by Jilly Cooper
‘Your little cat really worked,’ Marcus told her.
Lord Leatherhead and Mrs Parker and even awful Miles were all there getting in on the act.
‘Sonny will write you a concerto, Marcus,’ promised Mrs Parker. ‘He says no-one can play the Interruption like you do.’
‘From the first,’ Goatie Gilbert was boasting, ‘I recognized Marcus Black’s talent.’
Rupert couldn’t remember feeling so happy or so proud, it was as though a dam, built of years of irritation, contempt and antagonism, had suddenly burst, and he could feel love for Marcus pouring out of him. Sister Angelica had been right about El Dorado being found in the heart. Thank God, it wasn’t too late, and he had time ahead to make it up to Marcus.
‘I can smell the fatted calf,’ said Flora slyly.
Rupert laughed. ‘Lousy with cholesterol. At least Taggie knows how to cook it. The downside is I don’t get you as a daughter-in-law. I suppose you couldn’t wait for Xav to grow up?’
‘I’m suited,’ said Flora, blushing slightly, ‘but thanks all the same.’
Then, as George, who was holding out a town-hall teacup of water for Trevor to drink out of, shot Rupert yet another murderous glance, she added hastily: ‘You really must get to know George.’
‘I don’t think George feels that’s strictly necessary,’ said Rupert.
Across the room Helen was in raptures over Marcus’s victory.
‘Oh darling, darling, I’m so proud. Think of all the wonderful concerts ahead. You’ll be in work for the next two years and your speech was so lovely, so assured. I hope Abby heard it.’
‘More importantly, I hope the board did,’ said Marcus glaring at Miles and taking a glass of champagne from Rupert.
‘Do you think you ought to drink after all that medication?’ reproved Helen.
The next moment Howie Denston rushed in and embraced Marcus.
‘Great, kid, great! Always knew you could do it. You’ve talked to James Vereker, OK. In ten minutes there’ll be a press conference. I’ll field any tricky questions about Nemerovsky and then there’s the party. You’ll be sitting near Lady A. and the Princess. Your folks are invited, of course. Tomorrow around ten, we’ll sign the contracts. You’ll be working your fingers off for the next two years.’ He tapped his mobile. ‘I’ve already had two big record producers on to me.’
But Marcus was re-reading Alexei’s note.
‘Fine, Howie.’ Then he looked up. ‘Could you all clear out? I want a word with Mum and Dad.’
Helen’s heart swelled. Marcus had grown so authoritative. In a day, he seemed to have turned into a man, and she was feeling much more cheerful having just met Lord Leatherhead, who’d asked her out to lunch next week.
Rupert, meanwhile, was talking to Czechoslovakia on his mobile.
‘Pridie’s absolutely fine,’ Dizzy was telling him. ‘You’re not to be cross with Lysander. His shoulder’s been set and he’s really sorry he didn’t win.’
‘Doesn’t matter — Marcus did,’ said Rupert jubilantly. ‘Christ, he did brilliantly.’
Taggie snatched the telephone from him.
‘And guess what?’ she told Dizzie, ‘Rupert didn’t fall asleep once.’
As Taggie joined the rest of the revellers drifting out, saying, ‘Absolutely brilliant, see you at the party,’ Marcus shut the door and leant against it looking at his parents squarely.
‘You ought to be in bed,’ chided Helen.
‘I’m going to Moscow,’ said Marcus.
Helen gave a scream. ‘Oh no, you can’t, your career! All those engagements!’
Rupert’s sigh was almost imperceptible and in no way betrayed his desolation at suddenly discovering El Dorado was disappearing into the mists again.
‘Are you sure that’s what you want?’ he asked slowly.
Marcus nodded.
‘Moscow’s bloody dangerous at the moment.’
‘I know, but I will come back.’
‘Then I’ll drive you to the airport. We better look up a flight.’
‘I know them all backwards.’
Helen burst into tears.
‘Please don’t go, after all we’ve worked for. Think what you’re throwing away: the Queen Elizabeth, the Festival Hall, the Wigmore, the Barbican. Have you got some sort of death-wish? I wanted Penscombe to be yours and your sons,’ she sobbed, ‘and your sons’ sons. Then you’d never have to worry about money. And now you’re chucking everything away, just when fate’s given you a second chance. You and Abby were so happy. There are counsellors you could talk to.’
