As a database designer whose daily work relies on making objective decisions, as a pianist who understands both the power and limits of music, and as a certified Myers-Briggs T-for-Thinking personality, I need to make it clear that I did not leave a twenty-year relationship because of a song.
Yes, listening to “Angelina” for the first time was a profound experience, but you should not rush to download it in the hope of having the same response. Once, I asked a bunch of friends and colleagues to nominate their favorite songs, and I put together a mix tape of their selections. It was utterly pedestrian, and not because I had more sophisticated taste. I was not making the connections that they were and the songs didn’t resonate.
American Songwriter magazine rates “Angelina” No. 28 in Dylan’s extensive oeuvre, so I can at least claim it as a songwriters’ song. But he left it off a mediocre album in 1981 and, though he’s toured almost nonstop since that time, he has never performed it live. I would like to think it’s because the song is too personal but my head tells me the opposite. Wikipedia opines that it “makes for a pleasant listen.”
That was broadly what I thought in the light of the morning, with the candle out and my rational hat on. The music did not make the decision for me, but it took me to a place where I could access the emotional dimension that Mandy’s shrink had talked about.
My emotional life was all about Angelina, and had been for a while, certainly since the Skype call, and arguably as long as I had been listening to music with her in my mind. I was letting both Claire and myself down by continuing the relationship. It might still be within my power to save it, but there was not enough left to save.
I probably should not have sent the e-mail to Angelina. It was more about locking in my decision than asking anything of her, and she could well feel that I had transgressed the boundaries that we had set for ourselves. I was not setting off in pursuit of her, but of what she represented. At forty-nine, I was looking to live the part of my life that currently existed only in song.
I moved out, which is to say I packed a bag, worked a half day in London, and took the train to Manchester. There was no question about who should stay and who should go. The house had been left to Claire by her mother. Perhaps, after the time we had been together, I had some legal claim, but I would not be pursuing it. The piano could wait. Elvis would have to hang on a bit longer for his evening meals.
I was on a mutual two-week-notice arrangement at work and I let them know that I would be finishing up. I was not going to commute from my mother’s place outside Manchester, even a couple of days a week. It really didn’t matter anymore.
Before leaving the house, I spent a long time writing Claire a note in my rusty handwriting.
Dear Claire
I really am sorry. There’s nothing between me and Sheilagh—that’s who you saw me with; she and Chad have broken up—but everything you said was fair. We’ve been drifting apart for a while, and I was holding on to the idea that you might stay in the UK. It seems that last night just brought forward something that we were heading for anyway.
You’ve been busy with work, but I haven’t stepped up, and you must have interpreted my unwillingness to move to the US as a lack of support. Fairly so. You deserve more than I’ve been giving.
I spent a while thinking about whether I should say more. I did not want to hurt Claire for no reason, but I also didn’t want her to assume an unfair share of the blame. She deserved to know what had been going on, to make sense of what she had been seeing.
There is something else. A couple of months ago I reconnected with someone from the (distant) past, and it brought up a lot of stuff that I didn’t resolve properly at the time. So, even at this advanced age, I need to sort myself out.
Thanks for everything you’ve done for me and us. We had a lot of good times and I will remember all of them. And good luck with the sale.
I hope we can stay friends and in touch—just call if you need help with anything. We can sort the practicalities out once the pressure’s off with the company sale.
Love,
Adam
I read it through again and saw what was missing. “Friends,” I’d written. No mention of love, past or present, except in the valediction. When had I last told her I loved her? Writing “I love you” now would feel forced and disingenuous, and she would read it that way. I could hardly write “I once loved you.”
I left the letter and my keys on top of the piano, our place for message exchange. There was something there already. Not a note but a business card, from a piano tuner.
I played an F sharp and felt the chord go through me. Keyboards are all right, but there is something special about a good acoustic piano, and it had been a long time since this one had sounded right. I sat on the stool and played the first two lines of “Angelina.” It was an easy tune, but I could not remember the words.
* * *
Trains are one of the great symbols of popular song, but there was no romance on the 9:30 A.M. to Liverpool Street or, later that day, the commuter-packed 6:30 P.M. to Manchester. It was on the trip to my mother’s that what I had done began to sink in, bringing with it an overwhelming feeling of emptiness.
I had walked away from my best friend, my home, my life, and surely hurt Claire in the process—Claire, who must have taken time out from her job, presumably while I was working in London or visiting my mother, to get the piano tuner in. It was something I could easily have done while I was between contracts or working from home if I had not wanted an excuse to avoid playing it for her. She had been making an effort, thinking things were changing for the better, and I had let her down. For what? A romantic daydream that had no roots in anything or anyone.
Angelina was a fantasy, given substance only in our puerile once-a-week exchanges that she had probably initiated to fill a small hole in an otherwise happy marriage. I had no way of translating my longing for something more into anything concrete, like a plan for the next day or next week or the rest of my suddenly barren life.