‘I thought you only liked men,’ she gasped, when she finally drew breath.
‘No more Mr Nice Gay,’ crowed Baby. ‘I take the best of both sexes, and you are definitely
the
best. I fancy you absolutely squint-eyed.’
‘You’re drunk.’ Flora made a last attempt to keep control, but as he rolled her towards him to unzip her dress, the warmth of his body melted her resistance.
‘I love George,’ she mumbled, into his smooth, scented shoulder.
‘George has gone off like a prawn in the sun. Deserves all he gets. Oh, you little beaut.’
Baby was a master of the tease. Running his fingers round the side of one nipple until every nerve of her breast was crying out, stroking her belly over and over again, letting his hand creep up her inner thighs, just stopping short of her clitoris, until she was screaming to have his cock inside her, and even then he was totally in control.
When Charity came out, mewing in outrage that plastered humans had mistaken Pedigree Chum for Go-Cat, Baby just laughed and said, ‘Cattus interruptus.’
He was so relaxed.
There were daisies and little shimmering moths all over the lawn and stars all over the sky. Gradually they seemed to merge.
‘I’m having
such
a heavenly time,’ mumbled Flora, ‘but I’m far too drunk to come.’
‘Wanna bet.’ Sliding out of her, turning her over, Baby kissed each bump of her backbone, slowly, slowly progressing downwards.
‘Oh, my God! Oh, my God!’
‘Yes, I thought you’d enjoy that.’
‘Do I taste of snake?’ mumbled Flora.
‘No, only of Paradise.’
‘How d’you know so much about women?’ asked Flora, as they lay back, stupefied with pleasure, on the grass.
‘I used to be married.’
‘What?’ Flora sat bolt upright.
‘To a singer.’
‘Why did it break up?’
Baby took a slug of Moët. ‘She asked me what I thought of her in the Verdi Requiem. I was foolish enough to tell her. She never spoke to me again.’
‘Did you mind?’
‘Nope.’
‘Isn’t it rather immoral, pretending you’re gay when you’re not?’
‘Certainly not. However would I get rid of all those ugly cows if they suspected I was heterosexual?’
‘You are seriously degenerate,’ said Flora, as they fell asleep in each other’s arms.
30
Waking cold, stiff and horribly hung over in the morning, Flora was demented. How could she have done this to George? He’d never forgive her if he found out. Rannaldini had spies everywhere and was bound to tell him. ‘I’m being punished for shortchanging that cat,’ she moaned, as she crunched around on the Go-Cat the furious Charity had up-ended all over the kitchen floor.
‘I will take care of you,’ said a totally unfazed Baby.
But when Flora returned, crawling with embarrassment, to her dressing room at Valhalla, she found her puppet fox had been cut to tiny pieces. Flora went berserk. She had had Foxie since she was a baby. He had always brought her luck. Without his protection, George would never come back. And who could have cut him up? Rannaldini, Helen, Hermione and Serena all hated her, so did Wolfie and probably Pushy, Bernard and Sexton, after yesterday’s débâcle. Or perhaps some admirer of Baby’s, outraged she’d got off with him last night. It was all dreadfully frightening.
Everyone was very sympathetic, particularly Rozzy, who gathered up fragments of orange fur and said she’d soon sew Foxie together again.
‘Rozzy’s so lovely,’ a tearful Flora told Baby. ‘If only she could get rid of that horrible husband and find some heavenly lover.’
‘Hard to kiss a woman whose mouth’s always full of pins.’
Flora was far too miserable to have dinner with Tristan that night.
Tab, too, was absolutely miserable. Isa was back in Australia so Wolfie came and watched the Derby with her at Magpie Cottage. Then she had the exquisite but agonizing pleasure of seeing Rupert and his entourage in their grey top hats streaming, solemn as warlords, into the paddock to watch Peppy Koala saddling up.
‘Look, there’s Lysander, and Declan, Daddy’s partner,’ she told Wolfie, ‘and Billy Lloyd-Foxe, who was his great show-jumping mate, and Ricky France-Lynch and Bas Baddingham, his old polo friends.’
‘Who’s that blonde?’ asked Wolfie, thinking she was beautiful.
‘My half-sister, Perdita, uptight bitch. That’s her husband, Luke Alderton, he’s a saint. Heavens! Marcus has flown back from Moscow. That must be Nemerovsky, his boyfriend. Look at the stupid poof showing off,’ Tab added furiously, as a smiling Nemerovsky waved his top hat to acknowledge the cheers of the crowd. Wolfie, who’d been at boarding school with Marcus, thought how happy he looked.
