‘Well done,’ he said softly. ‘That’s one concert I’d have done for nothing,’ which is the greatest compliment a musician can pay.
Abby flushed. ‘You were terrific, too.’
Viking noticed how tired she looked, but how the clinging gold body-stocking brought out the blazing yellow of her eyes, and how enticingly it clung to her breasts and flat midriff, and how his hand itched to follow it inside the black leather trousers down between her legs.
‘Nigel Dempster just told me you don’t want to be regarded as a woman,’ he said mockingly.
‘Not if it means the Press only concentrating on my sex life.’
‘Sure, sure. What happened just before the love duet?’
‘Cramp, my stick hand gave out.’
Viking picked it up idly, shooting a thousand volts through her.
‘Poor little hand, probably jealous of all the attention the left one’s been getting. I’ve got a mentally handicapped sister in Doblin. She’s otterly gorgeous, but everyone makes such a foss of her, her brothers and sisters sometimes feel very neglected.’
He picked up Abby’s other hand, subtly drawing her nearer as he examined the scar.
‘How’s this one coming on?’
‘I don’t know,’ Abby snatched both hands away. ‘I can’t talk about it.’ Although she wanted to terribly.
‘Mosst have been hell watching Hugo,’ said Viking gently.
‘Hell,’ confessed Abby. ‘His technique’s to die for and he has a beautiful sound, OK? But he lacks drama, right? I kept thinking how outrageously I’d have acted up at the beginning, and then how passionately and tenderly I’d have abdicated at the end.’
‘Abby-dicated,’ murmured Viking.
Embarrassed, close to tears, she glanced up at him, noticing the dark blur of beard on the hard, lean jaw, the big laughing lips, slightly reddened and bruised from having been pressed so long against his mouthpiece (oh lucky, lucky mouthpiece), the wide nostrils of his snub nose, the fan of dark gold eyelashes, above the long, speculative eyes that were slowly searching her face.
‘Oh yes, sweetheart,’ he said softly.
Abby jumped as Mr Nugent shot off the sofa and out of the door.
‘Where’s he gone?’
‘Must’ve heard your heart beating. Nugent’s terrified of thunder.’
‘It wasn’t!’ said Abby confused and indignant. ‘How can you assume? That’s ridiculous.’ Panic made her ungracious. ‘Anyway, they say you’re just a stud.’
‘Sure, that’s why I’m stoddying you.’
He had such an untroubled smile, so utterly confident of approval. Abby wondered if the silver locket round his neck contained a picture of Juno.
‘Bad luck getting trapped by Mrs Parker,’ said Viking. ‘She puts such a strain on her corsets. Blue and I thought of getting up a petition to Save the Whalebone.’
Abby laughed, relieved yet disappointed at the shift in subject. ‘Must be kinda fun playing for the RSO,’ she said, hearing tarzan howls coming from next door.
‘Kinda,’ Viking mimicked her. ‘You don’t earn any money. The difference is if you’re a bank manager and you’re caught holding hands with a cosstomer, you’re fired. Here, if the Second Bassoon is caught bonking a fifteen year old in the H.P. car-park-’
‘Or the instrument room,’ said Abby drily.
‘Or the instrument room indeed. Rodney will just say, “Which car? Where is she? I want part of the action.”’
‘Who’s taking my name in vain? My two favourite people.’ Rodney put his arms round both their shoulders.
Hell, hell, hell, thought Abby.
‘Am I pushing myself too hard?’ Rodney frowned at himself in the looking-glass opposite.
‘What
Pressed against his belly, Abby and Viking stared at each other.
‘Oh, there you are, Rodney, at last I’ve caught up with you.’
It was Mark Carling looking distraught, closely followed by Nugent licking his lips.
‘Can I pin you down on repertoire? You know we’re planning a Haydn/Stravinsky festival for next March.
‘Darling boy, I couldn’t do the first fucking bar of that, you know I’m useless at those big orchestral thingies. Juno darling, you get prettier by the second.’
It was the Steel Elf.
‘Oh, there you are, Victor,’ said Juno coolly. ‘Get off the settee, Nugent.’
As Nugent slid off the sofa, Viking slid out of Rodney’s embrace.
‘You’re tired, sweetheart.’ His voice was gentle and solicitous.
‘A little.’
‘I’ll take you home.’
As he put an arm round Juno’s shoulders, she looked as tiny and delicate as one of Oberon’s fairies.
‘’Night, Mark. Congratulations, Maestro,’ Viking nodded at Abby. ‘See you when you get back, Rodney.’
Watching him dropping a kiss on Juno’s hair as they went out, Abby felt as though she’d been kicked in the gut.
‘Why does he wear that goddamn locket round his neck?’
‘It contains the mingled earths of Northern and Southern Ireland,’ said Rodney.
‘I wondered if I could introduce you to some of our sponsors, Abby?’ asked Mark diffidently.
The next moment, shouting, ‘Call you in the morning, Viking,’ Howie erupted into the room.
‘Where in hell did you get to?’ he reproved Abby. ‘You gotta meet Sir Larry Lockton of Lockton Records. They’ve just had a massive injection of Japanese dough.’
But everything was suddenly too much for Abby.
‘All I want you to do,’ she begged Howie tearfully, ‘is to tell Christopher I did well this evening.’ And she fled from the room.
Marcus finally tracked her down in the spare room where people had dumped their belongings. She had taken someone’s violin from its case and had it under her chin. Her right hand was wielding the bow, but the fingers of her left hand, with all the pathos of a crushed daddy-long-legs, were impotently scrabbling at the strings. She was crying helplessly.
Horrified, Marcus ran to her.
‘Abby darling, please don’t. You did brilliantly this evening.’
‘I don’t give a damn about conducting. All I want to do is play the violin again. And you can fuck off, and get out of my hair.’
‘Pissed,’ commiserated Dixie, coming out of another spare room as Marcus stumbled down the stairs. ‘My wife’s the same. Drink always gets women like that.’
Rodney took Abby back to the Old Bell.
In the morning, she discovered Marcus had gone.
TWENTY-FOUR
Abby’s reviews were sensational. MIGHTY LIKE A ROSEN, wrote the
