For some reason, the character of Rosie wouldn't leave my thoughts after I had written her final scenes with Mick, and this little epilogue popped into my mind and virtually wrote itself within a few days.
I hope my readers, who are probably much keener on finding out where Mick is off to, will forgive me this little detour to put a finishing touch on Rosie's own story.
The soundtrack for this has no words, just a - moving, beautiful - tune. It is, of course, Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata.
April 1960
Rosie closed the front door with a soft click after the kids had left the house, still smiling about the look on Frederick's face when she'd straightened out the collar of his shirt.
How tall her son had become, and how manly. This was his last summer at school. Her little boy was going to start college this year. Then she'd only have fourteen-year-old Olivia left at home, with Christine having moved out a long time ago.
She cast a glance at herself in the long hall mirror, critically studying herself. Contrary to her figure, which had pretty much gone down the drain after her last pregnancy, she was mostly satisfied with her face. At least apart from the wrinkles around her eyes and mouth and the vertical line between her eyebrows that gave her a somewhat grim look. Her mother had had the same, which might be the very reason she hated it.
"Oh well", she thought, "you're forty-nine, what do you expect." Shrugging, she walking back into the kitchen to pour herself the last bit of coffee. She sat down at the table, savouring the bittersweet taste on her tongue while she slowly leafed through the morning paper. Savouring the luxury of having the house all to herself.
Much as she adored her family, she loved those precious moments of solitude that were so rare when you were a mother. She stretched languidly, yawning. Getting up at five was not for her, but she wouldn't have wanted Ernie to leave for his two-day business trip without a goodbye kiss.
She decided that she'd take it easy this morning. There wasn't too much to do anyway. It was too chilly to work in the garden, and as Ernie wouldn't be there for lunch, she'd make do with a few sandwiches instead of cooking. The windows could use washing, but she didn't feel like doing that today.
Perhaps she could get those boxes containing several years' worth of unsorted photographs out of the living room cupboard and try to bring them in some kind of order. And maybe, if it didn't start raining, she'd go out later for a little walk into town to buy a new photo album or two.
She cleared the breakfast table, stacked the dirty dishes in the sink and went through into the spacious living room. This was her favourite place in the house, both when it was filled with the chatter and laughter and spirited discussion of her kids and their friends and when she was all alone, listening to music while she was working on a new pullover for one of the kids or flicking through a magazine.
She switched on the radio that was still tuned in to Ernie's preferred classical-music station. She was already about to flip the dial to find something that suited her own taste in music better when the announcer's sonorous voice came on, saying, "… plays Beethoven's piano sonata No. 14 in C sharp minor, opus 27, no. 2, commonly known as the 'Moonlight Sonata'."
She wasn't sure why she hesitated long enough to hear the first few bars. The slow, clear notes dropped into her soul like stones into a pond, stirring the calm surface.
Bringing back this very first breathtaking moment at Harry's bar.
She gasped audibly, and an involuntary hand fluttered towards her throat.
She had never known what the piece was called, and she hadn't heard it in a long while. Ernie didn't care much for piano music. The radio programs he listened to on Sundays featured opera and symphonies mainly.
The Moonlight Sonata.
A dark old piano at the rear of a dark old bar. Tousled black curls and a pale grey shirt.
A moonlit, starry summer night. A light behind an upstairs window. A reassuring presence with her in the gloomy stairwell that led to her tiny room in Mrs. Lawson's attic.
Mick.
Her quiet piano player with the magical hands.
Her handsome dancer with those nimble steps and flawless timing, with this easy catlike grace, those supple, elegant movements that made dancing with him a joy that must also have been beautiful to watch. This blind understanding between them, this instinctive feeling for the next move.
The man she had loved like she'd never loved a man before.
The man she'd hurt like she'd never hurt anyone before. Or after.
She remembered clearly this little scar above his lip. She had been curious to learn what had happened, how he'd come by it, but he never told her, and she hadn't explicitly inquired.
She had come to find very quickly that he'd clam up without a warning if she asked the wrong question. He had preferred to keep most of his history to himself, and she had decided that it didn't matter much. Her own past was hardly ever a subject of conversation between them either. In a way, it had felt good just to live in the present.
