daughter. “It was here, I know it.” His search was one of panic, quickly scanning the front of each envelope before discarding it across the table and reaching for the next.
What’s the panic? You don’t even know what it says.
And that is precisely why I need to panic.
He could feel his face starting to heat, his cheeks glowing with anxiety. There was a buzzing sound in the background, like a fly hovering in the room. The noise irritation was too much for him to concentrate on his search for the envelope. He stood up and waved his arms in the air, though he couldn’t actually see the insect, he flapped his arms across the sky all around his head, there was silence.
Got it!
Reggie placed his hand back in his pocket, only this time there was more than just a crumpled tissue. The letter! I knew it was in my pocket. Thank God. How did I miss that?
What does it matter? You found it.
“Dad!” This time, there was a sound of annoyance in her voice. “I’ve got to get going, Jamie will be finished at nursery soon, and I’ve got to pick him up, unless you want to come along too?”
“I’m sorry love, what?” It suddenly occurred to Reggie that the buzzing noise that had caused an irritation about his head less than a minute earlier was possibly his daughter’s voice. Luckily he hadn’t been able to locate a more precise position for the source of the noise whilst swinging his arms around, or Louise could have been the recipient of a black eye. However, with all the fuss surrounding the fly hovering and the missing letter, he had completely missed what had been said.
“Look, I haven’t got time to help you scatter random letters around your room like the finale of the Crystal Maze.” (The Crystal Maze being a game show from the early nineties that the whole family had often watched together. It became infamous for the sheer idiocy and ineptitude of some of the contestants. They ineffectively competed in a variety of fairly simple events in order to win crystals which were then used to accumulate time within the Crystal Dome for the opportunity to win dream prizes by simply separating gold tickets from silver as they were all blown about the contestants heads by some sort of wind turbine.)
“I was just asking about next weekend? I tell you what, I’ll leave it with you and you can let me know.”
Next weekend? What about next weekend? What’s happening next weekend?
“I’ve gotta go Dad or the nursery will be calling Social Services.” She gave a broken smile.
“Oh yes, of course.” Reggie responded, still trying to figure out what was so special about next weekend.
It would help if I knew what this weekend was? Of course, she mentioned nursery, Jamie doesn’t go to nursery at the weekend. So what is today? Reggie glanced down at his watch on his left wrist, and the small number nine beside the dial, depicting the date.
“Are you coming Dad?”
Reggie once again was thrown from his train of thought to now see Louise stood by the front door, looking through the doorway into the lounge where Reggie stood, her car key in hand.
“Oh, erm no Val,” He paused for a second, had he said? “Sorry, I mean Louise.” He cleared his throat. “No, I’ve still got the cleaning to do. Give my little grandson a hug from me though.”
Disappointedly, Louise replied. “Oh, Ok.” And turned towards the door.
As she turned the handle and began to pull the wood door towards her, Louise paused and turned back to her father. As she spoke her voice dropped once more to a more sympathetic tone, like the one she most likely used for her more deserving patients at the hospital. “Are you sure you’re OK Dad? You seem a little vacant today…” She paused and smiled, as if to try to keep the mood light, “More so than normal.”
Reggie didn’t know what to say. He always enjoyed collecting his grandson from nursery, the young three year old was always so full of life when visited by his grandfather, and there was something about the young lad that reminded Reggie of himself. But then there was the cleaning, Valerie would not be impressed if he went gallivanting off half way through the chores leaving her to finish off.
“Gimme a call if you need anything.” Louise stepped forward and gave him a peck on the cheek, then walked back to the door. As she reached the open door, she turned once more to Reggie and said “Oh, and let me know about next weekend.”
Next weekend? Next weekend?
“Bye Dad.”
“Bye love, take care.” Louise smiled and walked out of the door, pulling it closed behind her. “Love to Jamie!” Reggie shouted, just as the door clicked shut.
Next weekend? What was her obsession with next weekend?
Reggie walked back across the room to the piano, where a calendar rested on top. He scrolled his finger across the numbers until he reached number nine.
Number nine, number nine, number nine, number nine…
Reggie had hated that song, never quite understood the psychedelic phase of The Beatles. Not that the mop top period had impacted on him any more positively.
Aha! Today is the ninth which is a Wednesday! That means next weekend is…
Reggie paused in his thinking, he had suddenly realised what was so special about next weekend. 19th September was his and Valerie’s 30th Wedding Anniversary. Thirty years together, how had he forgotten that? How had it come around so soon? That’s Pearl isn’t it?
Was it Pearl? He knew that fifty years was golden, and forty years was?
What is forty years? It has to be some sort of metal, silver? Platinum?
No. Platinum comes after Gold.
Then what?
Does it matter?
He was right. The appropriate material for forty years wasn’t relevant until they’d first reached thirty years. Suddenly Reggie’s mind once again sprang to the thought of his and Valerie’s 30th Wedding Anniversary. What was he to get as a gift? It was definitely Pearl, that was absolutely the object for thirty years. So that was decided, some type of Pearl jewellery. He would get Louise to help pick out a nice pair of earrings or necklace, or possibly even both in a pretty little matching set with commemorative box.
 
