by Jilly Cooper
This didn’t stop Hermione telling the Telegraph how much she admired the RSO for giving amateurs a chance to conduct.
‘It was the same when Edward Heath did Cockaigne with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. They were so supportive to him, and ordinary folk in the audience loved feeling they could have got up and done the same thing. Music should be brought to the people, my next open-air concert… By the way d’you happen to know the name of the First Horn?’
‘OK, darling,’ shouted Rodney, teetering on a sofa to see over Abby’s ring of admirers, ‘just off to look at the conservatory.’ Climbing down, he linked arms with a voluptuous brunette wearing a lot of fuchsia-pink lipstick.
On their way, they had to go through Lord Leatherhead’s office, where, on another sofa, Rodney noticed his Third Trumpet, pleasuring a blonde, and, patting him on his broad, bobbing Glaswegian bottom, called out: ‘Keep to the left, keep to the left, you never know who you may meet coming the other way.’ Then, bending down to ascertain the identity of the blonde, added, ‘Hallo, Anthea darling, so glad my boys are taking care of you.’
‘Patrick Leatherhead ought to put some of your brass section in his wildlife park,’ said the brunette as she and Rodney reached the conservatory.
Terrified of being interrogated about his mother’s marriage by Dame Edith, Lady Baddingham, the Press or, even worse, Hermione, Marcus lurked behind a huge bamboo plant expecting the Viet Cong to attack at any moment. Peering through the leaves, he could see Abby still surrounded by admirers, the ringed moon before bad weather again. He was agonizingly aware of his own desperate poverty and Abby’s leap back to fame. She would vanish from his life now.
‘Hallo, darling boy.’ It was Rodney, wiping off fuchsia-pink lipstick. ‘Hasn’t Abby done well?’
‘Marvellously.’
‘Been a bit like rescuing a blackbird with a broken wing,’ observed Rodney. ‘However fond you get of the thing as you nurse it back to health, you’ve got to set it free, and just hope it survives and comes back.’
Marcus gave a start. The old buffer was more perceptive than he’d thought.
‘I’m away for ten days,’ added Rodney. ‘But give me a ring when I get back and come and play for me. Must go and have a word with darling Norma Major.’
Abby was dying on her feet, drunk, because she hadn’t eaten since breakfast, running only on adrenalin. The good thing about fame was you never talked to yourself at parties, the bad thing was you tended only to talk to the people who wanted to boast they’d met you, the interesting ones were usually too shy.
Peggy Parker, a non-executive director of the RSO and chairman of Parker and Parker in the High Street, had wanted to meet Abby all evening.
‘Ay must thank ye-ou, Abigail for a most enjoyable concert. Your outfit was spot-on, very tasteful and understated as befitted the occasion.’
Clad in thousands of silver sequins, weighed down by make-up, fat-nosed, little-eyed, Mrs Parker looked like a hippo who’d spent an afternoon at Estée Lauder. Pinioning Abby against a suit of armour, similar to the corsets which somehow induced curves in her massive bulk, she launched into the offensive.
‘But next time you return to Rutminster, Abigail, I hope you will feature one of our evening ge-owns on the podium. Ay even thought of creatin’ a new colour for you, a light cerise, called Podium Pink. Ay can see you in cerise.’
And I’ll see you in hell, thought Abby, fingering her silver garlic.
She felt boarded up, like the Canterville Ghost. Behind Mrs Parker, Howie was hopping from foot to foot, desperate to whisk her off to impress someone else. She would have liked to talk to the First Flute, Peter Plumpton, who had played so exquisitely in the slow movement of the Tchaikovsky, or to have picked over the concert with Hugo. But Hugo was a political animal and having chatted up all the record producers, was now deeply engrossed with Dame Edith. Anyway Abby really only wanted to talk to Viking. She could see his blond head against the peacock-blue wallpaper, but he had been besieged as she had all evening, and she was leaving first thing in the morning. And oh hell, Hugo had shaken off Dame Edith and was moving in on the left.
Then, miraculously, as if magnetized by her longing, Viking looked round, stared for a fraction longer than was polite, and then smiled. Abby felt her exhaustion and depression vanish as her cramp had during the concert. Almost imperceptibly Viking jerked his head towards a door on the right marked ‘Private’.
