by Jilly Cooper
‘It wasn’t Abby’s church,’ said Flora, joining the group to Miles’s fury. ‘She’s Jewish, and people use the word “asshole” all the time in America – it just means idiot. Anyway,’ she ploughed on ignoring the shocked faces, ‘Abby’s in excellent company. Handel used to swear in four languages at anyone, even royalty, who chatted in rehearsals, and he used to throw tiresome singers out of the window, although he’d have been pushed to evict Alphonso.’
‘Well said,’ Dame Edith gave a shout of laughter, then linking her arm through Flora’s led her towards the kitchen. ‘Come and have some grub. Like your flowered leggings, just like the Prima Vera.’ Then, lowering her voice, whispered, ‘How’s Marcus? Monica and I are awfully worried about the rift with Rupert and Taggie; poor boy feels things so deeply.’
‘The best thing you could do,’ said Flora, ‘is to get him some work.’
As soon as Dame Edith was out of earshot, Miles, guzzling Gwynneth and Gilbert, and the Bishop drew together for an indignation meeting.
‘Abigail’s got to be stopped, she can’t go on behaving like a yobbo. The “Hallelujah Chorus” sounded like rock music,’ said Miles fastidiously.
‘And that young woman Flora’s just as bad,’ sniffed Gwynneth.
Oblivious of the furore she had triggered off, Abby was thrilled to have been sought out by Monica Baddingham and the great Declan O’Hara, who was just to die for, to say how well she had done. She was livid, however, when she overheard several CCO players saying how tremendously the RSO had been improved by Julian.
‘It’s the great leader, of course, that makes a great orchestra,’ said Hugo, smiling coldly at Abby.
He was obviously still festering over his yellow cords. Then he turned to Gwynneth, who looked as though she had a couple of used cars hanging from her ears.
‘Lovely earrings, Gwynneth. Can I get you some bombe surprise? I know how you like desserts.’
‘I thought I’d have seconds of the coq first,’ simpered Gwynneth.
‘Nearest she’ll get to cock in this house,’ murmured Randy to Candy. ‘I’m surprised they’re not serving vibrator au vin.’
Hugo, who, unlike most of the RSO, realized how crucial it was to suck up to the Arts Council, took Gwynneth’s plate.
‘You’re so caring, Hugo,’ Gwynneth edged towards him. ‘What did you really think of Rosen’s performance?’
Hugo shrugged. ‘Not a lot. The jazzing up of the “Hallelujah Chorus” was terribly vulgar. George Frederick would have loathed it, and she’s such a drama queen.’
‘My sentiments entirely. How far exactly is Rutminster from Cotchester?’
‘Two score miles and ten,’ said Hugo. ‘And the RSO nearly didn’t get there by candlelight.’
‘One wonders,’ mused Gwynneth, ‘whether we really need two orchestras in the area.’
‘My sentiments even more entirely,’ said Hugo.
There was only warmth and sincerity in Hugo’s eyes as he forced himself to gaze into her lard-like face. Without flinching he accepted the pressure of her shapeless body. ‘I’ll get you some more coq, Gwynnie.’
Turning, he tripped over a large labrador and nearly deposited Gwynneth’s chicken bones into Alphonso’s capacious lap.
Alphonso, who was taking up seven-eights of the window-seat, didn’t flinch either.
‘I hop,’ he was telling Nellie, ‘that you will come to my suite for a night-hat.’
George, who’d been buttonholed for far too long, grabbed Abby as she passed.
‘Have a word with Gilbert, I know he wants to discuss the concert.’
Shoving them together to their mutual distaste, he belted off to find Dame Hermione. In his car on the way over, she had sung: ‘I’m a little lamb that’s lost in the wood’. George had never looked forward to a night-cap more in his life.
The heroine of the evening was now holding court on a frayed chaise-longue to a circle of admirers, many of them Press.
‘I just thought, poor fellow, poor fellow, he must be so terribly unhappy. Anyone that dependent on drink needs help.’
‘You’re so compassionate, Dame Hermione,’ gushed Gwynneth.
‘Have some fizz,’ said Monica Baddingham, waving a bottle.
Everyone put their hands over their glasses to demonstrate their lack of dependency.
