Preludes, page 21
She took a sip. It was definitely time to hide behind a cup of something hot, even if only for a moment.
“Three years? That’s not just a whirlwind relationship. Then what happened, Anne? Have a piece of the caramel shortbread. It’s really good.”
“What happened was that Fred finished his doctorate in conducting and began to wonder what to do next. Then he got an invitation to study personally with Maestro Buscagni in Rome. Buscagni had seen him on a guest conductor stop in Toronto with the Philharmonic and was impressed. Fred was over the moon. The arrangement was that he would play in Buscagni’s orchestra, but also start to take on some conducting duties. Some rehearsals, some youth orchestra concerts, some regional orchestra gigs, all under Buscagni’s tutelage.”
Sophia laughed. “I have never heard anyone use the word tutelage in conversation. You’re one in a million, Anne. Carry on.” She leaned forward, elbows on the table, chin resting on her hands.
“Tutelage. There. I said it again. Anyway, it was clear that Fred would be going to Europe, and we thought I would join him. It seemed to make sense for us to get married. It would make all the official stuff around study visas and whatnot easier. And really, it just seemed so natural for both of us. I think we both wondered why we hadn’t done it before.”
“But why didn’t anyone tell me? It’s hardly the sort of thing you keep a secret. Is it?”
Anne shrugged. “We didn’t try to keep it secret, but for all everyone knew, we were already an established couple. Having documents to confirm it seemed, well, almost silly. It was just for legal purposes. And so we got married at city hall one day between my morning seminar and Fred’s afternoon rehearsal.
“But then Professor Russell found out about our plans. Or rather, about my plans. I was going to leave school to go with Fred. I thought it might just be for a year or two, but then it became clear Fred would be in Europe for a while. I knew I could finish my piece - that’s what became Preludes - anywhere, but Professor Russell had a fit. I had to stay. I had to finish my degree, and she wouldn’t hear of me going to Europe with Fred. I had to be in town to lead the workshops she insisted were integral to my progress. I had to meet the people she knew who would sit in on rehearsals to help me hone the piece. For every suggestion I had, she had five arguments. And, of course, she could get me the exposure I needed to really succeed. And perhaps she was right.
“The upshot was that I decided to remain in Toronto. Fred was not happy with this. Even when I explained that I could be finished in a year, that I would join him afterwards, it wasn’t enough. And so when he left Toronto, he left me too. That was the end for us. Coda. Curtain call. No encore.”
Unaccountably, tears had gathered in the corners of her eyes and she sniffled. Sophia was there in an instant with a paper serviette and then fished in her purse for a tissue. “You poor thing. What a rat…”
“No, Soph. Don’t make him the bad guy. He might have done better, and he might have broken my heart at it, but he was never the bad guy. He’s one of the best people I’ve ever known. He was hurt by my decision to stay, and he felt I was too much under Professor Russell’s thumb. But we were young and the world seemed impossibly large and our futures too far off to imagine. We couldn’t see how it would work. And we did both find success even though we went in different directions.”
More tea. And a bite of shortbread. It did help.
“How long were you married? How long before he left?”
She swallowed hard.
“Three weeks. We were married for all of three weeks. And then he left, and I never saw him again until he arrived here last spring.”
Over the following few weeks, Anne’s schedule was full. Her mornings were mostly taken up teaching and with her music, for she needed to have the score to Impressions completed soon. The first performance would not be until January, but the orchestra members would want some time to learn the music, and Fred planned more than the usual number of rehearsals for it because it was new to everybody and because he wanted it to be an outstanding performance. He had scheduled some dates before the Christmas break, and Anne had to meet that deadline.
She was also working on the piece she had promised Ben for his and Louisa’s wedding. This was easier, being both shorter and for only two instruments, but she still intended to give it every bit of the attention it deserved. There would be no second-rate piece dashed off in a hurry for her friend.
These intense days of work were punctuated by the occasional coffee with Jasmine, as her friend’s teaching schedule allowed, and with Sophia; her evenings were often claimed by her renewed babysitting obligations for her nephews. This latter she did not mind at all. She adored Marie’s boys and was delighted to spend time with them again, although she still felt the sting of Marie’s coolness over the summer and the mercenary change of her sister’s heart when she wanted a free babysitter once more.
The other claim on her time was William.
He was almost as busy as she, he explained, between travelling for his work and frequent evening meetings with clients and investors, but he tried to make plans at least once a week, when he was in town. And every time he called, Anne felt that strange sense of dissociation. Never had she felt so confused about a man. She liked him. She liked him a great deal. She enjoyed their evenings out together. She loved dressing up and going to nice restaurants or interesting plays, and then discussing things afterwards over coffee or drinks at some upscale bar. She loved the galleries and then exhibits, and even when she didn’t quite understand the intricacies of what he was talking about, she found his tales about his business deals absorbing.
