Read Online The Virtuoso by Sonia Orchard - Free Book Online
Authors: Sonia Orchard
Tags: Fiction
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fitting.
The beginning of our affair was the happiest time in my life. Noël and I saw each other most weeks; we’d go on walks through Hampstead Heath, or to the ballet or a recital, and chatted about everything from French clocks to John Ireland’s chamber music. Noël constantly drew my attention to places and people we passed in the street, telling stories that painted an entirely new world from the one in which I’d been living.
Once, when walking along Ebury Street in Chelsea, Noël pointed to a house where, in 1764, Mozart’s sick father forbade his eight-year-old from practising, so Mozart, instead, composed his first two symphonies. Then another time, when walking past St Mary’s Hospital, where Alexander Fleming had discovered penicillin, Noël remarked, ‘Isn’t it magnificent that such seemingly inconsequential events—a microscopic spore drifting in through a window—can change the lives of thousands of people, can change the course of history?’ I agreed, saying what a wonderful word was serendipity , delighted that in our discussion we had touched upon the topic of which I felt we both were thinking: ourfateful birthday meeting in Hammersmith only six weeks earlier.
During our conversations I would often think of his cousin, Walter Turner, and the world that he saw, crowded with a thousand beauties. I’d see Noël staring up at an elm tree or a swallow’s nest under a bridge; I’d look up and see only a tree, only a nest, yet he’d be standing there captivated by the sight. I watched his face switch from curiosity to exhilaration during our discussions of Sibelius, Offenbach or Blake; sometimes he’d even stop still on the footpath as I spoke, looking at me, his mouth twitching, his jaw clenching momentarily, and an expression of what I took—uncomfortably at first—to be affection, or admiration, would come over him as he teased me with his gaze. I’d be as self-conscious as if I had the eyes of the entire Albert Hall upon me, yet at the same time feel we were the only two people in the world.
It is the occasions when he visited me at home, however, when we would sit at my table with pots of tea and scores spread out in front of us, that I find myself thinking about the most. There was nothing more deliciously torturous than those long wintry afternoons in which we discussed the pieces we were working on, knowing that hours later we’d be grappling with each other’s belts and buttons as we stumbled towards the bed.
In grey flannels and sports jacket he’d lean back in the chair, twiddling a pencil in his fingers and chatting away, his chin pressed against his chest, blinking alltoo frequently, and for a moment seeming quite timid. Then an idea would come to him in a flash, and he would lunge forward, face animated, and his hands open in front of him as if he were actually presenting some miraculous concept to me. Often I’d even forget to listen to his words; I’d just sit and watch him, his mind leaping about, his fingers drumming on the tabletop, his glimmering eyes and slender wrists.
Other times we’d be engrossed in conversation for hours, discussing the technical aspects of a single composition. ‘How do you finger that phrase there?’ I would ask, and without a pause he could tell me his fingering for any passage in any piece of music, and demonstrate to me by playing it slowly on the table. Often he would take my wrist, lightly tracing the tendons in my hand with his fingertips and remark, ‘But your hand is different, you see—you must play the A flat with the fourth not the third.’ He would lead me by the hand to the piano, and as I played he’d gently support my wrist with his third finger, rolling it up and down, left and right, guiding me through the most treacherous passages.
I once asked if he could help me with the cadenza from Tchaikovsky’s Concert-fantasia. He sat me down and didn’t even ask which part I was having problems with, he just told me to
The beginning of our affair was the happiest time in my life. Noël and I saw each other most weeks; we’d go on walks through Hampstead Heath, or to the ballet or a recital, and chatted about everything from French clocks to John Ireland’s chamber music. Noël constantly drew my attention to places and people we passed in the street, telling stories that painted an entirely new world from the one in which I’d been living.
Once, when walking along Ebury Street in Chelsea, Noël pointed to a house where, in 1764, Mozart’s sick father forbade his eight-year-old from practising, so Mozart, instead, composed his first two symphonies. Then another time, when walking past St Mary’s Hospital, where Alexander Fleming had discovered penicillin, Noël remarked, ‘Isn’t it magnificent that such seemingly inconsequential events—a microscopic spore drifting in through a window—can change the lives of thousands of people, can change the course of history?’ I agreed, saying what a wonderful word was serendipity , delighted that in our discussion we had touched upon the topic of which I felt we both were thinking: ourfateful birthday meeting in Hammersmith only six weeks earlier.
During our conversations I would often think of his cousin, Walter Turner, and the world that he saw, crowded with a thousand beauties. I’d see Noël staring up at an elm tree or a swallow’s nest under a bridge; I’d look up and see only a tree, only a nest, yet he’d be standing there captivated by the sight. I watched his face switch from curiosity to exhilaration during our discussions of Sibelius, Offenbach or Blake; sometimes he’d even stop still on the footpath as I spoke, looking at me, his mouth twitching, his jaw clenching momentarily, and an expression of what I took—uncomfortably at first—to be affection, or admiration, would come over him as he teased me with his gaze. I’d be as self-conscious as if I had the eyes of the entire Albert Hall upon me, yet at the same time feel we were the only two people in the world.
It is the occasions when he visited me at home, however, when we would sit at my table with pots of tea and scores spread out in front of us, that I find myself thinking about the most. There was nothing more deliciously torturous than those long wintry afternoons in which we discussed the pieces we were working on, knowing that hours later we’d be grappling with each other’s belts and buttons as we stumbled towards the bed.
In grey flannels and sports jacket he’d lean back in the chair, twiddling a pencil in his fingers and chatting away, his chin pressed against his chest, blinking alltoo frequently, and for a moment seeming quite timid. Then an idea would come to him in a flash, and he would lunge forward, face animated, and his hands open in front of him as if he were actually presenting some miraculous concept to me. Often I’d even forget to listen to his words; I’d just sit and watch him, his mind leaping about, his fingers drumming on the tabletop, his glimmering eyes and slender wrists.
Other times we’d be engrossed in conversation for hours, discussing the technical aspects of a single composition. ‘How do you finger that phrase there?’ I would ask, and without a pause he could tell me his fingering for any passage in any piece of music, and demonstrate to me by playing it slowly on the table. Often he would take my wrist, lightly tracing the tendons in my hand with his fingertips and remark, ‘But your hand is different, you see—you must play the A flat with the fourth not the third.’ He would lead me by the hand to the piano, and as I played he’d gently support my wrist with his third finger, rolling it up and down, left and right, guiding me through the most treacherous passages.
I once asked if he could help me with the cadenza from Tchaikovsky’s Concert-fantasia. He sat me down and didn’t even ask which part I was having problems with, he just told me to
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