by Jilly Cooper
‘The fleas are terrible, Mum,’ said Flora slapping her ankles. ‘Like dew leaping on the lawn.’
Very pointedly curling her long legs underneath her, Rachel sat in an armchair. Richard Baker was now telling viewers that Rannaldini and Hermione wouldn’t be appearing.
‘Why on earth d’you think Rannaldini cried off?’ asked Georgie, emptying the remains of a bottle of Muscadet into everyone’s glasses. Flora, who knew, couldn’t say anything.
‘Expect he had an offer he couldn’t refuse,’ remarked Rachel sourly. ‘Like some girl he hadn’t fucked before.’
Once in flow, she went on about Rannaldini’s promiscuity.
‘He was always trying to get me into bed, and he’s had Chloe, Boris’s present incumbent.’
Ultra-cool on the surface about Rannaldini, having enjoyed nearly a month in his company, Flora was now realizing how desperately she was going to miss him. Tired, and depressed that she hadn’t done any of her holiday work, she wondered how on earth she would put up with the restrictions of Bagley Hall; and now this stupid bitch wouldn’t stop slagging him off.
Once the Requiem was under way, however, Rachel’s scorn was reserved for Boris. Why the hell was he wearing red braces? Why hadn’t he cleaned his nails? Look at his hair halfway down his back. That must be Chloe’s doing. Look how it was escaping from its pony-tail. Now he was taking things too fast, now much too slowly – he was so over-emotional – why the hell couldn’t he beat in time?
‘Why don’t you shut up and listen?’ muttered Flora.
‘Boris is conducting marvellously,’ said Lysander at the end of the ‘Dies Irae’, ‘but it’s a bit Inspector Morse for me.’ Kissing Georgie and seeing they were supplied with drinks, he slid off to Rutminster to get a take-away.
‘I’d no idea Cecilia had such a wonderful voice or was so beautiful,’ sighed Georgie.
‘Rannaldini bonks her every time she comes over,’ spat Rachel.
I’ll kill her soon, thought Flora.
‘Oh, there’s Marigold,’ said Georgie as the camera roved over the audience. ‘Doesn’t she look gorgeous?’
‘Anyone can look gorgeous when they spend that kind of money on clothes,’ hissed Rachel, ‘and the way her megalomaniac husband floodlights his house every night – such a waste of energy.’
She was panic-stricken that any minute the cameras would latch on to Chloe looking more blond and beautiful than anyone. There, dominating the screen, was the husband who had left her and who, after the performance, would go back to Chloe’s arms.
The Requiem was drawing to a close. The television crew who’d come to mock were in ecstasies that a new star had been born. Boris had also been helped by Cordelia’s superb lighting, although he had to muddle through the ‘Agnus Dei’ and the ‘Sanctus’ almost in the dark.
Arms stretched out like a young Christ, tears spilled out of his long dark eyes and poured down his wide, pale, tortured face, as he coaxed miracles out of orchestra, chorus and soloists. Even though they’d sung and played their hearts out for well over an hour without a break, both performers and audience wanted it to go on for ever.
After the thunderclaps, the lightning and the soaring brass, Cecilia was singing again, divinely mewing, making up in dramatic effect whatever she lacked in beauty of tone. The whispering nightingales had returned, as like a priestess she intoned, pianissimo, twenty-nine quavers on the same middle C: ‘Lord deliver my soul from the doom of eternal death in the great day of judgement.’
Then, against an ever-softening drum roll, the chorus joined in for the last two Delivera Mes and Boris, his stick like a scimitar, brought the work to a close. As the final brass sounded the last trump, the promenaders gathered themselves up like a great tiger. It seemed impossible that such a hush should be followed by such a deafening roar of applause as the entire audience, musicians, soloists and chorus rose from their seats shouting, screaming and cheering. The hall that had been so still was a churning sea of clapping hands. Richard Baker was so excited he could hardly get the words out.
Then Boris, who seemed in a trance, broke down and sobbed like a wild animal until Monalisa Wilson pulled him comfortingly to her bosom and the bass lent him a red paisley handkerchief to dry his tears as the bravoes rang out.
