by Jilly Cooper
‘The whole hog every time,’ giggled Meredith. ‘Oh, do look at the bride.’
Helen had removed her fox-fur hat because it flattened her hair but, to her horror, Tabitha had just returned in jeans and a navy blue polo-neck, which had pulled most of the freesias out of her hair. ‘I was cold, Mummy,’ she protested, feeding vol-au-vents to Sharon the Labrador, who had a pink bow round her neck.
‘Champagne, Mrs Lovell?’ said a lisping, mocking voice.
As Tory Lovell swung round, her sudden desolation that Rannaldini’s evil henchman, Clive, was addressing her new daughter-in-law rather than herself was almost palpable.
‘The make-up artist is most important person on the set,’ Tristan was now telling Lucy, as they admired an olive-green wood by J. S. Cotman. ‘She is first person an actor see in the morning. If she say, “I haven’t been paid for weeks, the director’s a bastard,” it poison atmosphere.’
‘You couldn’t be a bastard,’ blurted out Lucy, then went scarlet as he glanced at her bare wedding-ring finger. ‘It’s hard to be in a long-term relationship if you’re a make-up artist. On location, you tend to slip into affaires. I had a boyfriend at home, but we’ve just broken up,’ she confessed, in her soft Cumbrian accent. ‘He was fed up with me being always away. Said he wanted Marks and Spencer’s dinners and someone who listened in the evenings. Weddings always make you feel a bit bleak.’ She must be drunk already. She could tell this man anything, and he hadn’t volunteered a word about himself.
‘Are you married?’ she asked.
Tristan shook his head.
‘Perhaps that’s why I too make films – you become part of big family and kid yourself you’re not alone.’
‘Who gave you those gorgeous cufflinks?’ Meredith admired Isa’s sapphires. ‘Are they a present from the bride?’
‘No, the best man,’ said Isa.
‘And let the best man win,’ murmured Baby.
Tab, who had been lighting a cigarette, looked round sharply, but as she opened her mouth to retort, Helen tapped her on the shoulder.
‘Can you please rescue poor Tristan? He’s been stuck for ages with your friend Lucy.’
‘No-one gets stuck with Lucy,’ snapped Tab. ‘You chuck him a life-belt if you’re worried.’
‘Dinner is served,’ announced the fearsome Bussage.
Waiters holding candles guided the guests past tapestries and suits of armour down dark, wandering passages to the Great Hall, which looked stupendous. A string quartet was playing in the minstrels’ gallery. The red and gold mural of trumpeters, harpists and fiddlers gleamed in the flickering light of hundreds of candles.
A bottle-green cloth stretched the length of the huge table. Mrs Brimscombe and the maids had risen at dawn to search the woods and intersperse the gold plate and the glittering armada of cut glass with beautiful red and gold fungi and the last coloured leaves of autumn.
In front of a huge organ rising to the ceiling, a side table groaned with silver dishes of oysters, giant prawns, vermilion lobster, slices of sole in cream sauce and stuffed sea bass. Carrying on the main table’s colour scheme were great bowls of tomato mayonnaise, sauce verte and gleaming gold Hollandaise. And this was only the first course.
At dinner Lucy lost Tristan. She was stuck between a dull Lovell cousin and Little Cosmo, who she felt sure was about to slice a red-spotted toadstool into her food. Tristan was next to Helen, who bombarded him with questions about Don Carlos, then interrupted with her own views, ‘I mean, the poor old Grand Inquisitor was visually challenged,’ when Tristan tried to answer them.
She was far more tense than she had been in Prague, her hazel eyes constantly policing the room for women who might be getting off with Rannaldini, particularly the adorable Taggie, whom Rannaldini, in a fit of mega-malice, had seated between himself and Jake Lovell.
Taggie didn’t know which man unnerved her more. Rannaldini was being unbelievably charming. Knowing what a great cook she was, he found her the tenderest piece from the saddle of lamb, then sought her opinion on the russet apples glazed with Cumberland sauce. Would Bramleys have added more piquancy?
Taggie mumbled truthfully that it was all delicious, but she couldn’t forget the hideous way Rannaldini had treated her friend Kitty, while she was married to him. Jake, on the other hand, was like a small thundercloud.
‘I’m desperately sorry about this,’ stammered Taggie.
‘No more sorry than we are,’ said Jake bleakly.
