Appassionata

by Jilly Cooper

  George then whisked Helen off to wow the sponsors in the VIP lounge. Lady Rannaldini was looking particularly fetching in a Lindka Cierach suit of ivory silk with a short fitted jacket emphasizing her tiny waist and her newly lifted and remodelled breasts and bottom.

  Was Helen in on George’s and Rannaldini’s plan for a super orchestra and market? wondered Flora. She couldn’t see Helen frolicking on a bouncy castle. At least Helen and George can have a good bitch about me, she thought wryly.

  Still hubristic over yesterday’s renewal of her contract and her rapprochement with George, Abby had also nipped into Bath that morning and bought a wildly fashionable, very ostentatious orange satin bomber jacket, which she teamed with matching orange satin drainpipes and a black bra. With her wild, shaggy, dark curls, drug pallid face and snake hips she looked like a rock star.

  ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, please take your places on the platform,’ Knickers was shouting along the passage at the musicians.

  ‘Christ, here comes Sunset Boulevard,’ said Dixie, as Abby came out of the conductor’s room and popped next door to show herself off to Marcus, who was frantically flipping through his score. He could hardly see it for pencil marks.

  ‘Don’t look any more, right? You’ll confuse yourself.’

  ‘I’m going to throw up again.’

  ‘No, you’re not. I’ll take care of you. You’ve got a good twenty minutes. Leonora takes about fourteen, then they’ve got to get the piano on.’

  ‘Don’t take it too fast,’ pleaded Marcus, ‘It says allegro but ma non tanto.’

  ‘Trust me, d’you think George’ll like this pant suit?’

  ‘Fantastic, he’ll pant with lust.’

  ‘You reckon.’ Abby fluffed her hair in the mirror and sauntered off towards the stage.

  Marcus felt that his hammering heart would soon leave internal bruising on his ribs. The only benefit of panic attacks was that they dulled the pain of Abby lusting after other men.

  He picked up his mascot, the copy of The Tempest she had given him which he took everywhere.

  ‘Merrily, merrily shall I live now,’ he read

  ‘Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.’

  Ariel couldn’t have been an asthmatic.

  Viking and Flora should have already been on stage, but Viking had only just got back from recording the Brahms Horn Trio and Flora was giving him a whispered update on her raiding of the files, her confrontation of George and George’s new alliance with Abby.

  ‘The bastard,’ said Viking outraged.

  ‘We must tell the orchestra,’ pleaded Flora. ‘If they were prepared to strike to get rid of Abby, they’d certainly come out against a merger.’

  Viking shook his head.

  ‘No-one loses strikes except musicians. They’d just close us down without any redundancy. Let’s see what George does next, he won’t want you shopping him to the Press or he might not get planning permission to pull down the hall. At least this gives us room to manoeuvre.’

  ‘I don’t trust him.’

  ‘I quite like the guy,’ admitted Viking.

  ‘Only because he’s offering you a job in the new orchestra. He’s just swanned off with Lady Rannaldini.’

  ‘Is Sir Roberto here?’

  ‘He’s in Rome,’ said Flora bitterly. ‘Taking a mistress-class.’

  Unable to stop himself, Viking pulled her into his arms.

  ‘I know how this hurts you, sweetheart.’

  ‘What the fuck are you two doing?’ screamed Abby, jealousy surging up as uncontrollable as vomit, at finding them together when she was convinced the affaire was over.

  Flora nearly dropped her viola.

  ‘You both should have been on stage five minutes ago,’ yelled Abby. ‘Julian is waiting to go on, Knickers is going ballistic looking for you.’

  ‘Great outfit, Maestro.’ Totally unabashed, Viking wandered towards the stage. ‘Onotterably chic to match it to your soloist’s hair.’

  ‘Have you got some sort of death-wish?’ Abby turned her fury on Flora. ‘I told you last night, OK? Your job’s on the line.’

  Once again, not wanting to rattle Abby with the merger plot in case she flipped and unnerved Marcus, Flora blurted out that Viking was boasting that he’d just pulled Jessica.

  ‘It’s called liaising with the management,’ she muttered and fled.

