Maestro Read Online Free PDF

that it was time to leave. She extended her hand to Mag who took it reluctantly. 
    "Thank you Mag. I'm sorry to have upset you." 
    Mag turned her face away.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Five. 
    Sara picked up a few things at John's before going back to Downswold. She didn't say anything to John about her meeting with Mag. For the moment, she didn't know what to do, or to think, of the story she'd heard. Anyway, John would already know the story, word for word. 
    When she arrived at Downswold, a large bouquet of flowers outside the front door greeted her. A ceramic vase filled with freshly cut flowers. A note nestling amongst them read: "From my garden. Enjoy. G." Roses, gypsophylas, nigellas, chrysanthemums. Sara had not solicited this strange gift. 
    The tight thin handwriting had maintained its distinctive style, the letters holding each other upright. 
    Sara concluded that Gillane was not so much generously sharing the bounty of his gardening efforts but rather expressing his confidence. The flowers were a statement, left to her to interpret. 
    She brought the flowers inside, made herself a coffee and lit a cigarette. She was beginning to rue the fact that there was no one close enough to talk to. To sit down and say, "What do you think of all of this?" Carl was thousands of miles away. Besides the sexual energy between Carl and her, there were never many words. She had hoped he would have suggested they go away together on holiday. He could have gotten out of his business trip. He hadn't even bothered to discuss the possibility, bring it out in the open, and then say NO. She thought, suddenly, of asking him to leave her house. They shared a house not a home. They shared pieces of a space together, that was all. 
    She imagined telling the story to the Maestro, confiding in him but burst out laughing at the thought.  
    "That huge ego maniac! Ha!" 
    As someone who didn't even know the price of a tube fare, it would be hard to believe that the Maestro would be capable of showing empathy for a young girl's plight in life. Or death. To him, real people were moving shadows blinded by bright stage lights. He only ever saw them from a distance.  
    What Sara began to feel was sadness. Sad in a way that one gets alone on a Friday night, when everyone else has plans and invitations. And friends. 
    During her school days, Sara had been an average student. She'd had one or two really good friends then. Fiona McCartney and Jane Fillowbright had been her best mates in those days gone by. They had attended university with her. Straight out of university, Jane and Fiona both married and gave birth to six children between them. As housewives and mothers, they drew the circle in tighter, pushing Sara out. 
    When she didn't marry Carl and start a family of her own, their behaviour towards Sara became strange, fearful, odd. She continued to receive the occasional invitation for Sunday lunch ‘en famille’ which she learned to decline. An afternoon spent in a place screaming with nappies, the two women vainly disciplining the children and complaining to their husbands that they needed housekeepers was a worse proposition than being alone. 
      Inevitably during these encounters, Fiona and Jane would become so engrossed in their mutual crosses to bear that Sara would find herself talking to husbands Tim and Phillip. They in turn, invariably felt uncomfortable around Sara. Their Sunday was the ultimate routine, sacred, the fabric of their lives. They viewed Sara as unconventional, unusual, too "colourful." It became clear to Sara that until she was married and "respectable," she would have very little in common with the Tims, Phillips, Janes, and Fionas of this world.   
    After a couple of years, Sara put it down to just that and stayed away for good. At Christmas, she continued to send the usual "To Fiona, Tim & Family, love, Sara." And she would receive the same back. The children's