Authors: Jilly Cooper

Tags: #Fiction, #General

Appassionata (65 page)

‘Just pack it in, right,’ yelled Abby.

‘And though worms deestroy theese body,’
warbled the drunk, waving his bottle at her.

Abby’s voice rose: ‘I said pack it in. We’ve driven through snow and blizzard this evening to play to you, and Dame Hermione and the other soloists have flown thousands of miles to sing. If you don’t get that asshole out of here we won’t play another note.’

There was a stunned, appalled pause, as a thousand deaf-aids were switched up to discover if they had heard right.

Then the lurking Press went beserk, simultaneously trying to photograph Abby and Hermione and the drunk as he was noisily evicted.

Dame Hermione, who knew how to milk a situation, cast down her eyes. Abby reached across the pregnant alto and put a comforting hand on her white shaking shoulder.

‘I’m sorry, let’s do it again. We’ll skip the introduction, five bars after eleven, and one—’

Hermione rose to the occasion, a woman of sorrows, eyes brimming with tears, moved for once by genuine grief at her own humiliation. At the end the audience cheered her to the shadowy rafters.

As she lumbered off the stage down into the side-aisle, one of her high heels fell down the soi-disant central-heating grill, depositing her into the waiting arms of George Hungerford. Her breasts were so soft, it was like catching a giant pillow.

‘Dame Hermione, I’m bluddy proud of you,’ said George, offering her the remains of Randy’s hip-flask.

THIRTY-NINE

The concert was followed by a splendid party at Dame Edith’s house in the Close. Normally the musicians would have been excluded from such a bash, but Dame Edith, who’d always voted Labour, felt that after such a polar trek, they deserved a treat. The coaches would leave in half an hour, which gave everyone time for a bite and several drinks. A route avoiding snow had been charted. They’d be home by two.

Dame Edith lived in a shabbily beautiful Jacobean house on lots of floors, using all her awards as doorstops. The dark William Morris walls were covered with sixty years of musical mementoes. Monica Baddingham had added her Stubbs, her Herrings, her sporting prints, her embroidered cushions to the household, and three yellow labrador bitches who had greatly enhanced the life of Tippett, Dame Edith’s pug.

Tippett now sat snuffling beside Dame Edith, who had changed into a burgundy-red smoking-jacket to welcome her guests with a slap on the back.

‘Well done, splendid concert, great success. Coats upstairs, booze to the left,
coq au vin
and
bombe surprise
in the kitchen. Monica made them —’ she smiled fondly at Lady Baddingham, who was brandishing champagne bottles – ‘so they must be bloody good.’

‘Do you think they both sleep in here?’ panted Flora as she plonked her viola case and her new Louis Vuitton on Edith’s massive four-poster.

‘I guess so,’ Marcus blushed slightly. ‘The four dog-baskets are all in here.’

‘Golly,’ giggled Flora, ‘we are seeing life. That Augustus John must be of Edith when she was a young boy. D’you think Abby’s going to be in awful trouble over that drunk?’

‘I thought she was wonderful,’ said Marcus. ‘Christ knows where it would have ended if she hadn’t gone ballistic.’

Downstairs Dame Edith was entirely in agreement.

‘Can’t think why everyone’s making such a fuss,’ she was telling a tight-lipped Miles, the Bishop and a hovering Gwynneth and Gilbert, who were already filling their faces from overloaded plates.

‘Done just the same myself,’ continued Edith, flicking cigar ash into the fire. ‘Anyway, what’s wrong with the word “asshole”?’

Miles blanched.

‘In a House of God, Edith?’ asked the Bishop plaintively.

‘Very appropriate,’ said Edith with a guffaw. ‘Assholes seem to be the only thing you bishops are interested in these days, judging by the papers.’

The Bishop turned as purple as the ring on his cherished white hand, but being a very greedy man, he was not prepared to storm out until he’d dined, so merely satisfied himself with: ‘You go too far, Edith.’

‘It wasn’t Abby’s church,’ said Flora, joining the group to Miles’s fury. ‘She’s Jewish, and people use the word “asshole” all the time in America – it just means idiot. Anyway,’ she ploughed on ignoring the shocked faces, ‘Abby’s in excellent company. Handel used to swear in four languages at anyone, even royalty, who chatted in rehearsals, and he used to throw tiresome singers out of the window, although he’d have been pushed to evict Alphonso.’

‘Well said,’ Dame Edith gave a shout of laughter, then linking her arm through Flora’s led her towards the kitchen. ‘Come and have some grub. Like your flowered leggings, just like the Prima Vera.’ Then, lowering her voice, whispered, ‘How’s Marcus? Monica and I are awfully worried about the rift with Rupert and Taggie; poor boy feels things so deeply.’

‘The best thing you could do,’ said Flora, ‘is to get him some work.’

As soon as Dame Edith was out of earshot, Miles, guzzling Gwynneth and Gilbert, and the Bishop drew together for an indignation meeting.

‘Abigail’s got to be stopped, she can’t go on behaving like a yobbo. The “Hallelujah Chorus” sounded like rock music,’ said Miles fastidiously.

‘And that young woman Flora’s just as bad,’ sniffed Gwynneth.

Oblivious of the furore she had triggered off, Abby was thrilled to have been sought out by Monica Baddingham and the great Declan O’Hara, who was just to die for, to say how well she had done. She was livid, however, when she overheard several CCO players saying how tremendously the RSO had been improved by Julian.

‘It’s the great leader, of course, that makes a great orchestra,’ said Hugo, smiling coldly at Abby.

He was obviously still festering over his yellow cords. Then he turned to Gwynneth, who looked as though she had a couple of used cars hanging from her ears.

