Appassionata

by Jilly Cooper

  ‘Mine gives me bounced cheques,’ said Randy gloomily.

  ‘And I bought our tea, someone has to.’ Although Juno had a squeaky little voice like a mouse orchestra, her bluey-green eyes were as cold as distilled fiord water.

  ‘Nice track suit,’ said Blue the peacemaker.

  ‘I got it from the Children’s Department of Parker and Parker, and I got us two chops,’ said Juno, looking disapprovingly at the refilled pints of beer.

  Dixie ruffled Nugent’s black fur. ‘Good thing the old boy stocked up on that shepherd’s pie.’

  ‘Dogs only need one meal a day,’ snapped Juno. ‘We ought to go back. I need to pick up a grapefruit and some cottage cheese.’

  ‘Wow, you are going to have a blow-out,’ mocked Randy.

  ‘Viking’s eating habits are shocking.’ Juno pursed her pretty lips, then her eyes widened as Marcus rushed through the door. Even deathly pale, black under the eyes and wheezing frantically, he was beautiful.

  ‘Abby darling,’ he panted, ‘I’m desperately sorry, I crashed out on my hotel bed for five minutes, next thing I knew it was a quarter to two. Are you OK?’

  ‘Don’t I look it?’ said Abby warmly. ‘It’s been wonderful having someone to discuss the finer points of repertoire.’

  And what have I been fucking doing for the last two weeks? thought Marcus.

  Feeling she had been a little harsh, Abby added to Hugo: ‘Marcus is a marvellous pianist.’

  ‘We could use you in the Tchaikovsky tomorrow night,’ grumbled Hugo.

  ‘Who’s playing?’ said Marcus.

  ‘Some crumpet of Rodney’s, called Anthea Hislop, known as “Hisloppy” – she’s so slapdash.’ Hugo grinned at Abby. ‘With two of you on the same night, the orchestra was going to paste “Ban the Bimbo” posters all over H.P. Hall.’ Then, seeing Abby’s expression of outrage, hurriedly added, ‘But you’re no bimbo, sweetheart. She did great today,’ he told Marcus.

  ‘I want to find some truly revolutionary way to do the Tchaikovsky,’ said Abby earnestly.

  ‘Get the horns to come in in tune at the beginning, instead of splat-two-three,’ suggested Hugo, ‘and you could try to make Hisloppy play occasionally at the same tempo as the orchestra.’

  TWENTY-TWO

  The run-up to the concert was distinctly fraught. Anthea Hislop turned out to be as curvacious as she was catastrophic as a pianist. This resulted in several spats with Abby which enlivened the rehearsal, but put Abby into the deepest gloom. As An thea was one of Shepherd Denston’s most successful artists, Howie Denston insisted on motoring down from London to take her, Abby, Marcus and Mike Carling, the RSO managing director out to dinner.

  Marcus thought that after Rannaldini, Howie was the most dreadful man he had ever met. Allegedly the most cut-throat agent in London, he was short and plump with a white oily face, little black eyes, black hair which fell in a kiss-curl over his low forehead, and very long arms from lugging potted plants to ingratiate himself with large lady artistes. He plainly didn’t give a stuff about music and, like his father, was only turned on by the deal.

  Howie’s only redeeming feature during a very sticky evening, when Abby and Anthea completely ignored each other, was that when he wasn’t jabbering into his mobile, he was talking incessantly about himself, which at least kept the conversation going.

  ‘I have ab-so-lute-ly no private life. I exist only for my clients. My mobile is never switched off.’

  He clearly thought it was a huge concession to travel out of London, and seemed to expect wild boars covered in woad to ramraid the restaurant at any second.

  Mark Carling, who hardly ate anything, left after the main course to look after a wife who had shingles. Seeing the bill was imminent, Howie jumped thankfully into a hovering limousine and steamed back to London for a breakfast meeting with his most illustrious client, Hermione Harefield.

  Howie owned a five-bedroomed house on the canal at Maida Vale and earned at least four hundred thousand pounds year. He was not a day over twenty-three.

  Anthea, bored because there was no-one to vamp, disappeared shortly afterwards. Whereupon Marcus lost his temper.

  ‘Your agent is the most revolting little man I’ve ever met. He’s pig-ignorant and he’s a bloody shirt-lifter.’