But what, exactly, was there between them? Was this comfortable relationship just friendship? Or could it grow into something else? It hadn’t done so yet, and she wondered if it ever would. And what did William want? He hovered dotingly when he saw people he knew, and his kisses had progressed from a slight brush of the lips to something more intense, but not that much more. Was he moving slowly to see if she would respond with some ardour of her own? Or was it just another friendly gesture, more intimate perhaps than what she would expect from someone firmly in the “friend-zone,” but still more platonic than passionate?
She couldn’t help but remember that awful day of Dylan’s accident, when Fred had come home with her. There was nothing platonic about their kisses. She had long since rationalised the evening to herself. They were both overwrought with distress and anxiety over the little boy’s mishap. Emotions had been high, the need for reassurance great. They had taken comfort in each other when they were too upset to think straight. Or, at least, she had. She never had asked Fred about his reactions that day. And even after so long, Fred was familiar, something solid and reliable, a rock in the sea of turmoil that threatened to sweep her away. But that—what had happened between them—that had been passion.
With William, no matter how much she enjoyed his company, there was no passion.
And she did not know whether he wanted it that way or not.
Still, when he called asking if she wanted to make plans, she was always happy to accept.
It was now mid-November, and the air held strong hints of the winter to come. William called after lunch one blustery, rainy day, and talked for a moment about the change in weather from his last visit to the Caribbean for his development there, and how Anne’s voice helped him warm up again. Then, as always, he made his invitation. This time he suggested a play, an unusual production of one of Shakespeare’s serious plays in a bar downtown. Anne was no great fan of the histories, but the venue was enough to pique her interest.
William came to pick her up, as planned, but not in his car. “The roads are still too busy,” he explained, “and it’s a bar. If I have a drink or two, I shouldn’t drive. I’ve got a taxi waiting.” He was dressed casually, in dark jeans and a pale grey turtleneck sweater under a tweed blazer. Once more, he looked like he had stepped out of a magazine. Anne glanced down at her own outfit of fine corduroy trousers and a loose tunic sweater and hoped she was suitably dressed.
The bar was long and narrow, and with all the tables pushed to the very edges of the space forming two long rows of seats with the entire centre of the space clear for the actors, it was hard to know what it might look like on a normal night.
The establishment itself was open for business as usual, however, and after they selected their seats, William went to order some drinks. Anne liked a beer every now and then in the summer, but tonight she was more in the mood for a cider, which seemed to be on tap. She opened her program to read through the actors’ biographies and the company’s vision statement, and she was quite lost in the program when William returned.
He was not alone.
“Look who I ran into! Meet Abdulmalik and Danny.” He introduced a couple he knew from somewhere or another, and all the polite things were said. This happened often enough that Anne was starting to wonder how many people William knew. They hardly went anywhere anymore where he didn’t end up running into friends or acquaintances. All of them seemed to know about Anne, and all seemed quite thrilled to meet her.
This particular couple took the seats behind theirs for the performance, and they talked all through intermission as well. The play was well enough done, given the unusual setting, but all Anne could think about was that she was the one at a metaphorical centre stage, always the object of curiosity and speculation, an exhibit to be gaped at or a talisman to touch for good luck.
Still, if people got some strange pleasure out of shaking her hand and if they could amuse their friends with tales of you’ll never guess who I met the other day, who was she to spoil their fun? And so she smiled and chatted and tried to be as interesting and amusing as possible. And William, in turn, beamed at her as if she had hung the moon.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Presto
Over the next few weeks, Anne saw very little of Fred. His prior commitments as guest conductor for various orchestras around the world had to be met, and he was away more than he was at home. Anne followed his tour on his Twitter feed: Vienna, Edinburgh, New Delhi, Adelaide, Santiago, Austin… She hoped he was accumulating frequent flyer points. Such was the nature of his career, but she knew how exhausting the constant travelling must be.
While he was abroad, a series of guest conductors took the podium with the National Philharmonic. This had been part of the orchestra’s program long before Fred had been brought on board; this too, was part of the business. It was not part of Anne’s official duties to attend every concert, but tickets were made available to her and it was suggested that it would look good if she appeared every so often in the audience.
This was also the case for board members. They generally donated enough to the organisation to more than cover the price of tickets, and they, too, had access to a certain number throughout the year. William took advantage of these tickets, and often purchased others for his use. As often as not, he invited Anne to join him, and she always accepted with pleasure.
They made a handsome pair, she knew, arriving in style at the concert hall. William wore a tuxedo like it was created for him. His light hair and eyes were a perfect contrast to the stark black and white of his clothing, like the keys on a piano. White and black, silence and tumult, peace and chaos. Against this backdrop of extremes, Anne felt comfortable wearing a bit of colour. Sophia’s gentle haranguing had led her to buy a few more items that were not dark blue or black, and at times she would appear beside William in her green dress, or with a splash of red, or in the pale yellow gown that Soph had all but forced upon her. She had to admit, looking at herself in the mirror before leaving home in that frock one night, it was a good colour on her. Paired with delicate gold earrings and a dark gold shawl, the dress brought out fresh colour in her cheeks. She could even imagine that she looked quite pretty these days.
