‘Abby should have brought the wind up,’ she kept saying.

Marcus took five curtain calls and was just collapsing thankfully in his dressing-room when Noriko banged on the door.

‘Quick, quick, quick, Mr Brack,’ she cried enthusiastically, ‘come and pray again, the pubric are still crapping.’

Marcus was still laughing when he reached the middle of the stage and shook hands with a beaming Julian yet again.

‘You’ll have to give them an encore.’

‘But I haven’t practised anything.’

It would have seemed so presumptuous.

‘Just busk it,’ shouted Bill Thackery.

For a second, Marcus gazed at the ecstatic pink faces, their clapping hands growing pinker by the minute, luxuriating in the sound like waves rolling down the shingle. Then he sat down and played Schumann’s Dreaming, which had everyone in floods and elicited even louder roars of applause.

Meanwhile George had had a wearying two days justifying his volte-face over Abby’s contract to various enraged members of the board including Miles, Mrs Parker, Canon Airlie, not to mention Gwynneth and Gilbert. Aware he would receive even more flak after tonight’s near débâcle he went grimly into the conductor’s room to find Flora yelling at a sobbing Abby.

‘You’re just jealous because he’s got more talent than you, that’s what, and you can’t bear anyone to get ahead. After all Marcus has done for you. All that transcribing and simplifying and explaining those bloody great scores. Think of the times he’s lugged your clothes to the cleaners and cooked and cleaned up after you and fed your cats and polished your shoes and let you pinch his jerseys.’

‘You pinch his jerseys,’ wailed Abby,

‘I’ve known him longer, I’m allowed to. You wouldn’t have got a second foot on the rostrum without him, you stupid bitch, and you’re so fucking vain you had to jeopardize his big break conducting without a score.’

‘I know, I know.’

Alarmed he might not have a second half, George told Flora to pack it in and Abby to wash her face and pull herself together.

He then dragged Flora outside.

‘Nice to see someone else getting it in the neck,’ he said drily. ‘And that’s the “stupid bitch” you’re so determined to save.’

Flora blushed, then hastily changed the subject. ‘Didn’t Marcus play brilliantly?’

‘He had absolutely no choice,’ said George bleakly.

Somehow Abby managed to limp through Schubert’s Fourth Symphony.

Then, speaking to no-one, cutting the sponsor’s reception again, she hurtled home to a deserted Woodbine Cottage.

Flora had gone out boozing with Cherub, Noriko and Davie Buckle. Marcus had been swept out to dinner by George, Miles and a manic Helen.

FORTY-SEVEN


Sitting next to Marcus at dinner, George fired off endless questions about Abby’s, Flora’s and Marcus’s plans for the future, then insisted that his chauffeur, known as Harve the Heavy, took him back to Woodbine Cottage.

‘You’re not driving with all that drink inside you. It’s not as if we’ve had to fork out for your room at the Old Bell.’ Then, affectionately ruffling Marcus’s hair, said, ‘You did bluddy well, lad, we’d have been right in it if you hadn’t come to Abby’s rescue.’

Marcus fought an insane drunken urge to collapse into George’s arms. He was so strong and solid and he had the same brusque gentleness, the almost patriarchal kindness that Marcus missed so much since Malise’s death. He couldn’t imagine why Flora and, until recently Abby, kept slagging him off.

Perhaps George was in love with Helen, Marcus thought wistfully. From Jake Lovell onwards, men had been particularly kind to him for just that reason. Marcus hoped not. George had promised to look at the RSO calendar and try and find him another date.

Slumped happily in the front of the Rolls, Marcus gabbled most uncharacteristically to Harve that Piggy Parker had booked him for a soirée in June, playing tunes like ‘After Henry’ and ‘Lady be Good’. Marcus beat them out on the dashboard until Harve started singing along.

‘And Gwendolyn Chisledon wanted to know where Mr Hungerford was going to build his ghastly multiplex,’ went on Marcus. ‘When she heard it was on Cowslip Hill, she heaved a sigh of relief. “Oh, that’s all right, I thought it was our side of Rutminster.”’

Harve grinned.

‘And Howie Denston rang me on George’s mobile in the middle of dinner and wants me to get into bed with him.’ Marcus giggled. ‘I do hope he means financially not sexually.’

‘Either way, if I may say so,’ said Harve, in his gravedigger’s drawl, ‘you’re going to be screwed.’

It was a beautiful clear night. Although the great beeches along the lake glittered with frost, the moonlight was bright enough to pick out the first pale primroses nestling in their roots.

Singing and laughter was coming from The Bordello; Marcus wished he could have dropped in. One of his best moments of the concerto had been Viking’s little horn solo in the middle movement; he’d just liked to have talked the concerto through with someone.

As he stumbled out of the car, Orion, his favourite constellation, was free falling into the poplar copse at the top of the wild-flower meadow. Mars, a gold butterfly, was being chased by Leo the Lion. The outside lamp was still on, transforming the leafless clematis over the front door into a scrunch-dried blond; but the cottage was in darkness.

‘Thank you so much,’ said Marcus.

‘Pleasure sir, I am not a great lover of classical music but may I trouble you for your autograph. One day it will be something to show my grandchildren.’

‘Dum di-di dum di-di dum dum,’ sang Marcus.

His shadow was squat and black at his heels, reminiscent of one of Malise’s labradors. Had his stepfather from beyond the grave sent the dog to guard him on such a special evening?

Only after several fumbling attempts did he realize the door wasn’t locked.

‘I did it, I fucking did it.’ As he punched the air he nearly fell over Abby’s music case in the hall. Then he heard the sound of desperate sobbing and stumbled upstairs where, watched by two worried cats, Abby lay slumped on her four-poster. She was dressed in jeans and Marcus’s old black sweater with two holes in the elbows. She was utterly distraught to have let him down.

‘Flora’s right — I have always taken you for granted. I haven’t cleaned a pair of shoes since I moved in.’

‘But I l-like looking after you.’

Collapsing on the patchwork counterpane, he found himself stroking her hair, drenched with tears rather than sweat now, as thick and coarse as a pony’s mane. Outside he could see the lake gleaming silver and mysterious. Trailing his hand downwards, he patted her shuddering shoulders, which were hard and muscular from so many hours conducting. Her long legs reached to the bottom of the bed. She hadn’t bothered to shower after the concert and smelled disturbingly of dried sweat and Amarige. From their moonlit reflection in the long mirror opposite, they could have been two boys. Marcus took her in his arms.

‘Oh Christ, Abby, I’ve always loved you. From the moment you came loping up to the stage at the Academy.’

Her mouth tasted acid from fear, but as he kissed her he thought she would suck the tongue out of his mouth and was amazed by the leaping wolf-like passion of her response.

Apart from an ill-fated scuffle on the lawn with Boris she had been celibate since the trauma of Christopher three years ago. She had Marcus’s clothes off him in a trice, ripping off several shirt buttons, nearly garrotting him with his tie and jamming his zip in the process. Like quick silver she was all over him, blowing in his ears, running her fingers through his hair, nuzzling his neck. Then she moved downwards, slowly kissing each bumpy rib, burying her face in his taut belly, exclaiming in wonder at the greyhound grace of his body.

There was only one drawback. Marcus couldn’t get it up. Even when his cock was sucked into the warm dark wet cavern of Abby’s throat, it remained as soft and as innocent as a lamb’s tail.

Marcus was even more contrite than Abby had been about the Rachmaninov. Abby, however, was surprisingly understanding.