She had found it reassuring that he seemed to be virtually free of all the bonds people usually had – family ties, long-time jobs, close friends – just like she was herself.
She had enjoyed her involvement with Morris and with Jeff before she met Mick, but she had never been keen on anything really serious.
That taciturn piano player with the pensive green-golden eyes had changed that. Suddenly she had felt this desire to stay with him for the very reason that he didn't seem intent on a long-time relationship at first, that he didn't fancy going the traditional way of marrying young and having loads of kids.
Or so she'd thought. She was ashamed now to when she thought of how disappointed she had been to find that he, too, was dreaming of the boring old ideal of a house and a family, how angry she had been that he wanted her to have the baby, that he actually thought something good might come out of her fateful discovery that she had missed her period.
And yet she had been very moved by his willingness to forgive her after she had lied and stolen and betrayed him, to have her back, to make up and go on.
It had been good for a while then, but somehow his mild-mannered ways, his thoughtful reticence, his gentle style of making love to her had begun to lose a bit of their appeal, and she had felt a strange occasional longing for hard, demanding lips and hands on her body instead of his tender, soft caresses that still had a schoolboyish, cautious shyness to them.
So she had been foolish enough to seize the opportunity when he'd gone away for some family birthday and Morris had made advances at her once again.
She had thrown it all away for a bit of questionable pleasure with a complete idiot. Yes, she had to admit that she had momentarily enjoyed it, but the minute she'd put her clothes back on and left his messy room in a rather sleazy part of town, she had felt so guilty, so disgusted with herself, that she wanted to throw up.
She had debated with herself what to do and had decided not to tell Mick anything, at least not right away. Maybe later, much later. She just couldn't bear the thought of losing him which was sure to happen if she told him candidly what she had done.
Alone in her bed, she had regretfully, resentfully chastised herself for cheating on him like that, vowing never to even think about another man again, never to let a momentary cheap rush of lust make her so blind to the simple beauty of honest love.
Her plan might have worked, hadn't Morris felt the need to brag about the miserable little episode just to spite Mick.
After the disastrous fight, she had locked herself up in her room, cursing Morris wildly when he had the nerve to show up at her door. The only times she left the house was to go to work with a surly face. She hated her job now.
The mute piano in its corner seemed to accuse her silently whenever she entered the bar. But when Harry brought Isaac back to step in for Mick while he was recovering, his talentless tinkling made things even worse by comparison to Mick's easily fluid melodies.
She simply couldn't get the images out of her head – the moment her betrayal registered in his incredulous, wounded eyes, the pained rage that drove him to fight back against that brute Morris, the heart-wrenching sight of him lying knocked out and bleeding on the floor.
But most haunting and merciless of all was his flat, lifeless tone of voice as he said those words that cut her to the bone with unforgiving finality. He appeared eerily poised and dignified even with the traces of the terrifying fight still all too visible. The perfect lines and angles of the unhurt half of his face contrasted by the purplish bruise disfiguring his left eye and cheek and the blood-encrusted stitches closing up the ugly gash in his brow.
This was all her fault, the brawl, the knife, the injuries, the ensuing break-up. She knew there was nothing she could say or do to make him change his mind now. She'd had her second chance of proving worthy of his trust after she had deceived him so badly, and she had gone and screwed it all up for a grunting, sweaty number with that brainless dickhead Morris, of all people.
Her stomach heaved when she revisited the agonizing moment when Morris had drawn the knife and seemed ready to plunge it into Mick's chest with deadly determination, when she recalled the sickening crack with which Mick's head had smacked into the table, splitting his brow open and causing him to pass out on the floor.
She hadn't even had the courage to do anything else but scream.
Bella, meanwhile, grabbed a heavy tankard from the rack on the wall and banged Morris over the head. Now she'd actually have to be grateful to that little rat for preventing Morris from trying to stab Mick again.
She had run into the street and bumped right into Sergeant O'Leary who was walking the beat as usual at this hour. Stammering incoherently, she'd dragged him inside, imploring him to take Morris away and lock him up in jail, then she had stumbled on to get Dr. Martin, the young doctor who'd set up shop in the neighbourhood just a few months ago.
As the doctor tended to Mick, who had at least regained consciousness while she had been out, she tried to reach for his hand but he asked her to let him be.
