“Go on then. Talk,” said Lydia fearfully.
Milan was surrounded by his usual mob of string players, too far away to summon for help. She allowed Evgeny to lead her to the side of the stage and sit with her in the wings.
“I know your game,” he said. “You want him for yourself. That’s always been your game.”
“It isn’t a game to me,” said Lydia. “And I’d never stop Milan from seeing anyone. As if I could! He answers to nobody but himself, and you know that.”
“He’s pushing me away, and I know you’re behind it. Why do you hate me? What have I done to you?”
“Nothing! I don’t hate you, not at all.”
“You don’t like me either.”
Lydia shrugged. That much was true.
“The truth is, I get in your way. You want to catch Milan and wall him up in some suburban marriage, just like they all do.” He laughed bitterly. “Milan and monogamy will never mix, my dear. Better get used to the idea.”
“I am used to it,” insisted Lydia. “I don’t know what you want from me.”
Evgeny’s eyes narrowed.
“I want you to accept that Milan can’t give you what you want. Accept it and move on. Find yourself some straight, upstanding back-row violinist who can give you the dull, boring life you want.”
Lydia paused, considering this.
Did she know what she was signing up for? She would be living in a foreign city with a man she loved, but who wasn’t cut out for the exclusive relationship deal. What if he left her alone, night after night, while he partied in the gay bars of Vinohrady? What if he met a girl he liked better than her, a girl who spoke Czech and who understood him better? The enormity of the risk she was taking struck her hard in the chest, winding her. He wasn’t, after all, the most reliable man in the world.
It seemed that Evgeny had seen the hesitation he had wrought in her.
“You know it can’t work between you two, Lydia. You know he’s not cut out for happy ever afters.”
A shadow fell across them and they looked up at the stage, where Milan loomed, violin in hand.
“Lydia, I need to talk to all the violinists together. That section at the start of Vltava isn’t working out. Excuse her, Evgeny.”
“Of course.”
With relief, Lydia left Evgeny alone and followed Milan back to the violinists.
“What did he want?” he muttered.
“To split us up, of course.”
“Well, he isn’t going to do that, is he?”
Lydia smiled weakly at Milan’s enquiring expression.
“Never.”
“Good. Okay!”
He clapped his hands and the fiddlers thronged about him. Lydia tried to forget the conversation with Evgeny, but her unease wouldn’t shift, and it hung about her like a miasma until lunchtime came.
She watched Milan and Evgeny disappear for their date with a horrible twist of her stomach. However their talk went, it wasn’t likely to end well. Perhaps Evgeny would even be able to persuade Milan to change his mind, to go back to London, to give her up.
“You look a bit green, my love. Are you feeling all right?”
Lydia came to, shaking her head at a solicitous Mary-Ann.
“Sorry, I was miles away. Yes, yes, I’m fine. Just…hungry, I expect.”
“Come and have some lunch with me then. There’s a lovely place up near Old Town Square—Milan recommended it, and he should know.”
Lydia caught her breath. If Milan had recommended the place, then it was probably where he was taking Evgeny. She could keep an eye on them, make sure things didn’t get out of hand. And her presence might act as a reminder to Milan of how the conversation was supposed to go.
She smiled at Mary-Ann. “Sounds lovely. So you and Milan are getting on okay these days, then?”
Mary-Ann began walking purposefully towards the door.
“Oddly, yes. He seems to have found a good mood from somewhere. And there’s been none of that nonsense with him trying to get the strings to play out of tune or come in at the wrong moment since Budapest.”
“No, I’ve noticed that too.”
“It’s strange, because I thought this rehearsal was going to be the most serious test yet. Now we’re in Prague, playing music by Czech composers in his native city, I thought he would go bananas and bring out the big guns. But…nada. I don’t understand it, but I’m not going to question it. Long may it continue.”
Outside, the narrow streets of the Old Town were busy as tourists looked for likely spots to find their lunch. As they crossed Old Town Square, Lydia caught sight of Milan and Evgeny, standing under the awning of a restaurant, reading a menu together.
