The high-pitched tinkle of the bell. Kat has heard it so many times and yet, she involuntarily looks up. Every single time. A stranger walks in, smiles at her. Her forced smile in return.
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‘Welcome to Universal Melodies. Let me know if I can be of any assistance?’ Another smile. It’s hard to smile. To nod along. And look interested as if hearing something for the very first time. When the only thought on her mind is, when will I see him again?
‘Excuse me, can you …?’
Kat is lost in memories of their first holiday together.
Adam had never been able to convince her it wasn’t a dream. ‘But what about all the photos and the postcards up on your side of the bedroom wall?’
She hated that he could be so sure. She had loved running her fingers through Adam’s thick tousled brown hair, even with the addition of red tints.
‘You should have seen Brett’s face! He never thought I’d actually do it.’
A soft hand on her arm. Perfectly manicured nails coated in a shiny mauve nail varnish. ‘Excuse me, hun. Do you know where I could find a collection of Bach’s cello suites played by Pablo Casals?’
The name barely even registers as the radio in the background suddenly becomes far more important. The melody starts off so slowly it hardly even registers. Then, the notes find their way inside, tie their gossamer strings to her soul and stay there longer than it takes her to figure out that, in reality, they fit there. The piano in the background weaves in and out of the spaces as easily as a person who knows his way around an area blindfolded.
It was their first concert after the Paris trip. Kat remembers the three weeks where Adam practically lived at Brett’s working on their new set. She missed him terribly but cherished the silence that hit her as soon as she walked into the living room after work - four books in those fourteen days, was it?
‘Hey hey hey, thanks for being such a beautiful audience. Hopefully you’ll enjoy this next song as much as I loved writing it. It’s dedicated to someone very special.’ He’d looked at her for what seemed much longer than a few seconds. A wink. Then the first few chords of “You Never Know.”
A few tears escape her large, clear grey eyes, fall through her heavily mascara-lined lashes and make a dark patch on the midnight blue blouse she is wearing. She turns away from the books on the counter. She just wants to close her eyes.
‘I’m sorry hun, are you okay?’
More tears follow the first one and she does nothing to stop them.
‘Kat? Maybe you should take the rest of the day off,’ Andy, her manager smiles apologetically at the small crowd that peers at the crying girl. To the customers, ‘She’ll be fine.’ Another reassuring smile.
Kat cries all the way to the tube station, her tears laced with powdery snow - ‘Hun, are you alright?’ ‘Love; do you want me to call someone?’ All the voices blend into one as her whole body aches, illuminated in stark contrast to the bright colours of the Christmas lights surrounding their flat in Angel. She had spent so many hours picking out the perfect colour combinations that by the end even her artist’s eyes could no longer distinguish between two slightly different shades of burgundy.
‘No effin’ way you managed to fit in my piano in here! Adam had paused. ‘If it wasn’t for this, I’d think you cared more about all your old books than me!’
‘Well, I have known most of them longer, you know.’ A mischievous sparkle in her eyes. A failed attempt to maintain a straight face.
‘May I just say – a sweep of the hand towards the books - that you look lovely in your shiny, colourful, and some of you in your, uhhh not so shiny and colourful covers. And …’
How did he manage to keep a perfectly serious face through such nonsense? All annoyance at his audacity – poof! Damn you, Adam, damn you!
She smiles through the salty tears. His thin, unnaturally long fingers on the black and white. ‘Black and ivory, Kat,’ he always corrected her. The way they seemed to belong there. The way those same hands caressed his favourite Gibson guitar. His fingers complimentary to the linearity of the strings. She has always known that she could never imagine sounds so beautiful. Notes so perfect. Never create any of the naked raw emotion ever-present in his songs. Subtle. Sometimes shy. Like unsure guests at a party where they don’t know anyone.
The apartment still smells of him. Faint, lingering mixed with her perfume. Her hands, wet from her tears, brush against a flower as they put down the keys on the kitchen table. A single pressed red rose.
She remembers the exact moment he gave it to her. A walk over to the Louvre. The huge glass prism, with light reflecting off its surface. The soft muted colours of the rainbow making an almost psychedelic pattern. Him getting down on one knee. The perfect rose. The perfect ring. A moment she wishes she could have kept frozen in a crystal globe.
She also remembers the night that followed. A candle-lit dinner at a restaurant whose name she still cannot pronounce, a moonlight walk on the banks of the River Seine, all the way around to the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. The glittering fairy lights of Paris in the dark, the brilliantly lit Arc de Triomphe and the illuminated La Tour Eiffel in the distance. Paris. Their one year anniversary. She still wears the platinum band.
Her feet make a muted sound on the cobblestones. Déjà vu. Is she really here, so far away from her flat in London? She feels like the gusts of wind blowing across the old Charles bridge could blow her away. She can see her own breath in front of her face. But her hands are snug in their shiny blue leather gloves, the scarf wound tightly around her slender neck, her light brown tresses covered with a turquoise woolen knit. She blends in with the lights and trees and the Christmas colours around her.
Prague. Where is the street they walked on, for their special anniversary? The Grand Café Praha. Part of Grand Hotel Praha. She remembers it before the old world charm of the structure towers over her. The Staromestske.
‘It’s Czech for Old Town Square,’ she remembers Adam’s voice down to the last modulation. She remembers the view from the large glass windows, a view that surrounds her as she stands in the square - the many buildings of Romanesque, Baroque and Gothic heritage, not to mention the tiny, quaintly European cafes that line the pavement on both sides.
Kat lingers near the exquisite entrance doors.
‘Promiňte slečno, čekáš na někoho?’
