‘So, I see you are an all action man. Maybe if you don’t make it as a conductor you could pursue a successful career directing the rush hour traffic in Trafalgar Square.’
Tara did not stay to hear any more. She went softly out of the auditorium and into the gardens beyond. Saul would not notice her exit. He would be entirely happy for the next hour or so. He had one student good enough to spend time with, yet not so brilliant as to be a threat to his own prowess, and another who was sufficiently dismal and wooden to merit the marshalling of all the skills in his baiting repertoire.
She wondered if there would be time to make a phone-call to Alessandra. It was now one o’clock coming up to lunch-time. Back home it would be time for breakfast. Alessandra would just be coming in from her early morning ride, ravenous for an early breakfast with her grandmother Rachel.
Alessandra had always been greatly fond of Rachel and got on well with Donald also. She stayed with the two of them whenever Tara was away. Soon after they married, Rachel and Donald bought a thatched cottage in a Bedfordshire village. It had two acres of land including a large paddock and ample grazing for two or three horses. Close to the back of the house were an old barn and some airy loose boxes. Alessandra preferred to keep her bay mare Tosca there rather than at the Oxfordshire house.
Tosca was always given as the reason for Alessandra’s increasingly frequent and ever longer stays with Rachel and Donald. But Tara suspected that the horse was only one factor in the equation and that Alessandra simply felt more comfortable and relaxed in the easy going atmosphere of the Bedfordshire cottage than the more formal Oxfordshire household.
Suddenly Tara longed to hear her daughter’s voice. She ran up the dirt path leading towards the cafeteria beside the main gates where the reception on her cell phone was best and punched in the number.
Rachel’s voice answered, miraculously clear as though she were just in the next town. She handed Tara straight over to Alessandra, who was full of news of Tosca’s latest achievements. Listening to the joyful enthusiasm in the girl’s voice Tara felt a warm glow of happiness. Whatever might be wrong between her and Saul, at least their daughter was experiencing a stretch of untroubled happiness in this summer shortly before her fourteenth birthday.
‘Grandma and Granddad have taken me to loads of gymkhanas. Tosca’s won absolutely masses of rosettes. We did a three foot course yesterday. It was fabulous!’
‘Wonderful news darling. Well done.’
‘I’m going to put her out in the field today. She needs a rest. We’ve got more shows lined up for the weekend. Granddad’s ace at driving the horse box. And he wants me to teach him how to pick out Tosca’s feet and tack her up just in case he’s needed. I’ve bought some new exercise bandages because the old ones are getting grubby and one of the judges at the shows said I should try her in a martingale so I’m thinking about that.’
Tara smiled, fighting to get a word in. It was almost impossible to stem the flow of Alessandra’s conversation once the subject of Tosca came up. She would chatter happily about the horse for hours. In fact for Alessandra at present, any topic that did not include Tosca was of little interest.
Xavier found this obsession with horses puzzling and more than a little irritating. It annoyed him to see Alessandra distracted from giving her whole-hearted attention to the more serious business of schoolwork and singing practice.
Alessandra had shown early promise as a vocalist, but since her passion for horses and riding had developed so her interest and motivation regarding singing had declined.
‘Putting her under pressure won’t make her more keen to sing,’ Tara explained gently as Alessandra stormed off in tears after one of her father’s sardonic lectures on the merits of music as compared with the inanity of jumping about on horses. ‘If anything it will make her worse; more inclined to kick against you.’
Tara knew all too well the retort which framed itself in Saul’s head in response to that kind of remark. ‘Like mother like daughter – you also wasted the years of your adolescence.’
The words were never spoken but were heard by both of them, one more set of spikes in the uneasy collar of their complex relationship.
‘She does practise for an hour every single day,’ Tara would point out to him, in Alessandra’s defence. ‘That’s perfectly satisfactory.’ And heroic, she thought, for someone who hated it.
