Appassionata (109 page)
‘Yes . . . but please go to him. It’s the one thing that might save him.’
‘What the fuck else do you think I was going to do?’
‘It’s Room Twenty-Five on the second floor,’ said Flora, and hung up.
The dearest and most precious horse Rupert had ever owned and trained was about to run in the most treacherous and demanding race in the world. Most people thought Pridie was past his best, and should not be subjected to such an ordeal. Nor had worry about this helped Rupert’s and Taggie’s romantic break.
Dizzy had told Taggie about Marcus. Rupert was ashen as he came down the steps of the box. Taggie ran to him, holding him in her arms, feeling him rigid with shock.
‘Oh darling, poor Marcus, poor you, we must go to him.’
‘What else can we do?’ said Rupert bleakly, then, turning to Dizzy: ‘Tell the pilot to refuel.’
Pridie whickered with relieved delight at the sight of his master and nearly pulled Sandra the stable girl over as he bounded down the ramp. He had been bred at Penscombe and had never run a single race without Rupert. Having given him a couple of Polos, Rupert quickly felt the little horse’s legs, praying he could find some swelling or heat to give him an excuse to pull him. But they were perfect, and Pridie’s coat gleamed in the soft autumn sunshine, redder and brighter than any of the RSO cellos.
Briefly Rupert hugged his old friend.
‘We’re going to have to cope without each other. Pray for me, Pridie.’
Taggie felt utterly helpless on the flight home, as Rupert glared unseeingly out of the window, tension flickering like lightning around his jaws. Only once did she try to tempt him with a large whisky, but he shook his head violently.
‘It’s probably just a one-off with Nemerovsky,’ she stammered. ‘He’s so powerful and glamorous, anyone would find him difficult to resist . . . Lots of people have flings.’
‘What the fuck do you know about it?’ snarled Rupert, gazing through the dusk down at the white horses flecking the English Channel.
‘N-nothing.’
‘Well, shut up then.’
‘He could be bisexual. One
affaire
doesn’t mean he’s gay.’
affaire
doesn’t mean he’s gay.’
‘Course he is . . . always has been.’
Taggie gave up. Oh dear God, she thought, please don’t let him be horrible to Marcus.
Back at Appleton Town Hall, the judges, after a jolly rest day visiting Delius’s old haunts in nearby Yorkshire, and enjoying a long lunch at the famous Box Tree Restaurant in Ilkley, were looking forward to a boring, untaxing evening. Although Benny would pull out the stops and wow the audience tonight, most of them had already chosen either Anatole or Natalia as the winner. But with only two contestants this evening, the edge had gone out of the competition. The bleak bulletins from Northladen General had cast a shadow over the proceedings. They all felt poor Marcus had been very shabbily treated. After all, as Dame Edith had pointed out noisily at lunch,
‘Everyone knows there are only three types of pianist – Jewish, Gay or Bad.’
The Scorpion
and all the rest of the Press, they agreed, were making a ridiculous fuss.
and all the rest of the Press, they agreed, were making a ridiculous fuss.
‘Lucky, lucky Nemerovsky,’ sighed Pablo Gonzales.
‘Rather nice for Helen to have a gay son,’ said Dame Hermione with her head on one side. ‘They’re always so devoted to their mothers.’
Seven-fifteen . . . Benny had been to make-up and could be heard by the entire audience warming up in a practice room. The great clock of the town hall had been stopped for two hours to prevent it tolling during performances. Time would stand still, but hopefully the whole contest would be wrapped up by ten o’clock in time for the news.
As Benny left the practice room, Rupert gave his third police car the slip, hurtling a hired Mercedes through the driving rain towards Northladen General. A white-knuckled Taggie nearly bit her lower lip in half trying not to cry out in terror.
Meanwhile in Room Twenty-Five on the second floor, Marcus tried not to exhaust himself as, desperately slowly, he put on black evening trousers and the crumpled blue dress-shirt which he had pulled out of his suitcase which his mother had brought him from St Theresa’s.
