Appassionata

by Jilly Cooper

  ‘And I’ve always wanted to go fatty-dipping,’ screamed Isobel, erupting from the wardrobe, breasts flying like duffle-bags, landing amid the heaving flesh, dispatching the last of the water.

  ‘Quite extraordinary, pure Rubens,’ said Old Henry, putting on his spectacles to walk round the jacuzzi.

  ‘Who killed Cock Rubens?’ shouted Dixie, active at the back of the scrum, to more cackles of laughter.

  Davie Buckle sat beside them on the loo with the seat down swigging from a bottle of Dubonnet and telephoning Japan. Everyone jumped as Militant Moll stomped in, dressed for bed in men’s wool striped pyjamas and leather slippers.

  ‘Anyone seen Ninion?’

  ‘No,’ chorused the heaving flesh.

  Burying his face gratefully in Isobel’s massive breasts, Ninion prayed Moll wouldn’t recognize his skinny flanks.

  ‘He said he was going to Mass in one of the cathedrals,’ called out Miss Parrott.

  ‘Plenty of steeples round here,’ giggled Clare.

  ‘You’re despicable,’ thundered Moll, marching out to rousing cheers. ‘Can’t you see how this degrades women?’

  ‘Get us some more hooch, Davie, love,’ asked Randy who was busy degrading Candy. ‘Just give room service a bell.’

  ‘Got to cock in with Brün’ilde,’ mumbled Davie, redialling.

  ‘Tum, ta, ta, tum, tum, tum, ta, ta, tum, tum,’ yelled the RSO to The Ride of the Valkyries.

  ‘You get the booze, Lincoln, you’re the youngest,’ Dixie ordered the Fifth Horn, who was sitting on the edge of the jacuzzi, in his Y-fronts, sadly gazing into space.

  Opening the wardrobe and finding Simon Painshaw and Peter Plumpton passed out in each other’s arms, Lincoln hastily shut the door, and staggered into Abby’s bedroom where he found Little Jenny in tears on the bed.

  ‘I thought you loved me.’

  ‘I do, I do.’ Lincoln collapsed on the bed beside her.

  Viking would throttle him, but he couldn’t keep the secret any longer.

  ‘Two thousand pounds would have paid off my overdraft,’ he admitted finally, ‘paid a deposit on a flat, and bought you an engagement ring, because, oh Jenny, I want to marry you.’

  ‘Did you say engagement ring?’ yelped Jenny, blowing her nose on Abby’s scarf. ‘Oh please, oh yes please.’

  Having kissed her at length, Lincoln staggered to his feet.

  ‘Let’s go to my room, Cherub won’t be back for hours. I’ll go and find the key.’

  Looking for stray bottles of drink in Abby’s bedroom, Candy found Jenny, gargling with Abby’s mouthwash and spraying Amarige on her bush.

  ‘You’ll never guess why they’ve all been chasing Abby,’ she whispered. ‘Promise you won’t tell anyone?’

  Candy promised.

  ‘Randy wanted some new golf clubs,’ Jenny was still explaining two minutes later.

  ‘I’ll club him,’ screeched Candy, storming back to the jacuzzi.

  ‘Found it,’ cried Lincoln, waving his room key.

  ‘Why are you carrying Cherub’s clothes?’ asked Jenny.

  ‘It’ll take him longer to get back to our room,’ said Lincoln.

  As none of the sorties for more booze had been successful, Francis was dispatched on yet another recce.

  ‘Lady in buff, Lady in buff,’ said the RSO, swaying to the tune of ‘Lady in Red’.

  Going into the sitting-room to round up any spare drink, Francis discovered Abby and Viking kissing the life out of each other. They looked so beautiful. Viking was stroking Abby’s cheek as though he was rubbing the earth away from some long-buried Grecian urn. The blaze of triumph on his face made Francis reach for his dark glasses.

  Oh fuck, groaned Francis. Bang went poor darling Janey’s hip operation. Never had he found it harder to be a good loser.

  When he returned, the revellers fell on his armful of bottles.

  ‘Viking’s won the two grand,’ he murmured sadly to Old Henry.

  For a second, Isobel stopped French kissing Ninion.

  ‘Viking’s always been too grand,’ she said dismissively.

  ‘It was Catch 25 situation,’ sighed Dimitri, emptying a whole bottle of Amarige into the steadily overflowing jacuzzi. ‘I vanted to take you to Petersburg, but I love you too much to vin sweepstake.’