‘We won’t be back until the end of next week, darling,’ Tara told Alessandra, bringing their conversation to a close. ‘Daddy’s been invited to make a special guest appearance at the New York Met. And I thought I’d go with him.’
‘You always go everywhere with him,’ Alessandra said in a matter-of-fact voice. There was a short pause. ‘Will you be back by Sunday?’
‘Early morning I would guess. Why?’
‘There’s a really super open jumping class on Sundays at the riding school. Grandma and Granddad said they’d take me if I was still here.’
‘Don’t worry, you will be.’ Quite safe from the parental presence, she added to herself.
‘Oh, Mummy, I miss you terribly!’
Like hell you do, thought Tara with a wry smile. A bit, but not very much if Tosca’s around. And how very healthy that is.
‘Is Daddy there to talk to me?’ Alessandra asked.
‘He’s busy in a conducting seminar. He sends his love.’
‘Oh! Right. Give him mine then.’ There was no mistaking the undertone of relief.
Ah well, thought Tara, it was understandable. Saul had never been the most relaxed person to chat to on the phone. She wandered back to the music theatre, reflective and subdued. She understood what a disappointment it was for Saul that Alessandra had shown so little spontaneous enthusiasm for music.
He had been so keen to share the passion of his life with his only child. At weekends the house would be filled with the sound of live music played by some of the world’s greatest instrumentalists, and whenever Saul was home there would be great symphonic works blasting from the multitude of state of the art speakers positioned around the house.
Watching Alessandra grow up Tara had seen the child’s early devotion to her father gradually transform itself into an awed and distant respect. It was the intensity of his wish for her to share his obsession with music which lay at the heart of the problem. Alessandra had never shown any great interest in either listening to classical music or playing an instrument despite his encouragement. As a small child she had loved to sing nursery rhymes, and displayed a good understanding of pitch and rhythm. But once Saul arranged for coaching lessons with one of his opera star contacts, her eagerness and confidence had rapidly deteriorated.
Tara had watched with growing dismay as the little Alessandra grew more and more tense, overwhelmed with the enormity of her father’s knowledge and skill, shying away from his obsessive need for her to display genius.
She tried to explain to him how the child was feeling, but he politely brushed aside her tactful suggestions. ‘One never achieves anything without pain,’ he observed.
Arriving at the door of the theatre she saw that the rehearsal had drawn to a close and Saul and Gustav Walter were making their way out of the auditorium, followed by the two student conductors.
‘We’re going to get some lunch,’ Saul told her. ‘We were coming to find you.’ His raised eyebrows let her know he had been wondering where she had been.
Tara fell into step with him and slipped her hand through his arm. ‘I’ve been checking that they are all alive and kicking back home.’
‘Ah. And?’
‘They’re all fine.’
‘Ah.’ There was a brief pause. ‘I would have liked to have spoken to Alessandra.’
‘Yes. She was so disappointed you were busy. I said we’d call her later.’ Tara was aware of the soothing and cajoling quality in her voice, as though she were a kindly parent humouring a clever but emotionally delicate child.
And this is what we have come to, me and Saul, sh
e grieved inwardly, reaching and pressing a kiss on the side of his neck.
She saw the auburn-haired young man’s eyes on her, registered the gleam of speculation in his eye. He was a romantic; he would look at her and the great Maestro Xavier and see a couple who had intrigued the music world with their wild love affair and had now settled into mellow devotedness.
She smiled.
After lunch Saul led a seminar of around twenty conducting students. Gustav Walter had attempted to prevail on Tara to join the sofa group but she had laughingly declined and retreated to her preferred corner of the room.
The next hour was spent in a discussion of the ways to start big orchestral works. Saul sat at the piano to illustrate certain points he wished to make. He had brought the score of Mozart’s symphony Number 29 in A-Major to use as an illustration. He employed his usual tutorial methods of tempting his audience with snippets of information without ever revealing his own personal convictions. He teased and taunted them, leading them gently down certain pathways and then suddenly demolishing all the ideas he had planted with derisive scorn.
