Solo - Jack Higgins [39]
'Yes, it usually is.'
He smiled instantly. 'Heh, a fellow American. This must be my day. Are you an exchange student or something?'
The Irish side of her rose quickly to the surface and she laughed out loud. 'Those days are long gone. I'm what they call a don here. I teach at the university. My name's Katherine Riley. I'm from California.'
'Good God, so am I. My name's Mikali - John Mikali.'
She took his hand with a slight reluctance, aware of a tingling excitement, a coldness in her belly that was new to her.
'Yes, I know. You're playing Rachmaninov's Fourth tonight with the London Symphony.'
'I trust you'll be there.'
'Are you joking? Some students queued overnight to catch the box office the first day it opened. There hasn't been a ticket available for that concert since then.'
'Nonsense,' he said. 'Where do you live?'
'New Hall.'
'I'll have a ticket delivered there by noon.'
There was no way she could say no, or even wanted to. 'That would be marvellous.'
'Afterwards they're throwing a reception for me at Trinity College. Can I send you a card for that as well? It could be a bore, but not if you came.' Before she could reply, he glanced at his watch. 'I hadn't realized the time. I've got a four-hour rehearsal this morning and Previn is a hard taskmaster - see you tonight.'
He turned and ran away across the Backs, very fast indeed. She stood there, watching him go, aware of the power in him, more excited than she had ever been in her life before.
At the reception, she stood watching him on the other side of the room, in the velvet suit, the open black silk shirt, the golden crucifix around his neck, all of which had become his trademark. He was restless as they crowded around, his eyes searching the room constantly. When he found her, the smile was instant and he reached for two glasses of champagne from a tray carried by a passing waiter and made straight for her alone.
'I phoned your college,' he said. 'Why didn't you tell me? Dr Riley - Fellow of New Hall. Ail that stuff.'
'It didn't seem important.'
'Was I good tonight?'
'You know you were,' she said simply and took the champagne from him.
There was a sudden, strange look in his eyes. It was as if, in some way, he had made a discovery he had not looked for.
He smiled and raised his glass. 'To Katherine Riley, a nice Catholic girl, with wit, perception and exquisite musical taste who is going to take me the hell out of here within the next three minutes and show me Cambridge.'
'Jewish,' she said. 'My mother was, you see, and that's what counts.'
'Okay, I'll amend it. Katherine Riley, a nice Jewish girl. Does that mean you can cook as well?'
'Oh, yes.'
'Excellent, now let's get out of here. You can take me on a punt in the moonlight, show me the romance of all those gleaming spires of yours.'
It rained after the first half-hour, so that they were both soaked to the skin by the time they managed to abandon the punt at the side of the river.
Later, when the taxi dropped them at New Hall, it was raining even harder and they arrived at the door to her rooms as wet as two human beings could possibly be.
When she got the door open and made to enter, he took her arm gently. 'No,' he said. 'This first time I carry you across the threshold. It's an old Greek custom. We're very ethnic, you know.'
Afterwards, somewhere close to three o'clock when they finally stopped, she turned to him in bed as he reached for a cigarette.
'That was nice. I never knew it could be like that.'
'Go to sleep,' he said gently, putting an arm around her.
It had stopped raining now and moonlight filtered into the room. He lay there for quite a while, smoking and staring up at the ceiling, his face grave. When she moaned in her sleep, his arm tightened around her instinctively.
'Do you realize Milton was responsible for this tree?' she demanded.
They were sitting under the mulberry tree in the Fellows' Garden of Christ's College, the tree the great poet was reputed to have planted