The Line of Beauty

was like those implacable little gymnasts who sprang out from behind the Iron Curtain, curling and vaulting along the keyboard. As the sadly questioning middle section gathered weight, she put on a fearless turn of speed. She gestured very hard at her effects, and made you doubt she knew their cause. For, the programme sheet Nick had rifled some old sleeve notes, to give a professional look to things, and he had put in Schumann's description of the B-flat minor Scherzo as 'overflowing with tenderness, boldness, love and contempt.' He played the words through to himself as he gazed across the rows at his lover's head.

When the Chopin had finished, Nina bowed and rushed out, and Nick saw her on the landing again, waiting in fact like someone about to jump, too young and high-minded to care very much for applause, or to know what to do with it. Gerald was clapping in the loud, steady, hollow way he had. One or two people stood up, the man from the Cabinet Office took in the next item on the agenda, and the lady behind Nick said, 'No, sadly we're at Badminton that weekend.'

It was a couple of Schubert Impromptus that followed, the C minor and the stream-like E-flat major, which requires such unfaltering evenness of touch. Nick had heard her play through the very beginning of it a dozen times, until he was screaming at her in his head to go on. Well, now she did, watching her own hands busying up and down the keyboard as if they were astonishing automata that she had wound up and set in motion, in perfect synchrony, to produce this silvery flow of sound. She made it seem a bit like an exercise, but you could tell, if you listened, that the piece was life itself, in its momentum and its evanescence. The modulations in it were like instants of dizziness. Nick felt she played the B minor middle section too abruptly, so that the visionary coherence of the thing was spoiled.

He found himself staring at Gerald's mother and Wani's father, who made a funny pair. Bertrand was sitting there in the lustrous housing of his suit, very still, in respect for the tedious protocol of the event, with only his thin black moustache to betray his impatience as he pursed and flexed his lips in unconscious little kisses. Beside him Lady Partridge, her head tilted up, her face a mask of blusher and brown powder, like someone just back from a skiing holiday, was also clearly elsewhere. From time to time she glanced sideways at her neighbour, and at his drably dressed wife. Nick knew it was upsetting for her to sit next to what she always called an A-rab, but something seemed to kindle in her too at the closeness of so much money.

They had decided before the concert that they would do without an interval, so after the Schubert Gerald stood up and said in his genial, penetrating tone, the tone of a commander among friends, that they would go straight into the final item, Beethoven's 'Farewell' Sonata, and then they could all have more to drink and some rather good salmon-an idea that was greeted with applause all of its own. Nina came back in looking slighted and doubly determined, Nick clapped her very vigorously, and when she played the first three descending notes, 'Le- be-wohl,' a shiver ran up his back. The man beside him looked at him suspiciously. But for Nick, to listen to music, to great music, which was all necessity, and here in the house, where the floor trembled to the sudden resolve of the Allegro, and the piano shook on its locked brass wheels-well, it was a startling experience. He felt shaken and reassured all at once-the music expressed life and explained it and left you having to ask again. If he believed anything he believed that. Not everyone here, of course, felt the same: Lady Kimbolton, there, the tireless party fund-raiser, kept a careful frown as she looked discreetly through her appointments diary, then shook the bangles down her arm as she came to attention again-the grey attention, mere good behaviour, of the governing class; she might have been in church, at the memorial service of some unloved colleague, in a world of unmeant expressions, the opposite of Beethoven. Gerald, at the other end of Nick's row, loved music, and was nodding now and then, just off the beat, like someone catching on to an idea, but afterwards Nick knew he would say it had all been either 'glorious' or 'great fun'-even Parsifal he had described as 'great fun,' when 'glorious' had seemed the more likely option. Others were clearly touched by what they heard: it was Beethoven, after all, and the piece told a story, of departure, absence and return, which no one could fail to follow or to feel.

