Appassionata

by Jilly Cooper

  Ahead Marcus could see the lights of the cottage. Abby must have come home early. He found her still in her overcoat, gazing hopelessly at a burnt-out kettle. Sobbing hysterically, she collapsed against him.

  ‘I’m desperately sorry, Markie. My foot’s like a colander I’ve shot myself in it so often. I’ve just turned your evening-shirt blue putting it in the same wash as my scarf.’

  The Fat Controller was guesting at the RSO for the next week, she continued, so she was pushing off to Philadelphia to clinch the American tour.

  ‘I lied to Miles that I was going to see Mom. He’d be so fucking smug if the tour didn’t come off, and if it does I guess it’s the only way the orchestra’ll forgive me. You’d think it was me sacked Viking. Anyway it’ll get me out of your hair and theirs. You all need a break.’

  ‘I need you to tell me what to do in the first round,’ protested Marcus, but only to comfort her.

  Abby gulped. ‘You’re the sweetest liar. You’ll be far better on your own. I’ll fly back on Thursday morning and come straight up to Appleton for the finals the next day.’

  ‘Aren’t you cutting it a bit fine?’ said Marcus in alarm. Abby was going to have to conduct six concertos. ‘It’s a hell of a marathon.’

  ‘It won’t give me time to be scared. Imagine five million viewers.’

  She was so tired it took her ages to pack, dragging out her power suits with shoulder pads to impress the conservative and sometimes stuffy American cultural committees. The cats kept getting into her cases; she loathed the idea of them going to a cattery, but at least they’d be together.

  When, at last, she wandered across the moonlit lawn to Marcus’s studio, the crowded stars were listening enraptured to the last joyful tumultuous bars of the Schumann concerto.

  ‘You and I are going to play that together in the finals,’ said Abby, massaging his shoulders.

  ‘Some hope. It’s tempting fate to work on it when I know I won’t get that far. Did you know Benny’s entered, and a mass of other seriously good people.’

  ‘You’ll zap the lot of them. You know Rodney always sang “To the Life Boats, to the Life Boats”, during that bit in the last movement, when every pianist wants to jump ship because it’s so difficult to cope with the cross-rhythms. Play it again. I’ll be the orchestra.’

  ‘Promise to sing it slowly,’ Marcus flipped back the pages.

  ‘I promise. “To the Life Boats, to the Life Boats, to the Life Boats,”’ sang Abby, faster and faster, with Marcus frantically scurrying to keep up, until they collapsed in hysterical laughter for the first time in days until Abby’s laughter turned once more to tears.

  ‘Make love to me, Marcus. It’s been so long, I need it so badly.’

  Falling on each other, they tried to eradicate the memories of Viking and Alexei. For Marcus, it was as if he were attempting to quench a frantic thirst with great gulps of sea water. At least he hoped he had satisfied Abby. She fell asleep in his arms immediately. The studio was flooded with moonlight. On her right hand, clutching the pillow, Marcus’s ruby glowed like a drop of blood. Burning through the floorboards, under the bed, were Alexei’s hidden love letters, his Rolex and the emerald cuff-links.

  White in the moon the long road lies

  That leads me from my love, thought Marcus despairingly.

  As Abby slept, he stole out of the studio and across the dewy lawn, his heart pounding. He didn’t even have to memorize the code for Moscow. But there was no answer. Alexei must have found other arms.

  Appassionata

  SIXTH MOVEMENT

  SIXTY-FOUR

  Appleton, a dark satanic mill town, lay just west of the Pennines with its grimy houses and factories spilling over the steep hillside as though someone had hurled a pot of black ink against a green wall. The surrounding countryside was dotted with imposing Victorian houses built by the old cotton manufacturers, who found patronizing the arts in the nineteenth century a gratifying way up the social ladder. The most imposing of these houses had belonged to the late Lord Appleton, a great charmer and music lover, who each year had invited a group of friends to play together over a long weekend. On the last day, the musician, who, by popular vote, had pleased his companions the most, was awarded five hundred pounds.

