‘Great,’ agreed Abby absent-mindedly because Viking had walked in.
He had skipped the rest of the afternoon’s rehearsal. It was late-night shopping and Blue had discovered him and Nugent fast asleep in one of the four-posters in Parker and Parker’s bedding department just in time for the concert. Whiter after yesterday’s excesses than his crumpled evening shirt, he was still surrounded by admiring women. Glancing at Abby, however, he raised his glass of red and wandered over.
‘You look glorious, sweetheart.’
Totally thrown by a compliment, Abby became ungracious.
‘Can’t say the same for you. Why in hell d’you drink so much?’
Viking laughed, making his bloodshot eyes narrower than ever.
‘If you’re as charming as I am, you get your glass filled up more often.’
To prove this, as he emptied his, waitresses converged from all sides to fill it up again.
‘This is Jason,’ Abby introduced the beadily hovering car-dealer. ‘I thought you’d given up drink anyway,’ she added reprovingly.
‘Not any more, Juno’s thrown me out.’
‘How come?’ asked Abby, trying desperately not to show how thrilled she was.
‘Juno wasn’t entirely pleased with the state in which I returned. The Prima Donna had been on the mobilé to her. And I left Nugent with her.’ Glancing down, he ran his fingers through the dog’s silky fur. ‘I hoped if they spent some time together, they might make friends.
‘Alas, Nugent escaped in disgosst and rolled and in disgosst at the state in which he returned home, Juno went out and bought a kennel and chained him up in the garden. I was also in the dog house when I got home, so I crawled out and joined Nugent, but he was a bit smelly, so we decided to walk home to The Bordello.’
Abby couldn’t help laughing.
‘But aren’t you miserable it’s over?’ she asked.
‘Not at all. Thanks, sweetheart.’ Gathering up a handful of sausage rolls from yet another lingering waitress, Viking fed them to Nugent.
‘Nugent certainly looks pleased.’
‘He is. Blue gave him a bath this morning.’
In fact the only casualty, went on Viking, was his BMW which had finally packed up.
‘You should invest in one of my Ferraris,’ said Jason, patronizingly. ‘Then you could really pull the birds.’
Viking replied with considerable hauteur, that he could pull the birds when he was riding a tricycle, and threw a goat-cheese ball at Lionel, who, after a quick bonk in the leader’s room, had waited until the party filled up to smuggle in Hilary, who had not been invited.
Why is Viking’s arrogance to die for and Lionel’s so repulsive? wondered Abby as she watched Lionel licking his teeth, fluffing up his ebony locks, squaring his shoulders as, with head erect, he awaited his stampede of fans.
He was delighted at first to be clobbered by Mrs Dick Standish but less amused when she asked him what was his daytime job.
‘You may see us looking glamorous in our tails,’ he said petulantly, ‘but you don’t realize how much practising, rehearsing, travelling and admin goes into each concert.’
‘At least you have job satisfaction.’
‘Not so as you’d know it,’ said Hilary glaring over at Abby, then bristling with disapproval, as Clare, who’d been smuggled in by Dixie, bounded up to them.
‘I say, Romeo and Juno have split up.’
‘That’s very stale buns,’ said Hilary crushingly.
‘But seriously exciting. Viking seems to be getting on rather well with our musical director, perhaps she’ll be the next swastika on his fuselage.’
Abby was trying not to feel wildly elated that Viking had stayed beside her so long. He was just telling her about a cottage by the lake, when she was accosted by a little bearded man in sandals with a pasty face and a straggling pony-tail, who immediately introduced himself as Peggy Parker’s son, Roger – ‘But everyone calls me Sonny,’ – the composer of the
Eternal Triangle Suite
. Had Abby fixed a date for the première?
Abby said she wasn’t sure. With George’s arrival, the schedule was all up in the air.
‘Is anyone recording your stuff?’ she asked him.
As Sonny shook his head, his pony-tail flew like a horse irritably swatting at flies.
