The Secret Chord: The Virtuosic Spy - Book 2 (8 page)

He reached the third floor and moved past her bedroom to the studio door at the end of the hall. With the tray balanced on one arm he took a few deep breaths and knocked. A muffled movement sounded within. He waited, then rapped again more loudly.

"Kate? I've got a bit of supper Abigail asked me to bring for you."

"Thanks. I'm not hungry."
 

Her voice, just on the other side of the door, sounded tired. Uncurling his hand Conor rested his palm against the door and tried again, this time with some light banter. "Well that's fine, Kate, but listen to me. If you send me away my only choice is to bring this tray back to the kitchen and get abused for a feeble effort. So, in the interest of saving my backside will you ever just open up? I'll pass the works through like a hero and you can do what you want with it."

The door swung open. Kate stood aside and motioned for him to enter. He walked in and placed the tray on the only available surface he could find, a table littered with drawing paper. The room was larger than he'd expected and engulfed in clutter, but it held no interest for him as he turned to her. Dressed in jeans and an oversized white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, Kate looked as deflated and miserable as he'd ever seen her. She frowned at the floor, her eyes hidden by a curtain of dark red hair.

"Are you all right?" Conor asked softly.

"Yes. I'm just not hungry."

He picked up a napkin and wiped a smudge of chocolate from the corner of her lip, resisting the alarming impulse to sift through the curls falling around her face. "Must have been some chocolate bar. Breakfast of champions, was it?"
 

A shadowy smile touched her lips, but faded under heavy weariness. She lifted the cloche from the tray and they both examined the plate underneath. Abigail had prepared a Caesar salad topped with grilled shrimp. A generous slice of raspberry pie sat on a separate plate.

"I can't eat all this," Kate complained.

"Hmm. I could maybe give you a hand with the pie."

"Oh, really?" Her smile lingered a bit longer this time. She passed over the plate and nodded for him to sit, then she sat down next to him and he handed her a fork. They began eating in silence.

The pie disappeared in four bites. Wiping his mouth, Conor swung around in his chair with awakening curiosity. The room was unlike any other in the house, infused with Kate's spirit in a way her tastefully correct living room was not. It had the evocative character of the classic "atelier"—long, narrow and high ceilinged, with three windows along its length facing the road. All were open to the evening breeze and between two of them an old sofa sat on a worn Persian carpet. The floor was wide planked oak and dotted with paint-stained drop cloths.
 

In the center of the room a large blank canvas balanced on two easels, partly obscured by a black cloth draped over its corners. Conor took it all in, along with the faint odor of turpentine mixed with the fragrance of old wood. The room was spectacular.

"I can imagine what you're thinking." Without looking at him Kate speared a shrimp and pointed her fork at the jars and paint tubes in front of the canvas. "You're thinking it's no wonder I get nothing accomplished in a mess like this."

The unfamiliar edge in her voice startled him. "Your imagination is pretty far off track."

"Well, you can't be thinking this looks like the studio of a serious artist," she insisted with heavy sarcasm. "More like a children's nursery. All it needs is a box of blocks thrown on the floor."

He shifted to address Kate's averted face. "You're making a lot assumptions about what I'm thinking and you haven't got one right yet."

"The place isn't usually this messy."

"So what if it was?"

"Excellent point." She huffed a bitter laugh and plunged the fork into another shrimp. "So what if it's messy, or clean? Doesn't make a difference, right?"

"Kate—"

"Watch the artist in her milieu, consistent output under all conditions."

"Kate, stop for God's sake. Bullying yourself isn't going to help. I've tried and it doesn't work, believe me."

She put the fork down and finally looked at him. "Are you sure? Because nothing else I've tried is working, either." Her blue eyes appeared darker than usual and the derisive glint had disappeared, leaving them full of sadness and exhaustion.

"Do you want to talk about it?"
 

Kate gave him a dubious glance, then slumped against the chair. "I got an email yesterday from an art collector who bought one of my pieces at a juried show eight years ago. A painting called
The Three Graces
."

