allow himself to relax completely yet. He had brought in his shopping but he was still in his suit and would not be able to change until he brought in the rest of his stuff from the back of the car. He had, as usual, parked it quite a way up the street, which was more discreet but also much less convenient. Also, he reflected, fairly pointless, since Cecily’s neighbours must have seen him dozens of times using a key to let himself in. It was just as well she lived in Bath where nobody knew him. He could even go out in public with her here, not that they ever did much, a thing he would never have risked in Bristol. He would get his stuff in a minute. He would get started in the kitchen in a minute. He finished the dregs in his glass, lay back and closed his eyes. Just for a minute. But before the minute was up his mouth fell open, his hand relaxed, and the wineglass, tumbling gently off his stomach, landed softly beside him on the sofa.
THEY PLAYED the programme and followed it with two encores, a short Sicilienne by Maria Theresia von Paradis and the almost compulsory Swan by Saint-Saëns. Sara was taken aback by the length and warmth of the applause, which she knew to be both sincere and undeserved, and took her seat at dinner gratefully. James was placed on the other side of the table, and apart from an exchange of platform smiles at the end of the performance there had been no other communication between them. She guessed he would say she had been ‘fine’, and in some respects she had been: her fingering agile and virtuosic, bowing fluid and assured, phrasing intelligently musical and her tone sweetly powerful. The man on her left, attacking his tartlet of mushrooms with hollandaise sauce, was telling her so, while she managed to shake her head, nod, smile and eat without really listening. Her mind wandered back to the summer school at Tangle-wood in 1974 when she, a nervous wee ‘promising’ young cellist from Glasgow, aged thirteen, was giddily soaking up the experience of a master class with the legendary Piatigorsky, who had said: ‘What really matters is how you will use your art as a human being in a productive life. Everything hangs together. You cannot be a stupid person and a great player; you cannot be a mentally unhealthy person and produce something of value in our difficult profession.’
At least she was not a stupid person, she thought afterwards as she made her way across Kings Parade in the dark, although it was verging on the mentally unhealthy not to have waited for the rain to ease off. It was pouring, and as she dodged the puddles, laden with cello, bag with shoes and petticoat, and her velvet dress on a hanger in a zipped cover, she regretted not leaving even earlier. She was going to be soaked just getting to the car in Manvers Street. She had left James lugubriously nursing a bottle of claret. ‘
Oh,
come on, have another glass of wine. Life is a cabaret, old chum
,’ he’d said. It was only ten thirty and it was selfish of her, she knew, but she had had to flee from the prospect of a morose eulogy from James about Graham. Half an hour ago when Olivia had come over to her table to say good-bye it had been quite dry, so even though she was walking, lucky old Olivia would have missed the rain.
When she had reached Medlar Cottage, bolted through the rain to the house and changed into her bathrobe, she brought the velvet dress out of its bag and noticed at once that its broad silk belt was missing. She was sure she had not dropped it, and realised crossly that she would have to go back to the Pump Room for it in the morning. But she would treat this as an exercise in good grace; she would get up early, miss the worst of the traffic and turn the necessity of going into Bath on a Saturday in summer to advantage. James was coming to supper and she would go to the fish market and the Fine Cheese Company and get something special. She would make a little occasion of it as a way of thanking him
THEY PLAYED the programme and followed it with two encores, a short Sicilienne by Maria Theresia von Paradis and the almost compulsory Swan by Saint-Saëns. Sara was taken aback by the length and warmth of the applause, which she knew to be both sincere and undeserved, and took her seat at dinner gratefully. James was placed on the other side of the table, and apart from an exchange of platform smiles at the end of the performance there had been no other communication between them. She guessed he would say she had been ‘fine’, and in some respects she had been: her fingering agile and virtuosic, bowing fluid and assured, phrasing intelligently musical and her tone sweetly powerful. The man on her left, attacking his tartlet of mushrooms with hollandaise sauce, was telling her so, while she managed to shake her head, nod, smile and eat without really listening. Her mind wandered back to the summer school at Tangle-wood in 1974 when she, a nervous wee ‘promising’ young cellist from Glasgow, aged thirteen, was giddily soaking up the experience of a master class with the legendary Piatigorsky, who had said: ‘What really matters is how you will use your art as a human being in a productive life. Everything hangs together. You cannot be a stupid person and a great player; you cannot be a mentally unhealthy person and produce something of value in our difficult profession.’
At least she was not a stupid person, she thought afterwards as she made her way across Kings Parade in the dark, although it was verging on the mentally unhealthy not to have waited for the rain to ease off. It was pouring, and as she dodged the puddles, laden with cello, bag with shoes and petticoat, and her velvet dress on a hanger in a zipped cover, she regretted not leaving even earlier. She was going to be soaked just getting to the car in Manvers Street. She had left James lugubriously nursing a bottle of claret. ‘
Oh,
come on, have another glass of wine. Life is a cabaret, old chum
,’ he’d said. It was only ten thirty and it was selfish of her, she knew, but she had had to flee from the prospect of a morose eulogy from James about Graham. Half an hour ago when Olivia had come over to her table to say good-bye it had been quite dry, so even though she was walking, lucky old Olivia would have missed the rain.
When she had reached Medlar Cottage, bolted through the rain to the house and changed into her bathrobe, she brought the velvet dress out of its bag and noticed at once that its broad silk belt was missing. She was sure she had not dropped it, and realised crossly that she would have to go back to the Pump Room for it in the morning. But she would treat this as an exercise in good grace; she would get up early, miss the worst of the traffic and turn the necessity of going into Bath on a Saturday in summer to advantage. James was coming to supper and she would go to the fish market and the Fine Cheese Company and get something special. She would make a little occasion of it as a way of thanking him
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