Music Man Pt. 07

That time he did as she asked, but for the rest of the day he sat in his chair doing nothing except sleeping from time to time, then took himself off to bed without telling her.

Next morning she found he had an erection and took him in her mouth to awake him. He pushed her away.

"For God's sake, Cassie, leave me alone. Stop fussing over me."

Deeply hurt, she left the bed and he remained there until midday, when he got up, showered and dressed. He went downstairs and sat in his easy chair in the living room. Once again there were heavy clouds and the day was dark. It did not help. He was sad enough without suffering SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder).

Cassie realised this depression was serious: an illness, and called the doctor the following Monday.

Ged had not risen for the day when the doctor arrived. She showed him into the bedroom and left them to it. She could hear raised voices, then a quieter conversation. Finally the doctor emerged.

"You're quite right, he is severely depressed," he said. "I've prescribed some anti-depressants which he's promised to take."

She took Ged's car and did some shopping while waiting for the prescription to be made up. When she returned he was still in bed. She took a pill and a glass of water to him in bed, woke him and presented them to him.

"These are the pills the doctor prescribed," she said. "They're anti-depressants. They may help you to feel better."

"Oh." That was all. He did not try to take them from her.

She laid the pill on his bedside table with the tumbler of water, and left in tears.

That afternoon she went back and found the pill had gone and the tumbler was empty. He was asleep again and had not left his bed all day.

She went downstairs where Gwen was sitting after her afternoon's work.

"Well, he's taken the pill," she said. "I suppose that's something."

"Cassie, darling," she said. "Let's hope the pills work, hold on girl, you're doing just fine."

However, apart from him taking the tablets, there was no real change. He came downstairs to the living room each of the following days that week, but sat reading, and falling asleep.

On Thursday the Decree Absolute arrived through the letterbox.

Cassie brought it to Ged, who was still in bed. "I'm free," she said with a relieved smile. "I'm a single woman again."

"I'm pleased for you," Ged said monotonously, though without the elation he thought he would feel. He had hoped to propose to her on that day, but after their conversation about the future, he knew it was not going to happen as he had hoped. In any case he felt no inclination to propose.

She begged him to take a walk with her as a celebration. He did not react.

She tried not to let his dark mood get to her. Each day she had offered him breakfast, and cajoled him into eating it. She had offered him lunch, which he ate mechanically. The same with dinner, which she had put it in front of him on a TV table, and he ate it watching the news. She talked about the news items and sometimes he did comment himself, usually negatively, but she felt getting a comment at all was a minor triumph.

He always said thanks for his meals, but usually did not comment further. What worried her was that he seemed to be withdrawing into himself more and more. She noticed he was burying himself re-reading some of his novels.

After the Decree arrived, Ged did not appear downstairs and on the Saturday morning she made a discovery. She saw the remains of the anti-depressant tablets in the toilet bowl which had not flushed them away. He'd not been taking them at all. It was nine thirty in the morning and he was still in bed.

She went straight to his room and shook him awake, very angry.

"We need to talk," she said.

"We don't," he replied churlishly.

"I don't care whether you want to or not," she growled, her distress and anger obvious. "Ged, I thought you loved me. You've not been taking your pills."

"They're not working."

"They're not working because you're not taking them! I've just seen a pile of them in the bottom of the loo."

"Can't be bothered."

"I don't think you love me any more. I'm just a servant here. The way you're going on is going to kill you. You might find that an easy way out, but you will leave me heart-broken. I don't think you care."

He looked up at her, his eyes distant and vague. "I do. It's just..." he stopped and shrugged.

"If you do love me, you'll at least eat three meals a day and take your pills."

He nodded, but said nothing.

"Nothing to say?" she said. "Well, Ged, I can't go on like this, sleeping next to you waking with you, but you ignoring me. You've not kissed me or shown me any affection for a fortnight. I kiss you and you don't react. I'm beginning to think you don't want me. Don't you care for me any more?"

He looked at her. "I just can't seem to..." he faltered and stopped.

"I'm moving my stuff out of your room," she said in despair. "I can't stand this. In any case, you're out of bed so seldom it stinks. You may be in hell, but you're putting me through it as well."

