The Maestro's Mistress (16 page)

Breathing in the heavy scent of
Xavier’s flowers Rachel felt queasy.

‘Well?’ She looked down at Tara
with a gentle smile.

‘Still there,’ Tara said
cheerily. Her colour had come back, her hair was washed and shiny and her eyes
sparkled with the renewed joy of living. ‘I think it’s a survivor.’

Rachel tried to think of ways to
say what she knew she had to say. Seconds passed.

‘Are you sorry I didn’t lose it?’
Tara asked. ‘At least this way you’re spared the embarrassment of wondering
whether to say something about it “being for the best”.’

‘When did I ever make that kind
of comment?’ Rachel asked, deeply hurt.

‘You’d have thought it though,
wouldn’t you?’ Tara challenged.

‘Yes, I’m afraid I would.’ 
Rachel hesitated. ‘I’m on your side, you see.’

‘Which means?’

‘Which means I think it’s crazy
for you to be having a baby when you’re hardly more than a child yourself, when
you’re not married to the father and he happens to be some twenty years your
senior – and about whom you know scarcely a thing.’

‘Well, that certainly puts it in
a nutshell! Thanks a lot.’

‘Was it just a mistake?’ Rachel
enquired gently, already miserably aware that whatever battle they were
embarking on, she was going to lose it.

Tara stared at the riot of roses.
‘That question is so inappropriate to what happened and how it felt that I
can’t even begin to answer it.’

Rachel winced, hearing an echo of
the teenage scorn that Tara used to heap on her and Richard, three, four, five,
six years ago.

‘Oh, Mum – that was cruel. I
didn’t mean it to sound like that. But the way it happened was just so – well,
inevitable.’

     ‘You’re really in love with Saul
Xavier?’

‘Yes. I know it sounds
ridiculous, but it’s true. And I know I shouldn’t have made love with him. It
was wrong and stupid – irresponsible too. But I just feel like a changed
person.’

A black cloud of helpless gloom
settled around Rachel at the prospect of Tara’s feisty spirit being tamed by
pregnancy, childcare and dependence on a rich man’s protection. ‘He has a wife,
Tara. Have you thought of that?’ Rachel demanded. ‘Have you thought about her?’

‘Of course I have. What do you
think I am – some sort of monster?’

Rachel felt physically assailed
by Tara’s anger. ‘What is he offering?’ she enquired calmly. ‘Marriage? Or
setting you up as an expensive mistress in a luxury Knightsbridge flat with a
charge account at Harrods?’

‘Now who’s turning the knife?’ 
Tara flashed back. Her face became vulnerable and wistful. ‘I don’t know the
ins and outs yet. He may not be able to get a divorce. Not straight away.’

Rachel sighed. She refrained from
comment. If only the young didn’t always have to learn all the most commonplace
and obvious pitfalls through experience.

‘Look Tara – I admit I’m shocked.
And dismayed as well. You’re letting yourself in for a lifetime of
responsibility. Children are chains and fetters even if totally wonderful. I
should know. And you could have had years of freedom to achieve something for
yourself before all that.’

‘Oh please!’ Tara threw her eyes
to the ceiling.

‘But I’m glad as well, because
there’s a new life beginning. A life that belongs to you and me and Daddy as
well as Saul. This baby is good for me too in a curious kind of way.’

A pause. ‘Yes’ Tara sounded less
than enthusiastic. ‘I suppose it’s a bit like a re-birth, a resurrection for
Daddy.’

Rachel smiled, warmed by a new
feeling of closeness.

‘When you’re home we’ll make all
kinds of plans,’ Rachel said, suddenly enlivened by the prospect of visits to
baby stores and the chance to nurture Tara through this problematic but hugely
exciting period.

‘Mum, I’m not coming home,’ Tara
stated brutally. ‘I’m going to live with Saul.’

Rachel stared at her.

‘From now!’ Tara said, making
things crystal clear, digging the knife in deep.

