The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous trc-4

by Jilly Cooper

  ‘The moment I’ve found a babysitter.’

  And he was gone.

  The best-laying plans of maestros and men, however, can go astray. Wandering into the kitchen to make Arthur a bowl of coffee, Lysander found Rachel writing a note.

  ‘Where’s Kitty?’ she demanded.

  Picking up the note, Lysander scrumpled it up.

  ‘She can’t babysit,’ he said flatly.

  ‘Why ever not? What else has she got to do?’

  ‘She’s taking Christmas presents over to her mother.’

  ‘Oh, right — well, perhaps you could? The kids adore you so much.’

  ‘I couldn’t.’ Lysander’s sweet face hardened like wet clay cast in bronze. ‘I’m not looking after your kids so you can get fucked by Rannaldini.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ Rachel gave a gasp of horror. ‘I’ve been celibate for nine months.’

  ‘Not with Rannaldini, you haven’t. December 9th, wasn’t it? I was driving home from Kitty’s, Rannaldini was kissing you on the doorstep. Your towel was slipping. And you told Kitty you’d gone to see your solicitors — soliciting more likely.’

  ‘We were discussing cadenzas,’ said Rachel, frantically casting round for excuses.

  ‘Cad’s a better word,’ said Lysander bleakly. ‘Kitty was so bloody tired that night.’

  Rachel was shattered by his anger.

  ‘Come and have a drink this evening. I’ll explain.’

  ‘No thanks, and don’t ever do that to Kitty again.’

  Poor Rannaldini. Hermione was so livid she decided temporarily to emulate the purity of the Virgin that night. Kitty was in Sidcup and Rachel was confined to barracks minding her own children. Faced with the appalling prospect of a loveless evening, Rannaldini decided to forgive Flora. Ringing up Guy and Georgie, he suggested he dropped by after supper to show them the video of the dress rehearsal and have a last-minute script conference.

  ‘Maybe Rachel make it a leetle too green.’

  It was snowing heavily by the time he arrived at Angel’s Reach. Shivering in the icy wind like a slaughtered ostrich, a large Christmas tree lay on its side.

  Rannaldini was livid to discover that Flora had gone out to a party. Georgie was livid because the video showed Guy’s hand disappearing more than once into the billowing blue depths of Hermione’s robes.

  ‘It’s good acting,’ protested Guy. ‘A pat on the bottom is just the kind of friendly gesture a wife receives from any husband.’

  ‘Particularly someone else’s,’ snapped Georgie.

  Guy had been twitchy all evening because wretched Flora had pinched the car without asking and there was no way he could escape.

  They worked in the kitchen because it was warm by the Aga and by the time they’d gone through the script and toned down Rachel’s worst excesses, Rannaldini had drunk enough red wine to risk dropping in on her on the way home. He had just picked up his car keys when Flora walked in. She betrayed no trace of surprise at seeing him. Her red hair, darkened by snow, had grown since last summer. A thick strand had blown round her white neck like a leather strap.

  She was wearing a black leather jacket over a gunmetal-grey satin camisole top and black velvet shorts above black-stockinged legs that had lost any trace of puppy fat.

  ‘We were worried about you, darling,’ said Georgie. ‘The roads must be hell. Was it a good party?’

  ‘Great.’ Flora crouched down beside Dinsdale, giving him a crumbling sausage roll out of her pocket.

  ‘Ask, next time you borrow the car,’ said Guy angrily. ‘I can now get some more red.’

  ‘We’ve got some,’ said Georgie, ‘there’s a crate in the utility room.’

  Guy jumped as the telephone rang.

  ‘I’ll take it next door,’ said Flora, running across the hall into the drawing room to answer it. There was something stark and unwelcoming about her parents’ house, not a coloured ball nor a string of tinsel yet in sight.

  Hearing the happy Tennyson’s brook sound of continuous laughter, Guy reflected that at least he wasn’t paying for the call.

  ‘It’s Melanie,’ said Flora, a quarter of an hour later. Then, smiling sweetly at her father, ‘She’s reversing the charges from a Perth call-box.’

  Somehow Guy kept his temper and when Georgie rushed off and because Rannaldini showed no sign suddenly of leaving, he went off to get another bottle.

  Bidding a tearful farewell to her adored elder daughter five minutes later, Georgie noticed the copy of Catullus David Hawkley had sent her and pulled it out of the bookshelf.

