by Jilly Cooper
‘You car’s here, Mees Seymour,’ announced a hot-eyed chauffeur sweating in black uniform.
‘How d’you know it’s me?’ squeaked Flora.
‘I was told you was gorgeous with red ‘air.’
‘Oh goodness.’ Flora bolted down the steps.
But all her happiness drained away as inside the car she found Juno looking so bloody beautiful in a pale pink shirt and shorts, showing off tiny suntanned thighs half the width of Flora’s. It was no comfort that Juno was as cross to see her, or that they were soon joined by Simon (perhaps George was after him, too) and Hilary. Flora slumped in the back; she might as well have got drunk on Viking’s ill-gotten champagne with all those other bastards.
They drove past ploughed fields and rocks the colour of lobster bisque through beautiful white villages, up an avenue of yellowing, peeling plane trees to a ravishing castle about five miles out of town.
A crowd of people in light trousers and rather well-pressed shirts, dressed up with nattily tied silk scarves, were making a din on the terrace. On the unblemished and blatantly sprinkled lawn below, a panting Spaniard in blue dungarees was wrestling with a purple-and-emerald-green dragon’s skin spewing out of a vast basket.
‘What a lovely spot,’ said the Steel Elf.
George came straight up. The rings under his eyes were heavier than his eyebrows. He had turned his navy-blue polo shirt the right way round, but tucked into his white trousers, it showed he had completely lost his spare tyre. His feet looked vulnerably pale in loafers. Flora suppressed an insane urge to drop to her feet and kiss them. She must get a grip on herself.
‘What does anyone want to drink?’
‘Perrier, please,’ said Juno.
‘And me, too,’ simpered Hilary.
‘I’ll have an orange pressé if it’s feasible,’ said Simon.
‘I’ll have a quadruple vodka and tonic,’ said Flora.
‘You won’t be able to play,’ reproved Hilary.
‘I’ve got to sing,’ said Flora. ‘It’s so hard, I’ll never get onto the platform if I’m sober.’
Having taken Flora at her word, and persuaded the others to accept a glass of champagne each, George introduced Ruth, who was much too done-up, in a frilly white shirt and shocking-pink trousers with gold high heels, for lunch-time in the campa.
Having given Flora a not-altogether friendly look she introduced her ‘partner’ Trevor.
Flora giggled. ‘I’ve got a partner called Trevor, too,’ she said. ‘Only in my Trevor’s case, he has black eyes, and a tight skin and a very curly tail, and a squeaky bark, and I rescued him.’ She rattled on. ‘You don’t look as though you need rescuing.’
Trevor II smirked, gave Flora slightly too hot a glance for Ruth’s liking, and asked her if she’d ever been up in an air balloon before.
Flora shook her head. Suddenly she was too shy to say anything in George’s presence.
‘We’re coming along to the concert this evening to look at George’s latest toy,’ said Ruth with a slight edge. ‘I love Beethoven’s Choral Symphony. To think the wonderful old man wrote the whole thing when he was deaf.’
She beckoned the maid to bring over the bottle.
‘Have some more shampoo.’
‘I shouldn’t,’ giggled Juno, ‘it makes my nose tickle.’ She smiled roguishly at George, who had also fallen oddly silent.
‘Just a half,’ said Hilary. ‘I expect we’ll be in the balloon soon.’
‘Oh no, Pedro-Maria takes at least half an hour to get it up,’ said Ruth.
‘Poor Mrs Pedro-Maria,’ murmured Flora. Just for a second her eyes met George’s and, to stop herself laughing, she sloped off and gazed at a hideous bed of red gladioli and purple asters. Ruth was hell. George was the one who needed rescuing.
Only George and the four musicians from the RSO, and Pedro-Maria to steer the thing, went up in the balloon. Extraordinary, reflected Flora, as they took off into the blue, that a slain dragon could swell up into something so huge and beautiful with the orange flame belching up into the purple-and-emerald-green dome. Turning, she saw George’s waving wife getting smaller and smaller.
It was literally heavenly. This is how God must feel, thought Flora, as she gazed down on the turning, tawny woods and the gold and green fields, as the darkness of the balloon’s shadow fell over the face of the earth. Below them flocks of sheep and herds of cows scattered in temporary terror.