‘Mum,’ said Marcus gently as he hugged his mother, ‘you don’t understand. I love Alexei. I can’t hang around this evening. I’ve proved to myself I can play the piano. I don’t want to get into that circus. I want to develop as a soloist in my own time.’
Gently, he pulled away from her, then briefly he put his arms round Rupert.
‘I love you, Dad, I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to say it.’
I don’t understand, thought Helen in despair, why does Rupert always swan in at the last moment and win out?
SEVENTY
When Marcus didn’t show up at the party, it was at first assumed he’d flaked out and gone back to bed. A home win in itself was enough to ensure the most riotous celebrations. Anyway the RSO were too busy getting legless to notice. Cherub, who’d packed in more drinking time because there was no percussion in the Schumann, was absolutely plastered and, by smiling sweetly at Pablo, had joyfully appropriated the Guinness Book of Records.
‘That’s the biggest mole in history,’ he pointed at Hilary’s rigid back, going off into fits of giggles. ‘And here’s the prickliest cactus,’ he pointed at Militant Moll. ‘And he-ah we have the biggest goldfish,’ pausing behind Hermione he started making fish faces and mouthing: ‘I know that my Redeemer.’
His fellow musicians were in stitches.
‘Who’s the biggest rat?’ asked Fat Isobel, who had practically obscured Ninion by sitting on his knee.
‘Him,’ said Cherub, pointing at Carmine who was still trying to reach Cathie on his mobile.
‘I am biggest gooseberry,’ sighed Pablo, who was sitting at a table with a passionately embracing Boris and Deirdre.
‘And there is the coldest fish,’ naughty Cherub pointed at Miles, who, up at the end of the room, was being given the biggest flea in his ear by George.
Not having been to bed for forty hours, George was, in fact, suddenly overwhelmed with tiredness. He had called an emergency board meeting for one o’clock in the morning, but he was not optimistic. Rannaldini had probably bribed too many of the board for George to be able to overturn their decision to appoint him musical director. If he did, it wouldn’t save the situation. There was no way the RSO could survive even a month longer without a massive injection of cash.
George himself owed twenty million pounds to German banks at the moment, so the money couldn’t come from him. Anyway, he wanted to be with Flora, who, with Sister Rose and Miss Parrott, was now noisily teaching Dimitri and Anatole the hokey-cokey. Glancing round, she smiled at him and George felt his heart melting like a Yorkie Bar in the sun.
Meanwhile the largest plague of locusts, discovered over the Red Sea in 1889, was nothing to the way the RSO were demolishing the cold buffet. Only Julian, still violently shaking after his defiance of Rannaldini, couldn’t eat or drink a thing. Through the sound of revelry, he could hear the cannon’s opening roar of a Rannaldini rabid for vengeance.
The long top table was the only one with a seating plan. Trapped between the Princess and Lady Appleton, Rannaldini was having to be polite, but his darkly tanned face was twitching like treacle toffee coming up to the boil.
Cherub was off again.
‘That’s the biggest toad in the world,’ he said, sticking a pink tongue out at Gilbert.
‘And here comes the sexiest man,’ squeaked Nellie in excitement.
‘Rupert Campbell-Black? He’s already taken,
’ said Clare, not bothering to look round.
‘Nope.’
‘Sean Bean?’
‘Nope.’
Clare swung round irritably.
‘Viking,’ she screamed.
‘Viking!’ yelled the RSO, as they joyfully and drunkenly stumbled towards him.
‘Cousin Victor,’ cried Deirdre in amazement, letting go of Boris.
But Viking, poised in the doorway, looked so tall, thin, pale and quivering with menace, that Deirdre almost crossed herself.
‘Hi, kids.’ Almost absent-mindedly, Viking pushed the orchestra out of the way, his eyes, narrowed to black thread, never leaving Rannaldini’s face.
The next moment, fleeter than any cheetah, he crossed the room to the top table and, reaching over, had grabbed Rannaldini by his suede lapels, dragging him across the white table-cloth, scattering glass, silver, china and flowers, until Rannaldini was standing beside him on the blue carpet.
