Appassionata

by Jilly Cooper

  Returning to Woodbine Cottage in the early evening, he found the usual chaos, the washing-up machine was full and unloaded, the sink full of mugs, glasses and plates. In the fridge there was no milk, half a yoghurt, some apricot-and-nut pâté and half a grapefruit. There was also no bread. Tapes and CDs lay out of their cases like loose change on the sitting-room carpet, the plants had wilted, no-one had emptied the dustbin. Finding a squirming sea of maggots when he opened the lid, Marcus closed it quickly. The cats were weaving round his legs, reproachfully, rejecting a bowl of Whiskas covered in flies’ eggs.

  Marcus wanted to yell at someone but the place was deserted. He had just finished straightening things out and was gasping for breath as he staggered round the house with a watering-can, when the others rolled back from the pub in total euphoria.

  ‘We’ve had a brilliant few days,’ cried Flora. ‘Boris has finished except for the orchestration.’

  ‘You did the trick, playing the Schumann the other night.’ Boris thumped Marcus on the back so that the watering-can missed a pot of geraniums and spilled all over the sitting-room table. ‘That night I dream my Rachel forgive me. I weave By the Fireside into “Lachrymosa”.’

  ‘And into “Rachel’s Lament”, which reappears again as the most ravishing solo in the “Libera Me” at the end – it’s stunning,’ sighed Abby.

  ‘How did you get on, Marcus?’ asked Flora, getting a bottle of white wine out of a carrier bag.

  ‘Not brilliant.’

  ‘Many people?’

  ‘Not a lot, but at least they paid me.’

  ‘Ah well, that’s good, then.’ Flora picked up the corkscrew.

  ‘If you’re not too tired,’ asked Abby, ‘perhaps you could play us what Boris has written.’

  They were all so happy, he couldn’t shout at them.

  No-one could be bothered to stagger over to Marcus’s studio, besides he was fed up with the drink rings on the Steinway, so Flora lit one turquoise candle and one blue and put them in the candleholders on the old upright.

  Their soft light flickered on Marcus’s face, which gradually grew less pinched and strained as he miraculously deciphered Boris’s scrawl, his fingers moving with increasing assurance over the sticky yellow keys.

  Meanwhile Flora on the viola and Boris on the fiddle, when he wasn’t reaching for his pencil to scribble some change or sobbing his heart out, joined in, harmonizing as they went.

  Often the music was dense and hideously discordant, particularly when Boris muddled through Lionel’s appallingly demanding solo, muttering happily, ‘This’ll fix him, zee vanker,’ but often some magical tune or cadence would emerge, and Marcus would pause and shake his head in wonder.

  ‘This is incredible, Boris.’

  After the beautiful solo of ‘Rachel’s Lament’ had faded softly away, the requiem ended most uncharacteristically with a joyous fanfare.

  ‘And trumpets sound for Rachel on zee uzzer side,’ said Boris, wiping his eyes.

  The next moment, utterly exhausted, but triumphant, the three of them collapsed in each other’s arms.

  ‘You’ve done it, you’ve done it.’

  ‘No, you play zee Schumann, Marcus, you deed it,’ said Boris. ‘After zat I produce in trance like Handel’s Messiah.’

  ‘Levitsky’s Messier,’ giggled Flora, ‘if we’re going to compare handwriting and crossing out.’

  As Marcus started to play the ‘Lachrymosa’ again, really making it sing, Boris raised his glass to Abby who was huddled on the sofa clutching Sibelius.

  ‘I zank you, Abby, for giving us roof over the head.’

  ‘We’re The Three Tenants,’ announced Flora, shimmering down a glissando with a flourish of her bow. ‘Eat your hearts out Placido, Luciano and José.’

  Glancing round, Marcus realized Abby’s shoulders were shaking: ‘What’s the matter?’ He jumped to his feet.

  Abby looked up, her face crumpled and soaked with tears.

  ‘You’re all so lucky.’ And, dropping Sibelius on the carpet, she ran out into the garden.

  ‘She’s pissed, and Boris has been getting too much attention recently. Leave her,’ said Flora.

  ‘I cheer her up,’ Boris went towards the french windows.

  ‘I think you should have a bath first,’ said Flora, ‘I don’t believe you’ve touched a bar of soap for a fortnight.’

