Appassionata

mellow, dark and mysterious.

She was also extremely attractive. Her figure was hidden by baggy black trousers and a thick black cardigan, but she had a clear pale gold skin, merry green eyes, a plump face ending in a pointed chin and her shining bob was the same warm burnt-sienna as her viola.

Above all, she played with total insouciance keeping up a stream of badinage with the orchestra, chewing gum and reading her tattered poetry book every time there was a pause. Now she was sitting on the lean thigh of the Japanese leader awaiting the next victim, a plump Greek called Adonis, who had soft white hands and gold teeth to match his gold corduroy shirt. All his friends trooped round behind the brass section to video him conducting.

‘Like photographing the captain of the Titanic,’ murmured Flora, getting to her feet.

Sweat was glistening on her upper lip, a russet lock had fallen away from the tortoiseshell slide. There was a chorus of wolf-whistles as she took off her black cardigan to reveal a dark green T-shirt embroidered with yellow daisies and tucked into a wide leather belt.

‘Vy d’you have to distract me viz striptease?’ grumbled Adonis. ‘Now don’t vorry, I vill follow you.’

‘I don’t vant you following me, I want you with me,’ said Flora, raising her viola.

Adonis tried very hard, but the orchestra were all over the place. The genial professor sighed. He was going to have his work cut out with this lot.

That soloist is smart, thought Abby wistfully. Adonis was now going much too fast, but she always caught up.

Glancing sideways, she noticed the boy with the baseball cap. Totally still, really listening, he followed every note Flora played. What a beauty, thought Abby, he’s the one who ought to be called Adonis.

A punch-up was narrowly avoided because Adonis skipped another page and missed out the hunky trombonist’s last entry yet again.

Abby, who’d been studying the concerto for the last fortnight, couldn’t bear to hear it so butchered. But would she do any better? The notes of the score swum meaninglessly before her eyes. Oh God, she hoped she wasn’t going to be sick again.

Adonis was followed by Lorenzo, a handsome Italian who made beautiful gestures, but who seemed more interested in ogling Flora and the video cameras.

‘This one’s got two left hands,’ murmured the professor as Lorenzo kept smoothing his hair with his right hand.

‘You’ve occasionally got to beat in time, Lorenzo,’ he called out. ‘No matter how emotional you feel, you’ve got to first and foremost be a traffic policeman so the orchestra can follow and know where they are, particularly in a piece with so many changes of tempo.’

‘I try again.’

This time extravagant waving and fists clenched to heaven were followed by four bars of total silence.

‘Where am I?’ Lorenzo smote his noble brow.

‘In the Duke’s Hall,’ giggled Flora.

‘You’re lost,’ said the professor.

‘But not forgotten.’ Parking her chewing-gum on the side of the rostrum, Flora gave Lorenzo a kiss.

‘That is a disgusting habit, Flora,’ reproved the professor.

‘I don’t know what score you studied, Lorenzo, but I don’t think it was Bartok’s Viola Concerto.’

The orchestra grinned. Lorenzo turned scarlet, and started to argue.

‘Discuss it with me later,’ said the professor firmly. ‘We’ve got time for one more before lunch.’

The rest of the conductors, waiting behind the horns, leapt to their feet like MPs frantic to speak, but the professor had nodded to the back of the hall.

‘Here comes Abby,’ said Flora, sliding off the leader’s knee.

The Japanese boy looked round.

‘That is not her.’

‘Bet you a tenner.’

‘I don’t have your kind of money.’

Few of the audience or musicians recognized Abby. She was so thin and wore black jeans, a Black-Watch tartan shirt, dark glasses and no make-up. Her hair was short and curly like the young Paganini. The scarlet pouting lips, the clinging minis, the wild gypsy voluptuousness had all gone.

‘Car-worker rather than Carmen,’ murmured Flora.

Abby gave nobody any time to give her a cheer. She carried no score, only a baton, as she loped up the hall and jumped up onto the rostrum. As she whipped off her glasses, the orchestra could see the imperiousness in those strange, unblinking yellow eyes, which was belied by the white knuckles and the frantically knocking knees. For a second she was grabbed by utter panic, her mind a snowstorm. How could she have been so stupid as to conduct without a score?

Then she said quietly; ‘This is a beautiful piece, let’s give it some shape and feeling.’

She suggested some small alterations to the strings and woodwind, then turned to the brass and the percussion. ‘I’m afraid you guys don’t have much to do, which makes it easier to goof off. I’ll try and make things as clear as possible for you. Good luck.’

Her hand, as she raised it, was shaking so crazily even Bartok couldn’t have captured the cross-rhythms, but once she brought it down the entire hall realized who she was, because she was in a class of her own.

The beat of her right hand was knife-edge clear and, although her left hand was a little stiff, she still couldn’t splay her fingers or cup her hand, she managed to show the orchestra exactly what she wanted and in addition convey the emotional intensity she needed. The one vestige of the old Abby was the way she swayed to the music like a dancer.

But she had only to glare at the brass to shut them up and she completely enslaved the trombones by bringing them in exactly right and giving them a radiant smile of approval afterwards.

Flora found it nerve-racking having the world’s greatest violinist beside her, but she loved the way Abby glanced round to synchronize orchestra and soloist, and swept aside the orchestral sound so Flora could always be heard.

Are these the same musicians? Is this the same piece? thought the professor in rapture, letting Abby run through the entire movement without stopping, and then leading a whooping, cheering, stamping round of applause.

‘You have all the marks of a great conductor,’ he told Abby. ‘You have nerve but not nerves. It will be a joy to teach you.’

Everyone was longing to congratulate her, but they were too shy and so was she, so they all left her and scampered off to lunch.

Abby was just pulling out her music case from underneath her chair to put away her stick when she heard a voice say: ‘Excuse me.’

Swinging round, Abby found the soloist and the boy who had been sitting at the end of her row. Standing up he was at least two inches taller than Abby, and when he whipped off his baseball cap, he revealed a beautifully shaped, freckled forehead and hair an even darker red than the girl’s. Abby wondered if they were brother and sister. The girl did the talking.

‘I know it sounds corny, but we’ve got every one of your records. That was a fantastic performance. We wondered if we could buy you lunch, just to celebrate.’

Abby longed to accept but she was so near the edge, that she snapped back: ‘I’m far too busy to waste time eating.’ And then stalked out.

Five minutes later, Flora tracked her down in a distant practice room, trying not to be overheard by the pianist bashing out Liszt’s Dante Sonata next door. Abby was huddled against the blue velvet curtains, her shoulders shaking.

Flora had long been haunted by a description of a vivisection clinic where the animals had their vocal chords cut on admission so, however bad the pain became, all you could hear was desperate rasping. This was the sound Abby was making now.