The two-minute bell rang, and everyone around me drained their glasses, however full they were. We all filed back into the auditorium to take our seats. Ally had already filled me in fully by email on her discoveries in Norway. I studied Felix Halvorsen closely as he walked onto the stage, and decided that the genetic link to him had had little impact on Ally’s physical characteristics. I also noticed his rolling gait as he walked towards the piano and wondered if he was drunk. I sent up a small prayer that he wasn’t. I knew from what Ally had said earlier how much this evening meant to her and her newfound brother, Thom. I’d liked him immediately when I’d met him earlier.
As Felix lifted his fingers to the keys and then paused, I felt every member of the audience holding their breath with me. The tension was only broken as his fingers descended onto them and the opening bars of The Hero Concerto were played in public for the first time. According to the programme, just over sixty-eight years after they had been written. For the following half an hour, each one of us was treated to a performance of rarity and beauty, created by a perfect alchemy between composer and interpreter: father and son.
And as my heart took flight and soared upwards with the beautiful music, I saw a glimpse of the future. ‘Music is love in search of a voice.’ I quoted Tolstoy under my breath. Now, I had to find my voice. And also the courage to speak out with it.
The applause was deservedly tumultuous, the audience on their feet, stamping and cheering. Felix took bow after bow, beckoning his son and his daughter out of the orchestra to join him, then quietening the audience and dedicating his performance to his late father, and his children.
In this gesture, I saw living proof that it was possible to move on. And to make a change that others would eventually accept, however difficult.
As the audience began to rise from their seats, Ma touched my shoulder, saying something to me.
I nodded at her blankly, not taking in her words, and murmured that I’d see her in the foyer. And then I sat there. Alone. Thinking. As I did so, I was vaguely aware of the rest of the audience walking up the aisle past me. And then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a familiar figure.
As my heart began to pound, my body stood up of its own volition and I ran through the empty auditorium to the crowd milling around the back exits. I searched desperately for another glimpse, begging the unmistakable profile to reappear to me amongst the milieu.
Pushing my way through the foyer, my legs carried me out into the freezing December air. I stood in the street, hoping for another sighting just to make sure, but I knew the figure had disappeared.
‘There you are!’ Ma said, coming up behind me. ‘We thought we’d lost you. Star? Are you all right?’
‘I . . . I think I saw him, Ma. Inside the concert hall.’
‘Saw who?’
‘Pa! I’m sure it was him.’
‘Oh chérie,’ Ma said, wrapping her arms around me as I stood there, catatonic with shock. ‘I’m so sorry. These things happen after someone we love dies. I think I see your father all the time at Atlantis . . . in his garden, on the Laser, and I keep expecting him to walk out of his study at any moment.’
‘It was him, I know it was,’ I whispered into Ma’s shoulder.
‘Then perhaps it was his spirit present in the auditorium, listening to Ally. Didn’t she play beautifully?’ Ma said as she guided me firmly along the path.
‘Yes. It was a wonderful evening, until—’
‘Try not to think about it. It will only upset you. Poor Ally thought she’d heard his voice on the telephone while she was at Atlantis. Of course, it was the answering machine. Now, there is a car ready to take us to the restaurant. Theo’s parents are already waiting inside.’
I let Ma do the talking on the drive there, still reeling from shock. Doubtless, Ma was right, and it had simply been an older man of similar build who – given he had been some distance away – my desperate heart had morphed into Pa Salt.
The restaurant was cosy and candlelit, and when Ally arrived with her twin brother, Thom, we all stood up and applauded them.
‘Is there someone missing?’ Ma looked at the empty seat at the head of the table.
‘That place is for our father,’ explained Thom in perfect English, as he sat down next to me. ‘But we doubt he’ll turn up, don’t we, Ally?’
‘Tonight, we can just about forgive him,’ she smiled. ‘When we left, he was surrounded by reporters and admirers singing his praises. He’s waited a long time for this. It’s his night.’
‘Ally forced me into giving him another chance.’ Thom turned to me. ‘And she was right. I’m so proud of him tonight. Sk?l!’ He clinked his glass of champagne against mine.
‘Everyone deserves another chance, don’t they?’ I whispered, almost to myself.
For the rest of the evening, I was entertained by Thom’s story of how Ally had turned up on his doorstep, and their subsequent discovery that they were twins.
‘And it’s all due to this,’ he said, reaching into his pocket, and placing a small frog on the table. ‘Everyone in the orchestra had one tonight, as a tribute to the great man himself.’
It was late by the time we left the restaurant and stood outside saying our goodbyes.
‘What time are you leaving tomorrow?’ Ally asked Ma and me as we all embraced.
‘My flight to Geneva leaves at ten o’clock, but Star’s isn’t until three,’ Ma told her.
‘Then maybe you could come and see me at the house, and we can catch up properly?’ Ally suggested. ‘You can take a taxi straight to the airport.’
‘Or I can take her,’ said Thom.
‘We’ll organise it tomorrow. Goodnight, darling Star, sleep well.’ She waved at me as she climbed into a car parked outside, and Thom followed suit.
‘See you tomorrow,’ he smiled, and they drove off.
I watched with interest as the taxi drove me up to Ally and Thom’s home the following morning. Last night, it had been too dark to see the snow-covered peaks that ringed Bergen, but now I could appreciate their Christmas-card perfection. Up and up we went, until we reached a narrow road and stopped in front of a traditional clapboard house, freshly painted in cream, with pale blue shutters.
‘Star, come in,’ Ally said, greeting me on the doorstep. I did so, and stepped into a toasty-warm entrance hall.
‘Ally, this is beautiful!’ I said as she led me into a bright sitting room filled with a squashy sofa and pale Scandinavian pine furniture. A grand piano sat in the huge bay window, which overlooked the lake below and the snow-capped hills beyond it.
‘What a view,’ I said. ‘It reminds me of Atlantis.’
‘Me too, but gentler somehow, as everything is here in Bergen, including its residents. Coffee or tea?’
I asked for coffee, and sat down in front of a modern glass fireplace, the logs within it burning merrily.
‘There you are.’ Ally put a cup down in front of me and sat next to me on the sofa. ‘Goodness, Star, where do we begin? There’s so much to catch up on. Thom said he’d told you most of what’s happened at this end. I want to hear about you. How’s CeCe, by the way? And more to the point, where is CeCe? I’m not used to seeing you two apart.’
‘I don’t know. She’s left London and gone away. And . . .’ I confessed, ‘it’s my fault.’
‘You’ve fallen out?’
‘Yes . . . I just . . . well, I’ve been trying to find a life of my own.’
‘And CeCe hasn’t yet?’