The Wall (29 page)

past few months in one careless sweep. He understood, she realised

finally, he really understood.

Then the curtain was raising and she was grabbing the microphone

and stepping strongly out on to the stage, her movements lithe, eager.

The music pounded out a heady beat, quick, tense, lilting. The crowd

caught sight of her moving, glittering, arresting figure and roared,

clapped, screamed. The energy that she had tremblingly held in for

the past few days burst forth in the dynamic and riveting melody of

her song. She had to hold the microphone down a bit, a little bit away

from her lips and slender throat, for the musical sound coming from

her was overwhelming and powerful, elemental and earth-shattering.

She could have dropped the microphone altogether and sung loud

enough to fill the entire auditorium, the power pulsed so in her veins.

Her body moved gracefully to the sounds, compellingly; people

could not tear their gaze away. The crowd drank her energy up, just

soaked it in like a sponge, and that was okay because she had more to

give inside of her.

Later, after the show, she would go with the dark silent man and they

would put in a token appearance at the party being held in her

honour, and they would go proudly, side by side. Then she would go

home with him, and he would bring her down to earth, get her back

in touch with a sane reality, hold her when she crashed from the

energy high that she was feeding from at the moment. She would

probably be so tense and excited still that they would make violent

love, and then they would sleep peacefully together, in each other's

loving arms, exhausted. She wanted to go home with him, wanted to

have that give-and-take relationship with the man who would always

be a bit of a loner in the eyes of the world. She wanted to race along

the beach with a black panting loyal beast, and lie quietly in the arms

of the one who loved her best for every single facet of her complex

personality.

But that was the completion and contentment of another part of her.

And that was to be later. For now Sara was giving to people her best

gift of music, and only she and one other knew that it was given

mostly to him. She was pouring out everything in her full and

intensely happy heart, sweat coming out on tense neck muscles and

collarbone and gleaming in the white hot spotlights. She was

performing the music of her soul.

It was the fulfilment of her destiny.