by Jilly Cooper
She was still lecturing him about his profligate lifestyle as they reached the car-park. Viking took her car keys and opened her door.
‘I’m sorry to get heavy,’ muttered Abby, ‘but I don’t want you to hurt Flora, she was absolutely blown away by Rannaldini.’
Viking looked at Abby in that amused wicked testing way until she had turned as red as her jersey.
‘I won’t hurt Flora,’ he said softly. ‘I adore her, she’s a soul mate; stonningly gorgeous and amazingly loyal to you,’ he added sharply.
‘Then why do you do a number on every woman you meet?’
‘Don’t you think my numbers add up to the sum of human happiness?’ Turning, Viking waved to two of the barmaids who were still gazing at him out of the pub window.
‘I don’t know,’ said Abby crossly, ‘I guess you’re just a womanizer.’
‘I’m not a womanizer,’ said Viking, ‘I’m a charmer!’
Grabbing her, he kissed her on the mouth, sticking his tongue down her throat. Putting up absolutely no resistance Abby kissed him back until her pulses were thundering like the nearby mill-stream and she could hardly stand up.
But, as she pulled away to draw breath, Viking let her go.
‘Only way to shot you up, darling.’ Laughing, he sauntered off towards his car.
Back at the cottage, Marcus was listening to Pablo Gonzales playing Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto.
‘How perfect, how effortless, how beautiful. Oh Christ,’ he was saying.
He was slowly getting to grips with the concerto and only occasionally allowed himself to listen to recordings, terrified of being over-influenced.
‘It’s a bit quick,’ said Flora, who was combing tangles out of a protesting Scriabin, ‘I prefer Kissin – more languorous and tender.’
‘I like Kissin’s applause at the end,’ sighed Marcus.
‘What can we do this afternoon to stop me eating?’ pleaded Flora, who was on a diet. Whichever way she’d put her knickers on that morning they had felt back to front.
She suspected she was stuffing her face because Rannaldini had just won the coveted Conductor of the Year Award. Under his direction, the New World had won Orchestra of the Year, and Winifred Trapp’s Harp Concertos, newly released, were receiving ecstatic reviews. Flora couldn’t open a paper without Rannaldini’s face glaring out at her.
She didn’t feel any better when Abby floated in.
‘Just been having a drink with Viking.’
‘Where did you meet him?’ asked Flora.
‘He was teaching at St Clement’s – good to see him occupying his time profitably for a change, I cannot understand people who are super-talented and lazy.’
‘I can,’ said Flora, taking a tub of ice-cream out of the freezer.
‘And don’t you get mad at the way he chats up every woman he meets?’
‘No-oh,’ said Flora, seizing a spoon.
‘Viking’s attractive, I’ll grant you that. George chewed me out earlier this morning, but I guess underneath his animosity, he’s kinda attracted to me, like Viking is, or he wouldn’t bully me so much.’
‘That’s a false argument,’ said Flora with her mouth full. ‘Carmine bullies Cathie.’
‘I figure George would be a better bet than Viking,’ reflected Abby.
‘Georgie, Porgie, Black Pudding and Pie,’ Flora took another large spoonful. ‘If it was a choice between Mr Wrong but Romantic O’Neill and Mr Right but Repulsive Hungerford, I know who I’d choose.’
‘It’s weird; George doesn’t like you either,’ said the ever-tactful Abby.
Marcus winced. He wished Abby’s almost pathological jealousy of Flora didn’t make her so bitchy. He knew that she’d regret this conversation later.
‘Oh hell,’ said Flora, miserably, looking down at the empty ice-cream tub and chucking it into the sink. The telephone rang.
‘It’s Mr Wrong but Romantic,’ a returning Marcus gave a faint smirk, ‘for Flora.’
‘I’ve just kissed Abby,’ were Viking’s first words.
‘I guessed,’ said Flora.
‘She was listing my shortcomings.’
‘Your comings are never short.’ Flora was happy to hear Viking’s relieved laughter.
‘I love you and need you,’ he begged, ‘come over at once. I’d come and collect you, but I don’t want any more lectures.’
Abby couldn’t hide her exasperation.
