Appassionata

by Jilly Cooper

  Abby burst out laughing.

  ‘You must include the snoring of the Rutshire Butcher then.’

  But, receiving a sharp kick on the ankle from Viking, she realized Sonny was utterly serious.

  ‘My goal is to prove great music can overcome any interruption.’

  ‘I look forward to hearing it,’ mumbled Abby.

  Sonny was droning on, and Abby was praying he’d leave her and Viking alone, when Blue came over.

  ‘Who are all these spivs in sharp suits wandering around H.P. Hall sticking penknives into the brickwork?’ he said in a low voice.

  ‘George Hungerford’s henchmen,’ answered Viking.

  ‘I think so, too.’

  ‘George Hungerford seems very able,’ said Sonny pompously.

  ‘More like Cain, if you ask me,’ said Viking.

  Abby was screwing up courage to ask Viking to show her the cottage by the lake when Mrs Standish rushed up.

  ‘Such fun to be a woman conductor, you did fritefly well.’

  ‘Why, thank you.’

  ‘My husband’s tonight’s sponsor.’

  ‘Oh, wow!’ Abby remembered George’s brief. ‘That’s so good of him, we’re so grateful.’

  ‘I just wanted to know,’ Mrs Standish went pinker than her dress, as she turned to Viking, ‘how you musician chappies address a female maestro?’

  ‘We call her “mattress”,’ said Viking idly, then seeing Abby’s lips tighten, he added softly, ‘because we’re all dying to lie on top of her.’

  Abby tried and failed to look affronted.

  ‘I’m afraid my chariot of fire’s grounded’ went on Viking, ‘but I’ll walk you back to the Old Bell if you like.’ He ran a finger down Abby’s arm, setting her heart hammering.

  ‘I’ll give you a lift, Abby,’ said Jason proprietorially. ‘We can discuss things over a spot of dinner.’

  Miserably remembering Hugo’s warning about getting involved with a member of the orchestra and George’s insistence that she chatted up sponsors, Abby accepted Jason’s invitation.

  Popping into the Ladies on her way out she noticed someone had already scribbled joyfully on the walls: MR NUGENT ROLLS OK.

  She could have wept, and even more so as Jason held open the door of his red Ferrari for her.

  ‘I’m definitely going to sponsor that Messiah. Who wrote it by the way?’

  Nor did George Hungerford seem very impressed when she told him she had found a sponsor the following day.

  ‘Looks like a wide boy, better get it in writing.’

  He then announced he had axed Mahler’s Symphony of a Thousand at the end of next season because it was too expensive.

  ‘That’s defeatist,’ said Abby furiously.

  ‘We can’t afford the extras.’

  ‘If the orchestra were up to full strength,’ said Abby shirtily, ‘we wouldn’t have to spend so much on extras.’

  She took a deep breath. ‘The musicians must have more money, to stop the exodus. Barry’s threatening to leave because he can’t pay the mortgage on the barn and the Child Support Agency.

  ‘Clarissa’s also looking around. She’s a really good player,’ pleaded Abby. ‘She’s gone for an audition with the LSO this afternoon, because she’s having sleepless nights worrying about the school fees.’

  George watched John Drummond stretching luxuriously in his out-tray.

  ‘I have absolutely no sympathy with people who send their kids to pooblic school,’ he said coldly.

  ‘That’s rich, revoltingly rich,’ exploded Abby, ‘from someone who’s just bought a property up the road, which makes Buckingham Palace look like a rabbit hutch.’

  ‘We are not talking about me,’ George glared at her. ‘I didn’t go to pooblic school, never did me any harm.’

  ‘I wouldn’t put it to the vote.’

  ‘Anyway, I’m not a musician.’

  ‘That’s quite obvious. How can you replace the Symphony of a Thousand with Boléro, and Tchaik Five.’

  ‘Because you’ve reduced the choir to such a state of disarray,’ snapped George, ‘that I don’t imagine they can possible re-assemble by next season. Anyway Tchaik Five has a beautiful solo for Viking.’

  Abby raised her fists to heaven. ‘Oh, we mustn’t forget Viking.’

  ‘There are worse things – Viking pulls in the punters. This orchestra is an endangered species, we need more booms on seats, more recordings, more touring, more Gala evenings.’

