by Jilly Cooper
Coming out of the Abbey Road recording studios with Rachel the following evening after they’d recorded the taxing first movement of Brahms’ First Piano Concerto, Rannaldini was confronted by a reporter and a photographer.
‘Mr Rannaldini, we wondered what you thought about these photographs of your wife in France.’
A swift inspection was enough.
‘What paper are you from?’ exploded Rannaldini. ‘Today.’
Rannaldini raised his fist. ‘You’ll be from Yesterday if you’re not careful.’ Shoving them furiously aside, he dived into the waiting Mercedes. Clive, who’d had plenty of practice, slammed the doors and, racing round to the driving seat, took off into the night leaving Rachel with hardly a penny to get home.
In Monthaut, Kitty was reading Pigling Bland to Rannaldini’s children – very slowly – so they could understand the English. Lysander lounged at the end of the bed listening. He had always loved the story which his mother had often read him and he thought how alike were Kitty and Pig Wig, the little black pig heroine, with her double chin and her blue-flowered smock. How nice if he and Kitty could escape to freedom together away from Rannaldini over the county boundary. He wished he was as noble a character as Pigling Bland.
‘Over the hills and far away, she danced with Pigling Bland,’ read Kitty, closing the book. ‘Now you must all try and go to sleep.’
As she kissed each of them, Lysander wandered back into the sitting room and without thinking picked up a ringing telephone.
‘Who’s that?’ yelled Rannaldini.
Lysander hung up.
‘Who was that who answered?’ demanded Rannaldini when he rang a second time.
‘No-one. You must have dialled the wrong number.’
She’s learning, thought Lysander, but as he sloshed vodka into two glasses he could hear Rannaldini’s tantrum right across the room, and, as Kitty clumsily replaced the receiver and glared at him in anguish, he could hear the slither of magic carpet crashing back to earth.
‘I’ve got to go back. It’s all over the papers.’
‘So what? It doesn’t matter. We’re what matters.’
‘You’re Natasha’s boyfriend.’
‘Bullshit, I hate her. I’ve never paid her the slightest attention. That’s Rannaldini stirring it.’
‘And I am ‚is wife.’
‘You can’t stay with him.’ Aghast, Lysander bounded across the room but, as he took her in his arms he could feel her distancing.
‘He’s old and evil.’
‘He needs me.’ Kitty took a tangerine from the fruit bowl and having peeled it threw the pigs into the waste-paper basket and started to eat the peel.
‘You’re like that spare blanket in the cupboard.’ Taking the peel from her, Lysander shoved a vodka into her shaking hand. ‘Rannaldini gets you down when he’s cold. I’ll look after you, Kitty. We can run over the hills and far away. I know you love me.’ Her face, when he forced it upwards, was as pale and filled with longing as last night’s moon.
‘That was infatuation.’
‘No, it wasn’t. Why did you waste an entire suitcase bringing Lassie out here?’ Triumphantly Lysander pulled a case from under the bed and unearthed the collie he’d bought her in Harrods toy department.
Kitty went scarlet. ‘I fort the kids might like to play wiv her.’
‘Why haven’t they then?’
‘I’ve got to go home tomorrow,’ whispered Kitty.
‘Then I’m coming with you.’
He wished Rupert hadn’t flown back to England, or he would have enlisted his help to persuade Kitty not to return.
The journey home was crucifixion, worse than going back to school, worse than his mother dying. Surrounded by children incensed to be going home four days early, aware of the Press everywhere, Kitty and Lysander didn’t touch each other and exchanged not a word. Both grey beneath their suntan, neither had slept.
In duty-free Lysander bought a large bottle of Diorissimo. Despite the number of times he’d bought it he still pronounced it ‘Diorimisso’, and the girl behind the counter smiled because he was so handsome.
‘It was Mum’s favourite scent,’ he said, handing it to Kitty. ‘I want you to wear it because,’ his voice broke, ‘because now I love you more even than I loved her.’
After the champagne air and the dazzling white and blue of the mountains, Heathrow was grey and bitterly cold. A vicious wind whipped Kitty’s green dress over her head as she stepped out of the plane. She was trembling so badly Lysander gave her his coat.
Worst of all, the customs men took one look at Lysander’s polo sticks and the mass of chattering Italian children and, opening everything, finally discovered Lassie.