Flora had deliberately positioned herself at the front of the basket as far away from George as possible, giving him the chance if he wanted to stand behind the Steel Elf. Everyone was oohing and aahing as they floated over a little village, driving dogs to hysterical barking and bringing children screaming with excitement into the streets.
Then a sudden gust tipped the basket forward and she felt a body, solid as a Rottweiler, thrown against hers, and knew instantly with a thumping heart that it was George’s.
‘Sorry,’ she gasped, ramming herself even harder against the front of the basket, putting half an inch between them, but a second later, the wind tossed the basket backwards, throwing her against him. As she leapt away, his big hands closed on her hip bones, steadying her, and he was right behind her giving her absolutely no room for manoeuvre. With St George and the dragon pitted against one poor damsel — what chance of escape did she have?
I must be dreaming, thought Flora in bewilderment, but she could have sworn George dropped a kiss on her bare shoulder and now his thumbs were softly stroking her ribcage, as the flames surged upwards with another dragon roar.
For a second, he took his right hand away, resting a muscular arm on her shoulder, the soft dark down tickling her cheek, as he pointed out hares racing up and down the rows of stubble.
‘What a wonderful view,’ gushed Hilary.
‘Mine’s much better,’ murmured George into Flora’s hair.
His right hand was back but higher up her ribs this time, and oh my God, his thumb was slowly caressing her right breast outside her dress, and now, oh heavens, it had crept inside — there was no mistaking it. Her nipples were pushing out the dove-grey sundress as proof, and it was the most blissfully erotic thing that had ever happened to her. It knocked any of Rannaldini’s caresses into a cocked cock. She was so faint with desire her insides were churning and disintegrating like peaches in a liquidizer.
She couldn’t bear it, gradually they were losing height, drifting down over a sage-green poplar copse. The lovely balloon of her happiness was going to subside.
‘That’s very good timing, George,’ said Simon.
In despair, Flora noticed two chauffeurs leaning against two hearse-like limos waiting at the edge of the big yellow field below them. She glanced sideways and realized that Hilary was gazing at George’s still-wandering right hand in absolute horror. Then another greater gust of wind caught the balloon. The next moment Hilary and Juno were screaming as they crashed and bumped to the ground like cats in a basket chucked out of a car, with everyone falling higgledy-piggledy on top of each other.
‘Get me out of here,’ shrieked Hilary, outraged to find herself trapped beneath an excited Pedro-Maria, who was in turn beneath an even more excited Simon.
‘You OK, Flora, luv?’ George’s accent was even broader with anxiety.
‘Gone to heaven,’ sighed Flora, squirming blissfully under the weight of his body.
A second later George had pulled her to her feet, lifted her out of the basket and dragged her across the stubble into the first limo.
Jumping into the driving seat, he screeched off in a cloud of dust, leaving behind the two drivers and the rest of the party waving and shouting impotently.
‘Plenty of room for the rest of them,’ he said, nearly removing a gatepost as he swung into the road. ‘Do oop your seat belt,’ then, after a long pause, ‘I luv you, I luv you, I bluddy luv you to distraction.’
‘What?’ squeaked Flora, ‘I thought you still loved Ruth.’
‘I came here last
night to ask her for a divorce.’
‘I thought it was you who refused to give her one.’
‘You know a lot about my life, don’t you?’ said George, murdering unfamiliar gears as he swung onto the main road, and rammed his foot on the accelerator.
‘I hated Trevor,’ he said. ‘He was one of my competitors and he took my wife off me. Now I know he’s done me a good deed. I didn’t hate him any more today. Anyway, I want to be free to marry someone else.’
Flora was speechless, and reached for the strap above her window as the needle hit 100 m.p.h.
‘But I don’t understand, I mean — ’ then, as the car only just missed a bank — ‘Jesus!’
‘Yes, you better shoot up, and let me concentrate on driving.’
Reaching Ruth’s hacienda, he grabbed Flora’s hand again and, ignoring the party that was still roaring on the terrace, dragged her up three flights of stairs into his bedroom, and locking the door took her in his arms. For a second he gazed into her face, so sweet and apprehensive and striped by the sunlight streaming through the shutters, and then he kissed her.
