by Jilly Cooper
‘That lot are about as capable of guidance as a droonken guide-dog.’
Canon Airlie pursed his lips.
‘Lousy for morale,’ said a banker, ‘with so many conflicting rumours flying around.’
‘The RSO need a strong leader who can set a good example,’ Mrs Parker glared at George.
‘Why did the jacuzzi flood?’ asked Lady Chisleden.
‘Not really a matter for ladies,’ said Lord Leatherhead hastily, casting an eye at Miss Priddock who was stolidly taking the minutes.
Abandoning his cat-nip matador, John Drummond jumped onto the window-ledge to chatter angrily at two pigeons copulating on the roof. Cat’s television was much better in the summer, when the house martins and swallows flew in and out of the eaves.
They’ve all gone to warmer climes In the South, thought George. That was the tune Flora had played so beautifully at her audition. He looked at his watch. Her plane would be taking off any minute. If he hurried he could meet her at Heathrow. It had been the longest twelve hours of his life.
‘I agree that leadership must come from the top,’ Miles was saying. ‘If there were a merger, I think Rannaldini is the only man who could pull the orchestra together and save us from financial disaster.’
‘Where is Rannaldini?’ enquired Peggy Parker reverently.
‘Recording in Prague with some brilliant young Czech pianist. He always noses out the talent.’
George stubbed out his cigar and rose to his feet. Flora must have told Abby by now.
‘I’m afraid the only merger I’m remotely interested in at the moment is my own,’ he announced. ‘I’d like the board’s permission to take a three-month sabbatical.’
‘But you never take holidays,’ said Miss Priddock aghast. ‘Even durin’ that week’s skiing you worked in the evenings.’
‘Not this time,’ said George proudly. ‘I’m going to take Miss Flora Seymour, the most wonderful young lady round the world, and as soon as I get a divorce, she’s going to marry me.’
There was an absolutely appalled silence.
‘But she’s a member of the orchestra, and about half your age,’ exploded Mrs Parker.
‘And a baggage,’ chuntered Miles.
‘Well, I certainly didn’t put her outside my door at six o’clock,’ said George with a broad grin.
‘I hope you didn’t abuse your position, Hungerford,’ snorted Canon Airlie.
‘Ooterly,’ said George happily. ‘So would you if you’d been me, you old goat.’
‘But who is going to do your job?’ protested Lord Leatherhead. ‘Have left us in rather a hole yer know.’
‘As Miles is so frantic to run the orchestra, let him have a go. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a plane to meet.’
After he’d left and the uproar had subsided, Miles moved into George’s chair at the head of the table.
‘It was hard to talk when George was here, but I think it’s important that you all hear exactly how bad things were on tour and why we ought to replace Abigail as soon as possible.’
Flora’s happiness faded like a conker out of its husk as she struggled off the plane weighed down with presents for George, Trevor and Marcus. Having been briefed about the afternoon in the hot air balloon by Hilary and Juno, the orchestra had been mobbing her up about George all the way home. Some of the remarks had been very bitchy, until Flora had lost her temper and snapped that George loved her and was taking her round the world.
Guffaws greeted this.
As they all shuffled through Customs, Nellie turned to Carmine, who had been behaving in a very smug proprietorial way after two nights on the trot, and said: ‘D’you mind if we don’t walk out into the airport together, Carmine, because my husband’s meeting me,’ which caused even louder guffaws.
Carmine was incensed. As the orchestra mothers charged the barrier to hug their children, and Julian fell into Luisa’s arms, Flora’s eyes filled with tears.
‘I see your grand friend hasn’t come to meet you,’ said Carmine nastily, as they made their way out to the coaches. ‘The only reason he’d want to take you round the world would be to have a bit of free crumpet while he was avoiding tax.’
‘I must not cry,’ said Flora through gritted teeth. But her eyes had misted over so much that when the airport doors opened automatically for Viking and Dixie, who were walking out in front of her, and she caught a glimpse of Trevor the mongrel outside, she knew she was imagining things.
All the same, she ran forward. Then the doors opened again and stayed open like her mouth, for there holding an ecstatically wriggling Trevor, blushing like an autumn sunset, stood George.