‘Oh, please not,’ whispered Kitty.
‘Funny thing to hide in a suitcase,’ said a brutish-looking customs man.
‘I gave it to Mrs Rannaldini,’ snapped Lysander.
‘Pull the other leg.’
‘Leave it fucking alone.’
‘Don’t you get lippy with me, sunshine.’ The customs man took out a penknife, and with relish plunged it into Lassie’s defenceless fluffy white throat and proceeded slowly to rip her brown-and-white body to bits, finally even cutting off her shiny leather nose and gouging out her eyes.
Rannaldini’s children were all screaming hysterically. Lysander thought Kitty was going to faint. Only her desperate pleading stopped him leaping across the table and beating the customs man to a pulp, particularly when without a word of apology he handed back Lassie’s remains.
‘I’ll get you another one to replace her, and I’ll get you, you bastard.’ Lysander was nearly in tears, too. ‘Oh, Kitty, please don’t go back to Rannaldini. Let’s get a taxi to Fountain Street.’
Out in the airport they went slap into a cauldron of Press, seething for a story. But the ubiquitous Clive was waiting to pounce and soon had bundled Kitty and the children into a suitably funereal-black limousine and out on to the M4.
Rannaldini had had a nasty shock. He had never imagined anyone fancying Kitty. But in the photographs plastered all over Today and in the later editions of most of the papers, he noticed her gazing up at that winsome little snake with such happiness that she looked almost pretty.
He felt his publicity getting worse and worse. He was sure that shit Campbell-Black wouldn’t be able to resist circulating the pirate version of ‘Once in Royal David’s City’. He knew he was favourite for the New York job but Boris Levitsky’s Symphony had just won a prize for the best-orchestral work of the year (and Boris had conducted it himself at the Mozart Hall to ecstatic reviews and puzzled, but enthusiastic, applause). While Rannaldini had been skiing, according to Clive, Boris had also been over twice to see Rachel and the children. The last thing Rannaldini wanted was these two getting together.
If he was going to clinch the New York job he must mend his marriage at once.
He therefore curbed his initial instinct which was to beat Kitty up on her return. And when she came through the front door just holding back the tears and waiting, trembling violently, for the tolling of the punishment bell, Rannaldini promptly despatched the children to Mrs Brimscombe and roast chicken and chips in the kitchen and drew her into the red morning room.
After the bleak, bitter day, nothing could have been more welcoming. Apple logs crackled merrily in the grate, side lamps cast soft light on huge dark blue bowls of white hyacinths, and on the soft red roses and peonies of the Aubusson which flowed over the entire floor. Instead of the usual deafening Stockhausen or Shostakovitch the stereo was playing My Fair Lady. Even Rannaldini himself looked more approachable in old brown cords, a yellow-checked shirt and a dark brown cashmere jersey, which seemed to bring out softer brown flecks in the hard black eyes, and he was smiling at her with such tenderness.
‘I’m ever so sorry, Rannaldini,’ Kitty’s teeth were chattering so frantically she could hardly get the words out.
‘Hush, hush, all that matters is that you are home
. Come here, my lovely child.’
Taking her blue frozen hands he drew her close, gently stroking her cheek, which was rigid with tension, as she waited for the first blow from the back of his hand.
‘I’m so sorry about the Press and fings.’
‘What does the stupid Press matter?’ sighed Rannaldini. ‘Seeing you in Lysander’s arms bring me to my senses. I ’ave the worst twenty-four hours of my life.’
Expecting screaming abuse, the thumbscrew, the stapler punched through the hand, Kitty looked up in bewilderment.
‘I’ve grown accustomed to her face, she seems to make the day begin,’ sang Rex Harrison.
‘My sentiments entirely,’ said Rannaldini, kissing her forehead and then her trembling lips.
‘You’re not angry?’
‘Only with myself for neglecting you. All my cheeldren adore you, even Natasha. She reeng me in such distress this morning. Papa, don’t let Kitty go. She is very upset, of course. Lysander ’ave often tell her he love her, and keep ringing up from Switzerland.’ That hurts her, thought Rannaldini with satisfaction, seeing Kitty flinch.
