by Jilly Cooper
Marcus, who had lived here since he was four years old, was now not only penniless, but soon to be homeless. He was surveying the wreckage of his life, when the telephone rang. He couldn’t cope with a reproachful Helen, but it was Abby jibbering with excitement.
‘I’ve got my first gig, conducting the Rutminster Symphony Orchestra. Rodney and Howie squared it for me. Only one problem, right? I’ve gotta learn the repertoire in a fortnight. Will you help me?’ There was a pause. ‘You don’t sound very excited for me, Marcus.’
‘Mum’s just married Rannaldini.’
‘I read it. Not the ideal stepfather – I’m really sorry. But think of the doors he’ll open for you, and at least it’ll get your mom off your back, and you can come back to the Academy. It’s poor Flora who’s been blown out of the water. God, I’m scared about this gig.’
Appassionata
SECOND MOVEMENT
TWENTY
Abby was as driven as a conductor as she had been as a violinist. Sweeping into the Old Rectory, she hardly noticed how ill Marcus was looking.
It was ironic that one of the pieces he had to help her learn was Ein Heldenleben, a Hero’s Life, Richard Strauss’s tone poem, which included a portrait of Pauline, Strauss’s capricious, demanding wife. Abby was a lot like Pauline, thought Marcus. She interrupted him for help whether he was practising or just firing off hundreds of letters to orchestra managers, concert halls and music clubs in a desperate attempt to get work. She had also commandeered Marcus’s CD player and would drag him out of bed in the middle of the night to listen to some rival violinist as she sobbed: ‘I’m better than that, aren’t I?’
This would have been the ideal moment for Marcus to have made a move. But he was haunted by his failure with Rupert’s hooker, so each time he bottled out, lying for hours afterwards twitching with desire.
He was also heartbroken that he couldn’t afford to stay on at the Academy. When Rannaldini and Helen returned from their extended honeymoon, he would have to move into a tiny room in Ealing. He could pay the rent and keep up the instalments on the Steinway, on which fourteen-thousand pounds was still owing, only if he took half a dozen pupils a day. By the time he’d paid off his college debts, the bank had started bouncing cheques. He had torn up all his credit cards. The only card in his pocket was Pablo Gonzales’s, but meeting him now seemed like a dream. Marcus didn’t have the bottle to write to him. His asthma was awful, he couldn’t walk twenty yards without stopping to rest.
If Abby was exhausting, she was also expensive. Seeing such a large, beautiful house (and this was only Marcus’s mother’s place. Flora had already told her about the glories of Penscombe), Abby assumed Marcus was just another trust-fund baby, and Marcus was too proud to tell her otherwise. As she had lived with Rodney, now she would live with Marcus. She was not grasping, her records had left her very well provided for, just thoughtless. Having worked for twelve hours sustained only by Granny Smiths and black coffee, she would emerge at dinner time.
‘I’m exhausted and absolutely starved.’
If dinner wasn’t ready, she would insist they took her scores out to the nearest restaurant where, having wolfed down a couple of baskets of bread, she often found she wasn’t hungry when the two courses she’d ordered arrived, and Marcus, being his father’s son, picked up the bill.
Back at the Old Rectory her mess spread from room to room, and had to be hurriedly tidied away by Marcus each time a buyer arrived to look at the house.
As the concert approached, Abby grew more histrionic, dickering over what to wear on the night – ‘I gotta look dignified and drop-dead gorgeous’ – and having screaming matches with Howie Denston, her agent.
The new Lady Rannaldini, thought Marcus, would go bananas when she saw the telephone bill, but that was Sir Roberto’s problem.
Mrs Edwards was in her element.
‘Lady Rannaldini’s residence,’ she would announce as journalists started ringing up, so they simply assumed Abby was Rannaldini’s protégée.
To keep the tabloids at bay, Howie installed bouncers. As a result the more enterprising reporters disguised themselves as prospective buyers. The man from the Telegraph got so into the part he even put in a bid for the Old Rectory, and was furious to be gazumped later in the week by a girl from the Independent.
Marcus took two days off to hold Abby’s hand. For a start, he drove her down to Rutminster.
‘How far is it?’
‘Malise and I always reckoned it was Beethoven’s Ninth to Rutminster and The Creation to Cotchester.’