Dropping her luggage, and her presents, Flora rushed towards them, and George took his rank-and-file viola player in his arms and kissed her on and on in front of his entire orchestra.
‘Oh George,’ gasped Flora.
‘I’m not taking you round the world, I’ve got a better idea,’ said George.
That evening a delirious Flora telephoned her mother from George’s double bed.
‘Mum, Mum, I’m getting married.’
‘You’re far too young,’ wailed Georgie. ‘Who is he? Where did you meet him? Has he got a job?’
‘He works for the RSO.’
‘I’m not having you throwing yourself away on some penniless musician. I know too many of them.’
‘Mu-um, it’s George Hungerford.’
There was a long pause.
‘The George Hungerford?’
‘None other.’ Giggling, Flora handed the receiver to George so he could hear her mother’s screech of amazement down the telephone.
‘Oh darling, he’ll be able to keep us all in our old age. How lovely, such a sweet man, too. When will you bring him to see us? I suppose he ought to ask Daddy for your hand.’
‘Not until I’ve stopped biting my nails. Actually we thought we’d push off for a holiday first. George wanted to take me round the world, but I said we couldn’t leave Trevor.’
Trevor, who was lying across George’s feet, wiggled his tail.
‘Oh Mum, you’ll never guess what George has done.’
‘What?’
‘You know they don’t allow dogs on beaches any more because of “fouling”. Well, George has bought Trevor a beach all of his own with a sweet little cottage for us thrown in.’
‘Oh, how wonderful,’ said Georgie. ‘Anyone that nice to dogs will make a wonderful husband.’
SIXTY-TWO
The Pellafacini Quintet were very sad to lose their young viola player, but the person totally unhinged by Flora’s whirlwind romance was Abby. Not only was she terribly jealous of Flora’s and George’s almost incandescent happiness, but also how dare Flora land a real man and such a rich, attractive one? How could her singing career not soar with such a back-up? On the other hand, how lucky she was to be able to settle down and play house and have babies. Worst of all, with Rodney dying and George’s departure, Abby felt utterly defenceless.
‘You can’t quit now. There’s the Appleton coming up,’ she railed at George. ‘And I’ve had an enquiry today about taking the orchestra to the States.’
George found he couldn’t give a stuff.
‘Miles will cope, he’s very capable.’
‘He’s no good at zapping mergers. Can’t you wait till after the Appleton?’
‘Flora’s my noomber one priority, now,’ said George firmly. ‘I’m not going to let that slip through my fingers. Work ruined my last marriage. It’s only for three months.’
Abby felt the peacekeeping forces had left the orchestra. Even worse with Flora gone, she and Marcus were thrown into each other’s company. Abby felt increasingly bad about betraying him with Viking. How long would it be before one of those rogues in the orchestra tipped him off – probably in the middle of the Appleton.
When she finally got home, having made a detour via Lucerne for Rodney’s funeral, she couldn’t meet Marcus’s eyes and became even more aggressive t
hrough guilt.
‘Where the hell have you been? I’ve been calling for days. Oh, there you are, baby,’ as a mewing Scriabin came running down the stairs, ‘I was so worried about you.’
‘Mrs Diggory’s been looking after them,’ stammered Marcus, ‘and George came and collected Trevor. Isn’t it amazing about him and Flora?’
‘Don’t change the subject. How could you push off and leave them?’ Abby looked lovingly down at Scriabin, who was now purring in her arms, sucking at her jersey like a baby.
‘My asthma got so bad,’ mumbled Marcus, ‘and the cats missed you and kept coming into the studio and Howie isn’t getting me any work so I flew over to Prague and tried to set up a cheap record deal.’
He didn’t add that Boris’s and Abby’s promises back in March of conducting and bankrolling him had never materialized.
‘Any luck?’ asked Abby.
‘I’m waiting to hear.’
Even Abby in her state of preoccupation noticed he looked awful, dreadfully thin and pale but with an unnatural hectic flush on his cheeks, and the rash of too many steroids speckling his mouth. By the time he’d carried her cases upstairs, he could hardly breathe and collapsed wheezing onto the bed.