  Putting the kettle on, Marcus realized he hadn’t eaten all day. There didn’t seem any point starting. When he took out a cup of coffee to Abby in the garden, all the daisies that had shrivelled on the parched yellow lawn seemed to have sprung up in the star-covered sky. Boris was sitting on the old white bench under the greengage tree with his arm round Abby.

  ‘You must guest more,’ he was telling her. ‘When I conduct the London Met or the New World, the musicians adore me because they ’ate Rannaldini so much. Don’t cry, my darling, I vill dedicate Requiem to you.’

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Boris had cracked the Requiem, now, as Flora said, he had only to ‘add the rough edges’. The next morning, having bathed at length and washed his hair in Marcus’s shampoo, and put on yet another pair of Marcus’s boxer shorts, he took the draft into the garden, looking handsomer than most dawns as he sat in a deck-chair eating dried apricots.

  All great artists sacrifice the emotions and lives of those around them to further the interests of their art. In a mood to be expansive, Boris realized he had pushed Marcus too far.

  ‘You are sad.’

  ‘I’m OK. I wish my father would forgive me and I could see Taggie and Tab and the kids again. I wish my mother wasn’t married to that shit Rannaldini and I wish my career wasn’t going backwards.’

  Boris’s face softened. ‘I will write a very good piano part into the Requiem.’

  ‘Not much point. I was so rude to Old Mother Parker, George Hungerford’ll never let me over the RSO threshold again.’

  ‘Markie.’ It was Abby calling from the kitchen, looking radiant in a new scarlet bikini. She had also washed her hair and was reeking of Amarige. ‘I can’t open this jar of coffee,’ She said as Marcus went inside. ‘My grip still isn’t right. Isn’t it a beautiful day?’

  ‘Forecast says rain,’ Marcus said, handing back the jar. Out of the window, he could see huge white clouds gleaming like arctic cliffs in the sunshine, banking up beyond the wood. ‘God, we could use it.’

  ‘Oh, Markie,’ suddenly Abby looked wildly excited, ‘d’you think Boris fancies me?’

  It was the question he’d been dreading.

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘Oh, darling Markie,’ Abby hugged him, giving him the cruel benefit of her hot scented, nearly naked body. ‘You’re the little brother I never had.’

  Hearing the post-van rattling over the dry stones up the lane, Marcus had an excuse to wriggle free before she felt the frantic hammering of his heart.

  He was absurdly pleased to get a letter from the musical society in Lancashire.

  Dear Mr Black,

  Yours was the first concert our society has ever had. We all enjoyed it very much indeed. We would like to thank you, and take the opportunity of booking you again next year.

  Boris had a letter from Astrid.

  ‘I haven’t ring her since Vendesday because of vork,’ said Boris mortified. ‘I vill ring her once I get to end of “Sanctus”, at least I can pay her now.’

  Abby’s good mood evaporated when she read a postcard with a photograph of a donkey on the back which had arrived from Viking to Flora, saying how much he was looking forward to seeing her, and that he hoped L’Appassionata had recovered from her strop.

  Conscious of a froideur despite the heat, Flora decided to make herself scarce. She was fed up with copying black dots. She wanted to buy a new dress and get her hair cut, and tried to persuade Marcus to go into Rutminster with her.

  ‘I ought to practise.’

  ‘And there’s still a mass of copying to do,’ protested Boris.

  ‘
Can I borrow your car, Marcus?’ said Flora.

  Left alone with Abby and Boris, Marcus felt increasingly claustrophobic as Abby, stretched out on the grass in her bikini and pretended to make notes on the huge score of Brahms’ Second Symphony.

  Boris, flat stomached and lean hipped now he’d lost so much weight, his sallow skin turning a smooth dark brown, pretended to orchestrate the ‘Sanctus’.

  He’s absolutely gorgeous, Abby gazed at Boris through splayed fingers. It was lovely that he was dedicating the Requiem to her. Imagine her biog: Not only was Abigail Rosen the Paganini and the Toscanini of her age, but also Boris Levitsky’s Immortal Beloved. Rodney’s caresses had made her aware of how desperately she needed a man.

  ‘Sheet, I ’ave run out of manuscript paper,’ Boris glanced down at the laboriously copying Marcus. ‘You got any more?’