Flora had never experienced such tenderness, nor passionate enthusiasm nor clumsiness all at once. Then he ripped off her sundress, and kissed her breasts, before tearing off her knickers and throwing her on the bed.
‘I’m not on the p-p-pill,’ Flora hated herself for stammering.
‘Doesn’t matter. I want to fook you more than anything in the world,’ George stammered even more as he fumbled with his belt, ‘but I want you to know I luv you and want to marry you as well.’
Flora helped him with his zip and boxer shorts.
‘Oh my,’ she said in a choked voice, ‘you are well Hungerford.’
‘Don’t take the piss,’ pleaded George. ‘I can’t ’andle it. Let’s take things very slowly.’
‘’Andel’s Largo,’ began Flora, until George stopped her nervous prattle by kissing her.
Having exhausted the bed, they moved into the bathroom. Lying on the shag-pile, Flora admired the gleaming undersides of the lavatory bowl, and thought she must remember to clean under the loo at the cottage. Then she thought of nothing else except George.
Finally ending up on a pile of duvets on the bedroom floor, she staggered to her feet.
‘I have to sing “Ode to Joy”, in a few hours,’ she sighed, ‘but I’m so happy it’ll probably sing itself this evening.’
‘I luv you,’ repeated George, who was running water into a round cyclamen-pink bath next door. ‘I mean it about marrying you.’
‘And I mean it, too,’ said Flora, bending over to kiss him, ‘it’sjust a bit new and all. The bliss of having a bathroom en suite,’ she went on, ‘is that you don’t have to scuttle across the landing trapping a towel between your legs.’
A shadow flickered across George’s face.
‘Have you done that lots of times?’
‘A few.’
‘How many blokes have you been to bed with?’
‘I’ve lost Count,’ said Flora, ‘as Countess Dracula was always complaining. D’you want a bowdlerized version?’
‘No, I want the truth.’
‘Right, well,’ Flora took a deep breath. ‘I had several schoolboys at Bagley Hall, then I had Rannaldini. I wonder if women who’ve slept with Rannaldini make love in a certain way, like string players who’ve been to the Juillard.’
‘Go on,’ George almost snapped, as Flora’s body disappeared under the surface then emerged like a seal, the bubbles coating her freckled back.
‘Rannaldini obliterated everyone else. Then I tried a few students at the Academy to exorcize him, but it didn’t work. Then no-one till Jack, but I only went to bed with him because he rescued me from Carmine — rather like accepting a large brandy from a St Bernard when you’re stuck halfway up the Matterhorn.’
Unable to suppress a smile, George started to rub Pears soap, the colour of Flora’s wet hair, down her arm.
‘That’s all, except Viking,’ she said.
Dropping the soap, George’s hand did a Chinese burn on her wrist. He really minds, thought Flora, gazing at the red mark in wonder.
‘W-w-was it foontastic?’ asked George wistfully.
‘Yes and no, we were both a bit too expert like Torvill and Dean. Anyway, I honestly think Viking went to bed with me to get at Abby. He can’t leave her alone, he’s always bitching at her.
‘That’s about it. Truly. I’m at my journey’s end.’ Putting both arms up, feeling George as warm, wide and solid as an Aga against her, Flora pulled him into the bath with a huge splash. ‘You are the loveliest hunk.’
But George was still fretting.
‘Will I be exciting enough for you?’
‘Exciting,’ Flora’s eyes flooded with tears. ‘I can’t begin to tell you, like that great balloon soaring into the sky out of that limp rubber, what it’s like suddenly to be happy again, wildly, ecstatically happy with the most adorable man in the world. That’s exciting, I have to joke, I have to, I’m just so terrified it’s going to end.’
‘In my end is my beginning,’ said George, kissing her soapy hand. ‘I’m going to marry you the second my divorce is through.’
‘Oh goodness.’
‘And I want to say, Floora — ’ (she loved the way he pronounced it with a long first syllable) — ‘I’ve had a change of heart because of you. I know I’ve been greedy in the past, I’ve ridden roof-shod over folk, been a bastard. Knocking down houses, in-filling, leaning on old ladies, I’ve thought about it a lot. I’ve totally given oop the idea of buying H.P. Hall and turning it into a supermarket.’
