Part Thirty Four
John Deed looked furtively over his shoulder as he slipped his way out of the judge's chambers. He was dressed in a long black overcoat with his collar turned up and carried under his arm a curiously shaped black case. It was a chill cloudy evening as he slipped into his car and started to mentally assume his other persona which had been a part of him since he was a law student. However, this was no grotesque evening transformation and dissociation of the tall respectable Dr Jeckyll into the smaller evil Mr Hyde by drinking some evil chemical. Instead, the learned Judge John Deed, steeped in the ways and practices of the law, was invisibly transforming himself into the amateur virtuoso violinist in a string quintet. That part of John Deed's soul was set free as far as his talent with the violin bow searched out the sounds from a classical era. It spoke of people, long since buried in tree shaded churchyards but of music kept alive by such enthusiasts of an order as old as his daytime calling. Not even Jo Mills knew of it, only as a prespoken recorded message that he was not in or an absence in her life that she was not to intrude into. Knowing that John Deed was not immune from the undertow of his upbringing, Jo supposed it to be some male bonding ritual from his adolescence at which point, Jo was not far wrong. John never talked about this side of his personality because of some curious unconscious need to be reticent about this side of his life. He never allowed himself to question just why he had to erect this iron curtain of secrecy.
John Deed sped through the city streets in the direction of the ghastly newish concert hall that some thoughtless town councillors allowed to be erected on the site of its predecessor, which was unfortunately burnt down. It was all concrete buttresses and plate glass asserting its ageing 70s modernity and spawning a smaller hall to one side totally out of proportion. He oughtn't to complain because that hall, the Darwin Room, provided him and his string quartet with a regular venue for the musically discerning as opposed to the bigger Assembly Rooms which were booked for some pubescent girl band whose name he could not remember. Streams of very young boys and girls in strange attire rushed past him, obviously heading off to see the main attraction.
Jo Mills splashed droplets of water over her tired eyes to wake herself up. The week had been pretty gruelling and though she had been long accustomed to the sheer buzz and the highly focussed concentration carrying her through each trial, she felt a total reaction as if she were coming off some powerfully addictive drug. Blankly, she stared at the wall calendar and, with an effort, focussed her eyes on the scrawled words "string quintet" and a circle round today's date. Of course, she'd been in town what seemed like ages ago one Saturday morning and seen a rather artistically drawn Toulouse Lautrec style poster with the advert "An Evening of Schubert" in the Assembly Rooms ticket office. On a sudden impulse, she had bought the ticket which she now discovered crumpled up at the back of her purse, right at the bottom of her handbag.
Half an hour later, having showered and drinking a large black coffee, she was dressed in her most elegant best and was queuing up outside the Darwin Room waiting to shuffle her way out of the biting cold into the warmth behind the double swing doors. She handed in her coat at the cloakroom and made her stately way up the wide carpeted flight of steps and into the brilliant white interior of the suite and her chair which was towards the back. She assumed her place and looked intently at the raised stage and where the performers , according to the tannoy announcement, were to take the stage in two minutes.
John Deed gathered backstage and changed into his most formal black suit and starched white shirt, as were his fellow enthusiasts. In John Deed's eyes, this was a performance where dressing up was the necessary ritual to lend dignity to the music that they were solemnising. His four fellow enthusiasts came from different walks of life but united in a common devotion. A little part of him was glad that not one of the others had anything to do with the law. This was the key to his mental balance and, paradoxically that this greater contact outside the cloistered walls of chambers made him a better judge than his peers. Ready to take to the stage, they took a final sip from a bone china cup of tea laid out on a side table, opened the door and a round of polite applause greeted them and the stage lights pointed them to their allotted places.
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I must say it's incredibly gratifying to see so many of you here. I hope we live up to expectation. We promise for you a quite different evening of music than Girls Aloud Seven in the Assembly Rooms across the way." John Deed's voice ended on a note of typically dry humour.
Jo Mills sat bolt upright in her chair. Surely that well remembered voice must belong to another man in this world. If not, he bears an alarming resemblance to John or else she was suffering from an aural hallucination after a week in court with John's presence always to one side of her and up on stage in his judges chair?
As Jo heard the first sonorous chord struck by the strings which were answered by the light upward arpeggio from the piano, John Deed, in a moment of concentration prepared his answer as first violinist. In a moment of precise control and expressiveness, he arched his bow and launched his free spirit into the piece.