Mary-Ann chuckled. “Speak of the devil. And he’s obviously made it up with Evgeny—aww, how sweet. I must admit, they make a stunning couple.”
Lydia’s insides twisted again, this time with a pang of ugly jealousy.
Mary-Ann, oblivious, continued her speculations. “Perhaps that’s what’s behind the good mood. He’s in love. Oh, perhaps they’ll invite us to make up a foursome.”
“I hope not,” said Lydia unthinkingly.
“Really?” Mary-Ann stopped and gave her a quizzical look. “I thought you liked him.”
“Oh, yes, I do, but him and Evgeny—it’s all about the drama. I can’t be bothered.”
Mary-Ann chuckled. “I can imagine.”
They had arrived at the restaurant. Milan and Evgeny were tucked away in a corner and didn’t notice them. Lydia opted for a table on the opposite side of the room, where they wouldn’t be seen.
“Anyway,” said Mary-Ann briskly, “enough about Milan. I don’t want to sit with him either. I want to sit with you. What about you? Are you happy with the orchestra? How’s the tour been for you?”
“Wonderful,” said Lydia, meaning it. “It’s everything I’ve dreamed of since I was a child. Hard work, but what a payback when you hear the audience cheering and jumping to their feet at the end! There’s nothing like it.”
“No, there isn’t, is there? And it’s addictive too—once you’ve experienced it, you can’t go back. So you think you’ll stick with us?”
Lydia’s face fell. She couldn’t tell Mary-Ann the truth.
“Oh, I should think so,” she said, studying the menu hard.
“I hope you do,” said Mary-Ann urgently, lowering her voice. “I don’t think I’d still be here if it wasn’t for you, Lydia.”
Lydia put down her menu and stared.
“Really?”
“Really.”
She reached out and took Lydia’s hand.
The waiter appeared and she dropped it abruptly, giving him the order for food and drinks.
Once he was gone, Lydia tried to change the subject, commenting on the Czech cuisine, but Mary-Ann didn’t want to be diverted.
“As I was saying,” she continued.
“What were you saying?”
“I couldn’t have got this far without you. You’ve kept me going when things were rough and I can’t thank you enough.”
“It’s okay.” Lydia looked around her, hearing raised voices from Milan’s corner, her heart bumping.
“Lydia, you’re so nervous! But so am I, actually. Really, really nervous.”
Lydia returned her attention to the conductor. “Nervous? What about? The concert?”
“No, not the concert. About being here…with you.”
“What…why would that make you nervous?”
Lydia heard a bang on a table, like a fist landing. Crockery rattled. She looked around, then back at Mary-Ann, hardly taking in what her friend was saying.
“Lydia.” Mary-Ann seized her hand again, tighter this time. “Don’t you know how I feel about you?”
“How you feel…? Oh, Mary-Ann! Are you saying that you…?”
“I’m saying that I have the worst crush on you. I’ve worried and worried that you don’t like girls, but I’ve decided to lay my cards on the table and
get it out in the open. Do you think you could ever be with a woman?”
“Well, actually, I have been,” said Lydia, thinking of the party in Vienna.
Mary-Ann’s face lit up. “Oh, I knew it! I’m so…oh! That’s wonderful!”
“Thanks,” said Lydia distractedly, her ears on stalks. There was a scraping of chair legs on the floor, then she saw Evgeny’s head over the top of the wooden booth. He didn’t look happy.
“Fuck you!” he bellowed.
“Oh dear,” said Mary-Ann, shaken out of her declaration. “Trouble in paradise.”
“You take my point about the drama,” said Lydia, chest tight, clenching her fists so her nails dug into her palms.
Evgeny bolted and Milan stood up to pursue him. Afraid of being spotted, Lydia ducked down under the table while the troubled lovers stormed out of the restaurant and disappeared into the crowded square.
“Are you all right?” asked Mary-Ann.
“Fine, fine,” said Lydia, emerging. “Just…dropped something out of my bag. Um. I’m not sure I’m very hungry, to be honest. I might just…go back to the concert hall.”
