by Jilly Cooper
‘No matter how hard the duck tried to run,’ read Marcus, ‘the wolf was getting nearer and nearer and nearer.’
‘And then he caught ’er,’ said an unmistakable bitchy, deep, husky, foreign voice, ‘an’ weeth one gulp, swallow ’er.’
Marcus dropped the score, for there piratically grinning up at him, ‘a laughing devil in his sneer’ stood Alexei, smothered in a great wolf-coat, despite the punishing heat. With him were Evgenia, ravishing in a green sleeveless mini dress, with a white shawl slung round her hips and George looking big and suntanned after a week outside organizing things and as proud as hell.
The orchestra put down their instruments and gave them a clap. Abby jumped down falling on their necks, somewhat ostentatiously gabbling away in Russian, introducing Julian and Dimitri who would translate if they needed him.
‘Hi Marcus, how’s Prokofiev Three going?’ shouted Evgenia, holding up a little white hand.
Marcus blushed furiously to be singled out, particularly when Dixie shouted: ‘Go for it Marcus, you might get lucky,’ and even more so when Alexei reached up, squeezed the back of his leg, and with a sly smile handed him back the score, murmuring: ‘Hi, baby boy.’
Saying he and Evgenia would rehearse when they’d warmed up, George was about to whisk them off to their dressing-rooms which had been built under the beech trees when Miles bustled up.
‘I’ve got your schedule here, Mr Nemerovsky.’ Then he added unctuously, ‘After the rehearsal we know you’d like a steak and French fries, and then a rest but at six I’ve arranged for the The Times, the Independent, the Guardian and the Telegraph to have half an hour each with you.’
‘Niet,’ said Alexi firmly. ‘Thees is private visit.’
‘But you’ve got loads of time, you won’t be on before half-past ten.’
‘I have to lose fifteen year at least to become Romeo, I need till ten-thirty to prepare myself.’
‘It’s taken weeks to arrange,’ spluttered Miles.
‘Unarrange eet then.’
‘They may write very uncomplimentary things.’
‘Ees any different?’ shrugged Alexei and stalked off to his dressing-room.
‘Disgusting yob,’ said Hilary furiously.
‘What a star,’ sighed Flora.
‘He’s brought a portable barre,’ said Tommy Stainforth knowledgeably.
‘I didn’t know he was a boozer,’ said Cherub.
‘No, to practise ballet on, dickhead.’
Leaving poorjessica to cancel the Press, Miles turned his officiousness on the musicians. Mounting the stage with a large cardboard box, he handed over brilliant crimson silk jackets to the women in the orchestra. They were to wear them with black midi skirts to standardize their appearance, to match the RSO lorry, which had been newly painted crimson, and to curb such excesses as Nellie’s plunges and Flora’s ribbon straps.
‘That colour will clash with my sunburn,’ said Candy in outrage.
‘Silk’s so hot,’ moaned poor Mary, who was not enjoying pregnancy in such stifling heat.
‘And it’s got a polyester lining,’ said Clare in horror. ‘I can’t wear man-made fibres.’
‘I’m not wearing it at all,’ said Flora, ‘I’ll look like a blood orange.’
‘Not the most becomin’ shade for overheated orchestral complexions,’ observed Miss Parrott, retrieving a dropped stitch.
‘Well, I think they’re lovely,’ protested Juno, who never flushed pinker than a wild rose.
‘So do I, thank you, Miles,’ said Hilary, who was pale with dark hair and had also chosen the colour.
‘They’ll give the orchestra an identity,’ fluted Miles. ‘And look most dramatic beside the white-dinner jackets and while I’ve got you I want a word about protocol. Tonight’s as good a time to start as any when we’re anticipating a huge crowd of first-time concert goers. I want you all to come onto the stage together, five mintues before the off and not all straggle on in your own time, and more important, I want you to look cheerful.’
‘On our salary?’ scoffed Randy
Despite the heat the musicians laughed.
‘And to smile — ’ Miles glared at Randy — ‘both at the audience and each other. You are performers, not just musicians and at the end of a piece or in a lull, it would be rather nice if you exchanged little smiling conversations like newsreaders.’
‘Cuckoo, cuckoo,’ the angelic third floated out from the saffron depths of an oak tree.
