The Maestro's Mistress

by Angela Dracup

  ‘Why aren’t you here, Roland? We’re having one hell of a party.’

  ‘I know. I was fully intending to come along, but you know how it is…’

  ‘Not really. In fact I wish I did!’

  He laughed. ‘I’ve just had a call from David Brenner. He’s had a fall and sprained his wrist. Can’t play a note. He was due to play the Elgar at the Golden Hall in Vienna three nights ahead. Can you step in?’

  The shock hit her like a swung plank. Brenner was an established violin virtuoso. To step into his shoes was an awesome prospect. And the concert date was the day before Alessandra’s birthday. But then it only took a few hours to fly back from Vienna. ‘I don’t see why not,’ she said slowly, amazing herself.

  ‘Those are the sweetest words I’ve heard all day,’ Roland told her.

  ‘I suppose it’s a nightmare trying to get people to fill in with everyone being booked years ahead,’ Tara commented, her voice a little unsteady now as the full enormity of her decision began to sink in.

  ‘It isn’t a walk in the park, but don’t get the idea that you’re a last resort. I haven’t been ringing round the troops. I happen to think you are the ideal person for the job.’

  Tara drew in a sharp breath. ‘Had you ever considered a career in the diplomatic service, Roland?’ she enquired with an ironic smile.

  ‘I am in such a service,’ he responded.

  Tara replaced the receiver and stood beside the desk, her heart beating with great thick jumps, her stomach protesting again. She heard a sound in the doorway and sensed Saul’s presence.

  She turned. He wore the blank, austerely remote expression that could still send a chill of desire and apprehension down her backbone.

  ‘Bad news?’ he enquired softly.

  Her mouth went dry. She gave him the news in a nutshell: unemotional and to the point. It felt like firing a pistol.

  The muscles around is long curved mouth flickered under the skin. He gave one of his dry smiles. ‘Congratulations.’

  Tara could not believe he meant it. She felt defiant, touchy and on the defensive. Roland had offered her a hard earned prize and no one, not even Saul, was going to take it away from her. Although, to be fair, Saul was giving her no grounds to for thinking he would try. His tone had been perfectly reasonable, holding no hint of sarcasm or mockery.

  ‘I’ll be back in time for Alessandra’s birthday,’ she said, unable to stop herself justifying her actions.

  ‘Good. Good.’ His eyes held hers, relentless and unfathomable.

  Tara felt herself quake internally. It must be this wretched pregnancy.

  ‘What about the sickness? Will you be able to cope?’ he enquired in clinical tones.

  ‘I just won’t eat anything. I won’t even look at any food.’ She tried to sound light-hearted.

  He nodded, his glance coolly assessing. ‘So!’ he commented. The gateway to the road to success is opening. Mmn?’

  Tara felt deeply uneasy. She wanted to throw herself into his arms and be close to him, share this moment of triumphant anticipation with him. He seemed as distant and remote as that first time she had seen him on the podium the night of her father’s death.

  ‘You don’t want me to go, do you?’ she challenged him.

  ‘I want you to feel free to make your own decisions,’ he said enigmatically.

  ‘You want me to stay here and breed children for you and act the perfect hostess!’ she burst out.

  ‘Tara.’ His voice was low and gentle. But there was a note of chiding fatherliness which kindled a spark of deep resentment in her.

  ‘You’ve got it made haven’t you?’ she continued bitterly. ‘Success, critical acclaim, the licence to do exactly as you like. A wife, a mistress…’ She knew she had gone too far.

  ‘Darling, if you’re in a state like this will you really be fit to play?’ he asked evenly.

  It was a perfectly valid question. Tara refused to answer.

  ‘My sweet, you must do what you want to do and not feel constrained by me,’ he said softly.

  ‘But I do. I feel as though you’re holding me in bonds of steel,’ she appealed.

  ‘No.’ He looked at her with such tenderness.

  Her mind raced. She felt like a trapped animal. She suddenly recalled that he had mentioned going to Copenhagen at the end of the week. ‘We shall both be away the night before Alessandra’s birthday,’ she exclaimed.

