‘And now, give me your thumb,’ he said, and she held it up willingly, happy to be guided.
‘This is a G,’ he said, placing her thumb a little further up. ‘Poor old G. There are three friends in this group.’ He indicated the cluster of black notes above the white one. ‘Sometimes they are friends, sometimes they are mean, sometimes they make a gang and sometimes they are horrible. G is pure but she gets lost sometimes. She is a good note. Not like B,’ he continued, mysteriously. ‘B, he is absolutely bastards. Ублюдки. So.’
She looked down at her hands.
‘Do not move your hand now. They will stay there. G is first, then D. Thumb then finger. When I say now, you play one and then the other, yes? And hold them down, keep them down, keep your hands on them.’
His voice was gentle and low, his accent less harsh and his brown eyes were boring into her, trying to make sure she’d understood. Feeling intensely engaged, she did so, one after another.
‘Good, good,’ he said, and she couldn’t help it: she felt something inside herself loosen, like a knot falling away.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘We begin. I excusink myself in advance as I have to reach down over you when I play. I am sorry.’
Marisa swallowed hard. ‘That’s okay.’
He smiled at her.
‘You start. Slow slow slow. Now.’
Marisa pressed down the bottom note, and he reached down his huge left hand and, just above her, played a jumble of chords, soft and low.
‘Now. The other one.’
Marisa obediently moved to the D, to be rewarded by an answering group of chords just above her hands, as his arm moved right over hers.
‘Now! Again.’
She did it, as she did so realising she was getting into the rhythm naturally, and that, in fact, she did recognise the music. She almost jumped in pleasure as, as well as playing along with her low bottom chord, his right hand started to pick out the melody in the right.
‘I know this!’
‘Ssh! Keep playing . . . now . . . and yes . . . yes . . .’
She did know it, the lovely lazy French melody, familiar from countless films. It sounded beautiful.
‘Okay, you do not play now,’ he whispered in her ear and stretched over her to play even further down the keyboard, trapping her arm under his. She sat there, trembling, until the music circled around and landed back at the beginning and she played the notes, softly and gently, and realised on some distant level that both of them were breathing in and out in time to the melody. The spell cast around the low-lit quiet room and she felt woozy, dreaming in the music as he took the lead, his heavy presence beside her, and almost entirely on top of her when he took the lower part, a complete contrast to the light airiness of the music flowing from his fingertips. Then, finally, after they had repeated the short piece over and over again, he no longer had to tell her when to play, and she found herself right inside the music, ready and waiting for her turn to come again, even if it was only two little notes, over and over: she felt entirely engulfed by him and the music, even closing her eyes the better to let the melody fill her, and his strong body against her, and the thrill of being a part of it and the thrill of being so close to him and the way they were joined, over the piano keyboard.
When the last note started to die away it felt like a terrible loss, the dying ringing in the air, and she missed it already. Alexei moved; shuffled up the stool as if realising suddenly how close they had been, and that made her heart jump as if electrified, the realisation that he had thought . . . well, who knew what he thought, but her brain was so jumbled and overstimulated she found herself too jumping back as if she had touched something hot; stumbling upwards off the seat, her face bright scarlet, and she turned round and just for a second, just for a moment, she thought with a terrible clarity that she was going to kiss him; and worse, he was looking at her too, with those narrow eyes that missed absolutely nothing and she saw he had noticed it too, and noticed her panicked reaction; that he missed nothing, and that made it infinitely worse.
She jumped up.
‘I . . . I . . .’
She was out of breath too. This was ridiculous.
‘Is strong music,’ said Alexei, but Marisa was in flight mode.
Nonna had been right. Turn up on a stranger’s doorstep bearing food, what are they supposed to think? Oh God, that appraising look. She felt like Vanessa showing up with biscuits and . . . oh Lord.
Face aflame she backed away, and he looked startled and worried, as if he’d done something wrong.
‘I’m . . . I’d better go.’
‘You not like the music?’ he asked.
‘Thank you,’ she said very quietly. ‘That was . . . I . . . Yes. Very much. Thank you.’
‘You played beautifully.’
‘I didn’t play at all!’
His face frowned, his brown eyes looking thoughtful.
‘You were lost in the music, no?’
She reluctantly nodded.
‘Is okay. Then. That is playing. That is all there is to playing. The rest is just exercise. The music you have.’
He too had stood up and was backing away rather anxiously, as if they both realised they had got too close; that there was a sudden quiet in the room; mostly embarrassment, some small, tiny, tiny sense, the smallest of—
No, Marisa thought to herself. She was being ridiculous. She had been on her own for so long she was going crazy. The thoughts that were going through her head . . .
She just needed not to look at his hands, not to even be thinking about his hands. His huge, strong, gentle hands, when he had literally spent the entire evening tell her how much he was in love with a ballerina.
‘I have to go,’ she stuttered, realising as she did so that she was completely betraying herself.
He looked suddenly flustered as if he had done something wrong.
‘Yes, is late . . . I walk you home . . .’
‘Uh, I live just there,’ reminded Marisa.
She looked around desperately.
‘I am sorry,’ said Alexei
‘Why? I mean thank you! I mean . . .’
They both stood, far apart.
‘I will get . . .’ She was looking for her bowl but he misunderstood and rushed to open the door for her, as if desperate to show he wasn’t about to trap her there or that he even wanted her there, which made her feel worse than ever.
‘Of course, good night, good night. Thank you for dinner.’
Too flustered to bother about her dish, Marisa turned on her heel and fled. Just as she set foot on the steps to go next door, she turned quickly around to see if he was looking at her, but he wasn’t, his dark eyes trained on the piano, and she turned back feeling ridiculous, and half stumbled down the steps, just as his eyes now turned to her and watched her go.
Chapter Forty-nine
‘So. Good family?’
Marisa was suffering from her first hangover in six months, and the weather was dreary and raining and she was in absolutely no mood for an interrogation from her grandmother, bathed in sunshine and shelling peas in her little kitchen. Who? Marisa thought through her foggy head. Who even shelled peas any more?
‘Why are you shelling peas?’
Nonna held them up.
‘The brighter, the sweeter,’ she said. ‘Lilies of the field who do not weave or spin.’