Jo could visualise the sunlight waters and trees shading over the water and the playful way the pianist and the violinists answered each other while the viola and cellos sonorous tone reached up from below. The quick flowing waters rushed headlong into cross cutting currents of music that danced over and under each other. Jo could admire the impeccable way that the violinist's musical themes were answered by the other musicians and that it all flowed into each other in perfect musical harmony. After the lightness and playfulness of the first movement, there was a brief pause. Then, John Deed led the quintet into the more still waters and serenity that was to come and echoed his own sense of peacefulness as they played on. Somehow stage nerves which afflicted some musicians didn't seem to affect him the same way as it did others. Outside his own dancing bow and the light, the darkness into which the audience were sunk, hardly registered except for the respectful silence which gave him all the applause he needed.
That is definitely John Deed on stage out there, Jo Mills said unbelievingly to herself. There is no other person it could be. She grinned to herself that John Deed needed this form of outlet so that he could achieve effortlessly the harmony that he had to fight for in court. Imagine me, George, John ,Sir Ian Rochester and Lawrence James in the same orchestra. The music they would make together would be all chaos and uproar. Only Schoenberg or Mahler would fit the bill.
Jo wondered, firstly at the music which had always entranced her and secondly at the flawless performance. The gentle pizzicato strings were hushed as the pianist described musical patterns that subtly shifted in key in the softer musical passage.
John Deed smiled in satisfaction to himself as he led off the 'trout' theme which was an old German folk tune that Schubert had borrowed for his piece and Jo Mills remembered her old music teacher explaining this to her at school. The pianist gambolled along the same melody line that the violins had sketched out while tiny shards of exquisite notes sounded from the top of the violin's register and embroidered the melody. They were on the home straight now, John reflected, and he was as sharp-eyed and as confident as he had ever felt in his life. It was at moments like this that he thought of himself as a musician first and foremost and everything outside this faded into insignificance as the corners of the hall had faded into the dark.
Jo shook her head in wonder. That's my man, at least some of the time, out there.
Why oh why has John been so shy and reticent about such a supreme gift with which he is blessed. I cannot believe this of the scourge of Lord Chancellor's Departments and the most 'proud to be outrageous' man she had ever met. She had an ear for phrases which stuck in her mind and 'I don't do shy' came into her mind, no doubt a phrase she had unconsciously lifted from something in the media somewhere.
At the last musical flourish, the audience broke into applause which Jo joined in as enthusiastically as anyone, part of her for the virtuoso performance and a part of her for a person she thought she knew intimately displaying a side of him that she never knew existed. And it was not just for selfishly singling out John Deed on his own but in focussing on the other four unknown men who must have similar daytime callings who had moulded in their musical feelings to produce an ensemble triumph. The quintet laid down their instruments and bowed in acknowledgement to the crowd and moved off stage left to the door at the back.
"A splendid performance, everyone. "John Deed's voice resonated through the dressing room after he had overcome the feelings of stiffness in his arms and chin against which his violin had been buttressed all evening. Only now was he conscious of this and these feelings soon passed. Despite the intense concentration of the performance, on top of their daytime jobs, they felt as fresh and alert as anytime in their lives.
"I'm sure your Toulouse Lautec painting helped to bring in the crowds, Andrew old man." John Deed generously praised the pianist who had a triple talent which was something which John Deed felt awesome respect for.
"I don't suppose that it will bring in the backstage groupies like that girl band will attract, John." Andrew replied with a faint smile.
"Good Lord, no. I'm quite sure that Schubert never had to deal with that in his time." John Deed laughed. "I'm just popping out for a second."
Jo smiled to herself. She couldn't leave the evening just by sliding off to her car and driving home. Her sharp eyes had spotted the stage door to the side of the cloakroom and, after she had collected her coat, she stood there, a glass of wine in her hand and a pen and pencil in her other hand. Mischievously, she stood in wait.
"Excuse me, can I trouble you for your autograph. sir?" Jo Mills asked in her politest most innocent voice that she could contrive."I trust that your future performances will be every bit as satisfying as this night's performance has been."
For the first time in his life, John Deed's facility for words and ability to marshal his thoughts had utterly deserted him. His hand stretched towards the pen and his fingers closed around it as he scribbled his name.
