Morning Song Page 3

  ‘Well,’ Marie greeted her brightly as she came in, ‘I’m glad to see my party has done you no lasting harm—even though you did stay for an entire hour and fifteen minutes!’

  Lauren laughed. ‘I’m sure it was a very nice party, Marie. But I was asleep the minute my head hit the pillow—I told you I was tired.’ And surprisingly enough, that was the truth. She had expected to lie tossing and turning all night over the unhappy events of the evening, but fatigue, or the strain of the past months, or perhaps simply the fresh country air, had taken its toll. She had not even dreamed about him.

  Van said, placing the coffee pot on the table, ‘You look better already—doesn’t she, Marie? Aren’t you glad you came?’

  Marie said, ‘She’s still got a way to go before she’s the rosy-cheeked girl I remember, but we’ll soon fix that. Anything special for breakfast?’

  ‘Whatever you have that’s fattening,’ replied Lauren, and Marie beamed.

  ‘That’s the spirit!’ she said, and placed a huge platter of fresh cinnamon rolls on the table. The aroma was intoxicating and Lauren was surprised to find she was actually hungry. She sat down across from Van as Marie brought a platter of bacon, scrambled eggs, and toast, and another of sliced melon and grapefruit.

  Lauren groaned, ‘You don’t expect me to eat all that!’

  ‘I expect you to try,’ replied Marie firmly, and pushed the butter dish closer to Lauren’s plate as she sat down. ‘Use lots of butter,’ she advised. ‘It’s the best way I know to put on weight.’

  Lauren laughed. Marie, approaching fifty, had the figure of a girl half that age, and Lauren doubted she had ever had to count calories in her life. Lauren, however, had spent her entire life rigorously watching her weight, and she was surprised that she had to fight a small battle with guilt before determinedly adding an extra pat of butter to her cinnamon roll. It came, as something of a shock to her to realise she need never look at another container of yogurt in her life, no more skipping meals when the scales tipped half a pound, no more getting up at six a.m. to do warm-ups, no more gruelling hours at the barre ... it had all been a part of the only life she had ever known, and now it was no longer necessary. It had all been swept away by an uncalculated accident three months ago, and what was left was—emptiness.

  To direct her thoughts away from the maudlin turn they were taking, Lauren helped herself to more bacon and eggs than she could possibly eat and enquired, ‘Where’s your illustrious house guest this morning?’

  Van grinned at her. ‘Sitting right across the table from me making a pig of herself.’

  She made a face at him and specified, ‘I mean, the great Mr. Holt.’ It occurred to her that he might have already gone home—he had said he wouldn’t be staying much longer—and she was not certain why, after the events of last evening, she should find that possibility somewhat disturbing.

  Marie answered, ‘Oh, he’s probably out walking already this morning. He more or less comes and goes as he pleases, and pretty much takes care of himself. He’ll probably make his own breakfast later.’

  Van buttered a piece of toast and asked casually, not looking at her, ‘So what did you think of him, anyway?’

  Lauren hesitated for no more than a moment. With anyone other than Van she might have hedged politely, but she saw no point in lying to Van, who knew both her and Shane Holt well enough to guess what her reaction had been. Besides, she sensed more than a casual interest to the question, and she gave him more than a flip answer. ‘I thought he was rude, arrogant, conceited, and pompous,’ she replied quietly. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been quite so disappointed in anyone in my entire life. I almost wish I hadn’t met him at all.’

  A brief look passed between Marie and Van, but it was Marie who spoke. ‘Shane can be—rather difficult to get to know,’ she admitted, and there was a slight reticence in her voice.

  ‘Difficult,’ agreed Lauren. ‘That’s one adjective I left out. Honestly, Marie,’ she added seriously, ‘I’ve never met a more unpleasant person. How can you stand to have him around?’ She turned to Van. ‘Why do you keep inviting him?’

  Van smiled ruefully. ‘I can tell he went out of his way to put his worst foot forward.’ He glanced meaningfully at his wife. ‘I was afraid of as much.’

  Marie shook her head with a gentle smile. ‘I’m afraid you’ve gotten a bad first impression, Lauren. I’ll admit he can be a perfect beast when he wants to be, but, unfortunately, that’s not most of the time. Actually, he’s very nice—basically. You just have to get to know him.’

  Lauren finished her cinnamon roll slowly, and took a sip of orange juice. ‘I don’t mind that so much,’ she said in a moment, thoughtfully. ‘His being rude and pompous, and even the ego I can understand, I suppose ...’ She gave a slight, self-deprecating smile and admitted, ‘I mean, I guess I haven’t exactly been an Albert Schweitzer lately myself, but ...’ She glanced down, toying with her napkin, all of the disturbance of the evening before coming back to haunt her in Marie’s rosy kitchen. ‘It’s his attitude towards music that bothers me—hurts me, I suppose is the right word.’ She looked at Van, knowing he would understand. ‘You know how I’ve always felt about his music. I never would have believed that he would turn out to be this way. And I can’t excuse him for just—abandoning it like he did.’ She thought of her own lost career and the old anger began to surface. ‘He doesn’t even care! There is no excuse for that.’

