Highly Strung (6 page)

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.

“Does he look okay?” said a laconic viola player. “I’d leave it, love.”

She took his advice and marched to the back of the hall, swinging her violin case in ire. Bloody Milan. Sulking like a baby. Talk about taking the artistic temperament too far.

“Ignore him,” confided Vanessa, grabbing her coat and scarf. “He’s having an epic ego-strop. He’ll come round.”

“There’s no excuse to be so fucking rude.” Lydia was seething. “Just because they’ve hired another conductor—and a good one, too. What a twat. I’ve gone right off him.”
I wish.

“It’s not just that,” said Vanessa. “It’s because they’re doing
Má Vlast
.”

“Oh. Oh, yeah. He’s from Prague, isn’t he?”

They swung through the double doors together, heading out to the grim, grey street.

“Exactly. So he takes it very personally if anyone non-Czech tries to conduct Czech music. I guess that’s what’s bugging him the most.”

“I suppose.
Má vlast
means ‘my country’, doesn’t it? I can see how that might rile him.”

“Hmm. ‘Homeland’. I think he does miss his homeland.”

“All the same…”

“Yes. All the same. You aren’t going to carry on with him, are you, Lydia? He’ll use you. He’ll break your heart. He’ll make you do things you’ll hate yourself for.”

“Is that what he did to you?”

“Yes. That’s what he did to me.”

They parted at the Underground station, taking different lines home. Lydia sat with her head against the dusty, padded rest and swallowed back tears all the way.

She avoided Milan the next day, deliberately going over to talk to Vanessa instead of joining the strings for a pre-rehearsal tune-up.

“He’s looking at you,” said Vanessa, only seconds into the conversation.

“He can look as much as he wants. Sod him.”

“He’s
really
looking at you. In that smouldery, bedroom-eyed Milan way.”

“Let him smoulder.” But Lydia had to force herself not to look.

“He’s coming over.”

“Shit. I don’t want to talk to him, Vanessa, tell him—”

“Lydia.”

His voice, right behind her, shattered every good resolution. She turned around, trying to act surprised.

“Oh. Milan.” Then, after a slightly sulky pause, “Did you want something?”

“A word. Please.” He gestured her away from Vanessa. She didn’t dare look back at her friend, knowing disapproval would be written all over her face, but when it came to Milan there seemed to be magic in the air. The kind that put you under a spell.

She shuffled off after him, to a dark corner of the hall.

“I’m sorry,” he said, bending earnestly towards her. “I didn’t mean to drive you away yesterday. I was—”

“Rude? Horrible?”

“Yes.” He nodded vigorously. “I know. I was angry. But not with you. Never with you.”

“You were angry about the Smetana?”

“Exactly.
My
country, you know, not hers. I knew you’d understand.”

“I do, in a way, but—”

“Can you forgive me? I don’t deserve it, but to lose you as well as the chance to conduct… Well, it would serve me right, I guess—”

“No, no, Milan…it’s okay. Really. But please don’t ever treat me like that again.”

“Let me make it up to you. I have tickets for
Rigoletto
at Covent Garden—the Royal Box! And for dinner afterwards. You will come, yes?”

“The Royal Box? Really?”

“Ah, when you are on TV suddenly everyone is crazy, giving you things.” Milan rolled his eyes and grinned wolfishly, irresistibly.

Lydia despised herself, but her heart seemed to have cut adrift from her head and was floating dangerously out of control, drawing the rest of her in its destructive wake.

“Just you and me? Or Evgeny too?” she asked softly.

“Just you and me.”

“I’d love to.”

“Great. Saturday. Let’s make a day of it. I’ll meet you for lunch.”

“Okay. Lovely.”

Mary-Ann entered the hall in a beautifully-cut pinstriped suit, head down, jaw set.

“Good,” breathed Milan, watching her stomping progress. “Now let’s have some fun.”

The rehearsal went badly. Very badly. And so did the next, and the one after that.

Lydia, watching Mary-Ann try tactic after tactic to get the orchestra on her side, felt uncomfortable and sorry for her. She started off with bluff jollying along, moved on to reason, through sarcasm, remonstration and ended, worryingly quickly, at pleading. But, no matter what she did, the tempos were all wrong, the strings shrieked rather than sang, and people persistently came in at the wrong bar, or finished the phrase in a ragged shambles. Lydia couldn’t believe how easy it was for a world-class orchestra to sound like a school band. She felt ashamed of Milan and embarrassed for the Westminster Symphony and its supporters. No matter how hot she was for the first violinist, she would never approve of this strategy.

On her way to the Tube station on the Friday night before her hot date with Milan, Lydia was surprised to find herself beckoned into a coffee shop by Mary-Ann, who was sitting glumly in the window sucking up an extra-huge dose of caffeinated badness.

“Oh, hello,” she said, poking her head around the door.

“Come in,” said Mary-Ann. “Shut that door, for heaven’s sake, you’ll let that bitter wind in. Let me get you a coffee. If that’s okay, I mean. Are you in a hurry?”

“No,” said Lydia, perching on the neighbouring stool. “Just a long night of practicing and watching old concerts on Sky Arts for me.”

“Ah, know the feeling. So, then—what’s your poison?”

