Appassionata

by Jilly Cooper

  ‘Nothing,’ gasped Marcus. ‘You know I love you. It was the same for me, I was utterly lost from the moment you bounded onto the stage like Nimrod.’

  ‘Neemrod?’ demanded Alexei in outraged jealousy.

  ‘My father’s lurcher, he’s got killer eyes,’ Marcus gave a half laugh, that became a sob. ‘You’re a cross between Nimrod and my father. I love you, but I can’t do this to Abby.’

  ‘’Ush, ’ush, look into my eyes. I am real, you are home where you belong. No more pretending, let eet happen.’

  He was mumbling endearments in Russian now, which sounded so marvellous in his husky basso profundo voice. ‘You will always remember thees, because it ees the first time. Anyway,’ he added wickedly, ‘I must get out of these boots, I bought them to eempress you and they kill me.’

  Back at the cottage dizzy with exhaustion and happiness, Marcus cooked burnt sausages and lumpy mash for Alexei which was mostly polished off by Mr Nugent and Mrs Diggory’s spaniel. The dogs didn’t stay, however, to hear Marcus play Schumann’s Dreaming in the fading light. He wasn’t nervous any more. Alexei had ironed all the tension out of his body.

  At the end, Alexei got up and put his arms round him.

  ‘You cannot marry Abby.’

  ‘I must, it would destroy her.’

  ‘Not so much as eet would destroy her eef you do. Break it off now. She would be devastated, but only for a month or two. Far better an end with horror, than horror without end. You cannot afford to be tied. You and I are artists, like stars een the sky, we seem close in the night, but we are light year apart. We are pellegrino – eet means orphan and wanderer. We belong to the world, not each other. We are married to Art. Art is far more important than love.’

  Not any more, thought Marcus, as Alexei slid two hands deep down inside his shirt.

  He wanted to drive Alexei to Birmingham Airport to catch a late flight to Berlin, but Alexei insisted on taking a taxi.

  ‘Eef you are feet to drive, you should not be. My agent weel pay the other end.’

  Alexei wouldn’t leave until Marcus had promised to join him wherever he was in the world, the moment he’d dispatched the Bartók. He also insisted they swapped watches. Strapping his Rolex, which reeked of Givenchy for Men round Marcus’s wrist, he proudly carried off Marcus’s schoolboy Swatch, as though it were made of diamonds.

  Marcus was only too happy to be left alone in the dusk, stunned by the enormity of the afternoon’s events. A thrush was singing in the garden, repeating each exquisite phrase.

  As he wandered down to the lake, it started to pour, huge raindrops dive-bombing unwary moths, clattering on the leaves, thrashing the lake, creating rings which spread and ran into each other. Marcus thought, watching them, how everyone’s actions affected everyone else’s in life.

  ‘Nemerovsky loves me,’ he shouted over and over again to the blue-black sky, his belly churning and caving in to meet his backbone as he shivered at the memory.

  Waltzing home in the deluge, he was running a scalding bath, about to dream of Alexei before crashing out, when the front door flew open, and in burst Abby and Helen in a state of euphoria. Abby had had a wonderful success with the London Met.

  ‘It’s extraordinary,’ she told Marcus earnestly. ‘After four years, they still retain Rannaldini’s precision and special timbre.’

  I don’t give a shit, thought Marcus as they rabbited on. Why are they telling me this?

  Now Helen was explaining how she had gone backstage after the concert, and while she and Abby had supper together, Abby had confided that she and Marcus were getting married. Helen had been delirious with joy, not only was Abby a great and respected artist, but an American like herself.

  ‘She’ll help you in your career, and Rupert is bound to come round when he hears you’re getting married, and then you and he and Rannaldini can all be reconciled at the wedding.’

  Helen, like Rupert, had always suppressed a deep-rooted dread that Marcus might be gay.

  Marcus listened incredulously, watching their mouths moving like rapacious baby birds, as they planned his future. He must give up ‘all the horrible pupils with their awful mothers that drained him so dreadfully,’ and Rupert must give him a decent allowance. But they agreed that Rupert would only rate Marcus when he won a big piano competition, so all his sights must be set on the Appleton.

  I’m on the wrong train hurtling towards a cliff and I can’t find the communication cord, thought Marcus in panic.

