The Woman Who Knew What She Wanted by William Coles Page A

another glass of Krug. They were already on their third bottle. I noticed that he ignored his lover’s empty glass.
    â€˜Okay,’ he said. ‘Favourite tune of all time. Give me your top three.’
    â€˜Well-Tempered Clavier,’ I said promptly. ‘First book. Prelude Number 17.’
    â€˜I don’t know that one,’ he said. ‘How does it go?’
    I sang a little bit of the tune. McKenny’s daughter smirked at her brother and then looked back at me. She was cute. I liked her.
    McKenny nodded. ‘There must have been a woman involved.’
    â€˜There’s always a woman involved.’
    â€˜And your two other tunes?’
    It was the first time that evening that I had seen McKenny animated. It was like watching an old snake slither from out of its rocky lair and slowly come to life as it basked in the morning sun.
    â€˜Mozart concerto for two pianos, Kirkel Number 448.’
    â€˜Kirkel 448? Remember that, Katie.’ He nodded at his daughter. ‘Another woman?’
    â€˜Yes,’ I said. ‘And for my last choice… Beethoven’s Pastoral.’
    â€˜You didn’t pick that just because you liked it?’
    â€˜No,’ I said. ‘It was my mother’s favourite.’
    â€˜Ah,’ he said, discerning the great shadow in my life. He added with surprising delicacy, ‘Mums, God bless ’em.’
    â€˜Will you try any of the puddings?’ I asked.
    â€˜The kids will,’ said McKenny. ‘I don’t like sweet stuff any more. As I get older, I like my food sour and bitter and pungent.’
    I could not resist myself. ‘But you, however, stay as sweet as you always were.’
    He laughed, genuinely laughed, and his son and daughter laughed with him. The girlfriend tapped her fingers on the rim of her side plate. She was still looking out of the window. I could see her reflection in the glass; she was looking at me. Did I detect a hint of a smile?
    â€˜I wish I had more people like you around me,’ said McKenny. ‘I could do with a court jester.’
    â€˜Give me a grand a day and I’m all yours.’
    â€˜I just might,’ he mused. As I looked at him, I though how ghastly it must be to be a genuine superstar, forever gawked at by strangers and surrounded by sycophants telling you just exactly what it is that they think you want to hear.
    â€˜You couldn’t get me a double espresso?’ he said.
    â€˜Of course.’
    The woman by the window turned to me. It was the first time that she’d looked at me. Thick mascara on the bluest eyes that I had ever seen. I don’t think I can recall ever seeing such beauty up close before. Her skin was absolutely flawless. She was only three or four years older than me, but so out of my league that she might have been on another planet. Oddly enough, that was distinctly to my advantage. Normally I am tongue-tied when I am in the presence of great beauty. My thoughts are scrambled and my tongue is rendered into a piece of flopping gristle so that I am not even capable of uttering the few inanities that I do wish to say. But this woman was so unattainable that I wasn’t even remotely cowed.
    â€˜Can I have an americano, please?’ she said.
    I had already placed her accent. She was from Texas.
    â€˜And an americano for the American,’ I said.
    There was a momentary intake of breath. ‘You’re good,’ McKenny said.
    â€˜You’re not so bad yourself, Ed.’
    I went to get the coffees.
    It was to be the start of an intense and candid relationship that I was to develop over the Easter weekend with McKenny. It was the first time that I had ever been on quasi-casually intimate speaking terms with a superstar. Who knows what, if anything, McKenny got out of it. Perhaps some wit and spark that was not to be found in the rest of his pampered life.
    The next day was Good Friday and I was abruptly made aware of one of