‘Must go to the bathroom,’ mumbled Abby. ‘Great to meet you, Mrs Parker.’
She found Viking in a library, reading a book on fly fishing, Mr Nugent stretched out on a dark green damask sofa behind him.
‘Well done,’ he said softly. ‘That’s one concert I’d have done for nothing,’ which is the greatest compliment a musician can pay.
Abby flushed. ‘You were terrific, too.’
Viking noticed how tired she looked, but how the clinging gold body-stocking brought out the blazing yellow of her eyes, and how enticingly it clung to her breasts and flat midriff, and how his hand itched to follow it inside the black leather trousers down between her legs.
‘Nigel Dempster just told me you don’t want to be regarded as a woman,’ he said mockingly.
‘Not if it means the Press only concentrating on my sex life.’
‘Sure, sure. What happened just before the love duet?’
‘Cramp, my stick hand gave out.’
Viking picked it up idly, shooting a thousand volts through her.
‘Poor little hand, probably jealous of all the attention the left one’s been getting. I’ve got a mentally handicapped sister in Doblin. She’s otterly gorgeous, but everyone makes such a foss of her, her brothers and sisters sometimes feel very neglected.’
He picked up Abby’s other hand, subtly drawing her nearer as he examined the scar.
‘How’s this one coming on?’
‘I don’t know,’ Abby snatched both hands away. ‘I can’t talk about it.’ Although she wanted to terribly.
‘Mosst have been hell watching Hugo,’ said Viking gently.
‘Hell,’ confessed Abby. ‘His technique’s to die for and he has a beautiful sound, OK? But he lacks drama, right? I kept thinking how outrageously I’d have acted up at the beginning, and then how passionately and tenderly I’d have abdicated at the end.’
‘Abby-dicated,’ murmured Viking.
Embarrassed, close to tears, she glanced up at him, noticing the dark blur of beard on the hard, lean jaw, the big laughing lips, slightly reddened and bruised from having been pressed so long against his mouthpiece (oh lucky, lucky mouthpiece), the wide nostrils of his snub nose, the fan of dark gold eyelashes, above the long, speculative eyes that were slowly searching her face.
‘Oh yes, sweetheart,’ he said softly.
Abby jumped as Mr Nugent shot off the sofa and out of the door.
‘Where’s he gone?’
‘Must’ve heard your heart beating. Nugent’s terrified of thunder.’
‘It wasn’t!’ said Abby confused and indignant. ‘How can you assume? That’s ridiculous.’ Panic made her ungracious. ‘Anyway, they say you’re just a stud.’
‘Sure, that’s why I’m stoddying you.’
He had such an untroubled smile, so utterly confident of approval. Abby wondered if the silver locket round his neck contained a picture of Juno.
‘Bad luck getting trapped by Mrs Parker,’ said Viking. ‘She puts such a strain on her corsets. Blue and I thought of getting up a petition to Save the Whalebone.’
Abby laughed, relieved yet disappointed at the shift in subject. ‘Must be kinda fun playing for the RSO,’ she said, hearing tarzan howls coming from next door.
‘Kinda,’ Viking mimicked her. ‘You don’t earn any money. The difference is if you’re a bank manager and you’re caught holding hands with a cosstomer, you’re fired. Here, if the Second Bassoon is caught bonking a fifteen year old in the H.P. car-park-’
‘Or the instrument room,’ said A
bby drily.
‘Or the instrument room indeed. Rodney will just say, “Which car? Where is she? I want part of the action.”’
‘Who’s taking my name in vain? My two favourite people.’ Rodney put his arms round both their shoulders.
Hell, hell, hell, thought Abby.
‘Am I pushing myself too hard?’ Rodney frowned at himself in the looking-glass opposite.
‘What have you been up to?’ said Abby, noticing fuchsia-pink lipstick all over his shirt.
Pressed against his belly, Abby and Viking stared at each other.
‘Oh, there you are, Rodney, at last I’ve caught up with you.’
It was Mark Carling looking distraught, closely followed by Nugent licking his lips.
‘Can I pin you down on repertoire? You know we’re planning a Haydn/Stravinsky festival for next March. The Rite of Spring hasn’t been taken… I was just wondering.’
‘Darling boy, I couldn’t do the first fucking bar of that, you know I’m useless at those big orchestral thingies. Juno darling, you get prettier by the second.’
