Funeral Music by Morag Joss Read Free Book Online Page A

meant that James was often on his own.
    Here he was now, coming through from the Pump Room calling, ‘Och, it’s yourself! All right now?’ in his best Tannochbrae and planting a kiss on her cheek. He went off in search of drinks while she went to change in the small office which served as a dressing room. She dressed quickly, stepping into her wonderful Manolo Blahnik shoes, just low-heeled enough to allow her to play without getting in the way, and climbing into the stiff petticoat which gave the blue-black velvet dress such a supple and extravagant swing. It was by now second nature to her to choose her concert dresses with a view to how they looked when she was sitting down, and this was a good one. It was almost demure at the front, cut high from shoulder to shoulder just below her collar bones. The waist was small and belted tightly with a broad band of brilliant blue silk, and the almost circular ankle-length skirt sank softly in folds to the floor when she sat down to play. At the back it was cut in a deep V almost to the waist, exposing most of her polished back. She fixed her face in a hand mirror under the atrocious light of the office. She could look the part, anyway. James called, ‘Ye decent?’ from the doorway and came in.
    ‘You look very nice. Still working at the rowing machine, I see,’ he said, watching with a glass of mineral water in each hand as she brushed and twisted her dark, ridiculously shiny hair up underneath a large diamanté and velvet clasp.
    ‘Aye, it’s not a bad wee frock, this,’ she replied, pouting theatrically and dredging up for his benefit the never-forgotten vowels instilled in her at Glasgow Academy. ‘
You
look gorgeous. That new?’
    ‘Oh,
this
?’ James said mischievously, fingering the printed velvet waistcoat that he was wearing with a creamy white dinner jacket and dark blue bow tie. ‘Georgina von Etzdorf. Present from Tom, actually. Och, no, I’ve had it
weeks
.’
    Sara shifted her pile of clothes off the chair in the cramped office and brought her cello out of its case. Pulling the end-pin out of the base, she rested it on the floor and then sat down and drew the familiar warm wood of the shaft against her shoulder. She tapped on the strings lightly with the fingers of her left hand, moved the folds of her dress out of the way as she planted her feet and pulled the body of the cello between her knees. She tightened up the bow and with her head slightly tilted, tuned up. She shifted in her chair, blew lightly on the fingers of her left hand and played several scales, apparently without effort, repeating one or two difficult shifts for the left hand. She played them again very softly, then again with a rich sonorous vibrato which the small room could barely contain. Sara’s instrument was the Christiani, a glorious Stradivari cello made in 1700, just as he was entering his Golden Period. Its celebrated owner, Lisa Christiani, had died in 1853 at the age of twenty-six, but in her short career had so captured Mendelssohn that he had dedicated to her the beautiful Song Without Words, which was the first piece Sara was to play. Then she practised some broken chords, first smoothly and then staccato, allowing her bow to bounce regularly and lightly on the strings. She stopped, adjusted the tuning and sat in repose for a few seconds. Then she lifted the bow and played the opening bars of the Mendelssohn. Then she played twice through the fiendish scale passages of fast demi-semiquavers of Bruch’s Kol Nidrei. She paused, closed her eyes, and began the Schumann Three Fantasy Pieces Opus 73, the middle piece of their programme.
    James saw that she was in danger of doing too much and tensing up. He nodded and smiled. ‘That’s good. Why not leave it to settle now? You’ll be fine.’
    She smiled without looking at him. She rose and placed the cello carefully back in its case. Then, taking their glasses, they went back out to the lobby and descended the stairs which