‘Lovely earrings, Gwynneth. Can I get you some
bombe surprise?
I know how you like desserts.’

‘I thought I’d have seconds of the
coq
first,’ simpered Gwynneth.

‘Nearest she’ll get to cock in this house,’ murmured Randy to Candy. ‘I’m surprised they’re not serving vibrator
au vin
.’

Hugo, who, unlike most of the RSO, realized how crucial it was to suck up to the Arts Council, took Gwynneth’s plate.

‘You’re so caring, Hugo,’ Gwynneth edged towards him. ‘What did you really think of Rosen’s performance?’

Hugo shrugged. ‘Not a lot. The jazzing up of the “Hallelujah Chorus” was terribly vulgar. George Frederick would have loathed it, and she’s such a drama queen.’

‘My sentiments entirely. How far exactly is Rutminster from Cotchester?’

‘Two score miles and ten,’ said Hugo. ‘And the RSO nearly didn’t get there by candlelight.’

‘One wonders,’ mused Gwynneth, ‘whether we really need two orchestras in the area.’

‘My sentiments even more entirely,’ said Hugo.

There was only warmth and sincerity in Hugo’s eyes as he forced himself to gaze into her lard-like face. Without flinching he accepted the pressure of her shapeless body. ‘I’ll get you some more
coq
, Gwynnie.’

Turning, he tripped over a large labrador and nearly deposited Gwynneth’s chicken bones into Alphonso’s capacious lap.

Alphonso, who was taking up seven-eights of the window-seat, didn’t flinch either.

‘I hop,’ he was telling Nellie, ‘that you will come to my suite for a night-hat.’

George, who’d been buttonholed for far too long, grabbed Abby as she passed.

‘Have a word with Gilbert, I know he wants to discuss the concert.’

Shoving them together to their mutual distaste, he belted off to find Dame Hermione. In his car on the way over, she had sung: ‘I’m a little lamb that’s lost in the wood’. George had never looked forward to a night-cap more in his life.

The heroine of the evening was now holding court on a frayed
chaise-longue
to a circle of admirers, many of them Press.

‘I just thought, poor fellow, poor fellow, he must be so terribly unhappy. Anyone that dependent on drink needs help.’

‘You’re so compassionate, Dame Hermione,’ gushed Gwynneth.

‘Have some fizz,’ said Monica Baddingham, waving a bottle.

Everyone put their hands over their glasses to demonstrate their lack of dependency.

‘I just wanted to congratulate you on your
Fanny Cycle
,’ went on Gwynneth reverently, ‘and Rannaldini has never conducted better.’

‘How is Rannaldini?’ asked a man from
The Times
idly.

Flora, on her way to the 100, stopped in her tracks.

‘Oh, full of beans,’ said Hermione heartily, her small hand creeping surreptitiously into George’s big one.

‘How’s his new marriage?’ asked the
Guardian
.

‘Excellent,’ said Hermione, her eyes suddenly twinkling. ‘I sometimes think he married her for her packing.’

Flora groaned and ran upstairs. She was desperately tired and near to tears. After admiring the famous musicians, including Rannaldini in arctic profile framed on the wall of Edith’s bathroom, she unlocked the door and came out slap into Carmine.

‘You played brilliantly tonight,’ she stammered, conscious of the lurking menace of the man. ‘I wish all the brass section had been at the concert to hear you.’

Edging along the wall towards the stairs, she was stopped by the iron bar of his arm.

‘Give us a kiss, then.’

Avoiding a vile sour waft of vinous breath which must have corked inside him, Flora pecked him on the cheek. The next moment, Carmine had grabbed her hair, yanking her head back, forcing his sneering mouth on hers with a clash of teeth, scratching her with his horrible moustache. As she writhed with the strength of utter revulsion, his other hand dived under her dark blue jersey, pinching her breasts till she screamed.

‘You bloody little bra-less prick-tease.’

‘Lemme go.’ Flora was desperately trying to knee him in the balls, when a voice said: ‘Ahem. I spy a strugglin’ musician.’

‘Fuck off,’ snarled Carmine, but his grip eased.

Wriggling away, Flora went slap into the scented, medallion-hung bulk of Jack Rodway the receiver.

‘Oh, thank God.’

‘You OK?’

Flora nodded. ‘No fool like a bold fool,’ she said shakily.

Jack turned on Carmine.

‘If you ever lay a finger on this young lidy again, I’ll get George’s boys on you, before he fires you.’

Swearing, snarling, Carmine lurched off upstairs.

Flora was shaking uncontrollably.

‘Poor li-el fing.’ Jack’s arms closed around her. ‘Come and have a jar at the Bar Sinister.’

Out of the landing window, Flora could see musicians streaming out to the waiting coach.

‘I gotta go.’

‘I’ll run you home later, it’s no distance at night. I’ve thought a lot about you, Flora.’

‘My things are still on Edith’s bed.’ Flora shivered, Carmine was still up there somewhere. ‘There’s my leather jacket, and a viola case with my name on, and a green Louis Vuitton bag.’

‘I’ll get them,’ said Jackie.

‘And you might torch Dim Hermione’s fur coat at the same time.’

In the hall, Flora met a happier-looking Marcus.

‘Dame Edith’s just introduced me to George, he was really nice this time.’

Flora looked old-fashioned. ‘Must want something. Look, I’m not coming on the coach – can you or Abby feed the cats if you get home before me?’

‘I shouldn’t be doing this,’ grumbled Flora as Jack aimed the remote control to open huge electric gates. ‘What happens if your wife rolls up?’

‘She’s in Italy,’ said Jack.

They seemed to get upstairs to the bedroom awfully quickly.