It was the Steel Elf.
‘Oh, there you are, Victor,’ said Juno coolly. ‘Get off the settee, Nugent.’
As Nugent slid off the sofa, Viking slid out of Rodney’s embrace.
‘You’re tired, sweetheart.’ His voice was gentle and solicitous.
‘A little.’
‘I’ll take you home.’
As he put an arm round Juno’s shoulders, she looked as tiny and delicate as one of Oberon’s fairies.
‘’Night, Mark. Congratulations, Maestro,’ Viking nodded at Abby. ‘See you when you get back, Rodney.’
Watching him dropping a kiss on Juno’s hair as they went out, Abby felt as though she’d been kicked in the gut.
‘Why does he wear that goddamn locket round his neck?’
‘It contains the mingled earths of Northern and Southern Ireland,’ said Rodney.
‘I wondered if I could introduce you to some of our sponsors, Abby?’ asked Mark diffidently.
The next moment, shouting, ‘Call you in the morning, Viking,’ Howie erupted into the room.
‘Where in hell did you get to?’ he reproved Abby. ‘You gotta meet Sir Larry Lockton of Lockton Records. They’ve just had a massive injection of Japanese dough.’
But everything was suddenly too much for Abby.
‘All I want you to do,’ she begged Howie tearfully, ‘is to tell Christopher I did well this evening.’ And she fled from the room.
Marcus finally tracked her down in the spare room where people had dumped their belongings. She had taken someone’s violin from its case and had it under her chin. Her right hand was wielding the bow, but the fingers of her left hand, with all the pathos of a crushed daddy-long-legs, were impotently scrabbling at the strings. She was crying helplessly.
Horrified, Marcus ran to her.
‘Abby darling, please don’t. You did brilliantly this evening.’
‘I don’t give a damn about conducting. All I want to do is play the violin again. And you can fuck off, and get out of my hair.’
‘Pissed,’ commiserated Dixie, coming out of another spare room as Marcus stumbled down the stairs. ‘My wife’s the same. Drink always gets women like that.’
Rodney took Abby back to the Old Bell.
In the morning, she discovered Marcus had gone.
TWENTY-FOUR
Abby’s reviews were sensational. MIGHTY LIKE A ROSEN, wrote the Observer, ABBY INTERNATIONAL, said the Telegraph. Even the Rutshire Butcher, a local malcontent, who strung and strung up for The Times, who had a terrifying influence over the Arts Council and who usually flayed the orchestra alive, was extraordinarily complimentary and compared Abby to Lester Piggott galvanizing a seaside donkey into winning the Derby.
The RSO grumbled that it was always the same, if a concert was bad, the orchestra got slated, if good the conductor was praised, but in reality they were euphoric, and so were the management. The takings, plus an unexpected one hundred thousand pound legacy from some local philanthropist, went a long way to wiping out the massive overdraft run up by Rodney overpaying his famous friends.
Despite the accolades, Abby felt very flat and restless after the concert. She was also ashamed of being vile to Marcus, but when she rang the Old Rectory, Mrs Edwards, in high excitement, revealed that Marcus had moved out and not left an address.
Back at H.P. Hall, however, Mark Carling had received a fax from Boris’s agent: Boris wanted to duck out of conducting the Modern Music series, because he was still wrestling with Rachel’s Requiem, which would now have to be rescheduled yet again.
As a result, Howie and Mark engaged in a little horse trading. Abby would be allowed to cut her teeth on the Modern Music series, and Howie would let the RSO have Shepherd Denston soloists and singers at a discount. Megagram were delighted. Abby’s reissued records were racing up the classical charts. The orchestra was thrilled. The Modern Music series, known as ‘Squeakygate’, and only put on to suck up to the Arts Council, was anathema, and now they could at least relieve the boredom by lusting after Abby. Abby was equally thrilled and, already getting above herself, talking to Flora in grandiose fashion about being the next Giulini.
Temporarily she decided to stay at the Old Bell, and was put in the Lord Byron Suite overlooking the river. There was a facsimile of ‘So, we’ll go no more a roving’ on the wall, and a painting of Byron in a turban, looking as dark and explosive as Abby herself.
