The one option that did not bear contemplation was that Dovidl had, that sunny May morning, walked out on me as transfiguringly as he had arrived. I could not, then or ever, admit the possibility of willing defection, though the suggestion nagged at my subconscious and eroded my few and insubstantial human relationships. Neither work nor marriage could cover the hole at the centre of my being and I felt impelled to seek casual comforts, albeit infrequently and always out of town. My life was a pathetic sonata built upon an unresolved chord, infinitely tense and unrewarding. Like an amputee, I never lost sensation in the missing limb, or the ache of deprivation. Not a day passed without a remembrance of wholeness.

So when time stopped still on a boy’s fiddle in the banqueting hall of a nameless town hall on the night another war ended and the glasses clinked and sloshed, I was terrified by the awakening, by the need to take the inevitable next step. I knew I must follow the evidence of my ears, but I could not bear to discover where, after all these years, it might dangerously lead.

Chapter 6

6

Time After Time

Dinner is, as anticipated, execrable. To escape overdone English beef in brown gravy on an untouchably hot plate, I have requested a vegetarian alternative – a selection shared, I see, by the admirable Sandra Adams. The ersatz repast set before me is a bower of lettuce, wilting with stress fatigue and pinned down by four hunks of undistinguished Cheddar. Cream crackers and salad cream complete the feast. This is not untypical for an English province, where non-carnivores are regarded as masochistic misfits. Our slap of leaves is slightingly served on the finest Wedgwood china.

The wine, drunk from Donegal crystal, is a 1986 château-bottled burgundy, a little young and tart to the tongue. ‘Bottoms up,’ exhorts Olly Adams. ‘It’s not often I get the key to the Mayor’s cellar and we’ve got lots to celebrate tonight. They announced on the news that the war will be over by morning. Cheers, everyone.’

Sitting at the head of a table that becomes more boisterous by the burgundian glass, I contrive to keep a clear head and work out my next move. Fred Burrows, to my right, respects my introspection and delves into a Simmonds pocket score, humming as he reads. Olly, to my left, lectures me on the iniquities of Thatcherite education policy. I shall need to get away somewhere to assess the state of play on my internal chessboard and come up with a credible end-game. Shuffling the pile of score-sheets beside my plate, I start fumbling for an excuse to leave the table when my haphazard pocket pharmacopoeia rises unbidden to my rescue.