‘How was the tour?’
‘So so, great houses, great performances, but Rodney died.’ Abby was angrily crashing coat-hangers along rails to make more room.
‘I know – I’m desperately sorry.’
‘Whatever for? You only met him once.’
‘I knew what he meant to you.’
‘I don’t want to talk about it. I’m exhausted.’ Then, knowing she was being vile, added, ‘You look wiped out, too.’
‘I’ve been working on stuff for the Appleton.’
‘What have you chosen?’
‘A Bach prelude, Liszt’s B Minor Sonata, a little suite of Boris’s. Great that he’s gone to Number Ten in the Charts.’
‘Great that the orchestra’s gone to Number Ten,’ corrected Abby sharply, crashing pots and bottles down on her dressing-table.
‘What are you doing in the second round?’
‘Chopin Etudes, the Grande Polonaise, a couple of Debussy Preludes and the Waldstein.’
‘Not the Appassionata?’
Marcus blushed. ‘I made such a cock-up at Cotchester.’
That was what he’d decided to play today, but such was his panic and indecision, nothing sounded any good and he kept changing his mind. There was music all over the floor of his normally tidy studio.
Helen, who hadn’t recovered from Rannaldini disappearing with Flora after The Creation, hadn’t helped by ringing at all hours.
‘I thought she’d cheer up when she heard about Flora and George. But she seems curiously pissed off that Flora’s landed such an ace bloke. She’s already channelled her suspicions in another direction, some Czech pianist, called Natalia, who’s entered for the Appleton, and evidently Rannaldini’s seeing a lot of Hermione.’
‘Helen shouldn’t hassle you,’ fumed Abby, finding a genuine excuse for fury. ‘How can you concentrate when she’s on your back all the time?’
‘It’s OK. She’s got to dump somewhere.’
Abby was frantic for Marcus to make love to her, but when he almost shrank away, she manufactured a row, seized the nearest Barbour and stormed out for a walk.
There were lights on in The Bordello, but finding herself helplessly drawn towards them, she realized it was only the setting sun shining across the lake, turning both water and window-panes to gold. She had never physically ached for someone so much in her life as Viking.
By the time she had reached the end of the lake, the sun had deepened to blazing vermilion, its reflection now cooling its burning body in the lake. Oh God, if only it were as easy to extinguish desire.
Delving in the Barbour pocket for a tissue to wipe her eyes she found, amid the debris of leaves and wild flowers, a torn-up letter in Marcus’s handwriting. Piecing it together with trembling hands she read:
My darling, darling, darling A,
I am dying for you, I can’t go on. I never believed it was possible to miss anyone so much or so impossible to suppress my desperate, desperate longing.
Then there was a quote from Pushkin, ending: ‘What can my heart do but burn, it has no choice.’
How darling of Marcus to leave the poem in Russian, knowing she understood the language. Abby felt ashamed but happier. Two loves have I of comfort and despair, and she must concentrate on the love that comforted her.
Going into H.P. Hall after a sleepless night worrying how many of the musicians would know by now about her and Viking, she was cheered by a wonderfully funny piece of news.
On the notice-board next to details for the Appleton where tails and black dresses would be worn was an announcement that Sonny Parker’s Interruption had won a Gramophone Award for the best CD of contemporary music.
That would mean another hundred thousand pounds from Mother Parker.
Forgetting George was on sabbatical, Abby barged into his office for a giggle to find Miles heavily ensconced. George’s squashy leather sofas, his high-tech toys, his models of tower blocks and Regency façades, the fridge full of drink, the Edward Burra and the Keith Vaughan, all had been replaced by a functional oatmeal hessian sofa, a totally empty desk and some very uncomfortable chairs. The decorators had obviously been at work, slapping beige emulsion over the shredded ginger suede walls.
‘I thought George had only gone for three months,’ said Abby aghast.
‘Everything’s very much in the air at the moment,’ said Miles coolly. ‘Please don’t let that cat in and I’d prefer it if you knocked.’