She pushed aside a pile of papers and picked up a large print from the table, handing it to him. Conor accepted it with a solemn nod, no stranger to the anxiety involved in the deceptively simple gesture. In the practice of any art there was such a fine balance between the desire to be heard or seen or understood, and the terror of exposure. He assumed an impassive expression and angled the print against the window for a better view.

The work was magnificent. The scene depicted three women, lithe and elegant, wrapped in long formal dresses, all so similar as to suggest the same figure arranged in different poses. They stood slightly apart, turned away from each other. Only one faced forward, wistfully staring out at him with an upturned head and a wise reserved smile. Set in a moonlit landscape the women appeared to float within the scene, and beneath the composition's visible brushwork the hue and texture of the canvas remained as an underlying glow. A sense of contemplative movement inhabited the work, as though each woman had been captured in the midst of her own slow, solitary dance.

"This is gorgeous," Conor began, before lapsing back into stunned silence. He didn't know what he'd expected, but somehow knew he had not guessed at this level of talent. He realized his thoughts were transparent when Kate's face relaxed into its first sustained smile.

"Such astonishment. You're surprised I was actually good at this?"

"Well, no, it isn't that, exactly."

"Oh, come on. You can admit it. I haven't been much of an advocate for myself, so why wouldn't you be surprised? You didn't expect it."

"I . . . no. I did not," Conor said reluctantly. "And it's a mortal embarrassment. I should know by now not to underestimate you."

Kate dismissed his confession graciously. "I almost wish I hadn't shown it to you. I'd prefer being underestimated. It's painful when people think you're wasting your talent—not quite so much if they think you don't have any. The art collector isn't operating under either impression. He wants to commission a companion piece."

"And you don't think you can do it." From her responding glare Conor saw he'd touched a nerve.

"I don't
think
I can do it? I
know
I can't do it. I believe I've mentioned this before, Conor. I can't paint." She flung an arm at the blank canvas across the room. "I can't even bring myself to put a mark on it. It sits there and I come in every few weeks to dust it, for God's sake. I've tried therapy, meditation—I even tried hypnosis, if you can believe that. Nothing works."

"What about focusing on art, instead of yourself?" Conor asked. "Have you tried that?"

"Have I tried focusing on
art
instead of
myself
?" Kate looked stunned, and then extremely angry. "I suppose to you this all seems like some self-induced, navel-gazing melodrama?"

"Ehm, no, that's not—"

"You insensitive bastard!"
 

She came out of her chair, gathering wits and breath for a withering explosion. Conor knew it would concuss any second and silently cursed Abigail for setting off this crisis. His question had been intentional, but not skillfully phrased. He didn't have a lot of time to get it right.

"Okay wait, wait. That's not exactly what I meant to say." He rose from his seat as well, hands waving in self-defense, and took a step backward. "Will you ever let me explain before you eat the head off me?"

With exaggerated patience Kate stood in front of him, eyebrows raised in wordless, hostile inquiry. He took another step back, collided with the arm of the sofa, and abruptly sat down.

"Holy Mother, what am I like?" He caught himself before he pitched over backwards. "Listen. I didn't mean to be insensitive. I actually do understand how it feels, when the one thing you thought you were born for seems completely out of reach."

The chilliness in her eyes warmed a degree, encouraging him to continue.

“You get the idea that everything has slipped away from you. You can't remember where it came from in the first place, or how to get it back, and then you start wondering if it's gone for good . . .” He trailed off, looking at the blank canvas. Enveloped in its shroud-like covering it presented an uncomfortably obvious metaphor. Struggling for composure, Kate finished for him.

"That's the most terrifying thought of all, isn't it?"

"Yes," he whispered.

Silently, Conor prayed for the moment to pass, not knowing what he might do this time if she cried, but she found a distraction, picking up wadded balls of drawing paper from the floor. With a soft groan he swung his legs over the sofa and sank into the cushions, knowing he was snared and that he'd half-consciously set the trap himself. He should have avoided coming close to her like this, but he couldn't; he should refuse now to be drawn in deeper but when she came and sat next to him, he knew he wouldn't.

