Free The Conductor by Sarah Quigley Page A

‘Will that be all?’ He sounded like a grocer wrapping up spring greens for a favoured customer. ‘Anything else I can help you with?’ Not, of course, that he had helped her at all — nor, on this fine Monday afternoon, had his concentration been aided by her tearful face and delicious body. He walked to the window, casually turning his wife’s photograph away so her steely gaze was trained on the Dictionary of Musicology rather than himself.
    ‘Nothing else,’ said Lydia, showing little sign of vacating her chair.
    Sollertinsky kept his back turned. Below him students were spilling out onto the Conservatoire steps. In the street, mothers and children walked hand in hand; a tram clattered past, swaying on its domino-tracks. The light was so bright that, when he turned back to Lydia, for a second he could see nothing at all.
    ‘I hear that you’re good friends with Mr Shostakovich.’ Lydia’s voice filtered into his dazzled vision. ‘And that there will be a performance of his Sixth Symphony in a fortnight?’ She stopped, her desire for a ticket — and perhaps something more — hanging in the air.
    ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ But he spoke automatically. He’d just noticed a line of smoke creeping under his door, rising in a spiral against the panelled walls like a snake lured by a charmer’s flute. ‘I meant to say,’ he corrected himself, ‘although I’d like to offer you one of my tickets, it isn’t de rigueur, considering my position at the school, and your —’ Just in time, he stopped himself from saying considerable allure .
    The strong tar-smoke was familiar. Reluctantly, he held out a hand to Lydia. ‘Allow me to see you out.’
    As she paused beside him, she pushed her shiny hair behind one ear, and he caught the tempting scent of rosewater and skin. Nonetheless, he opened the door, and Lydia stepped out onto the landing, keeping her eyes fixed on his face so that she failed to see the figure sitting at the top of the stairs. ‘Oh!’ she cried, almost falling.
    ‘Careful now!’ The man grabbed her shapely ankle with one hand, while plumes of smoke poured from his loosely rolled cigarette. Lydia coughed. ‘Excuse me!’ she said, sounding genuinely flustered. ‘I didn’t know it was you. That is, I didn’t see you!’ With a flurry of hair and heels, she departed rapidly, less femme fatale than embarrassed teenager.
    Sollertinsky watched her disappear down the curved stairwell before he spoke. ‘Dmitri Shostakovich,’ he said, holding out both hands. ‘You may not be as comely as my last visitor but you’re welcome all the same.’
    Grasping the stair rail, Shostakovich pulled himself to his feet and picked up his books. ‘It’s about time you finished your tête à tête . Did you want your old friend to die of chain smoking?’ A pile of grainy butts lay in a bottle top on the floor.
    ‘You smell like a bonfire,’ said Sollertinsky. ‘Care to come in for a spot of Beethoven?’
    ‘Absolutely!’ Shostakovich followed him back into the office. ‘Did you fail that girl?’
    ‘I had no choice. Fortunately for her, her looks will compensate for her astounding lack of brains. Once she gives up this musical nonsense, she’ll find a husband who — the lucky sod — will keep her in clover for the rest of her life. But now, on to more important matters.’ He reached behind Beethoven’s Second Symphony and extracted the brandy bottle. ‘To whom shall we toast? Pretty girls with large — ahem — I mean, pretty girls with little brain?’
    Shostakovich swirled the brown liquid in his glass.
    ‘You prefer to drink to something worthier?’ queried Sollertinsky.
    ‘Yes. To sleep!’ Shostakovich swallowed the brandy in one gulp and held out his glass for more.
    Sollertinsky tilted the bottle with careless finesse. ‘What have you been doing to yourself, my friend? I thought the Romances on Verses were wed and put to bed?’
    ‘Nowhere near.’ Shostakovich’s eyes