‘You didn’t believe all that did you? No, not for a moment!’ His mildly sarcastic jests were accompanied by flamboyant runs on the piano.
Tara watched the eager, puzzled, anxious faces of the students, feeling increasingly sorry for them.
The discussion moved on to the gulf between the work of current composers and the old masters. Now suddenly he was serious. He explained that conductors must always be open to the promotion of new words, however inaccessible they seemed. ‘Remember, if we ignore all the new composers there will be no representation of modern music in the future.’
There was a round of applause. This was Saul at his best, clear and sincere with no axe to grind. He invited questions from the audience and an hour flew by with everyone enjoying themselves.
Then suddenly he was bored with it all. ‘So, I think we’ve all had enough,’ he announced abruptly, giving his floppy dismissive wave. ‘Go away and get on with your lives. There is life beyond music, you know!’
But possibly not for Saul Xavier, thought Tara with a small smile.
Later on after Xavier had disappeared with Gustav Walter to discuss the next day’s programme, Tara stayed on in the gracious seminar room, staring out at the glassy-surfaced lake and beyond to the wall of the mountains.
The auburn-haired student stole back into the room.
Tara looked around and smiled. ‘Hello.’
He sat beside her, his eyes fixed on the open score of the Mozart Symphony which rested in her lap.
‘How would you start it?’ he asked.
‘Why are you asking me that after all you heard earlier?’ she said, amused.
‘Because Xavier never answered the question. But I felt sure you would tell me. I’ve watched you conducting on those training videos you made for music students. I bought every one of them. You’re great!’
Tara found herself truly moved to be offered such genuine, heartfelt praise. ‘Thank you. But I’m no authority on setting off orchestras on Mozart symphonies.’
‘You’ll do for me,’ he said bluntly. ‘So tell me!’
She stared at him. ‘All right.’ She looked down at the score, then looked up and fixed him with a steady stare. Raising her hand she gave a minute downbeat and a virtually invisible nod. He saw that her eyes gave a message too, but it would have been impossible to describe it in words.
‘Awe inspiring,’ he said.
‘It only takes around three years to learn, two more to perfect,’ she told him mischievously. His admiration warmed her. He was not only talented, but charming and gentle – and very young.
And I’m well into my thirties, Tara thought. Really quite old.
‘Why aren’t you a tutor in these conducting seminars?’ he demanded. ‘You’d be marvellous.’
She gave him a tolerant smile. ‘I’ve done very little besides making the training videos.’
‘What about conducting the student orchestras at the music schools? Doesn’t that count? And if you say “no” then it means you don’t think students are important – and I don’t believe that of you.’
Tara smiled. ‘I see that I’m trapped. I had no idea I was going to be fiercely attacked whilst I was sitting here thinking about Mozart and watching the mountains.’
‘You’re wasting yourself,’ he told her with exasperation.
‘And you’re trespassing on delicate areas you know nothing about,’ she warned.
‘I’m sorry.’
A silence. They both stared at Mozart’s score.
‘Do you aim to be a great Maestro then?’ she asked playfully.
‘I just want to make music. That whole Maestro thing, the worship of the charismatic music director who plays no instrument and makes no noise himself is an anachronism,’ he declared solemnly, clearly quoting from some text which had impressed him. ‘Those old-style conductors are tyrants,’ he burst out. ‘They treat orchestras like peasants, then collect a fee for a concert that adds up to as much as all the players are paid.’
He pulled himself up and glanced at her hesitantly. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again and the image of Maestro Xavier rose up between them.
She smiled and shrugged, recalling her outburst at her father’s funeral.
‘I’m not interested in money and fame. I just want to dip into the ocean of music and communicate it to others. I love it so much! Some of the pieces, I could just die for them!’
‘Don’t lose that,’ Tara said. ‘That wonderful joy in the mystery and the sublime enchantment of great music.’