As he stumbled downstairs for the first time, Bob was waiting. His round, kind, ecstatic face told it all. ‘Didn’t you hear Giuseppi weeping with joy up in heaven? Oh, my dear boy,’ and they were in each other’s arms, frantically clapping each other’s backs – but not for long, Boris was next being smothered in kisses. Cecilia only had time to wipe away her mascara before they were back on stage.
Running on, with a mosaic of red lipstick down the side of his face, clapping all the time like an excited child, Boris shook hands repeatedly with each of the soloists, then brought the section leaders to their feet, with as many of the orchestra as he could reach. To mighty roars of applause and thunderous stampings of feet, he made the entire chorus stand up again and again. Then there were more cheers for the chorus master.
But the applause was for him and when two huge bunches of yellow carnations and lilies arrived for Monalisa and Cecilia, everyone laughed and yelled approval when Cecilia promptly gave hers to Boris with a little curtsy.
‘What are you doing later?’ she murmured.
‘More, more, more,’ yelled the entire Albert Hall, stamping their feet.
‘Vot shall I play? I breeng no music. I no expect,’ said Boris.
Bob smiled. ‘I took the precaution of getting copies run off of one of your songs.’
So Boris mounted the rostrum once more with Cecilia’s flowers still under his arm and the hall fell silent.
‘I no spik good English,’ he said in a choked voice, ‘but I zank you all. I feel the good weel. She carry me. I will have zee orchestra play leetle composition of mine in style of Russian folk-songs. That grass is not more green on other side of fence.’
Despite the orchestra and Cecilia sight-reading, the charm and haunting beauty of the little piece was indisputable and once more Boris was cheered to the rooftops and they were still applauding when Richard Baker regretfully bid goodbye to the viewers.
‘That was the most wonderful programme I’ve ever seen,’ said Georgie wiping her eyes. ‘You really missed something,’ she told Lysander as he came through the door weighed down with carrier bags.
‘I saw a bit in the chip shop,’ said Lysander. Then, turning to Rachel, ‘You must be so thrilled.’
But Rachel was inveighing against Bob for not making Boris play one of his more ambitious compositions as an encore. ‘Instead of that sentimental, derivative crap, and did you see the way Cecilia was pawing him? Talk about cradle-snatching.’
‘That’s a very ageist remark,’ said Flora gently, as she removed a McDonald’s cardboard box out of the nearest carrier bag. ‘Your ex-husband is without doubt one of the sexiest men in the world. All he had to do this evening was stand up and women of both sexes would have swooned all over him. As it was, he produced the most exciting and beautiful Requiem people will probably ever be privileged to hear and Cecilia sang like an angel, too. Unlike you, Boris hears music with his heart, not his ears, and you’re such a bitch, I can see exactly why he left you.’
‘Darling,’ protested Georgie.
‘You have no idea the sacrifices we’ve made,’ went on Flora, getting out a burger and taking a large bite, ‘I haven’t had a cigarette for over an hour. You’ve wrecked my mother’s and my last evening together and poor Lysander’s had to miss EastEnders and The Bill and he can’t even watch it later because we were taping Boris for you.’
‘Oh, shut up, Flora.’ Lysander leant forward to fill up Rachel’s glass. ‘Boris did so well, it’s a pity Richard Baker can’t interview him afterwards like rugger players.’
‘I know.’ Rachel’s stony face crumbled in an avalanche of grief. ‘He was absolutely miraculous, but I can’t ring and tell him because Chloe’ll be there.’
/>
Bob had spread the word before the concert and the green room was absolutely packed with Press.
‘Gimme a ring in the morning,’ said Larry, who’d actually stayed awake throughout, pressing his card on Boris. ‘I’ll record that folk-song and anything else you’ve got at home.’
In the past interviewers had slit their throats because Boris had been so inarticulate, but tonight he had found his tongue.
‘Why haven’t you been discovered earlier?’ asked the Standard.
‘I didn’t know how to beat when I start. The reviews were so terrible they almost depart me. I became Rannaldini’s assistant. Rannaldini never go seek.’
‘What happened to Rannaldini this evening?’ asked the Mail.
Boris grinned. ‘I think he ran into french window.’
‘Why doesn’t he programme more of your music?’
‘He don’t like eet. He no understand avant-garde music.’ Then, as an afterthought, ‘Rannaldini ees a vanker.’
The Press howled with laughter.