With concerts most Saturdays, the orchestral weekend fell on Sunday and Monday. Arriving on her first Tuesday, Abby found the dark red H.P. Hall rising out of a ruff of white cherry blossom.
Standing on a flat roof, letting down rolls of different brands of lavatory paper to test which was the longest, were Miss Priddock, assorted secretaries and John Drummond the cat, who fancied himself in an Andrex ad.
This was yet another economy measure, along with stopping the orchestra using the management telephones, reducing the wattage of the light bulbs, and not replacing musicians when they resigned.
On the way to the dressing-room, Abby passed the sanctimonious and detested general manager of the orchestra, Miles Brian-Knowles, inevitably known as ‘Brown-Nose’. Miles had thatched mousy hair, a complexion like luncheon meat, caused by frequent outbreaks of acne, a permanently pursed mouth and eyes so close together they could see through the same keyhole. A born-again Christian, who held prayer meetings with selected members of the orchestra, Miles always wore shirts with a high white collar giving him an ecclesiastical look, and softly soled shoes, enabling him to spy out bad behaviour and then sneak to Peggy Parker. He’d achieved Olympic-level at sucking up to his superiors hence the nickname. He was now having a row with Viking.
‘You were not at your great-aunt’s funeral,’ he was saying in an aggrieved fluting curate’s voice. ‘I saw you with my own eyes playing on television for the London Met.’
‘Indeed you did not,’ Viking was saying indignantly. ‘That was my twin brother Danny, he’s a far finer player than me.’
‘Why wasn’t he burying your great-aunt?’
‘Danny has no sense of duty.’ Viking raised his eyes piously to heaven.
‘I do not believe you, Viking. You did not apply for a letter releasing you to play for the London Met. You could be sacked for this. And please don’t bring that dog in here.’ He glared at Mr Nugent who sat listening with his head on one side.
Viking’s spreading his wings, thought Abby, Covent Garden last month, the Festival Hall this. Juno’s pressurizing was beginning to work.
In the auditorium the orchestra were re-assembling, discussing rooms they’d wallpapered or plants they’d bought over the weekend. A violinist was cutting his nails. Two women viola players were trying to organize a dinner party.
Abby was given a desultory clap when she came in. In return she thanked the RSO for a wonderful concert, and said how happy she was to see them again.
‘Now l
et’s have an A, Simon,’ she asked the First Oboe.
Because it was April Fool’s Day, Simon Painshaw, with a completely straight face, played A flat.
‘Everyone transpose half a tone up,’ said Abby, who had absolute pitch and knew it was April Fool’s Day, and brought her stick down.
Caught on the hop, the orchestra burst out laughing and gave her a proper round of applause.
The morning was spent sifting through repertoire, struggling with a lot of swearing through a horror by a member of the Lesser Avant-Garde of Bulgaria, full of grunts and shrieks as though a tom-cat was being gang-raped by elderly badgers. They then moved on to an appalling serenade for solo triangle, cow bells and tom-toms with extended catawauls on the strings, written by someone called Roger Parker.
Viking immediately took out a final reminder from British Telecom and on the back drew a bucket, and wrote ‘crap’ on the side, then handed it down the row. Abby, of the same mind, called a halt after five minutes.
‘We’re not programming this garbage.’
‘Maestro,’ Dixie Douglas, the troublemaking First Trombone, put down page three of the Sun and raised a large red hand. ‘I would respectfully submit that this is a work of towering genius.’
The orchestra laughed.
Dixie then explained that the ‘garbage’ entitled ‘Eternal Triangle’, had been composed by ‘Sonny’ Parker, Peggy’s ghastly son, the RSO’s composer-in-residence.
It was hoped Mrs Parker would give a quarter of a million pounds towards the orchestra’s centenary celebrations next year.
‘A concert has been planned for her sixtieth birthday,’ concluded Dixie, ‘in the gre-ounds of her ’uge house.’
‘I don’t care,’ said Abby mutinously. ‘It’s still garbage.’
The orchestra exchanged delighted glances. A run-in between L’Appassionata and Nosy Parker had distinct possibilities.
Later Abby had a cup of coffee with Mark Carling who was beginning to meet her eyes and joke with her.
‘“Magnificent” is not the word you’d use about this office,’ he gazed round at the chaos.
Mark was a sweet man, who loved music with a passion and who had previously been very happy running an early music group in London.