Cemetery of the Nameless Page 2

  Tory had come from a more privileged background than I. Her mother and father, both Welsh, had made a great success in a mailorder import business they’d started up shortly after emigrating to the U.S., and Tory had grown up on a hobby farm with her own horse and anything else she wanted. She was pretty down-to-earth in spite of this, however—one of the things I really liked about her.

  So what had Tory done this time that had caused me to slam down the phone? She’d walked off a stage in Vienna right in the middle of a recital, announced to everyone backstage that the rest of her fall tour of Europe was forthwith cancelled and promptly disappeared off the face of the earth.

  Amazing how fast the press had gotten on to me. The story was barely an hour old, and the phone call I’d just fielded had been from a German rag wondering if I could shed any light on the subject for their readers, or would care to make a comment. I declined on both counts. They couldn’t have printed my thoughts anyway.

  I walked over to the floor-to-ceiling windows which dominated one wall of the living room of our penthouse and stared out, thinking. The lights of Montreal sparkled far below in the crisp October air as I looked down from my lonely eyrie on the side of Mount Royal.

  I should have been chewing the carpet in anguished worry, right? This news bulletin from across the ocean would have seen any other husband overheating the phone lines, frantically trying to find out what had become of his wife.

  True, I did feel uneasy. Whatever her faults, Tory’s a real trouper. Walking offstage in the middle of a concert was not something she would do frivolously, although having lived with her for as long as I had, I was more than used to my wife doing the most jaw-dropping things imaginable.

  But what the hell she was up to this time?

  ***

  Two hours later, I was definitely on the far side of uneasy. First off, I hadn’t had any more success contacting Tory than the combined efforts of the European news corps. Not too surprising. When she wants, she’s learned how to make herself scarce as far as the press is concerned. I’d been expecting her to at least phone me, though. No matter what happens, what goes wrong, the frustrating redhead always calls.

  Marty, her manager, did call, however—hot on the heels of the first reporter. Normally that’s only an irritation, a major irritation it’s true, but I can handle the little weasel. And even though he was born with dollar signs on his eyeballs, I think Marty truly does care about Tory as a person—most of the time. This time, well... Let’s just say he was rather upset.

  “Rocky!” he barked into the phone with no preamble. “Just what is going on with that goddamn wife of yours? I’m going to have about a dozen very concerned promoters wanting to know if Tory’s going to honour her contracts. She doesn’t answer any messages at her hotel. Nobody seems to know where she is or what she’s doing. My entire agency has come to a total standstill!”

  “Gee, fine, Marty. How are you? Nice weather we’re having.”

  “Rocky!”

  “I’m trying to make a point. Why are you yelling at me? I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “Okay, okay.” A heavy sigh came down the phone line. “It’s just that no matter how much prestige there is in having Victoria Morgan as a client, I can’t take much more of this.”

  I sighed, too. “I know how you feel.”

  “You haven’t heard from her, either?”

  “No.”

  “But surely you must know where she is! Tory’s got eleven concerts in Eastern Europe starting the day after tomorrow, and they want to know if she’s going to do them!”

  “I wish I could help you, Marty, but all I’ve heard is that Tory walked offstage, told the promoter she couldn’t play any more and left the theatre.”

  “When was the last time you heard from her?”

  “Three days ago on the phone.”

  A slight inflection of worry entered Marty’s voice. “You don’t think that anything’s happened to her, do you?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  “There are famous musicians, and then there are stars. Our next guest has firmly established herself in both categories. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Victoria Morgan...”

  —John Reynolds, The John Reynolds Show

  Chapter 2

  TORY

  I stood in the wings at Symphony Hall in Birmingham, England. Yes, it looked a bit different from the last five hundred places I’d stood backstage recently, but not by much. Somewhere behind and to my right Roddy stood, as always before a concert, pre-concert jitters almost oozing out of his pores. Out front, I could hear the audience, restless in their seats as they waited for the concert to begin. Full house. Big deal.

  Ever since I’d won that damned competition just over four years ago, it had been the same story: sellouts everywhere. I’d been imagining myself as The Great Concert Violinist from the age of eight and played Carnegie Hall a thousand times standing in front of the mirror on my bedroom door before ever setting foot on the stage itself. But never in my youthful Paganini fantasies had I ever imagined that making music in front of a cheering multitude could become tedious. It had, though, somewhere around concert three hundred and fifty.

  Sighing heavily, I squeezed my eyes shut. Anywhere would have been preferable to where I was standing right now. The tough thing to deal with was that each person out in that hall had paid good money to hear Victoria Morgan weave her musical magic, and that was becoming increasingly hard to deliver. But on the other hand, how many of them really wanted to hear the music I would be performing?

  I’d become an “attraction”, you see. People came to see Tory, the person who gave concerts where people got shot, who was so entertaining on talk shows, the woman on the cover of all the tabloids—not because they wanted to hear me play.