‘Very minimalist,’ Abby looked round the room, then attempting a joke, because she suddenly felt so nervous, ‘to match Jessica’s minis.’
Miles ignored John Drummond’s piteous mewings.
‘Jessica’s left,’ he said curtly.
‘Whatever for? She really cheered us up with those typing errors.’
‘Important for morale,’ Miles smiled thinly, ‘for the orchestra to realize we’re prepared to make cuts on the admin side as well.’
‘But the sponsors just adored her.’
‘Actually she left of her own accord. She realized she would be expected, now George isn’t around, to do a little more than pour champagne and forget to hand in lottery tickets.
‘Far more interestingly,’ Miles cracked his knuckles joyfully, ‘Rannaldini has just been appointed musical director of the CCO,’ then, at Abby’s look of horror, continued, ‘He’ll still retain his directorships in New York, Berlin and Tokyo, of course.’
‘Then he won’t have time to look after the CCO,’ snapped Abby. ‘They’ll be short-changed like everyone else.’
‘Course they won’t. Don’t be so needlessly spiteful. The Arts Council are delighted,’ said Miles looking equally pleased, ‘and having someone of Sir Roberto’s calibre near by should put you all on your mettle.’
Miles certainly hadn’t purchased any kid gloves in Spain.
‘So Rannaldini’s now in a prime position to merge us and the CCO,’ blurted out Abby. Oh why couldn’t she keep her trap shut?
‘Rannaldini’s a wonderful musician —’ for a second Miles’s eyes contained a flicker of genuine warmth – ‘and a natural disciplinarian.’
‘Viking wouldn’t stand for that.’
‘Viking’s left us, too,’ said Miles silkily.
‘W-w-what?’ whispered Abby, bruising her spine as she collapsed onto one of the uncomfortable chairs. ‘Where? When? How?’
‘He resigned this morning.’
‘But why?’
‘To be quite honest, I think he’s bored. He’s been here eight years. Nothing to keep him. Should have gone to London years ago.’
‘But he’s the best player we’ve got and he’s under contract.’
‘We thought he was, too, and that we could hold him at least until after the Appleton, but when we checked, it ran ou
t last month. There was nothing we could do.’
‘But all the contracts have been renewed.’
‘It seems they haven’t. George has been a shade lax.’
‘But this is awful. Viking lifted the orchestra with every note.’
As if in agreement, John Drummond’s black paw appeared supplicatingly under the door.
‘Viking is a dangerous influence,’ said Miles briskly. ‘Quinton is far less erratic, more responsible and can’t wait to sort out the section; Rannaldini agrees.’
‘What’s he got to do with it?’ hissed Abby.
‘When he did The Creation he thought Viking was very overrated. Big fish in a small polluted pond, to quote yourself, and didn’t he know it.’ Miles rose to his feet. ‘I’m disappointed in you, Abby, after your little tantrum in Toledo in front of the chairman and his wife, not to mention Nicholas and Hilly,’ his voice thickened lasciviously as he mentioned her name, ‘I thought you would be delighted he’s left us. Now, if you’ll excuse me,’ he said chillingly.
As he moved forward to open the door for her, Abby thought for a second he was going to stamp on Drummond’s twitching paw. Prufrock had become Robespierre overnight.
Outside she found Miss Priddock in tears.
‘Mr Hungerford loved cats, he’s left some money so I can go on buying Drummond a lottery ticket every week.’
Utterly stunned, Abby sought out the Celtic Mafia, who looked bleak and said Viking had flown back to Ireland. None of them would elaborate.
‘Didn’t he leave me any message?’ pleaded Abby.
‘He left you this,’ said Blue.
It was a cheque for two thousand pounds for the Cats’ Protection League.
Poor Abby had to go straight into rehearsal. They were playing The Fairy’s Kiss which had a fiendishly difficult horn solo. Quinton played it well enough, but there was no halo round the interpretation. The rest of the horn section looked suicidal. Even the prospect of his marriage to Jenny couldn’t raise Lincoln’s spirits. Cyril was wearing a black armband.
‘I reckon Viking was greater than Dennis Brain,’ he kept saying.