  ‘It is hard to put aside long-standing love,’ she read sadly.

  If only she could see David — he was so straight compared with Guy. A bad sleeper, he’d probably be awake now. His number was engraved on her heart. Surreptitiously she picked up the second telephone and heard Guy’s voice saying: ‘I couldn’t get away, Ju Ju. Flora took the car without asking and Georgie suddenly remembered a crate of booze, so I had no excuse. I daren’t risk it, sweetheart. I’m really sorry, I’ll ring you first thing. Sleep well, my darling.’

  ‘Which is more than you’re fucking going to do,’ screamed Georgie down the telephone.

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t speak to you this afternoon, little one,’ murmured Rannaldini. ‘You sing very well.’

  ‘Wailing for my demon lover,’ said Flora drily.

  Outside Rannaldini could see the dark snowless shadow under his car and the ostrich’s white feathers fluffing up. Through the gloom a light still shone in Rachel’s cottage. He had a vision of Rachel in bed with Flora, languorously smoothing oil into each other’s bodies, growing increasingly slippery inside and out as they waited for him to join in.

  ‘I mees you,’ he said softly. ‘Wheech is your room?’

  Out in the hall, under the mistletoe she had put up that morning, Flora could see her parents furiously mouthing at one another.

  ‘Oh, Maestro,’ she said in a tremulous voice, ‘I thought you would never forgive me.’

  ‘Ees good for little girls to be punished sometime.’

  ‘I deserved it,’ Flora admitted. ‘If you go up the stairs and turn left, I’m the fourth door on the right, up three small stairs, but don’t turn on the light as it shines right into Mummy’s and Daddy’s room. Don’t be too long.’

  She slid out of the room.

  Rannaldini could not keep the grin off his face. He felt sure Rupert Campbell-Black couldn’t pull seventeen year olds any more.

  As Guy bustled in, his face redder than the bottle of claret he was carrying, Rannaldini yawned and said it must be jet lag. Could he borrow a toothbrush and crash out in the spare room? Once alone he had a quick wash, plucked out a grey hair from his chest, rubbed one of the samples of eau-de-Cologne Guy had brought back from France into his neck and shoulders, and waited half an hour until the house was so quiet you could hear the snow padding like a white cat outside.

  Clad in a dark red towel, scratchy from Mother Courage’s washing, he tiptoed along the landing. The creaking was awful. He jumped as Dinsdale in his basket let out a great snore. One, two, three doors. Rannaldini thought he would explode with lust. Feeling his way up the three uncarpeted stairs with his bare toes, he opened and softly closed the fourth door on the right.

  ‘Come to me, lovely creature,’ whispered a voice.

  ‘Leetle darling, it is I,’ answered Rannaldini.

  Taking a flying leap in the direction of the voice, he found that Flora had shrunk and grown in the most improbable places. Next moment he realized his arms were full of naked Guy, who’d been banished to the spare room by an enraged Georgie and who’d been drunkenly rehearsing his lines. Guy was sober enough, however, to be extremely stuffy.

  ‘Flora’s only seventeen. How dare you run after schoolgirls like a dirty old man?’

  ‘And I saw you coming out of Langan’s with that painter girlfriend of yours on Monday,’ spat back Rannaldini. ‘I’d keep your trap shut if I were you.’
r />   48

  Both Rannaldini and Guy were furious with Flora, but had little opportunity to vent their rage on the day of the play.

  Members of the cast, however, continued to spat. Cecilia, in her new role as Gabriel, had gone off to Valentino and bought a seductive, but totally inappropriate, thigh-length gold tunic and an even bigger halo than Hermione. In revenge, Hermione spent two hours in make-up, leaving little time for anyone else.

  Marigold cried all day because Larry hadn’t come home the previous night. He must have gone back to Nikki.

  Rachel was totally unsympathetic.

  ‘If you have a remotely attractive husband in the nineties,’ she snapped as she buttoned up her Second King’s velvet tunic, ‘you have to be prepared to share him.’

  ‘Rock Star, you are the rock, the star that guides me,’ sang the wireless.

  ‘Shut up, you bloody thing,’ screamed Georgie.

  But by six-thirty the great hall was decked with greenery and hundreds of candles and camera lights were reflected in the gleaming dark panelling. The crew were ready, the London Met tuned up. A vetted collection of villagers, a sprinkling of local gentry including Lady Chisleden, the odd talent scout and a crowd of Meredith’s gay friends were among the audience. Mother Courage, thrilled at the prospect of appearing on television, was holding forth noisily.

