Tonight, for the first time, I feel like a prostitute.
Over the last four months, I have made a bit of a name for myself in classical music circles. My dream job has worked out much better than I ever dreamed, a silver lining that came from throwing myself into work to avoid feeling pain. There have been a few good reviews that mentioned me by name, not a common thing for one out of a hundred players. And last week, I was offered a recording contract.
Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy the music. If I’m honest, the only time I’m close to happy is when I lose myself in playing. The rest of it? Let’s just say that what I gained in reputation I have lost in freedom.
Lessa once said that my oboe made lonely magic. I remember laughing when she said it; now I wish I could ask her something else.
Tell me, Less, does your love for politics, your mission to make a better world, does it get crowded out by obligations to colleagues and the need to schmooze and ‘play the game’?
Tonight, for example, a select few musicians from several top orchestras are at the house of Mr. Jackson Purle, one of our most important donors, a private concert for his mother’s ninetieth birthday. The birthday lady herself sits upfront between her two nurses and I doubt she even knows any of the hundred guests at her party.
Her son, a charming, charismatic billionaire, has chosen the program and it includes a piece especially commissioned for her birthday. It’s a new concerto of the kind we used to callear-bleedmusic. I don’t mind new music, but it takes a lot of getting used to. The piece we’re playing tonight, all discordant sounds and clang-bash percussion, is the last thing I would inflict on an elderly woman. I swear she looks frightened by us.
So, why am here?
Because fundraising is a fact of life, a necessary evil as Lessa used to say. Nothing runs in this world without begging.
Some musicians busk outside train stations; we are doing the same but for much more money, and without the need to sit on dirty cold floors. Mr. Purle’s house is a palace with a hundred crystal chandeliers and a river of expensive champagne. Frankly, I think I prefer the dirty floors.
We come to the last notes of the special birthday concerto; loud, enthusiastic applause follows. People always clap loudest when they’re not sure they liked the music because they don’t want to admit they did not ‘get it’.
It’s not over for me or for the old lady. I step forward and accompany opera diva Katherine Bell in a rendition ofHappy Birthday. But the song has been rearranged by the same composer, the melody stretched and mangled until it makes no sense.
I can’t wait until we’re finished to make my escape to the changing room. On the stairs someone stops me, wishing to hire me for his daughter’s wedding; he offers an eye-watering fee.
Isn’t there a starving nation you could spend this money on instead of a wedding?
I don’t say this, of course. I thank him politely and promise to give him my answer after I’ve checked with my orchestra leader. He smirks because he knows he can buy me and my orchestra leader any time he likes.
As I said, I feel like a prostitute.
Upstairs in the room where we’re all supposed to leave our instruments before going down to dinner, someone is on the floor behind a rack of coats.
“Wine?” He raises a nearly full bottle of red he no doubt snagged from a passing waiter. “Join me? Unless you’d rather go down to that banquet with the rich and famous.”
For answer, I remove my suit and change into jeans and a t-shirt, then duck under the coats to sit on the floor beside him.
“Peter.” He introduces himself, then passes me the bottle. “I’m with the Philharmonia.”
“Brandon. Concertgebouw.” I take the bottle and drink some before passing it back to him.
A little later, the singer, Katherine Bell, comes in to change out of her sequined gown. Dressing rooms are notoriously relaxed; everyone dresses in front of everyone else. But watching her from behind the coats feels creepy so I cough to let her know she’s not alone, then turn slightly away to give her some privacy while she changes.
Peter, on the floor next to me, raises his eyebrows and widens his eyes at me. “Gay?” he asks in a low voice.
“No.”
“Impotent?”
I snort with laughter, and just miss choking on a mouthful of wine.
“Sorry. It’s just that not many men would look away from the beautiful Katherine Bell.”
“You did?” I point out giving him the bottle back.
He holds up a hand with a wedding ring on his fourth finger.
I used to have one of those, a plain gold band, one of a pair Lessa and I wore while on the island, back when I was happily ‘married’ to her.