Down the table, the bride sat between Baby and Isa, a cigarette in one hand, a fork in the other, her eyes crossing, hardly taking in the horse talk that flowed across her.
Poor red-eyed Tory Lovell tried to hide her despair. She and Jake had managed to patch up their marriage miraculously but now she’d have to see Helen, with whom Jake had once been so hopelessly in love, at the baby’s christening and at birthday parties for years to come. She wished she liked Tab more. She shouldn’t be smoking and drinking like that, it was so bad for the baby. Tory had so longed for her first grandchild.
When Tab cut her cake, she most audibly wished for an Olympic gold for The Engineer. People were beginning to table-hop. Jake joined Isa and Baby, ignoring Tab, who got to her feet.
‘Musht go to the loo.’
‘Aren’t you going to throw us your bouquet,’ called Meredith, ‘so we can see who’s going to get hitched next?’
Instead Tab threw her flowers high into the rafters, but as the single women and Meredith surged forward, she reached out and caught them herself.
‘I’m the one who’s going to need it,’ she said, glancing enigmatically at Isa.
With distress, Tristan noticed the delight on Rannaldini’s face then turned and caught the satisfaction on Baby’s. Rannaldini was clearly as crazy about poor little Tab as Baby was about the cool, sinister Isa.
A family drama in a princely house, he thought wryly, which was how Verdi had described Don Carlos.
Eddie Campbell-Black was nose to nose with Lady Chisledon.
‘I do wish they did soap operas about people of our class,’ she was saying.
Lucy had never met anyone quite like Little Cosmo. ‘What are you going to do for a living?’ she asked.
‘I’m going to lead paedophiles on and then blackmail them,’ said Little Cosmo, who was lighting a joint.
His mother, who wished to speak to her director, plonked herself between Tristan and Helen. ‘Tory Lovell is such a charmer,’ she said pointedly.
Helen flounced off.
Everyone was wandering back to their seats for the speeches. Not wanting to be landed with Hermione, Tristan introduced her to Baby.
‘No, we haven’t met,’ said Baby, ‘but we share the same colourist in Mount Street.’
Hermione, who’d always sworn her rich brown hair was natural, was absolutely furious. Making a hasty getaway, Tristan sidled up to Taggie. God, she was adorable.
‘I hear you adopt children from Colombia,’ he said. ‘I once recce’d a film there. The people are ravishing.’
Taggie melted instantly and was soon telling him about Bianca’s adventures in the nativity play.
‘“I love acting, Mummy,” she said yesterday, “but I hate being watched.” I’m not boring you?’ she asked anxiously.
‘Never, never,’ murmured Tristan. ‘My singers, alas, love being watched but hate acting.’
Taggie was shyly producing photos of Xav and Bianca when she felt a laser of jealousy from Tab and hurriedly shoved them away.
‘Stop doing a number on Isa’s divine stepmother-in-law, Tristan, I want to make a speech,’ shouted Baby, who had clearly recovered his high spirits.
‘In a minute, like Leporello,’ he bashed the table with a spoon, ‘I’m going to list all the men, women and kangaroos Isa’s been to bed with but first I want to read out the telegrams. Here’s an excellent one for Tabitha: “Are you sure you’re doing the right thing, darling? love, Granny.”’
After a long pause, this wa
s greeted by screams of laughter.
‘Wonderful woman,’ said Eddie, who was trying to light a Gristik. ‘Propose to her every Christmas, know we’ll end up together.’
‘Sit down and shut up, Baby,’ called out Rannaldini, with a big pussy-cat smile. ‘I’m the one who’s making the speech.’
‘Helen’s not with us,’ called out Lady Chisledon.
Next moment, the mother of the bride came rushing in.
‘I cannot believe it. Someone has set fire to my fur hat. Tabitha!’ she rounded furiously on her daughter.
‘Must have been Lucy,’ said Tab, collapsing on to her husband’s knee. ‘She’s so anti people wearing fur.’
‘I never!’ stammered Lucy.
‘Sort it out later,’ said Rannaldini. ‘Sit down,’ he added chillingly.
Helen sat, red blotches of rage staining her neck.
‘Brilliant cake, Mrs Brimscombe,’ shouted Tab, taking a bite of Baby’s untouched piece.
Both Jake and Tory had looked at her in horror.
