Change of Heart, page 37
‘Good. So what about you? Do you have any worries yourself? Any worries about the orchestra? Any worries about me?’
‘Do you think we dare take the first movement just a little more slowly? Hardly even one mark. But I just feel I’m still missing something at the beginning. I just feel I need a little more room – what’s the word? To expand.’
‘Yes.’ Sir Iain sat back in his chair, nodded and then nodded once again, this time more emphatically. ‘It’s a risk as I’m sure you appreciate, because we’re sailing pretty close to the wind as it is. But if you feel you have something more to give us in that movement, then next rehearsal – which is our last rehearsal, might I remind you? Next rehearsal we shall take it down a whole mark and see what we find. Now I believe you have something much more important to attend to. Your hair.’
‘Yes?’ Renato asked, standing back for all to see.
‘Oh yes,’ said Gregory, suddenly very serious. ‘Oh yes, most certainly yes. Yes. Amelia?’
‘I think it’s fantastic. Brilliant.’
‘Can I see?’ Fleur asked, unable to join in since they were not in a mirrored salon.
‘Eh, voilà!’ Gregory said, producing a large hand mirror which he held first to the front, then to either side. ‘C’est sensas!’
‘Wow,’ said Fleur, staring hard. ‘You don’t think it’s a bit Tamla Motown?’
‘I think it is truly sensational, Flower, and just try and imagine it with the whole cozzy,’ Gregory assured her, leading her out to stand in front of the hall mirror. ‘It is really very little short of a miracle.’
‘Gregory’s right,’ Amelia said, standing to the side of Fleur and looking at her daughter’s image in the mirror with her. ‘Once you’ve got the whole outfit on, I mean I just think you’ll look simply wonderful. You look wonderful anyway.’
‘Listen she’ll look such a knockout, Amelia,’ Gregory said, ‘she won’t even need to take her fiddle.’
Gone was the schoolgirl look, the long straight dark hair trained into place by either a single plait or a large Victorian bow, and in its place was a brilliantly cut and arranged slew of trailing frizzes, covered with a mass of tiny glittering bows. It was wild but it was wonderful, Fleur finally decided as she stared at herself in the mirror, amazing but not weird.
‘Look if you aren’t happy, sweetheart, we can start again from basics,’ Renato said.
‘No I think it’s wonderful,’ Fleur assured him. ‘Really. It’s just – it’s just so different. I’m only thinking about whether I can carry it off, that’s all. I don’t mean to criticize you, because I really love what you’ve done.’
‘Of course you can carry it off, Fleur,’ Amelia said. ‘And you must remember most people are going to be seeing it from a long way off. It’s not as if it’s television, I mean we all talked about this and designed it to be seen from quite a distance, from where most of the audience will be sitting.’
‘Yes I see,’ Fleur said. ‘Of course I’m looking at it from about a foot away.’
‘While most of the audience will be ten, twenty, fifty, maybe a hundred feet away. We wanted to create this wonderful effect.’
‘I think it’s a triumph,’ Gregory insisted, ‘the real beauty of it being that although it gets away from the gauche schoolgirl bit, it still looks young in just the right way, without being in the slightest bit – you know this year’s look.’
‘Okay,’ Fleur said. ‘Sold. So why don’t I go upstairs and change, and we’ll see what it looks like with the – what do you call it, Gregory?’
‘The full schmutter, heart.’
‘Let’s see what it looks like with the full schmutter, Mum.’ Fleur grinned and started to go up to her room to get changed. As she went across the hall the telephone rang and out of force of habit Fleur picked it up to see who it was and found it was for Gregory.
‘I have told you a million and three times not to answer it,’ Gregory scolded her as he took the receiver from her. ‘I have told you no newspapers, no radio or teevee and least of all no telephone calls.’
‘Why not?’ Amelia laughed, as Gregory stood waiting with his hand cupped over the receiver. ‘She’s hardly going to learn anything dreadful over the telephone, surely?’
