The Midnight Train (The Midnight World, #2)(71)

He and his piano teacher had their backs to them as Wilbur tried to play the first section of ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’, his stiff fingers loosening a little as they moved along the keys. Even though this was the ‘easy’ version of the song – well, it was in the Beginner’s Piano Simon and Garfunkel Songbook – it didn’t feel easy.

Once he had finished, his piano teacher – Nora – gave a little clap. ‘That was really good,’ she lied, almost convincingly, as she smoothed a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

‘I really don’t think so,’ he said. He was eighty-one years old now, and his voice had a slight croak to it.

‘Ah, come on, Wilbur, it was a lot better than last week. You’ve been practising!’

‘Yes. A little. I have a lot of time. But I am still so clumsy. I struggle to keep pace with all those flats.’

‘I get that. And I saw you had a few … issues there.’

‘I certainly did. With that blasted chord. Reaching that E flat …’

‘But, Wilbur, just remember it isn’t a race. Keep it slow. Get the feel of it gently. Breathe into it. Take your time.’

Wilbur laughed a little at that point. The kind of laugh that lives next to tears. ‘I have always had the same problem. My wife used to say I was scared of stillness. And even now I’m old, even now my brain and fingers work against me, I still have a tendency to gallop.’

Nora looked at him a little tentatively. ‘You said your wife liked this song.’

‘She loved it. It was probably her favourite.’ He felt some more explanation was needed. ‘I’m speaking in the past tense but she’s still alive. It’s just I haven’t seen her since, well, since the last century, actually.’

Nora smiled at him as if she had something to say, something maybe a little intrusive, but she thought better of it. ‘I like it too. I love it, in fact. I was in a band once and we played a lot of covers and that was always my choice.’

‘Oh, really? What were you called?’

‘The Labyrinths.’

‘Good name. Were you a success?’ He regretted saying this. It was silly. If the band had been a success, then why on earth would she be teaching piano to an eighty-one-year-old who was really just lonely? She would have been touring Asia or something.

‘In one lifetime, yes. But not this one.’

‘Ah. Right.’

She played the section for him.

He was, as ever, in awe at the ease with which she played. She sang the first verse while her fingers moved across the keys.

He was thinking of Maggie singing the song, years ago, on their honeymoon in Venice. Then, suddenly, and quietly, and for the first time in decades, he began to cry.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, dabbing his eyes with his sleeve. He stood up. Walked away, towards the open-plan kitchen at the other side of the room. ‘That was embarrassing.’

Nora stood up too. A bit confused but determined not to make him feel any worse. ‘Don’t be silly, Wilbur. It’s not embarrassing at all. It’s good to cry when we feel it.’

He stared at a bottle of red wine he had put out for this evening. ‘You don’t mind if I have a glass of wine?’

‘Not at all. It’s a Saturday. Totally allowed.’

He struggled with the corkscrew so she went over and helped him as he navigated himself to the cupboard where the wine glasses were kept.

‘Would you like one?’ he asked her.

‘Sure. I’m not driving. My brother, Joe, is picking me up. He’s playing at the Corn Exchange in Cambridge tonight. His band is really good.’

She poured the wine into two glasses and didn’t comment on the blood-pressure monitor he had left out from that morning. Nor did he tell her that he had been feeling quite ill. They sat down at the large table in the living area.

‘It’s just …’ Wilbur began. ‘We’ve been separated for a long time. Sorry. Don’t mean to burden you with that.’

Nora shook her head. ‘Don’t apologise, please. That’s the danger of music. It can stir up all kinds of things.’

‘It can, it really can. And it … I don’t know. I’m ridiculous.’

‘You are not ridiculous, Wilbur. You’re a success story.’

‘I just wish I had managed to keep the person I loved happy.’

There was a moment of quiet. Nora frowned. She seemed to be making a decision to say something.

‘By the way, I don’t know what you believe, but there is probably a life where you are together …’ She took a breath. ‘I hope you don’t think I’m insensitive saying this, but today is quite an emotional day for me too.’

‘I see. In what way?’

‘Well, seven years ago to the day I did something stupid.’

‘I can’t imagine that. You seem so together.’

Nora gave a dry smile. ‘Life had got on top of me. Situational depression, they call it. Not the clinical type. Just the can’t-see-the-wood-for-the-trees kind.’ She laughed darkly. ‘There had just been a sort of traffic jam of, well, situations.’

Wilbur sipped his wine. ‘Ah. Yes. Situations.’

‘I felt like a failure. Like I’d made a lot of bad decisions. Let people down. Guilt. Regret. And one night I didn’t think I could go on, so I tried to take my life. And I came very close, you know, to doing it …’