Preludes, page 4
He introduced her to the people around him. Caroline was a cellist, a pretty young woman in her mid-twenties, with long dark hair pulled back into a ponytail. Then there was Viktor, who played the bassoon, tall and lank like his instrument, and Louisa, the French horn player. Anne had taken note of Louisa at the previous rehearsal because she had written an extended horn solo into the second movement and had been pleased at how Louisa had executed the difficult part. She was short and spunky looking, with huge earrings dangling from her earlobes and bright blue hair cut into a spiky pixie style.
The musicians all raved about the first part of the symphony, which they had played those long weeks ago, and expressed their excitement at reading through the rest of it at this rehearsal. They were friendly and enthusiastic and responded to Anne’s relaxed grin with their own.
They chatted for a moment about timbre and cadences and the trouble humidity played on different instruments. This was her world; these were her people. She was content.
A ruffle of movement at the periphery of her vision caught her attention. It was Jean-Michel Tremblay, the interim conductor, making his way down the aisle.
“Excuse me, everyone,” she nodded to her new acquaintances. “I need to check a couple of things with the maestro, but hopefully we can chat later. I enjoyed meeting you all.” She parted with another warm smile and made her way to the rotund conductor.
As the musicians assembled on the stage and the comforting din of them all warming up filled the air, she went over her manuscripts and the printed parts with Jean-Michel, pointing out something here and asking his thoughts on something there, until it was time for the rehearsal to start.
“One thing,” she remembered. “That man over there…” She glanced to where the stranger was still standing by the mirrored walls at the side of the room. “Do you know him? I can’t have this recorded at all.”
“Yes, he’s alright. That’s William Barnett. He’s new on the board. I said he could come, but I will make certain he knows.”
“Thanks.”
The conductor wandered over to speak to the newcomer, and then, with a nod to Anne, headed to the stage. He climbed the stairs to the stage and stepped onto his low podium, and immediately the chaos of strings and horns and flutes fell silent, everyone anticipating his opening remarks and the first flick of his baton.
But instead of inviting the musicians to turn to the third movement of the music before them, he cleared his throat.
“Bonjour,” he began, and acknowledged the murmured replies. “Today we have the honour of doing a first reading of the second half of Anne Elliot’s new symphony…” He paused for a rush of applause and the sound of bows tapping on music stands. “Anne, come give us a bow. I know I introduced you when we read the first part last November, but let’s welcome you again.”
Anne climbed the stairs to the stage and nodded to the orchestra. She was not built for the spotlight; she was no fan of crowds. But here, with an orchestra, she was at home, and the seventy-odd faces smiling back at her were far from intimidating. It was, she had to admit, a rush like none other to hear her music come to life under the talented fingers of this gifted crew of musicians. From the corner of her eye, she noticed the stranger’s eyes fixed upon her. A rare sighting of the elusive composer in its natural habitat. She grinned at her internal joke and the man grinned back.
Her smile still in place, she found herself a seat in the auditorium and took out her score and her tablet and stylus, ready to take notes, and waited for the downbeat.
The first hour passed in a heartbeat. From the first note, Anne had been transported into her own world, listening, writing, floating on cushions of sound. The music swirled about her like a river wending its relentless way to the sea, now tarrying in a wide pool of gentle melody, now swirling along in a rush of cascading scales or whipping into the rapids of staccato counterpoint. An eddy here, a chute there, the river nonetheless never varied from its course until at last it reached its destination in a series of grand chords that rang from the baffles at the back of the stage, resonating long after the final notes were played.
In that moment of silence, as Jean-Michel rested his arms and the musicians took a collective breath after the roiling finale, a lone voice rang from the back of the hall.
“Bravo! It’s a masterpiece. Bravo!”
Her heart all but stopped. She knew that voice. But wasn’t he supposed to be in Rome?
“Mesdames et messieurs,” Jean-Michel beamed, “here is another treat for you today. We weren’t sure whether to expect him, but here he is. Your principal conductor for next season, Maestro Valore.”
