The Maestro's Mistress (38 page)

She thought of Bruno with a warm
rush of affection, as she noted in the short biography on the cover that he was
not yet a professional musician, but juggled his interest in early vocal church
music with a full time career as a barrister.

Oh yes, she could well imagine.
Good old Bruno, still fulfilling his parents’ fond ambition. She wondered if he
would have to make a change now that his disc had shot from shadowy obscurity
into the spotlight.

She played the recording to Saul
who listened with intent interest. ‘What do you think?’

‘Remarkable,’ he said carefully,
giving nothing away.

‘You don’t really like it, do
you?’

‘A little thin-blooded for my
taste.’

‘The music?’

‘No, no. The music is wonderful.’

‘The ensemble then?’

‘Five men and five women?’ He
arched his eyebrows. ‘It’s not even a cricket team.’

‘Whereas you,’ Tara said
laughing, ‘prefer a small army under your baton. Eighty plus in the orchestra,
a choir of hundreds…’

‘Quite.’

For a moment she thought he was
going to relax, let his guard slip and laugh at himself. The smile that had
flickered faded and stilled. He moved to the piano and began to play some
stark, sombre Ravel.

Tara listened spellbound. She
closed her eyes for a moment and let the sound enfold her. Opening them again
she looked at Saul’s face, drawn once again into the enchantment of those
carved, impartial features.

So far away
, Alessandra had said.

As Tara watched him now, his gaze
directed straight ahead of him, his hands moving with silent command over the
keys, it struck her that every day he was moving further. Further and further
away.

Now it was June and the hall was filling
steadily as Tara, Saul and a proud, faintly embarrassed Alessandra arrived for
the award ceremony. They progressed through the throng of guests, smiling
greetings, acknowledging congratulations.

Saul, having previously decreed
that this was to be Tara’s night, placed himself discreetly a step behind his
consort and declined to allow the flow of adulation washing over Tara to be
deflected in his own direction.

Tara, her adrenalin surging in
response to all this enthusiastic recognition of her achievement, looked up at
him from time to time, aching with fresh love and a strange yearning.

She gazed around her, curious to
identify Bruno but failing to see anyone remotely resembling the portrait in
her memory. And then the figure of a bear-like man, balding, bespectacled and
constantly smiling caught her attention. She stared hard. The man turned, and
instantly recognized her. Detaching himself from the throng he came forward to
greet her.

The two former lovers looked into
each other’s faces. There was a brief mutual stab of regret: recollections of a
youth and innocence long ago vanished. There had been something precious and
shared for a time but they had moved away from each other and gone down
separate paths.

Tara looked at Bruno and saw that
he was successful, prosperous and confident. And happy too, she judged. There
was a strong emanation of well-being and content from those good-natured
features.

She stretched up and put her arms
around him, hugging him close, pressing a light kiss on his cheek. As she
pulled back her glance was drawn to the woman at his side who was observing
this affectionate reunion with the indulgent smile of a wife entirely confident
of her husband’s love and loyalty.

‘Tara, meet Caroline,’ said
Bruno, his face warm and animated as he drew his wife forward.

Caroline wore a full-skirted
dress of mulberry taffeta: sweetheart neckline, leg-of-mutton sleeves and a
demure pearl necklace. Like Bruno her waistline was spreading in anticipation
of the creeping onset of middle age.

Tara in her clinging ankle-length
scarlet gown, daringly slit up one side to mid thigh, wondered if she herself
was in danger of looking like mutton dressed as lamb. She would have to consult
Alessandra about it later.

Conversation began to flow: laughing
mutual congratulations, general music talk.

Bruno looked beyond Tara and
registered the presence of Saul  Xavier. Tall and gaunt, the skin pulled tight
over those sword-like features, Xavier struck Bruno as a man little altered by
time. Except that possibly the great Maestro was even more terrifying and
compelling than before.

Xavier shook Bruno’s hand warmly.
‘Many congratulations on the nomination. And to think I’d once imagined I was
setting a young man on the road to the timpani section in some provincial
orchestra,’ he commented drily. ‘Just look at you now – fame and fortune!’

‘Oh well, hardly. Not yet.’ Bruno
gave a diffident smile.

‘You wait,’ Xavier commented.

Bruno watched with interest as
Xavier drew a girl forward: a beautiful leggy colt with a great mane of blonde
hair and glinting green eyes exactly like those of her mother. The girl’s gaze
was frank and penetrating, disturbingly adult.

‘This is Alessandra,’ Xavier
said. ‘Our daughter.’

Bruno took the girl’s hand.  He
was sickeningly nervous. He hoped the girl did not register revolting
clamminess.

‘Hi,’ she said with a cheery
smile. ‘Congratulations.’ She looked towards the stage, simply adorned with a
black rostrum and a backdrop of draped gold curtains. ‘I hope they get on with
it,’ she announced, looking impatient. ‘And then we can all go home and get
stuck into supper. I’m already famished.’

‘These young sprouting shoots,
always thinking of their stomachs,’ Tara commented to Caroline. ‘Do you have
any children?’

Caroline’s face glowed as though
an inward switch had been thrown. ‘Twin boys. Marcus and Rupert. They’re six
now. Too young to bring along tonight. Young children need their sleep, don’t
they?’

Tara felt a brief moment of envy.
Caroline seemed such a calm, steady person. A good woman. A woman who would
never have got herself up the spout and run off with a sexy married maestro
before she had even grown up properly.

She glanced at Saul and was
pierced with a dagger of desire as she recalled her own youthful impulsiveness
and folly.

The ceremony progressed on oiled
wheels.  Both Tara and Bruno were outright winners in their respective
categories. Speeches were given, praises sung, acknowledgements made.