  ‘You can take me to Paradise instead,’ cried Miss Parrott. ‘Oh my wonderful, wonderful Whayte Russian.’

  FIFTY-NINE

  Viking was not happy about the contrast between Abby’s seven-room suite, and the cupboard he was sharing with Blue which was stuffy, airless, shaken with stamping music from the Flamenco night-club opposite and already littered with his discarded possessions.

  He felt as though he was shoving a beautiful bird of paradise into a bantam coop. But he had no time to fret. The pack, in their last-ditch scramble for their prize money, would be soon on his trail.

  ‘You have the choice of two ironing boards,’ he said, unbuttoning his heavenly blue shirt.

  Abby shoved the beds together.

  ‘We can make love across them.’

  ‘A woman of experience.’

  ‘Only of hotel bedrooms. I toured for four years. They provided French champagne and baskets of fruit but nothing as appealing as—’ the words died on her lips. The fastest undresser in the world, Viking kicked off his shorts with one foot and caught them on his upright cock.

  ‘That’s awful neat,’ said Abby in admiration.

  ‘It was a trick of Rodney’s.’

  Oh shit, what a time to remind her.

  Abby collapsed on the bed, her face crumpling.

  ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t with Rodney just—’

  She gazed up, her eyes huge, enflamed, anguished.

  ‘Rodney’s ondyng wish,’ Viking crossed his fingers behind his back, ‘was for us to end op together. I expect the old dote’s already installed a two-way mirror in the floor of heaven so he can watch us.’

  ‘He wanted us to be together? Are you sure?’

  ‘Quite.’ Ducking Jove’s thunderbolts, Viking peeled off Abby’s orange vest. ‘Jesus, you’re lovely, darling.’ Tipping back the yellow bedside lamp, he lifted one warm gold breast wonderingly, then let it drop.

  But, as he unzipped her suede skirt, Abby hung her head, uncharacteristically shy and terrified, the giraffe finally cornered by poachers.

  ‘You need a tranquillizing dart, my darling,’ Viking stroked her quivering shoulders, talking to her softly. ‘You have no idea how stonning you look, or how beautiful it’s going to be.’

  Thank Christ he’d beaten the others to it, the thought of them groping and fumbling her was unbearable. He reckoned that Abby was far too tall often to have been carried by a man, and probably never in a bedroom. So, to make her feel precious and fragile, Viking gathered her up, telling her her mouth was like a dark red rose, before he buried his lips in it, kissing her so passionately and for so long, that it was Abby who pulled away gasping for breath.

  Then, with the ecstasy of an art dealer unrolling a previously undiscovered Modigliani, he laid her across the two beds, sliding his hands in wonder over the sleek satiny scented contours.

  ‘Oh, my beauty.’

  ‘Am I OK?’ Fazed by the intensity of his gaze, Abby’s hands fluttered to shield her breasts and her pubic hair.

  ‘Oh my American, my newfound land,’ murmured Viking.

  Normally, he would have progressed with infinite slowness, talking her through it, making her so relaxed she glided into her first orgasm almost without realizing it, but he had no time. He could feel her long eyelashes fluttering against his cheek, and then her gasp, as his finger tested her slipperiness.

  ‘Oh, please say you love me.’

  ‘I’ve never lossted after anyone so much,’ said Viking diplomatically, as he guided his cock deep inside her, letting it rest for a moment.

  ‘Isn’t that great?’ he whispered. ‘Lie still, my darling, josst feel what’s happening inside you, now go for
it, my angel.’

  Viking had had many women, but none had ever wanted him so much, nor made love with such utter conviction and desire to please. With most girls, you made them come, then they made you come. Abby, with a conductor’s ability to do many things at once, could give and take at the same time.

  ‘L’Appassionata,’ Viking glanced down at her reddening cheeks, her eyes cloudy and drugged with desire, ‘who would have thought it, but who wouldn’t, having heard you play.’

  Abby didn’t even miss a beat when she noticed the ‘I Love Juno’ tattoo.

  ‘Lasers’ll zap that.’

  ‘If you carry on sucking me,’ groaned Viking in ecstasy, ‘it’ll soon be covered in correcting fluid anyway. No, no, don’t bite my dick, I won’t take the piss any more.’

  Arching himself out of her like a great golden cat, he slid downwards until his mouth was level with hers.

  ‘The first time I come,’ he listened to her breathing getting faster and faster, ‘it’s going to be inside you.’

  Afterwards Abby buried her face in the smooth ivory curve of his sweating shoulder.

