The Maestro's Mistress (8 page)

The sensation of intense control
brought an equally intense excitement. She found herself wanting to be free and
at the same time longing to be held more firmly.

She wondered if Bruno felt the
same, but they were not able to compare notes as Bruno gratefully accepted
Xavier’s offer of a lift back to London, anxious to make preparations for his
nine o’clock tutorial the next morning.

Tara accompanied the two men out
into the road, where she embraced Bruno lovingly. As she listened to the high
whine of the Porsche’s engine accelerating into the distance she let her
fingers move over the stiff white card which Xavier had unobtrusively placed in
her hand as he stepped outside the door. She considered tearing it up without
even looking to see what it said.

Having dropped the younger man
off at his college, Xavier turned his car towards home and Georgiana.

He felt deeply satisfied. He had
done the young man a good turn: the meeting which had been set up with the
timpanist at the Tudor would most likely turn out favourably, and anyway the
young man had a career in law all mapped out. Xavier need not concern himself
with him further.

It was that small fireball of
green-eyed rebellion which interested him.

Ah yes, there was much to be
mulled over in respect of that feisty nymph; delightful manoeuvres to
contemplate. And he judged he had already set the ball rolling very nicely.

As he navigated the night-time
streets of London he felt himself energized and revitalised, his spirits
surging with a sense of anticipatory exhilaration which he had begun to despair
of ever recapturing.

CHAPTER
6

Georgiana lay on the chaise
longue, her body and limbs tension free as she looked out of the window of her
therapist’s consulting room to the line of cherry trees beyond. Their few
remaining leaves had turned to vivid lime gold.

‘I had such a beautiful sleep
last night,’ she told him. ‘Ten whole hours. There were no dreams, just perfect
peace. It was the kind of sleep I used to have when I was a child.’

Dr Denton – MBChb, Member of the
Institute of Psychoanalysis – who was sitting just behind her head, made no
immediate response, giving Georgiana the time to reflect on her statement, the
opportunity to make some analysis of her own – even though he seriously doubted
her capacity to do so. His eyes rested on her narrow feet and her gazelle-slim
ankles before moving slowly over her body, alluringly draped in a cunningly
fitting dress of some soft jersey fabric which clung to every contour.

After a short interval of silence
he asked, ‘You have not slept like that since you were a child?’

Her eyes stared unseeingly ahead.
Ignoring the question she continued with her own thoughts. ‘After I lost the
baby I had these terrible nightmares. They were full of blood and pain –
ghastly, horrible. I used to force myself to like awake so they wouldn’t come
again.

Yes, she had told him that
before. She had been coming to him for some weeks now, at first once a week and
now twice. She raked constantly over the ashes of her miscarriage. In fact she
was reluctant to talk of much else. He had to admit that he was not making much
progress with her. But it was early days yet. There was time – weeks and months
of it stretching ahead. And the prospect of sitting quietly just out of her
view, with all the freedom in the world to let his eyes linger over her
delicious person was distinctly pleasing.

‘Tell me about your dreams when
you were a child?’ he asked, wondering if she might at long last be persuaded
to speak of her childhood. Usually his patients were only too eager to delve
into their past. After all in this, fast-moving, wealth acquiring society it
was a luxury to be granted the licence to talk at length about oneself.
Especially to someone who listened without interrupting, but seemed to care.

In the four years of his practice
as a psychoanalyst (leaning more towards the theories of Carl Jung than those
of Sigmund Freud) Dr Denton had heard countless stories of childhood – most of
them unhappy and brutal. This was hardly surprising as his patients came to him
because they had problems, the underlying causes of which were inevitably
rooted in their childish past. The problems which rose to the surface –
alcoholism, drug abuse, anorexia, depression, poor sexual performance - were
merely symptoms of something far deeper. It was his job to discover the demons
in the hidden caverns of their unconscious and gently reveal them to the
patient in an attempt to purge their power. He judged that his degree of
success was satisfactory and steadily improving.

‘Just sometimes I would dream,’
she said suddenly. ‘I used to see my parents’ faces. They would be smiling at
me, just as they did when I was awake. They were the gentlest parents, the most
loving. We were all so happy.’

Dr Denton looked across at the
winking red light on his tape recorder on the desk. He would be interested to
listen to those words played back when she had gone. Statements of that kind
were simply too good to be true. What was she concealing from him – or from
herself?

‘My mother was very beautiful.
Golden-skinned, lovely ash blonde hair. Not as tall as me, but everyone said we
were unmistakably mother and child.’ She smiled, taking obvious pleasure in the
memory, closing her eyes like a cat responding to a soft caress.

Dr Denton directed his attention
to her face. She was indeed beautiful with her firm jaw-line, her high
cheek-bones and her fashion model’s straight nose. Beneath her bronze-shadowed
lids were eyes as blue as a summer sky and her baby soft hair was a thick,
creamy shade which he assumed must be entirely natural.

‘She’s still alive,’ Georgiana
continued. ‘In her late sixties now and still very lovely.’ Another smile.

So the daughter need have no
undue fears about the ravages of the ageing process, Dr Denton thought. ‘You
seem to have a great affection for your mother,’ he suggested.

Georgiana gave a long low murmur
of assent. ‘Yes, oh yes. And for my father, of course. He was a wonderful man.’

‘He’s dead now?’

‘Two years ago. Poor Daddy. He
used to call me his own lovely darling.’

‘And what did he call your
mother?’

‘His own precious darling. They
were so very loving to each other – and to me. They used to say I was their
world.’