She left the room and he stared after her. He did love her, but somehow couldn't muster enough energy to say or do anything about it.

That night she did not come to his bed. He looked around and noticed for the first time that her things had gone from the dressing table. He got out of bed and looked in the wardrobe. Her clothes had gone.

It stirred him and in his befuddled state he wondered why. He liked her warm presence, but dreaded having to talk to her. In fact he dreaded being awake and having to make any decisions at all.

She didn't come back to his bed. He felt more hopeless and lonely, and kept to his bedroom. She begged him to come down for meals but he growled at her and turned away from her in the bed.

So she decided to bring his meals to his room, and leave them for him to eat - and she noted that he was eating most of what she provided. She wondered if he was somehow binning the food, but could find no evidence.

However, he wanted to show her he loved her, so he stirred himself to take the pills and make sure he took them in her presence. She'd know he took them that way. He also ate all the food she brought him, instead of picking and choosing part of each dish she put in front of him. He always muttered his thanks, and tried to force a smile.

While making that effort, he did not leave the bedroom, nor had he changed out of the tee shirt and boxers he wore to bed. The room smelled very unpleasant, but he had shouted at her when she tried to open his bedroom window, the air in his bedroom was fetid and reeked of stale sweat and body odour.

On the Saturday following the pill incident, she marched in, opened the window wide to the cold November air against his shouted protests, and took out a fresh tee shirt and boxers from the drawer.

"Get a shower, Ged, you stink! Then change into these. Do it!" she snarled at him.

He was shocked by her aggression and obvious anger, and wondered if she was beginning to hate him.

She left the room, closing the door loudly, just short of a slam. When she returned an hour later the room was fresher, the window was still open and he had changed. She wondered if he had showered but did not ask.

Ged for his part, while surprised at her aggressive behaviour, was well aware that he was not clean, and did go and stand under the shower for some minutes, though he could not be bothered to actually wash himself properly, in any case doing it left-handed was a chore.

She came in later, picking up his soiled sleepwear.

"Ged, put on a dressing gown and go downstairs. Dinner is on the table. I need to clean your room and change the bed."

"Ugh? Oh, OK."

She did not comment further and left. He hated her angry mood, but did as he was told. It was the line of least resistance.

The following week, she took to opening his window wide in the morning, against his protests, but he did not shut it again. She had provoked him into going downstairs where it was warmer. However he did not dress.

"If you don't like the cold, go downstairs," she had told him. "That is, if you have enough strength in your poor little legs to walk down the stairs." It was said with heavy sarcasm.

He did as she asked, which encouraged her, but he returned to his room in the afternoon. She had moved an armchair into his bedroom and he would sit there, looking out of the window or reading.

On Monday, encouraged by her success in moving him even a little on the two days before, she then hatched a plan which she ran by Gwen who thought it was a great idea.

So on the Tuesday, he was on his way back to the bedroom from his bathroom when he heard the piano. She was playing his songs, one after another. It enraged him. He stormed down to the music room and burst in.

"Shut up with that fucking rubbish!" he yelled, and began to stride towards her with murder in his eyes. She stopped playing and left the piano, and he slammed the lid shut.

"Don't you dare do that again. They're my songs and I'll decide if they're played! You've got a fucking nerve!"

Not waiting for a response, he stomped back up the stairs to his bedroom, and sat heavily on the bed, breathing hard, his heart thumping in his chest. He wondered why he had done that. Now it was over, he could see his reaction was out of all proportion to the offence, if offence it could be called at all.

She for her part stood in the music room trembling. He'd never been aggressive towards her before and it frightened her. She wondered if he'd have struck her if she hadn't moved so he could vent his rage on the piano lid.

Then she began to be angry in her turn. There was no way he was going to stop her playing the piano. She would play, not his work, but the works of much greater composers. She would practise every day, daring him to attack her again. She'd show him!

Gwen had arrived to do her work as housekeeper and agreed with Cassie's reaction to his violence.

"He can't object to Mozart, Cariad!" she said with a laugh.

