by Jilly Cooper
‘Well, you must be happy with that,’ said Abby, chucking down her baton and the Requiem score, as she and Boris finally returned to the conductor’s room.
‘No-one hackled, no-one booed,’ said Boris darkly. ‘Maybe I am not avant-garde any more, maybe I’m too predictable.’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake.’
But the next moment, predictability and the avant-garde were forgotten, as Astrid, wearing a new lilac suit, no doubt bought with the proceeds of Viking’s moonlighting, barged into the conductor’s room without bothering to knock, straight into Boris’s arms.
THIRTY-SEVEN
After the première, George took a party out to dinner at the Old Bell. His guests included Abby, Julian and his lovely bosomy wife Luisa, Serena Westwood, head of Artists and Repertoire at Megagram who were recording the Requiem at the end of the month, Jack Rodway, the evening’s sponsor, who was a specialist in receiverships in a leading firm of accountants, and, representing the Arts Council, a caring beard called Gilbert Greenford and his ‘partner’, a folk-weave biddy called Gwynneth.
Having laid on limos to the Old Bell, George was extremely irritated to be lectured by Gwynneth all the way on the evils of air-conditioning in large petrol-swilling cars.
‘You ought to get a cycle,’ she stared beadily at George’s straining waistband, ‘Gilbert and I cycle everywhere, indeed Gilbert has had his cycle, Clara (after Clara Schumann, of course), since he was at Keble.’
It was clearly going to be difficult reconciling the middle-of-the road tastes of Serena Westwood, a single parent whose calm beautiful face was belied by a rapacious body, with those of Gilbert and Gwynneth from the Arts Council, who only liked the obscure and discordant, and of Jack Rodway, who had a penchant for Boléro because ‘it makes me feel right randy’.
To George’s further irritation, he arrived at the hotel to find a joyfully drunk Boris, who’d been on the red wine all day, had rolled up not only with Astrid, but also Marcus and Flora who was totally unsuitably dressed in sawn-off Black-Watch-tartan dungarees. George hadn’t spoken to Flora since she’d brought Marcus over to be impossibly rude to Peggy Parker at the sixtieth-birthday concert, but he had noticed her cool deadpan face among the violas, or more often the top of her red-gold head because her freckled nose was always in a book. He knew she was trouble.
Once the waiter had added another table, Boris, Marcus, Astrid and the Pallafacinis commandeered it, wanting to mull over the concert and talk musical shop. They had kept a place for Flora.
But determined Flora shouldn’t cause any more trouble and to keep her away from Gilbert and Gwynneth, George frogmarched her down the table into the seat nearest the window, with Jack Rodway next to her, hissing: ‘He’s paid for this evening, so bloody well be nice to him.’
Planning to put himself opposite her to keep an eye on her and at the same time talk business with Jack Rodway, George held out a seat for Serena Westwood, intending her to sit next to him, so they could discuss recordings for the RSO. But alas, a second later, ghastly Gwynneth had landed on the seat like a wet lump of potter’s clay.
‘I feel you and I should get to know each other, Mr Hungerford, and you sit on my left, Mr Brian-Knowles,’ she added archly to Miles, nearly giving him a black eye with one of her huge silver earrings, hanging like gongs on either side of her round, smug, pasty face.
Gwynneth had buck teeth, beady little dark eyes, a pepper-and-salt bun, and was also a great lard-mountain of self-importance as she was constantly fawned on by men who ran orchestras and ballet and opera companies who knew she had the power to slash their grants.
Seeing Flora gazing at Gwynneth in horror, George snapped at her not to stare. So Flora looked out of the window at the yellow willow spears falling into the dark river, and at the lights on the bridge silhouetted against the russet glow of the Rutminster sky.
On all sides, at other tables, ancient residents were ekeing out slices of cheddar and half-bottles of red, nudging each other because they recognized Abby. Some of them also recognized George from the local papers, because of the row he was having with the council over planning permission for the fifty acres on Cowslip Hill.
George certainly had a terrific effect on waiters, who had all converged on the table, handing over red velvet, tasselled menus, gabbling about Plats du Jour, and filling glasses, particularly Boris’s, whenever they were empty.
‘Penny for your forts,’ asked Jack Rodway, who’d been admiring Flora’s profile.
