by Jilly Cooper
Neither Viking nor Cherub had the heart to get inside the pantomime cow, so the orchestra played ‘Nimrod’, Rodney’s favourite tune. He had always chided the RSO for playing it too slowly.’
‘It’s an ode to a mighty hunter, he’s not dead yet, for goodness’ sake.’
Finally, as a mark of respect, the vast audience filed out in silence.
The usual crowd of well-wishers and ghouls were queuing outside Abby’s dressing-room. The Press were massing outside. Nicholas was having great difficulty keeping them at bay. Viking caused chuntering and a lot of raised eyebrows when he barged to the front of the queue. Inside he found Abby in tears again.
‘Oh Viking, I can’t believe it,’ she wailed, as he put his arms round her. ‘D’you think the orchestra’ll ever love me as much as him?’
This made Viking laugh.
‘Not till you leave them, sweetheart. Let’s go and get wasted,’ then when Abby hesitated, ‘we were his favourites, he’d have wanted it.’
‘Give me five minutes to have a shower,’ said Abby, asking as he went towards the door, ‘Was my solo OK?’
‘Brilliant, and the conducting.’
‘I guess I was just the catalyst.’
‘In that case,’ Viking smiled slightly, ‘I’m a member of the Catalyst’s Protection League.’
Abby was shocked she looked so beautiful and as she smothered herself in Amarige, turning herself on by her caresses, she could already feel Rodney’s ghost egging her on.
‘Go on, darling, it’s worth a try.’
‘I love you, Rodney,’ she pleaded, ‘and I love Viking, please forgive me, you always said as long as we played well, you didn’t mind what we got up to below the waist.’
Tiredness hit Flora in the form of the blackest depression. Having bolted in embarrassment when George arrived, she hadn’t seen him to talk to since, because he’d been so busy looking after Rodney and then sorting out the ramifications of his death. All she had to listen to was pesky members of the orchestra speculating as to why he’d come out in the first place. On the coach home from the concert, she found out. Slumped in a seat clutching Foxie, and her black dress, she overheard Hilary and Miss Parrott whispering behind her about Rodney’s death being ‘a merciful release’.
‘Ay will miss him,’ sighed Miss Parrott. ‘Even George seemed upset, and he hardly knew him. Is he stayin’ at our hotel?’
‘No, riveting news.’ Hilary paused, aware of Flora, who pointedly lolled her head on one side and pretended to snore. ‘You’ll never guess —’ Hilary went on – ‘he’s staying with his wife, Ruth. She’s got a hacienda,’ Hilary prided herself on her pronunciation, ‘near Marbella.’
‘I thought they were divorced.’
‘No, only separated, and only by her choice. He’s mad about her, Miles says, got pictures of her all over his home.’
‘How romantic if they’ve got together again,’ sighed Miss Parrott.
‘Bit of a smack in the eye for Juno,’ said Hilary with satisfaction, ‘she was so certain George was about to pop the question.’
Jumping at the sound of tearing, Flora looked down at the ripped-open bodice of her only black dress. She’d need it, if she was going to spend the rest of her life in mourning.
‘Of course Juno was much too young for him,’ observed Miss Parrott. ‘In his position he’d want someone older and more sophisticated, like that nice Serena who works at Megagram.’
As the coach doors clanged open, Flora leapt up, out of the coach, up the steps of the hotel. Reprieve awaited her. As she collected her key, the receptionist handed her a telephone number and a message to ring George. She couldn’t bear to wait for the lift and could have won the One Thousand Guineas, at the speed she belted up five flights. She then misdialled the number three times only to get through to her mother, Georgie, who was also on tour, in America.
‘Darling, how are you?’
‘Fine, absolutely fine.’ Fighting back the tears, Flora slumped on the bed. ‘Did you ring earlier?’
‘About twenty minutes ago. I’m amazed you got the message. I had to repeat the number about four times. I just wanted to know how it’s all going.’
Flora couldn’t inject a flicker of animation into her voice.
‘I’m OK, Mum. You know tours, up and down, we’re all a bit tired.’ She couldn’t face her mother’s torrent of sympathy if she told her about Rodney. ‘But it’s going well.’
‘How are you enjoying Spain?’