I know it’s not much but it’s the best I can do…
 
But that wasn’t enough. Not the best he could do by a long shot. Hardly imaginative and worthy of such an occasion after all the years they had been together, all the nonsense she had put up with.
Suddenly, something caught his attention. From the corner of his eye, Reggie spotted the keyboard to the piano. The white ivory keys sparkled as they sat side by side, scattered amongst the sporadic quantity of shining black keys. It was as if he could hear them playing, playing a song that took him back many years.
 
My gift is my song, and this one’s for you.
 
A new idea had sprung into his head. Valerie had always been keen on her music, from The Beatles to Take That, she had always enjoyed pop music. She’d continually polluted his eardrums with the likes. Perhaps there was a limited edition of Elton John’s song Your Song, it was a particular favourite of Valerie’s, and of course it had become clear from Valerie’s recent musical purchases that everybody was re-releasing old and tired records in new “digitally enhanced” reincarnations.
Perhaps he could still purchase the jewellery, but as a special treat, he could also buy a copy of Elton John’s Your Song as a more romantic gesture. The logistical constraints of making such a purchase began to roll around Reggie’s mind. It had occurred to him that he had actually not been to a music shop in more than a decade, and knew very little with respect to the purchasing of compact discs. Would it come as an album or single? Or possibly even a compilation of Elton John songs, there must have been a hundred of them spanning the decades.
The thought of making his way into town started to make Reggie’s head spin. He pulled the piano stool forward, and placed his backside on the fabric. “Ahhh.” He could feel the release in tension and the creaking in his knees and hips as his legs bent, transferring the weight backwards onto the stool and off his ageing feet. Even just down that short distance, his head felt fresher, as if the fog that smothered the atmosphere within the air had somehow thinned.
Feeling a little more level headed, Reggie rested his right arm gently on the keyboard wondering where and when he would purchase such a CD. To many people, this would seem a somewhat simple chore, but for Reggie it raised so many uncertainties. If he was going to do it, he wanted it to be right, not just any old CD that he had found in the bargain bucket at the nearest service station. But of course, with Valerie’s already extensive record collection, chances were she already owned a copy of the song. If he was going to buy it for her again, it had to be something special.
Reggie tapped his finger onto one of the piano keys. He had no idea which it was, and paid little attention to the keys around it. The note was chosen purely on the fact that his forefinger had rested on that particular key.
Dun! Dun!
The sound seemed to cause the creaky cogs within his brain to start turning, and with it a chain reaction. The sleepy haze that was overcoming his mind vanished in an instant. Reggie tapped his finger over the same key again, this time with a deliberate rhythm.
Dun, de dun!
In his head he could hear the continuation of the opening bars to a particular song, Dun, de-dun, de-dun!
How hard could it be exactly?
Reggie spun around on the stool so that he was facing the piano square on, and held both hands hovering over the keyboard, finger tips lightly touching a variety of random keys.
Dun! Dun!
This time Reggie paused, listening out for another complaint from his wife of his continuous procrastination, but there was none. Come to think of it, she hadn’t seemed to notice the arrival or departure of their daughter. Reggie felt it rather unusual, but then Louise had not been round for long, and he recalled Valerie had mentioned that she would be cleaning out the shed. It was possible she had been in there the whole time and not even been aware of Louise’s visit.
Was that the right starting note? It sounded right enough. It was the white note to the right of the set of three black notes. But as to the actual name of the note, he couldn’t be certain. Reggie could remember something of the children’s piano lessons many years ago. He remembered that the scale for some reason started with the note C, went up to G and then continued to A and finishing with B. It had always seemed somewhat illogical to him, along with the fact that each black note was both a flat and sharp.
There was a music book somewhere, probably in the stool. Reggie stood up and turned around lifting the stool seat to reveal a number of musical documents and teaching manuals. In no particular order there was a book of Beatles’ songs complete with piano and voice arrangements, a couple of blank musical manuscript packs, a random sheet of staved music that had clearly been torn from a book, The A to B Guide to Musical Theory, The Children’s Tscaikowsky, L. Van Beethoven Minuet in G, A Beginner’s Piano Player Parts 1 to 3 and It’s Easy To Play Familiar Songs.
Searching through these books, Reggie suddenly found a book he hadn’t ever seen before. Reggie studied the bespectacled figure on the blue front cover, before turning over the front page to reveal the index of the various song arrangements comprised within the pages:
 
