Actually, he wasn’t half-bad. If no one better came along, Nicolas was going to give Cory first prize.
Only two to go, according to the program. A twelve-year-old hip-hop dancer named Kirsty. And an eleven-year-old girl—her name was Isabella—singing ‘Danny Boy’.
He should have known ‘Danny Boy’ would get in there somewhere.
Kirsty was somewhat of a pleasant surprise. She was darned good. But Isabella was clearly the star act of the night, the audience falling silent the moment she opened her mouth, her voice as pure and as clear as a bell.
Everyone clapped wildly when she finished, Nicolas included. He didn’t have to think too hard over who would win, or who would be runner-up. He’d make that second prize a dead heat between Kirsty, the hip-hop dancer, and Cory, the spoon boy. It would be simple to add a bit of money to the prize pool himself, if need be.
But before any of this could happen, however, there was one event left: Felicity’s special performance.
Nicolas found his heartbeat quickening when she walked back out onto the stage.
Surely he couldn’t be nervous for her.
But he was, nervous as hell.
Nicolas had never been nervous himself before a performance. He used to be excited. He could not wait to get out there, to show what he could do, to blow his audience away with his brilliance.
But then he’d always been super confident when it came to playing the piano. Girls—especially young girls like Felicity—rarely possessed that kind of confidence.
Yet as he watched her cross to the centre of the stage, there was no hesitation in her stride. She stopped there for a moment, faced the audience and bowed, at the same time throwing him a smile that wasn’t just confident. It was super confident.
‘Wait till you hear this,’ Felicity’s principal whispered from where he was sitting beside Nicolas at the judge’s table. ‘Felicity would have won hands down if she’d entered, you know.’
It was a telling remark, coming so soon after Isabella’s almost faultless rendition of ‘Danny Boy’.
Nicolas watched, his mouth drying as Felicity moved over to the piano that had not been used as yet that night, Isabella having sung unaccompanied and the dancers using recorded music.
Another smile came his way after she sat down on the stool and lifted her hands to the keys.
‘I have chosen to play this medley of pieces in honour of our very special guest here tonight,’ she said to the audience. ‘I cannot hope to play them as well as he once did. But I will do my best and hope he forgives my mistakes.’
What mistakes? Nicolas was to think numbly thirty seconds later as Felicity’s fingers flew over the keys. He’d never heard Rimsky-Korsakov’s ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’ performed any better by one so young. In no time the fast, flashy piece was over, Felicity switching with effortless ease and surprising sensitivity into the haunting adagio from Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata’. Lastly, just as everyone in the audience was almost in tears, she launched into Chopin’s very showy polonaise ‘Heroic’, a piece requiring great technical brilliance and showmanship.
Chopin was a favourite choice of composer amongst concert pianists, especially his polonaises. This particular one had been a staple of Nicolas’s list. He watched, totally amazed, as Felicity attacked the wild sweep of notes with the same kind of panache and passion that he’d possessed, which the critics had loved. She never looked up at any sheets of music because there were none there. She was playing from memory as he’d always done.
Nicolas could not believe it. Only twelve and already she could play like this. Why, she could take the world by storm in a few years!
Felicity finished the polonaise with a flourish, bending over the keys in a long, dramatic pause before slowly lifting her hands. She tossed her hair back from her shoulders as she stood up, taking her time to turn and bow to the audience, all the while with a ‘Yes, I know I’m good’expression on her face.
It was then that she broke into a grin and winked at him.
The cheeky minx, Nicolas thought as he jumped to his feet, clapping and shouting ‘Bravo!’ as European audiences sometimes did. Everyone else in the hall started doing likewise and Felicity finally began to look a little embarrassed. It was left to the principal of the school to hurry up onto the stage and bring some order back into proceedings.
‘Wasn’t that just wonderful, folks?’ he said, and gave a by then embarrassed-looking Felicity a shoulder squeeze. ‘Not only is our school captain a great little pianist, but she’s also a great little organiser. We have her to thank for the presence here tonight of our esteemed guest and judge, Mr Nicolas Dupre. For anyone who doesn’t know, Mr Dupre was Australia’s most famous concert pianist till a tragic accident cut short his career a decade ago. But you can’t keep a Rocky Creek lad down for long. He then went on to become an equally famous theatrical entrepreneur. Some of you might have seen the segment about him on TV a few years ago. Anyway, we are most grateful that he found the time to be with us here tonight. He came a long way. Now… we come to the most important part of the evening. Will Mr Dupre please come up onto the stage and announce the winners?’
Nicolas rose, and made his way forward to some ear-splitting applause.
Serina wasn’t clapping, however, her hands twisting in her lap as she watched Nicolas mount the short flight of steps then walk across the stage to where Felicity and Fred Tarleton were standing.
He looked magnificent, dressed in a charcoal-grey suit which must have cost a small fortune. Not only did it fit his body to perfection, but there also wasn’t a single wrinkle where the sleeves met his broad shoulders. His shirt was blue, about the same colour as his eyes. His tie was dark blue and grey striped. Only his collar-length blond hair spoiled his image as a millionaire businessman. That, and the inherent sensuality in his face.
Serina heard a few soft sighs from the women in the audience.
In a way, those sounds provided a degree of comfort. How could she blame herself for being besotted by the man when perfect strangers were affected by him?
But it wasn’t his sex appeal that was causing her hands to be wrung. Or her stomach to be hopelessly in knots. It was the fear that he might have seen the truth during Felicity’s astounding performance just now.
Surely he must have seen what was so obvious to her. That this was his own flesh and blood playing up there. His genes, not Greg’s.
She leant forward in her seat to get a closer look at the expression on his face when he approached Felicity. When his daughter smiled up at him, he smiled back, just as happily, without hesitation, without even a hint of distress or anger.
He hadn’t seen! He didn’t even suspect!
Perversely, any relief Serina felt was tinged by a bitter resentment. What was it about men that they had no sensitivity, or intuition? He should have seen what was obvious. But no, they only saw what they wanted to see. Or what their male ego let them see, and believe.
Nicolas had believed she didn’t love him all those years ago, and he believed it once again today. Yet she’d shown him in that bedroom this afternoon how much she did.
She shook her head and sank back into her seat.
‘He hasn’t changed much,’ Mrs Johnson said from where she was sitting on the right side of Serina.
‘No,’ Serina agreed with considerable irony. He was still a blind fool!
‘Hush up, you two,’ her mother said impatiently from the other side of Serina.
Nicolas took the microphone from Fred Tarleton and faced the audience.
‘Firstly,’ he said, ‘my heartiest congratulations, Felicity, for what was, indeed, a spectacular performance.