Three Dont Tango 29

Monday night is jazz night at the Marsden Arms. Edwin plays piano with a jazz quartet. Annabel suddenly becomes interested in jazz.
It is eight o'clock. Annabel is all dressed up. She is bright and breezy. She is off out for the evening.
The house is suddenly very empty. Cephren is in bed reading. Mini is fast asleep. The house is silent as the grave. I walk from the kitchen to the drawing room and stare at the piano. I sit down and play a Chopin nocturne very quietly. Even the sound of the soft notes seems out of place in the surrounding silence.
I go upstairs and into Mini's bedroom. She is so small in the large bed. She sleeps with total abandon. Her body is sprawled across the bed in a totally wanton attitude. One arm is flung across the pillow, the other is doubled back over her chest. She is breathing with a stentorian vigour.
I fold her arm back, and turn her over. She grunts and I cover her up. She says something which is undecipherable. I say "Yes dear, it's all right," but she is fast asleep.
I go in to Cephren, and we talk for maybe five minutes, then I put off his light.
I wander into my bedroom and open the window. I can see vaguely across the valley. The drone of the waterfall makes a wall of soft sound beyond the trees. There is no other sound. I reach down and flick a switch, and suddenly the garden is bathed in light. The leaves go white, while black shadows like twisted steel arch their way across the lawn.
I am listening. I can hear the background noise of the waterfall, but that is not what interests me. I am listening to the earth breathing. I am also hearing Annabel laughing in the pub where she is drinking cider and listening to Edwin banging away on the piano.
It's my own fault. I don't want to go out.
Actually I do want to go out, but I don't want to go to the pub and listen to jazz. And I don't really want to spoil Annabel's evening; after all, it wouldn't be much fun for her if I went too.
The problem is I don't know what I want to do.
There is a black night which seems empty.
If I look carefully I can see the night isn't empty at all. It is brim full of strangely coloured blacknesses, lots of them all overlapping. There are nets of black, and you can almost see through the mesh. There is a black gauze over everything, and thicker bundles of black bunched across the valley.
Everywhere are dark tree shapes waiting for something. You stare at them, but they just stare back. They don't say anything; they don't move; they just stand there staring.
I have put out the light so I can see more clearly. I can just make out the trees and the grass, and the rose against the wall, so they exist, but I cannot see Annabel. There is some dreadful logical knowledge in my brain that tells me that Annabel is dead.
Suddenly I run down the stairs and open the front door, and peer into the black night with a primeval terror.
I walk down the drive-way to the gate which is open. The lazy bitch didn't get out to shut it! I go to unhitch and close it, but then change my mind. If she left it open she will come careering down the hill and lurch into the driveway assuming the gate to be open, and if I've shut it, she'll crunch the front of the car and wreck the gate. I peer up the lane, then go back indoors, and sit at the kitchen table, my head in my hands, my elbows on the table.
Outside is a black night. Annabel is lost somewhere in the middle of the blackness.
Inside the Marston Arms there is a bright light, and a tinkle of happiness. There are smiles and laughter. Annabel is drinking with Edwin, and the band are making jokes, and everyone is admiring Annabel, who is a pretty girl with long fair hair, blue eyes, short skirt, nice legs. She is the centre of attraction.
Next week she goes again.
The following week Terry from next door hears about these jazz evenings and decides he will go as well.
Annabel is getting fed up with Edwin. Edwin doesn't do anything. Edwin is wet. Sure, Edwin is fun, and he is a painter, and she can talk painting and composition with him. Sure he is a photographer, and she can talk pictures and developing techniques with him, and she can work in his dark room, and they can have a snog in the dark up against the developing trays. But there is no way forward with Edwin. There can only be stagnation or going backwards, and Annabel doesn't want either. She is bored.
But she is safe. She can always go home to the stooge.
She doesn't know Terry yet. She is flattered by his attention. It is all exciting.
He sits and does the Guardian crossword. She sits on the sofa trying to work out how he does it so quickly. He is taciturn, and therefore intriguing. He gives the impression of being more than he shows. He is clever. He sits and thinks. There is something to fathom. And he doesn't get on very well with his wife. They are always screaming at each other, and you can hear them right down the valley.
I'm not sure she is aware of a major change that has occurred. I am certainly not aware of it, but something is becoming increasingly clear.
Part of Annabel has left home.

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