  ‘Marcus,’ said Abby appalled, ‘what has got into you? I’m the one who’s got the big date, right? I don’t want to hear this kinda shit. Howie’s an absolute powerhouse.’

  ‘Power bungalow you mean, revolting little man.’

  Marcus’s attitude didn’t change when he was woken by a call from Howie at six o’clock the following morning.

  ‘Hi, Pretty Boy, for God’s sake, keep the Daily Mail from Abby.’

  Hermione’s rage at Rannaldini marrying Helen had been exacerbated by a piece in The Scorpion about Abby staying at Helen’s house, and therefore being Rannaldini’s protegee. In revenge Hermione had given an interview to Lynda Lee-Potter. How Abby Rosen slashed her wrists because her lover filled my aeroplane seat with yellow roses.

  ‘Fucking Hermione,’ yelled Marcus. ‘How dare she.’

  ‘These dames are all the same.’

  ‘Hermione’s not a bit like Abby, she’s your client, you should bloody well control her.’

  But Hermione was a more important client, as was Anthea. Abby might easily bomb this evening.

  ‘Got to go, Tiger, see you at the press conference, don’t forget, keep the Mail from Abby.’

  Abby was too busy rehearsing to see the Mail, but the rest of the media pouring into Rutminster had read the piece. They had all promised not to question Abby about Christopher or her attempted suicide, but within seconds Beattie Johnson from The Scorpion was on her feet.

  ‘If Christopher Shepherd caused you so much grief, aren’t you getting your own back on him and men in general by becoming a conductor, so you can boss them around?’

  Abby had immediately burst into tears and stormed out, leaving the place in an uproar.

  At least the programme looked splendid with a lovely new picture of Abby on the front, and, even more lovely to the RSO, eighty pages of expensive advertisements for banks, cars, credit cards, clothes, jewellery and make-up.

  It was also a lovely mild night. The birds were still singing, the sun had just set in an orange-and-pink glow, but to combat any symbolism, the moon was rising out of the Blackmere Woods as Abby arrived. She was gratified not to be able to see an inch of the park round the H.P. Hall for spectators with rugs and picnics.

  There was an explosion of flash bulbs, police held back the cheering, excited crowds and there, to Abby’s joy and relief, was Rodney, smiling, rubicund, and waiting at the front door with his silver-and-black cummerbund embedded in his vast belly to the width of a snake belt.

  ‘Good evening, Maestro,’ he raised her hand to his lips. ‘Don’t let them see how frightened you are,’ he whispered. ‘You look utterly sensational.’

  Abby’s short hair was brushed straight back from a lily pale face. Her only make-up was eye-liner round the hypnotic eyes, which seemed to glow like tourmaline. The Maharishi effect was heightened by midnight-blue silk trousers and a long collarless matching jacket, which buttoned up to her neck. She wore no jewellery, the only note of frivolity was the diamanté buckles twinkling on her black suede pumps. In her pocket, warding off evil, was Rupert’s silver garlic.

  ‘They haven’t had a turn out like this since Pavarotti in Hyde Park,’ Rodney led her into the conductor’s room. ‘Oh, darling, I’m so proud.’

  ‘They’ve only come to see if I’ve got two heads,’ said Abby, as Mark Carling barged in.

  ‘You look wonderful, Maestro. What the hell are we going to do, Rodney? We’ve got about two hundred too many Press and nowhere to seat them.’

  ‘Put up a few fences,’ suggested Abby, through desperately chattering teeth, ‘that’s what they like sitting on best.’

  She started to run through Oberon in her head, moving her hands to the music.
Viking’s opening solo followed by the strings, then that spine-chilling shimmy downwards on the flutes, then blank. She simply couldn’t remember what came next.

  In panic she turned to Rodney.

  ‘I guess I better use a score.’

  ‘Darling child, it’ll come back, relax.’ He shoved a glass of champagne into her hand. ‘Take the edge off your nerves.’

  Next, they were interrupted by Howie, who’d nipped for a second out of Anthea’s dressing-room.

  ‘Good luck, kid, you look to die for.’

  ‘Sorry about the press conference.’

  ‘Forget it. Fact that you survived heartbreak and a suicide attempt creates public sympathy.’

  ‘Get out, Howie,’ said Rodney icily.

  There was another knock. It was Hugo, sleek and glamorous in tails. He had sent two dozen red roses, ‘To the unbimbo’, at the Old Bell, which had made Abby laugh, now he said, ‘Are you ready, beautiful Maestro?’

