Appassionata

by Jilly Cooper

  Not many people, thought Flora in disappointment. It was crucial to have bums on seats, because anyone who contemplated booking Marcus in future would check with Cotchester Musical Society whether he pulled the crowds.

  Oh thank God, here was Taggie looking ravishing as always, in a dark red suit and rather tentatively leading Bianca by the hand. They were followed by Kitty, Mrs Bodkin, all Rupert’s grooms and estate workers and finally, Tabitha, who might have been very jealous of Marcus if she had not received seventeen Valentines and been danced off her feet at the Hunt Ball.

  The sight of Bianca, enchanting in a tartan, smocked wool dress with a white collar and dark green tights, gave Helen a legitimate excuse to express her jealousy of Taggie with a burst of anger.

  ‘Is that wise? It’s a long programme?’

  Taggie flushed. ‘Bianca adores Marcus, she’d have been heartbroken if I’d left her behind. If she starts acting up, I’ll take her out, I promise. Hallo, Monica.’ Taggie turned in delight to embrace Lady Baddingham, for whose dinner parties she had often cooked before she was married. ‘Isn’t this exciting? Edith’s been so wonderful to arrange all this for Marcus.’

  ‘Edith’s hopping mad not to be able to make it,’ said Monica, a big-boned handsome woman, whose red veins clashed merrily with her emerald-green coat, ‘Is this one of your smalls?’

  She beamed down at Bianca. ‘Isn’t she adorable? You can’t start them off at concerts too early.’

  Helen could have screamed.

  ‘Where’s Rupert?’ she snapped.

  ‘He should be here,’ Taggie looked at her watch. ‘I hope the fog isn’t bad.’

  ‘About a hundred and twenty,’ said Miss Smallwood counting heads. ‘Not bad for a beastly February evening. It’s nearly half-past, we ought to start.’

  Marcus was hunched over the table in his dressing-room, panic about an impending asthma attack making him even more breathless. He couldn’t let everyone down again. His reflection glittered silver with sweat in the mirror. Then Helen had burst in in a rage.

  ‘Absolutely typical, your bloody father’s helicopter’s been grounded by fog. He and Lysander rang from the M4. They won’t make it before the interval, if at all. So, we’re going to start.’

  A great calm swept over Marcus. At least Rupert wouldn’t be bored witless or sneer at the low turn-out. Quickly he washed the sweat off his face and straightened his tie.

  Nerves overwhelmed him again as he fell up the steps to the platform and sidled towards the piano, hangdog as the last person picked in a team.

  ‘Please smile, Marcus,’ begged Miss Chatterton.

  ‘Will you nudge me when I’m meant to clap?’ Taggie whispered to Monica Baddingham.

  With a brief shy nod to acknowledge the rattle of applause, Marcus sat down, fiddled with the height of the piano-stool, gave his fingers a last wipe.

  ‘Hair’s too short,’ muttered a member of his fan club.

  ‘I like it, more butch,’ said another.

  ‘He’s utterly gorgeous any way,’ sighed a third.

  On her right Flora noticed an old man in a beret getting out a score.

  For a second Marcus sat clasping his hands to stop them shaking, then one seemed to escape like a white dove above the keys, then it fell in a skirl of bright notes, a weightless shimmer of sound and the Scarlatti was away.

  Forgetting the cold, members of the Cotchester Musical Society smiled in relief. The estate workers and the grooms looked at each other in amazement – was this their sweet diffident Marcus?

  At the end of the Scarlatti, Marcus got a splendid round of applause, augmented by the whooping, cheering and stamping feet of his friends from college.

  ‘Good boy, Marcus,’ piped up Bianca when there was a pause which set everyone laughing and clapping again.

  As Marcus came on to play the Appassionata he was smiling. The bass was still woolly but suddenly the sound blossomed, producing such thrilling contrasts of loud and soft, of tender and so fierce that the big black piano shook on its legs.

  How could such unleashed forces be contained in such a slender, youthful body, wondered the audience, marvelling, too, at every angelic ripple of sound as Marcus captured not only the nobility but also plumbed the extraordinary depths and dramas of the piece.

  Part of the intense pleasure for Marcus’s friends was to see the almost unearthly happiness on his face. Flora clutched herself in ecstasy and looking round noticed a tear like an icicle glittering on the wrinkled cheek of the old man in the beret.