‘How dare you hurt my Abigail?’ yelled Viking and, to equal cheers and screams of horror, he smashed his fist into Rannaldini’s evil mahogany face, lifting him up in a perfect parabola, so his descent onto the pudding trolley was only cushioned by Gwynneth who was piling her plate with a third helping of bombe surprise.
The interminable, stunned silence was finally broken by Dixie.
‘That’s the only way you’ll ever get Sir Roberto to lie on top of you, Gwynnie,’ he shouted.
The RSO collapsed with laughter.
‘Partners in cream, partners in cream,’ they chorused as Rannaldini and Gwynneth floundered in a sea of chocolate, sticky fruit and meringue.
But the laughter died on their lips, as Rannaldini’s minders, Clive and Nathan, moved in with deadly swiftness.
‘Look out, Viking,’ yelled Julian.
‘Run,’ shrieked Cousin Deirdre.
It was sage advice.
Viking realized he couldn’t take on both Clive and Nathan, particularly as a shiny dark object glinted menacingly in Nathan’s huge hand.
‘Get him,’ hissed Rannaldini, rubbing Black Forest gâteau out of his eyes.
And Viking was off, darting through the little tables, sending a huge vase of bronze chrysanthemums flying, catching Trevor and Jennifer in flagrante behind the carving trolley, out through a side-door, up a flight of stairs.
Shouting voices and footsteps pounding after him sent him hurtling along a corridor. There was no time to catch the lift, the footsteps were getting nearer. At the end of the corridor were stone stairs and, panting down seven flights and sidling across the lounge, Viking found himself in the lobby.
But as he paused to catch his breath, Clive emerged from the lift. Dummying past him, Viking hurled himself into the revolving doors, only to find Nathan leering at him on the other side, still waving the same menacing shiny object.
With huge yuccas to left and right of the door, there was no escape. Wincing as Clive grabbed his arm, Viking turned, looking into the vicious, unpitying face of Death.
‘The basstard had it coming,’ muttered Viking.
For a second or two, Death stared at him, then suddenly warmed up and smiled almost affectionately.
‘Couldn’t agree with you more, dear,’ lisped Clive. ‘Been waiting ten years for someone to give Rannaldini his comeuppance. May I shake you by the hand?’
Then, as Viking’s jaw dropped, Nathan bounded in through the revolving doors with a grin as wide as the keys on a Steinway, and thrust the menacing object into Viking’s hand.
‘You dropped your wallet, man.’
‘We’d very much like to buy you a drink,’ said Clive.
‘It’s very generous of you both,’ Viking started to shake, not entirely with laughter.
Through the revolving doors, he could see his taxi-driver polishing off a pork pie and a can of lager to sustain him after the first leg of the journey from Holyhead.
‘I’m on my way to Heathrow,’ said Viking, ‘but perhaps I’ve josst got time for a quick one.’
Rannaldini, swearing vengeance, had disappeared to wash crême brulée out of his pewter hair before the emergency board meeting, when the bellboy walked in with a telephone.
‘Call for you, Mr Hungerford.’
As George lifted the receiver, everyone around him could hear the frantic squawking as if a hen had just laid a dinosaur’s egg.
‘Mr Hungerford,’ cried Miss Priddock, ‘Ay saw you in the audience. Thank goodness you’re back. An amazin’ thing has happened. I don’t know quaite how to tell you.’
‘Try,’ said George unhelpfully.
But as he listened, his I-don’t-want-to-be-bothered-with-paper-clips scowl creased into a huge smile.
‘That is amazing, Miss P. Woonderful in fact. Are you at home? I’ll call you later. Yes, it was great — Marcus won.’
As he switched off the telephone, he turned to Flora: ‘Well done, John Droommond.’
‘He’s caught the biggest rat in the world?’ giggled Flora.
Cherub had reached the prehistoric chapter, his finger moving shakily along the line: ‘The largessht exshtinct animal in the world wash the two hundred and fifty ton supersaurus,’ he informed his audience.
‘And the most extinct ensemble in the world,’ said George draining his glass of brandy, ‘is Rannaldini’s Super Orchestra.’
CODA
‘Happy birthday,’ said Gisela, thrusting out a big bunch of autumn crocuses.
Abby looked round listlessly and put down her violin.
