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fingers splayed across four octaves in the culminating chord. By the time Noël’s hands settled into the final radiant C major chord, my heart was beating hard against my chest and it was only the feeling of sheer terror that kept me pinned to the seat.
    There was a moment’s pause before Noël lifted his hands in one smooth movement from the piano, dropped them into his lap, then swung around to face me.
    ‘Well, it’s your birthday. What would you like to play?’ he said, grinning, exposing his pearly teeth, and I realised that for all the times I’d seen his photographin the newspaper or watched him on stage I’d never really seen him smile. His fingers started skimming up and down the keys again, fluttering like wings in flight, as if he had little control over them. I stared down at his hands, avoiding his gaze. I had expected, and wanted, to find his face somehow unknowable, like a screen idol, or the bust I once saw of King Akhenaton in the British Museum, whose beauty made me tremble. I wanted some physical sign of his divinity; but to my disappointment he looked quite ordinary. Up close, his features were rather plain, too coarse to be truly handsome, and his thick brown hair grew straight out from his head, wiry and wavy, with a design all its own. The most distinctive feature of his face, which I’d never before noticed, was its boyishness: pleading eyes and an effusive smile that, once arrived, didn’t want to leave.
    ‘It’s your birthday too,’ I said, cursing myself that I couldn’t think of anything better to say.
    ‘And I’d like you to choose,’ he replied, continuing to play, and nodding his forehead towards the stacks of music on the sideboards of the piano.
    I stood and started thumbing through the pile: Mendelssohn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mahler, Weber, Poulenc, Debussy, trying to concentrate on reading the covers while glancing back at him, afraid he might vanish.
    He was still smiling, looking straight ahead, then down at his hands. ‘Have you found something?’ he asked. ‘We’ll be another year older, shortly.’
    I pulled out the first duet that I came across. ‘How about the Moszkowski dances?’ I asked, putting the music up in front of him.
    ‘Splendid,’ he replied. Then he stopped playing, turned straight towards me, grinning, his eyes enveloping me. Blood filled my face and I quickly turned away, and concentrated on settling comfortably on the seat.
    ‘Well, off we go then, shall we?’
    I nodded, hardly able to speak, and lifted my quivering hands to the keys.
    As soon as we began, I relaxed. There was something about the way he played that put me completely at ease. I enjoyed playing duets immensely; it was like dancing a waltz—allowing you to be swept up into someone else’s tempo, and they, likewise, to be carried along in yours. It was extraordinarily intimate, and no duet partner could ever be like another. Sometimes when I played duets, I felt that I was locked in a battle of wills, a fierce game of cat and mouse. (There was a girl at the Academy, Eileen Saunders, who always insisted upon playing primo, and whenever I played with her, by the end of the work, I’d be all thumbs, feeling frantic and undone, as if I’d only just escaped with my life.) Playing with Noël was quite the opposite: he had a manner that buoyed me up and took charge in a most tender fashion. I felt more accomplished than I actually was, as if no music was beyond me. I’m not sure what prompted this feeling. Perhaps it wasbecause Noël was so acutely aware of everything I was doing, more aware than I was myself. He’d ritardando ever so slightly when I was approaching a challenging part, or push me along, like a driver whipping a horse, when he knew both the music and I had it in us to charge. Even though he played primo, I never felt that he was the leader, that I had to blindly follow him whatever he did. With Noël next to me, I could play better than I ever could have done on my own