  ‘And what is more,’ crowed Abby, ‘I saw Lady Appleton, who runs the Appleton this evening, and she said you’ve qualified, but we’re not to tell anyone. You walked it. We must have a drink to celebrate.’

  Neither she nor Helen realized that Marcus hadn’t moved, still on the bottom step of the stairs slumped against the wall, watching them.

  Rootling around in the cupboard, Abby swore she had had some vodka. Flora must have drunk it, they’d have to make do with brandy.

  ‘And best of all,’ she said happily, filling up three glasses, ‘Lady Appleton is so fed up with the orchestra who normally play at the finals overcharging, that she’s chucked them, and she wants me and the RSO to accompany the finalists instead, which means two days of prime-time TV. Wow, what a day.’

  Marcus’s mind was racing like a cornered rat.

  ‘I can’t go in for the Appleton if you’re conducting the orchestra,’ he stammered.

  ‘Only in the finals,’ said Abby soothingly. ‘There are two preliminary rounds before that. Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.’

  Then suddenly she had a feeling of déjà vu, as water started dripping on her head reminiscent of the H.P. Hall, only this time it was hot.

  ‘Christ, Marcus, you’ve left the bath running.’

  Racing upstairs, Marcus found it a relief to plunge his hand into the scalding water to find the plug. Anything to offset the agony of not seeing Alexei again.

  When he came down, noticing how shivering and pale he was, except for one bright red arm, Helen and Abby decided he’d been overworking and packed him off to bed.

  ‘We’ll have to get your morning-coat out of mothballs,’ teased Helen, as she kissed him good night. ‘I’m so happy for you darling.’

  A mourning-coat, thought Marcus, as he tossed and turned all night in agony.

  The next day, as a gesture of defiance, he sold Rupert’s Munnings and bought Abby the ruby heart as an engagement ring. Abby, however, decided to wear it on her right hand until after the Appleton, in case she was accused of favouring Marcus.

  Later in the day, while she was out shopping, Marcus wrote a brief letter of renunciation to Alexei, quoting Coventry Patmore:

  Love wakes men, once in a lifetime each;

  They lift their heavy lids, and look;

  And lo, what one sweet page can teach,

  They read with joy, then shut the book.

  Then he thanked Alexei for the most wonderful few hours of his life, past, present and future, but insisted that they must never see each other again.

  Alexei’s only reply was a white feather in an airmail envelope.

  The leaves of the rescued branch of philadelphus were now shrivelled, its petals fallen. Ramming the branch in the dustbin, Marcus reflected bitterly that at least he had given it the same brief chance to blossom as Alexei had given him. Freedom was clearly a destiny he was not going to reach.

  Flora was horrified, but didn’t show it, when Abby confided over lunch that she and Marcus were getting married.

  FIFTY-THREE

  The long summer ground on, with all the inhabitants of Woodbine Cottage working flat out. As well as playing for the RSO, Flora was studying The Creation with her singing teacher because the Academy had invited her to sing the soprano part in a student production in September. She had most fun playing chamber music, as part of Julian’s quintet. It taught her to listen to herself, and she soon lost her shyness, joining in the furious arguments about tempo, and merrily added to the
wrong notes which increased dramatically as the red wine flowed, until Canon Airlie who lived next door banged plaintively on the walls.

  Flora grew so fond of Luisa and the Pellafacini children that she could not bear the thought of such a happy family being ousted by a putsch. Late one hot night, when she and Julian were polishing off a bottle together in the garden, she told him about George’s and Rannaldini’s merger plot. Julian’s bony face was impassive, but, as he drained his glass, his trembling hand spilled red wine dark as blood in the moonlight on his white shirt.

  ‘George is a great guy,’ he said slowly. ‘He’s done a helluva lot for the orchestra and he speaks his mind.’

  ‘About a quarter of his mind,’ snapped Flora, ‘the rest is working out dirty deals, he’s utterly Machiavellian beneath that bluff northern exterior.’

  ‘I somehow trust the guy,’ persisted Julian. ‘Rannaldini’s different, inflicting pain is the only other way he gets his rocks off.’

  ‘If he takes over, we’re both for the high jump,’ said Flora.

  Julian, however, agreed with Viking that the whole truth would only panic a dreadfully demoralized orchestra,

  ‘Let me do some digging. I’ll have a word with Bill Thackery, he’s so discreet and now he’s on the board he may have inside information.’

