Appassionata

by Jilly Cooper

  ‘A few.’

  ‘How many blokes have you been to bed with?’

  ‘I’ve lost Count,’ said Flora, ‘as Countess Dracula was always complaining. D’you want a bowdlerized version?’

  ‘No, I want the truth.’

  ‘Right, well,’ Flora took a deep breath. ‘I had several schoolboys at Bagley Hall, then I had Rannaldini. I wonder if women who’ve slept with Rannaldini make love in a certain way, like string players who’ve been to the Juillard.’

  ‘Go on,’ George almost snapped, as Flora’s body disappeared under the surface then emerged like a seal, the bubbles coating her freckled back.

  ‘Rannaldini obliterated everyone else. Then I tried a few students at the Academy to exorcize him, but it didn’t work. Then no-one till Jack, but I only went to bed with him because he rescued me from Carmine – rather like accepting a large brandy from a St Bernard when you’re stuck halfway up the Matterhorn.’

  Unable to suppress a smile, George started to rub Pears soap, the colour of Flora’s wet hair, down her arm.

  ‘That’s all, except Viking,’ she said.

  Dropping the soap, George’s hand did a Chinese burn on her wrist. He really minds, thought Flora, gazing at the red mark in wonder.

  ‘W-w-was it foontastic?’ asked George wistfully.

  ‘Yes and no, we were both a bit too expert like Torvill and Dean. Anyway, I honestly think Viking went to bed with me to get at Abby. He can’t leave her alone, he’s always bitching at her.

  ‘That’s about it. Truly. I’m at my journey’s end.’ Putting both arms up, feeling George as warm, wide and solid as an Aga against her, Flora pulled him into the bath with a huge splash. ‘You are the loveliest hunk.’

  But George was still fretting.

  ‘Will I be exciting enough for you?’

  ‘Exciting,’ Flora’s eyes flooded with tears. ‘I can’t begin to tell you, like that great balloon soaring into the sky out of that limp rubber, what it’s like suddenly to be happy again, wildly, ecstatically happy with the most adorable man in the world. That’s exciting, I have to joke, I have to, I’m just so terrified it’s going to end.’

  ‘In my end is my beginning,’ said George, kissing her soapy hand. ‘I’m going to marry you the second my divorce is through.’

  ‘Oh goodness.’

  ‘And I want to say, Floora —’ (she loved the way he pronounced it with a long first syllable) – ‘I’ve had a change of heart because of you. I know I’ve been greedy in the past, I’ve ridden roof-shod over folk, been a bastard. Knocking down houses, in-filling, leaning on old ladies, I’ve thought about it a lot. I’ve totally given oop the idea of buying H.P. Hall and turning it into a supermarket.’

  ‘I know someone who could do with a bit of in-filling at the moment,’ said Flora slyly.

  Rising up in the bath, she started to kiss her way down his body, plunging into the water until his cock came up to meet her. Then she looked up, quickly gasping for breath, eyelashes like star fish.

  ‘Abby’s always telling me to play with every inch of my beau.’

  George ruffled her hair.

  ‘You’re utterly deranged.’

  ‘Let’s have a deranged marriage then.’

  ‘When can I start telling everyone?’

  ‘Not until I tell Abby,’ said Flora. ‘I’m not sure how pleased she’ll be.’

  SIXTY-ONE

  Abby was in a murderous mood and shouted at Flora as she slid in late to the rehearsal and took her place beside the other three soloists.

  ‘She’s in a terrific paddy,’ whispered Clare in awe.

  ‘Correction,’ whispered Candy, ‘a terrific Paddy’s been inside her.’

  Poor Abby, in fact, had just had a hideous session with Hilary. Oozing spurious concern like a lanced boil, Hilary had come into the conductor’s room, and begged Abby not to take Viking’s seduction too seriously.

  ‘The sweepstake was just a bit of fun, Abby. And you must remember the musicians aren’t wealthy like you. That two thousand would have got most of them out of debt, saved the repossession of Barry’s barn, paid for Janey’s hip, cushioned Cyril’s retirement, bought Randy some new clubs.’

  ‘And a new prayer-mat for Miles.’

  ‘Oh, Miles would never involve himself with anything so tacky.’

  ‘Unlike fucking Viking.’

  Hilary sighed deeply.

