Prelude (25 page)

The lights were low, but she looked breathtaking.

My palms were clammy with sweat.

Should I go up to her at the end? Greet her? Would she be pleased to see me?

I snatched one more look over my shoulder. She was leaning now towards the man next to her. He was whispering into her ear. She threw her head back and laughed, and as she did so I had a good look at him too. Well-built, I could see, youngish with a full head of hair.

What to do, what to do?

The Goldberg’s had come to an end and we were applauding, cheering as well, because the more we cheered, the better the chance of an encore. Schiff came on again, went off, and I am clapping with demented frenzy. I don’t know what else to do.

A lull in the applause and I take another look behind. It’s India, without a doubt. With the auditorium lights up, I can see her in all her glory, and it’s as if that same woman whom I loved twenty-five years ago has been transported to the Usher Hall; although her hair is shorter, she has not aged a single day.

I don’t care what my wife thinks I’m doing. I just have to look again.

India was still talking to the man next to her.

Just a little dart of jealousy? Of course. For India was with another man and it should have been me by her side.

Her sixth-sense must have told her she was being watched.

She was talking to her partner but she suddenly broke off and looked at me, looked directly at me, and my world shattered into a billion pieces.

She was as serene as I had ever seen her. For a moment her fingers strayed to her lips.

Then she waved. Just a simple wave. But it was not a wave of hello. There was an air of finality about it, as if after twenty-five years she had at last been given the opportunity to say goodbye.

The man looked at me too, looked me square in the eye. A lean face with a snub nose, thin lips, and hooded eyelids that drooped over slightly bulging hazel eyes.

I had to turn away.

Schiff was back on stage to play the encore.

And I was undone.

The Well-Tempered Clavier
, Book 1, Prelude 17 in A-flat Major. It was my first love, the first prelude that India had ever played me. Instantly, I was back in that small music room with lime-green walls and a scuffed upright Steinway.

My shoulders heaved. I buried my face into my hands. The tears streamed through my fingers.

My wife leaned over, touched my shoulder. “Are you all right?”

The pain was in my heart and in my head, but the hurt was physical.

Although it wasn’t just the music, that ethereal clavier music that Bach had written more than 280 years ago.

I had also recognised the man beside India, that tall man with the thin lips and the lean face; the man who, two decades ago, I had once used to see in the mirror.

I wept and cursed myself for a fool.

But my tears were not just for the son I’d never known.

There had been one thing more.

I had seen something else.

As she had waved, I had recognised that watch, that classic Heuer that I had given to India on her birthday all those years ago.

She was wearing it still, an ever-present reminder of her lost love.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I HESITATE FROM turning this into a teary-eyed Oscar speech, but there are a number of people I need to thank.

Ever since I embarked on this novel-writing venture— some years ago, I can tell you—I have had a coterie of stalwart cheer-leaders. These are the ones I would especially like to thank:

My brother Toby, Charlie Bain, Jerv and Angela Cottam, James Cripps, Mike Hamill, Sebastian Hamilton, Jeremy Hitchen, Tim Maguire, Charlie Ottley, Giles Pilbrow, Mark Pilbrow and, a rose among all these thorny men, Louise Robinson.

I am much indebted to the heroic efforts of my agents Jenny Brown and Darin Jewell, as well as my editor Tom Chalmers, who were all formative in getting this book into print.

Although this book is a novel, I do share at least one trait with its hero—in that I truly was one of Eton’s most indolent loafers. So my thanks to my two tutors Michael Meredith and Nick Welsh, outstanding English teachers the pair of them. I hope this book brings them some small amusement to see how, despite my tabloid wanderings, a few kernels from their lessons may actually have taken root.

To my parents, Bob and Sarah (who will doubtless cringe when they read this, so I’ll keep it short), I say a special thanks—not least for their perpetual bullishness.

My two boys, Dexter and Geordie, will one day, I hope, realise how they have been an unending source of good cheer to me.

And lastly,
merci mille fois
to Margot—a great wife and, as it happens, a great friend also.