  This brought him to Mrs Parker’s birthday concert at the end of July which coincided with the centenary of the store.

  ‘A treat in store?’ asked Abby sarcastically.

  ‘No,’ replied George, booting Drummond up the backside for attacking the brushed suede. The concert, he went on, was to be held in the grounds of Rutminster Towers, Peggy Parker’s neo-Gothic excrescence above the town.

  ‘You better provide umbrellas and clothes pegs to hold down the music in case of wind and rain,’ taunted Abby.

  ‘Mrs Parker has chosen the music,’ said George heavily. ‘William Tell, Liszt’s First Piano Concerto, The Polovtsian Dances.’

  ‘Omigod, why doesn’t Mrs Parker sing ‘Lady in Red’ to crown a really intellectual evening.’

  Abby was goading George; she could see a muscle going in his clenched jaw, his squared-off nails whitening as he clutched the oak table, but he said quite mildly, ‘In case the Arts Council regard the repertoire as insufficiently adventurous, we’re going to programme Sonny Parker’s Eternal Triangle Suite after the interval.’

  ‘Jesus!’

  ‘As the function will attract a lot of media attention,’ went on George quickly, ‘Mrs Parker would like you to be appropriately dressed. She will give an extra one hundred thousand pounds to the orchestra if,’ George didn’t quite meet Abby’s already furious eyes, ‘Parker and Parker are allowed to dress and restyle you from top to toe. New gown, new make-up, new hair-do, jewels. You’ll enjoy it.’

  ‘I will not!’

  Seeing the fury on Abby’s face, George busied himself lining up paperweights and files on his desk.

  ‘And it’s bluddy good pooblicity for the orchestra. Parker’s are planning a massive promotion. All the nationals’ll cover it. The Telegraph are planning a huge feature on the new re-vamped Abigail.’

  ‘So you’ve already agreed,’ Abby was outraged.

  ‘With your permission,’ said George placatingly. ‘We need the money, Abby, you’re a beautiful yoong lady and we all know you’ll look chumpian.’

  Abby, who’d been feeling her age in the last month, was so startled that, like Viking yesterday, George had actually paid her a compliment, that she rolled over and reluctantly agreed.

  ‘The messing-up of a maestro,’ she said gloomily.

  The instant he got her consent, George reverted to normal belligerence, and said brusquely that that would be all.

  ‘Last night’s concert was better,’ he opened the door for her. ‘But the symphony was still too long. Miss Priddock’s been handling complaints from people who missed their last trains and buses all morning.’

  In a rage Abby went back to the conductor’s room and leafing through the Eroica pencilled in a huge ‘No’ beside every repeat sign, which meant a lot of work for the library, who had to change all the parts before the evening.

  During the Brahms Second Piano Concerto in the first half, Abby noticed Viking smiling at a pretty redhead in the audience, and pointing to his watch to suggest a rendez-vous after the concert. Abby then proceeded to knock a quarter of an hour off the Eroica giving heart attacks to several ancient bass players, and everyone got their last trains.

  For an orchestra whose hobby was grumbling, the RSO were delighted with George Hungerford. Socially maladroit, he was deficient in small talk, but he asked the right questions and listened carefully to all the answers, aware that a grievance aired is usually a grievance forgotten. He also recognized individual players in the building and then put up their pho
tographs in the foyer, on the premise that the public ought to recognize them, too, and he invited them back to drinks at his splendid new house.

  George would generate work, the RSO decided, and get them out of trouble. He certainly generated too much work for Miss Priddock and very tactfully provided her with an EA (an executive assistant, so Miss Priddock felt upgraded, too). The EA turned out to be a ravishing bimbo called Jessica who’d just returned with an all-over tan from the Seychelles. Nothing could more successfully have demolished the Berlin Wall between musicians and management, as male players, who hadn’t visited the top floor in years, plied Jessica with flowers, chocolates and invitations like love-sick schoolboys. El Creepo even got stuck up the tallest horse-chestnut tree in the park the day it was rumoured Jessica was sunbathing topless on the flat roof.

  ‘Isn’t George a ball of fire?’ exclaimed a besotted Miss Priddock, as she handed Abby her mail.