He had waited, feigning sleep, until she had left for the town hall. Helen had sat with Marcus through the night and morning until he miraculously regained enough strength in his lungs to come off the ventilator. When the effects of the paralysing drug and sedatives had worn off, and he was able to swallow again, she had even fed him some pale tasteless scrambled eggs. But he was acutely conscious that she couldn’t meet his eyes, and was dreadfully embarrassed to be in the same room with him. No-one had let him see the papers, although Helen had told him Rannaldini had replaced Abby, but her face had said it all.
For now her ewe lamb wasn’t going to die, the other two nightmares had enveloped her life: her husband was a compulsive womanizer and her son was a homosexual, his career in smithereens. There was also a deep-seated guilt that her obsessive, clinging love might have caused both these things. If only Malise was still alive.
Rannaldini had been sympathetic, but always at Rupert’s expense.
‘If Rupert had not been a sadist, you wouldn’t have had to compensate so much. Marcus never had a father to relate to. You always implied Rupert and Billy Lloyd-Foxe were unnaturally close, and even more so, Rupert and Lysander. It’s in the genes, you mustn’t torment yourself.’
This situation suited Rannaldini perfectly. Marcus had been the only serious threat to Natalia in the competition and, with Helen cemented to Marcus’s sick-bed and unhinged with worry, he had had all the more opportunity to spend time with Natalia.
He had virtuously resisted from making love to her after her rehearsal in case it relaxed her muscles too much before the final. But between chatting to Northern Television and escorting Benny onto the platform, Rannaldini found time to slip into Natalia’s dressing-room. How adorable the sweet child looked with her shining hair in rollers.
‘Thees is how I warm up,’ he said sliding his soft, newly manicured hands inside her willow-green silk dressing-gown. Oh, the wonder of those large springy young breasts. Helen’s silicone replicas were like two buns on a cake rack since she had fretted away so much weight.
‘Good luck, my Maestro,’ whispered Natalia, resting her spiky head against his starched white shirt-front. ‘I am safe when you are ’ere.’
‘Tonight,’ promised Rannaldini, ‘we weel drink champagne together from the Appleton Cup.’
The RSO stopped tuning up and gave a great shout of relieved joy as George walked into the hall with Flora. They both looked very tired from worry about Marcus, but their glow of happiness in each other and in his recovery seemed to light them from inside and set them apart from the black-tied, taffeta and satin audience around them. Neither of them had bothered to pack much when they’d leapt into the helicopter. George was now wearing a blazer, a blue-and-white-striped shirt, and no tie, because Flora had borrowed the only one he had brought to belt in his dark blue shirt which she had also annexed.
‘Aren’t they glamorous,’ sighed Clare.
‘I’m sure Flora’s pregnant,’ hissed Candy. ‘Look how her boobs have grown.’
The big smile of pride was wiped off George’s face when he saw Miles, Hilary’s mother, Gilbert, Gwynneth, Mrs Parker and Lord Leatherhead all huddled together looking wrong-footed in the stalls.
‘You’ve been bluddy busy in my ubsence,’ said George not lowering his voice at all. ‘I’d like to remind you that I’m only taking a sabbatical and I’m still chief executive of the RSO, and you and your fancy piece, Miles,’ Hilary’s mother turned purple, ‘better hop it, as you’re sitting in our seats.’
To the left of the stage, the flags of the five participating finalists soared to the dark blue vaulted ceiling. If only the Union Jack had been up there as well, thought Helen despairingly as she huddled in dark glasses in the middle of the stalls. Behind the orchestra rose a huge, far from portable, red-and-white organ, flanked by two proud unicorns holding up the red rose of Lancashire. Above them two angels held out a scroll saying: ‘The Truth is Great and Shall Prevail.’