  The comely Welsh pianist, Blodwyn Jones, who won the prize at the end of the Fifties, became Lord Appleton’s much younger wife, and when he died she joined forces with his inconsolable friends to found the Appleton Piano Competition in his memory. The Appleton had become as prestigious as the Leeds Piano Competition which took place every four years in August. Indeed Fanny Waterman, the founder of the great Leeds Competition was a friend of Blodwyn Appleton and had advised her in the early stages.

  Lady Appleton was well named. She had a face as round, rosy and sweet as a Worcester Pearmain, and a nature to match. Although well into her sixties, she was able to charm distinguished musicians to give their services for almost nothing. This year, the very international jury contained several piano teachers, old trouts of both sexes, including a Romanian, a Latvian, a vast Ukrainian and a Chinese who spent his time writing a biography of Schumann from right to left on a laptop computer. Among the judges who still played in public was Marcus’s ancient admirer Pablo Gonzales, who had arrived without his blond boyfriend. Others included Bruce Kennedy, a cool laconic American, and Sergei Rostrov, a hot-headed voluble Russian, both great and famous pianists who felt they should put something back into music by sitting on the odd jury, but who detested one another.

  Ernesto (an Italian who spoke little English) and Lili (a green-eyed German) were less good pianists. Both in their fifties, they preferred to judge rather than be judged and were making a nice living, thank you, sitting on juries all over the world and bonking each other.

  Among the non-piano-playing judges were a svelte French feminist who played the harpsichord, and an Irish Contralto called Deirdre O’Neill, who had a winning cosy exterior, which mostly disguised a pathological loathing of the Brits, no doubt exacerbated by a recent divorce from a Weybridge stockbroker.

  Completing the pack were Boris, Hermione and Dame Edith, who, because Monica was in Kenya awaiting her first grandchild, had rolled up with Monica’s yellow labrador Jennifer; and surprise, surprise, Rannaldini. All the judges were staying at the Prince of Wales Hotel in Appleton High Street.

  The candidates on the other hand were housed at St Theresa’s, a local girls’ boarding-school, situated about three miles out of town on the edge of the moors. As the pupils had gone home for half-term, each contestant was allotted a tiny study/bedroom. Marcus collapsed in hysterical laughter when he found the walls of his room covered in half-naked posters of James Dean and Mel Gibson. Outside in the park, almost obscuring the view from his window, was a magnificent chestnut tree which still held on to its reddy gold leaves.

  Across khaki fields, criss-crossed with stone walls and bobbled with sheep, Marcus could see the lights of Appleton. In case by some miracle he reached the final, he had brought his tails and the dress-shirt which Abby had turned pale blue in the washing-machine.

  During a rather strained and stilted drinks party, when the contestants stared at each other like cats, Marcus noticed Benny Basanovich, black hair curly as a Jacob’s sheep, surrounded by girls, but paying particular attention to a voluptuous Slav beauty, with long sloe-black eyes, soft, drooping scarlet lips and large breasts. That must be Rannaldini’s protegee Natalia Philipova. Marcus felt a surge of pity for his mother. How could all the silicone implants in the world compete with that, he thought savagely.

  Over an excellent dinner of steak and kidney pudding, and a huge pie made from dark blue bilberries picked off the moor, served with big jugs of cream, the level of chat and laughter started to rise.

  Everyone then drew for position in the competition. With forty-eight contestants to play, the first round would take four days. Mid-morning or mid-afternoon were best. People who played first thing had to warm up the jury and the audi
ence. Immediately after lunch was dodgy, because half the jury would be sleeping it off. By the end of the day everyone was irritable and tired. Marcus drew the very last number, then had a nail-biting, four-day wait.

  On the first morning of the competition, however, all the contestants were expected to turn up at the small concert hall belonging to Appleton University, where the first two rounds were taking place, to be officially welcomed by Lady Appleton.

  The jury were already in position in the gallery, including Jennifer the labrador, who was leaving blond hairs all over the shiny dark suit of the Ukrainian judge.

  Marcus nearly fainted when he saw Boris, Rannaldini and oh God, Pablo Gonzales, who was raising binoculars with a shaky hand to spy out the better-looking male contestants.

  Only after the last winner had accepted her little silver piano, had it been discovered that before the competition she had deliberately taken private lessons with most of the jury then further sucked up by writing them sycophantic thank-you letters.