"Why oh why do you hide such a talent like yours under a bushel in the way that you have done for all these years that I've ever known you." Jo Mills's words and the straightness of her gaze reached deep inside his mind and just about held him back from flinching and running." Honestly, John, if I'd never known who you are, I would have felt that I had witnessed a totally brilliant performance. And the fact that the man I thought I know so well…….." And Jo looked soulfully, without reservation at the John deed who was the maestro musician and not the brilliant barrister and mentor that her own pride had to fight with.
John Deed felt bashful, embarrassed and proud of himself in one confusing cocktail of emotions and was still unable to speak. Jo grinned to herself that, for once John Deed was stuck for words yet everything about his demeanour said everything she wanted to know.
"And. of course, you are not too tired to give an encore performance?" Jo's husky tones gradually erased the confusion in his own mind.
"And what were you saying a few minutes ago, John?" Andrew quipped to him." See you at the next rehearsal." To him, John was the charismatic leader of the quintet. He was not sure of exactly what his daytime job was but it couldn't be as soulless as working at a Social Security office where all his workmates talked about was David Beckham and the World Cup. John was an enthusiast about music and someone that he loved balancing his piano technique against John's flawless and expressive violin playing. The woman he was with was very attractive and seemed to have an instant attraction for John, lucky bugger.
"I'll be in touch, Andrew." John promised him." I think that I had better be going." as Jo Mills slipped her arm inside John's.
It was only five minutes later that Jo was strolling to the multistory car park next to John who carefully held his violin case next to him. Up the endless flights of concrete steps and to his car, they walked in silence while from afar, a throbbing sound punctuated by shrill squeals announced that Girls Aloud Seven, or whatever they were called, were still entertaining their fans. In the car, she looked at this indeterminate being sitting next to her still wondering just who he was as they circled their endless way round concrete columns and down the steep ramps in the queue of traffic. Just who was the driver in the car, the judge John Deed whose foibles that she had known so long or the mysterious stranger, the violin virtuoso why she'd somehow pulled from meeting at the stage door?
They chatted casually of everyday things as he drove. Only the street lights and car beams cast a momentary light on the source of the well remembered voice, the one constant feature of this being before fading into blackness.
For his part, John Deed was coming down gently from the delicious intensity of emotion, the jagged Mount Everest pinnacle of sensation that he'd climbed up to in gradual stages. So many times over the years, they had driven back to Jo's cottage but an evening like this made everything special, every sensation somehow heightened. Afterwards, he couldn't remember one word of what he'd said to her in the car but it seemed to make sense at the time, as did everything in the universe that night.
"Who are you?" Jo Mills asked with great curiosity when her front door was shut and even the low lights banished the visual ambiguities of the late night drive.
"You know who I am," came the melodious answer which questioned why she should come out with this peculiar question. After all, in the courtroom devoted to the dry accumulation of facts, such an enquiry was patently absurd for which there was no legal precedent. Yet right now, everything that mattered in Jo's world was totally unprecedented.
Don't even question, came her own answer as the impeccable black suit was draped carelessly on the floor and her best dress alongside it. Back in the comfortable security of her bed, John was the confident lover who seemed even more skilled in the arts of love and giving pleasure than she was accustomed to from him. In a split second, her mind went back to the many years ago when they first went to bed together. Back then it seemed totally and utterly special to be with the man with the virtuoso gifts that she so admired. She was reliving such a night as past and present coexisted in the same place and the same time. The next hour or more was a blissful exploration of the physical and the sensuous which was the perfect finale to the spirituality of earlier on. 'Making music together' was one of the corniest, most absurd expressions Jo have ever heard but right now it made sense. Presently, they lay there, while their breathing returned to normal curled up round each other while the occasional beam from the lonely driver on the road outside flashed by. The gentle flicker of light and the feel of their bodies against each other made this night special.
"So now I know where the pure talent in your hands came from." Jo said, tracing a line down John Deed's cheekbone.
"You don't mind that I've kept this little secret from you all these years," came the just slightly worried question from above her in that very familiar voice.
"You don't have to worry, John." came that very soft, slightly husky voice that had attracted him so long ago. "You are safe with me whoever you are."
And the delicate touch of her hands drew him down to her once again.