‘You’re right, birdie, he is cuckoo,’ shouted Dixie in disgust. ‘What’s the point of smiling if you’re hidden in the pit.’
‘Can we get on with Romeo and Juliet, Miles?’ demanded Abby, who was getting increasingly jumpy at the prospect of conducting Alexei.
‘What d’you want us to be today, too fast or too loud?’ drawled Viking sarcastically.
Abby’s lips tightened.
‘As you know,’ she began, ‘Juliet on the night of the ball, from being an under-aged schoolgirl, who wants to stay home and play with her dolls, changes into a young woman swept by deepest passion. This is the greatest love scene ever written in literature or music and tonight it is to be danced by the greatest dancer. As someone said of Nureyev, he only had to walk onto the stage, raise his arm, and the lake would be filled with swans. With Nemerovsky, he has-’
‘Only to raise a stand and the polo field will be swarming with under-aged schoolboys,’ shouted Viking. ‘God Save the Queer.’
‘Will you shut up?’ screamed Abby to more guffaws. ‘You’re just jealous because Alexei’s a big star and you’re nothing but a big fish in a very small polluted pool.’
‘In this country they pronounce it p’lyooted,’ said Viking.
The row was only postponed because George returned with Evgenia, pretty as a lily in a white unitard, and Alexei, flaunting everything in clinging black Lycra shorts. Most dancers are well past their prime at thirty-seven, but Alexei’s golden body, oiled and rippling with muscle seemed to glow like old ivory in the white hot sun.
‘Look at that huge bulge,’ said Cherub in awe.
‘He’s got two pairs of legwarmers shoved down there,’ said Viking dismissively.
The Russians like their Romeo and Juliet majestic and imposing. Alexei was soon jackbooting around, changing tempi and criticizing the set.
‘That’s wrong,’ said Viking disapprovingly, as the music grew more and more funereal. ‘Romeo and Juliet aren’t dead yet and who wrote this music anyway, Prokofiev or Nemerovksy?’
Now Alexei was complaining about the pillar, behind which he had to await Juliet and the height of the balcony.
‘The balcony is fine, Alexei,’ said Evgenia running down the steps, ‘last time I dance Juliet, it nearly collapse beneath me.’
‘Up two three four, down two three four,’ called out Alexei, hoisting her into the air as if she was no heavier than a kitten. ‘Eet’s still too quick, Abby.’
‘Eef we could have pas de chat a bit slower too, Abby,’ begged Evgenia.
Knowing every man in the place was lusting after Evgenia, Alexei seemed to take a perverse pleasure in playing the scene for real but such was his presence that the bright burning afternoon became as filled with passion and dark lurking menace as night-time Verona.
Marcus was bitterly disappointed to miss Alexei’s rehearsal but quite relieved to be dragged inside because Georgie Maguire, with whom he’d spent Christmas, wanted a piano rehearsal. Like Flora, she had rolled up weighed down with presents, a copy of her latest album for Abby, a huge bottle of Joy for Flora, chewstiks for Trevor the mongrel, a biography of Pablo Gonzales for Marcus and a huge box of Belgian chocolates for George.
‘Miss Priddock said you had a sweet tooth.’
‘George’ll have to ration them to one a day,’ muttered Juno.
Juno was not the only one enraged. How could her mother treat with the enemy, thought Flora furiously, when George’s only aim was to build supermarkets and sack 95 per cent of the RSO.
Georgie had also brought several crates of iced beer for the orchestra and was so warm and friendly that Marcus longed to pour all his troubles out to her.
Singing half-voice because she didn’t want to tire her vocal cords, Georgie whizzed through Mozart, Puccini, Gershwin, Rodgers and Hammerstein, some VE Day songs and finally two of Strauss’s Four Last Songs because she wanted to raise two fingers to Dame Hermione who regarded them as her speciality.
Georgie then decided she and Marcus needed a drink but they found there wasn’t a maid in the house nor a waiter in the hospitality tent because they’d all sloped off to gaze at Nemerovsky. Over the hawthorn and lilac-scented air drifted the sweet doomed notes of the balcony scene.
‘Too slow,’ said Marcus with a frown. ‘Abby’ll have to divide.’
‘Lovely,’ sighed Georgie. ‘Let’s raid the fridge, I’m starving.’