Another wave of taps and claps filled the hall as Fred jogged down the aisle and all but leapt onto the stage. He belonged there like a fish belongs in water or a bird in the air. He seemed bigger, somehow, even just standing there and acknowledging the welcome.
“We’ll take a break now, and come back in twenty to go over some of these passages again. Maestro? If you wish…?”
Jean-Michel and Fred huddled off together, and the musicians rose from their seats to stretch and chat before the rehearsal resumed.
A group of the musicians swarmed towards her.
“Anne, it’s fabulous!”
“Ms. Elliot, what an honour to play this for the first time.”
“You’ve created a masterpiece!”
The adulation continued and Anne could not stop her wide grin, even as she blushed. Tim, one of the violinists whom she had known for a while, pulled an arm about her shoulders and gave her a brotherly hug. “Looking good too, Anne! Genius becomes you!”
She glanced up to where the man, Barnett, had been standing before the rehearsal, and caught her reflection in the mirrors by the loges. With her smile and pink cheeks, she did look a bit… fresher than usual. Almost younger. A movement caught her eye. Mr. Barnett. He had taken a seat just off the aisle, and now stood up and nodded to her. She dipped her head at him in acknowledgement; he was a member of the board, and was being friendly. No need to be stand-offish. Her smile still in place, she turned back to Tim just as Jean-Michel came over with his score. It was time to go over her notes before the rehearsal resumed.
From what she could see, Fred was the centre of his own little galaxy of star-gazers. He was still on the stage where he looked so much at home, and his admirers were mostly women. Of course. He was a very handsome man, after all, as well as being the new maestro. Anne noticed Louisa’s peacock-blue hair among the heads, standing very close to Fred. She ignored the twinge of jealousy that taunted her and turned her attention back to Jean-Michel and the score.
“Here… I’d like to go over this section again, to see if I need to rework the parts to bring out the cross-rhythms. They’re getting lost in the brass and I might need to thin out the parts. And here, at rehearsal letter C, can we try to bring out the middle voices in the strings? The violas have a key part, and the violins are just a bit too loud…”
They conferred for a while until the break was over and the musicians reassembled in their seats on the stage.
“May I?” Fred stood in the aisle, gesturing to the seat beside her. In the distance, Mr. Barnett was watching, his expression lost in the dim lighting.
“Yes, of course.” He slid into the chair.
“What were you talking about with Jean-Michel? He’s very good. He’s been an excellent interim conductor for them. It’s good to have different voices. But I think he’ll be pleased to be back in Montreal full time.”
Anne nodded. “His wife and kids are there. Here,” she brought out the score, “this is what we were going over.” She found the passages and pointed them out to Fred, who nodded and hummed a passage or two as he read along.
“Yes. I see… and there, you want more clarity in the horns. And I think… Hmmm…”
He leapt up while the orchestra was tuning their instruments before the downbeat, and called to Jean-Michel, who crouched down to chat to him for a moment. Then he returned with a cocky smirk on his face.
“What was that about?” Anne asked.
Fred winked. “You’ll see.”
What was this? Suddenly, after all those weeks of him all but pretending she didn’t exist, Fred was giving her his attention again. Sitting next to her, talking to her. Smiling, even. Teasing. She recalled him standing up on the stage during the break, surrounded by the cloud of women, Louisa all but hanging off him, and she could see the smug satisfaction on his handsome face. He must know she had seen him. Was he deliberately rubbing her nose in his success with the women? Was this his new form of revenge? But his friendly smile seemed genuine, not vindictive.
She had been the one who ended their relationship, after all; it had been she who refused to join him in Europe. He had been angry. Bitter. She could not blame him. And he surely had no thoughts that she still cared about him. It had been eight years, after all. Perhaps now that he was the centre of other women’s attention, he felt that he could let go of some of that rancour and acknowledge her again.
He had, it seemed, put the past in the past, and her along with it. She meant nothing to him anymore, other than as a colleague. She wasn’t even important enough to raise his disdain.
