‘Thank you. That’s all for tonight.’ Dmitri set down his baton on the music stand. ‘Give yourselves a round of applause.’
Books were closed and clapping commenced. He made a few notes on the score in front of him as the choir members began chatting and coming down from the risers. It had been a good rehearsal – a reasonable turnout for a Friday night – and everyone had seemed full of energy. Quite possibly it was down to Tanya, who, before the rehearsal, had spread the news of her engagement and shown around her ring. Everyone had been delighted for her, giving her hugs and good wishes.
Mark, her fiancé, had come to the rehearsal directly from the bakery. Dmitri had taken him aside for a quiet word of congratulations. He liked Mark – he was what the English termed ‘no-nonsense’. He would make Tanya a good husband and that was the thing that mattered. Not for the first time, though, Dmitri wondered how much Mark knew. Had Tanya told him about the things that they themselves did not speak of?
Now, as he gathered up his music, Carole-Ann stood up from the piano and came over to him. ‘Well done,’ she said. ‘It’s coming along.’
‘The sopranos were a little thin,’ he said.
‘Maybe.’ She shrugged. They both knew the reason why – Sophie’s leaving. But there was nothing to be done about that. ‘Are you coming to the pub?’ she asked.
‘No. Not tonight,’ he replied.
‘Oh – is everything OK, Dmitri?’ She gave him a worried, motherly look that, frankly, annoyed him. But he pushed that aside and gave her a warm smile. Carole-Ann had been widowed for over ten years. She had no other family nearby and was no doubt lonely this time of year. The choir was everything to her, just as it was to him. She had been friendly with his mother, Marina, who had been of a similar age. When she had died, everyone in the choir had pitched in to help him and Tanya through their time of grief. They’d endured endless visitors and cups of weak English tea, bottomless casseroles and many shepherd’s pies. Carole-Ann had spearheaded all of it, and he was grateful – really. But sometimes, she went a little overboard.
‘Yes. I’m fine. It’s just that I want to stay for a while,’ he said. ‘I want to…’ he hesitated – if he said it aloud, he might not go through with it – ‘…do some practising.’
Just for a second, her blue eyes widened in surprise. ‘That’s good, Dmitri.’
‘Yes,’ he said non-committally.
In truth, he had been planning on going to the pub after the rehearsal. Or at least, that was what he usually did, and he hadn’t given it much thought. But at the break, when the choir members were drinking teas and coffees and eating Tanya’s mince pies, two things had happened.
First, he heard one of the altos mention a new CD she had bought as a Christmas gift for a friend – a recording of Rachmaninov’s piano concertos. As the woman spoke, his fingers had started to feel tingly and strange. It had been building for weeks now, this urge. Tonight, the music had flooded through his head, an impossible counterpoint to Handel’s Messiah. He’d tried to silence it, but it was stuck there.
Second, as the choir was reassembling on the risers, Charles, one of the tenors, had mentioned that he’d seen ‘The Heckler’ – the woman from Waterloo Station – getting off a train at Richmond. A vision of her had instantly popped into Dmitri’s mind. Alluring, beautiful – a face a Victorian painter might try to capture, but with sharper edges to it. Those sharp edges…
‘And umm, Dmitri…’ Carole-Ann was speaking but he hadn’t been listening. He’d been thinking of her again – the woman from the station – which was pointless and stupid. She was like the Firebird in one of his favourite fairy tales. Stealing golden apples, captivating young Ivan by leaving behind a single glowing feather. But unlike the hero in the story, he would not be going to the ends of the earth to find her. He would never see her again, and that was for the best. ‘Have you filled out the form yet? You know the application’s due by the twenty-first?’
The application. Dmitri cringed inwardly. Carole-Ann had heard through a musician friend about an Oxford College that was looking for an assistant choir director. There was a bursary that went with it, and he’d have a chance to study for a doctorate in choral music. ‘A very exciting opportunity’, she’d called it – a perfect way for him to advance his career. And he’d agreed with her. Yes, it sounded wonderful, perfect. He’d promised her that he would fill out the form, get the letters of reference. It shouldn’t be difficult. And yet, some part of him was holding back.