  ‘I’m afraid Viking’s too lazy to get anywhere in life. He’d never have scraped together enough money to send Granny Wexford to America, if he hadn’t won it. They’ll think he’s such a hero in Dublin, and of course he has to keep up his reputation as the orchestra stud.’

  ‘The son-of-a-bitch,’ hissed Abby, ‘I’ll get him for sexual harassment.’

  ‘I’m afraid the orchestra will say the boot was on the other foot – they’ll swear black’s white for Viking.’

  ‘I’ve been made a complete fool of, right?’

  ‘Where’s your sense of humour, Abby?’ Hilary was loving this. ‘Get things in proportion. If you need some counselling when you get back to England, Miles will arrange it.’

  ‘Can he arrange for Viking to be Bobbitted as well?’

  Hilary sighed. ‘Miles and I are praying for you.’

  Certainly during the rehearsal Abby’s wrath was reserved for Viking.

  They were only running through the last movement from where the chorus and soloists come in, but she wasted everyone’s time singling out any intervening horn passages, and pulling them to pieces, particularly Viking’s contribution.

  ‘More pianissimo, First Horn,’ she screamed until Viking wasn’t making any sound at all. ‘Play it again.’

  ‘Why? It was perfect.’

  ‘Don’t smart-ass me, leave your brains in your trousers where they belong.’

  The minute she said that, Abby could have kicked herself.

  ‘You should know,’ chorused the Celtic Mafia.

  ‘I said, on your own, First Horn.’

  And Viking, who’d never been called First Horn in his life except by Rannaldini, retaliated by playing the solo from Ein Heldenleben which had so bewitched her on her first day at the RSO. Abby promptly burst into tears and stormed out.

  Julian ran after her, but she wouldn’t talk to him. After last night she didn’t know who to trust, not even Flora, who’d been grinning like a jackass throughout the rehearsal.

  Somehow, by the evening, fortified by a couple of beta-blockers, Abby had pulled herself together, and the applause, as always, even for a run-of-the-mill Beethoven’s Ninth, was tumultuous because it was such a happy piece, and because so many of the chorus’s relations were swelling the audience.

  George sat in a box high above the orchestra. It was hard to tell who looked more frozen with misery, Viking or Cyril, for whom it was his last concert abroad, and who had been denied the great horn solo in the third movement.

  But George couldn’t be bothered with other people’s problems tonight. And the moment Flora filed on with the other soloists, he never took his eyes off her, rejoicing in every note, as her piercing exquisite voice soared above everyone else’s, even when she joined in the chorus. Several times she smiled up at him and even made Foxie give him a wave. She has brought radiance to my life, thought George. Thank you, God, for giving me a second chance.

  Having given her all to the ecstatic Toledo audience, Abby was on her knees. There had been too much going on to take in Rodney’s death. Now the shock was wearing off, and the pain beginning to hurt. Only to Rodney could she have confessed the agony and utter humiliation of having offered herself to Viking so totally and so trustingly, when all he was after was the macho gratification of winning some bet. She could imagine the guffaws, the sniggering, the slaps on the back.

  ‘What was the snooty cow like, Viking? What was she really like?’

  And it had been so beautiful, so perfect, that was the pity of it.

  She wanted to creep into bed and die, but George
had to fly back for tomorrow’s RSO board meeting, so she had to take his place at dinner with the Toledo organizers.

  Viking, probably for the first time in his career, didn’t go out on an end-of-tour razzle. He was utterly bewildered how depressed and ashamed of himself he felt. Abby had got under his skin and irritated him more than any woman he’d ever met. He had dreamt for so long of wiping the haughty expression off her face and reducing her to grovelling, pleading, adoring submission, and now he had, he loathed himself.

  As leader of the pack, his street cred would have been utterly destroyed if he hadn’t won the bet. He also owed it to his backers. As the favourite, there had been a lot of money on him. Now he desperately wanted to explain to Abby that winning the bet had only been part of the incentive, and the actuality had been miraculous. He was certain if he and Abby had spent a week or so together unwatched by the lascivious or disapproving eyes of the orchestra, he could have fucked her out of his system and remained friends. Guilt was not a familiar emotion to Viking, and he didn’t think this time he’d be able to rid himself of it with a few Hail Maries.