‘It was Sir Iain’s idea, not mine, Ameha, although I agree with it one hundred per cent,’ Gregory replied. ‘We were thinking of those wretched reporters and the last thing we want is something nasty getting into Madam’s bonce. Now run along, Petal. Go on, vanish.’
With a grin Fleur did as she was told and disappeared upstairs with her mother to her bedroom, while Gregory took the call. She didn’t hear who it was, although she did notice a sudden change in Gregory’s tone as she heard him drop his voice and indicate that he was going to take the call in his office.
Half an hour later when she and Amelia returned downstairs to show everyone how well Fleur’s concert ensemble went with her new hairstyle, the only person they could find was Renato who was having coffee with Rita in the kitchen. Immediately Renato fussed around, adjusting the cut and set of Fleur’s hair, and Rita frowned deeply, sighed tragically and whispered conspiratorially as to how wonderful she looked. Fleur asked her where everyone had gone.
‘Mr Roger say something come up, Miss Floor,’ Rita replied. ‘He, Sir Yan and Mr Kleen all must talk, and they say if Mister here happy with hair, you and Mrs Mum have afternoon to go to pictures.’
‘It must be something quite serious to make them shut themselves away like this.’
‘Mr Roger no say. He juss say make sure you take affernoon off.’
‘I gather it was something to do with the concert arrangements,’ Renato said, standing back to admire his work, having just executed his last buff to Fleur’s hair. ‘Someone crying off at the last moment or something boring. Now, what we are going to do before you disappear is wash all of this out so that no-one sees it, since we’re all so deliriously happy with it, then do it all again from new on the big day, okay?’
‘Fine,’ Fleur grinned. ‘Anything to take my mind off it.’
Hannah and Her Sisters was showing at the Odeon Swiss Cottage, which both Amelia and Fleur were dying to see. So after lunch at the Chinese Green Cottage, they took themselves off to the cinema where they put all thoughts of the concert out of their minds as they immersed themselves in Woody Allen’s affectionate and witty family portrait of three sisters, their loyalties and their affairs of the heart. To judge from their reception on their return whatever difficulties had arisen that midday had been overcome, and life in Sir Iain’s house was back to normal. The Brat Pack, as Gregory had affectionately dubbed their number, all dined together, Sir Iain, Gregory, Isaac, Amelia and Fleur and when finally it was time for Fleur to go to bed, she kissed her mother au revoir and asked whether she would like her to call her a taxi as usual.
‘Not tonight, Flower,’ Gregory told her. ‘There are just one or two things we need to run over with Mum, so you take yourself off to bed and I’ll run her home when we’re through.’
32
THE DEBATE HAD been long and keen as to which should be the venue for Fleur’s debut, the final choice being between the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, the Royal Festival Hall or the Albert Hall, both in London. Isaac was all for Manchester, not because he was lacking in confidence, the opposite in fact being the case, but because he had always argued that moments as great as this one belonged just as much to the provinces as they did to the capital. No-one argued with this, particularly Sir Iain who was a Mancunian by birth, and right until the last moment it seemed that Manchester had won the day, only to lose out entirely due to an impassioned and serious plea by Gregory in favour of the Albert Hall, an appeal based not only on the aesthetics and theatricality of the great lyceum but also most convincingly of all, on the all important question of confidence.
‘I agree with everything that has been said about Manchester,’ he had argued, ‘and being what they dub a “provincial” myself, Isaac has sung my very own song. But. But there is one all-important aspect which we are in danger of overlooking, and that is how important the choice of venue is for the as yet unconverted. No-one has seen Fleur play, no paying member of the music-going public, that is. So there is a danger that if we don’t go for broke there will be those, and there will be quite a lot of “those” as there always are, who will prejudge us, saying that we don’t dare take on the capital but are playing it safe in the sticks. Now we know that is nonsense but they don’t, and the knockers will take it as a god-given sign that there’s been a little bit too much puff in the pastry. However brilliantly Fleur plays, to these doubters it will not sound as brilliant as if she was standing there on the world-famous podium of one of the grandest venues of them all, namely the Albert Hall. Remember, one and all, the choice we have to make could in itself be a make-or-break one, and knowing that we have the goods, I say to you it is only he who dares wins.’