  ‘This is my last page.’

  ‘And Flora’s taken the car,’ wailed Abby.

  ‘I wonder who’s got some?’

  ‘Certainly not the Celtic Mafia,’ said Abby with a sniff, then exchanging a languorous eye-meet with Boris, volunteered, ‘I’ll call Old Henry.’

  Marcus was passionately relieved to escape. The bus-stop was only half a mile away if he took a short cut through the woods. Twenty yards down the track, he turned round to find Abby hovering at the gate. ‘Just wanted to check you’ve got your inhaler,’ she had the grace to blush. ‘Please take it slowly.’

  Just to make sure I’ve really gone, thought Marcus bitterly.

  I must ring Astrid, thought Boris, as he put down the orchestrated ‘Sanctus’. But, on his way to the house, he passed Abby, poring over Lionel’s impossibly difficult violin solo which Marcus had just copied out and left on the garden bench.

  ‘God, this is wonderful – if only I could play it.’

  ‘You vill,’ said Boris, ‘I used to be a teacher, I taught Marcus, I vill help you to play again.

  ‘You take the bow in this hand.’ Boris kissed her fingers. ‘You take the violin in this one.’ He picked up her left hand, examining the palm. ‘Such a strong fate line, so much passion.’ Slowly he ran his tongue along her heart line.

  Abby shivered with excitement, not least because she’d got all the feeling back.

  She and Boris were exactly the same height. For a second he gazed at her, then buried his lips in her scented neck below the left jawbone.

  ‘This ees where you put your violin,’ he whispered, ‘I weel make you bettair.’

  As he kissed her lips, he was enchanted by the wild enthusiasm of her response.

  Rain brought back the wild flowers, the butterflies and Viking O’Neill to Rutminster. He had enjoyed his time in Dublin. He had recorded the Strauss Horn Concertos, played chamber music, romped with his numerous nephews and nieces, gossiped to his mother until four in the morning, looked up old girlfriends and drinking pals. He had also acquired a second-hand BMW convertible into which he had transferred the Don Juan horn call.

  But by the end of three and a half weeks he had had enough. He lusted after Flora, about whom he’d had a lovely erotic dream last night, but which had faded like a rainbow when he tried to retain it. And then there was Abby.

  He had had a letter from Rodney:

  Darling boy,

  Beneath that golden exterior you have a heart of gold. Please be kinder to Abby, she is so isolated and sad. Genius should be pruned, but also sunned and fertilized. I suspect she analyses far too much and should let her instincts take over. If you, as leader of the pack, eased up on her a little, the boys and girls would follow suit. Dear me, I miss you all so much.

  Viking wondered about being taken over by Abby’s instincts. He didn’t really fancy her. She was too overbearing, too self-centred, too troublesome, but she irritated him all the time like a sharp piece of apple lodged in his teeth.

  The downpour stopped as he approached Rutminster. Pausing in a lane of traffic, he noticed harebells glinting like amethysts in the verge, and meadow browns and common blues dancing ecstatically over the drenched fields. A red admiral had also upended itself on the top of a thistle, avoiding the prickles, as it sucked the sweetness from the mauve flower. With Abby, you’d have to accept prickles and all.

  Odd to have a traffic jam on this road, then he realized all the drivers were slowing down to gaze at a beautiful girl at the bus-stop. Her long blond hair and faded denim dress seemed to echo the gold wheat fields and the blue of the sky. With her were a boy and a girl, both very dark haired, pale and sloe-eyed. Must be the child-bride of some rich Arab, thought Viking dismissively.

  Pulling up, he smiled and offered her a lift.

  The girl brightened. Viking was very brown, his lion’s mane bleached. In the last three weeks, he’d got a little more sleep than usual. Such an attractive man, with his arm round such an adorable dog, surely couldn’t be an abducter.

  ‘You know,’ she consulted a letter, ‘the vay to Voodbine Cottage?’

  ‘I go right past the door, hop in. Over you go, Nugent.’

  Leaping out, Viking gathered up a pile of scores, paperbacks, CDs and a big bag of duty free and dumped them in the boot, as the big black dog jumped obediently into the back seat.

  ‘He loves kids,’ he added, as he opened the back door for the two pale dubious-looking children, and ushered the heavenly blonde into the passenger seat.