There were gasps of admiration as Rannaldini in his black-and-white splendour, swept on and mounted a rostrum a foot higher than usual so everyone could see him. The great prevailer, he smiled down at Benny’s shock of dark curls. He knew exactly how to wrong-foot the foolish Frenchman to Natalia’s advantage.
His two bodyguards, Clive and Nathan, the black basketball player, stood watchful at the back of the hall. Rannaldini was taking no chances.
As the clock started on the monitor, the vast audience went quiet. Five, four, three, two, one. The camera panned in on the little silver piano, which would be awarded to the winner. The last round of the Appleton Piano Competition, live from the town hall, was under way.
SIXTY-EIGHT
The Press swarming round the hospital were thrown into a frenzy by Rupert’s totally unexpected arrival, particularly when he screeched to a halt in a muddy puddle, drenching the lot of them.
‘What’s the latest, Rupe? Is the kid going to be OK? Terrible shock for you,’ they closed round him. ‘How’d you feel about him being a woofter?’
Wrath gave Rupert superhuman strength as he barged a gangway through for himself and Taggie. He had more trouble fighting his way through the barricade of outraged medics. Helen had left tearful instructions that if, in the unlikely event Rupert rolled up, he mustn’t be allowed to see his son.
‘It’s the one thing that really triggers off Marcus’s asthma. Rupert’s got a terrible temper. I’ll only be gone a couple of hours.’
‘He’s not allowed visitors, he must be kept quiet. I’m afraid no-one can see him.’ The pleas, and then orders, fell on deaf ears as Rupert stalked through the lot of them.
He loathed hospitals, the smell and glaring whiteness instantly brought back poor little Xav’s countless operations and Taggie nearly dying twice when she miscarried. It also took him back twenty-two years to Helen also nearly dying, giving birth to Marcus – a sickly, carroty-haired baby, who, from the start, had never endeared himself to Rupert.
Finding the lift blocked by a massive matron, Rupert dodged round her and ran up the stairs with Taggie panting after him.
Three doctors, pretty Sister Rose and two male nurses barred the door to Room Twenty-Five.
‘I really must insist you don’t go in there.’
‘Fuck off.’ Once more Rupert parted them – a bowling ball through skittles – then he turned on a panting Taggie.
‘Stay outside, I want to see him on my own.’
‘I’d like to be with you,’ pleaded Taggie.
‘This is my problem,’ snarled Rupert.
‘That is the handsomest Angel of Death I’ve ever seen,’ sighed Sister Rose.
Expecting to find Marcus unconscious and a mass of tubes, Rupert was astounded to see him sitting on the bed buttoning up a blue dress-shirt. His red hair hung lank and darkened by sweat to the colour of a copper beach. His deathly pallor was tinged green by the fluorescent lighting, his huge frightened eyes were black caves as though he could see deep into his own tortured soul.
‘D-d-dad, I thought you were at the Pardubika,’ Marcus leapt to his feet, cringing against hideous yellow-and-orange curtains, waiting for the firing-squad invective.
For a second Rupert gazed at him, reminded of the only time he’d gone stag hunting. Appalled by the terrified eyes of a little doe trapped against a huge wall, he had been too late to call hounds off before they ripped her to pieces.
‘I’m really, really sorry,’ gasped Marcus.
Rupert shrugged. ‘It’s the way you’re made. Campbell-Black libido has to come out somewhere, I guess. Sorry I haven’t been any help. Been meaning to ring you for months – ever since you sent Tag that Mothering Sunday card.’
‘That was just after I’d met. . . . I wanted to see you. Oh Dad,’ for a minute, Marcus’s lip trembled, then he stumbled forward and, for a brief moment, he and Rupert embraced.
Passionately relieved the boy was all right, Rupert patted his desperately bony shoulder.
‘You poor little sod.’ Then as Marcus half-laughed, added ‘Oh God, that wasn’t very tactful. Get back into bed.’
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