‘I was thinking,’ replied Flora with a sweet smile, ‘what an ugly cow that is opposite.’
‘Her “partner” Gilbert is worse,’ murmured Jack. ‘I sat next to ‘im on the drive down. Stinks like a pole cat.’
Flora giggled. ‘Obviously thinks avant-garde is more important than Right Guard.’
Jack looked blank for a second, then roared with laughter.
‘That’s right, Flora.’
Jack Rodway had dissipated blue eyes in a ruddy expensive face, wore a sharp navy-blue suit, and was such an alley cat that Flora expected to see furry pointed ears protruding through his thatch of blond hair.
‘I suppose,’ she observed, ‘receivers and divorce lawyers are the only people making any money these days.’
‘Too right, Flora, with twenty thousand firms going belly up every year, it’s a growf industry, nime of the gime.’
‘Must be awfully depressing, like being an undertaker or a nurse in a vivisection clinic,’ Flora shivered. ‘All those poor employees losing their jobs.’
‘We try and mike it as pineless as possible for the personnel involved. No fanks,’ Jack rejected a wholemeal roll. Over forty, a flat stomach required sacrifices.
‘Moules are nice, Flora, just come in,’ suggested the head waiter, who was a great pal of Flora’s mother.
‘Lovely, I’ll have those,’ Flora beamed back at him. ‘I’m so hopeless at decisions.’
‘I’ll have smoked salmon, followed by steak and French fries,’ said Jack Rodway.
Suddenly Flora twigged.
‘You must be an invaluable contact for George. Presumably when companies go into receivership they often have huge crumbling old buildings that no longer qualify as listed, if you knock off a few cornices, but are ripe for development as office blocks or supermarkets.’
‘What a very astute young lidy you are, Flora,’ said Jack Rodway, filling up her glass. ‘Wasted on the violas.’
George, from his bootfaced expression, had obviously heard every word, but was being monopolized by Gwynneth.
‘I shall not let my sword sleep in my hand,’ she was saying affectedly, ‘until I have routed out sexual apartheid in British orchestras and until 50 per cent of the repertoire is by women composers.’
George choked on his glass of wine. Gwynneth turned greedily to the menu. As Megagram and the RSO were splitting the bill, she and Goaty Gilbert, who had granny specs and green teeth, surrounded by a straggly ginger beard, chose all the most expensive things on the menu.
‘Disgusting pigs,’ muttered Flora, receiving another glare from George. But nothing could dim her happiness. In the pocket of her Black-Watch-tartan dungarees was a postcard left in her pigeon hole:
Darling Flora,
Astrid is moving out, thank God. The pillow talk was very limited. Will you have a drink with me the second I get back from Glasgow?
All love,
Viking.
Viking was another alley cat, reflected Flora, but she felt he was the only person who could get her over Rannaldini. For the moment, she could practise on Jack.
‘D’you know Fatima Singh, Mr Hungerford?’ Across the table Gwynneth was returning the attack.
‘Does she?’ asked Flora.
‘What?’ said Gwynneth impatiently.
‘Sing?’ giggled Flora.
‘No, no, she composes. You must be familiar with her Elegy for oppressed Lesbians in the Harem.’
‘Best place for them,’ said Jack. ‘All girls tog
ewer.’
‘She makes lovely use of the sitar,’ went on Gwynneth, totally ignoring them. ‘Gilbert and I note you have no Asian music in your repertoire, Mr Hungerford.’
Down the table, Boris was gazing into Astrid’s eyes and murmuring Pushkin in his deep husky voice. Abby, on an après-concert high, was bending Gilbert’s dirty ear about the wonders of Winifred Trapp and Fanny Mendelssohn.
‘We have a terrific harpist, Miss Parrott, who’s mad about the Trapp solos.’
The Pellafacinis were talking about children with Serena Westwood.
‘I’m not an achiever,’ Luisa was saying apologetically. ‘I look after Julian and the kids.’
Abandoning George for a second, Gwynneth was now discussing madrigals with Miles.
‘The musicians sing them on the coach on the way to concerts,’ he was saying.
‘How joyful,’ Gwynneth brought her hands together with a clash of bangles. ‘When I come down on my three-day assessment of the orchestra, I hope I may be permitted to join in. We could sing motets as well – they are the religious equivalent of the domestic madrigal.’ And she went off into a flurry offa, la, las, in a quavering soprano.
