Starburst (42 page)

L
eonard Hartson stood on top of the small stepladder adjusting the spotlight so that it fell onto the face of the solitary female dancer he had called to the location that afternoon. There were only a couple of small insert shots to do, so he had decided not to involve either the director of the dance company or his young female interpreter. After three weeks of arduous and energy-sapping work, there were two things now prevalent in Leonard’s mind: first, that what he had just completed was indeed his masterpiece; and second, that it had come at a drastic cost to his own health.

He glanced across to the other side of the lighting stage, where T.K. was shifting the camera to its new position, levelling the tripod head with an experienced hand. When he was sure the lad wasn’t watching him, he climbed slowly down the ladder, clutching hard at the lighting stand for support, and then dragged his feet back to the canvas chair, his face grimacing with pain, and sat down heavily upon it. As T.K. left the camera and came towards him, Leonard forced an excited smile onto his face, taking in a deep breath before speaking, hoping to make his voice sound as normal as possible.

“We’ve just about done it, T.K.,” he said.

His assistant smiled at him. “Aye, looks like you and I are goin’ tae get tae see the fireworks this evening, efter a’.”

“You could well be right,” Leonard replied, clandestinely slipping a hand inside his tweed jacket as he felt the tightness in his ribcage building. “Are you ready to shoot?”

T.K. picked up the clapperboard from beside Leonard’s chair and scribbled a new scene number on it with a piece of chalk. He handed it to Leonard. “Could ye mark it, then?”

The clapperboard felt a dead weight in his hand and he let it fall onto his lap. “Let’s not bother with that,” he said with a shake of his head. “It’s only an insert, so just roll the camera when you’re ready.”

Leonard watched as T.K. walked out onto the stage and held Leonard’s own trusty Weston light meter up to the face of the young dancer to check the skin-tone exposure. He returned to the camera, set the aperture on the lens and then unlocked the pan and tilt levers on the tripod. He checked his focus at the long end of the zoom lens before locking off the tripod once more. “Right, Leonard,” he called out.

“In your own time, my boy, in your own time.” T.K. turned on the camera and watched the flickering image of the girl’s motionless face through the viewfinder. He pressed the zoom, bringing out the frame to head and shoulders, and let the camera run for a further fifteen seconds. “I’ve got it, Leonard,” he called out. “D’ye want me tae cut?”

The camera ran on as T.K. waited for a reply, never taking his eye away from the viewfinder. “Leonard? Shall ah cut it?” he said again.

The sound of the clapperboard clattering to the ground made T.K. slip a hand over the eyepiece and glance round at the old cameraman, and he knew the moment he laid eyes on him that something was dreadfully wrong. Leonard lay slumped to one side of his chair, his head lolling awkwardly against his shoulder and his right arm dangling down towards the ground.

“Leonard!” T.K. cried out, quickly turning off the camera and running across to his mentor. He gently pulled Leonard upright and placed a hand either side of the cameraman’s ashen cheeks. There seemed to be no sign of life in him. T.K. heard a gasp and glanced round to find the young Japanese dancer standing beside him, her tiny hands clasped to her mouth. He stood back, clapping his hands to his head. “Jesus, whit d’we dae? Whit d’we have tae dae?” he yelled out in a panicked voice.

The young girl held out her hands in a hopeless gesture, not being able to understand one word that was being said to her. T.K. pushed roughly past her and grabbed his jacket from where it lay on one of the lighting boxes. He rummaged in the pocket for the mobile phone he had made Leonard buy so that they could be in constant touch with Springtime Productions in London, and with shaking hands pressed in the number for the emergency services.

“I need an ambulance doon at Leith Docks right now,” he yelled urgently into the phone. “Where d’ye think it is? It’s in Edinburgh…address? There isna one!” He scratched impatiently at the back of his head. “In that case, jist get the ambulance doon tae Commercial Street and ah’ll stand and wait fer it.” He glanced over at Leonard. “Ah don’ know. Ah think it could be his hert.” He stood listening for a moment longer before ending the call and then walked slowly back to Leonard’s side. He reached over and pressed his fingers against the cameraman’s neck, feeling for a pulse as he had been instructed. There seemed only the faintest sign of life.