  This year Lady Appleton was taking no chances, and kept the names of the judges under wraps to prevent them being got at before the competition.

  After welcoming everyone, and thanking the sponsors, Mr Bumpus of Bumpy’s Scrumpy, she stressed the importance of the jury not having any contact with the contestants.

  ‘I know many of you know each other, but try and restrict yourselves to a little wave until after the final.’

  Monocled and massive in Prince of Wales check, Dame Edith promptly raised Jennifer’s fat yellow paw and waved it at Marcus.

  ‘Finally,’ went on Lady Appleton charmingly, ‘don’t be frightened or discouraged if you go no further – remember that every member of the jury was once knocked out in the first round of a competition.’

  ‘I was not,’ said a deep voice in outrage.

  ‘Sorry, except Dame Hermione,’ laughed Lady Appleton. ‘Now let us welcome our first candidate, Miss Han Chai from Korea.’

  On went the jurors’ spectacles, as the prettiest little raven-haired teenager came dancing onto the stage with her pink skirts swirling and played Debussy, Liszt and Mozart with such proficiency and delight that she plunged every other candidate into despair.

  Bruce Kennedy, the great American pianist, who always voted against the Eastern bloc only gave her five out of ten.

  ‘Technically perfect,’ he muttered to Dame Edith, ‘but I don’t figure she’s experienced “Life”.’

  ‘If you want to see raw emotion,’ whispered back Edith, who’d given her six, ‘look at her teacher in the front row. Don’t you agree, Boris?’

  Boris, who was sitting behind them, gave a sulky grunt, and added another semi-quaver to the clarinet’s part in Act Two of King Lear. There was manuscript paper all over the floor and the seats on either side of him. He supposed it would be construed as collusion if he enlisted Marcus’s help to put in the bar lines.

  Boris had only fallen under Lady Appleton’s spell and agreed to judge when he was plastered at some reception last year, and was livid to be dragged away from work.

  He wasn’t remotely gratified that Rachel’s Requiem had now gone to Number Five, and he was incensed that Rannaldini had been given a suite at the Prince of Wales, with a room next door for Clive, his sinister leather-clad henchman, while he, Boris, had only a dimly lit shoe-box facing a grubby brick wall with no mini-bar.

  Hermione was even crosser than Boris. Having promised her his full attention, Rannaldini had rolled up with a beady-eyed Helen, and then spent his time caballing.

  For despite Lady Appleton’s strictures, corruption was gloriously rife. Everyone, particularly the Eastern bloc, indulged in tactical voting. All the judges had been tempted by massive bribes. Dame Edith was shocked to be offered three Steinways, a diamond necklace and a week’s holiday for two by the Black Sea, Dame Hermione less so. The only safe unbugged place for intrigue was the heated pool. Rannaldini, who had the advantage of a magnificent Sardinian suntan and fluency in most languages, soon had wrinkled paws from dog-paddling with large lady judges, their long grey hair swept up on top.

  A few of the judges argued the whole time, the rest were too terrified of Rannaldini and making fools of themselves to put forward any forceful opinions. This happened particularly after the Italian contestant, whom Dame Edith had described as ‘a fairly good-looking pig who unfortunately sounded as though she was playing with trotters’, turned out to be the daughter of Ernesto, the Italian judge. The strain of listening to music from nine in the morning until eight at night was telling on all of them. The old trouts found it impossible to stay awake, particularly after Bumpy’s Scrumpy and a large lunch.

  As contestant followed contestant, however, stars were beginning to emerge. Most of the judges liked Han Chai, none of them liked Benny, who had only entered because both Howie and Rannaldini had persuaded him certain victory would lift a sagging career. Benny, on the other hand, was very famous, and rather good with judges, claiming not only genuine French-Russian parentage, but also aunts from Latvia, Romania, China and Ireland who, when necessary, became ‘my favourite relation’.

  Also much fancied was Carl Matheson, a cheery, bouncing Texan with a terrific stage personality, who’d been told by his agent to leave his tails behind. This was an old trick. The contestant would then appear not to have expected to reach the final. If he did and walked onto the platform in his plaid jacket or a too large borrowed DJ, the audience and jury would be touched by his modesty and humility, and the fairy tale element of a rags-to-riches win, and mark him up accordingly.

