The Forget-Me-Not Sonata(50)

Audrey was suddenly overcome with gratitude. ‘You’re not a heartless fool. You’re the kindest, sweetest man I have ever met.’

‘Think no more about it. Let time heal your pain. Then one day, when you feel ready to face the future again, ponder on it a little. I won’t mention it again. But I’ll wait for you as long as you want.’

‘Thank you, Cecil,’ she croaked, drawing away from him and pulling a hanky out of her coat pocket. ‘You’re a very kind man,’ she said again, seeing a different side to the person she had always thought of as cold. Fish do feel, she thought, remembering Isla’s wicked comment, and blew her nose.

When Cecil returned to the Club, he found Louis slumped over the piano, delirious with alcohol and regret. ‘I’ve lost the one woman I shall ever love,’ he mumbled without opening his eyes to the cruel light of the real world.

‘I’m so sorry, Louis, I didn’t realize,’ said Cecil kindly, patting him on his back. So the Colonel had been right all along, Louis had indeed lost his heart to Isla.

‘You don’t know the half of it, you fool!’ Louis snapped drunkenly. Then laughed the high-pitched laugh of a madman.

‘You’ll feel better in the morning,’ Cecil sighed, dragging his brother to his feet. He could no longer count the times he had helped him stagger up that wooden staircase and into his small room to undress him like a sick child. Cecil wondered whether he’d ever be free of the responsibility.

‘Only death can liberate me from such a hell,’ he slurred.

‘Come on, Louis, you’ll love again, old boy,’ Cecil tried to reassure him, but his patience was wearing thin.

‘I’ll never love again. She’s an angel, there’s none other like her.’

‘She is an angel. She’s with God.’ Louis looked at him in puzzlement. Cecil frowned. ‘Time is a great healer,’ he continued. This infuriated Louis even more.

‘Time! That’s what she wanted too. Time is what I don’t have.’

‘What do you mean?’ Cecil asked, pulling off his brother’s shoes and socks.

‘I don’t want to be here if I can’t have her. It’ll kill me.’

‘Everyone feels like you do today. We all feel bereft, but we can’t run away from our pain.’

‘She’s dead to me now. I might as well leave.’

‘Where to?’

‘I’ll go wherever the winds take me.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Cecil retorted, helping Louis into his pyjamas.

‘I’m leaving to forget.’

‘What will you do?’

‘Die of a broken heart.’ He laughed again, but this time his laughter was empty and hopeless.

‘For goodness’ sake,’ his brother chided him gently, tucking him into his bed. ‘You won’t even remember you said that in the morning.’

But in the morning Louis was gone. Cecil searched the room for some indication of where he had gone and for how long he intended to be away. But he had taken all his belongings with him, except a note, which he had left on the dresser for his brother to find.

Cecil picked it up and opened it. Slowly he read what Louis had written. As his eyes scanned the page his face turned pale and his lips twitched. He inhaled deeply then proceeded to read it again. After a while he sat down in thought, turning the little piece of paper over and over in his fingers. Finally he returned to his own room. There he folded it up and placed it in a polished walnut box he used for locking away things of great importance. Stiffening his shoulders and straightening his back he walked purposefully over to Canning Street to tell Rose and her family. I survived the war, I can survive this, he thought to himself. But he knew the greatest challenge of his life awaited him.





Chapter 10



Louis’ sudden disappearance only confirmed what everyone had suspected: that he and Isla had been in love. But because Isla was dead and above criticism their clandestine relationship wasn’t reviewed with horror; on the contrary, it was seen as a romantic tragedy of Shakespearean proportions and Louis, the grieving lover, was respected in a way that would never have otherwise been possible. If he had been worthy of Isla’s affection, they deduced, he must be a very special human being indeed. Unwittingly she had salvaged his reputation, but Louis was unaware of it, sitting miserably on the drizzly deck of a freight ship bound for Mexico.

Rose wept copious tears when she heard the news from Cecil who had hurried over to Canning Street at the first light of dawn. ‘He loved my Isla?’ she snivelled, crumbling into an armchair in her dressing gown. ‘I thought I knew everything about my daughter’s life, but I didn’t. I’ve been monstrously unfair to dear Louis. Isla loved him and if dear Isla loved him then I love him too.’