‘Haven’t seen much of it really. There’s so much going on within the orchestra. How was the concert?’
‘Oh terrific, packed out.’
But her mother didn’t want to talk about that. Like Abby, she’d rung home several times in the middle of the night in the last week, but only got herself on the answering-machine.
Flora felt a great weariness.
‘Dad’s probably asleep, Mum, or pulled out the telephone. You know what he’s like.’
I can’t face it, she thought in panic, when her mother finally rang off. There must be someone, good, true, safe and constant in the world. I’m a basket case, she thought, as she gazed at her wan, white face in the mirror. I’ve just transferred the agony of being in love with Rannaldini to the even worse pain of being in love with George.
But a man ‘in his position’ was not likely to be interested in a twenty-one-year-old slut.
When the telephone rang again, she pounced on it in hope, but it was only Nellie saying there was one helluva party going on in Abigail’s suite, the Don Juan, and why didn’t Flora come up.
‘I’ve got a migraine,’ said Flora, and hung up.
FIFTY-EIGHT
It was one helluva party. In death we are in life. The RSO had played their hearts out. Knowing that Rodney would have wanted it, they now felt an hysterical need to hell-raise.
Back and forth, back and forth went the waiters with room service. Carmine, orgasmic at the prospect of drink paid for by someone else, kept ordering his own bottles of Krug.
A splendid sub-party was going on inside Abby’s wardrobe. At least three people, including Simon Painshaw, Ninion and Fat Isobel, had been seen going in. Every so often a hand holding an empty glass would shoot out of the wardrobe. Once it was filled, the door would snap shut again.
In different rooms of the Don Juan Suite, different wirelesses were blaring. Every time ‘Rachel’s Lament’ was played, everyone stopped drinking or dancing and cheered. Cherub kept turning the lights out.
Davie, whose sprained ankle was as puffy as a sumo wrestler’s, was using Abby’s telephone. He was desperately trying to clock in with Brünnhilde to explain he’d fallen off the platform when sober, rather than Abby’s balcony when drunk, before any of the orchestra wives at home told her otherwise. But he was so plastered, he kept dialling wrong numbers and was now through to Australia.
‘Whatsh the wevver like out there?’
Cries of admiration greeted the arrival of Viking in a beautiful sky-blue shirt.
‘Enough to make a sailor’s trousers,’ sighed Miss Parrott.
‘I’d settle for a sailor,’ said Candy sourly. ‘We’re not going to get any joy out of this lot tonight.’
‘That’s my shirt,’ hissed Blue, ‘Cathie saved up months to buy it for me.’
‘My need is greater than yours,’ murmured Viking. ‘You’re not even trying to pull Abby.’
To egg on Abby’s suitors, a mural showed Don Juan plucking guitars under moonlit windows, being admonished by large ladies, and chasing peasant girls round double beds. Getting into the spirit, Chloë, the comely alto soloist in Beethoven’s Ninth was trying to pull Julian, kneeling at his feet, pressing her pretty bosom against his locked knees.
‘As my wife, Luisa, is always complaining —’ apologetically Julian lifted Chloë’s hand from his groin – ‘after a concert, I simply can’t.’
‘No such word as can’t,’ said Miss Parrott, delicately picking bits of onion out of a Spanish omele
tte. Then dropping her fork with a clatter, she started to cry: ‘Rodney always loved the harp.’
‘Well, he’s gone to the right place,’ said Viking, filling up her glass. ‘By now he’ll be knocking back Holy Spirit and goosing his first angel. Don Quixote was magic, Dimitri, would your Guarneri like a top up?’
In the centre of the living-room, rapidly colouring the green carpet with spilt drink, a raucous game of strip poker was in progress. Abby’s suitors, realizing they had only two more nights to win the two thousand, had decided this would be as good a way as any to get her clothes off. But Abby had turned out to be an ace player, who was still fully clad in her orange vest, suede mini and high-heeled black sandals.
Among the ring of musicians who surrounded her, on the other hand, Dixie was down to Bugs Bunny boxer shorts, Randy to one sock, Barry to his gold medallions, El Squeako to grey long-johns, and El Creepo to a corn plaster. Nellie had somehow retained her cut-out bra and mauve crotchless knickers. Cherub was wearing just Abby’s sunhat and giggling non-stop. A fully dressed Noriko crouched behind trying to cheat for him.
