Appassionata (103 page)
‘I was hoping to hear from Philadelphia,’ mumbled Abby.
‘I was h-h-hoping to h-h-hear from the record company in Prague,’ stammered Marcus.
But all the postman produced was an ecstatic postcard from. Flora and the telephone bill, which Marcus pocketed instantly. ‘I’ll pay that, you’ve picked up far too many bills recently.’ Anything to stop Abby seeing the itemized calls to Moscow.
‘Come back to bed, Markie,’ pleaded Abby.
Marcus shook his head.
‘Ought to have a bath first, I just fell into bed like a polecat last night.’
‘Oh OK, if you feel like that.’ Abby retreated upstairs banging her bedroom door.
As Marcus soaked in the last of Flora’s bath oil, he noticed a pale sun looking at him from the marble tiles on the right of the bath. The tiles were picking up the sun’s reflection in the mirror opposite. It gave Marcus the creeps that the sun, hovering unseen and in apparent innocence outside, could watch him naked in the bath. Just like the Press, thought Marcus with a shiver. He kept hearing the collective rattle of himself and skeletons coming out of the closet.
He had made heroic attempts to be faithful to Abby, but five weeks ago Alexei had sent him a pair of emerald cuff-links with just one sentence: ‘
Here are two green eyes of the monster who is jealous of anyone you even talk to
.’
Here are two green eyes of the monster who is jealous of anyone you even talk to
.’
And Marcus had weakened and written back, and Alexei and he had been ringing up and writing to each other ever since. Finally when the RSO was in Spain, Marcus had flown out to Prague for four days, on the pretext of looking for a record deal, but instead spending every second with Alexei, growing more and more hopelessly in love. It was as though he had found a part of himself that had always been missing.
There had been a performance of the ballet
Don Quixote
on the second night. And although Marcus almost expired with desire and pride as he watched Alexei bringing the Prague audience over and over again cheering to their feet in stupified wonder, he realized he loved the man, not just the great star.
Don Quixote
on the second night. And although Marcus almost expired with desire and pride as he watched Alexei bringing the Prague audience over and over again cheering to their feet in stupified wonder, he realized he loved the man, not just the great star.
In a few years’ time, Alexei would have to give up dancing, probably to become a wonderfully autocratic director, but Marcus wanted to be there to take care of him while he made the adjustment.
Alexei, on the one hand, was still playing word games, insisting art was more important than love and that he and Marcus were owned by the world.
‘Ballet devour your whole life.’
But it didn’t stop him trying to persuade Marcus to leave Abby.
‘It will be perfectly better for you to live in Moscow weeth me.’
But Marcus, wiped out once more by ecstasy and guilt, had returned to England, insisting they must never see each other again and Alexei had stormed off in a fury, accusing Marcus of cowardice and hypocrisy.
It was this guilt that had made Marcus react so strongly to
The Scorpion
piece: Abby trumpeting fortissimo to the world of their passion for one another, when he was totally fogged with love for Alexei.
The Scorpion
piece: Abby trumpeting fortissimo to the world of their passion for one another, when he was totally fogged with love for Alexei.
As he lay in the cooling water, Marcus noticed a bottle on the side for detangling hair. If only it could detangle his life.
When he settled down to practise he was so tired that he kept making stupid mistakes.
Much later as the light faded he went for a walk. Sibelius and Scriabin followed him, pouncing on gold leaves which were tumbling out of the wood. The sun, which had spied on him earlier, was now huge, orange and warming the slim bare limbs of the trees, so beautiful freed of their clothing of leaves, they reminded him of Alexei.
He hadn’t heard a word from Rupert or Taggie since
The Scorpion
. They were probably too outraged and saddened to get in touch. How
dare
Abby say Helen was the only person he related to, when Taggie had always given him so much love and understanding.
The Scorpion
. They were probably too outraged and saddened to get in touch. How
dare
Abby say Helen was the only person he related to, when Taggie had always given him so much love and understanding.