“But I’ve ordered now!”
“I’m so sorry, Mary-Ann. I feel a little bit unwell. I don’t think I can eat.”
“Maybe if you sit still for a minute—”
“The smell of the food is making it worse. I have to go. I’m sorry.”
Lydia snatched up her bag and ran out of the restaurant, knowing that she was treating Mary-Ann unfairly, but needing to find out what had happened between Milan and Evgeny.
She crossed the square and negotiated the narrow streets as quickly as she could, weaving through great gatherings of tourists listening to talks in every language imaginable, until she reached the grounds of the concert hall. A few of her fellow players sat here and there on the grass, eating sausages wrapped in pastry lattices from a nearby vendor.
“What’s with Milan?” one of the oboists asked her as she hastened over the lawns.
“You’ve seen him? Is he here?”
“Yeah, we just saw him run halfway across Charles Bridge then stop and run back here. He’s inside. Looked as if he was about to have a heart attack.”
“What about Evgeny? Have you seen him?”
The oboist and her friends shrugged and shook their heads. Lydia ran onwards to the auditorium.
At first, she didn’t see Milan. The hall was almost empty apart from a caretaker vacuuming the plush seats. Then, walking forward, she found him slumped in the front row, his head in his hands, long legs sprawled out in front of him.
“Milan,” she said softly, moving to the seat beside him. “Did it go badly?”
He lifted his head and looked at her. He had tears in his eyes. She put a hand on his arm.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“What for?”
“I feel like it’s all my fault. Like I’ve split you and Evgeny up.”
Milan shook his head and grabbed her hand, squeezing it.
“It’s not your fault. Don’t be silly.” He sighed. “I don’t know… I’ve finished it with so many people before. This feels different.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“My reasons for finishing it, I suppose. Not because I’m bored this time. Not because he is too needy—although he is. But because I have a new life to make, and a real future in my own country. It felt like shedding a burden. I feel free. But I am worried about him, I must admit.”
“What did you tell him? What did he say?”
“I told him the truth. That I wanted to stay here, try to rebuild my relationship with my mother. He didn’t know how to take it. First he started talking about how difficult it would be for him to get a visa to stay here. Then he realised I wasn’t including him in my plan.”
“Oh, poor Evgeny.”
“Don’t say ‘poor Evgeny’! This is what you want!”
“Not like this, though. I wish nobody had to get hurt.”
“So do I. It’s not possible, though, is it? Anyway, he asked if you were staying with me. He didn’t like the answer and stormed off. I lost him in one of the side streets.”
“I wonder where he went. And if he’ll come back for the rest of the rehearsal.”
“I guess he’s gone to the hotel. Or he’s drinking himself senseless in some bar. Actually, that’s the most likely.”
“Shit.”
They sat in silence for a few moments. The caretaker left. As the door banged shut, Milan looked over his shoulder, then smiled lopsidedly at Lydia, red-rimmed eyes crinkling at the edges.
“Have you ever had sex in a concert hall?” he wondered aloud.
“Milan!” Lydia looked at her watch. “People will start coming back in about twenty minutes.”
“Twenty minutes is long enough for a knee-trembler, no?”
He moved his hand to her thigh, rubbing it while his lips found hers for a kiss. Their passionate embrace served to banish all the worries and concerns about Evgeny and bring their passion back into focus. As the kiss consumed them, Lydia found herself lifted to her feet by Milan’s strong arm around her waist, and moved back until her bottom bumped against the stage.
She lost herself in sensation, devouring his embraces, yielding to his hunger until her shirt buttons were undone and her jeans around her knees. She let him lift her so that she sat on the edge of the stage, legs spread as wide as her denim restraints would allow, hands grappling with his belt, wanting this to happen now, quickly, without delay.
He helped her, simultaneously yanking her jeans down and off with a foot and fumbling in a pocket for the ever-present condom.
Once it was on, he didn’t even bother to remove her knickers but simply shoved them aside and entered her quickly and cleanly, gasping as he reached the hilt.