Next afternoon, when Ged awoke from a snooze in his armchair in the bedroom, he heard the piano again. He leapt out of the chair and was half-way down the stairs to the music room when he realised she was not playing his songs, but Beethoven's Appassionata Sonata, and she was practising it, stopping here and there and repeating phrases over and over till she got them right, then going back to the beginning and starting again.

Strangely the fractured music as she practised calmed him, and he shambled back to the bedroom, leaving the door open.

For the next four days, each day, during two or three afternoon hours, she would practise and then play. Always Mozart, Chopin, and then some Liszt, and of course she was working her way through the Beethoven Sonatas.

Every day he would open his door, the better to listen, unbeknownst to her. For him it shed a little light into his dark world. He looked forward each day to listen to her and that in itself was a progression, but each day when she finished, he sank back into the bleakness and torpor. And of course he said nothing to her, or things might have turned out differently.

At Gwen's advice, she had begun to talk to him as if everything was perfectly normal, ignoring his limited responses. She'd ask him questions, but rarely got an answer, and when there was, it was nothing beyond a grunt.

After those four days at the piano, she could see no improvement, no change, and at last she could take no more: her nerves were in shreds and the constant negativity was sapping all her optimism. She was becoming angry and worried she would explode soon, which would do Ged no good at all.

So on the cold bright morning of Monday the 29th November, as he was getting up to visit the bathroom in his dressing gown, she arrived in his room and blocked the doorway.

"Gerald, I've tried and tried to look after you, but really I'm no use to you any more. It's been very wearing and I'm at the end of my tether. I'm going home to my parents for a rest and a bit of a holiday.

"I'm sorry Ged, I can't take any more. In your present frame of mind you don't care whether I'm here or not, or you'd at least talk to me. You show me no interest, no affection, no love. I've lived in hope that you'd improve with time now you're taking the pills, but I see no sign of it. I've stopped taking the pill; there's no point if we're not sleeping together, and I don't need useless chemicals in my body.

"If you want me back, you only have to call. You know my parents' number and mine: they're on the speed dial of your phone. Perhaps some time on your own will help you to recover. You'll have to fend for yourself - the routine might help."

At this she hugged him and kissed his unresponsive lips, then picked up her suitcase and left the house. She sat in her car for fifteen minutes to see if he would come after her, and then with a heavy heart, she drove south.

--

At first he stood in the bedroom where he was, his trip to the bathroom forgotten. He wondered what had just happened. He'd only ever listened half-heartedly when she'd prattled on about all sorts of things, and he hadn't mentally processed what she'd just said. Then she had hugged and kissed him.

When he heard the car start, he remembered she had a suitcase. It shook him. He went downstairs and opened the front door. Her car was gone. He went to the living room and sat on the sofa. Then he remembered he needed the bathroom and used the one downstairs, before returning to sit on the sofa.

He racked his brains. She had come into the bedroom and said something, then kissed him and went. What was it she said? He looked round at the room. Then he ascended the stairs and looked into the bedroom she had been using, and he noticed the dressing table: it was empty. The bed was freshly made and the used bedding was in the clothes basket.

That puzzled him, so he went in and opened the wardrobe. He saw gaps where some of her clothes had been. He went to the drawers and found her underwear drawer was nearly empty.

What the fuck? he wondered. What did she say? Something about home?

He went back downstairs again and looked out of the window. Yes, her car had really gone. He felt a moment of panic, then deeper sadness. She'd left him. He told himself that he couldn't really blame her, could he? He'd not been exactly the life and soul of the party, he thought with an involuntary transient grin at the idea.

So what was left for him? All the money he could want, a huge house, crippled hands and nothing else.

He went back upstairs and stripped off his nightwear, wincing a little with the occasional residual pain in his right hand, and gazed at its ugliness. He should take some paracetamol. Then he remembered his anti-depressants and took one with the pain-killer. Then he felt tired, went back to bed and fell asleep. It was ten thirty in the morning.

He woke at two. The day had turned dark and grey, heavy with rain clouds, which did not help his mood. He put on his dressing gown over his nakedness and went downstairs.

