Chapter 22: Debut

Ten months later, Ashford Hall sold out for my debut in nine hours.

I stood in the wings in a dark red gown, with Etienne's hand at the small of my back.

The conservatory orchestra was tuning beyond the curtain.

"Are you afraid?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Good. You play better afraid."

"That's a terrible thing to say to a woman about to walk on stage."

"It's the truest thing I know." He kissed my temple. "Go."

I walked out into the light and three thousand people stood up.

I played the Beethoven concerto, the whole of it, with the orchestra behind me.

In the front row of the first balcony, Etienne's grandmother sat upright in black lace, with Clarissa beside her.

In the last row of the stalls, alone, sat a man who had paid for his own ticket.

I did not look at him.

I played for a girl in a yellow cardigan who had learned music around a dead key because her mother was dying upstairs.

When the last chord rang out, the hall stayed silent for one heartbeat, and then it broke.

They shouted.

They threw roses onto the stage.

The conductor kissed my hand.

I bowed four times, and then I stood still at the front of the stage.

The audience sank slowly back into their seats, because they saw I wasn't leaving.

"One more," I said into the quiet.

I sat down at the piano again.

I played the nocturne.

I played the quiet opening and the long turn in the middle.

In bar nine I lifted my hand from the keys and let the B-flat go unsounded.

I left the gap there on purpose, in front of three thousand people.

It was no longer a mistake, or a wound, or a secret.

It was mine.

When I finished, I heard a chair scrape at the back of the stalls.

Colin was walking down the centre aisle.

He did not hurry.

The ushers stepped forward to stop him, and Clarissa, from the balcony, shook her head, and they stood back.

He stopped at the foot of the stage and looked up at me.

He had lost weight since I last saw him.

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