Ahead Marcus could see the lights of the cottage. Abby must have come home early. He found her still in her overcoat, gazing hopelessly at a burnt-out kettle. Sobbing hysterically, she collapsed against him.
‘I’m desperately sorry, Markie. My foot’s like a colander I’ve shot myself in it so often. I’ve just turned your evening-shirt blue putting it in the same wash as my scarf.’
The Fat Controller was guesting at the RSO for the next week, she continued, so she was pushing off to Philadelphia to clinch the American tour.
‘I lied to Miles that I was going to see Mom. He’d be so fucking smug if the tour didn’t come off, and if it does I guess it’s the only way the orchestra’ll forgive me. You’d think it was me sacked Viking. Anyway it’ll get me out of your hair and theirs. You all need a break.’
‘I need you to tell me what to do in the first round,’ protested Marcus, but only to comfort her.
Abby gulped. ‘You’re the sweetest liar. You’ll be far better on your own. I’ll fly back on Thursday morning and come straight up to Appleton for the finals the next day.’
‘Aren’t you cutting it a bit fine?’ said Marcus in alarm. Abby was going to have to conduct six concertos. ‘It’s a hell of a marathon.’
‘It won’t give me time to be scared. Imagine five million viewers.’
She was so tired it took her ages to pack, dragging out her power suits with shoulder pads to impress the conservative and sometimes stuffy American cultural committees. The cats kept getting into her cases; she loathed the idea of them going to a cattery, but at least they’d be together.
When, at last, she wandered across the moonlit lawn to Marcus’s studio, the crowded stars were listening enraptured to the last joyful tumultuous bars of the Schumann concerto.
‘You and I are going to play that together in the finals,’ said Abby, massaging his shoulders.
‘Some hope. It’s tempting fate to work on it when I know I won’t get that far. Did you know Benny’s entered, and a mass of other seriously good people.’
‘You’ll zap the lot of them. You know Rodney always sang “To the Life Boats, to the Life Boats”, during that bit in the last movement, when every pianist wants to jump ship because it’s so difficult to cope with the cross-rhythms. Play it again. I’ll be the orchestra.’
‘Promise to sing it slowly,’ Marcus flipped back the pages.
‘I promise. “To the Life Boats, to the Life Boats, to the Life Boats,”’ sang Abby, faster and faster, with Marcus frantically scurrying to keep up, until they collapsed in hysterical laughter for the first time in days until Abby’s laughter turned once more to tears.
‘Make love to me, Marcus. It’s been so long, I need it so badly.’
Falling on each other, they tried to eradicate the memories of Viking and Alexei. For Marcus, it was as if he were attempting to quench a frantic thirst with great gulps of sea water. At least he hoped he had satisfied Abby. She fell asleep in his arms immediately. The studio was flooded with moonlight. On her right hand, clutching the pillow, Marcus’s ruby glowed like a drop of blood. Burning through the floorboards, under the bed, were Alexei’s hidden love letters, his Rolex and the emerald cuff-links.
White in the moon the long road lies
That leads me from my love
, thought Marcus despairingly.
, thought Marcus despairingly.
As Abby slept, he stole out of the studio and across the dewy lawn, his heart pounding. He didn’t even have to memorize the code for Moscow. But there was no answer. Alexei must have found other arms.
Appassionata
SIXTH MOVEMENT
SIXTY-FOUR
Appleton, a dark satanic mill town, lay just west of the Pennines with its grimy houses and factories spilling over the steep hillside as though someone had hurled a pot of black ink against a green wall. The surrounding countryside was dotted with imposing Victorian houses built by the old cotton manufacturers, who found patronizing the arts in the nineteenth century a gratifying way up the social ladder. The most imposing of these houses had belonged to the late Lord Appleton, a great charmer and music lover, who each year had invited a group of friends to play together over a long weekend. On the last day, the musician, who, by popular vote, had pleased his companions the most, was awarded five hundred pounds.