‘Abby’s got a furr house and Dixie a straight frush,’ she whispered.
‘There’s the straight frush,’ cried Cherub, who was far too drunk to make use of any information. ‘Sings his song twice over, without a repeat mark.’
Everyone shouted with laughter and re-filled their glasses.
‘Just like Dejeuner sur l’Herbe,’ mused Henry, putting on his glasses to examine the poker groups on the green carpet.
Candy and Clare, who’d eaten too much paella over the past few days to have any desire to strip off, were absolutely hopping. Randy and Dixie totally ignored them by day, then expected to move into their beds at night. Having drunk a bottle apiece, they had retired to a distant sofa.
‘I’m going for brains in future,’ said Candy. ‘If there’s a body thrown in, that’s a bonus.’
‘I’m going for breeding,’ said Clare. ‘They never ran after Abby until she took up the violin again. Bloody gold diggers.’
‘I fancy Julian, only decent bloke in the orchestra.’
‘Let’s go and rescue him from Alto Sex. Who were you talking to?’ added Clare disapprovingly, as Davie came off the telephone to Texas.
‘Wrong number, she shounded very nicesh. Got two liel girls.’
‘And you told her you were six foot two and twenty-six,’ said Candy in outrage.
‘Thatsh my inside leg, musht get ’old of Brun’ilde.’
Despite continuous whoops, howls and blaring music, Chloë had finally fallen asleep across Julian’s thighs. Gently, like a violin case, he laid her on the floor. On the sofa beside him sat Francis and Bill Thackery, both very drunk.
‘We’ve gotta zap this merger the moment we get home,’ urged Julian. ‘We lost a great ally in Rodney.’
‘I loved the man,’ Bill Thackery’s eyes were very red.
‘Only conductor I’ve ever met who brought the word “you” into his conversation,’ sighed Francis.
‘How’s your wife’s hip, Francis?’ called out Abby, who’d been eavesdropping while shuffling the cards.
Francis flushed. ‘Oh, much the same.’
‘I do hope you’ll get her into the hospital soon.’
‘Sooner than you think if Francis gets his leg over,’ murmured a now naked Dixie, as he lobbed shiny black olives at Nellie’s nipples.
Abby, who still hadn’t shed a garment, dealt again. The men in the orchestra had all been so complimentary about her solo and her handling of the concert. But she was utterly unmoved that most of them were now stripped for action because of a certainty that she and Viking were finally going to make it. Drink had anaesthetized the pain of Rodney’s death. She could only remember the heaven of Viking’s arms around her, even the very reluctant slap had been oddly comforting. In a matter of seconds, she had exchanged one father figure for another.
Even now Viking was detached from the party, leaning against the wall in that heavenly blue shirt, sweating out a weak Scotch, swapping Rodney stories with a stunned, tearful Cyril. But all the time, his eyes never left Abby’s face, a little smile flickering over his beautiful, stubborn mouth. Totally forgetting Marcus, liberated from a disapproving Flora’s chaperonage, Abby felt a pulse as insistent as a snare drum throbbing between her legs. It was going to happen.
A drunken shout greeted another extract from Rachel’s Requiem, this time on the violin.
‘That was a glorious solo, Julian,’ shouted Cherub, then seeing the uncontrollable jealousy on Bill Thackery’s face, added, ‘but your century against the CCO was even better, Bill.’
Always the good sport, Bill joined in the roars of laughter.
Julian was glad he had confided to Bill his worries about Rannaldini and the closing-down of the RSO. Bill would fight their corner with the board.
A hand was sticking out of the wardrobe again so Julian gave it a bottle this time. Tarzan howls greeted the removal of Nellie’s crotchless knickers. Carmine, who’d been discussing an expedition to a bull-fight tomorrow with Quinton, glanced over at Nellie and winked.
‘Must have a tinkle,’ said Nellie ten seconds later, and tottered after Carmine into Abby’s spare bathroom.
A hovering Blue, hearing the lock snap, looked round for Cathie, who was wearily listening to Little Jenny droning on about the Celtic Mafia.
‘They are all pigs, Cathie.’