‘I just wanted to congratulate you on your Fanny Cycle,’ went on Gwynneth reverently, ‘and Rannaldini has never conducted better.’
‘How is Rannaldini?’ asked a man from The Times idly.
Flora, on her way to the 100, stopped in her tracks.
‘Oh, full of beans,’ said Hermione heartily, her small hand creeping surreptitiously into George’s big one.
‘How’s his new marriage?’ asked the Guardian.
‘Excellent,’ said Hermione, her eyes suddenly twinkling. ‘I sometimes think he married her for her packing.’
Flora groaned and ran upstairs. She was desperately tired and near to tears. After admiring the famous musicians, including Rannaldini in arctic profile framed on the wall of Edith’s bathroom, she unlocked the door and came out slap into Carmine.
‘You played brilliantly tonight,’ she stammered, conscious of the lurking menace of the man. ‘I wish all the brass section had been at the concert to hear you.’
Edging along the wall towards the stairs, she was stopped by the iron bar of his arm.
‘Give us a kiss, then.’
Avoiding a vile sour waft of vinous breath which must have corked inside him, Flora pecked him on the cheek. The next moment, Carmine had grabbed her hair, yanking her head back, forcing his sneering mouth on hers with a clash of teeth, scratching her with his horrible moustache. As she writhed with the strength of utter revulsion, his other hand dived under her dark blue jersey, pinching her breasts till she screamed.
‘You bloody little bra-less prick-tease.’
‘Lemme go.’ Flora was desperately trying to knee him in the balls, when a voice said: ‘Ahem. I spy a strugglin’ musician.’
‘Fuck off,’ snarled Carmine, but his grip eased.
Wriggling away, Flora went slap into the scented, medallion-hung bulk of Jack Rodway the receiver.
‘Oh, thank God.’
‘You OK?’
Flora nodded. ‘No fool like a bold fool,’ she said shakily.
Jack turned on Carmine.
‘If you ever lay a finger on this young lidy again, I’ll get George’s boys on you, before he fires you.’
Swearing, snarling, Carmine lurched off upstairs.
Flora was shaking uncontrollably.
‘Poor li-el fing.’ Jack’s arms closed around her. ‘Come and have a jar at the Bar Sinister.’
Out of the landing window, Flora could see musicians streaming out to the waiting coach.
‘I gotta go.’
‘I’ll run you home later, it’s no distance at night. I’ve thought a lot about you, Flora.’
‘My things are still on Edith’s bed.’ Flora shivered, Carmine was still up there somewhere. ‘There’s my leather jacket, and a viola case with my name on, and a green Louis Vuitton bag.’
‘I’ll get them,’ said Jackie.
‘And you might torch Dim Hermione’s fur coat at the same time.’
In the hall, Flora met a happier-looking Marcus.
‘Dame Edith’s just introduced me to George, he was really nice this time.’
Flora looked old-fashioned. ‘Must want something. Look, I’m not coming on the coach – can you or Abby feed the cats if you get home before me?’
‘I shouldn’t be doing this,’ grumbled Flora as Jack aimed the remote control to open huge electric gates. ‘What happens if your wife rolls up?’
‘She’s in Italy,’ said Jack.
They seemed to get upstairs to the bedroom awfully quickly.
‘I’m glad you turned up at the party,’ gabbled Flora. ‘Things were a little flat, before Carmine tried to rape me.’
‘I’ll set
you up in a little flat,’ Jack guided her into a bedroom out of a Laura Ashley catalogue.
‘I ought to clean my teeth,’ said Flora, as she collapsed onto a daisy-strewn counterpane. ‘I better fetch my smart new bag to match such a smart bedroom.’
‘Use my toothbrush,’ said Jack, pulling her to her feet. ‘Use anyfing in the bathroom, most of all, use me.’
Flora was woken by Jack marching in with black coffee, croissants and a large jug of Buck’s Fizz.
‘You’re a seriously nice man.’
Jack smirked.
‘And that is a really pretty view.’ Flora reared up in bed to admire a wood and white houses nesting in skewbald hills. People were already tobogganing. ‘And a lovely little village.’
‘Shame the bloody bells wike us up at twenty to eleven every Sunday morning.’