  ‘Fire’s the operative word,’ said Abby gloomily. ‘He’ll have me out of here the second my contract ends.’

  Desperately tired and unhappy, she was grateful to have three weeks’ break at the end of June, while Ambrose, the Fat Controller, who was back from San Francisco, took over as guest conductor. But she dreaded the caballing when he, Miles and Lionel got together.

  THIRTY

  Abby found it impossible to recharge her batteries while staying at the Old Bell. She was too conscious of the RSO festering at the other end of town. Too proud to call Howie and say she wanted out, she decided to think positively and look at the cottage by the lake of which Viking had spoken. Longing to capture the fun and friendship of her days at the Academy, she telephoned Flora, who was uncharacteristically listless. Wiped out by Helen’s marriage to Rannaldini, she had found herself increasingly marking time and unable to concentrate at college.

  ‘And I’ve got another year to go.’

  ‘There’s a viola vacancy at the RSO,’ said Abby. ‘Why don’t you audition for it? Don’t say you know me, right? Then you could come and share a cottage with me down here.’

  ‘God, I’d like that, I’m fed up with London, particularly in this heat.’

  ‘How’s Marcus?’ asked Abby carefully, reluctant to confess how much she missed him.

  ‘I hardly see him, he’s so busy writing letters, taking in pupils and fending off their frightful mothers. He hasn’t got any time to practise, let alone come out in the evenings.’

  ‘Mothers are far too old for Marcus, goddamn cradle-snatchers.’ Abby was predictably outraged. ‘He’d find lots of teaching work down here, he could start with any soloist booked by the RSO. Perhaps he’d like to share this cottage as well.’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘He might,’ said Flora. ‘I’m sorry, Abby, but you were such a bitch to him.’

  ‘I know, I was so uptight that night, I don’t know what got into me. I really miss him.’

  ‘Well, you’d better ring him then.’

  ‘Why don’t you get him to drive you down to the audition, then we can go and see the cottage afterwards.’

  ‘They weren’t at all enthusiastic at college,’ grumbled Flora, as Marcus turned off the M4. ‘Just because I’m missing a day’s rehearsal for the end-of-term concert. You’d have thought my career was more important.’

  ‘They probably can’t forgive you for not becoming a singer.’

  ‘That’s what they tell me every day,’ sighed Flora. ‘What d’you think about sharing a cottage with Abby?’

  ‘I don’t know. It would be nice to have somewhere I could practise. I started playing Rachmaninov’s Second Sonata at eleven o’clock last night and people on both sides started banging on the walls, but I’m not sure I can cope with Abby’s ego.’

  In his shirt pocket was a letter which he already knew by heart.

  Darling Markie,

  Please forgive me, I’m sorry I chewed you out.

  I miss you so much – both as a friend and as an advisor. We used to have such fun discussing repertoire . . .

  Fun for her thought Marcus wryly, remembering the hysterics, the endless demands and the interrupted nights.

  Along the Gloucestershire lanes, he noticed the trees were losing the tender green of early summer. The hedgerows were festooned with wilting dog-roses. Buttercups and dog daisies shrivelled amidst the newly mown hay.

  ‘Heaven after London,’ sighed Flora. ‘Maybe we could cope with Abby’s ego if there were two of us. You could do the night shift.’

  ‘I practise at night. Jesus, it’s hot.’

  Marcus looked terribly white and had lost a lot of weight.

  ‘Let’s get an ice-cream and a bottle of wine,’ suggested Flora. Then, looking down at her sawn off T-shirt, frayed Bermudas and dusty bare feet, wondered, ‘Do you think I look smart enough for an audition?’

  ‘Frankly, no. We’ve got time to nip into Bath and buy you something.’

  ‘Do I really want this job if I’ve got to tart up?’

  ‘Yes, you need some fun.’ Marcus took his hand off the wheel and stroked her cheek.

  ‘How’s your mother?’ asked Flora.

  ‘OK.’

  Flora’s second question was more difficult.

  ‘How’s Rannaldini getting on with Tabitha?’

  ‘She’s in America for a year working in some racing yard.’

  Marcus didn’t tell Flora, Helen had caught Rannaldini leering at Tabitha undressing through a two-way mirror.

