Appassionata rc-5

by Jilly Cooper

  There was no way he could pay the rent or for the Stein way, and buy presents for Abby and Flora. The cottage bills were horrific; Flora left lights and fires on all the time, and neither she nor Abby thought anything of ringing long distance for hours.

  Marcus’s studio was freezing, but except when he had pupils, he tried to put on four jerseys instead of the heating. As if to save him electricity, the falling snow was lighting the room, thickening branch and twig, filling up the winter jasmine curling inside the lank skeins of traveller’s joy. He put the biography of Rachmaninov in the bookshelf, above the rows of CDs, tapes and scores.

  The most charitable way you could describe the studio inside was minimalist: as little clutter as possible to attract the dust mites that caused his asthma. There were no carpets on the bare boards. The only furniture was the Steinway, two piano-stools and the bed. On the walls, apart from the bookshelf, hung only the Munnings of Pylon Peggoty, his grandfather’s grey, given to him by Rupert.

  His asthma had been particularly bad since The Messiah. After spending the night with Monica and Edith, his homesickness had been so great that he had driven out to Penscombe, and from the top road had watched Rupert, who used to bobsleigh, hurtling down the fields on a toboggan. In front of him sat Xavier, squealing with joy. A pack of excited dogs followed them, the yelling and barking echoing round the white valley as everything sparkled in the sunshine beneath a delphinium-blue sky.

  Then Rupert had taken Xav’s hand, and led him and the toboggan back up the hill to help Taggie and Bianca, a dash of colour in a scarlet skiing suit, make a snowman on the lawn in front of the house. Marcus had slumped against the steering-wheel — ‘I’ve failed him, I’ve failed him,’ — and, in utter despair, had driven home.

  Now he was going to fail Rupert again by selling the Munnings. He could imagine the letter arriving from Sotheby’s. ‘We’ve just got in a painting that might interest you,’ and his father’s lip curling when he saw the polaroid.

  But the only thing in the pipeline was a concert at Ilkley which would cost him as much in petrol as the fee. Oh God, when would he get a break? He was trying to learn one of Liszt’s Mephisto Waltzes, but as he sat down at the piano, his fingers were too stiff and frozen to master the diabolical twists and turns, which reminded him of Rannaldini. Helen was pressuring him to join them both for Christmas. Marcus would rather stay in bed without food or heating.

  It was half a minute before he realized the telephone was ringing; he only just got there.

  ‘This is Miles Brian-Knowles,’ said a prim, fastidious voice.

  ‘Sorry, I was miles away,’ stammered Marcus, which wasn’t a good start. Miles probably needed a babysitter.

  Instead he said the RSO had been badly let down by Benny Basanovich.

  ‘Says he’s got flu, diplomatic, I imagine. It’s a short piece, only six minutes and quite honestly there’s so much din going on, the odd wrong note won’t matter. It’s Sonny Parker’s Interruption Suite. We’re recording it live. I wondered if you’d be interested?’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ Marcus was desperate to accept before Miles changed his mind, or remembered Marcus had once been so rude to Peggy Parker.

  ‘Is a thousand pounds enough?’

  ‘More than.’ In passionate relief, Marcus’s head dropped onto the top of the piano. ‘You’ve saved my life.’

  ‘I’m afraid there’s no time for an orchestral rehearsal, but if you make your way over to the hall, I can give you the score and a practice room.’

  ‘Oh thank you, thank you, Father Christmas has arrived a week early.’

  Miles was touched.

  ‘It’s a pleasure. I wish all transactions were as easy.’

  In her pigeon hole that evening, Flora found a bunch of white roses.

  Darling Flora, said the accompanying note. Just apologizing in advance for my appalling behaviour later on this evening, Love Viking.

  Flora gave a whoop of ecstasy. Dancing down the passage singing Boléro, she went slap into George Hungerford.

  ‘Why the bloody hell don’t you look where you’re going?’

  ‘Dum de-de-de. De-de, de-de, de-de dum, de-de-de,’ sang Flora, weaving round him into the women’s changing-room, where, to Clare, Candy, Nellie, Mary, Hilary and Juno’s irritation, she fought for once just as fiercely, as they did, for a space in front of the communal mirror.

  ‘You don’t normally wear make-up,’ said Juno accusingly.

  ‘You look really, really pretty,’ said Clare in amazement.