Rachel felt anger surge inside
her in a beating red wave. Oh, the brazen effrontery of youth, she thought
looking at her daughter, buoyant and irrepressible, completely restored to the
delightful task of planning her life when less than twenty-four hours before
she had been at the gates of hell. A daughter who was about to go home with a
man whose wife – cast off and probably perfectly innocent – had shared with him
sufficient years to represent a lifetime. Tara’s lifetime certainly.

‘Don’t look at me like that.’
Tara warned.

There was worse to come. As they
blazed at each other with eyes and wills, Saul Xavier appeared in the doorway.

‘Rachel,’ he said in the deep
soft tones he had used when he spoke to her at the funeral. He placed his hand
on her shoulder, sympathetic and understanding.

‘Don’t make things more
difficult,’ Rachel told him caustically. ‘I want to hate you.’

Xavier nodded, taking due note.
He moved to the bed, stood looking down for a while, then bent and took Tara in
his arms.

His strong deep kiss sent a
thrill through Tara’s nerves. She looked at him with deep admiration. Any other
man in this situation, confronted with the bitter and angry mother of the girl
he had knocked up – and he knew Rachel was quite capable of coming out with
that kind of phrase – would have been diminished, stripped psychologically
naked and humiliated. But Saul Xavier’s dignity and conviction shone through the
cringing embarrassment of the scenario. His self and esteem and integrity were
in no way damaged.

‘I was just saying to Tara that
if I were your wife I should feel like committing murder,’ Rachel observed.

Saul nodded thoughtfully. There
had been a particularly distasteful scene with Georgiana in the early hours of
the morning. Rachel probably had a point about her feeling murderous. ‘I think
she will find that she prefers living her own life once she gets used to the
idea of my being with Tara,’ he said calmly, refuelling Tara’s admiration and
sending chills of horror down Rachel’s spine.

‘So when did this amazing love
affair spring into life?’ Rachel enquired.

‘When I heard Tara in the church
singing the
Pie Jesu
for her father.’ Saul responded without hesitation.
‘If I thought a child of mine would sing like that at my funeral I would die a
happy man.’

‘I hope your child brings you
happiness whilst you’re alive,’ Rachel told him drily. ‘I wouldn’t wish it wish
it even on you for your child to grow up and throw her or his youth away.’

There was a brittle silence.

‘It’s time I went,’ Rachel said,
‘before I say things I really mean.’

‘Oh Mummy!’ Tara’s eyes filled
suddenly with tears. ‘You’ll come and visit us lots, won’t you?’

‘Oh yes. I’ll soon get used to
the idea of all this – just like Saul’s wife. And of course I can always find
consolation In Don Giovanni’s arms.’ She gave Tara an ironic smile, then turned
to the watchful Maestro.

‘Good-bye’ she said to him. ‘I
can see that you are already infatuated with the idea of your child. Please
don’t forget to cherish mine.’

CHAPTER
13

Georgiana awarded herself an
especially self-indulgent day.

First there was a lengthy visit
to her hairdresser, then a manicure for fingers and toes. After that a
bikini-line wax which whilst a touch painful left her with a satin smooth
finish on her inner thighs. And then a truly wonderful treat – a long sensuous
massage designed to soothe away all tension from her muscles. Georgiana knew
she suffered from tension in her muscles for the masseuse always told her so.

Bodily refreshed she then went
for her weekly session with Dr Denton, the last she would have before setting
off to the Caribbean . Although of course when she got things worked out with
Xavier he would probably want her to stay at home with him.

Georgiana was not entirely sure
what her feelings were about that.

She lay on Dr Denton’s couch, her
dove-grey suede boots neatly parked beneath her. Just out of her vision he
waited for her opening words.

He thought she was looking
particularly delicious today, swathed in soft charcoal-grey cashmere, her baby
blonde hair glistening, her white hands clasped together just above her slender
waist like a dove of peace.

