Appassionata

strewn with ancient beech leaves.

‘You’re so beautiful,’ Alexei took the boy’s flushed, freckled face between his hands, gently smoothing his cheek-bones to wipe out the dark brown circles beneath the haunted apprehensive eyes.

‘Ees stupid to fight, it is so strong.’ The hard, haughty face was suddenly miraculously gentle and kindly. ‘First time I see you, I want you. You are the only reason I dance at Rutminster for pittance. You make me believe it would be possible to geeve the ’eart.’

Marcus could hear the manic rustling of the dogs after a rabbit, the gruff drone of a helicopter. Through the ivy curtain, he could see the brilliant blue sky thrusting between soaring grey limbs of a beech tree, then Alexei’s big mouth came down on his and Alexei’s body on top of him was as hard and elemental as the mossy Cotswold stone beneath.

A minute later, unable to breathe, Marcus wriggled away, but Alexei was too strong for him.

‘Look at me, silly boy, you ’ave pretty eyelashes, but it would be nice to see your eyes. Doesn’t this make your ’eart pound like nothing before?’

‘Nothing,’ gasped Marcus. ‘You know I love you. It was the same for me, I was utterly lost from the moment you bounded onto the stage like Nimrod.’

‘Neemrod?’ demanded Alexei in outraged jealousy.

‘My father’s lurcher, he’s got killer eyes,’ Marcus gave a half laugh, that became a sob. ‘You’re a cross between Nimrod and my father. I love you, but I can’t do this to Abby.’

‘’Ush, ’ush, look into my eyes. I am real, you are home where you belong. No more pretending, let eet happen.’

He was mumbling endearments in Russian now, which sounded so marvellous in his husky basso profundo voice. ‘You will always remember thees, because it ees the first time. Anyway,’ he added wickedly, ‘I must get out of these boots, I bought them to eempress you and they kill me.’

Back at the cottage dizzy with exhaustion and happiness, Marcus cooked burnt sausages and lumpy mash for Alexei which was mostly polished off by Mr Nugent and Mrs Diggory’s spaniel. The dogs didn’t stay, however, to hear Marcus play Schumann’s Dreaming in the fading light. He wasn’t nervous any more. Alexei had ironed all the tension out of his body.

At the end, Alexei got up and put his arms round him.

‘You cannot marry Abby.’

‘I must, it would destroy her.’

‘Not so much as eet would destroy her eef you do. Break it off now. She would be devastated, but only for a month or two. Far better an end with horror, than horror without end. You cannot afford to be tied. You and I are artists, like stars een the sky, we seem close in the night, but we are light year apart. We are pellegrino — eet means orphan and wanderer. We belong to the world, not each other. We are married to Art. Art is far more important than love.’

Not any more, thought Marcus, as Alexei slid two hands deep down inside his shirt.

He wanted to drive Alexei to Birmingham Airport to catch a late flight to Berlin, but Alexei insisted on taking a taxi.

‘Eef you are feet to drive, you should not be. My agent weel pay the other end.’

Alexei wouldn’t leave until Marcus had promised to join him wherever he was in the world, the moment he’d dispatched the Bartok. He also insisted they swapped watches. Strapping his Rolex, which reeked of Givenchy for Men round Marcus’s wrist, he proudly carried off Marcus’s schoolboy Swatch, as though it were made of diamonds.

Marcus was only too happy to be left alone in the dusk, stunned by the enormity of the afternoon’s events. A thrush was singing in the garden, repeating each exquisite phrase.

As he wandered down to the lake, it started to pour, huge raindrops dive-bombing unwary moths, clattering on the leaves, thrashing the lake, creating rings which spread and ran into each other. Marcus thought, watching them, how everyone’s actions affected everyone else’s in life.

‘Nemerovsky loves me,’ he shouted over and over again to the blue-black sky, his belly churning and caving in to meet his backbone as he shivered at the memory.

Waltzing home in the deluge, he was running a scalding bath, about to dream of Alexei before crashing out, when the front door flew open, and in burst Abby and Helen in a state of euphoria. Abby had had a wonderful success with the London Met.

‘It’s extraordinary,’ she told Marcus earnestly. ‘After four years, they still retain Rannaldini’s precision and special timbre.’

I don’t give a shit, thought Marcus as they rabbited on. Why are they telling me this?

Now Helen was explaining how she had gone backstage after the concert, and while she and Abby had supper together, Abby had confided that she and Marcus were getting married. Helen had been delirious with joy, not only was Abby a great and respected artist, but an American like herself.

‘She’ll help you in your career, and Rupert is bound to come round when he hears you’re getting married, and then you and he and Rannaldini can all be reconciled at the wedding.’

Helen, like Rupert, had always suppressed a deep-rooted dread that Marcus might be gay.

Marcus listened incredulously, watching their mouths moving like rapacious baby birds, as they planned his future. He must give up ‘all the horrible pupils with their awful mothers that drained him so dreadfully,’ and Rupert must give him a decent allowance. But they agreed that Rupert would only rate Marcus when he won a big piano competition, so all his sights must be set on the Appleton.

I’m on the wrong train hurtling towards a cliff and I can’t find the communication cord, thought Marcus in panic.

‘And what is more,’ crowed Abby, ‘I saw Lady Appleton, who runs the Appleton this evening, and she said you’ve qualified, but we’re not to tell anyone. You walked it. We must have a drink to celebrate.’

Neither she nor Helen realized that Marcus hadn’t moved, still on the bottom step of the stairs slumped against the wall, watching them.

Rootling around in the cupboard, Abby swore she had had some vodka. Flora must have drunk it, they’d have to make do with brandy.

‘And best of all,’ she said happily, filling up three glasses, ‘Lady Appleton is so fed up with the orchestra who normally play at the finals overcharging, that she’s chucked them, and she wants me and the RSO to accompany the finalists instead, which means two days of prime-time TV. Wow, what a day.’

Marcus’s mind was racing like a cornered rat.

‘I can’t go in for the Appleton if you’re conducting the orchestra,’ he stammered.

‘Only in the finals,’ said Abby soothingly. ‘There are two preliminary rounds before that. Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.’

Then suddenly she had a feeling of deja vu, as water started dripping on her head reminiscent of the H.P. Hall, only this time it was hot.

‘Christ, Marcus, you’ve left the bath running.’

Racing upstairs, Marcus found it a relief to plunge his hand into the scalding water to find the plug. Anything to offset the agony of not seeing Alexei again.

When he came down, noticing how shivering and pale he was, except for one bright red arm, Helen and Abby decided he’d been overworking and packed him off to bed.

‘We’ll have to get your morning-coat out of mothballs,’ teased Helen, as she kissed him good night. ‘I’m so happy for you darling.’

A mourning-coat, thought Marcus, as he tossed and turned all night in agony.

The next day, as a gesture of defiance, he sold Rupert’s Munnings and bought Abby the ruby heart as an engagement ring. Abby, however, decided to wear it on her right hand until after the Appleton, in case she was accused of favouring Marcus.

Later in the day, while she was out shopping, Marcus wrote a brief letter of renunciation to Alexei, quoting Coventry Patmore:

Love wakes men, once in a lifetime each;

They lift their heavy lids, and look;