‘It would have been far quicker in the Aston,’ said Abby petulantly.
As a last-ditch measure, to appease the bank manager, Marcus, the day before, had sold his beloved Aston and bought a third-hand, mustard-yellow Maestro, which Abby didn’t feel had sufficient gravitas. She was not even amused by jokes about taking the Maestro down in the Maestro. The next two days were going to be lean on laughs, thought Marcus with a sigh. Still, it was a beautiful day, with primroses fizzing along the bright green verges like sherbert and the cottage gardens still full of daffodils.
After a steep climb, Marcus stopped the car.
‘Get your head out of Richard Strauss for a sec and look at that.’
Abby gasped with joy for down below in a bowl of wooded hills softened by opal-blue mist, rising from the same River Fleet that flowed through Cotchester, lay the ancient town of Rutminster. There was the racecourse where Rupert’s horses battled with Rannaldini’s to win the famous Rutminster Cup. There was the cathedral, its spire soaring into the air like a litter prong trying to catch the tiny, paper-white clouds hurtling across the the bright blue sky. Along the river bank, weeping willows rinsed their blond hair in the glittering aquamarine water.
‘There’s the Herbert Parker Hall, where the gig is,’ said Marcus, pointing out a hulking Victorian monstrosity standing in its own park to the west of the town.
‘How awesome,’ sighed Abby, oblivious of the hideous proportions and the ox-blood walls which clashed vilely with the faded russet of the rest of the High Street.
‘Who was Herbert Parker?’ she asked.
‘Oh, some nineteenth-century haberdasher who made his pile and then built one. His descendants own Parker and Parker, the department store in the High Street. That Queen Anne house, overlooking the river to the east of the town, is the Old Bell Hotel where you’re staying.
‘What you can’t see is the secret passage from H.P. Hall, as it’s known, to the Shaven Crown in the High Street. You’ll be sent flying during the break by stampeding musicians. Goodness, they’ve got portaloos, they must be expecting huge crowds.’
Dropping into the valley, they entered thick woods. Through the first faint blur of hawthorn and larch, gleamed a lake, reminding Abby of Lucerne and the ghost horn player. Then she jumped at the sight of her own photograph smouldering down from a large oak tree. From then on, there were ‘L’Appassionata’ posters everywhere.
‘Oh Marcus,’ her voice quivered, ‘I feel as if I’m coming home.’
Even though the concert wasn’t until the following night, Rutminster swarmed with Press. Megagram, Abby’s record producers, were reissuing all her old records and had spent a lot of money promoting the concert. The tickets could have been sold five times over. Big screens had been put up in the park, so disappointed punters could watch from outside for a tenner.
Double cherries lining the path up to H.P. Hall were still in bud.
‘We thought of forcing them out with a blowlamp in your honour,’ said Mark Carling, the extremely harassed managing director of the Rutminster Symphony Orchestra who came rushing out to shake Abby’s hand.
He had thinning mousy hair, and tired red-rimmed eyes peering furtively through granny spectacles which seemed too small for his big, worried face. Desperately shy, he found the social side of running an orchestra a torment.
‘I’m in the middle of a rather sticky conversation with the Arts Council, who tend to
call the shots. I hope you’ll forgive me, if my secretary, Miss Priddock, shows you round. Miss Priddock’s very much the power behind the throne,’ he said, scuttling off in relief.
Miss Priddock had once been pretty and for a brief period Sir Rodney’s. Plump, mono-bosomed and given to pussy-cat bows, she looked as though she pulled on her blue-rinsed hair like a tea cosy each morning. She lived in the Close with John Drummond, a large, self-important black cat with a white shirt-front which made him look as if he were wearing tails. Drummond, who accompanied Miss Priddock to work and doubled up as office mouser, was known as the ‘purr behind the throne’.
Seeing the imperceptible toss of Abby’s head that she was being abandoned to a secretary, Miss Priddock mentally branded Abby ‘a madam’ and said they had never had a concert like this before. Poor Mr Carling was run off his feet.
‘He’s lucky to have you,’ said Marcus, sensing ruffled feathers. ‘You must be seriously busy.’
‘I deal with everything,’ said Miss Priddock, ushering them into a palatial foyer, whose peeling burnt-sienna walls were almost entirely hidden by L’Appassionata publicity material.