The fridge, however, under Juno’s influence was disappointingly full of plain yoghurt, undressed lettuce, bean sprouts, carrots cut into strips to fend off George’s hunger pangs and plates of cold chicken and beef covered with cling film and marked ‘Lunch’ and ‘Dinner’.
Worse still, there was absolutely no drink so they had to do with Perrier. Georgie lit a cigarette and wanted to gossip.
‘Are you OK, Marcus? You look dreadfully pale. I suppose the pollen count’s gone through the ozone layer in this heat. You ought to get some concealer for those dark rings.’
Ought to get concealer for my feelings, thought Marcus wearily.
‘I saw Nemerovsky in New York.’ It was as though Georgie had read his thoughts. ‘He’s so cool you burn yourself, like ice trays out of the freezer. Is Flora OK? She’s been so off-hand, and she wasn’t a bit pleased with the bottle of Joy. I hoped it might prove symbolic. And she’s put on weight.’
‘That’s because she’s given up smoking, very nobly, because it gives me asthma.’
‘God, I wish I could. What happened to that nice Irish man who kept ringing her over Christmas?’
‘It petered out. He’s a seriously good bloke, he’s playing your horn solo in the Strauss.’
‘I guess she’s still hooked on Rannaldini,’ sighed Georgie. ‘He’s such a shit. Oh sorry, I forgot he was your stepfather.’
Opening the fridge again Georgie removed a cling-filmed plate of cold beef.
‘Shall we take that for Trevor? He’s such a duck. My elder daughter Melanie’s having a baby in November — I do hope I like it as much as Trevor.’
As the temperature rose so did tempers. Abby got even angrier with Viking. Not only had he stood on his chair when he was playing so he could watch Evgenia and later Georgie, who, being Irish, of course, took to him immediately, but now she’d caught him coming out of Evgenia’s dressing-room, ostentatiously wiping off lipstick.
‘Why must you always rock boats?’ stormed Abby. ‘Alexei’s antsy enough without you jumping on his girlfriend.’
‘Grow up, sweetheart. Alexei is about as straight as Shirley Temple’s curls.’
‘You’re just jealous. Don’t you dare upset him.’
‘Not nearly as much as Gwynneth and Gilbert have. That two broomstick family barged in onannounced as Alexei was slapping on his tenth layer of Max Factor to bring him greetings from the Arts Council of Great Britain. Alexei threw a queenie fit and started stoning them with pots of cold cream. You have to applaud the guy’s style.’
‘They have no understanding of the artistic temperament,’ raged Abby. ‘And I hope you and Flora are going to keep your dogs under control this evening.’
‘Of course, here’s one of them now,’ said Viking as Fat Isobel waddled up with a pile of evening-shirts and a white DJ on a coat-hanger.
‘I managed to get the mark out,’ she said adoringly.
‘That’s a darling girl, I’ll buy you a beer later,’ Viking pecked Isobel’s big blushing cheek.
‘You are so arrogant and lazy,’ said Abby furiously. ‘Why don’t you get someone to pull your toilet paper for you.’
FIFTY
Not a blade of grass could be seen on George’s polo field as loud speakers and huge screens waited to relay the concert to an audience any rock star would have killed for. Many of them waved Union Jacks in anticipation of the VE Day celebrations starting at midnight. In the distance Rutminster Cathedral, its spire rising out of the billowing green woods like a wizard’s hat, struck eight o’clock. Over the stage and pit hung a huge canopy like a nun’s head-dress, dark blue inside and dotted with stars to create Romeo and Juliet’s night-time Verona.
Into the pit through a side-door trouped the RSO in their white DJs and new crimson jackets, which were already uniformly darkened by damp patches under the armpits. The younger girls had rolled back their sleeves. Nellie had undone her top three buttons. Aware that her lower half was totally hidden in the pit, Flora had undone all but the top button. Everyone’s toothpaste smiles on Miles’s instructions were totally obscured by Peggy Parker’s massive flower arrangements.
Huddled in the front of the stalls, Marcus wished Abby had given him a less public seat. He was terrified Declan, his father’s great friend, would notice him and seek him out later. Even worse, on his right in a white shirt already covered with chocolate, a bow-tie and shorts of bottle-green velvet, wriggled two-and-half-year-old Justin propped up by three cushions so he could see Mary, his mother, at the front desk of the Second Violins. Marcus liked children but reduced to jelly at the prospect of meeting Alexei at the party later, he was driven demented by Justin’s incessant and often incomprehensible prattle. Johnno, his father, demoralized by four months out of work, wearing a crumpled light-weight suit which Mary hadn’t had time to iron, didn’t seem much of a disciplinarian.