If she got locked into the coffin-shaped lavatory with Viking, decided Flora, there wouldn’t be room for Hilary and Militant Moll as well.
Marcus sat in a daze, his fingers playing idly on the white table cloth, still coming down after the Requiem, unable to say a word on the noisy journey to the hotel, when everyone else was going beserk expressing their approval.
Suddenly he turned to Boris and blurted out: ‘That was one of the most beautiful pieces of music I’ve ever heard, like discovering America or walking round Chartres Cathedral for the first time.’
There was a pause as everyone suddenly remembered the Requiem was why they were there.
Serena Westwood, who believed that a bonk a day kept the doldrums away, and who had high hopes of George, turned and looked at Marcus for the first time. What a beauty, such a sweet, sensitive yet strong face, and he was the only man she’d met whom the Hugh Grant hairstyle really suited.
‘Marcus is why Requiem happen,’ said Boris excitedly. ‘Ee copy, ee transcribe, ee listen, ee encourage, is super pianist, you must give him a contract,’ he added to Serena. ‘Let’s all dreenk to Marcus.’ Having drained his glass, he smashed it in the fireplace.
The other diners looked wildly excited. The waiters came running in in alarm, until George waved to them to forget it and to bring Boris another glass.
‘What have you done recently?’ Serena asked a desperately blushing Marcus.
‘T-teaching mostly. I had a recital in Bradford last week.’
‘Good?’
‘Not brilliant, a string broke in the middle of Bartók’s Allegro Barbaro. It sounded like a bomb going off, all the audience tore out, not many of them bothered to come back.’ Marcus smiled deprecatingly.
‘You must send me a tape,’ said Serena enthusiastically. ‘Perhaps you should have a crack at a piano competition. It’s good experience and the best way of getting known.’
‘It’s a lousy idea,’ snapped Abby, abandoning Gilbert in mid-flow. ‘Marcus doesn’t need gladiatorial contests. He’s gotta develop at his own pace.’
Marcus opened his mouth and shut it again
‘Well, at least get an agent,’ urged Serena. ‘I could suggest—’
‘If he needs an agent,’ snapped Abby, ‘he can go to Howie Denston.’
‘Oh Abby,’ sighed Flora, ‘when will you learn not to be a bitch in the manger?’
‘Thank you.’ Gwynneth’s small mouth was watering like a waste pipe as a great vat of caviar was placed in front of her. ‘Did you mention Bradford?’ she called out to Marcus.
Marcus nodded, mortified still to be the centre of attention.
‘Did you have time to visit the Early Music Shop?’ asked Gwynneth. ‘What a pity, Gilbert brought a portative organ set from there and made it up for my birthday. He’s thinking of tackling a crumhorn or even timbrels next.’
‘What wild ecstasy,’ murmured Flora, contemplating a black, shiny mountain of mussels and wondering how hungry she felt.
‘Did you listen to the CCO at the proms?’ asked Gilbert, forking up lobster at great speed. ‘There is no doubt, they are the best orchestra in the South of England and played as such.’
‘That’s rubbish,’ called Flora down the table. ‘We can play just as well as the CCO. Ow, ow, ow.’ She glanced reproachfully at George. ‘Why d’you kick me like that? Just as well, particularly now we’ve got Julian.’
‘Zat is true,’ Boris dragged his eyes away from Astrid. ‘Zank you for your support, Julian, and welcome to England. Let us drink to Julian.’ Another glass smashed in the fireplace.
Flora turned giggling to Jack, who had demolished his smoked salmon in a trice, and was now helping himself to her mussels.
‘We’ve had Boris living with us on and off for the last two months. He’s exactly like a two year old, smashing everything and getting his words muddled up.’
Boris grinned down the table at them.
‘Always Flora take the puss out of me, but she is good friend who help me. To Flora!’ Crash went a third glass.
‘Cheaper to hire them by the two dozen,’ suggested Julian.
But Gwynneth had put on a soppy, artists-will-be-artists smile. ‘And what is your next opus, Mr Levitsky?’
‘He’s going to write a moonlighting sonata for Viking,’ announced Flora.
Gwynneth raised a reproving hand with another crash of bangles. ‘I asked Mr Levitsky.’
‘I’m going to write opera of King Lear.’