  He was also miserably aware that the three other people he loved and trusted – Flora, Julian and Blue – were absolutely furious with him.

  ‘You behaved abominably, Viking,’ Julian had shouted. ‘Rodney was just saying yesterday how you’d swung the RSO behind Abby. Now you’ve let him down. You’re as repulsive as Anatole in War and Peace. Rake Magdalene, he loved much, so much will be forgiven him. You’re nothing but a fucking havoc-maker.’

  Blue was even more upset. Cathie, having learnt about the bet, was refusing to have anything to do with him.

  ‘How could you men all hurt that lovely warm girl?’

  Wandering wearily down the hotel landing, Viking could hear the sound of hair-dryers. Orchestra wives washing their hair to be pretty for their husbands tomorrow, leaving doors open so they could chat to one another. Mary, her hair in rollers, was finishing her sampler. One thing Viking hadn’t given Abby was ‘roots and wings’. God, he felt awful. Davie was asleep on a chaise-longue, a plastered Cyril was declaiming ‘Ulysses’ to a large yucca plant:

  ‘Old age has yet his honour and his toil;

  Death closes all, but something ’ere the end

  Some work of noble note, may yet be done.’

  Viking had only just collapsed into bed wondering whether to ward off suicide or encourage sleep with a large whisky from the mini-bar, when Blue arrived and whispered that he’d finally persuaded Cathie to come back to the room with him.

  ‘I trapped her in the revolving doors so she couldn’t escape.’

  ‘Where’s Carmine?’

  ‘Enjoying a bonk with Nellie, since you bottled out. He left Cathie fast asleep in bed, having taken a Mogadon, or so he thinks.’

  ‘Bloody risky.’

  ‘Sure it is, we won’t have long, just bogger off and leave the coast clear.’

  ‘I won’t watch I promise,’ pleaded Viking, ‘I josst want to crash out.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ hissed Blue, ‘it’s my only chance. Please Viking, or Cathie’ll do a runner – she’s furious with you as it is.’

  Wearily, Viking staggered upstairs, wrapped only in a towel, and dragging his duvet and a pillow. He was just banging on the Steel Elf’s door when the lift opened and out stepped Lord and Lady Leatherhead, Knickers and Hilary, all jolly from the official dinner. Trailing after them was a haunted, ghostly-pale Abby.

  ‘Abby, sweetheart, we mosst talk.’ Viking bounded forward, his only thought to comfort her.

  Abby, who’d been on the Fundador on an utterly empty stomach, went beserk.

  ‘Get out of my life, you fucking son-of-a-bitch,’ she screamed, and slapped him really hard across the face.

  With fatal timing, the door behind Viking opened to show the Steel Elf with her hair tied up in a pink bow and wearing a pretty rose-patterned nightgown.

  ‘Go back to your little prick-teaser, right?’ yelled Abby. ‘Let her put some more beer mats under your elbows, two grand’ll keep up her mortgage for at least six months.’ And with that she lashed her other hand back across Viking’s cheek, cutting it open with Marcus’s ruby.

  Lord and Lady Leatherhead and Knickers looked on in horror; Hilary in delight, as Abby ran off down the landing to her suite, slamming the door behind her.

  During the sex which took place between Blue and Cathie, which Cathie was far too frightened and ashamed of her body to enjoy, her make-up rubbed off to reveal a dark bruise below her left cheek-bone. She tried to cover up two more on her ribs.

  Blue struggled to control his fury.

  ‘For poorer and poorer, for battered and even more battered, you’ve got to leave him, Cath.’

  ‘I can’t, I don’t believe in divorce.’

  ‘I wouldn’t believe in it either if you were married to me.’

  Blue tried to kiss her but she jerked her head away. Only that morning Carmine had untruthfully told her her breath smelt, her bottom had dropped and her breasts were like drooping poached eggs.

  ‘I must go,’ she whispered, but, as she dived for her clothes, so he shouldn’t see her ugly body, Blue caught her wrist pulling her back.

  ‘I want to tell you a story.’

  For a second, Cathie thought he was joking, but his clear blue eyes, the kindest in the world, were completely serious.

  ‘Once upon a time, there was a beautiful woman, married to a wicked philanderer who constantly diminished her and beat her op. But because she was a good Catholic, who wanted to go to Heaven, she stayed with him for fifty dreadful years.’