‘Of course he chase Natasha,’ he went on. ‘She will be very rich woman eef I die. So will you, Kitty, and that ees not so impossible.’ He waved away her protests. ‘Theenking you might not come back, I contemplate ending it all.’ Pulling open a desk drawer he pointed to a black pistol.
‘Oh no, Rannaldini!’ Kitty was horrified. ‘You mustn’t do anyfing like that.’
‘Not eef I have you.’ Banging the drawer shut Rannaldini went to the drinks table and poured Kitty a large brandy. ‘But I have many problems. Catchitune have gone belly-up. Larry is ruined.’
‘Oh, poor Larry and poor Marigold.’
‘Poor me,’ said Rannaldini fretfully. ‘Catchitune owe me meelions of pounds. We will have to find a new record company, theenk of the new contracts to be drawn up.’ Then, seeing the exhaustion on Kitty’s face, ‘But forget that. Theenk only of us, my Keety, and come with me to the tower.’ His hand slid round her waist, sliding upwards to caress her breast with infinite gentleness, then down to stroke her bottom, giving it a quick vicious pinch.
‘You are made for love, Keety, and now perhaps a leetle punishment for being such a naughty girl. Drink up your brandy and I will blot out all memory of that promiscuous greedy little gigolo.’
‘He’s not,’ gasped Kitty.
‘Oh, my dear!’ Picking up a woodlice crawling across the hearth, Rannaldini tossed it into the fire. ‘Don’t make me shatter any more of your illusions. You must promise never to see him again.’
Even worse was Lysander’s return to Magpie Cottage. Paradise had never looked bleaker. A sadistic east wind whipped the last leaves across the sallow fields. The frantically threshing branches of the trees tangled like antlers. Rannaldini, the wily old buck, was despatching the young pretender into the forest. He never should have let Kitty go. It was his fault. If he’d been able to keep his hands off her in public they’d have got away with it. He was terrified of Rannaldini’s vengeance and for a sickening moment over the wind and rain thought he could hear the punishment bell tolling at Valhalla, then realized it was only the church clock striking twelve. It seemed like midnight. How could he get through the rest of his life?
The cottage smelt damp and sour. The doormat was covered in letters, mostly brown envelopes. In the fridge he found a half-eaten pheasant crawling with maggots and, shuddering, threw it in the bin. Pouring himself the dregs of a bottle of vodka he topped it with tonic as flat as his life and only bothered to open three letters, each of which plunged him into deeper despair.
The first was from the vet saying he was 99 per cent sure Arthur had contracted navicular disease which meant he was a write-off for racing.
‘Oh, poor darling Arthur.’ But Lysander couldn’t really absorb such a bodyblow in his present shell-shocked condition. The second letter didn’t need a stamp. Marigold wrote:
Dearest Lysander,
I’m terribly sorry but poor Larry’s been voted off the Catchitune board so we won’t be able to pay you your monthly retainer any more, but I hope Georgie is still paying you, and we’ve got to put The Grange and Magpie Cottage on the market at once. You can stay until we sell it, but please try to keep it tidy because agents will be showing people round. Don’t worry about Larry and me, we’re OK.
On a happier note, although I can’t afford the £10,000 bonus, congratulations on getting Rannaldini back for Kitty. He was really rocked by those pictures in Today. Larry, who saw him afterwards, said he minded much more about them than Catchitune going belly-up. And you managed to look really in love with Kitty – you are a good actor. Rannaldini’s so jumpy he’ll be dropping all his mistresses soon, even that old bat Hermione. Hope to see you at Rachel’s party tomorrow evening. Love, Marigold.
Rain was sweeping down the valley like a ghost cavalry charge. Lysander started to shake; all his old insecurities came hurtling back. He had lost his true love. If he moved out of the cottage, where would all the animals and, hopefully, Kitty, live? Poor Marigold, too – going up the spout. He’d had a lot of money from her. His trembling hand had great difficulty in writing her a cheque for thirty thousand pounds. He didn’t want to be paid a bean for saving Kitty’s marriage. He’d better ring his bank sometime and find out how much he’d got left. Or perhaps Ferdie could do that for him. He must ring up and get the dogs back and talk of the devil, here was a letter from Ferdie. How odd, Ferdie never wrote letters and his handwriting on the envelope looked really crazy.
