Highly Strung (20 page)

Milan was first on the scene, looking suave and sharp in his concert suit, violin in hand.

“Milan.” She turned to speak to him, tentative and anxious.

“It’s okay.” He waved her away. “It’ll be good. The concert will be brilliant, my mother will see it, then this part of our lives will be over. Don’t look so scared.”

“Will it really all work out?”

She wanted reassurance so badly, and surely it didn’t matter now if they showed affection in front of the other players. It was an open secret anyway—only Mary-Ann had been truly oblivious to their liaison. She reached out for his arm.

He put the hand that held the violin behind his back and drew her briefly into his free arm, hugging her tight for a moment that meant the world to her. The players continued their milling as if nothing were untoward, but Lydia felt that her life was about to splinter into a million fragments—whether for good or ill, she couldn’t say.

Milan kissed her forehead, then let her go.

“Be brave,” he whispered, then the call to go on stage came and they began to line up in their sections, instruments at the ready.

Mary-Ann seemed to have rallied a little, colour back in her cheeks, her face composed and calm. The atmosphere in the hall was of intense and keen anticipation, Milan’s appearance having caused a mini media storm in his native land. Every music lover in Prague wanted to see him in action—some of them even remembered the talented child of twenty years before.

Lydia scanned the audience for Milan’s mother, knowing that he was doing the same, but it was impossible to pick out individuals in the sea of eager faces. She quickly gave up and turned her attention to Mary-Ann, after noting the ominous space in the ranks of cellos. Still no sign of Evgeny.

They embarked on a sequence of Slavonic Dances before moving on to the Smetana. As she played the stirring lyrical bars of the
Vltava
movement, Lydia felt a surge of emotion that threatened to overwhelm her. This land would be her land, and this music that meant so much to Milan could have the same resonance for her one day. Already she associated its passion with him; it seemed far more about Milan Kaspar than the river that ran through the centre of the Czech Republic.

The audience rose to its feet once the last note died, an uproar of applause greeting the performance. Lydia, flushed and exhilarated, watched Milan hold his violin aloft. He seemed to be ignoring Mary-Ann’s contribution to the whole affair. He was home, she thought with a stab of strange misgiving. He was with his people. The rest of us might as well not exist.

They took bow after bow, then played an encore of another Dvořák piece before finally leaving the stage, Mary-Ann loaded down with flowers.

Milan ripped off his bow tie the minute he exited the wings, and stood there, laughing like a madman for a moment before grabbing Lydia’s hand, kissing it and pulling her along to the stage door.

He said something in Czech to the security guard then helped himself to a glass of backstage champagne, handing another to Lydia.

“She will be here soon,” he said. He deflected all claims for attention from other orchestral members wanting to have a drink with him. Instead he stood by the door, holding on to Lydia, checking his watch every half a minute.

“Where shall we live?” Lydia asked, hoping to distract him from his tightly strung tension.

“Wherever we like,” he said, turning to her, eyes bright. “Where do you like?”

“Oh, I like everywhere. Prague is so beautiful.”

“Maybe not Žižkov, hey?” He laughed and slugged down some more champagne. He seemed almost feverish. Lydia squeezed his arm, trying to calm him. He patted her hand absently. “When she is here, I will go out to the front and see who I can find. I think the directors of the Czech orchestras will all be here. I’ll try and set up a few meetings. We’ll have work, orchestral work, then perhaps I can go solo, or get a conducting gig. I’ll teach you Czech, though the orchestras are international and English will be spoken, but you’ll need to know at least a little…” He paused to draw breath.

“Do you think she knows where to come?”

“She’s played here, Lydia. She knows this place inside out.”

Mary-Ann appeared at their side and plonked her flowers down on the table beside them.

“Just a bit of good news for you, Milan,” she said, her voice hard-edged. “I’m quitting when we get back to London.”

He turned to stare at her as if he didn’t recognise her.

“What the fuck for?” he said eventually.

“I can’t work with you.”

“You won’t have to.”

“Milan,” said Lydia, fearful of a row. “Leave it.”

“Why? She wants to start something with me. I can finish it here and now. I’m not going back to London, so you don’t have to worry.”

“What?” Mary-Ann stared from Milan to Lydia and back again.