Of course, and not surprisingly, as often as they attended a concert, they met somebody William knew. A colleague, an old school friend, a client, a former business associate—so many seemed to be patrons of the arts and music lovers, and William poured on the charm from the moment he saw them. One evening they saw the Gaultiers, the couple she had met at that fine restaurant several weeks ago. Pierre started to talk to William about the venture he had just invested in. “You certainly convinced me,” he started, “and I decided to throw in a couple of hundred thousand…” At which point, Anne and Monique found something more to their interests to discuss until the men had finished talking business.
At another performance they saw Abdulmalik and Danny, from the strange Shakespeare production at the bar. Just as William so often ran into acquaintances when they went out on their own, so did he meet people at the orchestra concerts. “All part of the package,” he winked to Anne when she questioned him about the curious coincidence after one such evening.
“I run in the same circles as these people, and we have similar tastes and interests. It might seem a bit odd, I suppose, but it’s a bit of a small world, really.” And he had dropped the topic, asking her instead about her new piece.
It was now near the end of November, and Anne and William had been out once again, this time to hear a small band at an upscale pub. They met Abdulmalik and Danny once more, but now by arrangement. It had been Danny’s suggestion. He was a devotee of all genres of music and had seen the video of Anne improvising with the jazz band back in early September. He wondered, so William conveyed the message, if Anne was a great fan of jazz as well, and invited her and William to join him and his partner one evening. Anne agreed at once. She had liked the two men when she met them at the play, and was always happy to listen to new music.
This particular band was a quintet and their specialty was early jazz, reminiscent of the 1920s and ‘30s, all Great Gatsby and Speakeasies. They promised a varied program with new compositions based on the old favourite style, with some standards thrown in to keep the audience humming along. The group was made up of keyboard, drums, string bass, saxophone, and trumpet, with the trumpet player switching to vocals as the music called for it. Anne had heard this singer before. She had a rich sultry alto voice that would fill the cosy pub with melted caramel warmth, perfect for the music and the venue.
It was the first time since her outing with Jasmine and Connor that Anne had heard live jazz. Come to think of it, that particular evening had also been the first time in several years that she had gone to hear music at a bar. She recalled Fred enjoying several types of jazz, from big band to modern. Sometimes, after a long day studying some great symphony, after she had completed her own work for the day, Fred would close all the books and turn down the lights and just let some jazz flow through their tiny shared apartment.
What did he listen to now, she wondered. What sounds filled his space when he wasn’t preparing for his next concert? Did he go to the classics that he conducted? Did he still enjoy the change of genre, a break for the mind? Or did he find respite in silence, for his whole career involved sound? What he would think of an evening like this, just a small gathering of friends in a dark and comfortable venue, with good food and drink on the table and good music on the stage.
And then she chastised herself for thinking of Fred when she was here with William.
They found their table where Danny and Abdulmalik were already seated, ordered some rather classy appetisers, and chatted with the waitress briefly about the drinks on offer. It seemed too snazzy a space for beer, although Abdulmalik chose a stout from a local microbrewery. If the music was from the 1920s, shouldn’t the drinks be likewise? And that meant cocktails!
After some discussion, she settled on an Old Fashioned, with the intention of having a Sazerac later. She liked a good whisky, and these drinks seemed perfect both for the evening and for her tastes. William bypassed the cocktails entirely, ordering a single malt Scotch, and Danny selected a cognac.
They ended up in a delicious conversation about the history of different drinks and about everyone’s favourites, and Anne was almost disappointed when the band filtered into the stage to begin their set, so delighted was she with the company. She could well imagine becoming good friends with the couple they had come here to meet.
They shifted their chairs in preparation for the performance. The table was set up so that they could all see the stage just by turning their heads, but it would be easier on the neck to angle a bit towards the musicians. Danny snuggled up next to Abdulmalik and took his hand, sending his partner a smile that almost curled Anne’s toes.
Then, to her surprise, William pulled his chair right next to hers. He was just moving it to see the stage, wasn’t he? But as the lights dimmed a bit and the bass player tried a few notes on the large instrument she picked up from the stool, William snaked a hand around her shoulders and pulled her against his side. It wasn’t the first time he had made an obvious display of affection in public, but it was the most intimate. Until now, he had danced attendance on her but had kept to a strictly-PG code of behaviour, almost out of a Regency drawing room. Now he sat here in this busy bar with his arm draped behind her, cuddling her close. From the corner of her eye she saw Abdulmalik’s expression, a sort of “ah, yes, I thought so.” He should get together with Sophia to trade tips on how best to deliver the look. They were both experts, it seemed.
“Do you mind?” William’s voice tickled her ear. His lips were so close to her neck they almost touched her skin, but he kept that sliver of distance.
Did she mind? She wasn’t ready to fall into the man’s lap, but his embrace was nice, and he had been considerate enough to ask. She felt safe with him. Comfortable.
“Not at all.” She leaned a bit more into his side and relaxed into the feel of his arm on her shoulders, his hand against her arm, as the set began.
The group was very good. “They were a huge hit at last year’s Montreal Jazz Festival,” Danny explained when the quintet took a break. “Ab and I went for a few days and you could not get a seat to hear them unless you arrived ages early. Très populaire!”
