Hanging up her coat, she scanned the groups of gossiping musicians for Milan, finding him amongst some string players, holding forth with a gleam in his eye.
She felt a pang in her heart. Milan Kaspar, her intense, charismatic lover. She needed somebody to pass the smelling salts but, instead, Vanessa appeared at her elbow, whispering conspiratorially.
“I hope you aren’t going to tell me he got you into bed,” she said.
“Umm…I’m not going to tell you that,” said Lydia, but she was pretty sure her blush was broadcasting the news on her behalf.
“Lydia!”
“Damn it, Vanessa, he’s impossible to resist.”
Vanessa sighed.
“I know,” she said. “Believe me, I know.”
Lydia caught her breath. “Oh?”
But there wasn’t time to elaborate. A group of important-looking people strode through the swing doors and up to the front of the hall, eliciting an expectant silence from the orchestra members, who immediately found their seats.
Lydia scurried to hers, fancying some pursed lips from the string players whose fun she had prematurely put an end to last night at Milan’s apartment. They clearly had no idea she and Milan had…oh, they had…
Her drift into daydreams was halted by the tapping of a conductor’s baton on the music stand at the front, wielded by one of the trustees she remembered from her interview.
She glanced down the row to Milan, who sat with his arms folded and a thunderous brow, scowling out at Lord Bicester, who was preparing to speak.
“It isn’t easy,” he opened, “trying to find a world-class conductor with a fr
ee schedule at a moment’s notice, as I’m sure you’ll understand. We, the trustees, had resigned ourselves to a long stint of guests and some broken concert engagements. But we have been immensely fortunate. Fresh from a successful run with the London Mozart Players, we have managed to snag one of the hottest young conductors around—please welcome Ms Mary-Ann McKenzie.”
Lydia applauded enthusiastically, having seen and admired the new conductor’s technique, but she couldn’t help noticing that most of the string section’s clapping was decidedly lacklustre. As for Milan, he hadn’t even unfolded his arms. How rude.
Mary-Ann, a slender brunette in a snappy trouser suit and owlish spectacles, stepped up to the podium, smiling warmly.
“Wow,” she said, pretending to be dazzled by the collective glare emanating from her new orchestra. “This is somewhere I never dreamed I’d be standing. I keep waiting to wake up and find out it’s all a dream. Better than the one where all my teeth fall out, by miles.”
She waited for a response, any response, but none came, though Lydia smiled sympathetically.
“Okay, well…” she continued, her cheerful façade cracking slightly. “Tough crowd! But let’s move on and talk about the schedule for the first part of the year, up to Easter. We’ve some one-off concerts leading into spring—one at the Bridgewater Hall, another at the Barbican—then at the start of April we’re off on a week’s tour, going to Budapest, Vienna and finishing in Prague. It’s a bit like taking coals to Newcastle with the programme, which is music about, or evoking, those particular countries and cities. We’ve got some Weber, some Strauss, some Beethoven, then some Hungarian Rhapsodies, Bohemian Dances and a bit of Má Vlast—”
She broke off. Milan had actually stamped his foot on the floor and everyone was looking at him. Lydia wondered if he was about to explode. He was deathly pale and his lips had faded into a tight white line.
“Umm, did you want to say something, Mr Kaspar?” asked Mary-Ann politely.
He shook his head, visibly seething. “No. Carry on,” he muttered.
“So…you see…there’s some music from each of our tour countries…er, hang on. Lost the thread a bit. Let me think what I was going to say…”
Poor Mary-Ann battled on through the waves of hostility and indifference until her dauntless spirit petered out, and she resorted to handing out music scores and making a first rough stab at some Hungarian Rhapsodies.
With the trustees watching, the rehearsal went smoothly enough, though the atmosphere was heavier than lead. Lydia had no success in trying to meet Milan’s eye, and Evgeny wasn’t playing nicely either. It was as if last night had never happened.
Actually, had it really happened? Perhaps it hadn’t, and was simply a hyper-vivid wish-fulfilment dream. Though why had she included Evgeny, and all that sitting around in the rain, if so? No, it must have happened.
At the rehearsal’s end, whilst all around her packed their instruments, she made a tentative foray over to Milan.
“Are you okay?” she asked, once Mary-Ann was out of earshot.
His answer was a furious sweep of his arm, causing her to duck and totter backwards in alarm.