Read Online The Concert Pianist by Conrad Williams - Free Book Online Page A

Christ’s sake: his only sane client! For Philip to cancel in these circumstances would be absolute bollocks.
    So Philip had been thwarted and was now boxed into this false meeting, his frame of mind decaying, his social skills on holiday. Bulmanion’s spectacular residence made it worse. Every grand room and chandeliered corridor and gilt-framed mirror breathed expectation, privileged opportunity. And Bulmanion had sought him out. ‘Ex-City, hedge fund, or some bullshit,’ said John. ‘Cleaned up merrily, now worth a ton and is crazy about music. He’s a veritable Medici, gets whole symphony orchestras to play in his country seat, sponsors the South Bank, lays on grants and scholarships, and now runs his own record label, specialising in guess what? Pianists! He’s a great flapping angel for the music biz, and I’ve been stalking him like a puma.’ John rubbed his hands. ‘Business warlord turned Renaissance man. Don’t be put off by his face.’ Bulmanion’s first record label was launched in the nineties. Endymion, he would say, was ‘a learning curve, not about money - you lose money in classical - but values’. He was gearing up for a new venture, with a clearer philosophy, and seeking new artists. Colossally well informed about pianists in particular, he was keen to meet Philip. He thought Philip outstanding and under-recorded and envisaged a long-term arrangement of the greatest flexibility. Philip had resisted such commitments in the past, somewhat to his detriment, and John was determined that he grab the chance. ‘You’ll find him civilised and persuasive if you don’t look too closely at his face.’
    â€˜I don’t like business warlords.’
    â€˜You’ll love Frank. He’s your number-one fan.’
    John was convinced, if they met, that Frank’s knowledgeable enthusiasm would overwhelm Philip. Philip’s misgivings had meanwhile turned to rank antipathy.
    â€˜Can we cancel the meeting?’ he had pleaded on the phone that morning.
    â€˜If you cancel the meeting, I’ll slit my throat and bleed to death and leave a suicide note blaming you.’
    â€˜I’m not signing anything.’
    â€˜Just come!’
    He sat in his seat, staring hard at the wall. They were waiting for Bulmanion the three of them, waiting for the lord and master to arrive and shower them with the gold dust of patronage. He could get up and go, just scramble, but John’s mumblings to Ursula paralysed him somehow.
    His agent brimmed with health and dynamism and sheer love of the job. His brilliant blue eyes glittered for Ursula. He listened in animation to some piece of office news and used the thrust of his dimpled jaw to affirm what she said. Because John was always scuttling back and forth - Milan, London, New York - to find him physically incarnated in any one place was almost uncanny. John did not have time to be in one place. John’s time was so preciously and infinitely divided between the demands of his clients and the web of his activities that he had virtually ceased to exist in human form. He was ubiquitously absent and dynamically omnipresent. In some ways he was too switched on for ordinary social consumption, rushing through the day like a super-charged tennis pro, stretching, running, smashing hard. He had used cocaine in the past to good effect and would deploy it in the future. Ursula he clearly adored. A fabulous acquisition for the agency. With her full bosom and his dimple jaw what promoter could resist them? What artist could resist them? Young pianists would be smitten at a glance.
    Philip gazed at Ursula and wondered what was in it for her. She had been catapulted into a milieu of the super-talented and frequently famous, but was it enough to be mere decorous scene-setting for those after-concert parties, an agency fillip for the brand-name clients? It was hard to believe the hand-holding and neurosis