But now that Tanya would be moving out for good, he definitely needed to do it. He and Tanya ‘owned’ the flat they shared, but by rights it belonged to Phil, his mother’s long-time partner. When she’d first got sick, she’d asked Phil to sign it over to Dmitri and Tanya, which he’d done, perfectly willingly. Phil owned lots of properties, had tons of money and connections. One flat more or less had made no difference to him. As a music teacher, Dmitri made very little money – he and Tanya would never have been able to afford to buy a flat on their own. Phil had always seen himself as a stepfather figure to Dmitri, even if the feeling was not always mutual. Now, the time was right to move on, do something else. A doctorate in choral music? Why not? He really did need to get his act together.
‘I will fill out the application.’ He said it forcefully, as much to convince himself as her. ‘It’s just really busy this time of year.’
‘I know.’ She smiled. ‘And if there’s anything I can do—’
‘You have done so much for me already,’ Dmitri said. ‘And I appreciate it. I really do.’
‘Yes, well…’ Carole-Ann blushed, and still she was there, hovering. ‘Take care of yourself, Dmitri.’
‘I will see you on Sunday for the soloist rehearsal,’ he reminded her. ‘Now, go down to the pub and enjoy yourself.’ He took out his wallet and peeled off a twenty-pound note. ‘Here’s a contribution.’
‘No, really, it’s not necessary.’
He waved his hand. ‘Please take it.’ And go.
Carole-Ann patted his arm in a motherly way. ‘Thanks.’
She went out the door – at last.
Alone in the silence of the great church, Dmitri felt unsettled. He went through the pews, checking to make sure that none of the choir members had left anything behind, ensuring that the hymn books were in their place. He paced up and down the aisle: thinking; trying not to think. Feeling; trying not to feel. Trying to get the music out of his head, but at the same time, longing for it to stay.
All he had to do was climb those steps. Up to the choir loft and the grand piano. Very simple, one foot in front of the other.
Occasionally over the years, he’d tried to play again – something other than the usual bread-and-butter work of choral songs, hymns and vocal music for his students. His technique was a little rusty, which was to be expected. Concert pianists practised six to eight hours a day throughout their entire careers. That road had ended a long time ago. But when he did get inspired, he felt that his playing had a depth to it that it hadn’t had back then. Experience, pain, life – those things meant more than just notes on a page, fingers on keys. And now, the music in his head, put there by an offhanded comment about a CD – the need to play – was battling against the fear of failure. This time, the music won out.
Steeling himself, Dmitri climbed the narrow wooden stairs. Before him, the golden pipes of the great organ rose up as high as the round, oriole window. The piano had been rolled to the far side of the loft. He took the cover off, opened the lid and propped it up. He sat down on the bench and adjusted it.
Taking a breath, he rested his fingers on the cool, smooth surface of the keys. Began by playing a few notes, then some slow scales and arpeggios to warm up. He’d played earlier in the day for music lessons at a school, but whenever he sat up here at the grand piano, alone with the music in his head and the pain tightening across his chest, it always seemed momentous and difficult.
Dmitri stopped playing and looked down at his hands. Hands that he had once trusted more than anything. His father had called them magic hands – able to call forth the spirits from the ether and tame them into something extraordinary and beautiful. So many hours spent in his youth practising; he couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t play. His father sitting listening, his eyes closed, smoking a cigarette. Off in a world of his own that Dmitri hadn’t understood the importance of. It had been a bond between them, he realised now. As much as the other good times: eating ice cream in the park in summer, skating and sledding in the winter, chopping wood, telling stories, picking wild strawberries…
Magic hands. He winced as he stretched his fingers beyond the point where the pain began. Had his father ever actually said that?
Dmitri picked out a few bars of the piece that had come into his mind earlier. A piece he had played hundreds of times in his youth. It reminded him of that day when the letter came, saying that he’d had been granted a place at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, the most prestigious music school in Russia. The time when excitement had bubbled forth from his fingers and anything was possible.
He crashed a chord on the piano and stood up and paced again, wishing he could tear the notes out of his brain. This was madness. He had no business being here; doing this. The right thing to do would be to go home and start filling out the form. Get a doctorate in choral music and be fucking grateful for it.
Dmitri sat back down on the bench and breathed in deeply. He rubbed the tension from his neck. Then he took off the grey knit half-gloves and threw them to the side. He massaged the tight, mottled skin underneath.
The moon rising above the trees, sparkling on new fallen snow… eyes that glittered in the light of the fire…
He breathed in deeply, cleared his mind and began to play.