‘After all the popular, easily digested fare around, people tend to find my music gritty and complex, but I am philosophical.
The Marriage of Figaro
was a disaster when it was first programmed.’
‘I was so moved,’ he went on earnestly, ‘to hear the toilets flushing during the Sibelius two nights ago, particularly in the last bars, that I have commenced a new work for full orchestra. I plan to provide sound effects of a rumbling train, pneumatic drills, people coughing, rustling toffee papers, cars back-firing,’ he ticked off the list with black-nailed fingers, ‘and finally a chorus of flushing toilets.’
Abby burst out laughing.
‘You must include the snoring of the Rutshire Butcher then.’
But, receiving a sharp kick on the ankle from Viking, she realized Sonny was utterly serious.
‘My goal is to prove great music can overcome any interruption.’
‘I look forward to hearing it,’ mumbled Abby.
Sonny was droning on, and Abby was praying he’d leave her and Viking alone, when Blue came over.
‘Who are all these spivs in sharp suits wandering around H.P. Hall sticking penknives into the brickwork?’ he said in a low voice.
‘George Hungerford’s henchmen,’ answered Viking.
‘I think so, too.’
‘George Hungerford seems very able,’ said Sonny pompously.
‘More like Cain, if you ask me,’ said Viking.
Abby was screwing up courage to ask Viking to show her the cottage by the lake when Mrs Standish rushed up.
‘Such fun to be a woman conductor, you did fritefly well.’
‘Why, thank you.’
‘My husband’s tonight’s sponsor.’
‘Oh, wow!’ Abby remembered George’s brief. ‘That’s so good of him, we’re so grateful.’
‘I just wanted to know,’ Mrs Standish went pinker than her dress, as she turned to Viking, ‘how you musician chappies address a female maestro?’
‘We call her “mattress”,’ said Viking idly, then seeing Abby’s lips tighten, he added softly, ‘because we’re all dying to lie on top of her.’
Abby tried and failed to look affronted.
‘I’m afraid my chariot of fire’s grounded’ went on Viking, ‘but I’ll walk you back to the Old Bell if you like.’ He ran a finger down Abby’s arm, setting her heart hammering.
‘I’ll give you a lift, Abby,’ said Jason proprietorially. ‘We can discuss things over a spot of dinner.’
Miserably remembering Hugo’s warning about getting involved with a member of the orchestra and George’s insistence that she chatted up sponsors, Abby accepted Jason’s invitation.
Popping into the Ladies on her way out she noticed someone had already scribbled joyfully on the walls:
MR NUGENT ROLLS OK
.
She could have wept, and even more so as Jason held open the door of his red Ferrari for her.
‘I’m definitely going to sponsor that
Messiah
. Who wrote it by the way?’
Nor did George Hungerford seem very impressed when she told him she had found a sponsor the following day.
‘Looks like a wide boy, better get it in writing.’
He then announced he had axed Mahler’s
Symphony of a Thousand
at the end of next season because it was too expensive.
‘That’s defeatist,’ said Abby furiously.
‘We can’t afford the extras.’
‘If the orchestra were up to full strength,’ said Abby shirtily, ‘we wouldn’t have to spend so much on extras.’
She took a deep breath. ‘The musicians must have more money, to stop the exodus. Barry’s threatening to leave because he can’t pay the mortgage on the barn and the Child Support Agency.
‘Clarissa’s also looking around. She’s a really good player,’ pleaded Abby. ‘She’s gone for an audition with the LSO this afternoon, because she’s having sleepless nights worrying about the school fees.’
George watched John Drummond stretching luxuriously in his out-tray.
‘I have absolutely no sympathy with people who send their kids to pooblic school,’ he said coldly.
‘That’s rich, revoltingly rich,’ exploded Abby, ‘from someone who’s just bought a property up the road, which makes Buckingham Palace look like a rabbit hutch.’
‘We are not talking about me,’ George glared at her. ‘I didn’t go to pooblic school, never did me any harm.’
‘I wouldn’t put it to the vote.’