  Flora broke open the cellophane with her teeth and handed her new eye-liner to Nellie.

  ‘Can you paint it on — my hands are shaking too much.’

  ‘Why are you suddenly so nervous?’ demanded Hilary.

  ‘Because my mate, Marcus, is making his début.’

  ‘That is one hell of a sassy dress,’ said Candy in wonder, as Flora slithered into a knee-length satin shift, only held up by two ribbon straps.

  ‘You can’t wear that, or those,’ spluttered Hilary, as Flora tucked her hair into a black velvet toggle and slotted in two of Viking’s white roses.

  ‘Mais, bien sûr,’ Flora wrapped a black silky mantilla round her shoulders, ‘particularly as we’re playing Boléro.’ And clacking her fingers like castanets, she danced out into the passage.

  ‘What has got into her?’ asked a shocked Juno.

  Sonny’s Interruption, a grisly one-note job for orchestra, piano, burglar-alarm, fax, telephone bleeper, railway train, back-firing car, pneumatic drill, coughing, snoring, rustling and lavatory chain, was to be recorded after the interval and before Boléro and the singing of carols. Sonny had diverted most of the brass section to the Ladies’ lavatory to provide a flushing chorus. Cherub and the percussion section had gone beserk in rehearsal, imitating the various sounds.

  Having plink-plonked his way through the piano part several times in his dressing-room, Marcus decided he couldn’t be nervous about something quite so silly — particularly when Sonny strutted in to give last-minute advice, wearing a collarless scarlet tunic, white silk trousers, red satin slippers and a white-and-red scarf round his ponytail.

  ‘Hallo, Marcus Black,’ he said in his reedy voice. ‘You must not be daunted by the complexities. Mozart appeared complex, too. Like my work, the beauty, richness and depth bewildered his first listeners.’

  He then suggested Marcus ran through the solo, paddling away with suggested fingering, and shoving his bony pelvis so hard into Marcus’s back, Marcus nearly elbowed him in the groin.

  Fortunately Flora barged in to wish Marcus luck.

  Sonny was livid.

  ‘I told Miles — no interruptions.’

  ‘But the work is all about interruptions. Shall I go out, and come in and interrupt again to get you both in the mood?’

  Marcus laughed. Sonny flounced off.

  ‘No-one looks prettier in tails than you do,’ said Flora in delight.

  ‘Or in black than you.’

  There was a sparkle in her eyes that Marcus hadn’t seen for years.

  As he tugged the maidenhair fern from behind a white carnation, graciously presented to him by Peggy Parker, he added: ‘Someone will have to turn the pages for me.’

  ‘I shall be hidden among the violas, thank God, and if the audience pelts us with tomatoes I hope they put basil on them.’

  As Sonny had written in no trombone parts, Dixie volunteered for the job as page-turner, but, having been boozing all day, he couldn’t take it seriously.

  ‘Exciting having off-stage cow-bells,’ murmured Marcus, as they hovered in the wings.

  ‘Particularly when it’s conducted by an on-stage cow,’ said Dixie, as Sonny minced out of the conductor’s room and swept him and Marcus onto an exceedingly crowded platform.

  There were overhead mikes for Marcus and each section, and bigger mikes dotted around the auditorium for general ambience. Sonny gave a little fluting speech, reminding the audience they were taking par
t in an experience as creatively significant as the first performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony or Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder.

  ‘Remember your clap or cough will be recorded for posterity, so make it loud, and wait for the red light.’

  Dixie proceeded to belch loudly into Marcus’s microphone.

  ‘That’s the spirit,’ cried Sonny, who loved big butch Glaswegians, ‘but save it for the red light.’

  The audience looked frightfully excited, delighted to have something as beautiful as Marcus to gaze at if the music became too demanding.

  On came the red light, up started the atrocious din. Dixie couldn’t stop laughing particularly when the lavatory chains wouldn’t pull in time, and the audience, having been exhorted by Sonny to cough as much as possible, found they couldn’t stop. Viking and Barry the Bass rang each other up on their mobiles and chatted throughout.

  Marcus was thumping away, trying to be heard over the uproar, when Little Cherub, racing back from xylophone to cow-bells, took a flying leap and fell flat on his face. Dixie was in such hysterics, he knocked Marcus’s score onto the floor, and picking it up, shoved it back upside-down by mistake.