Mary-Ann brought Lydia a large cappuccino, plus a second extra-strong espresso for herself.

“I hope you don’t mind my collaring you like this, Lydia, but I’ve noticed this week that you don’t seem to be as ‘in tune’ with the string section as some, and I’m just wondering…what gives?”

Lydia felt cornered, but she couldn’t help liking and respecting the forthright woman, so she took a long sip of her cappuccino and mentally put some words in as tactful an order as she could.

“I mean,” Mary-Ann rattled on, almost to herself, “this is one of the world’s great orchestras. But it sounds fucking awful. Is it me? Is it me, Lydia?”

“No,” she said. “It’s not you.”

“Then what? Something’s going on with Mr Milan-the-Sleb… That much I can make out. But what’s his problem? Does he hate women conductors?”

“No. But he hates conductors who aren’t him. Especially when they’re conducting classics by Czech composers.”

“Ah, right. I did wonder about the wisdom of
Má Vlast
, but the trustees insisted.”

“That’s at the heart of it,” said Lydia, wondering how much more to reveal. “Plus it seems to be his dream to be the orchestra’s leader-conductor. You’ve come in and scuppered that one for the time being.”

“Hmm. But he’s just one man, Lydia. Surely they don’t
all
want to be conductors?”

“No, but they all want him to get what he wants. He has them in the palm of his hand.”

“But not you?” Mary-Ann leaned a little closer, her coffee-breath drifting up to Lydia’s nostrils.

“I don’t really approve,” said Lydia weakly. “I think he should make his case with the trustees if he wants to conduct, instead of waging war campaigns.”

“The trustees don’t know this goes on?”

“Oh, don’t tell them!”

“Don’t worry. I won’t run and tell tales. But thanks for this, Lydia. I’ve got a handle on Milan now. I can work on it.”

“Right.” Lydia heaved a relieved sigh. She might not like Milan’s tactics, but putting the cat amongst the pigeons with the trustees was the last thing she wanted to do.

“So…about that boring night of watching Sky Arts…”

Lydia looked up, seeing a warm, rather mischievous smile on Mary-Ann’s face.

“Yes?”

“Wouldn’t you rather go and see a film instead? There’s a terrific biopic of Yehudi Menuhin on at the ICA… Oh, but I suppose you’ve seen it?”

“Actually, no.” Lydia contemplated the evening that stretched ahead, cold and lonely in her tiny South London flat. “I’d love to.”

“Fab! Let’s drink up and go and see about tickets, then.”

Chapter Five

The film was good, and it was just as good the second time of viewing with Milan the following afternoon. Only this time it was enhanced by the way Milan’s long, pale fingers stroked Lydia’s hands throughout.

He took a piece of salted popcorn and fed it into her mouth, bending to whisper in her ear.

“When this finishes, I’m taking you shopping.”

“Shopping?” Lydia almost swallowed the bloated kernel whole. She hadn’t figured Milan to be a man who enjoyed browsing the racks in the boutiques of the West End.

“No more fleeces,” he said emphatically.

She huffed a little, but allowed him to slip an arm around her shoulders nonetheless, wondering what Mary-Ann would have to say about it if she could see their blissful intimacy. Should she have mentioned that she was seeing Milan? Oh, her personal life was nobody else’s business.

She dismissed the uncomfortable thought then suppressed a squeak as Milan placed her hands in her lap and moved his own wicked fingers up to the waistband of her jeans, fiddling with the buttons until they were undone.

“Milan,” she whispered, craning her neck to make sure nobody was watching them.

“Shh, it’s okay. Nobody can see,” he soothed, and it was true that their position in the back row protected them from curious eyes.

“But what if they
do
?” Lydia tried to clamp her thighs together, but Milan patted her upper arm in reproof, somehow winning her submission.

“They won’t. Now be good, bad girl and let me have my way with you.”

Lydia shuffled back on her bottom a little, spreading her legs a little wider to enable ease of access. His fingers, bunched together over her mons, crept slowly down, struggling to invade the tight space at her crotch. Looking down, Lydia saw them bulge and strain against the denim, sliding under her knicker elastic and taking possession of everything within.

She couldn’t help a low hum when his fingertips widened her labia and alighted on their quarry—her fat, full clitoris, now eager and ready to accept his touch.

“Nice and quiet, Lydia,” he breathed into her ear. “I’m going to make you come, but you have to keep silent.”

She shook with the effort of it, gripping her thighs until her fingernails dug in while Milan circled his fingers round and round, rubbing and flicking, bringing forth gushes of juice in the process.

“Touch your breasts,” he whispered, working the bud of flesh harder. “Put your hands up under your fleece and do it.”

Sounds struggled to escape the back of Lydia’s throat, but she bit them back and put one trembling hand inside her sweater, stroking her nipple through her cotton bra cup, finding it rock hard and almost itchy with need.

“Ohh,” she whispered, anxious now that her heavier breathing could attract attention from the people in the row in front. “Please.”

She threw her head back against the maroon plush and shut her eyes, tense and filled with the need to end this, to come, to regain control of her body. But Milan was enjoying his power and he teased at her needy clit, poking and prodding at the hole below for a spell, then returning to it while Lydia flicked compulsively at her nipples.