‘Help. Is that the time?’
‘You were very tired. I wish I could still crash out like that.’
Jack was wearing a white towelling dressing-gown and was obviously poised for a replay. He looked much older in daylight with his thatched hair pushed off his lined forehead.
‘Coincidence you going to Verona,’ he went on. ‘Have a Crusoe.’
Croissant’s the one word that always trips them up, Flora was appalled to find herself thinking, and said hastily, ‘I’ve never been to Verona.’
‘Come on, the label’s on your smart ‘old-all.’
Flora was downstairs in a flash. In the Louis Vuitton bag with the Verona label, she found several toots of cocaine, two very hard-porn mags, a year’s supply of condoms, ten grand in cash, some grey silk pyjamas, voluminous enough to make a parachute, Alphonso’s tails, his passport and his tickets to Verona on a plane that had left at eight o’clock that morning.
Flora went beserk.
‘He’s got Foxie,’ she sobbed. ‘I can’t move without Foxie, he’s been with me since I was a baby.’
She was on to Woodbine Cottage in even more of a flash.
‘Dirty stop-out,’ were Abby’s first words.
‘I’ve lost Foxie, and my lovely new case.’
It was several seconds before Abby could make herself heard.
‘It’s OK, Nellie’s got them.’
‘How on earth?’
‘She went back to the Cotchester Hilton with Alphonso.’
‘Omigod.’
Abby couldn’t stop laughing.
‘Nellie said Alphonso burrowed in his case for a line and a condom and discovered Foxie.’
‘Condomingo,’ said Flora, who was reeling with relief. ‘Poor Foxie, where’s he now?’
‘Alphonso gave him and your case to George.’
‘Oh de-ah,’ said Flora wearily, ‘he’s not going to be very happy. I’ve got Alphonso’s case here.’
George had not been able to keep his rendezvous with Dame Hermione. A man of sorrows, acquainted with a whole load of grief, he had instead spent the night with an increasingly hysterical Alphonso, who refused to let him call the police, because of the contents of the case, but insisted George ring every member of the orchestra, which was difficult when the snow had brought down so many telephone lines, to try and locate its whereabouts.
George really roared down the telephone at Flora.
‘Where the fuck have you been? Alphonso’s threatening to sue the orchestra, unless we get his case back and him on the evening plane. He’s got to fly to the States in the morning. I’ll send the helicopter for the case at once. Where are you?’
‘I can’t tell you.’
‘Then you’re fired.’
Flora put a sweating hand over the receiver.
‘Can you lend me the money for a taxi back to Rutminster?’
Grim-faced, Jack seized the telephone.
‘George, it’s Jack, Jack Rodway, Flora’s wiv me.’ Then, interrupting the torrent of abuse, snapped, ‘I don’t want the fuzz involved, Janice’d do her nut, and having seen the contents of Alphonso’s case, I can see why he don’t either. I’ll shunt Flora over to you as quick as possible.’
All Jack’s bonhomie had evaporated. He couldn’t wait to get Flora out of the house.
Beside Foxie, George had found a black dress, a pair of shoes, a sponge bag and the Selected Poems of Robert Browning, which he was flipping through, when Flora, very pale but defiant, arrived at his office.
‘How sad and bad and mad it was —
But then, how it was sweet,’ quoted George, throwing the book across the huge polished table. ‘Pretty sad, bad and mad, for a girl of your age to go to bed with a middle-aged roué like Jack Rodway.’
Watching Flora dive on Foxie, kissing him thankfully, he reflected bitterly on his missed night-cap with Hermione, who was off round the world already, who might have soothed his sad heart. He didn’t know if he would ever meet her again.
‘You’ll have to pay for Alphonso’s air ticket,’ he said harshly.
Flora was gathering up the rest of her belongings and chucking them into her case.
‘I’ll have to consult my lawyer,’ she said haughtily. ‘George Carman’s a friend of my mother’s.’
‘I’ll dock it off your salary then.’
‘I must have picked up Alphonso’s bag in the cathedral. It was all your fault – there was no band room for safe keeping, everything was jumbled together. I’m going to talk to Steve.’
Appealed to, the union decided management was in the wrong and Flora didn’t have to pay up, but Steve shook his head.