The comely Welsh pianist, Blodwyn Jones, who won the prize at the end of the Fifties, became Lord Appleton’s much younger wife, and when he died she joined forces with his inconsolable friends to found the Appleton Piano Competition in his memory. The Appleton had become as prestigious as the Leeds Piano Competition which took place every four years in August. Indeed Fanny Waterman, the founder of the great Leeds Competition was a friend of Blodwyn Appleton and had advised her in the early stages.
Lady Appleton was well named. She had a face as round, rosy and sweet as a Worcester Pearmain, and a nature to match. Although well into her sixties, she was able to charm distinguished musicians to give their services for almost nothing. This year, the very international jury contained several piano teachers, old trouts of both sexes, including a Romanian, a Latvian, a vast Ukrainian and a Chinese who spent his time writing a biography of Schumann from right to left on a laptop computer. Among the judges who still played in public was Marcus’s ancient admirer Pablo Gonzales, who had arrived without his blond boyfriend. Others included Bruce Kennedy, a cool laconic American, and Sergei Rostrov, a hot-headed voluble Russian, both great and famous pianists who felt they should put something back into music by sitting on the odd jury, but who detested one another.
Ernesto (an Italian who spoke little English) and Lili (a green-eyed German) were less good pianists. Both in their fifties, they preferred to judge rather than be judged and were making a nice living, thank you, sitting on juries all over the world and bonking each other.
Among the non-piano-playing judges were a svelte French feminist who played the harpsichord, and an Irish Contralto called Deirdre O’Neill, who had a winning cosy exterior, which mostly disguised a pathological loathing of the Brits, no doubt exacerbated by a recent divorce from a Weybridge stockbroker.
Completing the pack were Boris, Hermione and Dame Edith, who, because Monica was in Kenya awaiting her first grandchild, had rolled up with Monica’s yellow labrador Jennifer; and surprise, surprise, Rannaldini. All the judges were staying at the Prince of Wales Hotel in Appleton High Street.
The candidates on the other hand were housed at St Theresa’s, a local girls’ boarding-school, situated about three miles out of town on the edge of the moors. As the pupils had gone home for half-term, each contestant was allotted a tiny study/bedroom. Marcus collapsed in hysterical laughter when he found the walls of his room covered in half-naked posters of James Dean and Mel Gibson. Outside in the park, almost obscuring the view from his window, was a magnificent chestnut tree which still held on to its reddy gold leaves.
Across khaki fields, criss-crossed with stone walls and bobbled with sheep, Marcus could see the lights of Appleton. In case by some miracle he reached the final, he had brought his tails and the dress-shirt which Abby had turned pale blue in the washing-machine.
During a rather strained and stilted drinks party, when the contestants stared at each other like cats, Marcus noticed Benny Basanovich, black hair curly as a Jacob’s sheep, surrounded by girls, but paying particular attention to a voluptuous Slav beauty, with long sloe-black eyes, soft, drooping scarlet lips and large breasts. That must be Rannaldini’s protegee Natalia Philipova. Marcus felt a surge of pity for his mother. How could all the silicone implants in the world compete with that, he thought savagely.
Over an excellent dinner of steak and kidney pudding, and a huge pie made from dark blue bilberries picked off the moor, served with big jugs of cream, the level of chat and laughter started to rise.
Everyone then drew for position in the competition. With forty-eight contestants to play, the first round would take four days. Mid-morning or mid-afternoon were best. People who played first thing had to warm up the jury and the audience. Immediately after lunch was dodgy, because half the jury would be sleeping it off. By the end of the day everyone was irritable and tired. Marcus drew the very last number, then had a nail-biting, four-day wait.
On the first morning of the competition, however, all the contestants were expected to turn up at the small concert hall belonging to Appleton University, where the first two rounds were taking place, to be officially welcomed by Lady Appleton.
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