  Then, raising two fingers at the furiously jealous crescendo of car horns behind him, he drove off with a retaliatory flourish from Don Juan.

  ‘My name’s Viking.’

  ‘Mine’s Astrid.’ They gazed at each other in delight.

  ‘Who are you going to see?’

  ‘Boris Levitsky.’

  ‘At Woodbine Cottage?’

  Viking was horrified at the idea of Boris hanging round Flora and Abby, exuding Russian machismo.

  ‘He finish Requiem,’ said Astrid, in her lilting singsong voice. ‘He have crisis. Someone called George wanted Boris to pay money back.’

  Viking’s opinion of George Hungerford rocketed.

  ‘Boris dedicate Requiem to me,’ went on Astrid happily. ‘He say eet almost over. We stay weeth his in-laws, horrible people.’ Astrid lowered her voice. ‘Marmite sandwich for supper, salad viz no dressing, feenish up every bit, only children’s television, bed by eight, so we decided to surprise Boris.’

  The two children soon cheered up when Viking stopped and bought them ice-lollies.

  Traveller’s joy falling in creamy drifts stroked the top of the car, the rain had polished the dusty trees, Viking breathed in a smell of wet earth and moulding leaves as he splashed through the puddles up the rough track.

  ‘Are we nearly there?’ asked Astrid, as Nugent began to sniff excitedly.

  ‘Nearly,’ said Viking, driving as carefully as possible over the stones to enable Astrid to apply pale pink lipstick to her delicious mouth.

  ‘You look gorgeous,’ he added, ‘wasted on that Russian.’

  ‘I miss heem so much. Oh what a pretty leetle ‘ouse,’ exclaimed Astrid as the car drew to a halt.

  Getting out, Viking put her hand on Nugent’s collar.

  ‘Just hang onto my dog till I see who’s in. He’s not safe with cats.’

  Sauntering up the lichened path, Viking found the pale green front door locked.

  ‘I’ll check round the back.’

  In the garden, he found Abby and Boris asleep, lying naked in each other’s arms. Wonder at Abby’s amazing body, rage at what she’d clearly been doing with it, gave way to consternation that Boris’s children mustn’t catch him like this.

  Alas, Marcus’s car had conked out on the way home and Flora, meeting a returning Marcus and the cats, had walked back through the woods with them. As they came through the back gate, Mr Nugent had ducked out of his collar and joined his master. Suddenly seeing the two kittens, he hurtled across the lawn, in a frenzy of barking sending both cats scuttling up the horse-chestnut tree.

  Rudely awoken, Abby and Boris gr
oped for their clothes. Boris hadn’t quite pulled up Marcus’s boxer shorts when Astrid appeared round the corner, but a huge smile spread across his face.

  ‘Astrid, oh my Astrid,’ he cried running, slipping . across the lawn, with arms outstretched. ‘You have come to me, ’Ow I have meesed you.’

  ‘You ’avent meesed me at all,’ screamed Astrid, sizing up the situation. ‘You peeg, you absolute peeg.’ And she slapped Boris very hard across his face.

  ‘My darling, vy you do that?’ Boris clutched his cheek. ‘I finish my requiem. Abby and I just embrace for celebration.’ Then, turning most unflatteringly to Abby, said, ‘Tell Astrid it was nuzzing.’

  ‘Seems to have been a good deal of nuzzling,’ observed Flora. ‘Oh do shut up, Nugent.’

  ‘You peeg,’ repeated Astrid. ‘And I don’t want requiem dedicate to me.’ Bursting into tears she ran back to the car.

  ‘I do see her point,’ said Viking coolly. ‘I was just returning your kids, Boris, here they are.’ As Boris was safely covered now, he drew the two children round onto the lawn. ‘And as Astrid hasn’t had a day off for a month, I thought I’d take her on a jaunt.’

  ‘No,’ roared Boris.

  But Viking was too quick for him, whistling to a reluctant Nugent while sprinting back to the car, he jumped in beside a still-sobbing Astrid, and reversed down the lane to the victorious accompaniment of Don Juan’s horn call.

  Boris was demented.

  ‘Run after my Astrid, tell her it was a moment of euphoria,’ he beseeched Abby. ‘I love her, and more important I cannot afford to lose a wonderful nanny for keeds.’