The Virtuoso by Sonia Orchard Read Free Book Online Page B

evening. I sat there rubbing the smooth skin of the mother-of-pearl cufflinks under my thumb (wearing them proudly as if they were a gift from Noël), watching him out of the corner of my eye, admiring his still profile, his attentive gaze, bothered that he was never tempted to glance back at me. I looked down at my father’s old suit, running my fingers along the sharp crease of the leg. I wondered if Noël had noticed its narrow tailoring and soft Italian weave, so similar to the one I’d seen him wearing at the National Gallery earlier in the year.
    I had been raised on Tosca —my father’s favourite of Puccini’s operas. We’d often sit around the gramophone in the evenings: my father leaning back in his armchair, his legs stretched out in front of the fire; and in the other armchair, my aunt staring down at her knitting, a perpetual dull clicking under the soaring cries of Floria Tosca. My fatherplayed me all the operas of Strauss, Verdi, Wagner and Rossini, yet I always thought Tosca’s aria—‘ Vissi d’Arte ’—that she sings before her lover, Caravadossi, is sent to face the firing squad, the saddest human sound I’d ever heard.
    But that night at Sadler’s Wells with Noël I sat fidgeting in my seat, unable to engage with this opera that now seemed to mock my infatuation with its rising melodrama, and thinking that if I forgot about Noël for one moment I might lose him. From the opening three ominous chords of Scarpia’s leitmotiv I remained conscious of every moment that passed, stayed in tune with every sigh Noël issued, each smile and nod, and eagerly waited for Tosca to hurl herself to her death.
    At the first interval Noël went to the bar while I waited in the foyer amongst the blushing ladies, furiously fanning themselves to douse les sentiments d’amour aroused by Tosca’s doomed passion.
    Noël stood a head above many in the crowd. I could see him sharing a joke with the barman and then turning to scan the room, his eyes flitting over the hats and hairnets. It was such a marvellous sight I was almost disappointed when his gaze met mine. As he walked towards me, men and women glanced and whispered—they clearly all knew who he was—and gently parted before him as if he were royalty. He seemed unaware, holding the champagne flutes high, grinning as if he was half expecting to spill one on a mink stole or down someone’s back.
    ‘So you’re at the Academy—are you with Professor Brainstorm?’ he asked, taking a sip.
    Noël had studied at the Academy years earlier, and I could only assume he was referring to his old teacher Harold Craxton, considered by many as the Academy’s top teacher, but almost equally famous for his extraordinary absentmindedness.
    ‘No, Anton Steiner.’ I couldn’t match his playful tone.
    ‘Oh, that’s right—so you are. Have you met his wife? Excellent pianist, but makes this dreadful noise when she plays, as though she’s got a bombinating bee trapped in her mouth.’
    ‘I might have met her once.’ I smiled and shrugged, not entirely comfortable with Noël’s ridiculing of Edith Steiner, a dear old lady who always pulled me aside whenever we met to tell me how highly her husband regarded my playing.
    ‘I once heard her accompany a violinist playing a Brahms sonata. The buzzing was so loud I could hardly contain myself. And poor Eleanor, the American lass sitting next to me, she was in such a state she almost swallowed her hanky!’
    I kept smiling throughout, despite my embarrassment for poor Edith.
    ‘Lovely chap, Steiner. “Funf”, we used to call him. You remember Funf? The German spy?’
    ‘Can I do you now, sir?’ I asked in my best Mrs Mopp, the charwoman’s voice, despite thinking little of the wartime comedy programme to which Noël referred, always having preferred the classical music shows.
    Noël laughed loudly then dipped his head and crooned Colonel Chinstrap’s catchphrase, ‘Don’t mind if I do.’
    I hoped the conversation