White in the moon the long road lies
That leads me from my love, thought Marcus despairingly.
As Abby slept, he stole out of the studio and across the dewy lawn, his heart pounding. He didn’t even have to memorize the code for Moscow. But there was no answer. Alexei must have found other arms.
Appassionata. SIXTH MOVEMENT
SIXTY-FOUR
Appleton, a dark satanic mill town, lay just west of the Pennines with its grimy houses and factories spilling over the steep hillside as though someone had hurled a pot of black ink against a green wall. The surrounding countryside was dotted with imposing Victorian houses built by the old cotton manufacturers, who found patronizing the arts in the nineteenth century a gratifying way up the social ladder. The most imposing of these houses had belonged to the late Lord Appleton, a great charmer and music lover, who each year had invited a group of friends to play together over a long weekend. On the last day, the musician, who, by popular vote, had pleased his companions the most, was awarded five hundred pounds.
The comely Welsh pianist, Blodwyn Jones, who won the prize at the end of the Fifties, became Lord Appleton’s much younger wife, and when he died she joined forces with his inconsolable friends to found the Appleton Piano Competition in his memory. The Appleton had become as prestigious as the Leeds Piano Competition which took place every four years in August. Indeed Fanny Waterman, the founder of the great Leeds Competition was a friend of Blodwyn Appleton and had advised her in the early stages.
Lady Appleton was well named. She had a face as round, rosy and sweet as a Worcester Pearmain, and a nature to match. Although well into her sixties, she was able to charm distinguished musicians to give their services for almost nothing. This year, the very international jury contained several piano teachers, old trouts of both sexes, including a Romanian, a Latvian, a vast Ukrainian and a Chinese who spent his time writing a biography of Schumann from right to left on a laptop computer. Among the judges who still played in public was Marcus’s ancient admirer Pablo Gonzales, who had arrived without his blond boyfriend. Others included Bruce Kennedy, a cool laconic American, and Sergei Rostrov, a hot-headed voluble Russian, both great and famous pianists who felt they should put something back into music by sitting on the odd jury, but who detested one another.
Ernesto (an Italian who spoke little English) and Lili (a green-eyed German) were less good pianists. Both in their fifties, they preferred to judge rather than be judged and were making a nice living, thank you, sitting on juries all over the world and bonking each other.
Among the non-piano-playing judges were a svelte French feminist who played the harpsichord, and an Irish Contralto called Deirdre O’Neill, who had a winning cosy exterior, which mostly disguised a pathological loathing of the Brits, no doubt exacerbated by a recent divorce from a Weybridge stockbroker.
Completing the pack were Boris, Hermione and Dame Edith, who, because Monica was in Kenya awaiting her first grandchild, had rolled up with Monica’s yellow labrador Jennifer; and surprise, surprise, Rannaldini. All the judges were staying at the Prince of Wales Hotel in Appleton High Street.
The candidates on the other hand were housed at St Theresa’s, a local girls’ boarding-school, situated about three miles out of town on the edge of the moors. As the pupils had gone home for half-term, each contestant was allotted a tiny study/bedroom. Marcus collapsed in hysterical laughter when he found the walls of his room covered in half-naked posters of James Dean and Mel Gibson. Outside in the park, almost obscuring the view from his window, was a magnificent chestnut tree which still held on to its reddy gold leaves.
Across khaki fields, criss-crossed with stone walls and bobbled with sheep, Marcus could see the lights of Appleton. In case by some miracle he reached the final, he had brought his tails and the dress-shirt which Abby had turned pale blue in the washing-machine.
During a rather strained and stilted drinks party, when the contestants stared at each other like cats, Marcus noticed Benny Basanovich, black hair curly as a Jacob’s sheep, surrounded by girls, but paying particular attention to a voluptuous Slav beauty, with long sloe-black eyes, soft, drooping scarlet lips and large breasts. That must be Rannaldini’s protegee Natalia Philipova. Marcus felt a surge of pity for his mother. How could all the silicone implants in the world compete with that, he thought savagely.
Over an excellent dinner of steak and kidney pudding, and a huge pie made from dark blue bilberries picked off the moor, served with big jugs of cream, the level of chat and laughter started to rise.
Everyone then drew for position in the competition. With forty-eight contestants to play, the first round would take four days. Mid-morning or mid-afternoon were best. People who played first thing had to warm up the jury and the audience. Immediately after lunch was dodgy, because half the jury would be sleeping it off. By the end of the day everyone was irritable and tired. Marcus drew the very last number, then had a nail-biting, four-day wait.
On the first morning of the competition, however, all the contestants were expected to turn up at the small concert hall belonging to Appleton University, where the first two rounds were taking place, to be officially welcomed by Lady Appleton.
The jury were already in position in the gallery, including Jennifer the labrador, who was leaving blond hairs all over the shiny dark suit of the Ukrainian judge.
Marcus nearly fainted when he saw Boris, Rannaldini and oh God, Pablo Gonzales, who was raising binoculars with a shaky hand to spy out the better-looking male contestants.
Only after the last winner had accepted her little silver piano, had it been discovered that before the competition she had deliberately taken private lessons with most of the jury then further sucked up by writing them sycophantic thank-you letters.
This year Lady Appleton was taking no chances, and kept the names of the judges under wraps to prevent them being got at before the competition.
After welcoming everyone, and thanking the sponsors, Mr Bumpus of Bumpy’s Scrumpy, she stressed the importance of the jury not having any contact with the contestants.
‘I know many of you know each other, but try and restrict yourselves to a little wave until after the final.’
Monocled and massive in Prince of Wales check, Dame Edith promptly raised Jennifer’s fat yellow paw and waved it at Marcus.
‘Finally,’ went on Lady Appleton charmingly, ‘don’t be frightened or discouraged if you go no further — remember that every member of the jury was once knocked out in the first round of a competition.’
‘I was not,’ said a deep voice in outrage.
‘Sorry, except Dame Hermione,’ laughed Lady Appleton. ‘Now let us welcome our first candidate, Miss Han Chai from Korea.’
On went the jurors’ spectacles, as the prettiest little raven-haired teenager came dancing onto the stage with her pink skirts swirling and played Debussy, Liszt and Mozart with such proficiency and delight that she plunged every other candidate into despair.
Bruce Kennedy, the great American pianist, who always voted against the Eastern bloc only gave her five out of ten.
‘Technically perfect,’ he muttered to Dame Edith, ‘but I don’t figure she’s experienced “Life”.’
‘If you want to see raw emotion,’ whispered back Edith, who’d given her six, ‘look at her teacher in the front row. Don’t you agree, Boris?’
Boris, who was sitting behind them, gave a sulky grunt, and added another semi-quaver to the clarinet’s part in Act Two of King Lear. There was manuscript paper all over the floor and the seats on either side of him. He supposed it would be construed as collusion if he enlisted Marcus’s help to put in the bar lines.