‘Tell Viking to keep that damn dog under control. He’s always round here upending dustbins, just like his master.’
Appassionata
FOURTH MOVEMENT
FORTY-FIVE
Cash crisis followed cash crisis throughout the winter. Bad weather kept audiences away in droves. George told the orchestra they might even have to take cuts in salaries. Two more players had their houses repossessed and moved into awful rented rooms where people banged on the wall if they practised. A bass player, a cellist and one of the Second Violins left and were not replaced.
Even Julian was downcast. ‘We’ll be a string quartet at this rate,’ he said gloomily.
Flora’s answer to her bank manager was to tell Miles she had an appointment with the dentist in Harley Street and to go busking on the South Bank. One of Viking’s mates at the London Philharmonic Orchestra had arranged for her to have a slot.
She chose a horribly cold grey morning and had great difficulty in getting out of bed. Returning to earth after making love, slumped on her back, fingers resting on her forehead, she glanced sideways at the watch on her wrist, worried about missing the train, and saw that instead of figures and hands the dial was filled with roses reflected from the curtains of Viking’s four-poster
‘Time ceases to exist when I’m with you,’ she said in a choked voice. ‘It’s turned to roses. You’ve made me terribly happy,’ she added, kissing him, ‘I’m so grateful.’
Viking drove her to Rutminster Station. Then, casually as the train was moving out, he said: ‘How about you and me getting our own place together?’
‘D’you think Nugent could learn to love Scriabin?’
‘Will you ever be serious?’
‘I’d like it, love it,’ stammered Flora. ‘It’s just such a surprise. As long as I can pay my way – I don’t want to be a kept woman.’
‘You can be a capped woman then.’ Removing Rodney’s cap, Viking plonked it on her head. ‘Be careful, if anyone asks you for a drink, say no.’
‘I love you,’ said Flora and, despite the cold, stayed watching him until he was out of sight.
London was much colder than Rutminster. Flora felt so sorry for the shivering sweeps of purply-blue crocuses in the parks and the almond trees whose pink blossom, forced out by a mild January, was already being scattered by a vicious wind.
The newsagents’ windows, scarlet with Valentine Day displays, provided the only cheerful note. She must buy a really gorgeous card for Viking, and a big jokey one for Mr Nugent from Scriabin. She couldn’t believe he’d asked her to move in with him, but allowed her thoughts to wander happily. He was so good with kids, he’d make a brilliant father and Flora O’Neill sounded so much more romantic than Flora Seymour. Oh God, let her not be too presumptuous.
She took up her position in Concert Hall Approach under Hungerford Bridge in a little paved garden with boxes full of trailing ivy and laurel bushes. At first she tried to put up a stand but the wind blew her music all over the place so she played by ear. Soon concert-goers on their way to the Festival Hall and office workers setting off to lunch were enjoying her exquisite sound, feeling sorry for her playing on such a cold day and chucking coins and even notes into her tin.
It was hard to say thank you when you were playing the viola, so Flora made do with smiles and massive nods. After In the South, an old man asked her if she’d made any records and between ‘The Pink Panther’ and ‘Panis Angelicus’ a blushing couple asked if she’d play at their wedding. Flora said she’d adore to and gave them her telephone number.
&nbs
p; Then she nearly dropped her viola in the middle of ‘Where E’er You Walk’ as she saw George Hungerford (perhaps he’d come to admire his bridge) jump out of a taxi and dive into the Archduke Wine Bar opposite. He was probably in London for a meeting of the Association of British Orchestras. She’d be sacked if he saw her. Flora pulled Viking’s cap over her nose. The next moment her bow really did skid all over the strings as a sleek dark blue Mercedes drew up, a black-leather-clad chauffeur jumped out and opened the door for Rannaldini. Hearing such discords, Rannaldini immediately swung round, but Flora had dived behind a concrete pillar. Rannaldini was wearing his black overcoat with the Astrakhan collar and looked as fatally glamorous as ever. Flora wanted to race through the traffic, fall at his feet and plead with him to take her back; she wasn’t cured in the slightest.
In horror, she watched him walk quickly towards the Archduke and the manager fling open the door to welcome him, congratulating him no doubt on being the greatest conductor of the year and of all time.