He looked for a note from her, but there was none. Where had she gone? The gaping void in his life deepened, and he sat down, inert.

I have to get out of this, he thought, but he did not move. What was the point? He had lost everything he had lived for. He could not play, and felt no inspiration to write. He remembered how frustrated Cassie was with his lack of interest in his music. Why hadn't he tried to be more awake to her needs when she left his bed?

That evening he found some leftover stew. Cassie had made it, he thought, but that was all. He heated it and ate it from the pan without enthusiasm for its delicious flavour. Then he switched on the TV and allowed whatever was on wash over him, until at midnight he switched it off and went to bed.

For the next three days he merely ate anything that required no preparation beyond the use of one hand, and slept. He had not shaved for quite a while, and sported a rough and untidy beard. The dishes mounted in the kitchen sink. He rinsed the last clean mug and used it again and again.

Then looking at the dirty dishes it hit him. Gwen had not been in either. Did she say anything about not being there? He didn't think so. He became angry. What did he pay the woman for if she wasn't coming?

He phoned her. She answered.

"It's Ged," he said, trying to keep his voice level. "You've not been in this week. Why?"

"Heavens my love," she answered without a shred of guilt, and his anger rose, but she was continuing. "Cassie told you a week ago: I'm taking two weeks holiday. I have to look after my husband. He's had a heart attack and needs me. He's getting better, but I don't know when I'll be able to leave him."

"I apologise," Ged said penitently. "Cassie has left me and I don't know where she's gone."

"Well, Ged bach, you can hardly blame her can you?"

Ged had a flash of resentment at her comment, then thought back over the past weeks, and had to admit she was right.

"Yes, I just feel to drained, so aimless." He gave a deep sigh.

Gwen thought she could have given him some sound advice, but did not feel it was her place. "Listen boyo, you have friends. They may know where she is."

"You're right," he said. "I'll try them."

"I'll ring you when I'm able to work again. Is that all right, my love?" she asked.

"Yes, that's fine," he said, "and give your husband my best wishes. Oh, and by the way, you'll still be paid - I don't want you having money worries."

"You're a good man, Ged. If you don't mind me saying so, losing your hand was terrible but really it's not the end of the world. You have other talents."

"Thanks Gwen." He had that flash of resentment again, but did not show it. What did she know about losing his ability to play?

She rang off and he resolved to ring Cheryl when he'd found some lunch. In the meantime he did not want to be disturbed and disconnected the land line phone and turned off his mobile. As it happened he forgot to re-connect any of it for days.

He found the final tin of baked beans in the pantry and blessed the electric can opener as it whirred and removed the lid for him. He poured the contents into a small pan and lit the hob. He let it cook for five minutes, which allowed some of the beans to disintegrate and stick to the bottom of the pan where they burned slightly. He turned off the gas, took a dessert spoon and ate the beans out of the pan as it sat on the hob.

One thing of which he had got the hang, was making tea one handed. He sat at the table and drank it. Time to ring Cheryl. He picked up the phone, forgetting he had disconnected it.

At that moment the front door bell rang, as if it had waited for him to decide to use the phone.

Fuck! he thought. Who's this at three in the afternoon?

He was tempted to leave the door unanswered, but somehow the conversation with Gwen gave him a feeling that he would feel guilty if he didn't answer it. He trudged to the front door and opened it.

"Does Gerald Smith live here, bearded man?"

"Mother!"

"Hello Son! Give us a hug!"

--

Chapter Forty Six

"Hi, Mum, Dad," Cassie said, hugging her mother and then her father. It felt good to hug and have the hug returned. She had felt guilty all the way home at leaving Ged, but now knew she had done the right thing.

"Where's Ged?" came the inevitable question.

"In his house," she answered. "I had to get out for a while; I need a break."

They looked at her, and she knew she had to say more. Marie came downstairs and crept into the room.

"He's deeply depressed. We were doing all right until they took the plaster off his right hand. I kept his spirits up until his therapy ended and it was obvious he would never have anything like full use of that hand. The left is good as new really, but the right is never going to be of much use.