Appassionata

‘I was such a wreck when I met you,’ mumbled Rupert, ‘Helen just reminds me how vile I was. You’ve taught me to love.’ He kissed her wedding ring finger. ‘You’ve twisted me straight. I’ve got a present for you.’ Rootling in his pocket he produced a silver locket.

Inside were Daisy France-Lynch miniatures of Xav and Bianca.

Taggie nearly started crying again.

‘Oh how lovely, I wish there was room inside for you as well. Oh, thank you.’

‘I want a night inside your shining armour,’ said Rupert, fumbling with the pearl buttons of her silver cardigan. ‘I’m probably past it, but let’s go and try.’

‘Only if you promise to come to Marcus’s concert,’ said Taggie.

Unable to sleep, Marcus heard the two of them come to bed, softly laughing. Outside the clouds had rolled away leaving a pale grey sky so crowded with stars the constellations were indistinguishable. He had just made the agonizing decision that he couldn’t go back to the Academy next term either. Tab would return to Bagley Hall in a fortnight, he couldn’t leave Helen alone in the Old Rectory in this state.

EIGHTEEN

Dame Edith Spink, composer, conductor and musical director of Venturer Television and the Cotchester Chamber Orchestra, had been responsible for Marcus’s recital in Cotchester.

Built like Thomas the Tank Engine, she had leant on Cotchester Musical Society of which she was president.

‘Boy’s extremely talented,’ she boomed, glaring at the wilting committee through her monocle, ‘and incredibly cheap for one hundred pounds.’

This was a considerable plus because the musical society never had any money.

Marcus had already learnt Chopin’s Grande Polonaise, The Bee’s Wedding and Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata for the concert he’d cancelled because of Malise’s death so he decided to play them again. The Appassionata was fiendishly difficult, but it would be a compliment to Abby, who had dominated his thoughts throughout the long winter in Warwickshire, and who had promised to bring Rodney over from Lucerne for the concert. He would kick off with two Scarlatti sonatas and, then as a compliment to Boris, end the second half with his titanic Siberian Suite.

This had dismayed his piano teacher, Miss Chatterton, known at college as ‘Chatterbox’, when Marcus visited her in her leafy North London suburb the day before the concert.

‘Levitsky isn’t remotely audience-friendly,’ Chatterbox absorbed modern jargon, then flogged it to death. ‘The provinces hate contemporary music, particularly if they can’t pronounce it. You’ll have them leaving in droves. At least end with the Chopin so they’ve got something to look forward to.’

‘The programme’s already printed,’ sighed Marcus. ‘Anyway I can’t let Boris down, he’s so low.’

Boris’s thumping great crush on his mother showed no signs of abating, even though Helen wasn’t responding at all. She had hardly thanked Boris for the porcelain nightingale and, claiming she was too busy with Marcus’s recital to see him, had thrown herself into the role of supportive mother with a vengeance.

The lovely golden walled cathedral town of Cotchester had been a royalist stronghold in the Civil War. After an appalling journey with wind and rain nearly sweeping him off the motorway, Marcus arrived around teatime at the town hall, a splendid baroque edifice two hundred yards down the High Street from Venturer Television.

His hopes of a peaceful couple of hours rehearsing were shattered by Helen who was standing on the steps pointing in horror at his poster and brandishing a programme.

‘How could you bill yourself just as Marcus Black?’

‘I don’t want to cash in on Dad’s name.’

‘It’s the only thing he’s given you.’

‘Except a lot of dosh,’ protested Marcus, getting his dark suit and his music case out of the Aston.

‘And why did you send them that awful photograph?’ moaned Helen, ‘Your hair was longer than his was.’ She pointed disapprovingly at Charles I’s statue in the centre of the Market Square.

‘He was lucky only getting his head cut off.’ Ruefully, Marcus stroked his own short back and sides.

‘Looks much better,’ said Helen, who, because Rupert was expected, had nagged him all week to have a haircut.

Marcus glared at his reflection in the dark mirror in the foyer.

‘Everyone’ll see my ears going bright red with nerves.’

‘I hope you washed them.’

‘Mu-um, they don’t have opera glasses at recitals.’

Picking up the programme he gave a shout of laughter for above his name it said, in large letters: An explosive new talent, Dame Edith Spunk.

But Helen was in no mood for jokes. Last night the Cotswold Hunt, who seemed to epitomize Rupert’s disreputable past, had hired the hall for their annual Hunt Ball.

Apart from a disgusting stench of drink and cigarettes, they had left three broken windows letting in a vicious east wind, a lot of sick in the Ladies, a pair of red knickers and some suspicious-looking stains on the sofa bed in Marcus’s dressing-room. Even worse, there were drink rings, cigarette burns, spilt bourbon and candle-wax all over the keys of a grand piano on which Marcus was expected to play.

Marcus was delighted. His hands sweated dreadfully before a concert and it would be far easier to grip the keys, particularly the black notes, of which there were thousands in the F minor Appassionata, if the piano were sticky and dirty. Alas, Helen then explained virtuously that she had already set to with a flurry of meths and righteous indignation. The keys were now so clean they would slip away from his fingers like minnows.

Soloists have been known to sandpaper down the ivories of concert grands to get a better grip. Rubenstein had even sprayed the keys with hair lacquer. But there was no way Marcus could find lacquer on a late Sunday afternoon.

Just managing not to snap at Helen, he was cheered by the number of cards and presents in his dressing- room, particularly when he found Abby had sent him a beautiful green-leather-bound copy of The Tempest postmarked Lucerne. Inside she had written:

This music crept by me upon the waters,

Allaying both their fury, and my passion, With its

sweet air.

Good luck, Marcus,

Warmest

L’Appassionata.

Marcus trembled with excitement as he smelt the faint trace of her scent on the pages.

Next he opened a silver shamrock from Declan O’Hara and a bottle of Moet from Flora’s mother, both thanking him for the invitation to the recital, but regretting they would be away.

What invitation? Marcus felt a wave of anger. Helen had obviously been at work again. There were other good luck cards from famous friends of his parents he hadn’t seen since he was a child.

As he hung up his suit in the cupboard, he found a pale gold silk dress with an Yves Saint Laurent label, which he hadn’t seen before.

Outside, he could hear Helen saying: ‘We’re expecting Sir Rodney Macintosh, Declan O’Hara, Dame Edith, Boris Levitsky and Georgie Maguire and loads of students and teachers from the Academy. Marcus’s father is flying back specially from the yearling sales in Florida. And, oh, I forgot, Abby Rosen’s coming, yes the violinist, my son has a bit of a reputation as a lady’s man.’

Rushing into the passage before Helen became even more cringe-making, Marcus found her talking to an old