John Deed looked furtively over his shoulder as he slipped his way out of the judge's chambers. He was dressed in a long black overcoat with his collar turned up and carried under his arm a curiously shaped black case. It was a chill cloudy evening as he slipped into his car and started to mentally assume his other persona which had been a part of him since he was a law student. However, this was no grotesque evening transformation and dissociation of the tall respectable Dr Jeckyll into the smaller evil Mr Hyde by drinking some evil chemical. Instead, the learned Judge John Deed, steeped in the ways and practices of the law, was invisibly transforming himself into the amateur virtuoso violinist in a string quintet. That part of John Deed's soul was set free as far as his talent with the violin bow searched out the sounds from a classical era. It spoke of people, long since buried in tree shaded churchyards but of music kept alive by such enthusiasts of an order as old as his daytime calling. Not even Jo Mills knew of it, only as a prespoken recorded message that he was not in or an absence in her life that she was not to intrude into. Knowing that John Deed was not immune from the undertow of his upbringing, Jo supposed it to be some male bonding ritual from his adolescence at which point, Jo was not far wrong. John never talked about this side of his personality because of some curious unconscious need to be reticent about this side of his life. He never allowed himself to question just why he had to erect this iron curtain of secrecy.
John Deed sped through the city streets in the direction of the ghastly newish concert hall that some thoughtless town councillors allowed to be erected on the site of its predecessor, which was unfortunately burnt down. It was all concrete buttresses and plate glass asserting its ageing 70s modernity and spawning a smaller hall to one side totally out of proportion. He oughtn't to complain because that hall, the Darwin Room, provided him and his string quartet with a regular venue for the musically discerning as opposed to the bigger Assembly Rooms which were booked for some pubescent girl band whose name he could not remember. Streams of very young boys and girls in strange attire rushed past him, obviously heading off to see the main attraction.
Jo Mills splashed droplets of water over her tired eyes to wake herself up. The week had been pretty gruelling and though she had been long accustomed to the sheer buzz and the highly focussed concentration carrying her through each trial, she felt a total reaction as if she were coming off some powerfully addictive drug. Blankly, she stared at the wall calendar and, with an effort, focussed her eyes on the scrawled words "string quintet" and a circle round today's date. Of course, she'd been in town what seemed like ages ago one Saturday morning and seen a rather artistically drawn Toulouse Lautrec style poster with the advert "An Evening of Schubert" in the Assembly Rooms ticket office. On a sudden impulse, she had bought the ticket which she now discovered crumpled up at the back of her purse, right at the bottom of her handbag.
Half an hour later, having showered and drinking a large black coffee, she was dressed in her most elegant best and was queuing up outside the Darwin Room waiting to shuffle her way out of the biting cold into the warmth behind the double swing doors. She handed in her coat at the cloakroom and made her stately way up the wide carpeted flight of steps and into the brilliant white interior of the suite and her chair which was towards the back. She assumed her place and looked intently at the raised stage and where the performers , according to the tannoy announcement, were to take the stage in two minutes.
John Deed gathered backstage and changed into his most formal black suit and starched white shirt, as were his fellow enthusiasts. In John Deed's eyes, this was a performance where dressing up was the necessary ritual to lend dignity to the music that they were solemnising. His four fellow enthusiasts came from different walks of life but united in a common devotion. A little part of him was glad that not one of the others had anything to do with the law. This was the key to his mental balance and, paradoxically that this greater contact outside the cloistered walls of chambers made him a better judge than his peers. Ready to take to the stage, they took a final sip from a bone china cup of tea laid out on a side table, opened the door and a round of polite applause greeted them and the stage lights pointed them to their allotted places.
"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I must say it's incredibly gratifying to see so many of you here. I hope we live up to expectation. We promise for you a quite different evening of music than Girls Aloud Seven in the Assembly Rooms across the way." John Deed's voice ended on a note of typically dry humour.
Jo Mills sat bolt upright in her chair. Surely that well remembered voice must belong to another man in this world. If not, he bears an alarming resemblance to John or else she was suffering from an aural hallucination after a week in court with John's presence always to one side of her and up on stage in his judges chair?
As Jo heard the first sonorous chord struck by the strings which were answered by the light upward arpeggio from the piano, John Deed, in a moment of concentration prepared his answer as first violinist. In a moment of precise control and expressiveness, he arched his bow and launched his free spirit into the piece.
