The Quiet Man

This Fantasy of Ours

I’d forgotten just how good you are. Maybe you’ve got better in the last three years, I don’t know. You’re very good, exceptionally good. Mary took me out to hear a violinist play with an orchestra once a couple of years ago. It was all right, I guess. I had to dress up and the music only reminded me of you. He was nothing like you though; he was portly and balding and he had sweat dripping down his forehead the entire time. And he wasn’t nearly as good as you are. You could have played professionally. If that’s something you’d have been interested in doing. You’d be a soloist on a stage all alone, making the whole audience cry.

But then you’d turn to them and say something like, “I don’t understand, what’s the matter with all of you?” So I suppose it’s for the best you mostly play for an audience of one.

I’m not sure you’re even paying attention to what you’re playing just now; you seem distracted. You’re keeping an eye on the desk, which is covered with your phones. You’re standing by the window, peering down at the pavement as if something might sprout from it. You glance over at the telly from time to time, and turn away in annoyance. Music just happens with you, doesn’t it. It drifts off of you like steam while you’re thinking about something else. You’re so gifted it takes you no thought or effort at all. It’s second nature, it’s like breathing for anyone else. Have you played this song a million times, is it just rote for you, pure muscle memory? Your mind is bent on Moran, wherever he is, and the flat is full of your desperately sad music. I’d forgotten how beautiful it is. You warned me about it when we first met, that you like to play the violin when you’re thinking. As if that’s something that needs a warning. It’s so beautiful, Sherlock. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.

They’re still talking about you on the telly, of course. I don’t really want to hear what they have to say; it’s a sad story and I’ve heard it too many times. The body that fell from the roof was, apparently, the corpse of a man who died the day before. He was stolen from a morgue, and not from Bart’s. He was dressed in clothes that weren’t his. His family is distressed, they want to find someone to sue. He was already dead though, a suicide. Drug overdose. Does that mean something? He killed himself, and Moran dropped his body off the roof in a coat that looks uncomfortably like yours. With a note. About you.

They have handwriting experts on the telly, as if that will reveal something critical. They say it was a man who wrote it, and he was angry and afraid. Threatened, they say. Threatened and lashing out. Moran? Mycroft said you’d been taunting him, so that makes sense. They don’t know what to make of the content of the note, though. Sherlock Holmes Lives. You died three years ago in disgrace. They show the headlines, the interviews. Snippets of Moriarty as Richard Brook. They’d all been taken in by a madman, of course. They shake their heads, yes, it’s sad. They accused an innocent man who saved hundreds of lives of being a fraud and he committed suicide, only to be redeemed years later. They show your empty grave. They show footage of your funeral, where did they find that? There’s me. There’s me, while Greg talks about you. I’m not crying yet. I didn’t do that until later.

I should turn this off.

Why do you play such sad songs, Sherlock? What is it you’re playing, anyway? You say you don’t understand sentiment, but then you play things like this that make me want to wrap my arms around you and comfort you. Did you write it? I know you write music sometimes. Who is it about?

Is this something you wrote for Irene when she died?

Would you ever write something like this for me?

One of your many phones twitches on the table and you stop playing. Right in the middle of something, you just stop. Is that what you were waiting for? The telly seems much louder suddenly.