“Leonard, ah’m jist goin’ tae get the ambulance,” he said quietly, tears beginning to blur his eyes as he covered the old man with the jacket that had been bought for him, tucking it in carefully around his still body. “Ye’ll be all right, Leonard, I know ye will. Just sit nice and easy, mon, an’ ah’ll be back wi’ lads who can help ye. Jist haud on, Leonard. Please, jist haud on.”

He turned to the young dancer to ask her to look after Leonard, but then realized it was a hopeless cause. “I’m sorry, but ye have to stay here,” he said to her, pressing his hands down towards the ground, his speech slow and distinct in the hope she would be able to understand him. “Just stay here.”

He ran across the warehouse floor and opened the fire door and stood there a moment, bathed in a watery beam of sunlight.

“I’m no’ going far, Leonard,” he called back to the unconscious figure in the chair. “I promise ah’ll be back with ye in no time.”

W
hen Tess Goodwin entered through one of the back doors of the Usher Hall, the high curving passage was already resounding to a cacophony of instruments warming up for the concert. She slipped off her coat as she followed the passage round, stopping outside a large dark-paneled door on which a small brass slide bore the name of Angélique Pascal. She stood listening for a moment, hearing the strains of a single violin going through a fast and complicated scale, before she knocked. The sound ceased immediately and a voice called out for her to enter.

Angélique was standing in the centre of the room, dressed in the same figure-hugging black dress she had worn for the opening-night concert, her violin and bow held loosely in her hands. Her face lit up when she saw Tess and she hurried over to give her a kiss on either cheek.

“How are you feeling?” Tess asked, placing her coat on a chair.

Angélique blew out a long breath. “Rather nervous, actually. It has been quite a long time since I have done this.”

Tess folded her arms. “I still feel bad about you having to perform at this final concert, but there was such a response to the announcement of your return we felt we couldn’t just schedule one of the ‘lates’ for you.”

Angélique shook her head. “You must not worry. I have a feeling it will go very well. I have always loved the Brahms concerto, so all I have to do now is to play it properly.” She laid her violin and bow down carefully on the chaise longue that sat against the wall. “How is Allan, today?”

Tess laughed. “Not feeling too good. He was called in early to the office this morning for some reason, so he decided to walk it, just to clear his head.”

“That was good fun last night,” Angélique said with a grin. “I have not danced like that for so long.” She picked up a lipstick from the dressing table and applied it lightly to her mouth in the mirror. “By the way, have you seen Jamie this evening?”

“Yes, I saw him in the foyer—oh, and he asked me to give you a message. He’s going to be sitting in the third row back in the central block and he wants you to look out for him when you get up on the stage.”

Angélique turned to Tess with a quizzical frown on her face. “For what reason?”

“I can’t tell you. It’s a surprise.”

“Ah, so you know what it is?”

Tess laughed. “I said I can’t tell you.”

Angélique approached her friend, her eyes wide with intent and her fists clenched. “Tess, I am going to make you tell me, or I promise I will…play all the wrong notes and you will get the sack from your job for being the one who arranged this concert.”

“Well, that’s just tough luck,” Tess said with a hardened glare, “because you’re not going to get anything out of me.”

At that moment there was a knock on the door. Angélique called out for the person to enter and an elderly woman put her head round the door.

“Mademoiselle Pascal, the orchestra is ready.”

“Thank you,” Angélique replied, turning to pick up her violin from the chaise longue. She walked towards the door and stopped by Tess, taking in a deep steadying breath. “Well, this is it, then.”

Tess put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a hug. “Believe me, you’re going to have a wonderful time. Just enjoy every moment of it.”

As Angélique walked out onto the stage the orchestra rose to its feet along with every member of the audience, and the huge domed building rang with the sound of spontaneous applause. Angélique walked over to the conductor, and, as had been her custom at every concert at which she had played, she beckoned for him to lower his head towards her so that she could plant a kiss on both his cheeks. The applause increased in volume, the audience charmed by the gesture, as she moved to her position on the stage. She bowed first to the side galleries and then to the front, at the same time scanning the nearest rows for Jamie. She caught sight of him and gave him a broad smile, and then noticed that Harry Wills, the reporter, was beside him. She watched as Harry turned to his left and her eyes followed, and there, sitting next to him in a wheelchair in the aisle, was a tall, upright, old lady with white hair, her hands clasped together in her lap, her pale blue eyes transfixed on where Angélique stood on the stage.