  Flora had also chosen that moment to wriggle out of her black mantilla. Viking was not the only musician to be distracted by the beauty of her shoulders. Dixie was so mesmerized, there was no way Marcus could attract his attention to put his music the right way up. The only answer was to ad lib, plink-plonking away to the end. Immediately the audience leapt to their feet applauding wildly so that their clap could be recorded for posterity.

  ‘Only getting up to relieve their piles,’ said Dixie scornfully.

  But Marcus had slunk off the stage, petrified the wrath of Parker was going to descend on him for playing the wrong ending. Instead, after taking three bows, an ecstatic Sonny rushed into Marcus’s dressing-room, saying his work had never been so movingly interpreted.

  ‘I wept. I could not understand how I could write such beautiful music. Mumsy, Mumsy,’ cried Sonny, as Peggy swept in in a mauve satin marquee, ‘I am going to write a concerto for Marcus Black.’

  Marcus cringed behind the upright piano.

  But Peggy was prepared to let bygones be byge-owns, and presented Marcus with a large Christmas hamper.

  ‘You’ve done my Sonny proud, we look forward to receiving you at Rutminster Towers.’

  Cherub also received a smaller hamper for being wounded in action, and the brass section were each given a bottle of champagne for pulling the chain so meaningfully.

  Gilbert and Gwynneth were also in raptures. They had never seen a Rutminster audience enjoy themselves so much. At last music was being brought to the people. They made a point of seeking Marcus out and commending his sensitive playing.

  ‘We’re staying in the Close with Canon Airlie,’ whispered Gwynneth, ‘please drop in for carols and wassail later.’

  ‘You’re terribly kind,’ Marcus ducked to avoid a flying earring.

  ‘We’re going to hear a good deal more of Black,’ said Gilbert as he drifted out.

  That boy’s done well, thought George, he made a diabolical piece of music sound almost good.

  ‘Could I have a word?’ he asked Marcus.

  Ravel had once confessed sadly that Boléro was his only masterpiece and it contained no music. But after Sonny’s self-indulgent, mindless, ear-murdering junk, Boléro sounded glorious. Tommy Stainforth, Principal Percussion, joined later by Cherub, his nose bleed staining his white shirt like a boy soldier in battle, kept up the relentless hypnotic beat on their silver snare-drums, while sections and soloists took it in turns to snake languorously in and out of the one disturbingly beautiful tune.

  ‘The viola player’s problem in Boléro is keeping awake,’ Candy had warned Flora.

  But instead, as the entire string section put down their bows and plucked their instruments like flamenco guitars, the sound made Flora burst with pride. She suddenly felt part of the great heartbeat of the orchestra as the music slowly swelled to a stupendous climax with the last clashing discord from the brass.

  ‘That’s definitely coitus non-interruptus,’ shouted Clare over the delirious torrent of applause. ‘I wish sex was as good as that.’

  It will be with Viking, thought Flora, but when she glanced round, the First Horn’s chair was empty.

  Faint with disappointment, suddenly exhausted, Flora could hardly lift her bow during the carols; and, as the last notes of ‘Adeste Fideles’ died away and the audience, now in party mood, called for encore, Viking was still missing.

  ‘Buggered off on some date,’ sighed Candy.

  Meanwhile, outside the conductor’s room, Miles was having a row with Abby, Julian and a large black-and-white pantomime cow.

  ‘We rehearsed “The Shepherd’s Farewell” as an encore,’ Miles was saying angrily.

  ‘The audience expect Rodney’s cow,’ said Abby firmly. ‘She’s a Christmas fixture.’

  The cow nodded in agreement and rubbed its furry head against Abby’s arm.

  ‘You can’t lower the tone,’ ordered Miles, ‘not with the Arts Council present.’

  ‘Bugger the Arts Council,’ said the back of the cow, doing a high kick. The front of the cow let out a high-pitched giggle, leaving no doubt as to its identity.

  ‘Shut up,’ hissed Miles glancing round in terror. ‘Gilbert and Gwynneth were backstage earlier. If you don’t play “The Shepherd’s Farewell”, Abby, heads will roll.’

  The shouts of encore and the stamp of feet were growing in volume.

  ‘Come on, you guys,’ said Abby defiantly, waltzing off towards the stage.

  ‘Miserable old bugger,’ said the back legs, as the cow lumbered after her.