Everyone was too far gone to begin behaving when Hilary marched in, demanded a Perrier and started photographing the more advanced forms of debauchery, which included Dimitri drinking Famous Grouse whisky out of an ashtray.
‘Didn’t you see the “No Moles” sign on the door,’ shouted Randy.
Ignoring him, Hilary announced she must go and spend a penny. Viking watched her go towards Abby’s spare bathroom, which contained Nellie and Carmine, then surreptitiously turn left into Abby’s bedroom. Equally surreptitiously, Viking stole after her.
He found her trying on a diamond necklace, before regretfully turning to Abby’s briefcase, systematically opening envelopes, reading letters, flicking through Abby’s diary and her address book.
Padding up behind her, Viking closed his hands round her neck.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
Hilary shrieked and dropped the briefcase with a clatter.
Under his fingers, Viking watched an ugly red blush rise out of her pie-frill collar.
‘I was looking for a copy of tomorrow’s schedule,’ stammered Hilary, ‘to – er – see what time we’re leaving for Toledo.’
‘Bollocks, as if you didn’t know, since your poxy lover called a special inspection at six-thirty outside the hotel.’
He let his hands fall.
‘You were snooping, darling. Just how much is Rannaldini paying you to shop Abby?’
It was a complete shot in the dark. But Hilary’s jump of horror, like a suddenly buggered maiden aunt, said it all.
‘Get out, you meddling bitch, or I’ll call the police,’ said Viking.
Alone in the room, still shaking with fury, he picked up a periwinkle-blue silk scarf, breathing in Amarige. How trusting Abby was – with most of her orchestra in the next room – leaving the unlocked briefcase, the rubies, sapphires, diamonds, the platinum Amex card all spilling wantonly out of her jewel case. Amidst them, like a golden egg, with its leaves shrivelling, was the orange he’d picked her from the coach.
Viking had never been in any doubt that he would win the two thousand pounds. He had already earmarked the money, and told his Wexford grandmother that he would be sending her to America for her seventieth birthday. She hadn’t seen her elder sons and their families who lived in New York and Philadelphia for twenty years.
Viking knew that Abby adored him. He had not forgotten how she had trembled in his arms outside the pub at Christmas. It had been the same this evening. It would require less effort than picking that orange. She would fall into his hands like a
sleek ripe yellow pear.
Flora had told him about the secret engagement to Marcus and her grave doubts about the whole thing. Viking felt it was almost his duty to break it up.
‘Sorry, mate,’ he turned Marcus’s photograph to the wall. ‘You’ve lucked out on this one.’
As he wandered back into the living-room, he was pleased to see the silhouettes of his Second Horn and Cathie Jones become one under the stars on the balcony. It would make up for nicking Blue’s shirt.
Peter Plumpton, totally naked, was now mincing around with an upended bread basket on his head.
‘D’you thenk it’s suitable for Escot?’ he was asking, to howls of drunken laughter.
Abby’s other suitors, having failed to beat her at poker, were getting desperate. El Creepo, who wanted the two thousand for a big screen for his porn videos, was clumsily trying to chat her up.
‘What brassière size d’you take Abby?’
‘Don’t insollt my woman,’ howled Viking, grabbing El Creepo by his food-stained lapels.
‘Don’t, Viking, your tooth,’ screamed Abby, as El Creepo raised a nervous fist.
Diversion was provided by a mighty splash from next door as the brass section threw a fully dressed Dirty Harry into the jacuzzi because they thought he needed a bath.
All the other revellers surged into the bathroom, with El Creepo sidling hastily after them, leaving Viking and Abby gazing at each other.
‘Am I?’ she whispered.
‘What?’
‘Your woman?’
‘Sure you are.’
Unnerved by his nearness, Abby reached for her champagne, but Viking caught her wrist and emptied the glass into a vase of chrysanthemums.
‘No more,’ he said softly. ‘It dolls the senses, you don’t need Dottch courage with me.’
Abby was always banging on about the importance of bonding. Next door, it was more a case of James Bonding, as the rest of the party stripped off with squeals of glee to see how many of them could jump into the jacuzzi so the water spilled over, turning the blue shag-pile into a soggy pond.
‘I’ve always longed to go skinny-dipping,’ yelled Ninion.