Crescendo

He joined her and looked down into her face. 'So it is,' he said softly, his hard mouth curling. 'And very charming, too.'

The kiss was light and teasing, a kiss for a child, and she pulled away with a racing heart and a sense of danger.

Gideon took her arm, his hand curling r

ound it possessively. 'Where shall we walk? There ought to be a wood,' he said, still teasing.

They walked along the cliff paths to Spanish Headland and stood in silence staring out into the tumultuous seas, hearing the wind whip flailingly across the tops of the waves and churn them into white foam.

'Real Wagner weather,' Gideon commented.

On the way back to the cottage he complained of the cold and slid one of his hands inside her muff. 'What warm little fingers,' he said as he found them. Marina felt his index finger stroking her palm and a shiver ran down her back.

Grandie had made coffee, and Gideon drank it gratefully, shivering. When his hands had warmed up he played to them, and now Marina could hear what Grandie had meant. In the concert hall the brilliance of the finish had obscured it for her, but now she heard the polished hardness overlaying the music and she was disturbed. It revealed the man, she thought, watching him.

Gideon swung to look at her in the little silence that followed. She looked at him with wide, dis­tressed eyes and saw a frown pull his black brows together.

He searched her face and the frown deepened. Rising, he gestured. 'Now you,' he said with a terse parting of his mouth.

Marina sat down and stared at the trees beyond the window. For a few moments she did not touch the keys. She breathed quietly, thinking. Gideon made an abrupt movement and Grandie put a hand on his arm. The black head swung and Gideon looked at him. Grandie shook his head.

Marina played, aware at one level of her mind of the many threads of technique which she was holding at the back of her head, and at another level aware of what the music needed, allowing herself to become the reed through which the wind blew, her body flowing into the piano as though it were part of it, an extension of it. Submerged in the music, she had no personality, no claims to identity. All her technique was used merely to free the music and let it exist. Marina did not exist.

When the notes fell into silence she sat with her hands in her lap, drained, still empty of thought, a discarded vessel.

Grandie got up and kissed her cheek, then went out. Marina did not turn to look at Gideon. She could hear him breathing behind her, but he was not moving. After a long time he got up and went out too without saying a word.

When she went into the kitchen later he had gone. Grandie never mentioned to her anything Gideon had said, so she did not know whether he had been pleased or indifferent.

He did not come again that holiday. She returned to college and a few months later Gideon came to give the prizes away at their speech day. Marina was trembling as she went up to receive hers. Gideon handed it to her, his eye skating over her. He gave her a little nod of recognition but made no per­sonal comment. She was surprised afterwards at the sherry party which followed that he came up to her.

'How's Grandie?' he asked.

'Very well,' she said politely.

Gideon looked at her with restless eyes, their movement over her flickering lightly. 'Will you have dinner with me tomorrow?'

The question sounded almost nervous, which was ridiculous because he was a world-famous artist and she was a shy nineteen-year-old.

She looked away, flushing. For a few seconds she hesitated, knowing instinctively the dangers of say­ing yes. Her eyes came up to his face.

Gideon was watching her. Their eyes held. 'Thank you,' she said slowly.

That first evening he had talked of Grandie and then of music, his taste in it inclining to the music he played best himself, music which gave scope to his power and verve. Marina said very little. She listened with her eyes on his hard face and her features betrayed her inner hesitance about him.

He did not make any attempt to touch her. He drove her back to the hostel in which she was living and said goodnight, then Marina went in and felt the weariness of someone who has been under strain for a long time. Gideon tired her. When she was with him she felt as though he were an electric light shone directly into her eyes. She was guarding her­self against it, but the tension of keeping up her shield was exhausting.

Like any international musician he spent a good deal of time out of the country. When he was in England and had some free time, he began to see Marina regularly, but those evenings came so in­frequently that she forgot between each occasion just how much of a strain it was to be with him, and when he came back like a homing pigeon she accepted invitations recklessly.

She was torn now between a deep attraction and an equally deep fear of him. Marina was ultra­sensitive, yielding by nature, someone who gave of herself, to music or to the people she cared for, but because she was so fragile in identity she had to protect herself. She was learning how easily Gideon could hurt her and how deep that hurt could go.

They never spoke of his private life, but in musical circles it was open knowledge that he had a long-standing affair with Diana Grenoby.

It had given Marina a shock to find the woman's face staring at her from an opera programme one evening. She had read the biography under that beautiful, sophisticated face with intent absorption. It had not mentioned Gideon, of course, but it had given Marina an insight into the older woman's life­style.

Diana Grenoby was a soprano with a lovely voice, and when Marina heard her sing she was inevitably impressed but could sense that Diana had the same polished gloss which made Gideon so impressive and yet so lacking in final satisfaction. There was no music in either of them, she told herself. Music was feeling. The technique had to be there, of course; it Was the foundation of the house. But the tech­nique could not make up for a lack of sensitivity, humanity, and that was what both Gideon and Diana Grenoby revealed in their performances. It was why Diana, although the owner of a beautiful voice and a dazzling beauty, had never become a really great singer.

Gossip columns occasionally gave Marina a glimpse of Gideon's relations with Diana. He was seen with her from time to time and although the newspapers were discreetly veiled about their re­lationship, Marina's friends at the college filled in the bare details for her without ever realising that she was personally involved.