The Ghost in the Aspens

When he is betrayed by his close friend and his marriage fails, violin bow maker Charles Willoughby flees the city to set up his workshop in a remote Northumberland village, seeking solace and tranquillity in his childhood interest in the natural world. Willoughby doesn’t know what to make of the villagers and nor they him, but gradually he is drawn into the community and befriends especially, the kindly and astute Doctor Morton Beavis and his wife Muriel, and the eccentric Headmaster Stephen Oldham. Then he meets Jessica, a school teacher married to the local auto mechanic, Jack. When Jessica hears Charles play his violin she is captivated, and though he strenuously resists the inclination, he soon realises that he is with her. Jack is increasingly disturbed and diminished by Jessica’s obsessive quest to find the rare Ghost Orchid, which he knows is her sublimated yearning for a child of her own. He is also jealous of her admiration for the newcomer’s music, though he begrudgingly understands that to prevent her from listening may further harm his marriage. Unable to reveal to his wife the fact that he is infertile, in desperation, he makes Charles an extraordinary request that causes Charles to feel he must leave the village and the increasingly difficult feelings he has for Jack's wife. Unaware of her husband’s proposal, Jessica implores Charles to stay – ‘my heart,’ she cries, ‘can belong to you both.’ Then she makes a fateful discovery – an ancient key that opens the door to a place on the moors that should not exist, but in which she can keep him by, and in this strange world where temporal time and mores have no meaning, there are no constraints on how they can be. When the key is lost and she disappears, Charles is accused of Jessica's abduction, and unable to return to her, in his extreme agitation he is committed to a secure hospital. Only his close friend, the concert violinist Ilya Bakos believes Charles, and he persuades the police to continue the search on the moors that recovers the magical key. He also persuades the police to allow Charles, under surveillance, to return to the door that will only become evident to the bearer of the key. 'The Ghost in the Aspens' is a love story, but it is as much about human nature and the moral challenges we all face. It is too, a homage to the violin bow maker, and especially the contemporary bow created by the Frenchman Francoise Tourte, without which much our most beloved classics would not have been written and could not have been performed.