“I’m staying in Prague. It’s my home.”

“I see. Fine.” Mary-Ann sounded bemused, pulling her spectacles down over the bridge of her nose. “And that’s okay with you, is it, Lydia?”

Lydia nodded, avoiding the conductor’s piercing gaze.

“Really? I’m surprised. I thought you and Milan؅”

“You thought right,” interrupted Milan, with a supercilious curl of the lips.

Lydia cringed and waited for Mary-Ann to make the connection.

“Oh, don’t tell me you’re staying with him? Lydia! No! What about your career? Your family? Your
life
?”

“I can have a life here,” insisted Lydia. “I want a life here. With Milan.”

“He’ll lead you a dog’s life,” said Mary-Ann vehemently. “You must see that.”

“You can go now,” said Milan, waving a forceful hand. “You know the score. You’re not needed here. Go back to London and enjoy your career with the WSO. Thanks for the memories, goodnight and good luck.”

“Lydia,” said Mary-Ann, holding her eyes for a desperate moment before giving up and stalking off, head shaking from side to side.

“It would be nice, just once, to have somebody approve of our relationship,” sighed Lydia.

“My mother does,” said Milan. He checked his watch again, huffing.

Another doorman ran up to the Green Room door and conferred with his colleague in rapid Czech.

Milan, listening in to their conversation, relayed the gist of it to Lydia.

“Ah, I see why she might be late. Something has happened outside the hall and they have blocked the road. Police…ambulances…someone pushed in the road, hit by a tram.” He shook his head, tutting. “Sounds bad.”

“Oh, dear.” Lydia swallowed down an impulse to panic. “Can you ask them about it? Ask if that might have delayed your mother?”

“Okay.” He interrupted the conversation and Lydia waited, breath bated, until Milan was able to translate. She watched his face and his upper body, noted the stiffening of his shoulders and the shadow that chased across his eyes. He seemed to pause for breath before ending the exchange.

“I want to go and look,” he muttered to Lydia. “They say an elderly lady. I just need to be sure… Come with me.”

The hand that clutched hers was clammy and the feet that span her down the stairs to the stage door almost mis-stepped in their haste.

Outside, it was dark now, and flashing lights drew all eyes over towards the section of road near the bridge. Milan ran with Lydia across the grass towards the scene of the accident. The tram stood still on its tracks, its passengers milling, some of them with minor injuries, well back from the barricades.

“Who is hurt?” asked Lydia, hoping some English speakers might have witnessed the accident.

“An old lady.” A tourist with an American accent supplied the information. “I saw what happened from the tram. She was walking along the street when some drunk staggered right into her, pushed her in front of us. I feel for the driver—there was no way he could have stopped in time.”

Lydia followed the tourist’s gaze to where a man stood, shivering and weeping, by the bank of ambulances. Milan was over there already, waving his hands in the air, demanding information that didn’t seem to be forthcoming.

The tourist pointed over to the riverside, where another flurry of emergency activity seemed to be taking place.

“The drunk tried to get away—ended up falling in the river. They’re trying to get him out now.”

“Oh, my God. What a disaster.” Lydia hurried over to Milan, but he flapped his hand at her, now shouting at the police officers who guarded the scene. Seeing the pointlessness of trying to reason with him, she let her footsteps draw her over to the riverside.

A paramedic was trying to resuscitate a man, pumping water from his lungs. The man wasn’t conscious, and Lydia sensed that the rescue was too late and he had drowned.

Moving closer, she felt a shroud of horror cover her from head to toe and she had to stop for a moment, jaw wide open, heart convulsing.

It was Evgeny.

She heard herself scream his name, as if from the sky above instead of her own mouth. Some of the bystanders looked sharply at her, including a police officer who hurried over and said some Czech words she couldn’t understand.

“Evgeny,” she said again, wringing her hands helplessly, unable to speak anything other than his name.

“No Czech?” asked the officer.

Lydia shook her head.

“He is… I know him…”

She spun around, looking for Milan, but he had disappeared. Maybe he had been arrested for yelling at that cop. Just when she needed him most, more than ever, he was gone.

The policeman took a gentle tack with Lydia, putting his hand on her arm and walking slowly forward, needing her to identify the drowned man.