  ‘Rattledicky stayed the night and Guy was furious that Flora delapidated herself all over the bath, and I only cleaned it yesterday, and Melanie’s sending Georgie a duck-billed platitude for Christmas.’

  Standing in the wings, all dolled up in his red plumes and gemmy bridle, Arthur was itching to get on stage.

  ‘Don’t forget to look at the camera,’ Lysander urged him. ‘And whenever you see Rupert, wave a hoof. I’m really nervous for him,’ he told Cameron Cook as Arthur rested his head lovingly on his master’s shoulder.

  ‘Ever thought of becoming an actor?’ asked Cameron, handing him her card. ‘D’you mind sitting in the audience when it starts? Marigold can look after Arthur.’

  She was determined to get reaction shots of him whenever they cut to the audience.

  ‘D’you actually know Rupert?’ pleaded Lysander.

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘Is he seriously wonderful?’

  Cameron thought for a second. ‘Only if he likes you. For Christ’s sake, see all the telephones are switched off,’ she added to her PA as her mobile rang.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ she whispered to the chief cameraman two minutes later. ‘Rupert’s not coming. He’s buggered off skiing.’

  ‘Well, don’t tell anyone,’ whispered back the chief cameraman. ‘We don’t want the entire female cast going on strike.’

  But at last the cameras were rolling and the London Met were appropriately playing like angels, enjoying the novelty of the occasion and the relief of being conducted by Bob, whose bald head gleamed like a bathing cap above the dark river of the orchestra pit.

  Everything, in fact, was going wonderfully. Neither Hermione in her blue robes nor Cecilia in her figure-hugging mini would have looked so radiant if they had known Rupert wasn’t going to make it, even for ‘Brickie’s spread’, which included two vats of boeuf bourgignon, whose delicious smell was stealing up from the kitchen.

  ‘Hail Mary, Full of Grace,’ called Cecilia who preferred the beauty of the old language, ‘thou art with child.’

  ‘Joseph will be very supportive, and present at the birth,’ said Hermione who did not.

  Kitty caught Lysander’s eye and giggled.

  ‘There’s a Christmas tree with nothing on,’ said Mother Courage as the curtains jerked back on the stable at Bethlehem.

  The play was nearing its end. Although the shepherds and inn staff had been rather too reminiscent of Iraqi and Saudi agitators in the Gulf, Meredith’s gay cronies were in ecstasies over the sets and the beauty of little Cosmo as a shepherd boy unaccountably trying to strangle Hermione’s white cat. The animals had all behaved impeccably, except Dinsdale who had lifted his leg twice on the manger.

  Flora had sung ‘O come all ye faithful’ and ‘O little town of Bethlehem’ so magically that she had earned a round of applause each time. But the real coup de théâtre was when Rannaldini, Rachel and Marigold, singing the most ravishing three-part arrangement of ‘We Three Kings’, cantered in on their splendid bejewelled horses.

  Rannaldini and Rachel looked so glamorous that the audience hardly noticed the reddened eyes and streaked moustache of the Third King, whom Arthur carried with such sympathy and gentleness.

  ‘Look at the old boy really acting,’ said Lysander proudly. ‘Don’t look at the camera, Arthur.’

  ‘Will you be quiet,’ hissed Lady Chisleden.

  The Prince of Darkness, who’d had a good win at Lingfield the previous week, was jumping all over the place as Rannaldini, perfectly capped teeth flashing above his black beard, bent down to hand Hermione a gold casket.

  ‘Bet Hermione pockets it,’ whispered Lysander.

  ‘I’d give that Prince of Darkness a wild berth if I was ’er,’ said Mother Courage.

  As everyone lined up to gaze at the Virgin and Child, Hermione brandished a large breast in the direction she imagined Rupert to be sitting.

  ‘Wasted on us,’ chorused Meredith’s cronies in unison.

  As the Kings remounted their horses, Flora, hovering in the wings, noticed Rachel shoot Rannaldini a smile of uncharacteristic lasciviousness.

  For the final tableau, Flora came forward to sing ‘Once in royal David’s city’. She was wearing black jeans and a black polo-neck with her hair slicked back off her incredibly pale face.

  Playing Death and the Maiden, thought Bob, raising his baton. The poor child looked extraordinarily bleak.