When it came to his turn, a
quaking Bruno was surprised to hear his carefully prepared words proceed from
his mouth without any major hesitations.

Tara’s speech was short and to
the point: a crisp and witty few remarks which had the audience chuckling
appreciatively.

Bruno watched her with interest,
this gracious, wand-like version of the curvy girl he used to toss over his
shoulder. Her dress shimmered softly as she moved and her long dark hair cascaded
freely over her shoulders. It was easy to understand how he had been captivated
all those years ago.

He looked across to Caroline and
let his eyes travel with love over that dear, familiar, loyal face. How right
she was for him, how good things had been for them as a couple. He thought of
the two sleeping boys at home and reached out to press Caroline’s hand warmly.
She turned to him and smiled.

Still retaining her hand Bruno
looked from Xavier to Alessandra and then back again. His brows contracted; the
seed of an idea planted itself. A notion, a wild fancy. Surely not, he said to
himself. And yet – what if? He instructed his memory to call up certain details
of his past.

Tara was closing her speech with
a mention of Maestro Xavier. As she spoke his name, she paused meaningfully,
and the spotlight operator had little choice but to train the lights on the
dark saturnine figure in the audience. He got to his feet and took a brief bow.

Bruno watched Tara descend from
the stage. Applause clattered around her like gunfire. He watched her as though
in a daze, his mind still struggling to bring past events into sharp focus. But
eventually he was forced to abandon his search as his attention was claimed by
the here and now.

As he and Caroline prepared to
leave the auditorium a procession of faces moved across his line of vision.
Through a haze of unreality he heard talk of a new recording contract, a
proposed TV film charting the formation of the Renaissance Choristers, the
possibility of tours in the United States and Japan. Someone called Grant
wanted to represent him.

Bruno found himself bemused. He
mouthed suitable words of response, indicating a need to consider at length. He
was, after all, a man who had always trodden a path of caution and anonymity.

It was something of a relief when
Xavier cut through the insistent throng and came to his rescue with an
invitation for him and Caroline to come and join in the celebrations at his
London house.

Alessandra stood in the kitchen
of her father’s London pied-a-terre, looking at the posters she had pinned to
the wall a couple of years ago - all of them concerning horses. Her passion for
all things equine simply grew stronger as time went on.

She unpinned the large coloured
diagram entitled ‘Points of the Horse’ and laid it on the table. Frowning in
concentration she traced the connections of the cannon bone down to the fetlock
joint in the right foreleg. What a complex, cunningly constructed animal a
horse was.

Bruno came through the doorway,
crossed to the sink and filled his glass from the cold tap. He looked at the
absorbed girl. ‘You’re a keen rider I take it?’ he said. She gave a slight
start, automatically framing a defensive retort. She paused long enough to
appreciate the complete absence of any patronizing adult superiority or lurking
criticism in Bruno’s open face.

She relaxed. ‘Yes, very keen.’

‘I know next to nothing about
horses,’ he told her. ‘Not even enough to risk having a stab at asking you a
sensible question without putting my foot in it.’

‘Have a try.’

‘OK, let’s see. Are we talking
about show jumping, or maybe cross country events?’ His eyes twinkled behind
the Franz Schubert glasses.

Alessandra shook her head. ‘We’re
talking about dressage. Have you heard of that?’

Bruno nodded.

‘Dressage riding is a tremendous
discipline,’ she explained. ‘For the horse and the rider. You have to put in
hours of work, day after day – just to get to the point of knowing if you’ll
ever be a tiny bit better than a load of rubbish.’

‘Sounds like the music
treadmill,’ Bruno said.

Alessandra glanced sharply at
him, her smile snapping off. She looked again at him – and her smile slowly
returned.

He came to stand beside her,
swivelling the diagram so that he could see it better. ‘Whoever designed the
horse had a great deal of optimism,’ he commented. ‘All that bulk balanced on
such fragile delicate legs.’

Alessandra gazed thoughtfully at
the diagram. ‘That’s true but you see if you think of the weight distribution
over the four limbs…’ She began to explain further.

The two heads bent together in
contemplation.

In the big drawing room the
swirling clumps of guests were having a splendid time with the aid of copious
supplies of champagne and the intoxicating presence of their host, Saul  Xavier,
who was generously entertaining them with some thunderous Liszt.

Rachel, circulating dutifully,
heard the general chorus of praise for the great maestro.

What a marvellous man, so
delighted with Tara’s success, so far above petty jealousies
, she heard more than one guest
opine.

Don’t you bloody believe it, she
retorted to herself privately. He’s controlled everything very nicely from the
word go. And now he’ll control the scale of Tara’s success. Rachel’s feelings
about Saul Xavier were still uneasy and ambivalent. She wished he was more
accessible, more relaxed. Easier. But then he wouldn’t be the Xavier who held
Tara in thrall. And Rachel knew that Tara was still helplessly in love, as
though in the grip of some illness.

Bruno and Alessandra came through
the door side by side and rejoined the main company. They sought out Caroline
and Tara who were talking together, standing against the curved end of the
piano.

‘Are you a pianist, Alessandra?’
Caroline asked, watching the girl’s expression as she registered her father’s
interpretation of Mozart’s Rondo in A Minor.

Bruno also was observing
Alessandra, fascinated by mixture of feelings battling it out on her young face
as she was confronted with her father’s brilliance. This was late Mozart Xavier
was tackling, a piece some musicologists described as the most perfect Rondo
ever written. It was a challenge to play. It required not only excellent
technical skill, but also an exquisite delicacy of touch and clarity common to
all of that composer’s music. He had reached bar 32 where a singing, tumbling
melody of exquisite tenderness demanded a skilful interplay of both hands.