  The middle movement was so beautiful as theme and variations chased each other round the keyboard that the tears sprung in Marcus’s eyes, too.

  But, as he lingered over the runs and pauses which bridge the second and last movement, he told himself that he must keep something in reserve for the fireworks of the finale.

  Allegro non Troppo, Beethoven had warned. He had known the dangers that awaited the unwary pianist, the temptation to show off and run out of puff.

  Marcus was usually nervous as the end approached, like the last looming fence in the show-jumping ring. This evening he was utterly confident. But, as he tensed himself to leap into the fray, there was a kerfuffle at the back of the hall.

  ‘You can’t go in now,’ cried Miss Smallwood.

  ‘I can do what I fucking like,’ drawled an all-too-familar voice. ‘We’ve come all the way from America to hear this bloody concert.’ And Rupert stalked up the aisle, trailing a red-faced Lysander.

  ‘Daddy,’ crowed Bianca.

  Rupert proceeded to kiss an enraged Taggie, climb over her to his seat and shove Lysander into the one beyond next to Kitty.

  Last time Rupert had been to a concert was at the end of term at Bagley Hall, when the auditorium had been packed to bursting because it was compulsory for all four hundred and fifty pupils, their parents and eighty teachers to attend.

  A hundred odd people huddled in the stalls, many of them dingily old and plain, didn’t seem a very satisfactory turn-out.

  ‘Not many people here,’ he muttered to Taggie.

  ‘Shut up,’ she hissed.

  ‘Tut up, Daddy,’ reproached Bianca.

  Glancing up, Rupert saw Marcus, huddled over the piano staring at him in terror, a baby hare caught in the headlights.

  ‘Carry on, Marcus,’ he said sharply. Then, turning to Taggie, demanded, ‘Why didn’t you bring Xav, and what’s she doing out of school?’ He glared at Tabitha now engrossed in a new Dick Francis.

  From then on it was nightmare. The endless swirling semi-quavers of the last movement escaped in all directions like ants under a jet of boiling water. Marcus’s fingers seemed drunk, had changed shape. Icy cold and sweating they scrabbled and missed Helen’s clean keys.

  Then Rupert’s mobile rang and Lysander, who’d been at the brandy on the way down, couldn’t stop laughing and loudly said, ‘Oouch’ when Kitty kicked him on the ankle. Distracted, Marcus played a repeat for the third time, wrong notes clattering down like hailstones.

  Surreptitously, Rupert opened a catalogue to check the prices his yearlings had reached. Forgetting himself, Lysander suddenly said: ‘That was a bloody good horse.’

  ‘Tut up, Lysander,’ said Bianca reprovingly.

  Aware of his father’s utter boredom, Marcus lost his place and ground to a halt. There was a dreadful silence. Marcus put his face in his hands.

  ‘Take your time,’ called out Monica Baddingham kindly.

  Somehow Marcus stumbled through the prestissimo and fled to his dressing-room.

  Bolting backstage, Flora found him slumped, white and shaking on the sofa bed, his breath coming in great wheezing gasps.

  ‘I can’t go back, not with Dad there.’

  ‘It was wonderful – you were playing better than ever before. You can’t let that bastard get to you, you’ve got to remount and finish the course.’

  ‘Anyone for orange squash or coffee?’ Miss Smallwood popped her white bun round the door.

&
nbsp; Marcus clenched his fists.

  ‘He needs something stronger.’ Flora drew a half-empty brandy bottle out of her pocket.

  ‘He can’t have alcohol,’ said a horrified Helen who was dripping around like a wet hen.

  Flora looked round for a tooth mug.

  ‘He’s got to relax. This’ll zap the asthma much quicker.’

  The Cotchester Musical Society didn’t have a licence, so Rupert, who couldn’t understand why Taggie was so cross when he’d bust a gut to get there, swept Lysander off to the Bar Sinister, Basil Baddingham’s dive in the High Street. Most of Marcus’s fan club followed them in wonder. By the time they returned, Marcus had dispatched the Chopin adequately and was now playing The Bee’s Wedding.

  Rupert proceeded to get out his blue silk handkerchief and pretend to be trying to catch the bumble bee, which reduced Lysander to even more helpless laughter.