‘Here comes Taggie,’ hissed Tabitha, as her stepmother, ravishing in a fuchsia-pink silk suit and a big violet hat, was towed into the paddock by a thoroughly overexcited Xav and Bianca.
‘Bloody hell.’ Tab took a long slug of Perrier, splashing her face. ‘Children shouldn’t be allowed in the paddock, particularly loose,’ she added angrily, as Xav and Bianca rushed forward to hug Peppy Koala. ‘And that geek with his hat on the back of his head is Peppy’s owner, Mr Brown.’
Mr Brown apart, thought Wolfie wistfully, they were the most glamorous, self-assured bunch: Tab’s world. How presumptuous to hope he could ever be part of it.
‘God, what a beautiful horse.’ Another slug of Perrier spilt over Tab’s face, as Rupert’s jockey, wearing Mr Brown’s colours, bright blue dotted with white stars like the Australian flag, mounted a dancing Peppy.
The little colt gave all his supporters a heart attack by dawdling at the back until the last furlong then, putting on a staggering burst of speed, he bounded past the toiling field to win by three lengths.
Having screamed her head off with excitement, Tab proceeded to sob so wildly Wolfie couldn’t help her.
‘I miss them all so much. Mr Brown refused to give Peppy to Isa because he thought Isa was cruel to me. That’s what Isa will never forgive.’
Neither did the Derby result please Rannaldini. How could Isa have let Peppy Koala slip through his fingers?
To goad Tab, Rannaldini summoned her to his study a week later to watch a big Australian race on cable. Isa was riding a dark brown mare, who won as effortlessly as Peppy Koala. As usual, he was mobbed by groupies. Tab, on the other hand, was more upset to see his deadpan face break into a smile as Martie, his allegedly ex-girlfriend, looking scruffier and shinier than any of the grooms, ran forward to hug him after the race.
‘Very well ridden,’ said Rannaldini softly, ‘but he could spend a leetle more time in England training my horses.’ Then, seeing Tab gnawing her lower lip, ‘And I don’t think he is paying you quite enough attention, my angel, to justify a free rent in that lovely cottage.’
‘Put him in the debtor’s chair. Where is it by the way?’
‘Somewhere much more exciting. Remind me to show you some time.’
But Tab had fled sobbing from the room.
Tristan, meanwhile, was spending more and more evenings in Lucy’s caravan. He was obviously not sleeping and everyone was draining him with their insecurities and petty rivalries, as he heroically battled to keep within budget and Rannaldini at bay. He was trying to smoke less, which made him very uptight and, unwillingly yielding to Hype-along’s pleas, he had finally agreed to talk to Valerie Grove of
The Times
, in the hope that some good publicity might calm the backers.
In the past he had stuck up for Rannaldini, but as Lucy cut his hair for the interview he repeatedly returned to the attack.
‘He’s like evil octopus with tentacles everywhere.’
Thinking how thickly and beautifully Tristan’s hair curled into his neck, Lucy struggled against the temptation to stroke it. Then he nearly lost an ear as he switched to the subject of Tabitha.
‘Rannaldini is so crazy about her, he inveigle her into marrying that absolute shit, Isa Lovell. Now he plays games with her like Iago. She came out of his study crying this afternoon.’
Lucy fought despair. Thank God Rozzy had rolled up with a bottle to cheer Tristan up. Rozzy was relieved that she only had a hundred or so more seed pearls to sew on Hermione’s coronation dress.
Next morning Lucy was terrified to discover slug pellets in James’s water bowl. Perhaps someone had just missed the window-box or perhaps, she thought wryly, people were jealous because Tristan spent so much time in Make Up — but it was only because he was desperate to talk about Tab.
She had further evidence that afternoon, when Hermione, who she was making up for her great renunciation scene with Carlos, announced she’d heard a horrid rumour that Tristan was queer.
‘Of course he’s not,’ exploded Lucy.
‘Well, that’s what they’re implying. Silly, really,’ Hermione gave her horrible little laugh, ‘that with so many pretty women to choose from, Tristan’s spending his evenings with… and also that make-up girls usually stick to their own kind and drink with the sparks and the chippies.’
Then, seeing Lucy’s face, she added, ‘But I stuck up for you, Lucy. I said you had quite a warm personality and, anyway, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Oh, Belgian chocolates!’