  I hadn’t really helped my own cause, I realized now. After that awful concert in London, Marty and the record company had arranged a tour of just about every TV talk show in the civilized world, and I had willingly done them all. It had been a lot of fun at the time, but I never realized I was being seduced by the dark side, oblivious to where all that attention was leading. I naïvely thought that being famous would make everyone interested in how I played. What I got was just musical voyeurism. Now, a lot of the people buying tickets expected celebrity—and musicianship and celebrity aren’t necessarily the same thing.

  Trying to marshall my mental resources, I took another long, measured breath. Regardless of how I felt, the show must go on. Most nights, I could still get it on, musically speaking.

  The violin I’d won in London made that a lot easier. It was the only truly positive thing that had come out of the whole tragic episode, yet it was also the direct cause of everything that had happened, if I cared to look at it that way—something I tried to avoid as often as possible. I’d given my fiddle the name of the doomed male lover from the Celtic legend of Tristan and Iseult. It wasn’t really fair to Tristan (as I now always think of my marvellous Stradivari violin), but it fit the circumstances and my headspace at the time. Outside of Rocky, my husband, Tris is my best friend—and he never gets mad at me, either.

  The houselights dimmed: our cue. I turned around and looked at Roddy.“If we’re going to get out of here alive tonight, we’d better get our derrières out on that stage.”

  Tristan The Mighty firmly pinioned under my right arm, I reached back and grabbed Roddy’s arm with my left hand and yanked him out onto the stage. The audience erupted in cheers. Roddy and I bowed deeply

  My bad headspace continued as Roddy sat at the piano and began to fuss with the height adjustment of the bench. My accompanist, Roderick Allan Whitchurch, while incredibly brilliant, has the annoying habit of always taking way too long to get comfortable at the piano. He reminds me of those baseball players who go through the same “getting-ready” routine before each pitch. Some nights we can joke about it. Tonight, I felt like screaming.

  Finally, Roddy looked up and signalled that he was ready. I tucked T
ristan under my chin and with my left-hand ring finger, gave a little brush along the four strings to make sure nothing exciting had happened to the tuning while we’d waited in the wings. I never tune on stage if I’m playing a recital. If I don’t know where the piano’s “A” is by the time I finish “trying out the hall,” then I shouldn’t be playing.

  Glancing back at Roddy, I put bow to string, gave an imperceptible upbeat, and we launched into Mozart’s “Sonata in E minor”. It didn’t make any difference to me which sonata I’d programmed; I was just out there to get the job done that night.

  We must have done all right, because the audience yelled at every full stop and went totally berserk at the end of the concert. We had to do three encores before they gave it up. Except for the last one, the March from “The Love for Three Oranges” by Prokofieff, I played the whole thing pretty much on automatic pilot and hated myself for it. The composers, the music and the audience deserved much more than that.

  After the concert, the fans seemed to stretch out from the dressing room door about thirty deep, and it was only because I felt I’d cheated them that I stayed so long, accepting the undeserved accolades and autographing programs and CD s until no one was left. Their detritus included enough flowers to open a florist shop—or bury a dozen Hollywood stars.

  Roddy sat on a chair in the corner, looking at me. “Bit of a peepshow, wasn’t it?” he said in his soft Liverpudlian accent. “Peep show” was Roddy-speak for “we gave the audience bugger all for their money.”

  In no mood for a lecture, I silently finished wiping down my instrument and put it carefully to bed. “Roddy, I want to change.”

  He took the hint and left the dressing room without another word.

  The door clicked shut behind him, and I flopped down on the chair in front of the make-up mirror. What greeted me looked horrible, and no amount of make-up could hide the fact: dark circles under my eyes, face haggard and drawn. My hair looked totally dull and lifeless. The worst thing was I’d lost six pounds during the previous two weeks, and my should-have-been-tight black gown sat baggy on my chest and hips.

  “Face it, Tory, you’re a mess,” I told my reflection glumly.

  Throwing off the gown, I replaced it with the skirt and blouse I’d first put on at seven a.m. Roddy helped me ferry my paraphernalia to the waiting limo which whisked us back to another in a long line of anonymous hotels.

  At the front desk, the clerk handed over a manila envelope along with the swipe card for my room. Roddy accompanied me as far as my door, where he gave me a goodnight peck on the cheek and arranged to meet me for breakfast before sauntering down the hall to his own room. “Early flight tomorrow. Don’t forget!”

  As if I could...

  Opening the door and flicking on the light, I was faced with the usual large, elegant, but ultimately sterile hotel room. The kingsized bed mocked my solitude.

  It’s at times like this that I wish I’d never gotten married. Footloose and fancy-free would be nice when I’m on the road, even if nowadays it is risky health-wise. I’m always horniest after playing. The concertmaster in Edinburgh two days earlier had looked quite inviting and had urgently flashed signals at me all the way through the rehearsal and concert. I’d resisted temptation, though. Fortunately, all but one more performance on my present tour of the British Isles and Europe were with Roddy, and neither of us was any danger to the other—besides musically—since he was gay. Hopefully, I’d be safe on that score.