‘I know someone who could do with a bit of in-filling at the moment,’ said Flora slyly.
Rising up in the bath, she started to kiss her way down his body, plunging into the water until his cock came up to meet her. Then she looked up, quickly gasping for breath, eyelashes like star fish.
‘Abby’s always telling me to play with every inch of my beau.’
George ruffled her hair.
‘You’re utterly deranged.’
‘Let’s have a deranged marriage then.’
‘When can I start telling everyone?’
‘Not until I tell Abby,’ said Flora. ‘I’m not sure how pleased she’ll be.’
SIXTY-ONE
Abby was in a murderous mood and shouted at Flora as she slid in late to the rehearsal and took her place beside the other three soloists.
‘She’s in a terrific paddy,’ whispered Clare in awe.
‘Correction,’ whispered Candy, ‘a terrific Paddy’s been inside her.’
Poor Abby, in fact, had just had a hideous session with Hilary. Oozing spurious concern like a lanced boil, Hilary had come into the conductor’s room, and begged Abby not to take Viking’s seduction too seriously.
‘The sweepstake was just a bit of fun, Abby. And you must remember the musicians aren’t wealthy like you. That two thousand would have got most of them out of debt, saved the repossession of Barry’s barn, paid for Janey’s hip, cushioned Cyril’s retirement, bought Randy some new clubs.’
‘And a new prayer-mat for Miles.’
‘Oh, Miles would never involve himself with anything so tacky.’
‘Unlike fucking Viking.’
Hilary sighed deeply.
‘I’m afraid Viking’s too lazy to get anywhere in life. He’d never have scraped together enough money to send Granny Wexford to America, if he hadn’t won it. They’ll think he’s such a hero in Dublin, and of course he has to keep up his reputation as the orchestra stud.’
‘The son-of-a-bitch,’ hissed Abby, ‘I’ll get him for sexual harassment.’
‘I’m afraid the orchestra will say the boot was on the other foot — they’ll swear black’s white for Viking.’
‘I’ve been made a complete fool of, right?’
‘Where’s your sense of humour, Abby?’ Hilary was loving this. ‘Get things in proportion. If you need some counselling when you get back to
England, Miles will arrange it.’
‘Can he arrange for Viking to be Bobbitted as well?’
Hilary sighed. ‘Miles and I are praying for you.’
Certainly during the rehearsal Abby’s wrath was reserved for Viking.
They were only running through the last movement from where the chorus and soloists come in, but she wasted everyone’s time singling out any intervening horn passages, and pulling them to pieces, particularly Viking’s contribution.
‘More pianissimo, First Horn,’ she screamed until Viking wasn’t making any sound at all. ‘Play it again.’
‘Why? It was perfect.’
‘Don’t smart-ass me, leave your brains in your trousers where they belong.’
The minute she said that, Abby could have kicked herself.
‘You should know,’ chorused the Celtic Mafia.
‘I said, on your own, First Horn.’
And Viking, who’d never been called First Horn in his life except by Rannaldini, retaliated by playing the solo from Ein Heldenleben which had so bewitched her on her first day at the RSO. Abby promptly burst into tears and stormed out.
Julian ran after her, but she wouldn’t talk to him. After last night she didn’t know who to trust, not even Flora, who’d been grinning like a jackass throughout the rehearsal.
Somehow, by the evening, fortified by a couple of beta-blockers, Abby had pulled herself together, and the applause, as always, even for a run-of-the-mill Beethoven’s Ninth, was tumultuous because it was such a happy piece, and because so many of the chorus’s relations were swelling the audience.
George sat in a box high above the orchestra. It was hard to tell who looked more frozen with misery, Viking or Cyril, for whom it was his last concert abroad, and who had been denied the great horn solo in the third movement.
But George couldn’t be bothered with other people’s problems tonight. And the moment Flora filed on with the other soloists, he never took his eyes off her, rejoicing in every note, as her piercing exquisite voice soared above everyone else’s, even when she joined in the chorus. Several times she smiled up at him and even made Foxie give him a wave. She has brought radiance to my life, thought George. Thank you, God, for giving me a second chance.