12. Chapter 12 #2
Amadeus grinned, snatched the stick, then turned to his siblings. ‘Are you ready, orchestra?’ And with a wave of his twig-baton, he led them along the path, all of them singing the sound of their imaginary instruments.
‘Since when?’ Odette asked.
‘Since when what?’
‘Since when do you play games like that?’
Cassius tamped down the longing he thought he’d abandoned once he’d grown too tall for the silks of the performing prodigy.
During those years when he, stupid sensitive thing that he’d been, had craved the company of other children…
or even just one other small person who understood the word play in its simplest form.
Oh, how he’d wanted to just play. ‘When I was young and travelling with my father, I would play piano for the adults, but sometimes, I’d be able to spend time with their children.
But the performing never stopped, really.
Even childish games became a part of the show.
I learnt a few tricks to distract them, so they would leave me be. ’
‘They are wonderful children. I am sorry if they have reminded you of unhappy days.’
‘Once, it bothered me. Now it is nothing. It was nice to help a fellow cursed soul. I thought you, with all your worries about good and bad luck, would be concerned about left-handers.’
‘That is a silly superstition. I believe in the luck of the theatre. They are not the same thing. In Italy, they call the left hand the heart hand. Did you know?’
‘I did.’
‘And you use it for the music?’
‘I do. What is your point?’
‘Nothing.’ She looped her hand through the crook of his elbow again. ‘Nothing at all, Zadora.’
They resumed their stroll. An old, long-suppressed memory rose, and he laughed.
Odette bumped his side and raised a questioning brow.
‘Once, we were in Russia,’ Cassius began.
‘The Russian part of Poland, I mean. My father and I. I was always careful with my hands, tried to hide that I prefer my left. But one day, I was tired, and I put the wrong hand on the keys first. Normally people don’t notice, but not in that house.
The grandmother—or perhaps she was the great-grandmother—she struck her cane against the floor and stood, pointing and shrieking.
Screeching that I was cursed. She told the staff to catch me and demanded a priest. I swear, she was going to have me exorcised.
But my father scooped me up, held me under his elbow like a bag of sticks, and he ran, full pelt, down the drive.
Such a long drive it was, the same length as four of your precious Honeysuckle Streets.
He ran so fast I thought my head would pop off my body.
I don’t think he stopped until we reached the village.
Then he threw me into a passing wagon like I was a sack of potatoes.
Thank heavens it was heading the same direction as us. ’
‘Do you remember much of it?’ she asked. ‘Of Poland, I mean.’
‘Parts. I was seven when we started travelling. I remember papers and checkpoints. Rivers and the people in the fields. Not long after that, the invitations to play took us further away.’
‘All I have is the memory of my babcia in the churchyard. In my mind, we are looking at my mother’s gravestone, but sometimes I think, how? We had so little money. How could she have bought a gravestone? Then we were gone, and she refused to speak of her again.’
‘Do you ever think of returning?’ he asked.
‘I do not know my village or my people. Why would I?’ She exhaled. ‘Do you?’
The bright sun still shone above them, the breeze teased their skin, the children laughed nearby, and birds were building their nests in tall trees. And yet, the air between them grew thick with a sad understanding, filling with words neither had the courage to voice.
‘No,’ he said, although he wished with all his heart that he could say yes.
And the twin hands on the piano keys, the soft dark curls and the kindest smile in the world…
all the fragments fused for the first time in decades, so vivid that the crispness of the memory almost made him trip.
Even if he could retrace his childhood steps, he would find nothing there but ghosts.
‘Like you, I have nothing to return to.’
They paused by the fountain. Odette told a story about a son lost during the war and showed him the plaque screwed into the stone side.
The man who had built her villa had also commissioned the fountain.
She talked about how spring this year had been almost as pretty as the year before, but far nicer the year before that, and described how they skated on the ice when the pond froze in winter.
She waved at a couple, then explained that they were the parents of the little orchestra, which was still singing and marching its way around the park.
At last, they departed the lush green surroundings and crossed the road, coming to a stop before her house once again.
Odette looked over his shoulder. ‘As punctual as a prima donna,’ she said, her voice rising to just above a whisper. ‘She is watching.’
Cassius dipped into the shadow beside the balustrade and threw a quick glance over his shoulder. Across the way, their illustrious patron was deep in conversation with her pastel ladies but angling her stance, unmistakably to scrutinise them.
Cassius stepped back. ‘I will be the perfect gent. I shall show my respects…’ He lifted his top hat and dropped into an exaggerated bow. ‘And I shall bid you good day. Thank you for a lovely afternoon, Miss Delaney.’
He expected Odette to respond with a similar display. She was a brilliant performer, after all. But instead, she fidgeted with her gloves and the bracelet again.
‘Do you make them all sing?’ Odette’s words fell over one another. ‘Is that why the lonely wives adore you so much?’
Cassius fumbled his hat, almost dropping it. ‘No,’ he said, unable to suppress a smile. ‘That was only for you. And I… I will remember that note for the rest of my days.’
Odette held his gaze for the longest four beats of his life. Then her lips twisted into a smug little grin. She turned and walked up the two flights of stairs of her villa.
And—stupid man that he was—he stood on the street and watched until she disappeared beyond the balcony. He even waited until the door snipped closed, just in case she leant over to grace him with another look, another word or, dare he hope it, an invitation.
Of course, none came.
God damn it. He’d given her his edge.