‘Is that what you imagine?’she pressed, taking a step forwards as she lowered her voice to a malicious snarl.‘That the orchestras in Vienna will chase away your demons?Will turning your back on a new audience give you freedom?Absolution?Or simply a new place to hide?Onlyyoucan write your songs.Onlyyoucan play your music.I do not need to be saved.Save yourself, Cassius.Save yourself from being the prodigy who did nothing with his gifts.’
‘An orchestra needs a conductor,’ he spluttered, his voice rising.‘An orchestra needs direction!’
‘Andyouneed an excuse to stay away from the keys, even though they call you the same way the stage calls me.You need a reason to hide from your failures.Are you a failed Mozart, with the overbearing father?Are you a failed Beethoven, the master who can play, but is never accepted by the nobility?Or a shadow of Liszt, playing for your own amusement and to seduce the wives of nobles?Or a failed Chopin, refusing to write for your homeland, to use the music to fight.No.You are too scared to eventryto be any of them.’
‘Stop it.’
‘You even fail at being a failure.’She flung the words at him, selecting the sharpest points, aiming to hurt.
‘I said stop it!You know nothing!You had love.You had care.I had none of it!And when I managed a little of my own, I tried to give it to you.But nothing is ever enough for you.You are always wanting more, never happy, because you cannot bear to be yourself!They are just stupid little songs that mean nothing.What difference will it make if you cannot hear?It’s not as if you ever took a moment to listen!’
‘Go!’she screamed, loud and harsh enough to strain her voice, but it no longer mattered.It was over.Everything she loved, everything she was, everything she cherished, all of it.Gone.
Odette steadied herself against the piano.Only when his footsteps had faded away did she allow her knees to buckle and her body to sink onto the bench.
Daniel swept into the room.He looked from her to the flowers.‘Would you like me to dispose of these?’
Odette shook her head.‘It doesn’t matter.There will be no opening night.’
Chapter 20
‘Selfish,self-obsessed,petulantwoman,’Cassius puffed as he reached the bottom of the stairs.‘Never happy, never satisfied, never…’
I am losing my hearing…
‘Never enough,’ he muttered to himself, his words losing their bitterness as he landed on the path.‘Never…’
Losing my hearing…
Cassius steadied himself against the wall as the true force of her words hit him.Theirs was a world of noise, of notes, cues, and directions, of whispers and booming percussion.
My hearing…
On a cold night about fifteen years ago, Cassius had wallowed in memories of who he might have been, with nothing but a piano and some raw, home-stilled vodka for warmth.And like a flip of fairy dust, a woman had skulked into the damp basement, sat beside him on the bench, and, together, they had played a song.She’d been more beautiful than marble, with a voice as pure and clear as wind chimes, and the only reason he’d known she wasn’t a hallucination was that she’d bumped against his side and let her glass clank onto the wood.Like the thousands of people who would follow, he’d fallen in love with her, although he’d wager not one of them loved her the way he did.They loved the Odette Delaney of the stage.But what had sunk his heart was the way her eyes glinted at the music.At the names of the great composers they sparred with and the tunes they took turns tinkering with, at the way she laughed at anything that pleased her.Odette loved music, and that night had been the first in forever where he’d forgotten his sour grumbling and his stolen childhood and had recalled the magic of song.
That night, Cassius remembered what it was to love music.The notes spun from her as she gave life to intervals, pitch, and beats.She became the music.And she could not be contained any more than sunshine could be bottled.While a man could cage a nightingale, he could never trap its song.
Cassius paced the length of the stairs that led up to her villa.Then he rested a foot on the bottom step as he tried to pull together some form of an apology to offer her.
‘You!You’ve been warned!Out of here!’
Cassius tracked the voice to across the main thoroughfare, to the park.A man, dressed in a day suit and swinging his cane like he did not need it for walking and carried it for other reasons, crossed the road at a jog.He was barely five foot tall, but he faced Cassius down like he was as solid as the oaks in the park.
‘I don’t know why you’re still hanging around,’ he continued.‘Nothing ever happens on this street.We’re just a quiet bunch of Londoners.You want a story, go loiter somewhere in Park Lane or Grosvenor Square.That’s where the true miscreants of this city live.’
‘I’m not a journalist!’Raising his hands, Cassius moved away from the house and into the yellow circle of a street lamp.‘I’m a friend of Odette’s.Zadora, Cassius Zadora.Conductor.’
The man’s eyes narrowed as he studied Cassius’s face.‘I know you.You play the piano for Odette.’He thrust out his hand.‘Lawrence Hempel.Number 3,’ he said, pointing his cane in the direction of the townhouses over the road.‘Apologies,’ he added, although there was no regret in his tone.‘We look out for one another around here.Odette has had some trouble before.Being who she is, and all.’He tucked the cane under his arm and took a step closer.‘How has she been, since the funeral?My wife was going to call on her today, but she said Odette was at the theatre all day.’
‘Dress rehearsal.Opening night is the day after tomorrow.The show must go on.’Cassius shrugged.‘She hasn’t missed a beat.’
‘But howisshe?’Lawrence pressed.
‘She won’t talk.Not to me.’
Lawrence offered him a wan smile.‘You know Odette.She’s not so good at asking for help.Mina is worried about her.Odette and Albert were good friends.’He stepped closer, and his voice dropped into a low and conspiratorial tone.‘And her hearing.Is it a problem?’
‘How did you—’