‘That’s enough,’ said Bob hastily. ‘Boris has had quite a night, give him a ring tomorrow morning.’
‘I geeve lecture on Mahler in the afternoon.’
‘Be the last you’ll have to give,’ said Bob.
Having extracted Boris rather reluctantly from Cecilia’s clutches he took him out to dinner at The Chanterelle in Old Brompton Road. Boris’s wrist ached so much he could hardly cut up his steak – he wasn’t very hungry anyway – but he drank a lot of red wine and talked a lot about Rachel.
‘She geeve me a terrible cold shoulder. At zee end of our marriage she won’t sleep wiz me because she tink I was carrying on, and I carried on because she wouldn’t sleep with me. Is vicious triangle. She is beetch, but I love her. I ’ate Rannaldini living so near her. You know he ’ad Chloe at one time.’
‘She’s only a bitch because she’s insecure,’ said Bob.
‘Chloe come home as I was leaving,’ said Boris darkly. ‘She could have come, but she was tired and her ’air was dirty. Rachel would have drop everything. But she would ’ave given me hard time because she was frighten for me. I once zink grass is greener on other side, but now I find eet cover een pesticide. Tonight was wonderful. I zank you, Bob, but I weesh Rachel and the children had been there. My new symphony is dedicated to Chloe. When I write it down in pencil, Chloe went over it in ink for me and put in the bars.’
‘I should keep your options open,’ said Bob. ‘Why not dedicate it to Cecilia? I’ve read it,’ he went on. ‘There are fantastic things in that symphony. I didn’t know such sounds existed. I’d send it to Simon Rattle. Rachel is miserable and she loves you. Why don’t you try again? If you had money, and you certainly will after this evening, things would be very different.’
‘Can I borrow the score?’ said Boris as they went out a little unsteadily into the hot russet night. ‘I like to go through and ’ighlight my mistakes.’
‘You can keep it,’ said Bob. ‘You’ve made history, like the night Lennie Bernstein took over from Bruno Walter.’
This was confirmed by ecstatic reviews and news stories in all the papers the following day. The best notice came from The Times critic, whose wife Rannaldini had once taken to bed in revenge for a lousy review. Invitations to conduct, to compose, to appear on television and give press interviews poured in all day. Instead of lecturing his students about Mahler, Boris sat on the edge of a desk and told them about his night at the Albert Hall.
Rannaldini, who watched the video with two very black eyes, was insane with jealousy. Ringing up Bob, he screamed at him for replacing him with such a hopeless amateur.
‘He was brilliant,’ argued Bob. ‘He had the longest ovation I’ve ever heard.’
‘Promenaders ’ave no discrimination. Eef Tabloid come on in a white tie they cheer their ’eads off.’
Rannaldini was even crosser when the story, leaked by the bimbo next door, of the row with Cecilia and Hermione, was plastered all over The Scorpion.
The next time he confronted the London Met to rehearse the Missa Solemnis they launched into ‘Two Lovely Black Eyes’ and, when he screamed at them, they refused to be intimidated and played it again. When it came to the public performance the front-desk cellist, whose Strad Rannaldini had endangered, deliberately played ‘God Save the Queen’ in the wrong key.
37
Machiavellian as ever, Rannaldini decided to avenge himself on Boris by laying siege to Rachel. This would not only enrage Hermione and Cecilia, with whom he was still furious, but also Flora who refused to take the whole eye-blacking incident seriously. She insisted on calling him Panda II and had been cheeky enough to insist that Boris’s Requiem had been the best thing she had ever heard.
Rannaldini was further turned on by Rachel’s animosity and the way she kept firing off incensed letters to the local papers complaining about his clay shoots, his closing of footpaths, and his spraying with pesticides.
Ignoring such bombardment, Rannaldini started dropping in at Jasmine Cottage, occasionally at weekends encountering Lysander, who was at a loose end with Guy at home and the polo season over. Rannaldini had also persuaded Catchitune to sign up Rachel to record the Rachmaninov piano concertos in the autumn with himself conducting. He knew it was too big a break for her to refuse. He was amused that, despite his largesse, Rachel kept an icy distance. And just as the husbands of Paradise had tried to make the best chocolate cake for the fête, now following Rannaldini’s example, they vied, unknown to their wives, to be the first to comfort Rachel.