  Flora was also worried about Marcus, trapped at Woodbine Cottage slogging away at pieces for the Appleton, and endlessly accompanying Abby on the violin. Flora, having been invited to join the Pellafacini Quintet, had indeed been the spur to make Abby practise seriously again. The sound was amazing; there was no doubt she would be up to concert standard by the autumn.

  Marcus, however, was listless and losing weight. Helen, encouraged by Rannaldini, had struck up a terrific friendship with Abby and had taken to dropping in, getting on Marcus’s nerves, constantly harping on her delight at his secret engagement.

  Meanwhile George and Miles were busy finalizing details for the tour of Spain at the beginning of October. The orchestra would be playing Rachel’s Requiem with Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet overture and Rachmaninov’s Paganini Rhapsody, to pull in the punters, and on alternate nights, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with a Spanish chorus. The highlight of the tour, however, would be Barcelona, where a sufficiently recovered Rodney would fly in to conduct his old orchestra in an eightieth-birthday concert.

  Megagram were chipping in because the tour was a splendid opportunity to launch Rachel’s Requiem in Europe. But the RSO were still desperately short of cash. London orchestras charged large fees on tour, but payments to regional orchestras didn’t ever cover their costs. Additional funding therefore had to be found.

  During the summer break, George had taken to dropping in on Woodbine Cottage to discuss the orchestra with Abby who automatically assumed he was after her. She hoped he would act as a spur to Marcus, who seemed increasingly detached. She also continually harped on about Flora’s antagonism.

  ‘Marcus and I want to have you and Juno over to dinner, but we’ll have to choose an evening when Flora’s playing chamber music, as I know Juno, you and she don’t get along.’

  This was borne out by Flora vanishing like smoke whenever George rolled up. Then, on the first Saturday in August, Trevor went missing. Flora, Abby and Marcus had been watching the CCO at the proms on television. Dame Edith was due to retire in the autumn, and, as this would probably be her last prom, had camped it up like mad in white tie and tails. In the middle the cameras had panned to Gilbert and Gwynneth looking odiously enthusiastic in the stalls. This had produced so much barracking that Trevor, who only liked noise if he made it himself, bolted out of the cat door.

  Absolutely demented, Flora combed the woods for twenty-four hours trying to find him.

  ‘I know he’s trapped down a rabbit hole or been kidnapped by vivisectionists,’ she sobbed.

  As a final straw, having been stung, scratched and pricked to bits by nettles, thistles and brambles, her mobile had run out early on Sunday evening. Returning home, filthy, tearful, exhausted and hoarse from shouting, to check if anyone had rung the cottage with news, she was greeted at the back gate by Trevor. Trying to pretend he had been searching for her with equal fervour all day, he scrabbled at her so ecstatically that he pulled her boob tube down to her waist. He had in fact been languishing after one of George’s Rotweillers, who was on heat. Arriving home from Zurich, George had returned the lovelorn suitor and was now downing a large Pimm’s with Abby in the garden.

  Flora, out of relief and gratitude, was forced to join them. Blushing because George must have had a good look at her breasts, she adjusted her boob tube, pulled down the green baseball cap, covering her dirty hair and prayed there were enough cuts and nettle stings on her legs to hide the fact that they had not been shaved for a fortnight.

  What a ghastly contrast she must be to beautifully groomed Juno, or Abby, sleek and replete in a scarlet sarong.

  ‘I’ll just see if Trev’s hungry,’ Flora sidled towards the kitchen.

  ‘He isn’t, George and I tried to tempt him, he must be love sick,’ Abby handed Flora a glass of Pimm’s. ‘Try it, George and I made it with Kiwi fruit and mangoes.’

  She couldn’t help feeling glad that Flora was being seen at such a disadvantage. Conversation was very stilted.

  ‘How’s the chamber music going?’ asked George.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Flora’s also learning The Creation,’ said Abby.

  Convolvulus trumpets weaving in and out of the blackthorn hedge, blushed pink in the setting sun; George also blushed as he announced that there was a coincidence.

  ‘Having given the CCO a boost earlier this year, Dame Hermione feels she would like to redress the balance and award a similar favour to the RSO on her birthday on 31 August.’

  ‘Hermione’s a Virgo,’ gasped Abby.

  ‘Not for many years,’ giggled Flora.