  ‘Stop it,’ hissed Taggie over the applause at the end. ‘If Bianca can behave herself, you two bloody well can.’

  At the prospect of Boris’s Siberian Suite many of the audience, including four girls who’d come in off the street mistakenly hoping it might be warmer inside, hadn’t bothered to return from the pub.

  Cheered by another slug of brandy, ignoring the bewilderment of the audience, Marcus kicked off playing the suite quite beautifully. Boris was in ecstasy, delighted that in sympathy, the rain was rattling the window-panes that weren’t broken and the icy gale, whistling through the ones that were, was billowing out of the dark blue curtains at the back of the platform.

  Rupert was reduced to shuffling his feet, sighing and reading Taggie’s programme. His face, quite expressionless as he clocked the Marcus Black, twitched slightly when he spotted the Dame Edith Spunk.

  Dame Spunk has put up a Black in more senses than one, he thought sourly. After this fiasco, there was no way the society would ever ask Marcus back. And what the hell was Venturer doing advertising in the programme. The musical society were exactly the kind of old trouts who were always complaining about sex and violence, and television going to the dogs.

  The penultimate movement, allegro furioso, in which Marcus had to drag his nails up the strings inside the piano to emulate the shrieks of the Siberian gales, dispatched more musical society members into the night. Even if television was going to the dogs, it was preferable to this din, which you couldn’t even nod off to.

  Crash, crash, deliberately bringing down rows of notes at a time, Marcus’s whole arm was now moving up the piano.

  ‘I’m bored, can we go?’ Rupert whispered to a seething Taggie.

  ‘Lucky things,’ he sighed enviously, as two more bids scuttled out.

  Boris was in despair; soon there would be no-one left to hackle his music. Seeing his father asleep, Marcus lost his place and stopped, and too embarrassed to bow he fled to his dressing-room.

  Fortunately the remaining audience, thinking he had finished and blissful it was over, clapped, cheered and stamped their feet to get Marcus and their circulation back, so he returned to take a couple of bows. Monica Baddingham, whose ringing voice was used to calling to labradors across open spaces, then shouted, ‘Bravo’ several times and announced that the composer was in the audience, so everyone clapped Boris, too.

  Dreading Helen’s reproaches, Marcus was relieved to pass her on the pay telephone on his way back to his dressing-room.

  With trembling hands he put his encore piece, Schumann’s Dreaming, back in his case with the other music and wondered miserably if he’d ever have the guts to play in public again.

  The poor professional, however, must always smile after a concert so people may be fooled into thinking it wasn’t too bad.

  His friends, crowding in accepting glasses of white, were kind because they loved him.

  ‘How was the piano?’ asked Flora.

  ‘Terrible.’

  ‘What was wrong with it?’

  ‘Too many wrong notes.’

  And his friends giggled in relief that he didn’t seem too cast down.

  ‘You were dazzling until your bloody father arrived,’ grumbled Flora. ‘Abby’ll be livid she missed it.’

  ‘You were terrific,’ Tagggie hugged him. ‘We’re all dying of pride. Bianca loved it.’

  ‘Good boy, Marcus,’ said Bianca, as he gathered her up into his arms.

  ‘Hallo, darling, you were good. Sorry about the ghastly cock-ups,’ he added to Taggie.

  Taggie was too loyal to say she was sorry about Rupert, who had been side-tracked, talking to Monica Baddingham, an old chum whom he hadn’t seen since she had shacked up with Dame Edith. He was amazed how good she looked, and even more so when she insisted Marcus had played very well.

  ‘I’ve got to whizz home and tuck Edith up with a hot toddy, but I’ll drop him a line. Have you got his address?’

  ‘He’s living with Helen. That’s most of the trouble. How much would he have made this evening?’

  ‘Oh, about a hundred pounds, plus expenses.’

  And he’s been practising for this concert for months, thought Rupert darkly.

  He was overwhelmed by the greyness of the whole occasion. Wandering backstage, he was enraged to find himself at the back of a queue of more old biddies, who wanted their programmes signed, particularly when one, not realizing he was no longer her MP, gave him an earful about the poor dustbin delivery in the area.

  He was so fed up that he took it out on Marcus when he finally reached him.