‘George hates anyone getting the better of him, Flora. I’m afraid you’re a marked woman from now on.’
FORTY
The RSO were highly amused by the annexing both of Jack Rodway and Alphonso’s case, and sang, ‘Pack up your troubles in a new kit bag,’ each time an increasingly irritated Flora came into the hall.
Although secretly delighted that Flora had got off with someone other than Viking, Abby was currently far more preoccupied with the recording of Rachel’s Requiem. It was her first CD as a conductor and for the RSO, and she was determined to trounce the CCO in next October’s Gramophone Awards if it killed her. Thank God, Boris was too immersed in King Lear to come down and interfere.
‘I leave it in your capable fingers,’ he told Abby. ‘Today I write vonderful aria: “Blow vind and crack your chicks.”’
Both, however, reckoned without the wrath of Piggy Porker. She was not going to put one hundred thousand pounds into the RSO centenary year, starting on 1 January, and provide half the money for the Requiem and Sonny’s Interruption if a blasphemer was at the helm. Miles, Canon Airlie and Serena Woodward, now known as ‘Princess Grace of Megagram’, who was producing the record, all backed her up, and so did George, when he saw the cash sum involved. Boris must conduct the Requiem he had written. He was also cheap because he liked to keep the adrenalin going by recording pieces straight through without any retakes as though they were live, so there were never any overtime problems.
They had, however, all reckoned without Julian who, in a midnight meeting, threatened to resign if Abby were supplanted, and without Boris, who flatly refused to co-operate.
‘Fuck off Parson from Portlock,’ he shouted when Miles rang, ‘Eef I break off now, I will lose Lear; all the characters, all the music vill slip away, it is best theeng I ever write. I try to forget Rachel and Requiem. Anyway I can’t do this to Abby who is a good friend.’
Nor did he want hassle from Astrid, who was wildly jealous of Abby, Rachel and anything to do with Rutminster.
‘Are you prepared to pay back your advance, if the record is pulled?’ asked Miles coldly.
Boris, who had just bought a little Polo for Astrid, and had the cheque bounced on him, said he was not.
‘You’ve got two days to mug up on the Requiem,’ ordered Miles. ‘And please catch a train on Sunday night, so you’ll be on time on Monday morning.’
Instead Boris caught an early train on Monday morning. It was a tedious union rule that no more than twenty minutes of musi
c could be recorded in a three-hour session. But if he could finish the Requiem which lasted an hour in a day, the RSO would still get paid for a three-hour session tomorrow morning, and could go Christmas shopping or have a lie-in instead, and he could belt back to Astrid on a fast train this evening.
Passengers on the 7.05 to Rutminster were amazed to see the romantic-looking man with the upended Beethoven hair singing along to his frantic scribbling, covering an entire table for four with his papers.
‘With a Hey Ho, the vind and the rain,’ sang Boris.
He hadn’t bothered to look at the Requiem, and became so immersed in a possible baritone aria: ‘As flies to vanton boys, are we to the gods,’ that he forgot to get off at Rutminster, and only arrived at the recording studios, situated in a basement in the High Street, at quarter-past eleven.
Miles, who had to pay for the taxi, was hopping.
‘Who produce Requiem?’ Boris asked him sulkily.
‘Serena Westwood. She’s been waiting for you since half-past nine.’
Miles might well have poured petrol all over a smouldering Boris, who loathed being bossed about by women. Serena was as smilingly serene as her name, but Boris was convinced a barracuda lurked beneath her steel-grey wool dress. Abby at least was on the side of music and she and Boris could swear at each other in Russian.
Serena, who was now sitting in the control-room, had been immersed in the score all weekend. She had taken the precaution of providing paper cups in case Boris started smashing things. In front of her, at a mixing desk like a vast switchboard and being paid a fortune by the hour, sat Sammy, the recording engineer. Through a glass panel, they could both see a forest of microphones like silver-birch saplings. Around these were grouped the RSO, swelled today by numerous extras, who also had to be paid. Except for Hilary who was ostentatiously reading Villette, they had all done the crossword and read the latest instalment in the Royal Soap in their own and each other’s papers.
To irritate Flora, the Celtic Mafia were now exchanging viola jokes.