  ‘Definitely Guinness Book of Records,’ she mumbled.

  ‘Good, tell all your friends about it.’

  ‘You’re a rat.’

  ‘You’re a revelation. How come you’ve got lava in your veins?’

  ‘Not lava, love. I lova you.’

  Down below in the night-club, a lone guitar was playing Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez.

  Reaching for the bottle of Evian by the bed, Abby hazily noticed how right Viking’s blue shirt looked entangled with her suede skirt. On the side-table, his casket and St Christopher lay in a glittering heap with her gold bracelet and Marcus’s ruby ring.

  ‘Omigod,’ she sat bolt upright, ‘what about Marcus?’

  ‘He’s a darling boy,’ Viking kissed the soft flesh above Abby’s hip-bones, then working up her ribs, reached her breast. ‘But he’s too young and too onforceful. You need a man.’

  ‘I figure I’ve just had one.’ Then, as Viking slowly licked her nipple, she pushed his thick yellow hair out of his eyes and said, ‘I love you, Viking.’

  When he didn’t answer straightaway, she asked hastily, ‘How come, when you’ve pulled everyone else in the RSO—?’

  ‘I have not,’ interrupted Viking with some hauteur. ‘I have not pulled Cathie Jones, nor Miss Parrott, nor Isobel, nor Moll, thank the Lord, nor Hilary, nor Mary-the-mother-of-Josstin.’

  ‘—that you never tried it with me?’

  ‘Did you mind?’

  ‘Sure I did, it was like being frantic for a taxi and one with its “For Hire” sign blazing driving round and round and round me, refusing to stop.’

  Viking laughed.

  ‘Didn’t you want to?’ asked Abby indignantly.

  ‘Indeed I did,’ then, half-joking, ‘I’m shit-scared of being emasculated by powerful women.’

  ‘But you’re the most powerful person in the orchestra.’

  ‘Josst a minute, listen.’ Gently Viking tugged at her earlobe. ‘It was also respect and not wanting to rossh things, as my Granny Wexford’s always saying. There’s a time for loving.’

  Longing for Viking to introduce her to his family, Abby said she’d just adore to meet Granny Wexford. Had she ever visited the States?

  ‘Not yet.’ Like Francis earlier, Viking had the grace to blush.

  To distract Abby, he slid his thumb in and out of her, the knuckle gently grazing her clitoris, his long fingers caressing the tender underside of her bottom.

  ‘Oh wow,’ Abby drew in her breath. ‘Oh please, can we make love again?’

  ‘Don’t be greedy. As Bruno Walter said, “In every truly great work there is only one climax.”’

  ‘Can’t you ever be serious?’

  Not when I’m this jolted, thought Viking.

  There was a long pause.

  ‘Was I better than Juno?’ asked Abby in a small voice.

  ‘Onotterably. She used to slide table mats onder my elbows in case I burnt the sheets.’

  As Abby burst out laughing, Viking reached under his bed.

  ‘Here’s a present for you.’ He handed her his latest CD of the Brahms Horn Trio.

  ‘Oh wow,’ said Abby in excitement. ‘Will you sign it for me, please write something lovely.’

  As she ran a hand down his cheek, she could have grated Parmesan on the hard, emerging stubble.

  ‘I can’t help it, I just love you.’

  He was about to kiss her, when there was a terrific hammering on the door.

  ‘Go away,’ shouted Abby.

  ‘Shot op,’ hissed Viking, putting fingers reeking of sex and Amarige over her mouth. ‘Don’t answer it.’

  The hammering increased.

  ‘Must be Blue trying to get in – it is his room,’ protested Abby.

  ‘Who is it?’ she shouted.

  ‘Room shervish,’ said a voice.

  ‘We didn’t order anything, leave it,’ snarled Viking, tense as a roused Dobermann.

  ‘I could do with some more Dottch courage,’ teased Abby, ‘since you watered those flowers with my last lot.’ And wriggling out of his grasp, she wrapped herself in the blue shirt and fumbled with the door handle.

  ‘Don’t, for Chrissake,’ begged Viking, but it was too late.

  At first she thought it was the Press, as the flashes of a dozen cameras blinded her. Then, in horror, she took in the muscular hairy legs below the straining black skirt of the waitress who was carrying the sliding magnum of Moët aloft. Behind her, leering and cheering in varying degrees of drunkenness, were most of the male members of her orchestra.

  ‘Who’s a clever Viking, then?’ shouted Randy.