  Another look filled with silent meaning passed between husband and wife. Lauren was for the first time aware of some sort of secret between the two of them, and she waited expectedly while they decided whether or not to trust her with it. Then Marie touched her napkin to her lips and said quietly, ‘There are extenuating circumstances, Lauren. Shane has had a rough time of it.’

  ‘He lost his wife and three-month-old daughter in an automobile accident,’ said Van, ‘shortly after his last album was released. He took it very hard.’

  Lauren sank back, her anger and her disappointment in the destruction of a legend draining away into simple shock with the one word, ‘Oh.’ The very phrase ‘automobile accident’ brought back the horror of her parents’ death, and her heart suddenly went out to Shane in empathy and understanding. To lose parents was terrible, and Lauren knew there would always be a special sorrow reserved for them, but it was expected, at some point in everyone’s life, eventually. The premature loss of a wife and a baby ... a dark ache built inside her for a pain she could only imagine.

  And then she looked at Van. ‘I didn’t even know he was married,’ she said softly.

  Van turned reluctantly back to his breakfast. A pall seemed to have fallen over the table and Lauren had completely lost her elusive appetite. ‘He was only married two years—not quite that, actually. He always kept his private life to himself.’

  Suddenly Shane Holt was a three-dimensional character to her again, and she wanted to know more. ‘How did you meet him?’ she asked curiously. ‘You never produced any of his records, did you? What’s the connection?’

  ‘We got to know one another while I was in Hollywood ... you remember, it was years ago ... I was doing the Aquarius Rising album.’ He smiled a little to himself. ‘Now, that dates me, doesn’t it?’ Then he went on, ‘Anyway, we got to know each other—of course, Shane was locked into contracts with another studio, so we never worked together, but we kept up.’

  ‘You never mentioned it to me,’ Lauren wondered. ‘All this time ...”

  He smiled. ‘Discretion is a very valuable asset in this business. Anyway, honey, when we were together we hardly ever had time to talk about business, if you’ll recall ...’ He went on with his story. ‘After the accident, the press was hounding Shane to no end—I mean really ruthless, and I could see there was no way he was going to be able to handle that. He needed a quiet place to stay with guaranteed privacy ...’ He shrugged. ‘So he came here. I guess he still looks on the place as a sort of refuge, and, believe it or not, we do enjoy having him
. He’s not usually the way he was last night, any more than you,’ he added meaningfully, ‘are usually the way you’ve been acting lately. Don’t judge him too harshly.’

  Lauren finished her juice and coffee, and at Marie’s insistence, automatically forced down a good portion of her breakfast, but her thoughts were with Shane. She could not get over the fact that the man she had adored in fantasy for so many years had all this time been as close as her best friend ... but it was so typical of Van to take another orphan under his wing, just as he had taken her. And she was glad Van had told her about Shane’s past. It made his present behaviour a little easier to understand—not to accept, but to understand—and she did not feel quite so bitter towards him any more.

  She asked Marie if there was anything she could do with the housework, but Marie insisted she needed no assistance. ‘Everything is automated around here,’ she explained brightly. ‘I’m just going to put the dishes in the machine and the laundry in the machine, and who needs help with that? Why don’t you just wander around and explore the house; make yourself at home.’

  Van had gone upstairs to make a business call, so Lauren was left on her own to do exactly that. She had been too tired yesterday to take much of a tour, and she was anxious to see more of the house of which Van was so proud.

  It was much too large for two people, Marie had often complained, with five bedrooms, a music room and a spacious rec room, but the extra space did come in handy for the enormous amount of entertaining they did. Lauren knew that it was not unusual for Van to have a houseful of weekend guests, and he often had business associates from Europe and other countries stay for weeks at a time. His outgoing nature and easy hospitality made such invitations always welcome, and Marie thrived on the constant exposure to new and interesting people.

  The rec room was just adjacent to the living room, and it contained a pool table, folding tennis table, a projection television and every variety of home video game yet invented. Beyond it, and behind the staircase, was another door which Lauren opened cautiously and quickly closed again. Obviously, it was Shane’s room, for the closet door was open and a pair of men’s jeans were draped casually over a chair. That explained why they had not bumped into one another yesterday before the party—when he sought isolation, he apparently carried it so far as to seclude himself from other members of the household. Lauren thought that was rather presumptuous of him, considering the fact that there were three other perfectly good unused bedrooms upstairs, and it would surely be easier for Marie to have all her guests occupying the same floor. But she remembered what Marie had said about not judging him too harshly and decided it was really none of her business.

  The music room was exactly what she would have expected from Van. It contained a grand piano, an assortment of guitars, several keyboards of some sort, including an electronic synthesiser, and a complicated assortment of recording and play-back equipment. The walls were lined with shelves of records and tapes just like a library, and Lauren was thrilled at the endless possibilities for entertainment they offered. She went over and examined the rows, thinking that he must have a copy of every recording ever made, eager to discover and explore the new vistas of music which had just opened up to her. It did not take her long to determine that the rows were alphabetised, however, and in only a matter of seconds her fingers—almost without her conscious will—were resting on a Shane Holt recording.

