Alice McVeigh - Novelist & Playwright

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While the Music Lasts - excerpt

(From Isabel's diary) It was almost the last night of the tour before he next spoke - really spoke - to me again. I had been drinking in the hotel bar with Warren and Clarence, while observing Paul's perfect readiness to improve Nancy's self-image. I wondered vaguely whether he'd succeed, and I thought how strange it is that we can, in the space of about a week, go through so many changes of feeling and sensation as to regard as a near-stranger the person taht we were before. I wouldn't have allowed Paul to kiss me that night for thousands of pounds; yet the previous week, in the darkness, I had completely surrendered to the pleasure of it. William entered, saw the group, and seemed on the point of going out again when Piotr forestalled him. Clarence, just getting another round, paused on his route to ask what he wanted to drink, and he eventually joined us. I can't remember how the others drifted away, or why William stayed behind. It's all a blur to me until I said, 'Thank you for the other night.' He made a dismissive gesture; I noted, hungry for every lunatic detail, the trickling of tiny lines along the muscles of his hands. 'I have forgotten it,' he told me. 'I haven't. Not a word.' He had probably meant to be gallant, and was taken aback by my sincerity. It propelled him however, as it was meant to, into a higher gear. 'Warren was talking about you the other night,' he said. You and Paul. He said something like this: 'My observation suggests that we put a higher value on the people who refuse to recognise us. There's hardly a man in the orchestra who doesn't treat Isabel with more affection and respect than Paul does, so naturally enough she prefers Paul.' I flushed. 'I don't prefer him.' 'Perhaps not. It was simply a notion of Warren's. He is observant, you must admit, in a general way.' 'I can't deny that Paul is attractive - was attractive - to me. It wasn't until the other night that I realised - ' 'I don't feel I'm the right person to hear this,' said William quickly. 'I spoke out of turn to you the other night, said things I had no right to say. I'm friendly with Paul and mean to stay friendly with him, for professional reasons. He's given me tok understand that he regards my behaviour the other night as uncalled for. I told him that it had nothing to do with me, but he didn't seem to believe me.' 'But it did - it did have something to do with you,' I told him passionately, and could say no more. William sat looking at me in a puzzled fashion; and I felt so unbearably fond of him that I leaned over and kissed him. His lips were warm, too warm, the warmest I could remember. I had to will mine to break away, regretting the contact, regretting the separation. I saw his knuckles whiten against the table and felt myself flushing. It wasn't possible. He wasn't the type. But my pulse pounded a different message, of fear and elation and complete and utter certainty. 'Sorry,' I told him. 'No trouble.' 'I think - I think it was the wine.' 'We will say,' said William lightly, 'it was the wine.' But it wasn't, I knew. I watched his hand unfold itself securely against the table. It was a strong hand, a strong person, the kind of adult proof against my impulses. But when I looked up I found he was emptying his weighted eyes into mine, and when he spoke I didn't know whether or not to be reassured. 'There's no point in lying to yourself,' he said softly. 'Not about Paul, not about me. You must know how I feel, Isabel, though I've no right to feel it. The power is in your hands. A single word, one look, would be enough.' I raised my eyes wordlessly from his hands. The poetry had stealt over me as he had spoken, along with the old recklessness. If love was a foreign country, let him be my interpreter; my conscience, long quiescent, stirred and was still. I felt the rush of blood that accompanies danger and I watched as he submissively lifted my wrist to his lips, as though he had been dealt a blow that he scarcely deserved.

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