‘Light bulbs, blocked toilets, computers breaking down,’ she went on, ‘they run to me. I’m also Clare Rayner to the entire orchestra. If they’re homesick, got marital problems, can’t pay their mortgage or the gas bill, they end up in my office. I can’t do much, but I’m a good listener.’
And a conceited old bag, thought Abby, as led by John Drummond, his black tail erect, Miss Priddock swept them along the inevitable labyrinths where under naked light bulbs, groups of musicians pretended not to stare.
‘This is the band room,’ added Miss Priddock, ‘where the musicians relax, and this is the hospitality room where we entertain sponsors and friends of the orchestra.’
‘And this is the instrument room.’ Flinging open the door, Miss Priddock surprised a couple in flagrante. Abby caught a quick glimpse of a girl spread-eagled naked on the glockenspiel, her long silver-blond hair trailing like a River Fleet willow. Beside her stood an equally blond man with wicked slitty dark eyes and broad bare shoulders tapering to a narrow waist. Unbuttoning his jeans with one hand, he had the other rammed between the girl’s legs.
Miss Priddock didn’t turn a blue-rinsed hair.
‘Buck up, Viking,’ she said briskly, ‘rehearsal begins in ten minutes,’ and almost dotingly closed the door.
‘Who was that?’ asked Abby, flabbergasted.
‘Viking O’Neill, First Horn and Juno Meadows, Second Flute.’
‘Don’t musicians get fired for that kind of behaviour?’
‘Not Viking,’ said Miss Priddock firmly.
‘He’s got two horrendous horn solos in Oberon and Ein Heldenleben,’ said Abby. ‘I hope he’s up to it.’
‘Viking’s up to everything,’ said Miss Priddock skittishly. ‘The platform’s through that door.’
With a shiver of excitement, Abby could see the stage set up with chairs and music-stands, and hear the glorious heady din of musicians all practising different passages from the Oberon overture.
‘And here’s your dressing-room. It’s Sir Rodney’s normally, but he vacates it for guest conductors.’
On a low marble table, Abby was touched to find a huge bunch of white hyacinths and narcissi and a note from Rodney telling her not to seduce all his orchestra before he saw her tomorrow night.
The room, befitting him, had an extremely comfortable double bed, only thinly disguised as a sofa by a few embroidered cushions, a massive bath, a buckling wine rack, a store cupboard filled with large glasses, tumblers, tins of caviar, foie gras and artichoke hearts. On the walls were photographs of Gisela and Shosty outside Flasher’s Folly, of Rodney’s late wife playing in her nightie and of Rodney and the orchestra out in the park under the turning trees on the occasion of his seventy-fifth birthday. In the wardrobe, Abby found a set of his tails and breathed in a waft of English Fern.
‘Oh, I wish he were here.’
Miss Priddock’s face softened.
‘We all do. I’m afraid Lionel Fielding, our leader, is away guesting with some northern orchestra,’ she gave a more-fool-them sniff. ‘But his co-leader,’ the warmth returned to Miss Priddock’s voice, ‘a most delightful French Canadian, Hugo de Ginèstre, will do everything to smooth your path.’
Hugo was very smooth, as he swept in, all fire and flourish, brandishing his bow like d’Artagnan. Like d’Artagnan, too, he had a glossy moustache, a neat beard, cavalier curls just beginning to recede from a noble forehead, and big soulful dark eyes, which kept suddenly twinkling with merriment. The Musketeer image was further accentuated by a dark brown velvet jacket and a floppy white silk shirt, tucked into black cords which were, in turn, tucked into boots.
Kissing Abby’s hand and then both her cheeks, he said how honoured the RSO were to welcome such a great musician.
Marcus, who was feeling exhausted and spare-prickish, looked at his watch.
‘I’ll take what you don’t need and check in at the Old Bell,’ he said.
‘Don’t be long, I need you —’ suddenly Abby looked vulnerable, and Marcus’s heart leapt then fell as she added – ‘to help me if I get stuck.’
‘Courage, mon enfant,’ said Hugo, as he led her into the auditorium.