  Don’t get me wrong. I love my husband. Rocky’s the best thing that ever happened to me. There’s not anyone on this planet with such a generous heart, and I’ll be the first to admit that my childishness has caused him a lot of undeserved sleepless nights. But I’d finally managed to learn that I couldn’t have my cake and eat it too, and when it came down to a choice between Rocky and “cake”, I lost my appetite pretty quickly. Still, sometimes being bad again sure sounded like a hell of a lot of fun...

  I tried to wash away the day’s physical and mental grime under a steaming shower. Afterward, flopping back disconsolately on the bed, I thought of calling Rocky, but I knew I’d start whining, and that would only make him frustrated and upset. I always tried not to call unless I was in a positive state of mind. Things had been getting strained between us recently, and I knew he held me at least partially responsible for what had happened to his poor hand. His forced hiatus from making music had cost him a lot emotionally, and he definitely didn’t need me dumping my silly troubles on him.

  I called room service instead. They sent up a decent roast beef sandwich, but the bottle of Australian beer that oddly accompanied it (this being Britain) tasted like kangaroo urine.

  All in all, a bad end to a pretty miserable day.

  After brushing my teeth, my gaze fell on the envelope the clerk had handed me earlier, peeping out from beneath Tristan. I went over and retrieved it. Sitting down on a corner of the bed, I tucked a leg under myself and tore the envelope open. Inside were two photocopies and a letter.

  The first photocopy was of manuscript paper that had certainly seen better days. The almost unreadable chicken-scratching covering it showed a composer who’d probably seen better days, too. It was the first page of an orchestral score, and judging from the instrumentation, early 19th century. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out it was a violin concerto, the line for the solo violin being a bit of a giveaway.

  The second photocopy was a recently-made extract of the violin part, about forty bars worth. Almost absentmindedly, my brain started going over the music. F# minor. God-awful key—especially if the piece modulated into the parallel major somewhere along the way. The composer must have hated string players or at least gotten his kicks from torturing them. It began with a long doublestop B/D# on the G and D strings and was followed by a thirty-second note run that ended up somewhere north of 49th parallel. Another long doublestop on F# and A, then an even more tortuous run ending up on a note almost off the fingerboard. Unplayable! It was like beginning a piece with its cadenza. Who the heck had written this?

  I glanced at the first photocopy again. Crammed into the bottom margin was some handwriting in German. The deciphering job took several minutes (my German being pretty mediocre), and what I came up with really shook me:

  To My Dear Friend Ludwig Spohr,

  I hope this “washed-up composer” has written something sufficiently worthy of your consideration!

  LvB, 1826

  Could be? Couldn’t be! Could be? I sat on the bed, staring at the two sheets in slack-jawed amazement. What had been stuffed into the envelope appeared to be a totally unknown concerto by arguably the world’s greatest composer—certainly the most famous.

  Who had sent it to me and why? I picked up the third page and unfolded it. At the top, printed in gold, red and blue was a coat of arms: an incredibly vicious-looking two-headed eagle with its talons sunk into a boar. The stiff paper felt as if it cost a bundle.

  Dear Miss Morgan,

  Yes, your eyes do not deceive you. You hold in your hand photocopies of an unknown Beethoven violin concerto— or more correctly, his Concert Rhapsody in F# Minor. It recently came into my possession and has been authenticated beyond a shadow of a doubt. As you have most surely noticed, the difficulty of the solo part makes it as severe a test of the ability of a violinist as few pieces of music are. I give you my assurance, the part does not get any easier as the music continues! It is my feeling that there are perhaps only three people living who could perform it successfully.

  You have probably also realized that the first performance and recording of this piece would be a chance that could only arrive once in a lifetime. Of the three violinists, I have made the decision that you alone should have the honour of performing it. I will be contacting you in the next twenty-four hours and we can further discuss this proposition that I am making. Until then, I regrettably must remain anonymous. Please do not speak of this offer to anyone. If you do, I will be forced to make other arr
angements. I am afraid that no one must know our little secret for the moment.

  With warmest regards,

  A Fervent Admirer

  Putting the letter down on the bed, I stared again at the page of score. Music history had never been a strong suit of mine back at Curtis. As a matter of fact, no academic courses were. I was there to play violin, not waste hours pouring over dusty old books written by dusty old professors. Anything I needed to know could be found by playing music, not talking about it. During my last two years there, I had relied extensively on Rocky to help me out of tight jams caused by my non-attendance at academic classes. That was the reason I’d torn my diploma in two at graduation. Rocky got the academic half, and I kept the playing half. Everyone was scandalized, of course, but I thought it was only fair under the circumstances. It had been wrong to do it so publicly, though, judging by the fact that I’d never been invited to give a master class at my alma mater, a tradition whenever alumni appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra.

  I smelled a rat. This was probably all a hoax cooked up by some tabloid in an attempt to get me plastered all over their front pages yet again. They still ran whatever pictures they could get of me standing next to some male at a cocktail party or backstage—anyplace they could get a provocative shot. God help me if I decided to go out to a nightclub or something when I was on tour. A year ago, they had me in the middle of a torrid affair with an Italian conductor. Roddy and I both had a good laugh over that, since he and the conductor had been making eyes at each other for some time.