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  Concerto in D minor for 2 violins.
  
     "Miss Russell," called the receptionist, "if you
  could go through to room 3b, they will see you now."
     Claire stood up, smoothed her suit trousers with
  her hand, picked up her CV. She threw her half empty
  plastic coffee cup in the wastepaper basket and by
  running through the words of her favourite song she
  attempted to compose herself. The corridor had modern
  art prints lining the walls, balcony views of
  Mediterranean coastlines in water-colour. The windows
  looked out across the industrial estate, patchworked
  with car parks and warehouses. The sky was dull and
  listless. She found room 1a,  it was followed by room
  6c, then 2a. It was like trying to find a back street in
  Birmingham, no discernible order. It was probably just
  to soften up the candidates before they were
  interviewed. She ran through the song words again, but
  it didn't seem to work.
  
     Interviews are stressful at the best of times, but
  Frank Holbrook was especially nervous today. The
  biggest and final argument with Mrs. Holbrook had
  blown up last night, and he had woken fully clothed on
  the sofa. The hallway of their house was cluttered with
  suitcases and supermarket carrier bags stuffed with
  clothes. The note on the kitchen table left no doubt.
      Dear Frank,
          I don't blame you for last night, it has
  been a poor 6 months for all of us. I phoned your
  mother and spoke to her, she's willing to let you stay in
  her spare room until this all gets sorted out. I packed
  your things, please post your key through the letterbox.
  Believe me please, this is the only way.
  
  A.'
     If that wasn't bad enough it was interview day,
  he didn't have enough time for this sort of stuff, but
  then again it might help to take his mind away from the
  mess of his personal life.
  
     She knocked on the door and entered with the
  muffled reply.
     "Good day, Miss. . .," he checked his notes,
  "Miss Russell. Okay, I'm Frank Holbrook, take a seat
  and relax, it's just a bit of an informal chat to get to
  know you better and to answer any questions you
  have."
     "Thank-you." She said, inwardly groaning, the
  twenty-three previous interviews had led her to understand
  that the men who started gently (with reassurances) were
  inevitably the bastards who proceeded to humiliate you and
  then haul you over the coals.
  
     This was the fifth interview he'd taken this morning
  and despite being consciously preoccupied he found it
  difficult to concentrate on the questions he was asking. The
  night before had started commonly enough. When he
  arrived home & she wasn't in he guessed that she was
  probably with her lover (when she promised it wouldn't
  happen again he knew that she meant being caught). So
  he'd poured himself a generous Gin, splash of tonic, and sat
  down to rest on the sofa. Australian soap operas were on
  television. Just before 7 o'clock he decided to fix himself
  something to eat, a microwave ready-meal from Marks &
  Spencer. So he returned to the sitting room with his chicken
  chow mien and watched the news. There wasn't any
  washing up to do after he'd finished because he'd eaten the
  noodles straight from the plastic packaging. Another G &
  T. Annabel had come back in at quarter to twelve, he woke
  up from his dozing in front of the TV and rose to greet her.
  She raised her hand, dismissing, and told him he stank of
  gin. He didn't bother to protest and settled down for this
  evenings lecture. But it never came, perhaps perceiving that
  he no longer listened she had decided to take a new and
  altogether crueller approach.
     "You're leaving me." She told him.
     Still sleepy and confused he had protested and
  begged her not to leave him.
     "No, no, no!" she barked, "You're
  misunderstanding me, you are going to leave me tonight.
  I'm having an affair, our marriage is over. You are going to
  leave me."
     "But I've got no where to go!" he protested.
     "Don't worry, I'll sort that out, but I need you to be
  out before Wednesday because that's when Neil is moving
  in."
     Then he'd begun to laugh, for to be lied to and
  betrayed was an appalling thing to happen to anyone, but
  the truth was worse. Neil was a buck toothed imbecile, but
  in his mind (and in Ana's) he suspected that he could give
  her the child she desperately wanted. So he had stretched
  out on the sofa and drifted into a boozy sleep.
  