Jo could visualise the sunlight waters and trees shading over the water and the playful way the pianist and the violinists answered each other while the viola and cellos sonorous tone reached up from below. The quick flowing waters rushed headlong into cross cutting currents of music that danced over and under each other. Jo could admire the impeccable way that the violinist's musical themes were answered by the other musicians and that it all flowed into each other in perfect musical harmony. After the lightness and playfulness of the first movement, there was a brief pause. Then, John Deed led the quintet into the more still waters and serenity that was to come and echoed his own sense of peacefulness as they played on. Somehow stage nerves which afflicted some musicians didn't seem to affect him the same way as it did others. Outside his own dancing bow and the light, the darkness into which the audience were sunk, hardly registered except for the respectful silence which gave him all the applause he needed.
That is definitely John Deed on stage out there, Jo Mills said unbelievingly to herself. There is no other person it could be. She grinned to herself that John Deed needed this form of outlet so that he could achieve effortlessly the harmony that he had to fight for in court. Imagine me, George, John ,Sir Ian Rochester and Lawrence James in the same orchestra. The music they would make together would be all chaos and uproar. Only Schoenberg or Mahler would fit the bill.
Jo wondered, firstly at the music which had always entranced her and secondly at the flawless performance. The gentle pizzicato strings were hushed as the pianist described musical patterns that subtly shifted in key in the softer musical passage.
John Deed smiled in satisfaction to himself as he led off the 'trout' theme which was an old German folk tune that Schubert had borrowed for his piece and Jo Mills remembered her old music teacher explaining this to her at school. The pianist gambolled along the same melody line that the violins had sketched out while tiny shards of exquisite notes sounded from the top of the violin's register and embroidered the melody. They were on the home straight now, John reflected, and he was as sharp-eyed and as confident as he had ever felt in his life. It was at moments like this that he thought of himself as a musician first and foremost and everything outside this faded into insignificance as the corners of the hall had faded into the dark.
Jo shook her head in wonder. That's my man, at least some of the time, out there.
Why oh why has John been so shy and reticent about such a supreme gift with which he is blessed. I cannot believe this of the scourge of Lord Chancellor's Departments and the most 'proud to be outrageous' man she had ever met. She had an ear for phrases which stuck in her mind and 'I don't do shy' came into her mind, no doubt a phrase she had unconsciously lifted from something in the media somewhere.
At the last musical flourish, the audience broke into applause which Jo joined in as enthusiastically as anyone, part of her for the virtuoso performance and a part of her for a person she thought she knew intimately displaying a side of him that she never knew existed. And it was not just for selfishly singling out John Deed on his own but in focussing on the other four unknown men who must have similar daytime callings who had moulded in their musical feelings to produce an ensemble triumph. The quintet laid down their instruments and bowed in acknowledgement to the crowd and moved off stage left to the door at the back.
"A splendid performance, everyone. "John Deed's voice resonated through the dressing room after he had overcome the feelings of stiffness in his arms and chin against which his violin had been buttressed all evening. Only now was he conscious of this and these feelings soon passed. Despite the intense concentration of the performance, on top of their daytime jobs, they felt as fresh and alert as anytime in their lives.
"I'm sure your Toulouse Lautec painting helped to bring in the crowds, Andrew old man." John Deed generously praised the pianist who had a triple talent which was something which John Deed felt awesome respect for.
"I don't suppose that it will bring in the backstage groupies like that girl band will attract, John." Andrew replied with a faint smile.
"Good Lord, no. I'm quite sure that Schubert never had to deal with that in his time." John Deed laughed. "I'm just popping out for a second."
Jo smiled to herself. She couldn't leave the evening just by sliding off to her car and driving home. Her sharp eyes had spotted the stage door to the side of the cloakroom and, after she had collected her coat, she stood there, a glass of wine in her hand and a pen and pencil in her other hand. Mischievously, she stood in wait.
"Excuse me, can I trouble you for your autograph. sir?" Jo Mills asked in her politest most innocent voice that she could contrive."I trust that your future performances will be every bit as satisfying as this night's performance has been."
For the first time in his life, John Deed's facility for words and ability to marshal his thoughts had utterly deserted him. His hand stretched towards the pen and his fingers closed around it as he scribbled his name.