A small crease on her forehead. Realisation on the friendly face of the doorman,
‘Apologies Miss, you speak English?’
A half smile. A sad shake of her head. Another smile. A much improved version. She moves across the street and seats herself at a table in front of a café.
‘I’ll have a hot chocolate please. And some biscotti. Diky,’ a smile and response before the waitress even has a chance to ask the question. The Czech word for ‘thank you’ has slipped out before Kat realises it. A smile in return,
‘Yes of course. I’ll be right back.’
Her mind cannot get away from that night not so long ago. ‘Just one touch. The lightest.’ There had been a grand piano, right at the centre of the Grand Café Praha. As a distraction, Adam had to clench his fists and absorb himself in the music more than usual. Louis Armstrong. Frank Sinatra. Miles Davies. Glenn Miller. Cole Porter.
Kat re-focuses her gaze on the first floor across the street. The windows of the Grand Café Praha sparkle from where she is sat. She remembers the exotic food, remembers thinking that all of it must be costing Adam a lot of money,
‘Let’s go somewhere really fancy. I want tonight to be special.’
She remembers the texture and the smell and the taste of the three course meal – prawn cocktail with lemon, mozzarella with tomatoes, basil, olive oil and balsamic vinegar, marinated tiger prawns with dill and parsley, grilled pepper steak with peppers and roast bacon, served with wild rice for her and potatoes au gratin for him. And the dessert. The gorgeous melt-in-your-mouth apple crumble,
‘This is possibly the only thing I love more than you!’ He’d slipped it in so that she almost didn’t realise he’d said it.
‘I love you too, but,’ Kat paused. An impish look in her eyes as Adam nervously looked on, ‘you have to compete with the apple pie AND my books.’
Kat continues to look up, the streetlights create psychedelic patterns on the windows of the Café. She likes the idea of Adam thinking of her, missing her, today of all days. Thinking of her and the Café on the day of what would have been their three year anniversary of the first time they met.
She remembers more, the harder she tries to forget – the bitter-sweet fizz the welcome drink of Czech Champagne – ‘Bohemia Sekt’ left on their tongues, the timeless dark wooden furniture adding to the quaintness, the beautiful intricately engraved silver candle holders, the damask tablecloths …
She realises that she cannot see clearly. Tears turn into muted cries. Then, soundless, body-wracking sobs so intense that she bends over the table and holds herself. The perfectly complimenting matrix of Adam’s voice and the sound of his guitar had always made her feel like she was wearing an extra layer of clothing. She shivers despite her coat. How had she not heard the steady increase in the intensity of the pain and the longing in the notes? Maybe because it had always been a part of his music. Or maybe her love for him had prevented her noticing the slight wince of pain every time his fingers pressed into the strings of his Gibson. He’d named the guitar, Bella.
Kat wonders whether it would have hurt less, if she had joined the dots sooner. Open up your eyes. She wonders where he is, what he’s doing, whether he’s still playing music, whether he’s still alive. The thought that she’s been trying to push away finally wins the fight. A strong pain in her gut. She struggles to push air into lungs that seem to have magically shrunk. Shaking her head a few times does not stop the melodies. Open up your eyes. Every song that Adam had ever played. Her soul bathed in the sweet notes, the bitter notes, the hopeful notes, the downright beautiful notes, the notes that made each and every muscle in her body ache with the urge to just walk over and give him a hug, tell him that he is safe now, that she is willing to try at the very least.
More memories from the Grand Café - the pattern of the tiny blue forget-me-nots on the china complimenting the freshly-cut flowers in delicate vases on each table, the candle light illuminating Adam’s profile …
A shadow falls on the table and over her bent head. She has no strength left to look up. A gloved hand on her arm. She jumps about a foot in the air and back, nearly knocking over the chair she’s sitting on.
Her eyes meet that of the stranger towering over her. She looks up to see someone she almost doesn’t recognise. It can’t be. Kat clenches and unclenches her fists, the platinum ring digging deep into her palm. Her hand instinctively reaches up to touch his face but she holds it back. A sharp shooting pain causes her to wince, rub her forehead, and close her eyes. Kat takes a few deep breaths and opens her eyes after what seems like hours.
Adam is still standing in front of her. Silent. His dark brown eyes as intense as she remembers. It is like she is seeing him for the first time. Really looking through the image of him from their first meeting, and seeing what she failed to see over the last year. Open up your eyes. The thick brown hair she loved so much is now cropped so short that she can almost see the scalp. The face is a lot more angular and his skin is paler.
The conversation that followed is hazy at best. She should have seen it coming. Open up your eyes. The high frequency of his nightmares, the increasing black under his eyes, the loss in weight that she put down to stress over a massively important concert – perhaps the most important one he’d ever done so far. She remembers how the strength had drained out of him and left him sagging. Open up your eyes. Why hadn’t he trusted them to face it together? Kat closes her eyes tightly at the memory of the day when she came back to the apartment and found him gone. The only trace left was a note in his slanting handwriting – I will always love you. I’m sorry.
In July 2011, Anushree Nande graduated with a First Class BA Joint Honours degree in Creative Writing and Media Studies from Edge Hill University. She is currently a full-time MA Creative Writing student at the same University. A native resident of Mumbai, India, and a science student till Year 12, Anushree prefers writing short stories, but is presently working on her first novel. With strong inclinations towards arts and sports, she is currently exploring use of various art forms as modes of expression in a narrative. Anushree is the current Editor in Chief for Fiction for Edge Hill University’s Black Market Review as well as the Reviews Editor for Short Fiction in Theory and Practice. She will have her first publication in Easter 2012 with her short story, L'Effet de Papillon.