‘Anyway, I’m not a musician.’
‘That’s quite obvious. How can you replace the
Symphony of a Thousand
with Boléro, and Tchaik
Five
.’
‘Because you’ve reduced the choir to such a state of disarray,’ snapped George, ‘that I don’t imagine they can possible re-assemble by next season. Anyway Tchaik
Five
has a beautiful solo for Viking.’
Abby raised her fists to heaven. ‘Oh, we mustn’t forget Viking.’
‘There are worse things – Viking pulls in the punters. This orchestra is an endangered species, we need more booms on seats, more recordings, more touring, more Gala evenings.’
This brought him to Mrs Parker’s birthday concert at the end of July which coincided with the centenary of the store.
‘A treat in store?’ asked Abby sarcastically.
‘No,’ replied George, booting Drummond up the backside for attacking the brushed suede. The concert, he went on, was to be held in the grounds of Rutminster Towers, Peggy Parker’s neo-Gothic excrescence above the town.
‘You better provide umbrellas and clothes pegs to hold down the music in case of wind and rain,’ taunted Abby.
‘Mrs Parker has chosen the music,’ said George heavily. ‘
William Tell
, Liszt’s
First Piano Concerto, The Polovtsian Dances
.’
‘Omigod, why doesn’t Mrs Parker sing ‘Lady in Red’ to crown a really intellectual evening.’
Abby was goading George; she could see a muscle going in his clenched jaw, his squared-off nails whitening as he clutched the oak table, but he said quite mildly, ‘In case the Arts Council regard the repertoire as insufficiently adventurous, we’re going to programme Sonny Parker’s
Eternal Triangle Suite
after the interval.’
‘Jesus!’
‘As the function will attract a lot of media attention,’ went on George quickly, ‘Mrs Parker would like you to be appropriately dressed. She will give an extra one hundred thousand pounds to the orchestra if,’ George didn’t quite meet Abby’s already furious eyes, ‘Parker and Parker are allowed to dress and restyle you from top to toe. New gown, new make-up, new hair-do, jewels. You’ll enjoy it.’
‘I will
not
!’
Seeing the fury on Abby’s face, George busied himself lining up paperweights and files on his desk.
‘And it’s bluddy good pooblicity for the orchestra. Parker’s are planning a massive promotion. All the nationals’ll cover it. The
Telegraph
are planning a huge feature on the new re-vamped Abigail.’
‘So you’ve already agreed,’ Abby was outraged.
‘With your permission,’ said George placatingly. ‘We need the money, Abby, you’re a beautiful yoong lady and we all know you’ll look chumpian.’
Abby, who’d been feeling her age in the last month, was so startled that, like Viking yesterday, George had actually paid her a compliment, that she rolled over and reluctantly agreed.
‘The messing-up of a maestro,’ she said gloomily.
The instant he got her consent, George reverted to normal belligerence, and said brusquely that that would be all.
‘Last night’s concert was better,’ he opened the door for her. ‘But the symphony was still too long. Miss Priddock’s been handling complaints from people who missed their last trains and buses all morning.’
In a rage Abby went back to the conductor’s room and leafing through the
Eroica
pencilled in a huge ‘No’ beside every repeat sign, which meant a lot of work for the library, who had to change all the parts before the evening.
During the Brahms
Second Piano Concerto
in the first half, Abby noticed Viking smiling at a pretty redhead in the audience, and pointing to his watch to suggest a rendez-vous after the concert. Abby then proceeded to knock a quarter of an hour off the
Eroica
giving heart attacks to several ancient bass players, and everyone got their last trains.
For an orchestra whose hobby was grumbling, the RSO were delighted with George Hungerford. Socially maladroit, he was deficient in small talk, but he asked the right questions and listened carefully to all the answers, aware that a grievance aired is usually a grievance forgotten. He also recognized individual players in the building and then put up their photographs in the foyer, on the premise that the public ought to recognize them, too, and he invited them back to drinks at his splendid new house.