“Oh,
mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!
” Angélique murmured, clasping a hand to her mouth. She moved back towards the conductor’s plinth, never taking her eyes off the old lady, until she bumped into the brass rail that surrounded it. “Please,” she said, turning to the conductor, “can we wait for a moment? I have to see someone. It is very important.”

The conductor beamed her a smile and reached down to take the violin and bow from her. “Of course, my dear. You take your time. I had a warning this might happen.”

As Angélique quickly walked over to the side of the stage and descended the steps, the audience went so quiet that her footsteps echoed around the concert hall. She approached the old lady, her hands cupped over her face as tears streamed down her cheeks.
“Oh, je ne le crois pas!”
She got down on her knees and gently took hold of the limp wrinkled hands. “Madame Lafitte, you are here! You are truly here!” She kissed the hands and held them against her hot wet cheeks, looking up into the woman’s kind smiling face.

“I…have…been brought…to hear you play,” Madame Lafitte said in a weak faltering voice.

“But who brought you?” Angélique asked breathlessly.

Madame Lafitte turned her head slowly to look at the man seated beside her. “Mr…. Wills here.”

“Oh, that is so wonderful!” Angélique got to her feet and flung her arms around Harry’s neck. “Thank you, Harry, thank you so much.”

“Not my idea, I’m afraid,” he replied, his face pumping with embarrassment. “Jamie thought that seeing I was going to Paris, I might do a bit of a detour via Clermont Ferrand on the way home.”

For a moment Angélique stared open-mouthed at Jamie before she pushed past Harry’s legs and sat herself down heavily in Jamie’s lap. She took his face in her hands and pressed her lips against his for so long that by the time she broke away from the embrace he was left gasping for air. The audience loved it, Angélique’s spontaneous action breaking through their customary staid demeanour, and reacted with wolf whistles and loud yells of approval. One man, high up in the gallery and still dressed in the suit he had worn to his law firm that day, even stood up to applause, his claps resounding around the auditorium, before he was pulled back to his seat by the red-faced lady sitting next to him.

Leaving Jamie with a whispered message in his ear, Angélique got up and edged past Harry, and stood once more beside Madame Lafitte, looking down into her tired smiling eyes. “I shall play for you now,” she said, brushing the back of her hand gently against the old lady’s cheek.

“I…have waited…too long…for this moment,” she replied.

Angélique bent down and kissed her lightly on the forehead. “And you will wait no longer.”

And as she walked back onto the stage the conductor raised his hands in the air to bring the orchestra once more to its feet to greet the second entrance of the young French maestra.

Every day since Angélique Pascal had left the Conservatoire in Paris, Lillian Lafitte had listened to her young protégée play, her music filling the large sitting room of the house in the rue Blatin in Clermont Ferrand. But never before had she heard her play as she did this evening. There was a powerful intensity, a newly discovered emotion present in her delivery, every note striking at her own inner being, making her feel that her passing years had been scrolled back in time, and she had the image of herself as a young girl once more, walking amidst a carpet of spring flowers in a mountain meadow high in the Massif Central, clutching hard to the hand of her companion, the dashing Dr. Jean-Pierre Laffite. And then, breaking from her reverie, she realized what it was that made Angélique play in such a way. The girl had found love. It was the missing part of the jigsaw, completing her full understanding of the music she was playing, a part that could never be taught, but could only be found through the explosion of longing, and then belonging, in the heart. She turned her head slowly and looked along the row to the powerfully built young man with the blond hair who sat next to her chaperone. He was watching Angélique with a fascination, a boundlessness that would make it seem that he was the only person sitting in this vast concert hall. Lillian smiled to herself. She doubted very much he was listening to one note she was playing. How wonderful it is, she thought to herself, that in this modern day, when there seemed such reticence in the young to commit to love, the feeling between these two should be so entirely mutual.

She looked down into her lap and slowly interlocked the quivering fingers that Angélique herself had separated. Age has struck your body, Lillian, but your mind is still as sharp as a razor, so now use it, for Angélique’s sake, while you still have the time.

She raised her head to watch the small delicate fingers dance across the strings of the violin, exactly as they had done so many years before in the sitting room in her house in Clermont Ferrand.

So, the young man is moving to London…