  Abby, who still went weak at the knees, every time she remembered Viking kissing her outside St Clement’s, was totally thrown. Somehow she got through the overture because the orchestra could play it in their sleep. She didn’t even notice that Carmine was late on his off-stage entrance because he’d been kissing Lindy Cardew in the instrument room.

  But arrogantly thinking she knew the Rachmaninov well enough and opting to conduct without a score she got hopelessly lost in the first movement.

  Flora was bowing away furiously among the violas, worrying about Marcus’s set white face and his faltering sound. Looking up for reference, she found Abby’s beat wasn’t there, lost confidence and started to panic and make mistakes. Soon the rest of the orchestra, who had also been hopelessly under-rehearsed, were all over the place, half of them coming in, half of them not, unravelling and about to stop dead.

  ‘Fucking brown-trouser job,’ muttered Dixie to Randy.

  Ironically this was Marcus’s salvation. He had nearly fainted with terrror when he first saw the size of the audience. Fighting for breath, his smile sellotaped to his face, his fingers, when he began playing, had been impossibly stiff and wouldn’t do anything he told them.

  But, realizing his darling Abby was in desperate trouble, he forgot himself, concentrating on saving her. Steady as a Welsh cob, he kept going, hammering away repeatedly at the first subject, Dum, di-di, dum di-di, dum, dum, nodding until the orchestra found their place.

  Abby, with no score for reference, however, was still floundering, her gaudy orange suit making her all the more conspicuous. Towards the end of the movement she got completely lost again so Marcus, with amazing assurance, skipped a page, plunging straight in to the cadenza, so everyone knew where they were and could have some breathing space.

  He had chosen Rachmaninov’s second cadenza which was far more demanding. Gradually, as he relaxed and the music he adored took over, he forgot everything else. His pale tortured face grew happy and peaceful. Listening to the melancholy torrents of sound, glittering like a waterfall in the moonlight, Flora ached at the beauty of it. Glancing round, she caught Viking looking straight at her, although he smiled, his eyes were as wet as her own.

  Marcus held his breath as the cadenza drew to a close. Not having rehearsed it at all, would Abby know when to cue in the orchestra? He had to accompany brief, beautiful echoes from Peter Plumpton on the flute, then Simon, then Hilary and finally Viking and Quinton, but they all came in on the dot, and the movement finished more or less together.

  In the intermezzo where Marcus interpreted the word pianissimo in a multitude of different ways, and in the heroic splendid finale, he grew and grew in stature. Beneath his racing fingers, the great dark Russian monster had become suddenly biddable, and was carrying him home as joyfully as Arion’s dolphin.

  But it was a close-run thing. Marcus got an ecstatic reception, in part because he’d looked so vulnerable and terrified at the beginning and so handsome and touchingly amazed at the applause at the end. Most of the audience hadn’t a clue anything had gone wrong. But the orchestra had, and they cheered him to the leaking rooftops, rattling their bows, beating out a tantivy of approval on the shoulders of their cellos and basses.

  Utterly distraught, Abby fled to her dressing-room refusing to return, so none of the soloists within the orchestra were raised to their feet for a special clap, which enraged Hilary.

  ‘Abby should have brought the wind up,’ she kept saying.

  Marcus took five curtain calls and was just collapsing thankfully in his dressing-room when Noriko banged on the door.

  ‘Quick,
quick, quick, Mr Brack,’ she cried enthusiastically, ‘come and pray again, the pubric are still crapping.’

  Marcus was still laughing when he reached the middle of the stage and shook hands with a beaming Julian yet again.

  ‘You’ll have to give them an encore.’

  ‘But I haven’t practised anything.’

  It would have seemed so presumptuous.

  ‘Just busk it,’ shouted Bill Thackery.

  For a second, Marcus gazed at the ecstatic pink faces, their clapping hands growing pinker by the minute, luxuriating in the sound like waves rolling down the shingle. Then he sat down and played Schumann’s Dreaming, which had everyone in floods and elicited even louder roars of applause.

  Meanwhile George had had a wearying two days justifying his volte-face over Abby’s contract to various enraged members of the board including Miles, Mrs Parker, Canon Airlie, not to mention Gwynneth and Gilbert. Aware he would receive even more flak after tonight’s near débâcle he went grimly into the conductor’s room to find Flora yelling at a sobbing Abby.