  ‘Hooray for the lucky winner,’ cried Peter Plumpton, who was still wearing his upended bread basket.

  ‘Too much molestar-hic, too much molesta ar,’ cried a dripping Dirty Harry.

  ‘I’ve won more than you, Viking.’ An exuberant Dixie smugly patted his strawberry-blond wig. ‘I had a grand on you at three to one.’

  ‘Fock off the lot of you,’ howled Viking, yanking Abby back inside, ‘and leave os alone.’

  A moment later, the crowd dispersed as a yelling regiment of policemen and soldiers, brandishing guns, stormed the landing.

  Another moment later, there was a crack like a pistol shot as Abby drove her high heel through Brahms’s Horn Trio.

  Davie Buckle, having passed out behind the jacuzzi, had missed the arrival of the forces of law and order, but waking, had dragged a pair of underpants on over his trousers, and was now progressing noisily along the third floor.

  Julian caught up with him outside Number 387.

  ‘Hallo there,’ he was saying to an enraged Spanish bureaucrat in a hairnet.

  ‘Come on, Davie.’ As Julian took his arm, Davie started walking away from him in little circles. ‘You’ve got to stop disturbing people.’

  ‘Got to find Abby.’

  ‘Not at four o’clock in the morning.’

  Julian decided his own room was the nearest.

  Once he’d thrown Davie on the bed, however, Davie started to fight.

  ‘Got to find Abby.’

  ‘I shall telephone Brünnhilde,’ said Julian sternly.

  Davie looked owlish. He was terrified of Brünnhilde.

  ‘She’s in Rutminshter,’ he said sulkily, then brightening, added, ‘then I’ll telephone Luisa.’

  ‘Luisa doesn’t mind, she trusts me,’ said Julian, dropping five Redoxins into a tooth mug, and handing them to Davie.

  ‘You’ve got Beethoven Nine again tomorrow, no it’s tonight now, drink it.’

  ‘This isn’t Scotch,’ Davie looked into the tooth mug in outrage. ‘Someone’s pissed in this glass.’

  Limping towards the window, he was about to chuck it into the street.

  ‘Drink it,’ ordered Julian.

  A shattered George fell into bed at four o’clock in the morning after trying to u
nravel the endless red tape of flying Rodney’s body back to Lucerne. Having switched off his mobile, he was roused a few minutes later by his wife.

  ‘It’s Nicholas someone, he sounds put out,’ she added, as George took the house telephone from her.

  Knickers was apoplectic. The orchestra were completely out of control, orgying and rioting in Abby’s jacuzzi which had overflowed and flooded the bridal suite below, where the President of some African state was having an illicit unbridal bonk. His bodyguards had gone beserk and called the troops out. Twenty members of the orchestra had been arrested and were now cooling their heels in Barcelona gaol.

  ‘Which members of the orchestra?’ asked George icily.

  ‘Dixie, Randy, Blue, Nellie, Ninion, Dimitri, Candy and Clare. Cherub escaped I think, Flora, I can’t remember exactly.’

  The arrested players had never seen anything equal to the rage George had worked up by the time he’d driven the forty miles to Barcelona gaol.

  He found most of his orchestra still plastered. Dimitri was crying because he couldn’t remember where he’d left his cello; Miss Parrott was hiccupping with her rhubarb-pink beehive askew and singing ‘Land of Hope and Glory’; Dixie, still in his black-and-white maid’s outfit, was being leered at by the guard; and Ninion, still necking ferociously, looked as though he was going to be sucked inside Fat Isobel like a minnow at any second.

  Only by handing over hoards and hoards and hoards of greenbacks did George manage to spring them. The one saving grace was that none of them had got round – yet – to taking drugs.

  ‘Where’s Flora?’ snarled George, as the motley bunch swayed in front of him.

  ‘Oh, Flora wasn’t with us,’ said Nellie, who was wearing a Spanish policeman’s hat, ‘the poor thing had a migraine. She was crying with pain when I popped in around midnight.’

  Only Blue, who had his hand in Cathie’s and was soberer than most, noticed that George suddenly cheered up, and the great thundercloud threatening to drench them all suddenly rolled away.

  ‘You better go back to the hotel and pack,’ he told them unsympathetically. ‘And get your baggage outside your doors. The coach leaves in an hour.’

  Ignoring two wake-up calls, Barry the Bass was finally roused by a call from the leader of the orchestra who’d spent the rest of the night in an armchair.