‘Spit it out,’ Tory wanted to shout, but it was too late.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ began Rannaldini silkily, ‘it is with great pleasure . . .’
But for once he was talking to air as Rupert stalked in. He was wearing a crumpled lightweight suit and must have hitched a lift from Bogotá on someone else’s jet.
‘Enter the Pin-up from Penscombe,’ whispered Meredith in ecstasy.
Aware that Rupert was the father of Xavier, whom he had bullied so dreadfully, Little Cosmo slid under the table.
‘Hello, Daddy,’ called out Tabitha.
For a second Rupert glared round, taking in first the bride, his daughter, on Isa’s knee, then his father, with his hand down Lady Chisledon’s shirt, and finally the bride’s stepmother, who was also his wife, cringing between Jake Lovell and a smirking Rannaldini. His fury was as blasting as nerve gas.
Only Hermione was unaffected. ‘Rupert Campbell-Black! Just in time for the dancing!’ she cried, charging him like an excited buffalo.
Stepping out of her way, Rupert chucked an envelope on the dark green tablecloth. Clive, who shadowed Rannaldini’s every move, was gliding in from the right.
‘Venturer are pulling out of Don Carlos,’ said Rupert softly. ‘You can fucking well survive on your own.’
‘But you’re the chief backer,’ hissed Rannaldini, ‘and the contracts—’
‘Have not been signed,’ interrupted Rupert. ‘You should stop your Rottweiler lawyers being so greedy. And that’s only the opening shot, you poisoned dwarf.’
Then, totally ignoring a frantically mouthing Taggie, Rupert turned on his heel and stalked out.
‘Rupert Campbell-Black gets away with being rude because he’s very posh,’ announced the muffled voice of Little Cosmo.
‘Penis angelicus,’ sang Tabitha, and slid under the table to join him.
The following day Rannaldini, Tristan and Sexton, who’d been heartbroken not to be asked to the wedding, held an emergency meeting. Without Venturer’s millions the film was seriously in jeopardy. They couldn’t postpone because it was written into Alpheus’s contract that they would finish at the latest by the end of June. Sexton was particularly gutted: he had not only regarded Rupert as a terrific gent, who was shit-hot with money, but also as comfortingly much of a musical Philistine as he was himself.
Rannaldini was just sighing that he would love to help out financially but what with the wedding and tax bills looming . . . when Tristan took a deep breath – after all he had no dependants – and said as soon as the French lawyers stopped wrangling, Liberty Productions could have the bulk of the money Étienne had grudgingly left him. Then he suggested they economize by filming in modern dress, drawing parallels between the Spanish and the English royal families.
‘Grite, grite!’ cried Sexton in excitement. ‘Princess Di as Elisabetta – the Americans will go apeshit! And we can change Charles V’s ghost into the Queen Muvver.’
‘Don’t be fatuous, Sexton,’ snapped Rannaldini.
To Rannaldini’s delight, however, Tristan then proposed they film at Valhalla, which would be much cheaper. ‘You have mausoleum, dungeons, cloisters, and huge state rooms.’
‘And we can save on location fees, travel expenses and hotels by putting the cast up at Valhalla,’ said Rannaldini gleefully, envisaging unlimited extensions and redecorating on the budget. ‘Once recording’s over, we’ll recce Buckingham Palace to get the thing authentic.’
‘If the leaves are back on the trees by the time we start shooting,’ added Tristan, ‘we can always send a second unit to film the opening scenes in Romania where it’ll still be winter.’
‘Sounds expensive,’ said Rannaldini, not altogether playfully. ‘We’ll build in serious penalties if you don’t finish the movie on time.’
Meanwhile the cast were still not turning up at rehearsals but each night Tristan and Serena Westwood spent hours on the floor of Tristan’s flat, shuffling papers trying to schedule the recording. It was like wrestling with some massive seating plan, fitting in with singers’ availability and keeping the difficult ones apart.
‘Tricky when they’re all difficult,’ sighed Serena.
‘I suppose Rannaldini will have to turn up for the recording,’ said Tristan wearily.
Serena smirked because the Maestro was still finding time to take her to bed. But, to her irritation and despite heavy hints, Tristan still hadn’t made a move on her.
