Crescendo

She took Paul. They had excellent seats with a clear view of Gideon. Marina stared at him as he played, seeing a new fine tension to his hard face, hearing a change in his music. Gideon was dig­ging below the surface now. Grandie should have heard it, she thought. The polish and brilliant technique were still there, but there was a new feeling in the playing. It was a change reflected in his body. When he took his applause he was obvi­ously thinner. He had never been less than fit, but now his bones showed through the brown skin, the harshness of them taut.

As he straightened from a deep bow with the en­thusiasm roaring around him undiminished, his black eyes slid briefly to where Marina sat. She was sitting there with her eyes riveted on him and for a second their eyes met. Feeling flashed across the hall between them. She had never seen it in his eyes be­fore, but now she saw it and her heart stopped.

Gideon had looked at her hungrily with the eyes of a frustrated lover, and she was trembling as he walked from the platform.

She had to leave with Paul, trying to control her­self, trying to appear normal while every particle of her mind and body wras overthrown with the realisation of what she had glimpsed so briefly in Gideon's eyes.

She did not know what to do. She couldn't sleep, couldn't work. Had she imagined it? Was it all in her own mind?

She came down the steps of the college at five o'clock next day and Gideon straightened from the wall and looked at her. He didn't say a word, but her heart began to beat fiercely and she was totally unaware of the people behind her streaming out of the door; staring as they recognised Gideon and then Marina and buzzing with curiosity.

There seemed to be nothing they could either of them find to say; there was too much to be said in words. Gideon took her to his flat for the first time and when they were alone he looked at her with that strange, fixed intensity and broke out: 'Why have you kept me away all these months? What's wrong? Why wouldn't you see me?'

She stared at her feet, her neck bent in a wistful curve. 'Does it matter?'

'Matter?' He rasped the word hoarsely. 'Don't you know it does?' He took a step and caught her shoulders, staring at her with that heat burning deep inside the black eyes. 'Who was that boy you were with? Is it him? Is he why you've shut me out?'

She looked up in disbelief, her eyes wide in amazement, and saw his dark face flush slowly under her stare. He pivoted, shuddering, as though wrenched by feelings he could not control, and Marina watched the broad shoulders and couldn't believe what she knew she was seeing.

'Are you in love with him?'

He asked the question in a low, controlled voice, but every muscle in his body was tense. She could see a nerve leaping in his cheek as he stood with his back to her but his face in profile.

She was torn by contradictory instincts. She could lie and let him believe she did not love him or she could tell him the truth and leave herself wide open to him.

When she didn't answer, Gideon swerved to look at her in harsh probing and as their eyes met, Marina trembled. She didn't say a word, but Gideon drew a deep breath and his hands reached out for her. That first kiss told him all the things she had tried to hide from him. Even now, with her body shaking in his arms and her soft mouth totally responsive to the fierce hot possession of his, she was trying to fight down her love for him. Young as she was, she knew the danger of letting him see how vulnerable she was to him. Gideon wanted her— she knew that now. He was jealous of Paul and he hadn't hidden it from her. But Marina had spent too many hours watching him, thinking about him, not to know that Gideon was not yet capable of love as she knew it.

That night it didn't matter, though. Gideon was on fire, and the flames licked into her blood and consumed her. She had no thought of denying him anything. He was gentle and tender, touching her with shaking hands, and moaning huskily as their bodies merged with a slow insistence which had been inevitable from the moment he touched her.

The strained tautness had left his face as she lay dazedly in his arms later. He stroked her face and kissed her. Marina was not yet capable of thinking. She had abandoned herself to him knowing what she was doing and no longer caring that he might destroy her. She had fought her love for him, but she could not fight Gideon's desire for her.

'Does this Paul mean anything?' he asked her abruptly, and she felt a weakness inside her at the unhidden jealousy. She shook her head.

'Don't see him again.' He held her face between his hands and stared at her as if each time he saw her he could not quite believe she was real. 'I can't bear to see you with him.'

She did not point out that she could not bear to see him with Diana "Grenoby. She did not say any­thing. Gideon had not said a word which might in­dicate that he loved her, even during the moments of their fierce lovemaking. She had learnt how to hide her feelings. Although she was aching with the pain she had suspected for so long that he would give her, she hid it now.

Over the next few weeks they saw each other whenever they were both free. It was not often enough for Marina and although he did not say so she guessed it was not often enough for Gideon, either. When she was in his arms he was hotly de­manding. However intense their passion grew, though, he never gave her any reason to hope that she meant more to him than any ot

her woman who had lain in his bed. They made love in a heated silence which left her starving for a word, an ad­mission of love.

He flew away to perform from time to time and often tried to persuade her to go with him, but she always refused. She would not let him treat her as his mistress in front of strangers or friends—their relationship was as yet a total secret and Marina felt sick at the idea of anyone else knowing.

She did not know if he was still seeing Diana. He never mentioned her. Marina spent bitter moments wondering about that. When he was not in her bed, where was he?

She went home to Basslea when the holidays next began. Grandie stared at her, his rough brows meeting, and she knew he could read the changes in her face which her relationship with Gideon had begun. All of the child left in her had gone. It was a woman who looked back at Grandie now, a woman eaten with passion and sadness she could not hide.

When Gideon walked in, Grandie knew at a glance. Alone with her, he asked her bitterly, 'Are you out of your mind? You know what he's like. Gideon's hard, as hard as nails. He'll get tired of you and leave you flat.'

'I know,' she said with bitter irony.

'Then why?' Grandie was incredulous at her resignation.

'I love him,' Marina told him, and that silenced him..

He said nothing to him, but he treated Gideon with icy hostility from that brief conversation. Marina was sorry that Grandie should be so hurt and angry, but she was aware that part of Grandie's anger was because Gideon was absorbing her energy, her spirit, and Grandie wanted all that to go into her music. Gideon was a threat to Grandie's dream for her.

Walking along the cliffs with him, listening to him play in the evenings, she had time to think deeply about Gideon and to recognise his self- preservation in all his relationships. He surrounded himself with a wall of silence because he refused to risk all that love could mean.