A Song For Guy … Page 3
Candle In The Wind … Page 7
Daniel … Page 12
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road … Page 15
Philadelphia Freedom … Page 19
Your Song … Page 25
 
There it was, without even realising it, Reggie possessed the materials necessary for a perfect Anniversary gift; much better than a CD or even a pair of pearl earrings. He would make a romantic dinner for just the two of them, and then afterwards he would perform a private rendition of her favourite song, one that had meant so much to her all these years.
Of course he would need to find time to practise, time when Valerie wasn’t around to suspect anything, so that it would come as a complete surprise. But this shouldn’t pose too many issues as Valerie would frequently be out either helping Louise or Colin with childcare or attending one of her painting classes, or one of the Knit and Natter sessions at the Parish church. And of course, not forgetting, the inevitable personal crises of one of her friends, that Valerie always seemed desperate to become embroiled within.  
In just over one week it was to be his and Valerie’s 30th Wedding Anniversary, and for once Reggie was to do something special, something original, something simple but effective. He was no longer the rebellious biker of his youth, but this rebel still had one last surprise up his sleeve.
This was the perfect gift for his wife on their Anniversary. He would learn to play the song they had danced to on their wedding day all those years ago. It wasn’t a song he particularly enjoyed himself, but it had meant the world to his wife, to his soul mate and for him to be able to learn and play it in just over a week would take focus and hard work, but would be worth the effort.
It was a plan with just one draw back, not only did Reggie not play the piano, he didn’t have much of a clue as to how to read music. He turned the pages over to Page 25 where he found the title Your Song and beneath it a number of five line staves with various shaped notes annotated across the page. He could feel the ticking inside his brain as the cogs whirled, trying to recall and interpret the different symbols on the page.
Of the two sets of staves, he knew that the lower one was for the bass notes and therefore played with the left hand, and the upper notes, therefore, were to be played by the right hand. He also knew that the two number fours sat one on top of the other at the beginning of the piece related to the timing. But where did the notes begin? He recalled being told about the G clef, but what was it? Was it one of these strange hieroglyphic type figures at the beginning of the page? And what did it actually depict?
It was clear that Reggie would have to start at the very beginning and learn the notes before he could even hope to learn anything so complex as this song; and all in the space of just over a week.
It can’t be done. Nice idea, but impossible.
The magnitude of the task suddenly struck Reggie like a sledgehammer crashing hard against an ice wall. The cracks soon split the wall in half and then into quarters, with each crack exponentially breaking the wall into smaller and smaller splinters of ice, until it lay shattered on the carpet beneath Reggie’s feet.
The plan was impossible, it would take him weeks to learn the various notes and other notations sufficiently to be able to read and play the music as scripted on the pages. It had been a great idea, and maybe, had he have thought of it some time earlier he may have been able to fulfil the plan, but time was of the essence, and realistically he knew he would have to fall back to his original plan.
With a sense of despondency, Reggie replaced the music sheets and closing the stool lid slumped back onto the fabric, shoulders drooped.