Dr Denton leaned forward
slightly, clasping his manicured hands loosely together. He considered how to
frame the next question which he hoped would stimulate Georgiana to make a
start on the intimate biography of her past.

He was an excellent listener:
concerned, sincere and calmly accepting of anything he was told, however
shocking.

‘So that was your family? Your parents
and you. Anyone else?

‘Just the three of us. The
perfect family.’ Georgiana allowed her mind to drift away into the idyllic lost
world of her childhood. As she began to translate her thoughts and images into
words for the handsome, personable Dr Denton she felt a warm glow of well-being
suffuse her body. Suddenly there was licence to be a cherished little girl all
over again.

Dr Denton listened to the flat, faintly
metallic voice with growing pleasure. Georgiana Xavier was beginning to have an
appeal for him which none of his other women clients had evoked.

And now at last she was opening
up. Another few sessions like this and he would have enough information to
begin to frame a hypothesis as to the true nature of her troubles.

Dr Denton saw Georgiana as an innocent,
partially blind creature confronting a sheet of darkened glass, seeing only her
own reflection, her own feelings. In time he would clear the glass for her,
wipe away the darkness and enable her to see clearly into the outer world
beyond the inner turmoil.

The prospect of exercising such
tender and healing power was utterly seductive.

CHAPTER
7

Xavier waited a week and then he
telephoned Tara’s home number. Taking into account the tantalising message he
had scribbled for her on his personal calling card he was intrigued and rather
impressed that she had not been on the line to him before.

He recognized her voice
immediately, was struck afresh by its curious blend of grating assertiveness
and husky seduction.

She, in turn, knew immediately
that it was him. ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed.

‘You did not go back to college?’
he enquired pleasantly.

‘No. Packed it in.’

‘It was not for you?’

‘No.’

‘That is because you are a
musician.’

Her answering silence was bold
and deliberate.

‘I’ve been making some
enquiries,’ he continued. ‘From your former teacher for a start.’

‘What!’

He took pleasure in imagining her
shocked and indignant expression. ‘I have something important to tell you,
Tara. My old friend Monica Heilfrich is here in London giving some master
classes and I want you to take part.’

‘Me? Play for the great
Heilfrich. Is that a joke?’

‘I’ll take you along myself.’

‘Is that supposed to make things
better? Do you think you’re any less terrifying than her?’

Xavier was delighted with all
this unashamed frankness. For years he had been surrounded with fawning
sycophants and had become heartily sick of their evasive style of speech. He
could almost hear their minds squirming as they painstakingly weighed every
word for fear of offending him.

‘So how often have you been
playing your father’s instrument since last week?’ he asked Tara, conjuring up
a detailed image of her in his head, the shaggy elfin haircut, the wayward
fringe flopping over those wonderful glinting green eyes. And her figure – so
small, yet so rounded, so firmly fleshed.

‘Around three to four hours a
day.’ This was a lie; she had been playing for seven at least.

A faint smile of triumph played
over Xavier’s lips. ‘I’m very glad to hear it. Now – listen to me! This is no
joke. I’ve been talking to Monica and she is most interested to hear you play.
She’s invited you to join her little group next week. Tuesday, I think. She
starts at two in the afternoon. So I’ll pick you up at eleven, we’ll have a
little light lunch together and then I’ll drop you off at her place.’

Tara breathed in deeply. ‘No.’

‘Tara! This is an opportunity not
to be missed.’ He wondered whether to exert a little extra pressure in the form
of dropping in a reference to her father, but decided against it.

‘Oh, I’ll come to the master
class. But I’ll get there under my own steam, thanks all the same,’ she added.

‘I see. Very well.’ His voice was
chilling.

‘Will you be there?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll be scared out of my wits.
I’ll probably play like a donkey.’

The line clicked off abruptly,
leaving Xavier high and dry. Dropping the phone back on the handset, he smiled
with devilish speculation. Of course the young sprite might be absolutely
useless and he would have a little egg on his face, for which Monica would tease
him without mercy.

He doubted however that Tara’s
lack of musical skill would be a problem. Her teacher had spoken of Tara’s
interesting potential in her childhood and early teens and, even if the wayward
nymph had not been motivated and practising for a while, that was unlikely to
have vanished. True talent was never lost – ruling out brain damage or physical
injuries.

No doubt Tara would present
plenty of problems outside the musical sphere, but he rather looked forward to
dealing with those. And what could be more tantalizing and exciting than
playing God in the conception, gestation and eventual birth of a coruscating
new talent?

‘Saul  Xavier seems to have taken
it into his head to be my Svengali,’ Tara told her mother drily when she
returned home from work that evening.

As Rachel listened to the full
story a spark of hope leapt up inside her at the prospect of the re-awakening
of Tara’s buried musical aspirations. Concern about Tara had almost stifled the
grief of Richard’s death. Rachel saw that her daughter was desperately adrift,
stumbling around in some private wilderness, searching wildly for the odd
signpost to re-direct her onto a path of purpose.

Rachel wondered where she and
Richard had gone wrong with this bright, iron-willed offspring who had been so
full of shining hope and promise as a child. She supposed that for a time they
had been preoccupied with the intensity of their sorrow after Freddie’s death
and maybe that had had some harmful effect on the young Tara. But they had
tried really hard not to let their private torment affect their relationship
with their remaining child. Indeed when Tara had become their only child she
had been even more precious than before.

And Richard had always been so
encouraging about her musical potential: her singing and her violin playing. He
had spent hours tutoring her himself in addition to the expert teaching she had
received at one of the country’s leading music school for which she had gained
a scholarship at the age of eight. He had even composed short pieces for her to
play in her practice sessions so as to provide extra interest.