Crescendo

'There've been other women,' one girl said, yawning. Marina had never hinted to them that she knew Gideon personally. To them it was all fas­cinating gossip about a star they admired. 'But she's lasted the longest. Not surprising—she's a very sexy lady, they say.'

Marina had said nothing, but winced.

Marina was working absorbedly at the college, most of her waking hours spent in learning, practis­ing, untired of constant repetition and the need to be as close to perfection as one could. When she was not with Gideon she shut him out of her mind. He

was an unresolved problem. She had not permitted herself to admit just how much of a problem he was, but as the months passed and she saw more and more of him, the problem grew.

She knew he was still seeing Diana Grenoby, but they had never mentioned that name. Gideon was keeping his evenings with Marina on a level which excluded any necessity to admit or deny commit­ment. He never kissed her. He never touched her. They talked and listened to music, they saw films or had dinner, they walked in the London parks and went to the theatre. It was a friendship, nothing more, and had Gideon been a boy of her own age Marina would have felt no qualms.

Gideon, though, was both much older and far more experienced. He never took her to his London flat. Their meetings always took place on public ground, a safe venue where they were never really alone.

One evening at the end of the following autumn she was at the opera when she saw Gideon in the stalls with Diana. The two of them were talking animatedly, laughing, and Marina saw the physical intimacy between them even more sharply than she had the first time she saw them together.

It drove a thorn into her. She sat with the music assaulting her ears and wanted to cry. I love him, she thought, watching that black head in the dark auditorium.

She did not sleep that night. She lay awake and faced the problem that had haunted her for months. Her relationship with Gideon was based on shifting sand.

It could only hurt her. Whatever he wanted from her could never be enough. She had to end it before she got hurt even more.

He rang two days later, and she gently regretted that she couldn't see him during the week he was to be in London. 'I'm booked every day,' she told him.

Gideon sounded curt. 'I see. Well, next time I come back.'

'That would.be nice,' she returned without over- enthusiasm.

He rang off and she cried, but her working life had taught her to protect herself against outside things that could destroy her concentration and she turned those lessons to good use. Gideon flew round the world playing in various capitals and while he was away Marina finally accepted her first date with someone of her own age.

He was a violinist at the college, a thin sensitive boy a year older than herself. They had known each other since her first day at the college and Paul had often invited her out, but she had politely made excuses. Now she agreed and began to date him once a week. They got free tickets to recitals and com­petitions, discussed music avidly, endlessly. Marina was often with him at the college since they worked in the same groups. She enjoyed his company. They were careful with each other, making progress slowly, neither wishing to hurry into a relationship from which they could not draw back.

When Gideon got back he rang her. They had not seen each other or spoken for three months. She spent some time congratulating him on the success of his tour. 'I read a lot of rave notices. You must be very pleased.'

'Will you have dinner with me tonight?' he asked when she had run out of things to say.

'Oh, dear, I would have loved to,' she said, her voice a little too careful. 'But I have a date, I'm afraid.'

Gideon was silent. 'Tomorrow?'

'I wish I could,' Marina said on a sigh. 'But I'm rehearsing—did I tell you I'm playing for a lieder performance? Accompanying a girl with the most fantastic voice. I'm sure she's going places. You like lieder, don't you?'

'What's wrong, Marina?' Gideon asked abruptly.

She bit her lip. 'What do you mean?' Her laughter was false and she knew he must hear that. 'Nothing. I really would have loved to see y6u. Oh, that's the bell—I must go, I'm afraid. Goodbye, Gideon.'

She put the phone down as though it had burnt her and leaned her face on the glass of the booth in the students' hall. After a moment she pulled her­self together and managed to make light conversa­tion with the group who were talking nearby, mar­velling that the anguish she felt did not show on her face.

Two days later she and Paul were queueing for gallery tickets to see a West End play when Gideon walked past with Diana Grenoby. Marina' did not look round at him, but she heard the deep dark tone of his voice just behind her and Diana Grenoby's answering laughter.

It was ironic, she thought, seated in the front row of the gallery beside Paul and aware that Gideon was in a box opposite with the dark sleek head of Diana beside him. The situation was sym­bolic of their positions in life and it escaped her why Gideon had ever bothered to see her at all, even on the casual, friendly level on which their re­lationship had existed.

After the play when the lights went up Paul guided her up the steep stairs to the back of the gallery, his arm lightly round her waist. She was so weary of pain that she leant her head on his shoulder and felt his arm tighten.

'You look tired,' Paul said in concern. 'You work too hard—you always have. Everyone says you should relax more. There's no doubt in anyone's mind where you're going, so why the need to strain to get there?'

'Why, indeed?' she said wryly, without comment­ing on the compliment. Her teachers had made it plain that they, too, expected her to do well. She was burdened with Grandie's reputation, with his dreams for her, with the demands of other people's high expectations. She had worked obsessively ever since she got to college and the pain which Gideon had caused her had nagged inside her all the time, weakening her.

Paul was a very serious young man and he had become fond of her. When the holidays began she took him back to stay with Grandie. They had a lot of fun that spring, walking along the beach, paddling in the chill water, throwing stones across the waves so that they skipped and bounced with little splashes, giving mock concerts to Grandie. playing like music hall artists to him, so that he laughed and rocked in his chair.

Gideon did not get in touch with her again, but later in the summer he sent her two tickets for one of his London concerts with a brief and distant little note.