“It’s all right,” he says gently, out of sight. “Pretend I’m not here.”
He means well, but pretence is all she can think about, the falseness of the situation. Verrine lied to her, she lied to Conroy, everything’s a lie. Her head sinks. “I can’t do it.”
“We all get nervous.” He thinks she’s a beginner, a frightened kid at a grade exam who’ll be fine if only someone can give her a nudge like a wind-up toy that won’t work. “Nerves are good, they make us want to do our best.”
This well-meant pep talk isn’t helping. “Julian wanted me to play a piece by Pierre Klauer.”
“Not a name I know.”
“He thought it would impress you…” She buries her face in her hands, finds herself sobbing. A comforting hand touches her.
“Don’t stress yourself, I hate to see this sort of thing. Look at me, Paige. Why do you play piano, what’s it for? Winning prizes? Beating some sort of world record? No, you do it because you love it, that’s why we all do it, anything else is bullshit.”
“It’s no good, Paul, I should never have agreed.”
“So, you and Julian. You’re like…? What’s with all this?”
He still doesn’t understand. Paige explains.
“I’m meant to say if you’re any good?” He laughs. “Who gives a fuck what I think?”
“Everybody does,” she says, wiping her eyes.
“Verrine’s a businessman, Paige, leave business to people like him. Are you feeling calmer now? I want to hear this piece you mentioned. Never mind about impressing me, I’ll say anything Julian wants me to, he’ll sign a cheque from his company and that’s fine. But we’re not commodities, Paige, we’re artists. Let’s forget this mark-out-of-ten crap, it’s not a contest. Play it for me.”
He’s no longer the celebrity on her computer screen, now he feels like a genuine friend, actually the only true friend she can think of, waiting patiently to hear her performance. She’s ready to play, her fingers touch the keys and the air is moved by Pierre Klauer’s strange chords.
The door is suddenly pushed open, Paul is first to see. “What the…?”
Paige sees too. “Oh no.”
It’s Conroy. He looks haggard and dishevelled, in need of a wash and shave, could even have been sleeping rough. He enters, surveying the room and its occupants with a reptilian gaze as the heavy door swings closed behind him.
Paul is bemused. “Looking for someone, bro?”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“Mr Conroy…”
“I knew you’d do this to me, Paige.”
Morrow registers the tension. “Mate, we’re in the middle of something and you ought to leave.”
“I’m not your mate. You don’t even recognise me, do you?”
“He was my teacher,” Paige tells Paul, her voice trembling.
“I don’t know what he thinks he’s doing, crashing in like this…”
“Paige, give me the score.”
Straight away she reaches for her bag on the floor, brings out the photocopy and tosses it across the room to him. “How did you know I’d be here? Have you been following me?”
“She gave you what you want, bro. Leave before this gets unpleasant.”
A sudden movement makes it all very unpleasant. From his pocket Conroy brings a black pistol and Paige feels the air rush out of her lungs.
“Shit, man, let’s not do anything stupid.”
The dark barrel points at Paul Morrow, then towards her, it waves easily, intimidating different parts of the room in turn. It occurs to Paige that it can’t possibly be real, there’s no way he’d be able to get hold of such a thing, it looks like an old-fashioned revolver, a toy. But she can’t be sure.
“What do you want?” she says, realising as the words struggle out of her that she’s shaking with fear.
Conroy keeps his eye and aim on Paul Morrow as he stoops to lift the pages of music from the floor where they landed, but he speaks to her. “I want to fix everything, Paige.”
“Please, Mr Conroy, just take it and go.”
With his back against the door he keeps both of them in view. “Who put you up to this?”
“Julian Verrine,” Paige says at once.
“I’m guessing he’s with the Rosier Corporation, isn’t he?” He looks at Morrow. “What’s in it for you?”
“Nothing,” Paul says weakly. “Sponsorship idea. Webcast concert.”
“Anything particular on the programme?” Conroy looks at Paige. “Surely you can work it out. This guy Verrine doesn’t care about either of you, the music is all that matters, it has to be in the broadcast so he needs a pianist, doesn’t matter who, as long as it’s someone who can play the notes right.”
Yes, Paige can work it out. Conroy has gone right over the edge, he’s lost touch with reality, but he’s determined to tell them both the details of his delusional fantasy.
“Laura was onto them, that’s why they made her disappear. A new kind of network they’re developing, faster than ever but it fries people’s brains.”
Morrow says, “Why don’t we all go and talk to someone about this?”
The gun swings at him. “You think I’m fucking nuts? You think I don’t already know that none of it makes sense? When I see a world gone mental, what else am I supposed to do?”
“Let’s find Julian Verrine, I could call him for you.” Morrow is about to reach for the phone in his jeans but the gun jabs towards him. It has to be a fake, Paige thinks. All of this is fake.
Conroy clenches the pages of the score between his teeth and with his free hand finds a red plastic cigarette lighter from inside his jacket. With a flick he summons a flame, plays it on a corner of a page and a moment later is holding the smouldering bundle which he drops into the metal bin beside the door. Black smoke thickens, rises to the ceiling and drifts across it.
“This is what Klauer would have wanted,” says Conroy. “This is what was always supposed to happen.”
The three of them are jolted by the sudden wailing of a fire alarm.
“We need to go,” Paul shouts.
“Stay where you are.” Smoke is still issuing from the bin, catching their throats.
“Everybody’ll be evacuating, you can get away now and we’ll forget this ever happened.”
“Please, Mr Conroy.”
He doesn’t move, instead he’s looking at Paige while the alarm blares, and in his eyes there’s something almost like tenderness. “I want you to be happy,” he says.
“Then you should go.”
“I know how much you must have wanted to come here, they made you think it mattered. You must have felt it was the happiest day of your life. Is that right, Paige?”
She says nothing, she can see from the corner of her eye that Paul is preparing to make a move.
“And you know, Paige, I’m sure that’s what Klauer thought too. I want to make this the happiest day of your life.”
Conroy points the pistol at his temple, Paul leaps from where he sits, and above the screaming of the siren Paige hears another sound, she doesn’t know where it comes from or what it means, only that the door has been opened, Conroy is staggering as Verrine bursts in and she drops to the floor while the whole world becomes black, cracked by gunshot, but it isn’t Paige who’s been hit. She’s been saved, like the music she’ll still play, by the man who will become her husband.
After
In the park, in front of the canvas tent, stands a diminutive wooden figure. Arieclass="underline" The Extraordinary Flying Girl. The dummy’s pout is taunting, provocative, eternal. Pierre said he would be five minutes: how many have passed? Yvette walks towards the tent, sees beyond its flapping entrance the small crowd gathered inside in anticipation of the latest performance. She hears a voice behind her.