She knelt over his blue-skinned, stunned-looking corpse and wept for what seemed like hours.

She made no effort to protest or look for Milan when they put her in the ambulance with Evgeny and took her to the hospital. She answered all their questions in monosyllables, giving Evgeny’s full name and such details as she knew of his next of kin.

All around her, hospital personnel rushed and dashed, patients moaned and screamed, but it all seemed to be happening a long way away, outside her. All that was real was the fact that young, beautiful Evgeny was dead, because of her. Not to mention the unfortunate woman he had killed. What a price to pay for love. It was too much. Much too much.

The nurses gave her plastic coffee and sympathy in some kind of relatives’ room where she sat staring, unable to move or think, through the window at the night.

The opening of the door tore her eyes from the clouds. Mary-Ann stood there, pale and red-eyed.

“Oh, Lyd,” she said. “Oh, Lyd.”

They held each other for a long time, then Mary-Ann pulled slowly away, took Lydia’s hand and looked into her eyes with sober urgency.

“You need to go to Milan.”

For a moment, Lydia couldn’t make the connection, thinking that Mary-Ann meant the Italian city. It was only when she spoke again, urging her to go and find him in the Emergency Room, that she understood.

“He’s here?”

“He needs you.”

“He knows about Evgeny?”

“He needs you. I’ll take you to him.”

Corridors, gurneys, unreadable signs—all loomed around Lydia like objects in a nightmare as Mary-Ann tried to find her way back to wherever it was she had seen Milan. It took a long time, and when they finally set foot in the Emergency ward he wasn’t there.

“I’ll go outside and try to phone him,” Lydia suggested, leaving Mary-Ann to go and ask questions about what was to be done with Evgeny’s body.

Lydia stepped out into the air, feeling its fresh spring chill as a relief to her fever-hot skin.

“Lydia.” A voice from the small landscaped area across the path.

“Milan.” She ran to where he sat on a bench, smoking. “You’re smoking.”

It seemed a stupid opening, given the enormity of the night’s events, but she could think of nothing better.

“Yeah,” he said.

His voice sounded cracked and low.

“Oh, Milan. Did you see him?”

“See who?”

“Evgeny, of course.”

“Evgeny?” Milan sounded genuinely confused. “You think I give a shit about Evgeny when my mother is dead?”

Lydia inhaled so deeply she had to grab the arm of the bench.

“Oh no,” she said. “Oh no, no, no. That can’t be true. That’s too cruel.”

“It’s true. It’s cruel. Maybe it’s what I deserve.”

“Jesus, Milan, don’t…”

She reached out for him but he turned away, puffing violently on the cigarette.

“I abandoned her. I didn’t deserve her anyway. I’m a piece of fucking shit.”

“Milan, you aren’t. I’m so sorry.”

“Use your brain, Lydia, and get away from me. Far away. Somewhere I can’t touch you or ruin your life. Go on.”

“Let me help you. I want to help you. I love you.”

“Love? Forget that. Go.”

“I can’t forget you. How can you ask me to forget you?”

“Forget me.”

“I can’t.”

She threw herself upon him, finding reserves of strength she didn’t know she had, determined that he could fight her as much as he wanted but she wouldn’t let go unless he threw her off.

He stiffened at first, then he yielded, slumping back against the bench, holding her close while the pair of them wept and clung until the sun came up.

“I’ll stay here with you. Help you sort out the funeral,” she whispered. “What are we going to do, Milan? What’s going to happen to us?”

“You will be fine. Me? I don’t know.”

Lydia saw the orchestra back off in the tour bus before collecting her and Milan’s belongings from the hotel room and taking them to his mother’s apartment in Žižkov. Nothing final had been said to Mary-Ann about resignations, and Lydia knew that both she and Milan had their positions held open. The Trust would grant Milan compassionate leave, of course, but Lydia was less sure of her own situation. Just at that moment, though, she couldn’t have cared less. Milan was her priority and she couldn’t think of anything else.

When she arrived at the apartment, Milan lay on his mother’s bed, drinking from a bottle of apricot brandy and smoking again.

She said nothing, laying down their travelling bags in the middle of the floor and turning to put on the kettle.