  Abby nodded, quite unable to speak.

  ‘Good luck.’ Hugo sauntered out onto the platform, fiddle aloft to great cheers. He was very popular.

  ‘Good luck.’ Marcus gave Abby a quick kiss. He was so nervous for her, he was going to stay outside in the park.

  The auditorium was fuller than in Buenos Aires. Many of the audience and all the Press were poised for the public humiliation that so often accompanies a dramatic change of career.

  For a second, Abby paused, panic stricken, on the edge of the platform, then turning she saw a smiling Rodney; his pink, bald head gleaming under the naked light bulb, as he blew her a kiss. Abby touched her silver garlic, then she was on her way, sweeping into the light, to an impassioned bellow of applause, which was taken up by the crowds in the park. She shook hands with Hugo.

  ‘Courage, mon amie.’

  Then Abby forced herself to smile and bow to the audience, listening to the manic rattle of palm on palm which was so near in sound to a firing-squad.

  ‘Kerist, she’s gorgeous,’ said Blue.

  ‘Shades of Imran Khan,’ agreed Viking, ‘or something that Edwina Mountbatten wouldn’t have been able to resist.’

  Abby noticed the Steel Elf, enchanting in black silk with her blond hair piled up, and then she looked up at Viking, who smiled at her, wonderfully confident. At her nod, he put his horn to his lips.

  Abby gripped her stick, the upbeat rose and fell like a wand in fairyland, and as if by magic, the notes floated out from the midgy dark green depths of Oberon’s forest. Then she remembered nothing until an avalanche of applause crashed over her, bringing her back to earth.

  Throughout the overture she had been completely in charge, yet able to become the music, her beautiful body undulating like seaweed in the dark blue silk. The orchestra, noticing the cruel scar on her left wrist every time she raised her arm, realized how important the evening was to her and had played as though their lives depended on it.

  The Tchaikovsky was less successful. The mood was set by the First and Second Violins who had to rise and stand back, muttering ‘Bloody concerto’ as Abby’s rostrum was shoved forward, and the Steinway was wheeled onto the centre of the stage by the stage-hands in their dinner jackets.

  Once the music-stands and chairs were rearranged, Hugo struck an A on the piano and the orchestra half-heartedly pretended to re-tune. They loathed concertos. Soloists stole the limelight and, particularly in the case of pianists, obscured half the orchestra, and made conditions even more cramped.

  Most of them, however, found it difficult to keep a straight face, as Anthea swept onto the platform in a kingfisher blue-and-gold brocade dress, strewn with tassels that appeared to have been tugged off the sofa in her suite at the Old Bell. She then attacked the piano with the fury of a secretary who’d been asked to stay late and type a fifteen-page report on an old Remington whose ribbon had run out. The only drama was whether one of her large blue-veined breasts would fly out of her soft furnishings and whack the principal of the second violins in the eye.

  ‘That is the worst pianist I’ve ever heard,’ Abby shouted as she stormed back to the conductor’s room afterwards.

  ‘Hush darling.’ A very sheepish Rodney put his hand over her mouth. ‘Mea culpa, mea culpa, I must have been drunk or very tired when I hired her; probably both.’

  ‘She played the whole thing in boxing gloves.’ Furiously Abby tore Rodney’s hand away.

  ‘None of the audience will have noticed, and those who did will have marvelled at your restraint. Listen, they’re still clapping.’

  Rodney handed her a glass of champagne.

  ‘I don’t want a drink, I need my wits for Heldenleben. Come in.’

  It was a distraught Mark Carling.

  ‘Thank you Maestro, you were magnificent.’ Then, turning to Rodney, he groaned, ‘That soloist was dreadful, dreadful. How could we have booked her?’

  ‘You must have had a tip-off,’ said Rodney blandly, ‘and you know how the Arts Council love women. Anyway, she was called back five times; she can’t have been that bad.’

  ‘Only because they wanted to look down her dress,’ snapped Abby. ‘Anyone with binoculars could have seen her pubes.’

  It is customary, even after the most terrible performance, for the management to visit a soloist and tell them they have been wonderful. Mark, a man of integrity, was in despair.

  ‘What can I say to her without perjuring myself, Rodney? Particularly with that creep Howie taping every word as evidence.’

  ‘Follow me,’ Rodney winked at Abby. ‘Back in a tick, darling heart.’