She gave a sad smile and returned to her score.
Jean-Michel led the orchestra through some of the passages they had discussed, and Anne made her notes. The violins could be trusted to give room for the middle voices in the strings, but the brass section needed some reworking to allow the cross-rhythms through. From time to time, Jean-Michel turned around to ask her a question or two before returning to his musicians.
And then the unexpected happened. Fred stood up and gave her a wink before heading to the stage.
Jean-Michel addressed the orchestra. “Friends, our new conductor has asked to take you through one or two passages before we finish today. You are in excellent hands. Maestro.” He bowed and passed his baton to Fred, then stepped off the podium.
He bowed his head to the smattering of applause and taps and waited for silence to reign again before addressing the musicians. Anne could not see his face, but his head of dark curls moved eloquently, his broad shoulders commanded even without moving. She could only imagine the impression he made upon those graced with a view of his expression.
“Thank you. Now, we’ll have a chance to get to know each other later, but for now, let’s go back to the third movement.” He gave the exact place in the music and flicked the baton. The orchestra responded, and they played a few bars before Fred stopped them.
“Excellent. For reading, this is fabulous. We are going to be a world-class team next season. I couldn’t be more thrilled to be working with such a terrific group. I’d like to do that again, with more attention to the dynamics, and then let’s go back to that theme. I’m not sure we realise at first just how brilliant this music is. You see, in measure 48, where it seems like we’re coming to the end of a phrase, how the harmonic rhythm moves at a different pace. Let’s look at it not as the end of the phrase, but as an elision between two phrases, where the last notes of the previous phrase are the first notes of a new one. Sort of like a portmanteau of sentences. ‘The boy ate the cake is a delicious treat.’ The word ‘cake’ fills two roles. It’s like that with this measure.” And on he spoke before raising the baton again.
Anne was amazed. She had spent weeks working out how this passage would come together, and Fred understood it in a moment. He was the one who would conduct the orchestra for the premier of the piece next season. She could imagine no one better for the task.
When they had worked through that section to his satisfaction, he asked the orchestra to turn to a passage in the last movement.
“The melody is expansive and lush, but there’s an insistent rhythm in the horns that turns up the tension a bit, and I’d like that to come through, but without breaking up the cathedral of sound Doctor Elliot has constructed. Horns… Louisa.” There was a hint of something cheeky in his voice at the sound of her name. “Is there some sort of tonguing technique that would allow for that articulation while not stopping the sound?”
Anne saw the blue-haired horn player’s saucy grin. “Sure. It’s a fast enough passage that it will take some work, but there’s always something we can do. I’ll make sure to do lots of tongue exercises. I’m known to be pretty good in that area.”
The orchestra laughed. Anne could not see Fred’s face, but his posture took on a cocky aspect that suggested he knew exactly what Louisa was saying and approved of it. She imagined the horn player and conductor would be spending quite a bit of time together working on her… tonguing technique.
Yes. He had got over her completely, and this was her punishment. For the thousandth time, she regretted that awful decision she had made eight years before. Why had she let Professor Russell persuade her to stay?
Chapter Six
Con Moto
Anne had to admit it: Sophia’s idea to go biking was an excellent one. After a wet and windy weekend, Monday dawned bright and clear, with crystal blue skies and perfect temperatures. It was usually Mother Nature’s cruel joke, saving the great weather for when people had to be at work, but today Anne had no other obligations, and she was looking forward to the outing.
Sophia had told her to dress appropriately but to bring nothing other than sunblock, a water bottle, and her new biking helmet. She would take care of the rest.
Anne could just imagine what her well-to-do friend had in mind. A gourmet picnic, all packed in ice, perhaps? Reservations for two at the local ice cream factory afterwards, with a custom-built banana split waiting for them? She smiled at the idea. What she knew for certain was that Sophia had rented two good bicycles that they would collect once they arrived in the area, and that she had a route planned out.