As usual he felt no concerns
about her silences. He was perfectly content to sit close by her and gaze.

‘It’s a time of change,’ she said
at last.

He waited. ‘A new year, a new
start.’

‘Those are the kind of things we
are trained to think of as one year merges into the next,’ he agreed softly.

‘We have to make things change.
We have to do it ourselves,’ Georgiana said, surprising Dr Denton a little. She
was normally so passive, expecting good things to happen to her in the manner
that the sun comes up each morning.

‘Whose voice says that to you?’
Dr Denton enquired.

‘My own,’ Georgiana said,
believing that to be the case, forgetting the words of Xavier and Alicia and
the countless other strong-willed, successful people who filled her social
life. It was the popular doctrine of the day; that you were responsible for you
own good fortune, wasn’t it? It was a doctrine never shared by her parents, of
course. They had always held the view that certain chosen people are simply
destined for good fortune, come what may.

Dr Denton waited, hopeful of some
interesting development on this theme. But as usual, Georgiana denied him
gratification. She often teetered on the brink, but rarely put so much as a toe
in the water.

Once again she steered her
discourse back to her early days. On she went, over the old idyllic ground. It
seemed to Dr Denton that with every week Georgiana’s childhood became suffused
with ever more golden light.

But his attempts to hold up the
mirror of life to her eyes and persuade her to confront the changing
reflections were always charmingly and stubbornly resisted.

‘How do you think I’ve done?’ she
asked unexpectedly at the end of the session.

‘Since when?’

‘Since the beginning.’

‘You have made good progress,’ he
said carefully.

She smiled. ‘Yes, I have, haven’t
I?’

He could not tell if she really
believed that, or if she was desperately persuading herself it was true.

‘When I next come to see you, I
will have something very special to tell you,’ Georgiana confided with a light
in her eye. Her smile now had a new quality – something he had not seen before.

As she prepared to leave he felt
concern for her. He reminded himself that her actions were not his
responsibility. Neither had he any reason – logical, theoretical or intuitive –
to believe she might be about to do herself harm.

But might she be capable of doing
harm to others? That was a question which had occasionally crossed his mind.
But never before, in anything but theory.

Georgiana had a light supper with
Alicia. There was a mousse of poached salmon, some slivers of lightly toasted
brown bread and a fresh fruit salad to follow.

She hinted to Alicia that tonight
she was planning to make some momentous changes, but would say no more than
that. Alicia had arched her eyebrows, speculative and approving.

When Alicia left her to go to the
theatre, Georgiana made her way to the Albert Hall to watch Xavier conduct the
New Year concert; a heady programme of Mozart, Sibelius, Ravel and Beethoven.
All very accessible, although the whole thing promised to be tediously long.

However she was entertained by
the innovative and dramatic lighting effects, and most especially the
dramatically highlighted Maestro. Seeing Xavier like this at a distance;
theatrically presented and magical, she could almost imagine that she lusted
after him. It was the reality of closeness that alarmed her and switched off
desire. Xavier was so powerful, his tongue like a steel rod, his long fingers
cruel batons, his thighs hard millstones to crush delicate flesh.

Revulsion ran through her veins,
coursing from head to toe.

And yet when she looked at him, a
towering figure of authority, so dark, so compelling, so aristocratic, she felt
a contrasting shiver of anticipation. Maybe it was the knowledge that other
women wanted him that thrilled her. He was known the world over; a sex object
for discerning and cultured women, a latter day god of Greek mythology.

Of course she wanted him, she
told herself. What had she been thinking of these past few years? She had
suffered some hormonal imbalance probably. That kind of thing could play havoc
with a woman’s sexuality. Even as she reasoned with herself she knew that her
feeble arguments were self-deluding lies and deceptions.

But she would not be deflected
from her purpose. There was more at stake here than the simple issue of sex - which
after all was surely no more than a distasteful inconvenience.  Losing Xavier
and all the trappings of her position as his wife were prizes she was simply
not going to relinquish.