The Maestro's Mistress (19 page)

And now he was almost obsessed
with the notion of his lover and his child. He loved his Tara. He adored her.
He wanted to make her vitally and endlessly happy – and he knew that he had the
vision and the means to achieve that. The idea of the child held him in a grip
of fevered anticipation that governed his thoughts and feelings in a way he had
not experienced before. He longed for the day when he would see the child in
reality, hold it supported in his arms and feel the breath of its life against
his skin.

In the meantime he was indulging
his darling Tara in a barrage of adoration – and music.

It had delighted him to discover
that Tara was a true lover of music. She was not just a sensitive and competent
player who used music as a vehicle for her talent. She studied scores with
intense concentration in a bid to penetrate to the warm beating heart of a
piece, trying to imagine what the composer had felt when creating it. She
untangled skeins of feeling, sensed and strove to express every flickering
change of mood that had passed the composer’s mind as they wrote. Both her
intellect and her emotions were fully engaged.

Saul had spent a good deal of
thought in the planning and engineering of regular gatherings of musical
artists who would stimulate Tara’s interest and augment her confidence. These
were lively occasions, filled with laughter and musical gossip, accompanied by
a variety of excellent cold suppers prepared by Mrs Lockwood. The champagne
would be plentiful.

And then the music would start.
Violins, oboes, clarinets would be taken from their cases. There would be
lively discussions on the pieces these gifted players might favour with their
skills. It was all tremendous fun – and yet ferociously serious.

Saul would sometimes participate,
playing supporting piano parts, offering dry observations, pinpricks of jesting
criticism. But usually he chose to remain in the background, a silent assessing
figure, revelling in the pleasure he was offering his young lover through the
chance to play the violin which had once been her father’s in the company of
some of the most talented instrumentalists in the world.

And after the parties came to an
end and the house was still and silent, he would request her to take up her
violin once more – just for him.

‘So – are you good enough yet?’
Saul asked her as they stood together at the front door in the early hours of a
dewy morning, supervising the departure of their guests. A procession of cars
weaved down the driveway, their red tail lights gleaming against a sky already
tinged with the apricot gleam of dawn.

‘Good enough?’ She looked up at
him.

‘Don’t you remember?’ he asked
evenly. ‘At your father’s funeral how you got in a terrible rage with Rachel,
shouting about not being “good enough”. I’ve often wondered what you meant.
Because, you know, you are becoming a rather good player.’

‘Am I? Truly?’

‘I always suspected that dear
Monica would have to eat her words.’

Not being good enough, Tara
thought. That old recurring theme which had pulled her down, killed motivation.
What had it meant, what had lain behind it? She frowned, her thoughts active. A
spark of insight flashed across the surface of her mind. She grasped at it, but
it was instantly gone.

‘I was always raging about
something or other when I was a kid,’ she said. ‘Poor Mummy and Daddy.’

‘Yes, your poor mother,’ he
agreed. ‘You were an e
nfant
truly
terrible
,’ he informed her.

‘Ouch! Well now I’m grown up.
OK?’

He smiled. ‘Would you like to
play for me? A little nightcap?’

‘I feel too nervous.’

‘How so?’

‘Because you said I was good. I
might not live up to it. Did you really mean it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Soloist quality?’

‘Possibly.’

‘Ugh. Down to earth with a bump.’

‘Wait until this bump is out in
the open,’ he said, glancing at the growing swell of her body. ‘And then we’ll
see what the possibilities are.’

She stretched up and kissed him
hard on the mouth. ‘Thank you for being honest with me. Thank you for not
flattering me into thinking I’m something I’m not.’

He was immensely touched. ‘There
will be a great future for you in music, I’m sure of it. Just be patient.’ But
maybe not as a solo violinist, he thought privately. Maybe musical journalism,
criticism. She had a good ear and a sharp witty tongue.

She poured him a whisky. They sat
together on the sofa. She slid her hand into his. ‘What would you say if you
thought we were going to have two babies?’ she said in matter of fact tones.
Inside she was tensing. There was always that tingle of apprehension about Saul’s
reactions to significant news. A glitter of sparkling anxiety.

He turned his head slowly.

She nodded, confirming her
statement, parting her lips. His hand slowly tightened on hers. A smile stole
onto his face. The thought of pleasing him like this made her insides warm and
liquid with desire.

‘Say something,’ she demanded.

‘Are there increased risks?’

‘Yes.’

‘For you? For the babies?’

‘A little. For me, for all of us.
It’s nothing to worry about.’

‘I shall worry,’ he said quietly.
‘Until the three of you are safe.

She heard the rasp of his
breathing. She took his hand and placed it on her belly, over the two tiny
beating hearts. She shared none of his fears. She had not yet thought of
herself, or any part of her biology, as mortal.

In bed later she lay in his arms.
At peace and entirely contented. ‘Saul,’ she said, suddenly remembering, ‘is
your wife an elegant gazelle with long blonde hair?’

His body froze. ‘That’s a fair
description. Why?’

‘I think I saw her the other day
when I was driving out through the gates.’

In fact Tara had seen the
Mercedes most days in recent weeks. Always in the late afternoon when Xavier
was never at home. Always parked just out of sight of the house. But Tara could
see it clearly from the window in the roof space.

‘What was she doing?’ he asked,
his voice tight.

‘Just driving past slowly,
looking in. I’m sure I’d have done the same in her shoes.’

‘Is it a problem?’

‘No. You could invite her here,
you know. I wouldn’t mind.’

‘Unthinkable. And she would mind
very much.’

Tara had the impression there was
nothing more to be said on the matter. She sighed, turned over and was almost
instantly asleep.