     ". . .which I used during my 3 weeks working for
  Thomas & Sons, but I've had more practice using Excel."
     "Very good, very good." he wondered how long he
  could bare living with his mother and where he should
  move to after that. "Well, Miss. . ." he checked his notes
  again (and felt embarrassed) "Russell, thank-you for your
  time, you'll be hearing from us in a few days."
     "Thank-you." she stood up and shook his hand, then
  left quickly.
     As she strolled out of room 3b Frank noticed the
  smooth slope of her shoulders beneath her shirt. She must
  have taken her jacket off during the interview, he hoped he
  hadn't been unnecessarily hard on her without noticing.
     "Excuse me," he called after her, he picked up her
  jacket and handed it to her.
     She left without a word.
  
     Tom Carty, the Personnel Manager strode into
  Frank's office and sat down without a greeting.
     "So, what sort of dross have you had through here
  today?"
     "A mixed bag, couple of promising kids but they
  wouldn't stay in the job for long. One girl obviously
  thought that the position involved travel and when she was
  told what it involved she said it wasn't really her sort of
  thing."
     "What a wasted morning this was then, same every
  time. A load of dossers looking for an easy skive or a bunch
  of upwardly mobile graduates who feel that getting their
  fingers dirty is beneath them. We need a new recruitment
  policy to get some fresh GOOD blood into the company. If
  you don't start getting some results you are going to have
  to start looking for alternative employment, or I think
  maybe our Scottish branch could do with an office junior.
  How would Ana like the wilds of Aberdeen, Frank?"
     "I think she'd be indifferent." He groaned, "I left
  her. . . she left. . . oh fuck. I don't know."
     "Have you been like this all morning? You're lucky
  I  don't sack you here on the sp. . ."
     "Look," he interrupted, "I conducted the interviews
  as professionally as anyone else you could have had in there
  and for your information I found someone who would be
  perfect for the job."
     "Who?"
  He checked his notes.
     "Miss Russell."
     "All right. But if she doesn't work out. Just watch
  your back."
     As Tom left the room, Frank found that for the first
  time today he was fully focused  on the task in hand. The
  job was simple, and any of the candidates he'd seen could
  do it without any hassle. But the memory of those slender,
  delicate shoulders had cut through his morning. She didn't
  arouse any excitement in him, but it had been so long since
  he'd felt vaguely sexual about anything that he doubted he
  would have noticed the emotions if she had.
  
     Sarah Holbrook had dominated her son terribly
  when he was a boy, as a young man she had subtly
  influenced his decisions and whereas she had never liked his
  choice of wife, it was she who had driven him to it. But,
  true to form with middle age came dark times between
  them. Annabel  antagonised the split, leading to a total
  breakdown in their relationship. There had been scant
  emotion as they were reconciled that evening, civil
  greetings and enquiries were exchanged. It would be a long
  haul until intimacy returned to their conversations. So it
  was that Frank lay down amongst his boxed possessions
  and fell asleep in his mother's spare room.
  
     Saturday rolled around. Frank had now spent four
  nights under the same roof as his mother, they had chatted
  about inconsequential things and skilfully avoided any
  incendiary comments. They were both hoping for a brief
  and above all uneventful stay. Frank stayed up listening to
  Jacques Loussier albums after she'd gone up to bed. The
  volume was turned down low (he didn't want to disturb her
  sleep) and he'd dimmed the lights to a dusky shadow (it had
  been a long time since he'd used dimmer switches). The
  doorbell went.
     "Excuse me Mrs. Holbr. . ." she said as he opened
  the door, "oh, sorry."
     "Miss Russell, I didn't know that you knew my
  mother."
     Claire looked stunned, took a second to regain her
  composure and then forced a smile.
     "I live next door." she answered curtly (but she
  hoped that it hadn't come over as unfriendly), "I wondered
  if the electricity was down all along the street or whether
  it's just my house."
     "I don't think we've had a power cut, but I'll just
  check for you if you'd like, come in, come in."
     They stepped into the lounge and the lights buzzed
  quietly as the dimmer was twisted, the sound of jazz piano
  gently came from the stereo.
     "Oh, great! In that case it means it's just MY
  house." She pressed the palm of her hand against her
  forehead.
     "I'll have a look at it for you if you'd like."
     She looked at him, obviously deciding whether he
  could be trusted in her house. Her gaze softened and he was
  almost dismayed when he realised he'd been earmarked as
  harmless.
     "If it wouldn't be too much trouble." Then an
  afterthought, "Have you got any fuse wire in the house?"
     "I think there's some under the stairs." He went and
  searched for the piece of card it was wrapped around and
  then followed her next door.
     Her house was neatly organised and painted in
  pastel shades. It looked eerie in the dark, the only light
  came from the streetlights and a pocket torch. He undid the
  cover to the fusebox, the screws had rusted into the case.
  The house had been built in the sixties and the wiring had
  barely been touched since then. Frank found the master
  fuse, unwound the melted wire and replaced it with the last
  loop from the card. The plug slotted in with a clunk, the
  sound of violins flowed into the cupboard in which he was
  squatting and he was blinded by the sudden light.
     She thanked him earnestly and he said that it was
  nothing and that he was just glad to help. But once again as
  he spoke to her his mind was wandering, images of those
  slender shoulders transfixed his eyes and he stared longingly
  at her sweater. He just wanted to reach out and hold her
  arms in his hands. He smiled and left. Amongst the boxes
  that evening he finally had a night of uninterrupted sleep.
  