He pressed his hands together. ‘There something else I want to ask you.’
‘Go ahead.’
He bit down on his lip. ‘You were a violinist, weren’t you?’
‘Yes,’
‘My tutor at music school knew you. She told me about what happened – the car crash.’
‘Yes?’
‘You never recorded anything, did you? That’s such a waste.’
Tara understood that this young musician had stumbled on her story and seized it as though it were a fairy tale. He had made her into a heroine: a mythical creature to worship. He was very young.
‘No. I didn’t ever record my playing with a record company. But that’s not a tragedy. There are other violinists to bring the great works to life. Music goes on, a shared delight, not some individual instrumentalist’s ego trip.’ She smiled at him. ‘And Xavier was right - there is a life beyond music.’
There was a long thoughtful silence. She knew that her admirer was struggling to understand why Tara should have bound herself to the disparaging, lip-curling Xavier. And worse, he knew exactly what she was thinking.
‘What instrument do you play?’ she asked him.
‘The clarinet. And the piano, of course.’
‘OK – well I’ll give you a tip for free! Hold on to your playing. Hold onto it every minute you’re conducting. Don’t ever stand in front of an orchestra telling them how to play without remembering how bloody hard it is!’
‘No.’
She smiled. ‘I don’t think I needed to tell you that. I think you knew already.’
He reached out and took her hand. ‘And you mustn’t let it go – all your marvellous talent.’
The tall figure of Saul appeared at the door. ‘Tara, I’ve been looking all over for you.’
‘I’m coming. Got a little tied up.’ She withdrew her hand gently from the student’s eager clasp.
As regards her own aspirations she felt there was no need to spell it out to him that within certain defined spaces there was room for only one Maestro.
In New York, forty eight hours later, Tara watched Xavier as he lay stretched out on the bed in their hotel room, mentally preparing for his appearance at the Metropolitan Opera that evening to conduct Smetana’s The Bartered Bride.
The dress rehearsal had not been happy. There had been tears from the lead soprano, who had fled tempor
arily from the stage protesting that Xavier was a heartless sadist, sulks from the lighting crew into whom the Maestro had lashed with a serpent’s tongue, and glum resignation from the orchestra who seemed to be able to do a single thing to please him.
Tara knew that he was deeply ill at ease with himself. He had, of course, always been tyrannical: brilliant, egocentric and utterly powerful. But now the brilliance was becoming tarnished with bitterness and cynicism. He had conquered the world, but he had maimed his wife, robbed his mistress of her virtuoso talents and alienated his only child. The guilt was there with him constantly, generating a self-hate which was now beginning to turn outwards onto others.
He drove himself mercilessly. He never stopped working – setting himself new goals, seeking out new interpretations. Demanding the same level of obsessive excellence from all who worked alongside him.
Tara sat on the bed beside him and stroked the long bones of his face. They seemed to become more deeply sculpted as each year passed. His face and his spirit seemed to be slowly sinking into them, the whole effect making him more arrestingly attractive than ever before.
She leaned down and kissed his forehead in a tender, reverential manner as though saluting an historic hero. His monumental drive and his breathtaking knowledge of music and conducting still inspired her with awe and respect. There had been so many things to learn from him over the years, so many benefits.
Her fingers traced over his firm mobile mouth. He gave a faint groan. Tara pressed her lips on his.
He opened his eyes. For a moment he seemed not to register her presence.
‘It’s all right,’ she told him with a smile of irony. ‘There are still a couple of hours before curtain up.’
‘Ah.’ He lifted his hand and slipped it inside her robe.
As he caressed her she wondered which of the problematic aspects of the evening’s performance was exercising him most. He had always had the capacity to do more than one thing at a time with consummate skill.
His lovemaking remained technically perfect, ever more refined and imaginative. But there was a growing restraint to it, a curious throb of sadness.
The Maestro's Mistress Page 21