The vote when finally cast proved unanimously in favour of the Albert Hall and such was the word of mouth that within five days of opening the box office, every ticket for the concert was sold.
This time Fleur’s nerves showed no sign of disappearing when the day of the concert dawned. Everyone in the household from Rita to Sir Iain did their best to joke their way through the seemingly endless morning and afternoon; but since they too were all suffering severely from the jitters, instead of easing the tension, by mid-afternoon the atmosphere was near hysterical.
Once again it was Gregory, supposed to be the most temperamental member of the household, who proved the most stable and managed to defuse the situation. He did so by persuading a friend of his who was a professional magician and an ardent concert-goer to come round after lunch and entertain the household in return for the last of the house seats that evening, thereby saving the day. As long as the conjurer entertained, all worries were forgotten and all fears allayed. In fact so bright was the idea, and so good was the timing, that once the cabaret finally ended the wagon had begun to roll in earnest so there simply was no more time left to sit round agonizing in corners, as Gregory liked to call it.
Half an hour later he was at the wheel of the Rolls, driving Fleur all by herself to the Albert Hall, it having been decided, again unanimously, that for the two-hour run-up period to the concert the only person who wouldn’t unsettle Fleur would be not Amelia, not Isaac even, but Gregory.
‘Let’s go over your entrance once again shall we, Flower?’ he asked as he swung the car off Exhibition Road into the turning behind the Albert Hall.
Fleur tried to swallow another army of butterflies which were trying to escape from her stomach. ‘It’s seeing the posters that’s done it,’ she said, breathing in deeply. ‘Sort of rather brings it home really.’
‘Je said – let’s go over your entrance, shall we?’ Gregory insisted.
‘We’ve gone over it, Gregory. We’ve gone over and over and over it.’
‘Then let’s go over it one more time.’
‘I don’t just walk on.’
‘No you most certainly don’t.’
‘I don’t just walk on as if I’ve been standing in the wings waiting to come on. I arrive.’
‘Wrong – you do not arrive. You appear.’
‘And no-one must see me coming on.’
‘Better,’ Gregory agreed. ‘Now they don’t see you, now they do.’
‘You will be there to tell me when,’ Fleur said, turning to look at Gregory for assurance as he stopped the car.
‘As soon as Sir tips me the wink,’ he replied. ‘I shall cue you before Sir raises his hand to beckon you on, remember. That way, because the audience won’t be looking for you, because they won’t yet be looking in your direction, you will already be onstage as the Master raises his hand and – abracadabra. You will appear to have arrived from nowhere, which will make you one up from the outset. The magic will have already started.’
‘And it really works?’
‘Believe me, Flower, it always works,’ Gregory smiled. ‘But with you it will work like it has never worked before.’
Because she had been deliberately kept out of the spotlight, as well as deprived of all media information about her debut, Fleur was genuinely astounded to see the mass of reporters and photographers on duty outside the artistes’ entrance. Even Gregory, who had warned Fleur to prepare herself for a certain amount of attention, was a little taken aback. Telling Fleur he hadn’t expected quite such a turnout, he suddenly swung the Rolls away from the back of the Hall to drive it round the front.
‘What are you doing now, Gregory?’ Fleur asked, looking through the rear window at the fruitlessly popping flashlights. ‘I mean we’ve got to get inside somehow.’
‘I don’t want any piccies yet, Flower,’ Gregory replied, looking for somewhere to park alongside the main entrance. ‘So pull the hood of your cape up just in case there are any of them lurking round here, and then inside as quick as you can.’
The only people outside the Hall and in the foyer itself were concert-goers collecting their tickets, and such was the speed of Gregory and Fleur’s entrance that they were up the stairs and in through a pass door without even being noticed. On their way to the dressing rooms Fleur did her best not to look down at the platform far below them. In less than two hours she would be standing there in front of the orchestra and a houseful of music lovers. Even so, as Gregory stopped to pull open a particularly stiff door, she found herself staring down hypnotized at the vast auditorium.