  His eyes stared into hers. ‘Yes.’

  She knew there was no question of his cancelling his arrangements. And she would not expect him to. What a conventional little woman I’m becoming, she thought, scorning her weakness and indecision. ‘I’ll ask my mother to come and stay,’ she decided.

  ‘Good. And after the new baby I really think we must apply ourselves to engaging a suitable nanny, so that we can both pursue our work in peace.’ He smiled and quietly left the room.

  Tara took some deep breaths. She returned to the party and forced herself to eat. She willed the food to stay down.

  Circulating amongst the guests she whipped herself up into lively, witty socializing. Her eyes sought Saul. He was watching her from across the room. He smiled at her, a deep intimate message. Her heart swelled. For a moment she considered calling Roland back and telling him she had changed her mind.

  The moment passed.

  Informal musical performances were now in progress and everyone was having great fun. The flautist entertained with dazzling extracts of Mozart and the cellist varied the mood with some touching Dvorak. The blonde Danish singer hung back, wide-eyed and nervous as a woodland gazelle.

  Saul sat down at the piano. He summoned her with that deceptively casual flap of his hand which was irresistibly compelling.

  Tara watched the singer approach the Maestro and incline her shining head towards his as he flicked through some song sheets. She knew that Saul was constantly on the look-out for singers. He needed a constant supply of new talent for his operatic work and for vocal recordings. She also knew that he had an inclination for sopranos with sweet, pure, lyrical voices in preference to the big divas with their awesome ability to project their voice over a full orchestra. But tonight, with this enchanting young woman, she sensed an extra unquantifiable dimension at work.

  They started off with some Schubert. The woman was desperately nervous. There were continuous small breaks in her exquisite voice which was clear and shining like polished crystal. A hush fell over the guests and heads turned in her direction.

  Saul stopped her. ‘You are working too hard. Don’t try to give too much at once, yes?’

  She took a sip of water from the glass offered by one of the guests standing near to her.

  They started again. This time the voice flowed out unfettered: gorgeous and liquid. Sharp and clean cut like a rain-washed sky.

  Tara marvelled afresh at Saul’s skill as an accompanist. He was technically faultless but he also had an instinctive understanding of the needs and difficulties of the person he was playing with. Tara recalled playing the Cesar Franck sonata with him that fateful day when they had first made love and how she had been utterly seduced by the sensations aroused by performing music with him. Her body glowed with remembered passion.

  She heard him speaking to the singer over the music as he played. ‘Hold back a little. Now! Let yourself flow into the music. Good, good. Wonderful!’

  The singer was flushed and her eyes shining as she reached a final top C.

  Saul lifted his hands from the keys. ‘Hold it, hold!’

  She held.

  Xavier smiled. ‘There you are. Perfection!’

  Applause rippled through the captivated audience.

  Xavier looked the singer up and down, his eyes skating over the slender figure, and the long thighs shown off in a clinging silky dress. ‘So! Do you know Handel’s oratorio Samson? The aria, ‘Let the Bright Seraphim? Yes? Will you sing it for me?’

  The singer gazed at him with soft appeal. ‘It is a bravura piec
e,’ she protested in her charming Danish accent. ‘And all those difficult English words.’

  Xavier gave a dismissive chuckle. ‘Don’t be frightened. I’ll make a fool of myself imitating the piccolo trumpet part on the piano.’

  The voice rang out again. It was getting better by the minute.

  Tara felt her blood heating up. She sensed a personal chemistry working between these two musicians as potently as though it were being injected into her own veins. The expression on the Danish songbird’s face was one of pure exhilaration and rapture. She was clearly bowled over by the response she was getting from the great Xavier. To Tara it seemed as though he was pulling the voice right out of the girl’s throat; any moment now she would be literally squealing with delight.

  And if he should take her to bed! Well then really would squeal. With ecstasy. Tara couldn’t stop the awful thoughts from racing round her brain. Maybe this kind of thing was common in the early stages of pregnancy she told herself, struggling to fill her mind with anything but the word jealousy.