  ‘I’m not having that bitch over the RSO threshold,’ snapped Abby flatly.

  ‘Stop being a drama queen,’ said George crushingly. ‘We need the cash. So we’re planning a huge spectacular of The Creation, and because it’s a religious work, the Bishop is allowing us to use the grounds of Rutminster Cathedral. We’ll bill it,’ his voice thickened slightly, ‘as Dame Hermione in Birthday Concert.’

  ‘If she’s singing Eve,’ pointed out Flora, ‘it ought to be Dame Hermione in Birthday Suit.’

  ‘Don’t be fatuous.’

  Flora lifted Trevor onto her knee.

  ‘I’m so pleased to see you,’ she said, covering his little face with kisses. ‘Goaty Gilbert has such a crush on Hermione,’ she went on unrepentantly, knowing George had one, too. ‘Perhaps he’ll deliver her on the pillion of his new bike.’

  ‘She arrived by Land Rover at Cotchester,’ said Abby.

  ‘We’re aiming for a helicopter, more impact,’ said George briskly.

  ‘Ah! So she’s got a choice of your Chopper or Rannaldini’s,’ murmured Flora into Trevor’s rough fur. ‘I tort a taw a coup d’état a-creeping up on me.’

  ‘Shut up,’ hissed George, shooting a wary glance at Abby, who was far too upset to notice.

  ‘I am not going to work with that bitch after the way she and Rannaldini tried to scupper the gala.’

  ‘Pink, pink, pink, pink,’ cried an agitated blackbird, unnerved by the proximity of Scriabin and Sibelius who were chasing each other and big moths through the soft blue dusk.

  ‘With any luck, it’ll rain,’ said Flora.

  ‘Even if it chucks it down it won’t shrink Hermione’s monstrous ego,’ stormed Abby.

  The coup de grâce for Abby was when Hermione announced a week before the concert, that she would need an extra ticket for her agent, Christopher Shepherd, who would be jetting in from New York.

  Abby downed sticks and refused to conduct.

  ‘That man screwed my career,’ she screamed at George.

  ‘Not from what Marcus was telling me, he says you’re back playing chumpi
on.’

  ‘I don’t care, right? I am not conducting in front of Christopher.’

  ‘Best revenge – to show him how good you’ve got.’

  But Abby was adamant. At such short notice she expected George would bring in the Fat Controller or one of the RSO regular guest conductors. But to her horror and Hermione’s delight, within an hour, Rannaldini, who was after all a local boy living in nearby Paradise, had found a rare window in his diary and agreed to take over.

  Flora went ballistic. The whole thing was a set-up, a plot to infiltrate Rannaldini into the RSO. George had invited Christopher over deliberately, knowing Abby would back down.

  ‘I’m not going to be conducted by Rannaldini either,’ she told Viking, ‘I’m going off sick.’

  The rehearsals for ‘Dim Hermione’s creating,’ as it became known, were incredibly acrimonious. The lecherous tenor, Alphonso, last seen adding a profane note to The Messiah when he swapped Louis Vuitton cases with Flora, was back, singing the archangel Uriel and jumping on everyone. He had got so much fatter that Miles, who met him at the station, couldn’t change gear and when they arrived at the cathedral, and George leapt forward to open the door, Alphonso tumbled out. Later when he fell over lurching forward to pinch Nellie’s bottom, he couldn’t get up but lay like a turtle and George had to rustle up the entire chorus to right him.

  Adam and Raphael were both played by Walter, a charming bearlike bearded German, who detested Hermione.

  ‘Last time, I sing vith her and take a bow, she step in front and kick me in the shin,’ he told Flora.

  Walter was very taken by Marcus, who accompanied him in a piano rehearsal. The boy, he said, was a natural accompanist and should take it up as a career as there was such a shortage of good ones. And why was Marcus so unhappy? When Flora mumbled about Marcus wanting to marry a beautiful girl and worrying about not being able to support her, Walter gave her an old-fashioned look.

  ‘You are sad too, my child.’

  Flora confessed she couldn’t face Rannaldini and the moment his big black helicopter blotted out the sun, when he flew in to take a full choral rehearsal on the afternoon of the performance, she pushed off, claiming she’d got the flu. Abby, traumatized at the thought of Christopher’s arrival, had dragged Marcus off to Paris for the weekend. Flora would have joined them if she hadn’t promised to cat and dog sit.