Looking back later she supposed
she had been very naïve.

The next day, Xavier telephoned
Dr Denton and expressed concern about Georgiana’s condition. Dr Denton was
courteous and sympathetic. He was not, however, prepared to be bullied by a man
clearly used to having all his own way. He answered each question, careful to
maintain a proper professional reticence. He made it plain to the icily furious
husband that there was to be no discussion on the revelations offered by his
wife in the therapy sessions. Such information was entirely private between a
patient and her therapist, as Mr Xavier would, of course, appreciate.

Dr Denton declared himself
generally pleased with Mrs Xavier’s progress. It was quite natural that a woman
should want to take a drive past one of her former homes, from which she had
been virtually barred.

Xavier felt nothing but contempt
for the man’s bland reasonableness. He listened for a while, then softly
replaced the receiver, cutting the doctor off in mid sentence.

Soon afterwards Xavier telephoned
Georgiana, intending to speak very kindly and gently, whilst spelling things
out to leave her in no doubt. But there was no reply from the number. Neither
was she with Alicia, who reassured him that Georgiana was fine and coping
surprisingly well with the separation.

In the afternoon Tara saw the
blue Mercedes draw up opposite the gates just after four-thirty. She watched it
for ten minutes or so. Her natural warmth and sympathy were aroused. She put
her own feelings on one side and tried to step inside the mind of a rejected
wife.

Suddenly passive reflections were
not enough. She must act, do something positive. Aware that Xavier would
probably have restrained her by force, had he been here to guess at her
intentions, she slipped out of the front door and started the long walk down
the drive.

She was nervous. Her heart
drummed in jagged rhythm. It was the courage of youth which spurred her on, a
belief in her capacity to heal rifts and make the world a better place. She
walked out through the gates, crossed the road and bent down to the driver’s
window.

The woman turned her face up. Her
eyes were brilliant and startling. The sky-blue irises contrasted sharply with
the whites – as smooth and unblemished as the flesh beneath the shell of a
newly boiled egg.

She is simply beautiful thought
Tara experiencing a bolt of shock. And those thick dark lashes, so dramatic
against the magnolia pale skin and the swing of blonde hair.

‘I am Georgiana,’ the woman
announced.

‘Yes, I guessed. I’m Tara.’

There was a long silence.

Tara licked around her lips. Her
mind darted and bucked like an alarmed animal.
I’m sorry I’ve stolen your
husband, Georgiana. I’m so sorry. But I’d do it all over again if the choice
were there.

Oh God!

‘Would you like to come in?’ she
said to Georgiana. ‘Mrs Lockwood is just making some tea.’

Georgiana gripped the steering
wheel, staring straight ahead through the windscreen.

Tara guessed it would be no more
than a moment before Georgiana would simply activate the engine and drive away.
She guessed that was what she would have done, given the same choice.

It was with some astonishment
that she watched Georgiana Xavier open the door of the car and swing two
beautiful long and slender legs over the sill.

In the July of that year, only
days after Rachel and Donald were married, Tara gave birth to twins. The little
boy, Saul  Richard, died at the age of thirty-six hours.

PART TWO - A YEAR LATER

CHAPTER
16

The Violin Concerto of Edward
Elgar is one of the greatest and best loved works in the repertoire; a mighty
piece lasting almost an hour, full of technical subtleties and complex
emotions.

Tara had been practising it
relentlessly in the last few weeks, fitting in her playing schedule around the
demands of baby Alessandra, and the rediscovering of the delights of lovemaking
with Saul. Following the birth of the twins she had been advised to wait for
some weeks before resuming what the doctor called marital relations. She had hungered
for him, and he had not disappointed her.

Her twentieth birthday was
rapidly approaching and Saul had master-minded a spectacularly imaginative and
wonderful gift to mark the occasion. On that day the Tudor Philharmonic was to
give a huge charity concert. The proceeds were to be given to the Great Ormond
Street hospital where their son had been given exceptional care throughout the
hours of his short life.

He had put the suggestion to the
orchestra’s managing board that they might consider inviting the mother of the
child whose memory had sparked off the project to be their soloist. There had
been whole-hearted approval.

Tara had been amazed when Saul
told her, had stared at him with incredulous delight and pure terror.

‘You can do it,’ he told her
softly, pulling her to him and breathing kisses into the skin of her neck.

‘You’ll be there on the podium?’
she asked, part mocking, part racked with genuine anxiety. ‘You won’t leave me
to the mercy of some rogue guest conductor?’

He chuckled. ‘I shall be there.
So you’d better deliver the performance of a lifetime my sweet, otherwise
you’ll be dead meat.’ She tingled – how his menaces turned her on.

Tara watched him later on playing
with their baby daughter; teasing, cajoling, directing, teaching. Alessandra
adored him. Her huge shining eyes followed him around, tracking his every move,
transparent worship on her features.

Tara tuned in exactly to that
feeling.  She herself was still hopelessly in love with him, totally in thrall,
utterly bound. He was always near to her, in her blood and in her eyes, waking,
sleeping and dreaming. The rest of the world seemed to have fallen back into
the distance, the people in it existing in a shadow out of the circle of his
light.

Occasionally she sensed that she
was in the grip of some kind of disease, laid low in its attack, helpless to do
anything to counteract it and ignorant of the appropriate anecdote.

She loved his masterfulness, the
cutting edge of his opinions, his utter belief in himself. And yet she was not
blind to his faults: stern intransigence and ruthless dominance. She waged a
constant teasing battle with him in order not to be utterly subjugated to his
will. It was hard work, but wildly exciting and all in all she judged that she
was managing to keep her head above water.