     "She's a nice young girl," his mother confided over
  breakfast. She was about to continue but a devilish look
  from Frank shot the conversation smartly in it's infancy.
     He continued to eat his boiled egg in silence, she
  boiled the kettle and talked softly under her breath unused
  to having another person around. There was a twitter of
  birdsong through the open kitchen window and the sun was
  pulsing down upon her scruffy winter lawn.
     "Would you tidy up the garden for me before you
  move out?" she asked, "I find it uncomfortable to bend
  these days and last summer was so wet that I didn't get
  much chance to work on it at all."
     "Yes, it's no trouble at all."
     There came a knock at the back door, through the
  rippled glass he could see a young woman and he almost
  dreaded his reaction.
  
     Claire was wearing a summer dress and seemed so
  welcome in this musty kitchen he had trouble keeping from
  smiling. She noticed and blushed.
     "I just popped round to thank your son for last
  night." She nodded to him, Sarah glared at her son,
  suspecting some hideous indiscretion but was relieved to
  see that she was still unfamiliar to him, for he concentrated
  on his fingertips and squirmed at the allusion.
     "I was wondering," she continued, "if you would
  care to join me for a meal at Marco's on Tuesday night,
  some of my friends are celebrating a birthday."
     There was an uneasy silence before Frank realised
  she meant him and not his mother.
     "I'd be delighted."
  
     "I hope the evening wasn't too dull for you." She
  chuckled.
     The adrenaline rush of the early stages of a liaison is
  quite unlike anything else in the world. Frank had been
  away for a long time and he felt as though every second his
  heart kept beating was a surprise.
     "The evening has been wonderful, simply
  wonderful."
     "I'm glad, I know that my friends can be a little bit,
  intense."
     "I wouldn't have said intense, more highly focused
  and incredibly certain."
     She poured out a gin & tonic for him, but he said he
  was trying to stay away from the stuff and begged a milky
  coffee. She took the gin and placed his coffee on the side,
  then joined him on the sofa. She rummaged in the cushions
  and found a remote control pointing it at her hi-fi the strains
  of violin music replaced the silence. She sipped at her drink
  and then said,
     "It's Bach, the absolute peak that baroque music
  reached." She concluded dramatically.
     "I like Bach too." He jumped in, and then fell silent,
  not wanting to seem over eager.
     "That's great," she leaned closer to him, wanting
  him to feel comfortable.
  
     But the spectre of his wife had risen and a life lived
  under the thumb of the women in his life made him
  withdraw. The distance between them seemed more than
  age and experience (although the gap there was not as great
  as he might have thought). She noticed his change in stance
  and felt bitterly disappointed. He'd seemed so animated, so
  witty and so utterly, utterly disillusioned. It had surprised
  her how comfortable she felt when she was around him.
     "This is, without a doubt, my favourite piece of
  music."
     "It's very strange." He said, his attention focused
  again, but tinged with sadness for tonight could no longer
  be so romantic, the bubble had for the moment been burst,
  "it sounds as though they're playing two different pieces
  entirely."
     "But they are," she smiled, placing her hand on his
  arm (but not threateningly), "they each play their own
  exquisite songs, occasionally complimenting, sometimes
  coming to the fore or receding  into the background. Most
  of the time they seem entirely separate, but just once in a
  while they meet."
     She leant forward and their lips touched.
     "Then they separate again."
     But before she had finished talking he'd taken her
  arms in his hands and they kissed. The concerto drew to a
  close and they went to bed.
   
©1998 Mark Sexton