Gripping the brass rail of the rostrum to disguise her shaking hands, Abby looked down at the RSO spread out before her. Many of them were paunchy, most of them pale and drawn, after a long winter of late nights, long hours’ teaching, playing other dates to make ends meet, not seeing the sun and gazing at black dots.
A handful were brown from skiing, some of the girls were young and very pretty, the men handsome, but on the whole they needed an iron over their faces and their clothes. Their gleaming instruments – gold, silver, conker-brown, burnt-umber and black – looked in much better shape. But together, they had the power of a wolf-pack. They looked at Abby curiously but coolly, poised to co-operate or gang up.
Then Abby smiled.
‘It’s great to be here with you guys. Today we’ll concentrate on Oberon and Ein Heldenleben.’
By ill luck, Oberon would start with a solo from the First Horn, who was now dressed in black jeans and a ‘Spoilt Bastard’ T-shirt, and laughing his head off. Blushing, Abby looked up at him and nodded. Viking sat there, his horn to his mouth, but not making any sound. Abby nodded again. ‘When you’re ready, First Horn.’
‘I’m ready, Maestro.’
There was another long, agonizing pause; the orchestra grinned into their instruments.
‘I think he’s waiting for you to give him the upbeat, Maestro,’ whispered Hugo.
‘Oh shit, I never thought of that.’ Abby whipped her stick up and then down and they were on their way. She was dying of nerves. But expecting one of Rodney’s bimbos (the last one had got lost in the New World), the RSO were staggered how good she was. Thanks to Marcus she was embedded in the music, giving every important cue, detecting wrong notes from the babble of sound. Musicians detest stopping and starting, and Abby luckily also had the ability to shout out or sing instructions on the wing.
Simon Painshaw, First Oboe, had carrot-coloured dreadlocks and screwed up his thin face when he played as though he was drinking vile medicine out of a straw.
‘That was fantastic,’ Abby called to him after a particularly beautiful solo, ‘but three bars after twenty-nine, you should have played A flat.’
Blushing beetroot like an unattractive winter salad at the unaccustomed praise, Simon mumbled that his part said A.
‘Then yours is a misprint.’
The musicians looked at each other in awe.
The brass players, when they got excited, made enough din to strip the rest of the paint off the foyer. Abby managed to shut them up.
‘I gather that the RSO brass section are the wonder of the West Country,’ she beamed across at them. ‘But it would be kinda fun occasionally to hear what the rest of the orchestra can do.’
The brass section shuffled their feet sulkily but they forgave Abby when she overheated, and whipped off her dark blue jersey, mistakenly taking her white T-shirt with it, to display a pair of stunning breasts.
Hugo was also a joy, playing with panache, never taking his soulful dark eyes off her, clapping his hands to shush any chatter, pleased that Abby consulted him throughout.
And the First Horn was more than adequate. After the ridiculously delayed start, Abby nearly dropped her baton, because he played with a radiance and purity completely at variance with his distinctly louche appearance. He was also the most outrageously attractive man Abby had ever seen, lounging high up at the back of the orchestra, his French horn, like the sun in his arms, matching his streaked gold hair. His dark brown eyes seemed permanently narrowed as if he were taking aim before firing one of Cupid’s arrows. He had a pale narrow face darkened by stubble, a snub nose, and his big mocking lips somehow managed to compose themselves round the mouth piece of his instrument This was an eighteenth-century horn with a pretty painted bell made of gold leaf, beaten very thin and giving it enormous range.
He’s the ghost horn player, thought Abby in wonder.
‘You do very well,’ said Hugo, as he and Abby had a cup of tea in the conductor’s room.
‘You gave me so much help,’ said Abby, ‘and the orchestra sure take their lead from you.’
‘And I from you,’ said Hugo, who was having a little bet with himself that it would be under ten seconds.
‘There are some very interesting players,’ mused Abby.
Six seconds, thought Hugo.
‘Particularly First Oboe, and – er – First Horn. A wonderful primitive sound. Why’s he called Viking?’
‘He wore an eyepatch to his audition to hide a black eye given to him by a jealous husband,’ said Hugo, gratified to have won his bet, but disappointed that Abby had reacted like all the rest.
‘When Victor, that’s his real name, first came here,’ he went on, ‘he reminded everyone of a Viking blowing a conch in a flat-bottomed boat before nipping ashore for a spot of rape and pillage.’