  ‘You’re just jealous because he’s got more talent than you, that’s what, and you can’t bear anyone to get ahead. After all Marcus has done for you. All that transcribing and simplifying and explaining those bloody great scores. Think of the times he’s lugged your clothes to the cleaners and cooked and cleaned up after you and fed your cats and polished your shoes and let you pinch his jerseys.’

  ‘You pinch his jerseys,’ wailed Abby,

  ‘I’ve known him longer, I’m allowed to. You wouldn’t have got a second foot on the rostrum without him, you stupid bitch, and you’re so fucking vain you had to jeopardize his big break conducting without a score.’

  ‘I know, I know.’

  Alarmed he might not have a second half, George told Flora to pack it in and Abby to wash her face and pull herself together.

  He then dragged Flora outside.

  ‘Nice to see someone else getting it in the neck,’ he said drily. ‘And that’s the “stupid bitch” you’re so determined to save.’

  Flora blushed, then hastily changed the subject. ‘Didn’t Marcus play brilliantly?’

  ‘He had absolutely no choice,’ said George bleakly.

  Somehow Abby managed to limp through Schubert’s Fourth Symphony.

  Then, speaking to no-one, cutting the sponsor’s reception again, she hurtled home to a deserted Woodbine Cottage.

  Flora had gone out boozing with Cherub, Noriko and Davie Buckle. Marcus had been swept out to dinner by George, Miles and a manic Helen.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Sitting next to Marcus at dinner, George fired off endless questions about Abby’s, Flora’s and Marcus’s plans for the future, then insisted that his chauffeur, known as Harve the Heavy, took him back to Woodbine Cottage.

  ‘You’re not driving with all that drink inside you. It’s not as if we’ve had to fork out for your room at the Old Bell.’ Then, affectionately ruffling Marcus’s hair, said, ‘You did bluddy well, lad, we’d have been right in it if you hadn’t come to Abby’s rescue.’

  Marcus fought an insane drunken urge to collapse into George’s arms. He was so strong and solid and he had the same brusque gentleness, the almost patriarchal kindness that Marcus missed so much since Malise’s death. He couldn’t imagine why Flora and, until recently Abby, kept slagging him off.

  Perhaps George was in love with Helen, Marcus thought wistfully. From Jake Lovell onwards, men had been particularly kind to him for just that reason. Marcus hoped not. George had promised to look at the RSO calendar and try and find him another date.

  Slumped happily in the front of the Rolls, Marcus gabbled most uncharacteristically to Harve that Piggy Parker had booked him for a soirée in June, playing tunes like ‘After Henry’ and ‘Lady be Good’. Marcus beat them out on the dashboard until Harve started singing along.

  ‘And Gwendolyn Chisledon wanted to know where Mr Hungerford was going to build his ghastly multiplex,’ went on Marcus. ‘When she heard it was on Cowslip Hill, she heaved a sigh of relief. “Oh, that’s all right, I thought it was our side of Rutminster.”’

  Harve grinned.

  ‘And Howie Denston rang me on George’s mobile in the middle of dinner and wants me to get into bed with him.’ Marcus giggled. ‘I do hope he means financially not sexually.’

  ‘Either way, if I may say so,’ said Harve, in his gravedigger’s drawl, ‘you’re going to be screwed.’

  It was a beautiful clear night. Although the great beeches along the lake glittered with frost, the moonlight was bright enough to pick out the first pale primroses nestling in their roots.

  Singing and laughter was coming from The Bordello; Marcus wished he could have dropped in. One of his best moments of the concerto had been Viking’s little horn solo in the middle movement; he’d just liked to have talked the concerto through with someone.

  As he stumbled out of the car, Orion, his favourite constellation, was free falling into the poplar copse at the top of the wild-flower meadow. Mars, a gold butterfly, was being chased by Leo the Lion. The outside lamp was still on, transforming the leafless clematis over the front door into a scrunch-dried blond; but the cottage was in darkness.

  ‘Thank you so much,’ said Marcus.

  ‘Pleasure sir, I am not a great lover of classical music but may I trouble you for your autograph. One day it will be something to show my grandchildren.’

  ‘Dum di-di dum di-di dum dum,’ sang Marcus.