"Why oh why do you hide such a talent like yours under a bushel in the way that you have done for all these years that I've ever known you." Jo Mills's words and the straightness of her gaze reached deep inside his mind and just about held him back from flinching and running." Honestly, John, if I'd never known who you are, I would have felt that I had witnessed a totally brilliant performance. And the fact that the man I thought I know so well…….." And Jo looked soulfully, without reservation at the John deed who was the maestro musician and not the brilliant barrister and mentor that her own pride had to fight with.
John Deed felt bashful, embarrassed and proud of himself in one confusing cocktail of emotions and was still unable to speak. Jo grinned to herself that, for once John Deed was stuck for words yet everything about his demeanour said everything she wanted to know.
"And. of course, you are not too tired to give an encore performance?" Jo's husky tones gradually erased the confusion in his own mind.
"And what were you saying a few minutes ago, John?" Andrew quipped to him." See you at the next rehearsal." To him, John was the charismatic leader of the quintet. He was not sure of exactly what his daytime job was but it couldn't be as soulless as working at a Social Security office where all his workmates talked about was David Beckham and the World Cup. John was an enthusiast about music and someone that he loved balancing his piano technique against John's flawless and expressive violin playing. The woman he was with was very attractive and seemed to have an instant attraction for John, lucky bugger.
"I'll be in touch, Andrew." John promised him." I think that I had better be going." as Jo Mills slipped her arm inside John's.
It was only five minutes later that Jo was strolling to the multistory car park next to John who carefully held his violin case next to him. Up the endless flights of concrete steps and to his car, they walked in silence while from afar, a throbbing sound punctuated by shrill squeals announced that Girls Aloud Seven, or whatever they were called, were still entertaining their fans. In the car, she looked at this indeterminate being sitting next to her still wondering just who he was as they circled their endless way round concrete columns and down the steep ramps in the queue of traffic. Just who was the driver in the car, the judge John Deed whose foibles that she had known so long or the mysterious stranger, the violin virtuoso why she'd somehow pulled from meeting at the stage door?
They chatted casually of everyday things as he drove. Only the street lights and car beams cast a momentary light on the source of the well remembered voice, the one constant feature of this being before fading into blackness.
For his part, John Deed was coming down gently from the delicious intensity of emotion, the jagged Mount Everest pinnacle of sensation that he'd climbed up to in gradual stages. So many times over the years, they had driven back to Jo's cottage but an evening like this made everything special, every sensation somehow heightened. Afterwards, he couldn't remember one word of what he'd said to her in the car but it seemed to make sense at the time, as did everything in the universe that night.
"Who are you?" Jo Mills asked with great curiosity when her front door was shut and even the low lights banished the visual ambiguities of the late night drive.
"You know who I am," came the melodious answer which questioned why she should come out with this peculiar question. After all, in the courtroom devoted to the dry accumulation of facts, such an enquiry was patently absurd for which there was no legal precedent. Yet right now, everything that mattered in Jo's world was totally unprecedented.
Don't even question, came her own answer as the impeccable black suit was draped carelessly on the floor and her best dress alongside it. Back in the comfortable security of her bed, John was the confident lover who seemed even more skilled in the arts of love and giving pleasure than she was accustomed to from him. In a split second, her mind went back to the many years ago when they first went to bed together. Back then it seemed totally and utterly special to be with the man with the virtuoso gifts that she so admired. She was reliving such a night as past and present coexisted in the same place and the same time. The next hour or more was a blissful exploration of the physical and the sensuous which was the perfect finale to the spirituality of earlier on. 'Making music together' was one of the corniest, most absurd expressions Jo have ever heard but right now it made sense. Presently, they lay there, while their breathing returned to normal curled up round each other while the occasional beam from the lonely driver on the road outside flashed by. The gentle flicker of light and the feel of their bodies against each other made this night special.
"So now I know where the pure talent in your hands came from." Jo said, tracing a line down John Deed's cheekbone.
"You don't mind that I've kept this little secret from you all these years," came the just slightly worried question from above her in that very familiar voice.
"You don't have to worry, John." came that very soft, slightly husky voice that had attracted him so long ago. "You are safe with me whoever you are."
And the delicate touch of her hands drew him down to her once again.