‘If you must, you must,’ Gregory said, holding the door open. ‘But think of it this way. Far more people have already heard you play on record than will be sitting down there tonight. And none of them have asked for their money back, have they?’
‘Not really,’ Fleur agreed half-heartedly, taking one last quick look at the empty hall below. ‘Anyway I suppose it’s a bit like going to the dentist’s really. It’s thinking about it that’s the worst.’
‘I don’t know. Thinking back to some of the concerts I’ve had to attend, I’d have preferred being at the dentist’s any day,’ Gregory replied. ‘Now come along, because we have a lot to do. You’d be amazed how quickly the time flies by when you’re not enjoying yourself.’
Taking the arm that was then offered to her, Fleur walked off down the long corridor towards her ever-impending destiny.
With less than an hour to go and all her main warm-up exercises completed, Fleur had just stretched on the chaise-longue in her dressing room to read for a while, waiting for Renato and Amelia who were due to help her dress and put the finishing touches to her hair, when much to her surprise the telephone on the corner of her dressing table rang.
‘Miss Fisher-Dilke?’ A voice enquired. ‘I know Mr Rogers said no calls but I have your father on the line, and he insists on speaking to you.’
Fleur hesitated. The last time she had seen her father had been some time back in July, when he had insisted on taking her out to a most discomfiting lunch during which he had proceeded to present his side of the marital dispute in full uncensored form. Fleur had managed to block out most of the detail by using the device she normally employed at such times, namely running some particularly complicated violin part through her mind from start to finish. Even so, some of her father’s message had got through, and while she wasn’t prepared to believe in his wildly overblown version, the memory of some of those half-heard stories lingered on somewhere in her head. Consequently on the couple of occasions when her father had tried to take her out again, she had pleaded her work as an excuse and had managed to stay free of him ever since.
Yet now he was on the other end of a telephone line waiting to speak to her before the most important moment of her life and she wondered why. She wondered why he hadn’t rung her at Sir Iain’s as he usually did, or even written to her, instead of ringing her at the actual concert hall within an hour of her debut.
‘Ask him what he wants, if you wouldn’t mind,’ she instructed the girl on the switchboard. ‘Tell him I’m meant to be resting.’
A moment later the telephone rang again.
‘He says he just wants to wish you luck, because he can’t manage to attend the concert itself,’ the girl said. ‘He really won’t keep you from your rest for long, he says.’
‘Very well,’ Fleur said, pulling the telephone over to her and cradling it in her lap. ‘Put him through.’
‘Hello, young lady,’ her father said. ‘Did you get my flowers?’
‘No I didn’t actually,’ Fleur said, looking at all the bouquets around her room, all of whose cards she had read.
‘You didn’t? That wretched florist. They promised they’d have them there by midday. They’re probably still on their way. But you got my card.’
‘No. No, I didn’t get a card either. I got lots of cards, but there wasn’t one from you.’
‘This is ridiculous,’ her father sighed deeply. ‘I posted the thing myself, on Thursday, first class. Perhaps they haven’t brought all the post up yet.’
‘I think they have. The girl downstairs brought up the last lot only about ten minutes ago.’
‘And mine wasn’t with them?’
‘No.’
‘Isn’t it unbelievable?’
Fleur was about to agree but her father gave her no time, pressing straight on.
‘I’m sorry I can’t be there tonight, I really am. It’s just another wretched clash of interests, I’m afraid. We shouldn’t both have careers in the ascendancy. I told you that. Goodness knows I’ve said that often enough to you.’ Her father laughed shortly, and then sighed once more, while Fleur kept deliberately silent. ‘The thing is it’s business, you see. Although in one way I’m not sorry because it looks as though at long last I shall have a consultancy of my own. Isn’t that good news? Not only that, but a Harley Street consultancy. Isn’t that good news.’
‘Yes, very,’ Fleur said, glancing at her watch and thinking how much she still had to do. ‘Look, Daddy—’ she began.