  The album she withdrew was entitled Dancers, and if she had to choose a favourite, she supposed that would be it. She had naturally made a personal identification with the title he had chosen, but the theme of the album went much deeper than that. Throughout the recording he spoke of life as an intricately choreographed dance, and of the harmony between the performers and the music as sometimes frantic, sometimes lilting, sometimes despairing, but always constant. Each song subtly reinforced that theme, often in ways so oblique that only the careful listener could discern the connection, and Lauren supposed one reason she loved it so was because it seemed to hold a secret only she could know ... which was, of course, the genius behind any creative work.

  She was afraid to try to use any of the complicated equipment in the music room, so she took the album into the living room, where a more conventional stereo was placed. As she put the record on the spindle and waited for the first strains of a haunting melody she knew so well, she examined the album cover. It was one of his first, before the time when competition for design awards had become as hot as the competition for Grammies, and it featured simply a full-face photograph of him against a grey background. She still found it hard to believe this could be the same man. Of course the picture had been taken when he was in his mid-twenties, and the long blond hair and the beard were an effective disguise, but this young man, with the smooth, untroubled face and faraway look in his eyes, bore no resemblance whatsoever to the hard, insensitive man she had met last night.

  The music began, and Lauren curled up on the sofa, the album cover in her hands, thinking about him. Somehow she had expected the effect of his music to diminish now that she knew the man, but strangely, it had exactly the opposite effect. The opening passages had never thrilled her more, and the following songs moved her to new depths of fascination. The song at the end of the first side told in simple language and clear melody the story of two lovers saying goodbye at a party, and the contrast of the gay party which went on around them and the poignancy of their acceptance of the emptiness which had crept into their lives was so beautiful it brought tears to her eyes.

  The only warning she had of a presence behind her was a rush of air and an angry movement, and before she had even drawn a shocked breath the needle arm was jerked from the record with a sharp scratching sound. She jumped to her feet, horror and indignation blotting out the surprise of seeing him, and cried, ‘What are you doing? You can’t—’

  But without even acknowledging her protest, Shane pulled the disc off the spindle and deliberately broke it in half, then hurled the pieces across the room. His face was dark and his lips were white, and when he turned on her the furious turmoil in his eyes caused her to automatically shrink back. For a moment she could only stare at him in horrified disbelief, and when she found her voice it was only a gasp. ‘How—dare you! Look what you’ve done to Van’s stereo! You—you broke his record! You had no right—’

  ‘No,’ he spat back viciously, ‘you had no right!’ A dark vein pulsed in his throat and his eyes churned with fury. Lauren had never seen anyone so angry, and it frightened her. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘I ...?’ Her voice sounded very weak and breathless following his thunderous shout, and incredulity rendered her almost speechless. ‘I was just sitting here minding my own business—you—you are the one who came in here acting like a madman! How dare you! You’re not just mean and arrogant—you’re crazy!’

  The heated voices had attracted Marie; Lauren could hear her anxious footsteps on the stairs. Apparently Shane noticed them too, because his voice lowered a fraction, even as his fists clenched at his sides and his eyes glittered dangerously. Lauren had never seen such hatred in anyone’s eyes—she would never have believed it was possible from him. ‘You’ve been here less than twenty-four hours,’ he said lowly, ‘and already I’m sick of the sight of you. What in God’s name was Van thinking of, bringing a star-struck teenager in here—’

  ‘Star-struck!’ Lauren laughed wildly even as her eyes stung with angry tears. ‘That’s the last thing I am! How could anyone be star-struck over a worthless has been,

  a—an—’ she struggled over the words and was surprised that anger made them come only more clearly, ‘introverted Quasimodo!’

  For a moment Shane looked startled, but swiftly the rage was back again. ‘You’re an interfering little bitch,’ he growled, and turned sharply, almost bumping into Marie, who had appeared at the door with alarm and concern stamped on her face. ‘Stay the hell out of my life!’ he shot over his shoulder, and brushed past Marie wit
hout another glance.

  ‘Good heavens!’ exclaimed Marie softly, her eyes wide with alarm. ‘What was that all about?’

  Lauren gulped on an impotent sound of rage and embarrassment, and when she brought her hand to her neck in agitation she was surprised to notice it was shaking. ‘That man is—is crazy!’ was all she could manage at last, and then Marie noticed the broken record on the floor and she understood.

  She went over slowly to pick up the pieces, then began quietly, ‘Lauren ...”

  ‘No,’ Lauren said sharply, her eyes flashing, ‘I don’t want to hear any more excuses for him. He may be your darling and he may have all sorts of problems, but that does not give him the right to act like an animal to people he doesn’t even know! This isn’t even his house, for God’s sake, he’s a guest here just like I am, but he orders me around like—like something lower than a servant! I honestly don’t know why you put up with it, Marie, but I’m warning you, I’m not going to!’ And she stalked out of the room and up the stairs.