Anne hopped off the city bus at the stop by Sophia’s building and sauntered inside. She nodded to the doorman, who tipped his head in reply. “Morning, ma’am,” the young man gave her a professional smile, and she asked politely after his health. “I’ll let Mrs. Croft know you’re on your way.” It seemed she was a frequent enough visitor here that the desk staff knew her; that Sophia had dragged her along once while hand-delivering Christmas presents certainly had not hurt, and she was treated to the same welcome as the residents of this lovely building. She smiled to herself as she rode up the elevator, all gleaming brass and tinted mirrors. She had done well enough at her art to afford a small condominium unit in a nice building in this expensive city, but it was nothing like the towering midtown palace where the Crofts made their home.
Sophia was waiting at the open door. “Anne, darling, come in. All dressed for the day. Perfect. Give me two minutes while I finish getting ready. Won’t be a moment.”
Sophia bustled off, leaving Anne alone in the living room with just her reflection for company. She looked, well, like she was set for a day of biking. A bright pink polo shirt offered some protection to the back of her neck, and her blue cargo shorts had zippable pockets for things like her phone and keys. She had debated bringing her camera, but decided that the extra weight about her neck wasn’t worth it and her phone would have to do in the case of a photographic necessity. In a small backpack, she carried her water bottle, sunglasses, and a tube of sunscreen, and the new helmet Sophia had purchased for her the previous day hung from her wrist by its straps.
She glanced down at her legs. They were shapely enough, she supposed, but were blindingly white. Should she get more sun? No. The sun was bad for the skin, but right now she looked like a ghost in a snowstorm. In a bright pink polo shirt. No matter. She was not trying to impress anybody with a gorgeous tan, anyway. The birds would have to live with her pasty limbs.
Sophia reappeared from her room. “That pink is a good shade on you. I know you like blue, but this brings colour to your cheeks. All ready? We just have one stop on the way.”
“A stop? To get food?”
“Oh no, dear. I’ve ordered lunch from a new local caterer that I’ve heard such wonderful things about. Didn’t I tell you? Jeremy decided to come along. I reserved two more bikes. We’ll take the SUV and pick him and Fred up on our way.”
Her heart stopped.
“Fred? He knows I’m coming?”
“Oh, yes. Since it was really his idea in the first place, we thought he might want to come along. Do you mind?”
Anne opened her mouth, but no words came out. Did she mind? How could she possibly answer that? Did she mind spending a day in close proximity and enforced friendliness with a man whom she had hoped to be over, but whom she feared she still loved, despite the fact that he clearly had no further interest in her at all, other than the purely professional? Oh. And he would spend all day staring at her glaringly white legs. Did she mind?
“No, not at all. It will be lovely.”
Sophia gave her that look. “One day, I think, there is a story you have to tell me. But never mind. We’ll be late. Ready?”
With a sweep of her hand, Sophia grabbed her own supplies and ushered Anne out the door towards the garage and whatever the fates decided to throw her way on this bright summer day.
The drive down to Niagara was only slightly uncomfortable. Since Sophia and Anne were already in the front seats of the SUV, the men took the back and Anne was able to avoid too much conversation. Most of the drive was rather ordinary—endless suburbia followed by light industry followed by featureless highway—but as they approached their destination, the scenery grew lovely. The lake, when it was visible through the banks of buildings or the trees, threw back sequins of bright sunlight to the crystal blue sky, and the late June foliage was fresh and verdant.
Sophia had rented bikes from a place on the outskirts of Niagara-on-the-Lake, a small town dating back to the late 1700s and which still held a great deal of Georgian charm. Anne knew the town well and was a frequent visitor, especially when the local theatre festival was in full swing during the summers. It was one of Anne’s favourite places to spend an afternoon wandering through quaint shops and down picturesque laneways before tracing the shoreline along the lake. Today’s route, as described by Sophia, would take them through country lanes and along the river instead, and Anne was eager to explore a part of the area she did not know so well.