The recording itself was held in a huge assembly room attached to Wallsend Town Hall in north-east London. As the orchestra straggled in on the first day, in early January, the temperature plummeted below zero. Snow lay thickly over the regimented beds of wallflowers and pansies. Lengthening icicles glittered from the gutters in the morning sun. Inside the hall it was even colder: the central heating had been switched off in case gurgles and clicks were picked up on the tape.
‘It’s going to be breathe-in time for everyone,’ said a fat female member of the chorus, looking round the tiny gallery with disapproval. Down below technicians were trying to find room for all the orchestral chairs and music stands, and putting green bottles of water by every singer’s microphone.
The off-stage band had ill-advisedly been sent to play in the bar where an impromptu rehearsal for soloists, who had deigned to turn up, was also under way. Hearing screeching, Sexton, who was heroically trying to get into the jargon, remarked that Dame Hermione was ‘in fine voice’.
‘Chance would be a fine thing! That’s the chorus master,’ said Serena sourly.
‘Do you have a pass, sir?’ asked a man on the door, as Rannaldini stalked in, chocolate brown from skiing.
‘It’s Maestro Rannaldini!’ hissed the other doorman. ‘Where have you been? Outer space?’
Within seconds, Rannaldini was rowing with both Serena and Tristan, and changing everything. Half an hour later, Hermione swept in and started yelling that her dressing room was too small and too far from the stage, and she had nowhere to warm up.
‘How dare you send me yellow roses that are fully out when you know I only like buds?’ she then shouted at Christy Foxe, Serena’s PA, a little scrubbed-faced school-leaver, who had just staggered in with Hermione’s four suitcases. ‘And don’t forget I always have a glass of chilled champagne at eleven.’
‘No need to fucking chill it in this hall,’ muttered Christy, making his escape.
Rannaldini was now altering the schedule. No matter that the chorus, who had been booked for the day at vast expense, would be cooling their heels, he wished to kick off the recording with Hermione’s last duet with Franco. When Fat Franco didn’t show up, Rannaldini dragged him out of another recording studio in Rome and sacked him.
‘That’s a million saved for a start,’ he told Tristan gleefully, as he put down the telephone.
When Franco’s agent came on the line in apoplexy, Rannaldini countered suavely that the final contract had not been signed, again due to lawyers wranglin
g; and, if it had, Franco was in default for not having attended a single rehearsal or having lost a kilo of weight. ‘He hasn’t got a fat leg to stand on.’
‘How can you fire the finest tenor in the world?’
‘Pour encourager les autres.’
As shock-horror at the sacking ricocheted round the world, Liberty Productions called a press conference to announce their new leading man: ‘The dazzling, drop-dead gorgeous, honey-toned Australian tenor Baby Spinosissimo. The most exciting thing to come out of Oz since Joan Sutherland.’
‘And the same sex,’ muttered the Daily Mail, scribbling furiously.
Aware that he was getting Liberty Productions out of a hole, Baby had played terribly hard to get. When Howie Denston, now his agent, had rung to offer him the job, he had said he’d think about it. He then went screaming ecstatically round the house, before calling Isa Lovell. He was going to earn more money in a few months than in his entire life, so he could now pay his tax bill and buy that horse, Peppy something, Isa kept banging on about.
Baby rolled up at the subsequent press conference on the arm of a ravishing pony-tailed youth in a pinstripe suit. Gwynneth, the flabby crone from the Arts Council on whom Rannaldini had landed when Viking hit him across the room, was covering the event for the Sentinel. Wildly excited, she whisked the pinstriped youth from group to group, introducing him reverently as ‘Mr Spinosissimo’s partner’.
‘How long have you and Baby been together?’ asked the Telegraph.
‘Oh, he picked me up in the car park half an hour ago,’ grinned the youth.
‘D’you prefer guys to women, Baby?’ asked the Mirror.
‘I prefer sheep,’ said Baby. ‘If sheep could cook, I’d marry one.’
Over the roars of laughter, a blonde from the Scorpion called out, ‘Who’s this guy Schiller who’s done the tie-in?’
‘Shriller, if it’s Dame Hermione,’ drawled Baby.
The only obstacles ahead seemed to be that Baby must lose a stone before filming, if he were to look suitably lovelorn, and that the Don Carlos press officer, Bruce Cassidy, predictably nicknamed ‘Hype-along’, would have to try to hide the fact that Baby swung every which way including koala bears.