  ‘I’ll have you know, I’m still here,’ said Miles furiously.

  Such screams of joy greeted the arrival of the cow on stage, that it was a few minutes before Abby could make herself heard.

  ‘Sir Rodney is really disappointed not to be here to wish you all a merry Christmas — ’ the audience gave a great cheer — ‘but he’s a lot better, right? And he hopes to be back on the rostrum some time next year.’

  ‘Bravo,’ shouted everyone.

  ‘Meanwhile, he’s sent you a very special soloist.’

  The cow did a soft-shoe shuffle to more deafening cheers.

  ‘Good evening, Mrs Cow,’ continued Abby, ‘are you going to play us a tune?’

  Slowly the cow nodded, batting her long black eyelashes.

  ‘What about some Mozart or perhaps some Beethoven?’

  The cow shook her head.

  ‘Or some Schoenberg.’

  For a second the front of the cow deliberated, wondering whether to drop the back legs in it, then slowly she shook her head again.

  ‘I know,’ said Abby over the howls of laughter, ‘can you play us some Tchaikovsky?’

  The cow nodded frantically, and next moment the back half launched into the beautiful French horn solo from the second movement of the Fifth Symphony leaving absolutely no doubt as to his identity either, and the audience went beserk.

  But when Flora finally escaped from the platform, she couldn’t find Viking anywhere. Aching all over but most of all in her heart, she trailed off to congratulate Marcus.

  She found him in a daze; the last well-wisher had only just left.

  ‘The good news is,’ he told her, ‘that George Hungerford has decided to junk Benny and book me for Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto at the end of February.’

  As Flora whooped and hugged him, an inner voice chided her that both Abby and Marcus were getting on with their careers and she was getting nowhere, not even to first base with Viking. Bitterly ashamed of being mean spirited, she was doing a war dance round Marcus, when he continued: ‘And the bad news is that Sonny is a serious bum-bandit and wants me to have dinner with him.’

  ‘Omigod, you’ll never cope with Peggy as a mother-in-law. Let’s rush off and have an Indian,’ said Flora.

  Viking had ob
viously been playing games, she thought despairingly.

  FORTY-TWO

  Flora’s fears were confirmed as she and Marcus ran towards the car-park, and rounding a corner, stumbled on Viking and Serena Westwood in a huddle.

  Seeing Flora, Mr Nugent bounded forward joyfully. Viking had his back to her, but, catching sight of her red hair reflected in the window, he reached behind him and grabbed her hand.

  ‘Serena, you haven’t met Flora, she’s a dote.’

  ‘A dote?’ Serena looked puzzled and not very pleased.

  Sliding his arm round Flora’s shoulders, Viking drew her against his long hard body. His hair was still wet from the shower — he had shaved off this morning’s stubble.

  ‘A little dote,’ he added caressingly. ‘Dotey’s the adjective, it’s an Irish word,’ he curled a warm palm round Flora’s neck, ‘means that everyone dotes on her.’

  ‘How nice for Flora,’ said Serena crisply. She’d heard differently from others. ‘Hallo, Marcus,’ she added with considerably more warmth. ‘You played beautifully.’

  ‘And Hatchet Hungerford’s just booked him to do Rach Three in Feb,’ beamed Flora. It was incredible that Viking’s hand on her neck could cure all her aches and tiredness in a second. ‘So we must celebrate.’

  ‘We certainly mosst, that’s tremendous,’ Viking clapped Marcus on the shoulder. Then, turning to Serena, added, ‘Have a good Christmas, darling, let me know what you decide.’

  As he led Flora and Marcus towards the car-park, he explained.

  ‘The playback of the Requiem was so dire, Serena and George have decided to reschedule it with L’Appassionata conducting.’

  ‘Abby’ll be knocked out,’ said Marcus in delight.

  ‘And with Julian back as leader so he can play the big violin solo.’

  ‘Bill Thackery will shoot himself,’ said Flora.

  ‘Save everyone else doing the job.’

  Outside, six inches of snow had blanketed everything: cars, houses, railings, lamp-posts, each blade of grass. To this, a heavy hoar frost had added a diamanté sparkle, so the great horse-chestnuts in the park seemed like glittering white clouds beneath a clear starry sky. Cyril’s bird-table had become a wedding-cake awaiting decoration and across the town, the cathedral gleamed like a vast lurking iceberg.