For a second, a 77 bus blotted out her view. A minute later, through a jungle of glossy dark green plants, Flora could see him and George sitting down at a table on the first floor. Rannaldini was unfolding his napkin and laying it across those iron-hard thighs that had gripped her once with such lust. Now he was picking up the wine list. God, he was wearing a wedding-ring. Helen must have far more influence on him than poor Kitty. Please make him look at me, please make him not, prayed Flora launching into ‘Dido’s Lament’. And what the hell was he doing with George?
Frozen but oblivious to the cold because the pain in her heart was so terrible, she watched George and Rannaldini coming out forty minutes later both looking much more cheerful. They stood talking for half a minute, until Rannaldini’s Merc glided up and whisked them both away.
Flora walked off in deep shock forgetting to take her tin of money. What could they be up to? No good, if Rannaldini had anything to do with it. But the RSO was far too small-fry for him.
It was only when she got back to Rutminster, and passed the newsagent on the platform, that she realized there was no point getting a valentine card for Viking. Then she started to cry.
Viking was utterly angelic.
‘So, you’re not over Rannaldini?’
‘No, no, not at all. I’m so sorry, Viking. It’s like thinking you’ve zapped cancer, then discovering you’re only in remission. You’ve been so lovely to me.’
‘Let me go on being lovely, josst give it time, sweetheart.’ It was the nearest he got to begging.
‘We can’t, not if I’m still in love with Rannaldini. You’re too, well, decent to put up with half-measures.’
‘So young, and so untender’ said Viking bitterly.
‘So young, my lord, and true.’
Just to test Flora’s total immunity, Viking tried another tack. Why didn’t he mix business with pleasure by making a play for Jessica, George’s thick but stunning secretary?
‘Then I can lure her back to The Bordello for long lunches when George is away and you can raid the files and see what the dirty duo are really op to.’
Viking winced when Flora agreed listlessly, but without any display of jealousy, that this would be a very good idea.
‘But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,’ he said sadly, taking Flora’s hand.
He then went out and got drunk. He was far too proud to show it, but he was desperately unhappy for the first time in his life.
Valentine’s Day temporarily distracted the RSO from their gloom. Suddenly red envelopes were nesting like robins in pigeon holes. Still shell-shocked by her sighting of Rannaldini, Flora hardly noticed how many she received. Blue reeled round the band room in ecstasy, because he recognized Cathie’s writing on the envelope sending him a chocolate heart. Militant Moll ordered Ninion to put a valentine message in the Independent and left it lying around. Poor Fat Isobel sent three cards to herself to avoid humiliation. All Cyril’s week’s wages went on two dozen red roses for Miss Priddock. Miles smirked to get an unsigned jokey card from Brittlecombe, the village in which Hilary lived. Noriko was thrilled to have a valentine teddy bear holding a single red rose from Cherub. Dixie and Clare, Randy and Candy, Dimitri and Miss Parrott all went out to individual valentine dinners.
George Hungerford was distracted for ten minutes from the deficit while he opened his cards. All the management’s secretaries (including Miss Priddock, who had to think of John Drummond’s future) and most of the women musicians still harboured hopes of becoming the second Mrs Hungerford. Viking, who got twice as many cards, didn’t bother to open them. Jessica, George’s lovely secretary, however, was overwhelmed at lunch-time to receive a balloon in the shape of a pink heart bearing the words, ‘Hiya sexy’, rising out of two dozen pale pink roses accompanied by a card saying: ‘Love from Viking.’
Earlier in the day Jessica had been feeling a bit low. George had called her a blithering idiot for booking a pianist to play Bartók’s Second Piano Concerto rather than his First, which had been rehearsed by the orchestra – a mistake only discovered on the afternoon of the concert.
Viking reassured her it was the easiest of mistakes. He was so comforting the following day, after Jessica had another bollocking from George for passing ‘Drunks 6 p.m.’, on an invitation when it should have been ‘Drinks’, that she accepted a dinner invitation. During the evening Viking learnt that the confidential files were stored on microfilm in George’s office and handled by George’s London secretary who usually came down one day a week.