‘So good to see little ones brought early to the sacred fountain,’ said Gwynneth, who clearly didn’t believe in deodorants, and who, to Marcus’s horror, was sitting on his left.
She was wearing vast silver earrings in the shape of ballet shoes in deference to Alexei, but was now furious because he’d hit her on the nipple with ajar of moisturizer and a large pot of cleansing cream had landed on Gilbert’s sandalled toe.
‘Gilbert’s bound to lose the nail.’
And half a ton of Rutminster dirt beneath it will be homeless, thought Marcus with a shudder.
‘I’d sue. Nemerovsky can afford it,’ said Peggy Parker who was massive in maroon on Gilbert’s left.
She was livid because Sonny hadn’t been given a slot in the gala, and her flowers on the platform hadn’t got a large enough plug in the programme.
To tumultuous applause Abby swept on looking dramatic, but definitely OTT in a purple tunic and floppy trousers. Influenced by Byron in the Old Bell, she had added a white turban secured with an amethyst pin.
‘Abby just wash her hair,’ piped up Justin.
‘Where’s Jemima, Imran?’ shouted the husband of one of Rutminster’s new Labour councillors, who’d never been to a concert before, and who was already plastered on George’s champagne.
The audience tittered. Abby gritted her teeth. She’d have had no problem carrying off the turban if Viking hadn’t called her Ghandi Pandy in the wings.
Checking that Venturer Television and Classic FM were rolling, she brought down her stick.
Cathie Jones, still ashen with fear despite the punishing heat of the pit, played the solo quite exquisitely in Roman Carnival. In fact everything was fizzing along splendidly until Abby discovered Flora’s goddamned dog had chewed up the last pages of the score, so she had to pretend to be turning earlier pages not to unnerve the orchestra. Not that she could see anything anyway because of the sweat cascading down from under her turban.
She couldn’t even yell at Flora for Trevor’s misdemeanour because Flora’s mother was on next. Ravishing in plunging coffee coloured lace, her red curls half piled up, half trailing down her freckled suntanned back, Georgie was soon belting out Mozart and Puccini as effortlessly as Gershwin. After years of smoking
and far from light drinking, her voice was not perfect but it had exuberance and enormous charm.
‘Some day he’ll come along, the man I love,’ sang Georgie.
He already has, thought Marcus helplessly.
‘You have to admit my mother is a total star,’ muttered Flora to Fat Isobel.
It was time for Peter and the Wolf and Declan O’Hara, shaggy, noble and streaming with sweat like a Newfoundland dog just emerged from the sea. Being a true pro, he had spent hours perfecting the timing and, being Declan, he cried in all the sad bits and milked every dramatic effect for the television cameras.
Entranced, hypnotized, Marcus listened to the dark reverberating Irish voice: ‘Brave boys like he are not afraid of wolves.’
Oh but I am, sighed Marcus.
‘Just then a big grey wolf did come out of the forest’ went on Declan, narrowing his eyes and dramatically echoing Alexei in the Ivy.
Who else but Viking could play the wicked wolf? thought Abby furiously as she cued in the three horns.
Finally after the catching of the wolf and the triumphant procession, Declan came to the dreadful ending.
‘And if you were to listen carefully you could hear the duck quacking in the wolf’s belly because the wolf in his hurry had swallowed her alive.’
Even when the orchestra had pelted up the scale in the final tutti, the audience were totally silent for a few shocked seconds before they erupted into a storm of applause.
Justin, who’d been listening enraptured, broke into noisy sobs.
‘What happened to the duck, what happened to the poor duck?’
‘Of course, the whole thing’s political,’ said Gilbert sententiously. ‘The duck is meant to represent the dissident Russian artists imprisoned by Stalin.’
‘If they all behaved as badly as Boris and Nemerovsky,’ said Peggy Parker, with a sniff, ‘Ay think Stalin had a point.’
Hurriedly, Marcus wiped away the tears. Couldn’t everyone detect his longing for Alexei, quacking like the duck inside him, even though he was nightly enveloped by Abby’s passion?