  ‘I’ve got a new viola joke,’ he said to distract her. ‘How many viola players does it take to wallpaper a room?’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Three – if you slice them thinly.’

  Candidates at auditions are judged 70 per cent on their playing, 30 per cent on their ability to fit into the relevant section. The right attitude was needed, a core of hardness to cope with the cut and thrust of orchestral life. You couldn’t be too sweet or likely to cry if you were shouted at. Neither shrinking violets nor violists were encouraged.

  Auditions could be very acrimonious. The leader of the orchestra could favour one candidate, the section leader another, the musical director or a member of the board another. Steve Smithson opposed anyone from abroad on principle. But no-one felt remotely enthusiastic that morning about the colourless bunch struggling through solos from Telemann’s Viola Concerto. They seemed to encapsulate all the jokes about the dumbness and dreariness of viola players.

  The board-room clock edged towards five past one.

  ‘Flora Seymour’s late,’ said Miles, looking at the last name on the list.

  ‘Give her another five minutes,’ said El Creepo, the section leader, who dreaded the prospect of re-advertising the job.

  ‘If she can’t turn up on time there’s no point in employing her,’ said Lionel, who was longing to share a bottle of chilled white wine in the long grass with Hilary.

  They were the only people left except the accompanist who was thinking of the marmite-and-scrambled-egg sandwiches in tin foil at the bottom of her music case. It was a measure of the lacklustre nature of the morning’s performances that none of the other section leaders had bothered to stay for more than a few minutes.

  ‘OK, that’s it. Sorry, Flora,’ Miles ran a red Pentel through her name.

  ‘Flora’s the one who’s sorry,’ said a clear piercingly distinctive voice. ‘I can’t even pretend there was a pile-up on the motorway. We stopped in Bath to buy suitable clothes to be auditioned in, and I forgot the time. I’m really sorry.’

  Miles was the first one to speak.

  ‘It’s absolutely no problem at all.’

  ‘Can I get you a glass of water or a cup of tea before you start?’ asked Lionel.

  ‘Would you like five minutes to freshen up and unwind?’ said El Creepo.

  There was nearly a pile-up on Rutminster High Street as word got round and musicians on their way to the Shaven Crown did a speeded-up U-turn worthy of Benny Hill. Flora proceeded to play with such insouciance
and joie de vivre in every note that the board room soon filled up.

  Apart from Cherub, who crawled under people’s legs and chairs and ended up to his horror, practically sitting on the Fat Controller’s knee, latecomers had to lurk in the passage.

  Flora’s new coffee-coloured silk shirt fell so charmingly over her wrists as she romped through the first movement of the Walton Concerto, and her short fawn suede skirt clung so enticingly to her dancing hips that afterwards even Simon Painshaw and the Fat Controller were making thumbs-up signs to El Creepo and Miles to offer her the job.

  One of the reasons George Hungerford had taken over the RSO was because he loved music. He had been dismayed to find admin was taking up 95 per cent of his time. Leaving H.P. Hall at nearly midnight yesterday he had taken his soaring in-tray home but had fallen asleep at the kitchen table over a large whisky and a forkful of roll mops, and had had to bring the in-tray back untouched this morning.

  Coming out of his office, he found the passage crowded with musicians peering in through the boardroom door with the rapt attention of a pack of hounds watching Basil Brush on television.

  Then he recognized his favourite piece of music, Elgar’s In the South overture. In amazement, as he stood on his toes to see into the jam-packed board room, he realized a young girl with a shiny dark red bob was playing Elgar’s transcription of the piece with a fresh and exquisite sound. Her eyes were closed in anguish, her head shaking almost in bewilderment at the dark, sad, liltingly beautiful tune pouring out of her viola.

  George felt all the uncontrollable knee-jerk reactions, the sudden catch of breath, hair rising on the back of the neck, tears swamping the eyes. Hastily turning to the window, through which was wafting the sweet lemony smell of lime flowers, so no-one could see how moved he was, he was overwhelmed by the emptiness of his life since Ruth had left him. He was brought back to earth by a most unusual round of applause.

  ‘That was absolutely beautiful,’ said El Creepo, blowing his nose.

  ‘Beautiful,’ agreed Lionel, after hastily checking Hilary wasn’t within earshot. ‘What are you working on at the Academy at the moment?’