‘That could be very fine,’ mused Gwynneth. ‘Good women’s roles, and you could make an important statement about paternal oppression.’
‘Oh get real,’ muttered Flora.
‘Will you use a Russian translation or tackle iambic pentameter?’ asked Gilbert earnestly.
‘Dactyl and Sponsor,’ grinned Flora, raising her glass to Jack Rodway, who promptly put his arm round her shoulders.
‘I ’ave to say, George, I’ll only sponsor concerts in the future if I can have Flora sitting next to me afterwards.’
‘George ordered me to be nice to you,’ said Flora. ‘And it hasn’t been difficult at all,’ she added, kissing Jack on the cheek.
George was clearly hopping, but, trapped by the need to behave well in front of Gwynneth, he was powerless.
‘You’ve no idea the fun I’ve had playing on Gilbert’s small organ,’ she was now telling him. ‘Of course today’s musicians need an organ that will fit into an estate car or in Gilbert’s case to fold up in a briefcase. Were you aware, Mr Hungerford, that small organs were neither usual nor common until recent times?’
‘I’ve always said they had more fun in the Middle Ages,’ interrupted Flora. ’Ow, ow, why d’you keep kicking me?’
‘Just shut up,’ whispered George with a flash of clenched teeth.
Finishing up the juice under her moules, Flora missed her mouth with the spoon and realized how drunk she was. She looked at George through her eyelashes. Why did they all think he was so attractive? He almost had a treble chin from so many sponsors’ dinners, and the big horn-rimmed spectacles emphasized the tired, belligerent eyes. He also had the restlessness of the emotionally involved elsewhere. For such a macho man, it must have been a terrible blow when his wife walked out.
Gwynneth was obviously thinking along the same lines. ‘D’you have a partner, Mr Hungerford?’
‘I’m separated,’ said George curtly. ‘Did you both try relationship counselling?’
‘I don’t hold with that sort of thing.’ George was fed up with being nice to her.
‘Don’t be so on the defensive,’ teased Gwynneth. ‘Even Gilbert and I are counselled every six months, a sort of spiritual MOT.’
Her mouth was watering again as a waiter flambéed her tournedos au foie gras on a side-table.
‘I am not a meat
-eater normally, but “when in Rome”,’ Gwynneth smiled round as if she were making a colossal concession.
‘My mother went to a marriage-guidance counsellor,’ said Flora. ‘She said they were useless and had more problems than she did.’
Gwynneth ignored Flora, but persisted with George. ‘You want to get in touch with your feelings.’
Flora decided George needed rescuing. She must be drunk.
‘What I’d like to ask,’ she said to Gwynneth, ‘is why the London Met – yes, I read it in The Times – are allowed to push off for three months every summer, so their hall can be used for jazz, pop concerts, gospel, cajun music and other relative garbage, and you pay them a massive thirteen million a year, which is more than the RSO grant for the next forty years. Meanwhile we play all the year round except for a month in the summer. We travel fifty thousand miles in coaches, providing music for nine counties and we pay more back to the Government in VAT than you give us in rotten subsidy. So actually we’re a net earner.’
‘That’s enoof, Flora,’ said George who entirely agreed with her, but couldn’t be seen to support her in public.
‘I cannot reveal the reasons we give subsidies to other institutions,’ said Gwynneth primly.
‘Why not?’ demanded Flora. ‘You receive government money, therefore the public (and that’s me) has the right to know. Everyone needs rises down here.’
‘Hear, hear,’ agreed Jack, ignoring a glare from George and filling Flora’s glass. ‘Too much bloody fudgin’.’
Gwynneth’s little brown eyes were suddenly as dead and opaque as sheeps’ droppings, her furious face twitching.
‘I adore that top, Gwynnie,’ said Miles hastily. ‘You look marvellous in indigo.’
‘It comes from a planet-friendly range,’ said Gwynneth, looking most unfriendly towards Flora. ‘Even the buttons are biodegradable. I’ll give you their card for your partner.’
Marcus could feel Serena’s ankle rubbing against his leg like Scriabin, making him incapable of eating his Dover sole. He’d given eight piano lessons earlier in the day, he ought to practise for a couple of hours when he got home, but he’d do anything for a fat record contract, and Serena looked rather like Grace Kelly in High Society.