Lysander thought the whole thing hilarious and promptly picked up the telephone.
‘Ferdie, Ferdie, you’ll never guess. Rachel, my eye-gel friend has emerged in Paradise, and all the husbands are mad about her. They’re all putting up shelves for her health foods and stalling their mowers with unleaded petrol. First they rolled up with trays of tomatoes for chutney, last week it was two-legged carrots, this week it’s apples. Her cottage looks like Harvest Festival, and Rachel chucks out most of it because it’s not organic enough, so Arthur and Tiny are doing terribly well.’
‘Who’s after her?’ asked Ferdie beadily.
‘Well, Rannaldini, Guy, Larry, Bob and the vicar for starters.’
‘Larry and Guy bloody shouldn’t be,’ snapped Ferdie, thinking of Marigold’s retainer and Georgie’s fat monthly cheque. ‘Your only justification for being down there is to keep them keen on their wives. You’d better come back to London and earn some serious money. I’ve got a terrific job for you in Kenya, beautiful rich wife, shit-of-a-parasite husband, stacks of polo and racing.’
‘I’m happy in Paradise,’ bleated Lysander in a panic at the thought of leaving Georgie. ‘None of them is serious about Rachel. They just don’t want each other to get her. Rachel’s a crosspatch, but seriously good-looking. I wouldn’t mind giving her one myself.’
‘If you stopped at one, I wouldn’t mind,’ said Ferdie disapprovingly. ‘I had to cope with your father yesterday, rolled up in a strop because you hadn’t written. He’s left you a letter.’
‘I won’t read it. It’ll be just another lecture about getting a proper job. I’ve been working Rannaldini’s horses,’ said Lysander by way of mitigation. ‘He wants me to race ride for him in the winter.’
‘That won’t keep you in fags.’
‘Fags want to keep me; the vicar’s asked me to go to the Holy Land.’
‘Don’t be fatuous. How’s Natasha?’ asked Ferdie. Even her name still caused him pain.
‘Gone back to school. But she and Flora are home on Sunday for Rannaldini’s famous tennis tournament. Do you want to play?’
‘OK. I’ll come down for the weekend.’ It would be an excuse to see Natasha and protect his investment.
Poor Kitty, meanwhile, had been having a dreadful summer. Increasingly desperate for a baby, she had spent nearly all the running-away money she had saved in case things became too awful, hawking herself from one gynaecologist to another,
putting up with the embarrassment of endless tests and internal probings. But even when her tubes were blown, no-one could find anything wrong.
‘And it’s not my husband, he’s got loads of kids already,’ Kitty kept telling the doctors.
Rannaldini, who bitterly resented any time Kitty took off, felt she should have been satisfied with her seven stepchildren – eight including little Cosmo.
‘Concentrate on being a mother to them, and a secretary to me.’
But I’m almost the same age as your older children, thought Kitty, and the young ones, although very cute, made her feel guilty about longing so much for one of her own.
Her chances seemed less and less likely as Rannaldini slept with her so seldom. She had put up with Rannaldini and Flora all summer, and she had been upset and had to fend off the Press over the eye-blacking furore, but it had given her a faint hope that with Hermione and Cecilia out of favour, and Flora back at Bagley Hall, Rannaldini might have more time for her.
But immediately Cecilia, whom Rannaldini had to forgive because she was starring in Fidelio, turned up to use Valhalla as a base for the duration of filming, Hermione, who was still excluded from Maestro’s presence, became even more histrionic.
Cecilia was easier than Hermione because she was less stupid and patronizing, and at least had a sense of humour. But she was just as demanding and narcissistic and there was also her total assumption that Rannaldini was still in love with her.
‘I cannot understand, Keety, why he is so obsessively jealous of all my admirers. He ripped out the telephone when I was talking to Carlo the other day, and I daren’t tell him Luigi wants to take me to Thailand.’
Every time Cecilia went out she invited Kitty to her room pretending to ask her advice on what to wear, but really to show off how wonderful she looked in clothes. Often, to Kitty’s embarrassment, she would greet her in the nude, taunting her with a body that was full-breasted but wonderfully slender elsewhere, and magnificent for someone well over forty. How could Rannaldini ever notice Kitty with that around?