pat with Milan.”
“It’s a nightmare, though, Lyd. I’ve never experienced anything like this. Don’t you find the atmosphere awful to work in?”
“Well, I’ll admit, it’s not what I was expecting.”
“What would happen, do you think, if I complained to the trustees about Milan?”
The wine glass tilted in Lydia’s hand, almost slopping rich Hungarian red over the rim. “Oh, don’t do that,” she said quickly.
“Why not?”
“Because most of the orchestra, and pretty much all of the strings, would go with him if he left. And he would leave. And the trustees don’t want that. He’s a money-spinner, now he’s done all that media-darling stuff.”
Mary-Ann contemplated this. “Yes, I do see that. So what’s the solution? I leave and let him take over?”
“Stick it out for this tour, at least,” said Lydia. “I don’t think he’ll mess up the concert. His own pride wouldn’t let him do that.”
“You’re right. Good. Okay, let’s finish this bottle, then how about a boat trip on the Danube?”
Much later, after a trip on a boat and a walk up to the Fisherman’s Bastion, Lydia and Mary-Ann found themselves in a bar near the hotel, still avoiding the rest of the orchestra, continuing a long and rambling conversation about their childhoods, families, musical influences and adolescent crises.
“God, it was painful,” lamented Mary-Ann over yet another glass of Bull’s Blood, her spectacles now a little crooked over her nose. “I literally thought I was the only lesbian at my school and nobody else ever, ever had those kinds of feelings about other girls. I couldn’t tell anyone. Then I got friendly with a tuba player at youth orchestra—Joanne, her name was—and thought perhaps she might understand. She tweaked my underdeveloped gaydar—cropped hair, lumberjack shirt and so on. But my gaydar was rubbish. I came out to her and she just laughed and told the rest of the brass section, who kind of avoided me after that.”
“That’s awful! Why were they so mean?”
“Oh, you know what kids are like.” Mary-Ann seemed to intend the comment to be throwaway, but Lydia saw the telltale dazzle of tears at the corner of her eye. She put one of her hands over the conductor’s and squeezed it.
“Not just kids,” she whispered.
A teardrop fell onto Mary-Ann’s cheek. She rubbed it away angrily. “Oh God, Lydia, ignore me. I’ve just had too much to drink and it always makes me sentimental and self-pitying.”
“No, that must have been devastating. I know how sensitive I was when I was fifteen.”
“Well, that wasn’t so long ago, was it?” said Mary-Ann softly. “Listen, Lydia…I might be way off-beam here…and I did tell you my gaydar was dodgy…but…”
She leant forward. A sudden surge of enormous panic sobered Lydia within seconds.
“Oh, look, we’re both a bit squiffy, Mary-Ann. Might not be the time for anything that can’t be taken back.”
Mary-Ann halted, a little waveringly, and narrowed her unfocused eyes.
“God, yeah,” she slurred. “Not the time…not the place…sorry. Just want some company… So lonely in my hotel room…”
“I’ll keep you company,” offered Lydia, her brain instantly screaming, What are you thinking? “Just for tonight. If you like. If you promise to come back to rehearsal tomorrow.”
“Of course. Was going to anyway. Right then.” Mary-Ann fumbled in her jacket pocket for money and dropped a fountain of forints ostentatiously on to a beer mat. “Lesh go.”
Lydia had to help Mary-Ann get undressed—the Bull’s Blood seemed to have overtaken her own blood in her veins, and she was barely able to stand by the time they had barrelled into the hotel room.
By the time she laid her on the bed in her pyjamas, Mary-Ann’s eyes were shut. She began to snore gently a few moments later.
Lydia tried to text Milan, but her fingers were clumsy and the words didn’t come out right. Eventually, after several attempts, she managed to get ‘Am with Mary-Ann, she is ok, c u 2moro xxx,’ on to the screen without too many typos. Her work for the day done, she fell onto the bed next to Mary-Ann and plunged into a fully-clothed sleep.
“So, how are you today?”
“Shh, not so loud.” Lydia winced as Milan slid into the seat beside her at the breakfast table.
He laughed. “Did she get you drunk and take advantage of you?”