"I don't know what to do."

Hearing the weariness in her voice Conor automatically circled an arm around her shoulders. "I'd say the first thing is to get away from this bloody canvas for a while. Gives me the fear, the way it's looking at us. Do you fancy a bit of music? I've something in mind that works best at sunset."

8

S
QUINTING
UP
AT
THE
SETTING
SUN
C
ONOR
CHOSE
A
SPOT
for them, pointing his violin case at the top of the pasture across the road. They reached the picnic bench and sat with the case lying open on the grass in front of them, revealing a much older instrument than Kate had expected. Gleaming with a brandy-colored finish and nestled in a cocoon of green velvet, the violin rested inside like a rare antique, too brittle to be touched.
 

"How beautiful." She spoke as though cooing into the cradle of a fragile newborn.

Conor lifted the violin and began tuning, hands brisk and self-assured. As he ran a bow over the strings the instrument came alive with drones and animated squeaks, dispelling some of Kate's intimidated awe.

"What would you like me to play?" He frowned down the length of the fingerboard, giving the tuning pegs a few final tweaks.

"Oh. I don't know. Your violin seems too grand for a hoedown tune."

"Not at all. She's perfectly happy with whatever I play—reels, Mozart, pub songs—but I've no idea what a 'hoedown tune' is." Conor's face cleared in a smile. "Local expression?"

"I guess so." Kate laughed. "Something like a reel, or a jig?"

"Is it a jig you'd like? Or a reel?"

She didn't want to admit she couldn't tell the difference between the two. "Play whatever you want. You said you had something in mind."

"I do. Let's sit on the grass. We need to wait a couple more minutes."
 

They settled on the ground and Conor finished tuning with a flourish of scales as the sun descended. When its bottom edge brushed the mountaintop in the distance he tucked the instrument back under his chin, lifted the bow, and stopped. The corners of his eyes creased as he stared at the mountains. "My father taught me this. He called it the tune to put the sun to sleep. Now, close your eyes 'til I'll tell you to open them."

Kate lifted her face to the warmth of the sun and let its glow pulse against her eyelids as the violin begin to speak—slow notes in a minor key, like a soft, keening moan. They circled back and the phrases repeated, filling the air with mournful lament, and after a moment Conor's voice whispered close to her ear.

"Open your eyes, Kate."

She opened them with drowsy reluctance as the music changed pitch with a set of clear piercing notes, desolate and urgent. Tethered to the rising sound, Kate felt her heart straining to float up to it. Before her an expanse of cloud in technicolor blue and pink spread like a bruise toward the horizon, hovering in a sky of radiant gold while the sun slipped lower, in sleepy obedience to the tune. Gradually, it melted into the mountains until only a sliver lingered above the peak, and then winked out.

The music had ended, and Kate turned to see the violin already tucked back in its case, as if the entire episode had been an acoustical fantasy. With his knees hugged to his chest Conor sat watching the color intensify in the afterglow.

"Not too bad, then? The sound was okay?"

"Seriously?" Kate stared at him. "My God."

"You liked it?"

"Of course. The sound was amazing."

"Thank you."

Kate considered the strange paradox of the man as they enjoyed a stillness neither seemed anxious to break. In some ways he was easy to know and in others, impossible. He’d revealed only a piece of his past—and that only out of necessity—but although Conor had drawn a veil around any further details of his troubled history he seemed a reluctant enigma, and with his music he'd shared something deeply personal that seemed to invite a closer glimpse.

"When did your father die?" she asked gently.

He stirred and shifted to face her. "Almost twenty years ago. He died of pulmonary disease when I was twelve."

"And he taught you that tune? You've been able to play like that since you were twelve years old?"

He smiled at her astonishment. "Not exactly, but I've played some arrangement of that air since I was six. He gave me a fiddle when I turned five and once he realized I had the knack he got fairly serious with the lessons. Before he got too weak he dragged me to every fiddling contest in the west of Ireland, but sure we only went for the
craic
—a bit of fun. He'd usually be getting me out of school, serving up some desperate rubbish for the teacher."