Dear Lysander, I’m afraid Maggie’s dead. Lysander gave a moan of horror. She wasn’t getting fat like we thought, she was pregnant and pining so much for you she wouldn’t eat. She had no strength and died giving birth to three puppies. Two were still born. I’m feeding the third with a bottle.
‘Oh God,’ whispered Lysander; he read on: I just want you to know that you can’t go on fucking up people and animals like this and dodging your responsibilities. You plucked Maggie out of hell, made her fall in love with you and dumped her. And from those pix in Today you’ve done the same to Kitty. I’m fed up with picking up the pieces. I’ll leave Jack with Marigold. I don’t want to see you any more. You’re on your own.
Lysander was distraught. Poor darling, little Maggie, the most adorable dog in the world, who’d given him nothing but love, starving herself to death, and sweet darling Kitty, and Ferdie, his dearest friend, whom he’d totally taken for granted. How could he have behaved so appallingly to all of them? Shivering, he threw himself down on the damp grey sheets and sobbed himself to sleep. Waking two hours later, the light was already fading and he felt so desolate he dialled Valhalla even though he’d promised not to. At first he thought Kitty was a recording machine, her voice was so high, stilted and unnatural.
‘I can’t see you any more.’
‘I can’t live without you,’ he jibbered in panic, ‘and Maggie’s dead.’
‘Oh, Lysander.’ For a second, Kitty’s voice faltered, ‘I’m ever so sorry, but I still can’t see you. Rannaldini’s forgiven me. I’ve got to save my marriage.’
‘What marriage? You’re married to Saddam Hussein.’
‘He’s frettening to kill hisself if I leaves ’im. Fank you for everyfink. God bless you and I’m sorry about Maggie.’
It took Lysander five dials to get Rupert’s number right.
‘Oh, Rupert, Rupert, I’m really sorry to bother you, but Kitty won’t see me any more and Rannaldini’s threatening suicide.’
‘That old trick,’ said Rupert scornfully. ‘No doubt he’ll get Kitty to run off suicide notes on her word processor for all his mistresses. I’ve just been watching the tape of the nativity play. Christ, it’s funny. I must send Flora some flowers.’
‘And Arthur’s got navicular,’ said Lysander despairingly.
‘Bring him over tomorrow. I’ll have a look.’
‘Are you sure? D’you mind having Tiny as well? She’s such a bitch, but Arth
ur pines without her.’
52
The only reason Lysander went to Rachel’s party was in the hope of seeing Kitty. It was another mean night. Black ice gripped the winding Rutshire roads. A savage wind chivvied woolly sepia clouds across the stars. Rachel’s barrel of rainwater was frozen solid. Although Jasmine Cottage was, if anything, colder in than out, the party gave an initial illusion of success because the twenty-five odd guests crammed into a small room, dominated by a large black grand piano, had to yell to be heard, particularly as Rachel had turned up Rannaldini’s CD of Shostakovich’s Fifth fortissimo.
‘Thank God you’ve come – I need spare men,’ shouted Rachel, her welcome vanishing when she saw Jack tucked inside Lysander’s coat.
‘I hope that beast won’t chase Scarlatti. Can’t he stay in the car?’
‘He’d freeze to death. Happy birthday,’ said Lysander, unable to meet her eyes he disliked her so much, as he handed over a bottle of Moët.
‘You spoil me,’ said Rachel mockingly. ‘I’ve had so much booze, anyone would think I had a drink problem.’
Lysander’s hopes that he might get one decent drink were dashed when she promptly put the Moët in the cupboard with the other bottles, saying she’d keep it for special occasions.
Your next bonk with Rannaldini, thought Lysander in disgust. He was sure that the huge brown mohair jersey and the thigh boots in softest mushroom-pink leather she was looking so good in were more presents from the Maestro. Glancing round the room he noticed an elaborate new stereo system, shelves filled with Rannaldini’s tapes and records and a piano stool exquisitely embroidered with yellow pansies. And poor darling Kitty got a filing cabinet for Christmas!
‘Hot apple punch or exotic fruit cup?’ asked Rachel, brandishing a ladle.
‘Whichever’s the strongest.’
‘People seem to prefer the cup.’ Rachel handed him a green glass of fruit salad. ‘Come and meet some of my London friends.’