  Dominating the candidates, however, was Natalia Philipova, who’d ‘come a long way, baby’, since two years ago in Prague when Rannaldini had advised her to give up the piano, then relented and financed her private lessons. Now he was determined to make her a big star. Hence his tickling of all the old trouts in the swimming-pool and his waking them with a cattle-prod when it was Natalia’s turn to play.

  He had chosen Natalia’s first round pieces well. Liszt’s piano adaptation of Tristran, and a Chopin sonata with a funeral march middle movement reduced everyone to tears. Howie had already signed up Natalia, but he was soft-pedalling the connection, as he and Rannaldini didn’t want Benny to go into drunken orbit. A win from Natalia would be that much more impressive and dramatic if she beat an established talent like Benny’s.

  Finally, there was Anatole, a moody handsome Russian, and a marvellous pianist. He was left handed, which made him very strong in the bass and gave his playing a wonderful thunder. His hair was the browny blond of newly laid parquet, and like most eastern bloc players, he wore cheap clothes: shiny brown trousers, plastic shoes and his freckled back could be seen through his thin nylon shirt. But nothing detracted from his eruptive presence. His deadpan face, deep husky voice and occasional bursts of temper reminded Marcus agonizingly of Alexei. Howie, who was gasping to sign him up, had nicknamed him the ‘Prince of Polyester’.

  Anatole, like all the other Russians who’d entered, had been playing his first- and second-round repertoire and his chosen concerto in concert halls all round Siberia for the last six months. Although aware he would probably go back to Siberia for good if he didn’t win, Anatole was far more interested in winning the local pub talent competition.

  All the contestants reacted to pressure in different ways. Some paced before they played, some took deep breaths or did yoga, others stared into space, some shook and sweated. Anatole kept throwing up, then lighting a cigarette immediately afterwards.

  Marcus’s four-day wait would have been a torment if every day a fleet of cars hadn’t arrived to ferry the contestants either to the concert hall or to big houses in the area, where they were offered a grand piano on which to practise. Marcus was sent to a darling old lady called Mrs Bateson who’d been a friend of Thomas Beecham. Deciding Marcus needed fattening up, she baked wonderful cakes for him. All her family rolled up and listened whenever he played, but when they appeared at the hall to cheer him when his turn fina
lly came, they had great difficulty getting seats. The place was packed with Press, chasing more copy on Rupert’s estranged son and Abby’s live-in lover.

  Driven crackers by Helen’s moans about Natalia and Rannaldini, Marcus was almost relieved to get onto the platform, then started the Liszt B minor Sonata with an appalling crash of wrong notes.

  Helen, Boris, Pablo Gonzales, Edith, Jennifer the labrador, Mrs Bateson and all her family gave a collective groan of dismay. Marcus, on the other hand, thought: sod it. He’d obviously blown it, so he might as well enjoy himself on this wonderful piano, whose tone was as soft and mellow as any burgundy covered in cobwebs in his father’s cellar.

  Forgetting the audience, he continued to play the Liszt so beautifully that the entire hall was in floods. He then raced with all the insouciance of an Olympic skier, through Balakirev’s Oriental Fantasy, which because of its racing octaves and chords is supposed to be the hardest piece ever written. He then collapsed in a giggling heap the moment he left the platform.

  ‘I have never been so scared in my life.’

  By this time, he had brought the hall to their feet. To his amazed delight, he went through to the last twenty-four.

  The second round was even more of an ordeal for the judges, consisting of long fifty-minute recitals. If any of the candidates overran Lady Appleton was meant to ring a large bell, but was often too kind to do so. Many of the contestants, however, had complained of the soft muddy tone of the piano in the first round, so it was now replaced by one with a harder, brighter sound.

  The first day of the second round was also Pablo Gonzales eightieth birthday. Thinking it was a learned work of discography, the big Ukrainian judge brought him a copy of the Guinness Book of Records. Pablo was henceforth so transfixed with interest that he did hardly any judging at all.