Suppressing a racking sob, she retracted her hand and sat back on her heels, biting her nails, watching silently. She was relieved to hear the doctor say that Mick had been badly bruised and battered and had probably suffered a mild concussion, but his injuries were not grave.
She had slowly walked home and come back the next day long before her shift began, intending to look in on Mick. Joan spied her coming, scampered out of her kitchen and scolded her for being so dumb. "That boy has a heart of gold, you stupid, stupid girl! He's more than any woman could wish for, and you have nothing better to do than go and fuck that oaf as soon as he turns his back on you?"
Then she told Rosie she'd better not disturb Mick because he needed rest and wasn't allowed any visitors.
A few days later, she sneaked past the closed kitchen door and up the stairs to Mick's room.
As she had expected, he didn't want to let her in and only opened the door when she didn't stop pleading.
He'd sat on the bed, half-dressed in an open plaid shirt that didn't match his baggy striped pajama bottoms, barefoot despite the cold weather, staring straight ahead with an inscrutable expression on his face.
She longed to bury her nose against his shoulder, to offer him, and herself, some kind of comfort by cradling his beloved curly head against her chest, but he didn't have to say a single word for her to know this was over.
His familiar scent, the body she knew every inch of would never be hers again. He was so close and yet so far away, the easy intimacy of lovers was forever lost to her now.
She left in a hurry after he'd said the fatal, final words, half running through the streets with eyes blinded by tears, not stopping until she had scaled the stairs and unlocked the door to her room with trembling fingers to break down crying on her lonely bed.
It had been the last time she saw him.
The next thing she heard of him was Joan telling her he'd left to sail to Europe.
That night, she lit a candle in her room, remembering that mother had always done so when she wanted to ask God for a favour.
Although she had long before lost touch with her family's religion and their belief in patron saints interceding on their behalf, she felt the need to at least give it a try.
"Keep him safe", she murmured, "whoever of you guys up there is in charge of sailors, or pianists, or dancers."
She had never found out where he had gone or what had become of him.
Joan had never forgiven her for what she'd done and made her feel it. She had quit the job at the bar as soon as she had found work in a downtown clothes shop.
She had not been involved with any man for almost two years until she met Ernie, who was a salesman for women's dresses, when he came to the shop on business.
They had got married quickly and had their first child, Christine, not much later. And, ironically, she had found herself enjoying motherhood.
Ernie was a wonderful husband, a loving father, a great partner. A good dancer even.
But over those past twenty-four years, there had been the occasional instant when she had mused about the child that would have been twenty-six this spring, three years older than Christine who was the same age now that she had been when she became pregnant. She tried to imagine how her life would have turned out to be if she had not decided single-handedly to terminate the unwanted pregnancy.
Sometimes, in the few quiet moments she'd had between Ernie and the kids and work, she had, as she did now, allowed herself to dream of a beautiful girl dancing in a red dress and red shoes, short and shapely and raven-haired like she had once been herself but with wavier tresses and eyes of an unusual green instead of her mother's cornflower blue.
As the piano music slowly came to a graceful end, she wondered what had become of the man who'd have been this girl's father.
She hoped to God that he had escaped the carnage of the war unscathed.
Wartime had been agony for her, home alone with her young daughter, fearing for Ernie's life as he was fighting abroad, first in Europe, then in the South Pacific. In the end, he had, incredibly, survived his tours of duty without a scratch.
Was it asking too much that the only other man she had ever truly loved should have been as lucky?
"I hope you're still dancing somewhere in this world, piano man", she whispered inaudibly. "With a girl who is aware just what a treasure she's found in you."
She gently turned off the radio to let the music resonate in her head.
She jumped when the telephone rang and answered it a little breathlessly.
"Just wanted to tell you I've arrived safely", Ernie's voice said brightly into her ear. "The train was on time for once, and the hotel is rather nice. I'll even have time for a little stroll downtown before the meeting begins."
"Good that you've arrived safely. Oh … and if you happen upon a music shop when you walk through town, could you keep your eyes open for a recording of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata?"
"Sure", he said, a little bewildered. "Since when are you into classical music?"
"Oh, I don't think I really am. It was just this piece on the radio this morning that I found so … touching … for some reason."
For a reason called Mick Carpenter. But this was one thing Ernie did not need to know.