  His shadow was squat and black at his heels, reminiscent of one of Malise’s labradors. Had his stepfather from beyond the grave sent the dog to guard him on such a special evening?

  Only after several fumbling attempts did he realize the door wasn’t locked.

  ‘I did it, I fucking did it.’ As he punched the air he nearly fell over Abby’s music case in the hall. Then he heard the sound of desperate sobbing and stumbled upstairs where, watched by two worried cats, Abby lay slumped on her four-poster. She was dressed in jeans and Marcus’s old black sweater with two holes in the elbows. She was utterly distraught to have let him down.

  ‘Flora’s right – I have always taken you for granted. I haven’t cleaned a pair of shoes since I moved in.’

  ‘But I l-like looking after you.’

  Collapsing on the patchwork counterpane, he found himself stroking her hair, drenched with tears rather than sweat now, as thick and coarse as a pony’s mane. Outside he could see the lake gleaming silver and mysterious. Trailing his hand downwards, he patted her shuddering shoulders, which were hard and muscular from so many hours conducting. Her long legs reached to the bottom of the bed. She hadn’t bothered to shower after the concert and smelled disturbingly of dried sweat and Amarige. From their moonlit reflection in the long mirror opposite, they could have been two boys. Marcus took her in his arms.

  ‘Oh Christ, Abby, I’ve always loved you. From the moment you came loping up to the stage at the Academy.’

  Her mouth tasted acid from fear, but as he kissed her he thought she would suck the tongue out of his mouth and was amazed by the leaping wolf-like passion of her response.

  Apart from an ill-fated scuffle on the lawn with Boris she had been celibate since the trauma of Christopher three years ago. She had Marcus’s clothes off him in a trice, ripping off several shirt buttons, nearly garrotting him with his tie and jamming his zip in the process. Like quick silver she was all over him, blowing in his ears, running her fingers through his hair, nuzzling his neck. Then she moved downwards, slowly kissing each bumpy rib, burying her face in his taut belly, exclaiming in wonder at the greyhound grace of his body.

  There was only one drawback. Marcus couldn’t get it up. Even when his cock was sucked into the warm dark wet cavern of Abby’s throat, it remained as soft and as innocent as a lamb’s tail.

  Marcus was even more contrite than Abby had been about the Rachmaninov. Abby, however, was surprisingly understanding.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, you’ve
had a skinful, OK, and you’re pooped. You know what Luisa Pellafacini says: “Before a concert Julian won’t, after the concert he can’t.”’

  ‘I feel such a wimp.’

  ‘You can still make me come.’ Abby put his hand between her legs.

  ‘I’m seriously sorry,’ Marcus muttered into her shoulder, ‘but I don’t know which doorbell to press.’

  Raising his head, prising his face round towards hers, Abby could see him blushing the same blood-red in the moonlight as his hair.

  ‘But I thought you and Flora – surely at school? The way she wanders into the studio half-naked.’

  Marcus shook his head.

  ‘We snogged once or twice but we know each other too well and always started to laugh. Oh Abby, darling, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I’m a virgin.’

  ‘You gotta be joking, with a father like Rupert.’

  ‘That’s the trouble,’ Marcus rolled over and buried his face in the pillow. ‘Everyone expects me to be a great macho super-stud like Dad, and I just bottle out.’

  Then stammering frantically, almost crying, he told her about the night of Basil Baddingham’s stag-party. ‘Edith was there. She drunk everyone under the table,’ and his disastrous encounter with the tart, and the near-fatal asthma attack.

  ‘Every time I try and make it with a girl I see contempt in Dad’s face.’

  Holding his shuddering rigid body in her arms, Abby was overwhelmed with tenderness.

  ‘That’s enough to put anyone off sex,’ she said indignantly, ‘and on top of that it’s a knee-jerk reaction to think you’ll choke again. What a son of a bitch, what a damn fool insensitive preppy asshole.’

  ‘He wants an heir,’ said Marcus wearily.

  ‘Now listen to me, right.’ Abby pulled the duvet up tucking it round his shivering body. ‘For starters you’re the prettiest guy I ever saw, sure you are, and tonight you were the most shit-scared. I never saw stage-fright like that. I know what guts it took even to get onto the platform, OK? But in the end you showed everyone you’re made of steel. You were the superman, you saved us.