Acting dumb, Viking told Jessica he was only bog Irish and had never seen a really sophisticated computer system before. Over a bottle of Moët in Jessica’s office on the second date, he managed to persuade her, since she was so brilliant, to initiate him into its mysteries. Jessica was feeling low that day because George had bawled her out for typing ‘Piggy Porker’ on a place card.
Immensely flattered by Viking’s admiration, Jessica showed him how to find the Index which was called the file menu, how to locate the individual file one wanted and then how to print it out.
‘Of course, I’ve never looked at any of these files,’ she said. ‘They are far too secret, George would sack me.’
At a fleeting glance at the file menu, Viking couldn’t see any reference to Rannaldini, but during a steamy session, after Jessica had drunk seven-eighths of the Moët, he managed to elicit the password ‘Georgetown’ needed to enter the system.
‘But you must promish, promish not to tell anyone,’ whispered the delectable Jessica.
‘Georgetown,’ cried Viking in elation, as he entered her system.
Having stopped himself coming too soon, by studying the photographs of Mel Gibson and kittens and a poster calling for the banning of veal crates, Viking lay back afterwards playing ‘She loves me, she loves me not’, with the chewing-gum parked under Jessica’s desk. It came out: ‘She loves me not.’ Jessica was far prettier and had a far more beautiful body, but Viking was missing Flora so much it killed him. Somehow she had to be freed from Rannaldini’s evil spell.
In late February George went skiing. ‘No doubt to put another million in his Swiss bank account,’ said Flora sourly.
By coincidence, it was noticed Juno Meadows had taken the same week off. George was due back late Wednesday afternoon. In anticipation Miss Priddock took herself off to the hairdresser in her lunch-hour and Viking lured Jessica back to The Bordello for a long lunch leaving Flora free to raid the files.
Shaking with terror that she would trigger off an alarm or someone would come in, Flora locked herself into George’s office. It was rather like a sweet little village, with all those Perspex models with their balconies, loofah bay trees and Dinky cars outside the front door. Somehow, their cosiness blinded one to the tragedies behind their realization: the terrified old ladies, the threats of knee-capping, the flooded basements, the doors knocked out in the middle of the night.
The only jolly note was John Drummond fatly asleep in George’s out
-tray and a bunch of Cyril’s yellow crocuses like a little gold sun on the big desk. Realizing what an ugly customer she was dealing with, Flora quailed. But, after all Viking’s hard work, she must be brave.
Turning on the computer, she was confronted with a screen as blank as Rannaldini’s face until the words ‘Enter Password’ came up. Her hands were trembling so much she had three goes before she managed to type in ‘Georgetown’.
Eureka! There was the main menu. Running hastily down through the files: ‘Office Accounts’, ‘Foreign tours’, ‘Salaries’, she came to the word ‘Private.’
Locating the ‘Private’ file menu she found far more exciting fare. She was tempted to stop and read the private detective’s report on George’s wife’s adultery or the details of various property fiddles: the Cotchester bypass, for example, was scheduled to go slap through Rupert’s estate. Serve him right for being such a sod to Marcus. Even more interesting would be the assessments on members of the RSO. Bloody hell, she couldn’t go through every file. She jumped nervously as John Drummond gave a great snore in his out-tray.
Looking back at the list of files she noted the innocuous words ‘Orchestra South’, scrolled the cursor down the page and double clicked to get into the file. Got it in one! With increasing moans of horror, she realized she had unearthed a fiendish plot to merge the Cotchester Chamber Orchestra with the RSO and form a new Southern Super Orchestra. Rannaldini had always been wildly jealous of Simon Rattle and longed for the same sort of set-up as the Vienna Philharmonic and the Vienna State Opera where the musical director had control of a pool of crack musicans who could be called on to play for either company.
As soon as Edith Spink retired later in the year, Rannaldini would take over as musical director of the CCO, Abby’s contract wouldn’t be renewed after March, nor would those of most of the RSO.
‘This is the only way we can hack out the dead wood,’ Rannaldini had written to George. The date was 5 January. Had Hermione introduced George to Rannaldini after Messiah?