  The orchestra gave her the introductory bars, then put down their instruments in anticipation of a treat. Guy folded his arms, happy to claim ownership when Flora brought him credit. For a second she glanced around, waiting for total silence. Her voice, cool as an icicle, was so exquisite it was several seconds before anyone took in the words.

  ‘Once in Rannaldini’s watch-tower,’ sang Flora,

  ‘Stood a king-size double bed.

  Where the Maestro bonked Hermione.

  Once her Chanel suits she’d shed.’

  Horror, amazement and delighted expectation were slowly creeping over the faces of the audience. The leader of the orchestra put his head in his hands to hide his laughter.

  ‘Stay on Camera Two, for Christ’s sake,’ hissed Cameron Cook.

  ‘Rannaldini drove her wild,

  Little Cosmo is his child,’ sang Flora emphasizing every word.

  ‘And through Cosmo’s wondrous childhood,’ a beatific smile spread over Flora’s face.

  ‘Maestro popped in every day,

  Just to bonk the fair Hermione,

  In whose hulking arms he lay.

  And he bonked his ex-wife, too

  Rachel Grant’s just joined the queue.’

  Laughing himself sick, then suddenly noticing the distress on Kitty’s face, Lysander took her hand, warming it with both his own. The otherwise mesmerized paralysis of the entire room was broken by an animal howl of rage from Rannaldini.

  ‘Cut, for Christ’s sake, cut.’

  This so overwhelmed the overbred Prince of Darkness that he crapped all over the stage, whereupon, Jack, who’d been licking his chops, took off after Hermione’s cat, followed by an hysterically barking Maggie, Dinsdale and Tabloid. Hermione opened her mouth and screamed and screamed. Arthur, who loved babies as much as hay, shuffled forward to inspect the manger and was just about to nudge Baby Jesus when the Harrods doll was snatched up by Cecilia, halo askew.

  ‘Scellerato,’ she yelled, laying into Rannaldini with it.

  ‘Oh,’ sighed a visiting talent scout from Virgin Records, consulting his programme, ‘Flora Seymour has the most beautiful voice I have ever heard.’

  As everyone started yelling at Flora she burst
into tears.

  ‘Please don’t cry.’

  Running forward, Kitty clambered clumsily on to the stage, putting her arms round Flora and, with Lysander’s and Bob’s help, carried her out through the wings, up the steps into the summer parlour, where she collapsed on to the blue and white striped sofa on which she had first scorned Rannaldini’s advances.

  ‘You spoilt our nativity play,’ shouted Guy rushing in, tearing off Joseph’s head-dress, then turning to Georgie who had followed him.

  ‘Now see where your sloppy permissive attitude has led.’

  Next minute they were joined by Meredith and his twittering cronies who swooped on Flora, trying to comfort her, when Rannaldini stalked in, his face incandescent with rage.

  ‘You bitch,’ he screamed.

  ‘Are you talking to us?’ chorused Meredith’s cronies.

  Staggering to her feet, Flora lurched towards Rannaldini.

  ‘You’re drunk,’ he snarled.

  ‘No, pregnant,’ said Flora tonelessly, ‘and you’re the father.’

  ‘That’s not true,’ screamed Natasha. ‘How could you, Flora?’

  ‘You lying slut,’ hissed Rannaldini. ‘How dare you tell such fucking lies?’

  ‘It’s true,’ sobbed Flora.

  Calmly, Rannaldini walked over to the telephone.

  ‘Get me James Benson’s number,’ he called over his shoulder to Kitty. ‘He’ll soon do a few tests to see who’s right.’

  Kitty paused. She knew James Benson’s number by heart, having rung him so often about her own tests, but she suddenly felt so sorry for Flora. As if reading her thoughts, Flora slumped at Rannaldini’s feet, sobbing that she’d made the whole thing up, clinging hysterically to his purple-stockinged thighs.

  ‘I love you,’ she wept. ‘I can’t help myself. I’m so sorry, Kitty. It’s all my fault.’

  ‘And you’ve broken the Official Secrets Act,’ hissed Rannaldini viciously, wriggling out of her frantic clutches as though she were a pair of tight breeches. He seemed oblivious of the crowd around them.

  ‘You should have cut my vocal chords at the beginning,’ said Flora falling pitifully to the floor.

  Kitty, rushing forward to comfort her, was almost pushed sideways by Georgie.