Lucy was about to snap that they were a thank-you present from Tristan for cutting his hair when Hermione opened the box and found one white truffle left.
‘My favourite,’ she cried. ‘Although I’ve already got a handsome hubby, and a thousand a year wouldn’t go far these days.’
She was just about to eat it, when Lucy snatched away the box. ‘James loves white truffles,’ she insisted, and opening the amazed dog’s jaws, shoved it into his mouth.
Hermione was furious.
‘When you think of Flora and that wretched terrier, and Tab drooling over that Labrador,’ she said beadily, ‘it is extra
ordinary
how women who cannot get it together with a man become dependent on a companion animal.’
James spat out the white truffle.
‘Bloody chippies,’ exploded Lucy.
Meredith’s carpenters, building a cathedral for the
auto da fe
and banging away all morning, had given her a blinding headache.
She was so cross she gave Hermione a parsnip yellow complexion, ageing grey shading, hideous violet eye shadow and a wonky lip-line. Hermione was so busy reading about her health in the
Daily Mail
that she didn’t notice.
Tristan did, however, and remonstrated sharply with Lucy.
‘Well, if she was about to give Carlos the push and she loved him to bits, she would look grotty,’ shouted back Lucy.
‘
Ma petite
.’ Tristan looked at her in amazement. ‘This is first time I see you angry. You are so sweet,’ and he ruffled her hair.
‘Patronizing bastard,’ muttered Lucy.
She was so fed up that she knocked back nearly a bottle of white at lunchtime, and stuck Colin Milton’s bald wig on back to front. Colin was so taken by the sight of himself with a youthful fringe of grey curls nestling on his eyebrows that he would happily have let it stay. Tristan, however, went ballistic, and yelled at Lucy to stop taking the piss.
31
The
auto da fe
, which means Act of Faith, is one of the most terrifying scenes in all opera. Heretics in dunces’ caps are paraded through the streets by their executioners and followed by sinister black-cowled monks who, with the courtiers and ladies-in-waiting, take up their seats round the funeral pyre.
A newly crowned Philip comes out of the cathedral and repeats his coronation oath to defend the faith. The scene ends with his dreadful words, ‘And now on with the festivities!’ The masses are then entertained not by fireworks but by the heretics being burnt at the stake.
Lasting twenty minutes in the opera, even Tristan’s pared-down version took eight gruelling days to shoot. The harrowing nature of the subject exacerbated Rannaldini’s sadism. Meredith and his chippies had only just completed their ravishing cathedral façade, looking on to the east courtyard, when Rannaldini swept in on the first day of shooting and pronounced it utterly suburban: ‘Just like a Weybridge
hacienda
. Are we going to have chiming doorbells, celebrating the burning of the heretics?’
Meredith promptly burst into tears. It took all Tristan’s tact to stop him resigning. Lucy had visions of being asked to streak Meredith’s hair for yet another dinner at the Heavenly Host. Fortunately Sexton rocked up and told Meredith he thought the cathedral was just beautiful.
‘And he ought to know,’ whispered Hermione reverently. ‘Sexton did go to Eton.’
Hermione was also delighted that, after weeks of work, Griselda and Rozzy had finally sewn the last seed pearl on her ivory satin dress. Her first appearance wearing it that afternoon caused gasps of wonder and genuine applause from the crew.
A second later Rannaldini had erupted on to the set, and everyone glanced at the sky in excitement. Then, to their horror, they realized that what they had imagined as the patter of rain was the scattering of thousands of pearls, as Rannaldini ripped off the dress, and stamped it into the dust with his suede boots. Hermione, in her petticoat, screamed and screamed. Oscar crossed himself. It was like seeing a Velazquez slashed in the Prado. Tristan grabbed Rannaldini in white-hot fury.
‘What the fuck are you doing? That was the most beautiful dress I ever see.’
‘Elisabetta must wear scarlet,’ yelled back Rannaldini.
‘At her husband’s coronation?’
‘To symbolize in Philip’s crazy mind she has been unfaithful.’
‘All those pearls, all those pearls,’ whispered Rozzy, who’d done nearly all the work.
A devastated, hysterically sobbing Griselda had to be carried off the set by a buckling Lucy and Simone. Everyone was outraged. They loved Griselda: indefatigable, gossipy old trout. They knew she was good. The crew would have walked out if Rannaldini hadn’t built massive penalty clauses into all their contracts. Instead they went slow, with Oscar waking up to relight every ten minutes.