  ‘At least you got round this time. Monica’sjust told me how much they paid you. I think you should consider another career, something more lucrative, like nursing.’

  Marcus’s friends, on the way out, laughed in embarrassment.

  ‘Rupert,’ reproached Taggie, seeing the brave smile slipping on Marcus’s face. ‘He’s only joking,’ she whispered. Then, relieving Marcus of a sleeping Bianca, added defiantly, ‘Everyone else thought you were marvellous.’

  As they all drifted away, Marcus could see Helen was off the telephone and steeled himself to face her bitter disappointment. To his amazement, she was very chipper.

  ‘I’ve just been talking to the Evening Standard, they want to run a big story tomorrow.’

  Marcus had very regretfully refused to go out on the toot with the bus load from the Academy, because he’d promised to have dinner with his mother. Now she suddenly cried off.

  ‘Janey Lloyd-Foxe is having – er – marriage problems. I promised I’d pop in and see her, so you go out with your friends.’

  But as Marcus ran outside, he saw the minibus lurching off down the middle of the High Street.

  The musical society were pointedly turning off lights and locking doors. Wearily Marcus returned to his dressing-room. He ought to change, his shirt was still ringing wet. His neck was stiff, his arms and elbows were sore, his back ached as he slumped in the lone chair close to tears. Next month he would be twenty-one and going nowhere. He was roused by a knock on the door and an old man staggered in on crutches. Long white hair trailed out from under his black beret and he was wearing a black belted mac and dark glasses.

  ‘I am not too late?’

  Oh Christ, thought Marcus.

  ‘Of course not.’ He leapt to his feet. ‘Would you like a chair?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘And a glass of wine?’

  ‘Please.’ But when Marcus poured it, the old man put the glass shakily on a nearby table and took both Marcus’s pale, strong beautifully-shaped hands in his own which were covered in liver spots and as bent and as arthritic as oak twigs. The contrast could not have been more marked.

  For a second the old man gazed at them. Then to Marcus’s horror, he dropped a kiss on each palm. Letting them drop, he took a sip of wine.

  ‘Those are the hands of a great pianist whom one day the world will know.’

  ‘Really?’ stammered Marcus. Perhaps the old poofter was harmless, after all.

  ‘Really. I ’ave never ’ear Appassionata play like
that, so beautiful, so eentense.’

  ‘I had a memory lapse.’

  ‘Stupid jargon. You stop. So? Eef one takes reesks one makes meestakes. You work ‘ard on piece, no?’

  Marcus nodded.

  ‘You will always have to. Eef you have no originality, it is easy to reach perfection. The Levitsky piece is beautiful, too. But next time put the Chopin at the end so the audience stay because they have some bon-bons to look forward to.’

  ‘My piano teacher said the same.’

  ‘I don’t take pupils any more,’ went on the old man, ‘but eef you feel like a week in Spain, I have lovely house, you would be very welcome. I would be ‘appy to geeve you lessons.’

  In what? wondered Marcus. He never knew what to do when men made advances, the old ones in particular were much harder to turn down; it seemed so rude. He was also sure he’d seen this man before.

  ‘You’re seriously kind,’ he mumbled, ‘but my stepfather died and basically I have to look after my mother.’

  ‘She will recover.’ The old man creaked to his feet, then holding his sticks with one hand, he got a card out of his pocket.

  ‘Don’t forget. The invitation is always there. But I may not be much longer.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Marcus pocketed the card.

  Then to his intense embarrassment, the old man raised a hand and started stroking his cheek.

  ‘You have beautiful face which help in our profession.’

  Marcus just managed not to leap away in horror. Thank God there was a knock on the door. He never thought he’d be so pleased to see Miss Smallwood, who was anxious to pay him and get off home. She even gave him a fiver for petrol, about enough to get the Aston round the statue of Charles I and back. Only when he’d thanked her and signed the receipt and was letting himself out of a side-door did he bother to glance at the card. He gave a gasp and rushed under a street-light. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t. It was, too. The card said: PABLO GONZALES.

  With a whoop of joy, Marcus swung twice round the street-light, then, fighting for breath, tore up a side-street to see if he could catch the old man, his hero, his utter God. But, like the minibus, the huge Bentley had swept off down the High Street towards London.