Free The Virtuoso by Sonia Orchard

work from there, pulling each finger in towards it as I played. Old Neville Majors—who hardly had any teeth, and used to eat yoghurt all through my lessons—insisted I play as if I was holding an egg in my hand,’ and I curled my thumb and third finger together forming a perfect circle. ‘The opposition of the thumb and third was his big thing. There was also Miss Friedman, whose huge breasts would hover over me as I played—“You are pulling back rather than pushing forward,” she’d yell, parting the air in front of her as if she were swimming breaststroke. I’d try leaning in towards the keys and she’d shriek, “No, no, no! From within. With-iiin!”—clutching her enormous bosom. I obviously didn’t last long with her!’
    Noël, laughing, got up from the table, washed his hands, then walked behind me and started massaging my back and running his fingers through my hair. Then with one palm against the nape of my neck and the other gripping each shoulder in turn, his fingertips worked into my bones, as if recording shape and movement, exploring their way around each tendon and muscle, rolling the joint in circles, and driving his thumbs into my blades.
    I could feel him pressing his body against mine, pulling me back towards him, and although blood was heating my face and my groin, I also felt like I might burst into tears at any moment.
    ‘I think you just need to relax more.’ He gave my shoulders one last squeeze before returning to his seat.
    He leaned back in his chair, reaching down into his jacket pocket for his cigarettes.
    ‘I wonder what I’d do if I didn’t play the piano,’ I said. ‘Have you ever thought what else you’d have done?’
    ‘If I didn’t play the piano?’ he responded, lighting his cigarette, sucking in his cheeks as he inhaled, then hanging his head back to watch the smoke drift up and hover around the light globe.
    Our two dinner plates with their dry purple bones and sticky film of gravy sat ugly between us.
    ‘I’d rather be dead,’ he said with a short laugh, still gazing up at the ceiling.
    I cleared the plates and, from under the sink, fetched the bottle of Gordon’s I’d recently bought, afraid my morose behaviour had ruined everything.
    Early the following morning Noël rushed out the door, never content to lounge around, even to listen to or play music. Daytime, for him, was for getting things done. I lay in bed a while, staring at his string bag hanging over the back of a chair, grateful as always when he left something behind. I lifted an arm to inhale the musky sweet smell of him on my skin, andrecalled the doughy warmth of his chest after he undressed.
    Even though he’d only just left, as usual I started to feel slightly anxious. The room now seemed unnaturally still and airless; there was something condemning about it.
    I was bothered by our conversation the previous evening. I felt like a fool, having asked Noël what he’d do other than play piano. He’d more than once made comments about something or other that he’d do once he was the world’s top pianist. I always admired the way he tossed these words out so nonchalantly, as if he’d said them so many times before that they no longer carried any real weight at all. I’d heard his mother, Dulcie, exhibit the same ease with Noël’s endowment when she spoke on the radio, chatting about ‘her darling Noël’, who, at the age of three, would sit at the piano saying he was ‘playing concerts’, then ask for paper with ‘train tracks’ on it. I felt appalled with myself; I had no idea why I’d said it, why I’d shown so little respect for who he was.
    Then I thought about my aunt, who, so unlike Dulcie, had rarely ever spoken a kind word about my playing, or anything else for that matter. I remembered when I was young, my father read from the paper about a child pianist from Herefordshire whose parents had insured his hands for three thousand pounds; how envious I was, and how quiet I