‘Thank you, they’re lovely,’ she examined the delicate veins on the pale mauve petals. ‘In fact they’re exquisite. You’re so good to me, Gisela. I’d forgotten it was my birthday. I guess hitting thirty’s kind of painless compared with losing everything else in my life.’
‘The autumn crocus bloom when everything else is dying,’ said the housekeeper gently.
‘Oh Gisela,’ Abby turned hastily towards the window to hide her tears. She had already wept enough to fill Lake Lucerne, which as far as the eye could see sparkled brilliant blue and utterly unsympathetic in the afternoon sunshine.
In her old rust-red jersey and brown suede skirt, which was now hopelessly loose on her, she had all the sad defencelessness of an autumn leaf blown against the window.
‘You must eat, child,’ urged Gisela. ‘I’ve just made onion soup and there’s bread fresh from the oven.’
‘You’re so darling, I’m sorry, I’m just not hungry, and I can’t practise any more. I’ll take a walk along the lake. Can you put the flowers in water? Thank you, I just love them.’
Handing back the crocuses, Abby ran from the room. A crawling restlessness, an inability to settle to anything was part of her malaise.
‘Put on a coat,’ Gisela shouted after her, but the front door had banged.
Gisela had never seen such despair.
Abby reminded her of a child, whose family had all been killed, huddling in the ruins of a bombed-out city.
It was a beautiful day. The air was misty and silky. The lake, reflecting a big cloud that had drifted overhead, was grey-blue now. Little waves caressed the banks along which autumn blazed. Amid the amber gloom of the woods, the beeches stood out stinging red like huntsmen riding by. Abby could almost hear their horns. Oh Viking, Viking!
Splashing through the puddles from last night’s deluge, she battled to come to terms with the anguish of last weekend. After the first dreadful shock of being conned and betrayed, Marcus being outed had been almost a relief. It explained his lack of desire (except for those heady frenzied days when he’d first met Alexei), which had made her feel such a failure as a woman. But she missed him as a best friend, as she missed Flora, who now belonged to George. In addition, her violin wouldn’t sing to her, and she was eaten up with guilt and sadness at abandoning her friends in the orchestra to the non-existent mercies of Rannaldini. She had let them down, she had blabbed to the Press. She had loved not wisely.
But it was the loss of Viking that wiped her out. Not
only did she frantically crave his love-making, but only now did she appreciate how much she had looked forward to seeing him every day, how his dreadful sexist cracks had warmed her blood.
What d’you call a woman maestro? Mattress. Oh Viking, she sighed, you can lie on me whenever you want. How she’d enjoyed the sparring, how she missed his kindness, his louche elegance, the sun in his arms.
I’ve grown accustomed to his face, thought Abby, as she watched the leaves drifting down for a last kiss with their reflection on the surface of the lake.
‘It was my thirtieth year to heaven,’ she quoted sadly. ‘My birthday began with the waterbirds… and I rose in rainy autumn and walked abroad in a shower of all my days.’
What the hell could she do with the rest of all her days? She couldn’t go back to the loneliness of being a soloist. Being the tallest poppy, waiting to be hacked down, the Press pulling out her petals, this week we love her, this week we love her not. She supposed she could try for a job as a leader. But as a soloist, she had her own distinctive sound. She would have to learn to fuse with the rest of the orchestra.
I’ve never been able to fuse with anything in my life, she thought wearily.
She had the temporary security of Rodney’s house on the lake, but that was being contested by his family. She missed Rodney so much, too. Every room was filled with his ghost, a faint waft of lemon cologne and cigars. Every evening, she expected him to bounce in brandishing a bottle of champagne, wearing nothing but his pin-striped apron.
‘Oh well, it was worth a try.’
Only now did she realize how much Rodney had given her, letting her stay for so long, putting up with her tantrums, always ready to listen. She was sure his big heart had failed in the end because he had given so much of it away to other people. She wished he could send her a fax just to tell her he was OK.
Ahead Mount Pilatus, already covered in snow, gleamed in the sunshine. Pilate had come to the lake to suffer.
‘How did you hack it, Pontius?’ pleaded Abby. ‘If you and God have made it up, put in a good word. It was my thirtieth year to heaven,’ she intoned wearily, as she shuffled through a thick carpet of curling sycamore leaves, ‘or rather hell.’