  She went forward to give the singer her congratulations which from a musical point of view were totally genuine. ‘Come and have a proper drink now,’ she told her. ‘You’ve earned it.’

  The woman’s name was Margerita. She was really very likable. In other circumstances Tara would have been making arrangements to meet up with her and talk music and concerts and agents and conductors.

  But tonight she was wary. And when Saul joined them she judged that her anxieties were more than the neuroses of a pregnant woman at the mercy of her hormones.

  ‘Marvellous stuff!’ he said. ‘I’d like to give you a role at the London Met when I next direct there.’

  Margerita gasped. ‘Oh, my career will really set on fire then.’

  ‘Ignite,’ Xavier corrected gently.

  ‘Sorry, is that how you say it?’ She turned to Tara. ‘I was so nervous to come here tonight. When your husband…’ She paused here, confused.

  ‘Go on,’ Tara smiled.

  ‘When he asked me to sing I felt like I do at auditions. Very sick – here.’ She placed her hand on her enviably flat stomach.

  ‘Audiences are the work of the devil,’ Saul observed with a smile. ‘People listening out for you to make a mistake. Predatory agents lurking in the wings, wicked conductors waiting to pounce.’

  ‘Oh, yes. That is so. Quite!’ She stared at him with admiration.

  Tara, looking on, felt as though she were growing older and wiser extremely fast.

  Saul poured himself some more wine. ‘You see,’ he told Margerita, ‘in an audition the way to success is to tease your audience. Entice them. Have them on the edge of their seats to hear more of what you can do. It’s rather like a striptease.’ He smiled into her eyes, arching his brows.

  ‘Violinists have the same problems,’ Tara informed the starry-eyed singer. ‘I learned to take my clothes off very slowly.

  In bed that night Xavier reached for her.

  Instantly the blood began to sing in her veins. The bovine sensations of pregnancy slid away from her and she felt like the most desirable woman in the world. Still, he could do that to her!

  ‘Our unborn child,’ she murmured in mock protest.

  ‘I am afraid my longings for you will have to take precedence even over that precious creature,’ he confessed regretfully. His fingers were already probing with sensuous intimacy.

  Tara rolled over on her back, forgot about the Danish nightingale, forgot about everything, and allowed a tidal wave of pleasure to wash over her.

  She refused to listen to the small inner voice that told her some kind of warning had been issued.

  CHAPTER 21

  There were two works on the programme - the Elgar violin concerto in the first section and a performance of Handel’s oratorio Israel in Egypt in the second.

  It was a concerto for connoisseurs, demanding both stamina and musical sophistication from the audience who in turn would expect nothing short of excellence from the performers.

  Tara’s flight from Heathrow was delayed because of a bomb scare and when she eventually arrived at the Golden Hall the rehearsal had finished some time previously.

  Fatigued, queasy and wracked with nerves she looked around the great ornate hall and felt completely overwhelmed. It was a place of opulent magnificence, a glowing gilded palace of music. The fifty-foot ceiling was elaborately panelled around a series of ten central paintings depicting female figures draped in long floating robes. White, long-necked birds perched on the narrow balcony above the orchestra section whilst the rest of the balcony was supported on golden columns cast in the form of heavy-breasted Amazon figures naked from the waist up. Thirty six of them formed an impressive ring around the hall.

  Tara stared up at them. Their smooth faces, framed in shoulder-length ringlets were cool and impartial as though they were constantly sitting in judgement. She had the feeling they would give no quarter to those who fell short of perfection. Horrified panic at what she had let herself in for kept rising in her throat.

  A small man with a mass of frizzy hair came forward to greet her. She recognized him immediately as Hermann Otto, the octogenarian who had been a mainstay of music in Vienna and Salzburg for over fifty years. Like Xavier, his face graced countless record sleeves and CD covers. Tara had also seen him many times on television conducting the great orchestras of Berlin and Vienna.