Lydia moaned and clung on to him, lips still locked on to his, legs wrapped tight around his hips.
He moved seamlessly into a fast rhythm. Lydia leant back so that he bent over her, the angle inviting more and more friction while his belt jingled and their skin slapped together.
Rough animal grunts jerked from his mouth to hers in time with his thrusts. Her fingers pinched and nails dug in while she used her body to grip him hard and lock him into her. She wanted to be flooded with him, part of him, belonging to him.
She chewed on his lips and he returned the gesture, teeth clashing, skin beginning to slide, clothes beginning to cling, steam beginning to rise. She stiffened, feeling the stirrings of orgasm, fingers flexing, tiny anguished yelps smothered by his domineering mouth.
He worked her through her climax, keeping her held fast while sensation ripped its way through her, then he sped into his own, finally breaking the kiss to roar into the crook of her neck, fanning hot breath beneath her ear.
Despite her trembling, she managed to hang on to him, taking great lungfuls of his scent until her breathing settled.
“I love you,” he said.
“Oh God, I love you, so much,” she blurted, on the verge of tears.
“But we have to rehearse.” He kissed her neck. “Come on. Let’s get dressed.”
As he stepped away from her, to pick up her jeans with one hand while the other dealt with the condom, Lydia caught a movement from the door at the top left of the auditorium.
She put a hand over her mouth in horror, hiding her indecency with the jeans Milan had just handed her.
Standing in a pose of absolute shock at the far end of the hall was Mary-Ann.
“Oh, God! Sorry!”
With those words, Mary-Ann turned and fled.
“Fuck!” exclaimed Lydia. “Fuck, fuck, fuckity-fuck. What are we going to do?”
Milan finished buttoning up his trousers and shrugged, one eyebrow raised.
“Why does it matter? This could be our last day with the WSO. Tomorrow we quit.”
“No, but…Mary-Ann. I’ve lied to her, deceived her. About us. I feel so guilty. And about Evgeny. Oh, shit. What have we done?”
“Mary-Ann will survive.”
“But she…just now…she said she liked me. As more than a friend.”
Milan’s look of rueful amusement irritated Lydia.
“It’s serious, Milan. People’s hearts are serious.”
“Okay, okay. You didn’t ask her to fancy you, did you?”
“No, but I feel like I’ve been toying with her. Playing with her feelings. I feel like a bad person. You make me into a bad person.”
“Come on now!”
“You do! I never used to be like this, ruining people’s love lives left, right and centre. I used to be nice.”
“You’re still nice—” Milan reached out for her, but she snatched her arm away.
“I’m a bitch, sneaking around behind people’s backs. And so are you.”
“Okay, now listen.” Milan’s tone was stern and he took hold of her shoulders, forcing her to look into his eyes. “Maybe we haven’t always made the right choices. Maybe we haven’t been as kind as we could be. But nobody has been intentionally cruel and the important thing is that we are together, yes?”
Lydia sniffed. “Yeah,” she said in a tiny voice.
“Evgeny will go back to London. Mary-Ann will go back to London. They will have successful careers—especially Mary-Ann now I’m out of the picture—and they will meet other people. Won’t they?”
“I suppose so.”
“People who are better suited to them, yes?”
“Yeah.”
“You and I will stay in Prague, get orchestra work, or maybe I’ll get a conducting gig. We’ll be happy. Nobody else will get hurt. Okay? This part is painful, but it will end, and everyone will be happier and better off for it. Look at me. Say ‘I know, Milan’.”
“I know, Milan.”
“Good girl.”
He hugged her, briefly but tightly, then stepped back.
“Now we need to wash our faces and get ready for rehearsal. Go on now.”
He slapped her bottom, sending her on her way to the ladies’ restroom.
As she mopped her flushed face with a damp tissue, Lydia thought about her situation. The rest of the day was going to be horrible—a rehearsal under the baton of a betrayed Mary-Ann, facing a heartbroken Evgeny, would be anything but pleasant.
Highly Strung Page 15