Reggie’s eyes scanned the room, a faint haze seemed to encapsulate him like a thin fog giving everything a greying disposition. It was as if the entire room was covered in a layer of dust, already forming since Reggie had commenced cleaning only a matter of minutes earlier. What was the point in this needless chore, if by the time you pause for breath; everything is already being covered by a new layer of filth?
Once again the pulsing inside his head began, causing Reggie to squint in discomfort. He would have to take a break; he glanced across the room at the can of spray polish that was still sat on the window sill. It must have been the fumes from the polish that once again were exasperating his migraine, the shooting pain that was going through his forehead causing him to wince. The burning sensation to the rear of his eye balls, and the blurring of his vision causing the can now to appear to have a blurred aura surrounding it.
A doctor’s appointment, that’s what the letter was about.
He suddenly remembered that he had been waiting for such a letter for the last few days. How had he forgotten something so important?
In his defence it had hardly been addressed in the most professional of styles. And as for the wording? Perhaps his tiredness had got the better of him, caused him to misread words and restrict the legibility of others.
Reggie frantically reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out the double folded piece of paper that he had hidden there from his daughter.
 
Dear Mr Dudgeon,
An appointment has been made for 0900 hours at Sienna Place Surgery with our specialist following on from the recent scan conducted at Peterborough General Hospital. We would like to state that at this point further consultation is required to properly assess the most appropriate mode of action. Should you wish to be accompanied …
 
Specialist appointment…0900 hours…Sienna Place Surgery, Peterborough
 
Feeling a lot more alert like he’d been given a jolt of electricity, all the words suddenly appeared crystal clear; each as legible as the last.
There was more to the letter, but as Reggie scanned through the words, he recalled that it was relating to a specialist consultation regarding a suspected tumour that had been identified from a previous scan only a week earlier. He had not wanted his daughter to see it as she would only worry.
From an early age Louise had shown an aptitude for health care, constantly nursing her dolls as a child, but sometimes her overbearing nursing tendencies were too much for Reggie. That is why he chose to keep this particular concern a secret, that is until he was a bit more certain as to what it was that the doctors had seen on the scan that would explain his inability to sleep through the night.
He knew at some point he would have to tell Louise, after all there was no way he could expect Valerie to care for him on her own should intrusive surgery be necessary, and he knew the wrath that he would face from his fiery daughter should she find out that he was withholding information of such importance from her. But she had little Jamie to think of, he couldn’t be taking up her time, when as a single mother trying to also hold down a part time job in the public sector, she had more compelling priorities to attend to.
Besides, he had neither the inclination nor energy to face up to it now. Perhaps after a good night’s sleep, he would possibly be able to muster the courage to confide in his daughter his fears, and deal with the repercussions of her reaction to the discovery that her father was now just a vulnerable old man.
 Maybe he would tell her after the appointment. Maybe, once his mind was at ease with whatever condition that was playing havoc with his subconscious, he would be able to find the energy to enter a discussion on his state of health. But that time was not now.

To be continued...
Track 2 - I Need You To Turn To