It was the absence that was best, and little Nina, whom it was hard to think of without her 'little,' seemed almost visibly to grow up as she played it. It was a proper andante espressivo, it moved and it moved along, she didn't ham up the emotion, in fact you saw her curbing some keen emotion of her own to the wisdom of Beethoven, so that the numbness of absence, the wistful solitude, the stifled climaxes of longing, came luminously through. Nick searched out Wani again, the sliver of profile, the dark curls crowding behind his ear-and wondered if he was touched, and if so in what way. He was watching his ear but he couldn't tell what he heard. In Wani, it was hard to distinguish complete attention from complete abstraction. Nick focused on him, so that everything else swam and Wani alone, or the bit of him he could see, throbbed minutely against the glossy double curve of the piano lid. He felt he floated forwards into another place, beautiful, speculative, even dangerous, a place created and held open by the music, but separate from it. It had the mood of a troubling dream, where nothing could be known for certain or offer a solid foothold to memory after one had woken. What really was his understanding with Wani? The pursuit of love seemed to need the cultivation of indifference. The deep connection between them was so secret that at times it was hard to believe it existed. He wondered if anyone knew-had even a flicker of a guess, an intuition blinked away by its own absurdity. How could anyone tell? He felt there must always be hints of a secret affair, some involuntary tenderness or respect, a particular way of not noticing each other… He wondered if it ever would be known, or if they would take the secret to the grave. For a minute he felt unable to move, as if he were hypnotized by Wani's image. It took a little shudder to break the charm.

There was a strange rough breath from Norman Kent, who was crying steadily-making rather a thing of it perhaps, pulling off his glasses and swiping his face with his hand. Nick admired the spirit of it, the defiant sensitivity, and also felt put out, since he often cried at music himself but on this occasion hadn't managed to do so. Penny rested her hand on her father's shoulder, and braved this familiar embarrassment. Nick saw she was blushing, which she easily did. Then the music turned on a sixpence, and the light-headed rush of the finale began. The marvellous marking, Vivacissi-mamente, was a red rag to Nina, and the music flashed by in delirious chirrups and stampings. Nick seemed to see Beethoven, or rather Nina herself, striding up and down some sonorous wooden-floored room in frenzied impatience for the joyful return. Norman made a grunt of rueful amusement, and Penny twisted round, as if freed by the optimistic turn of events, and looked gently, and still blushing, at Gerald, who caught her eye, lowered his gaze and coloured slightly also. Well, there was such an old tension between the two men, on stubborn matters of principle; for years it had been only Rachel's stubbornness that could make them forget their principles enough to meet, and nod at each other, and exchange doggish banter. Of course it was painful for Penny, and now perhaps she was making her own plea for reconciliation. Typing up Gerald's diary from the tape each day she must have a useful sense of his feelings.

The sonata finished and firm applause broke out, given a new edge of enthusiasm by the fact of its being the end-the whole experience was suddenly seen in a brighter light, it was time for a drink, they'd all done rather well. Norman Kent clapped with his hands above his head when Nina came back in, Catherine called out a hectic 'Bravo,' and Jasper imitated her and grinned as if he'd made a joke in class. For a second or two Nina stood there stiffly, then she sat down without a word and played Rachmaninov's Prelude in C-sharp minor. It was a piece the older members of the audience tended to know well, and though they didn't specially want to hear it, they indulged it and exchanged distracted smiles. After that there was very decisive applause, the piece had gone on for quite a while, one or two people looked round at the drinks table and the exit and started talking, and Nina came back in and played Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, in the famous Busoni transcription. At this Lady Kimbolton looked at her watch as if she was virtually blind, holding her arm up to the light, and a number of people started fanning themselves with their programme sheets. This caught on as a form of mutiny, with the associated jiggling of bracelets. When Nina came back the next time Gerald had stood up and was saying, 'Um… aah,' as if amiably bringing a meeting to order, but she sat down anyway and played the Sabre Dance by Khachaturian. It all seemed quite natural to Nick, she must have been told to have three encores ready, but there was still a possibility that she had four, so at a sign from Gerald he went out after her and congratulated her and asked her to stop. She stood on the landing and gazed down the pompous curve of the stairs as the applause pattered quickly to a close and the greedy roar of the party began.

'Hello, Judy!'

'My dear.' Lady Partridge stood rigid while he kissed her rosy cheek-Nick never knew if she regarded a kiss as a homage or a liberty. He grinned at her, as if she was having as much fun as he was. 'You seem very cheerful,' she said.

Nick looked in the mirror where he did appear bright-eyed, sharing a rich secret with himself. 'Well, a