  Hair dripping with sweat, aching all over, Abby was dying for a quick shower to clear her head before the Strauss, but curious, she lingered as Rodney flung open the door of Anthea’s dressing-room, then pausing in the doorway, opened his arms.

  ‘Anthea, my darling,’ he boomed, ‘magnificent is not the word.’

  ‘Very clever,’ muttered Mark in admiration, ‘must remember that one.’ Magnificent, he tapped it into his pocket computer, is not the word.

  As Anthea was temporarily tied up with Rodney, Howie felt it safe to sidle out and pay court to Abby for a second.

  He was going to have his work cut out at the party later. Anthea and Hermione would want his full-time attention, so would Abby, and after hearing Oberon, Howie was determined to sign up Viking, who was a really hot man. Probably straight but Howie wouldn’t mind getting his jaw broken finding out.

  The audience were flowing back now. The piano had gone, and there was nothing to distract them from Abby and a vastly enlarged orchestra. The Tchaikovsky had done her no favours with the critics. She had forty minutes to redeem herself.

  Everything was going wonderfully. Ein Heldenleben was drawing to a close. The woodwind had made horribly crabby and discordant critics. The brass had been so loud and exuberant in the battlescenes they must have roused Strauss in his musicians’ heaven. The drums had thundered continuously. The four cymbals had clashed in perfect unison to mark the end of hostilities, and Don Juan’s horn call, the warrior returning from the wars in search of dalliance, had echoed joyfully through the park.

  Abby’s hair was sopping, her face lurexed with sweat under the hot lights. She could see the shadow of her hands moving on the bare lectern. Somehow, she must hush the huge orchestra to make the pianissimo contrast of the love duet all the more touching. The cor anglais was now gracefully paddling like a swan. Throughout the piece, Abby had felt like a pilot, faced by a massive dashboard of dials and switches. Her aeroplane had survived the thunder and lightning of a great storm; she was now bringing its precious cargo of musicians safely in to land.

  Then, as she cued in the horns, nothing happened. She tried again, nothing. She gasped in horror. Cramp gripped her right hand, which had never let her down in three years, totally immobilizing it. After a three-hour rehearsal this morning, then three-hours practising in front of the mirror, followed by all the tension of the performance, it had finally seized up.

  For
a few seconds, the orchestra cruised on automatic pilot. Realizing something was wrong, the cor anglais kept paddling, Hugo was poised to take over, when Abby grabbed her right elbow with her left hand, yanking it through the motions, one, two down, three to the left, short four and five back and six up to the centre, and one, two down, to re-establish the tempo.

  The pain was so excruciating she thought she’d black out. But there was only one more discordant outburst from the orchestra to go as the weathercock shrieked, the wind howled, the enemies trumpeted, then the hero’s theme was back, with the horns, basses and cellos leaping nobly and majestically up the scale, and they were into the love duet.

  On the big screens outside, the vast crowds could see Hugo’s sleek, dark head cocked to listen, and Viking never taking his narrowed eyes off Abby’s face, which was now shining with tears, as she cajoled them through the last few bars. And as suddenly as it had gripped her, the cramp melted away, soothed as much by the solo violin’s exquisite lullaby as by the unearthly beauty of Viking’s dark, tender reply.

  Lifting both arms, she was back on course, bringing the great aeroplane down, down through the blue and landing without a bump on the runway. She felt so relieved, she almost forgot to bring in Carmine Jones and his trumpets to echo the hero’s theme fortissimo. Then a mighty crash from the wind and brass faded into the final peaceful, reassuring chord – the hero finally triumphant, bringing the H.P. Hall and the park outside yelling to their feet.

  Marcus leant against the rough trunk of a big horse-chestnut tree, clutching himself; his debts, lack of recognition, loneliness, unrequited love, Rupert’s animosity, all totally forgotten. He had never heard anything so wonderful in his life, particularly as the gruesome butchering of the Tchaikovsky had nearly broken his heart. Oh darling, darling Abby, and darling St Cecilia or Polyhymnia, or Euterpe, or whoever guides the fortunes of musicians, prayed Marcus, make the same thing happen to me.

  After the sixth call-back, Miss Priddock braved the stage with a huge bunch of red roses and, employing her old trick, an exhausted tearful, ecstatic Abby broke the cellophane with a stab of her baton, and handed a rose to Viking and one to Hugo who was near enough to kiss her.