  Cathie gave a sob.

  ‘In the end the philanderer died a week before his wife did, and, free of him at last, she arrived on the other side.

  ‘“Here for all eternity,” said God, welcoming her with open arms, “there’s someone here you know already,” and there on the first fluffy white cloud was her husband shafting an angel.’

  There was a long pause. Glancing sideways, Blue saw the bruise getting darker and darker as tears washed away the last vestiges of make-up.

  ‘Cathie darling, I didn’t mean to hurt you, but you’ve got to leave him. No-one will punish you. I’ll look after you, I promise.’

  ‘I can’t. He’d come after me and he’d kill us both.’

  ‘I’ll never turn my mobile off,’ Blue was in tears, too. ‘If ever you want me, just ring and I’ll come and get you.’

  Imagining the rest of the orchestra and especially Flora trailing home the following morning with no-one to carry her case, George found it impossible to concentrate on his board meeting. He hoped none of the bitches in the orchestra nor those brutes in the brass section nor any section for that matter were pricking Flora’s bubble or wising her up about his thousand and one deficiencies. God, he missed her.

  The board meeting had begun with regrets and a minute’s silence for Rodney’s death. Miss Priddock had sobbed all over her shorthand notebook, which made it difficult for her to use her biro, but she had been cheered up by yet another miniature from one of the brewers. Everyone expressed delight that Sonny’s Interruption had been nominated. Peggy Parker bowed graciously.

  Then followed the usual moans about poor houses, insufficient sponsors and the rocketing cost of the latest marketing operations which George had introduced.

  At least the cat-nip matador he’d brought back from Toledo had been a huge success, thought George. As if to avenge generations of brave bulls, John Drummond was now tossing it up in the air, and pouncing on it.

  ‘How did the tour go?’ demanded Peggy Parker, noticing George’s total inattention.

  ‘You better ask Miles – he was there longer than me.’

  George was incensed when Miles, after pouring a glass of Lord Leatherhead’s spring water from the silver carafe Hilly had given him for his birthday, rose to his feet and deplored the hooliganism that had poisoned the tour.

  ‘Although there are still players wh
o know how to act as worthy ambassadors for Rutminster, a crackdown is imperative before the Appleton Piano Competition in ten days’ time,’ emphasized Miles, ‘when the RSO will be scrutinized under the microscope, not only by the music world, but by the international media and the general public.

  ‘In a word,’ Miles cracked his knuckles, ‘I feel Abigail has lost control of the orchestra.’

  ‘That was a great many more than one word,’ said George furiously, ‘and your description of the tour is joost as inaccurate. The orchestra played brilliant, made many friends all over Spain and really put Rootminster on the map. They only screwed up on Saturday night because they were choked about Rodney, and that was only after they’d cobbled together the best memorial concert I’ve ever heard. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house when they played Nimrod,’ George’s voice shook slightly. ‘Abby did chumpion. It was the first time she’d played in pooblic and she had to conduct as well. She and Rodney were very close.’

  ‘How close, one wonders,’ said Mrs Parker sourly, ‘I gather Sir Rodney left her his home on Lake Lucerne.’

  ‘That’s out of order,’ snapped George.

  Mrs Parker went puce.

  ‘And who’s going to foot the bill for the jacuzzi flooding the Don Hoo-an Suite?’ she spluttered.

  ‘I am,’ said George.

  ‘And what about Flora Seymour pulling the communication cord on the train to Madrid?’ chuntered Lady Chisleden.

  ‘Over the defenestration of some cuddly toy,’ said Canon Airlie. George started to laugh. ‘Perhaps some latterday Zola will leap to our defence in the Rootminster Echo,’ he suggested, ‘and start his letter, “J’acuzzi”.’

  Everyone looked at him as though he’d gone off his head.

  ‘Oh forget it,’ said George, then added grimly, ‘you’ve been sneaking, Miles. The reviews were bloody good. Abby’s emerging as a first class conductor. Rachel’s Requiem’s Number Ten in the charts. We’ve got a big hit on our hands.’

  ‘What news of the merger?’ asked Canon Airlie earnestly. ‘What was the outcome of your discussions with the Arts Council on Wednesday? Did they provide any guidance?’