  Otto had worked with some of the great composer/conductors of the early part of the century, including Richard Strauss and even the genius Gustav Mahler who had noted the potential of the young Otto when he was no more than a boy. It was like confronting an icon of living history.

  ‘Tara, Tara, Tara!’ he exclaimed. ‘I hear so many wonderful things about you.’

  ‘I think I’d rather you’d heard bad,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Then at least I wouldn’t be an awful disappointment.’

  A grating guttural chuckle bubbled in his throat. He chuckled all the time, never stopped smiling. She began to feel better. He took her hand and shook it warmly, his eyes beaming out from the heavy wrinkled folds of skin surrounding them.

  ‘You are terrified,’ he said, observing her trembling fingers. ‘You are quivering with fear.’

  She nodded.

  ‘This is how it should be. No one ever plays well without the demon of terror driving them from within.’

  He placed an arm around her shoulders. ‘The Elgar Concerto,’ he mused. ‘I always play it completely straight. You know? No conductor’s frills. Just like your Xavier would choose to do. You will be quite safe with me.’

  ‘I hope I do you justice,’ Tara said simply.

  Another chuckle from Otto. ‘My beautiful orchestra, you will love them. They will do everything to help. You take the music at your own pace – and I will bind you all together.’

  Tara took a deep breath. He was talking about one of the great Viennese orchestras, one of the greatest orchestras in the world.

  ‘What a wonderful challenge,’ Otto murmured, ‘to play for an audience so spontaneously, so fresh.’

  My God! Tara thought. He’s going to let me simply go on and play. No impromptu run through just with him. Nothing! She wished she saw the situation in such a positive light as Otto did.

  In the white-walled dressing room she took out her photographs of Xavier and Alessandra and placed them on the table beneath the mirror. Then she put on the simple toga-style dress of green silk that she had bought on Georgiana’s advice on one of their recent shopping trips. It was a good choice, concealing all the ripening bulges. After that there was nothing to do but pluck at the tendrils of hair around her face and wait. She judged that she had gone beyond fear now.

  Walking onto the stage she was aware of the stern formality of the occasion. Black ties and jackets were the uniform for the men, orchestra and audience alike, whilst the women formed a kaleidoscope of colour against which a firmament of jewels flashed. The auditorium throbbed with a low ripe murmuring.
A heady cocktail of expensive perfumes hung in the air.

  Otto hugged her to him as he led her to the front of the orchestra. Then his hands invited the audience to welcome her with warm applause, acknowledge her courage in acting as a stand-in at such short notice.

  Tara stood in motionless concentration. And then her bow was carving over the strings and the joy of creating this majestically beautiful concerto blotted out all fear.

  Otto was as good as his word. He let her have her head and he took the orchestra with her. And as she played Tara knew that she was making contact with this exacting audience; that she was making Elgar’s music sing to them. That she could do all this even without Saul.

  Her breathing deepened. How she adored this exposure to an audience, how hungry she was to draw them into the magical circle of a composer’s sublime artistry.

  The music was carving inside her now, taking her on a deeply personal journey. The figure of her father seemed to materialize at her side. She was conscious of that loved, grave face watching her. Assessing, analysing, urging her on.

  ‘You will have Freddie’s gift,’ he used to say to Tara in those dreadful empty months after her brother died. She had understood that it was her duty to rekindle her dead brother’s snuffed-out torch and bear it out into the world for him.

  She remembered the weight of responsibility which had fallen on her young shoulders at the sound of her father’s words. Heavy words, pressing her down; crushing her own developing individuality. She had been a child of only nine.

  She had tried so hard. She had so wanted to please her father, carry out his longed for wishes and make it up to him for the loss of his son. She had been too young to understand that the task was impossible and thus must be quietly abandoned. After all, the message in her father’s words was clear enough. Her child’s spirit had struggled to make his dream come true. She had driven herself on. Always trying. Always failing. Never good enough.

  Eventually despair had taken over. She had given up her mission and cast it away from her. After all that uphill toiling she had known she would never be as good as Freddie; not as an instrumentalist, not as a person. After all, he was dead; he was a saint who could never again do any wrong.