Eulalia had already cornered Flora about her famous mother. ‘Perhaps you could spare me a moment in the foreseeable future to discuss Mother’s new album and your début in
Carlos
.’
‘I’d like that,’ said Flora. ‘The album’s great, and thank goodness you reminded me, I promised Rozzy one for her horrible husband’s fiftieth birthday. He’s a mad fan of Mum’s.’
‘We all are,’ said Eulalia reverently.
Even buckets of wine couldn’t make the party gel. There was no birthday boy to blow out the thirty-five blue candles on the big chocolate cake. People loved Mikhail and hated seeing him so hurt and humiliated on his birthday.
It was eerie in the shadowy garden: owls hooted, moths scorched themselves on flambeaux, gasping unwatered plants failed to revive in the cooler night air. Baby’s protestations that Charles V had been a real ghost began to stack up, as Granny, summoned to take a call from Giuseppe, found him still on his troop ship in the Bosphorus.
In Bernard’s office, Tristan, Oscar and Valentin were still wondering after Baby’s fainting how much of tonight’s film they could salvage. Having raved over Granny’s patchwork quilt, which was on display and lighting up the summer drawing room like a rainbow, the rest of the guests had spilled out into the garden.
Sexton, who was heartbroken that his plan to bring Lara over had misfired so tragically, had arrived with Hermione, who having heard about, but not yet read, Beattie’s piece was delighted at Chloe’s discomfiture. Considering herself an expert on the subject of the press, she decided to charm the grotesque Eulalia Harrison. After all, the
Sentinel
’s circulation nudged the
Guardian
’s.
‘Have you heard my latest CD?’
‘I have indeed,’ said Eulalia, in her refined ultra-intellectual Islington twang. ‘I am a long-term fan, Dame Hermione.’
‘Then you shall come to luncheon at River House.’
Determined not to fall into Chloe’s trap of bitching up others, Hermione beckoned Lucy over.
‘This is my personal make-up artist, Lucy Latimer. You’ll want to talk to Lucy about me, and probably to our Woman Friday, Rozzy Pringle. By the way, Rozzy, my rose-lined green cloak has a tear. Rosalind’s very nifty with a needle, Eulalia.’
‘And a great singer,’ said Lucy defiantly.
‘Come and meet Sexton Kemp.’ Hermione took Eulalia’s arm. ‘Sexton went to Eton, you know.’
‘Bitch, bitch, bitch!’ said Lucy, to Hermione’s broad departing back. ‘Omigod,’ she screamed, as a ghostly apparition appeared unexpectedly out of the ebony depths of the maze. ‘Oh, thank goodness it’s you, Alpheus.’
‘Either of you two seen Cheryl?’ An enraged Alpheus glared towards the terrace where Rannaldini, still in his tails, the skull leering from his cummerbund, was now standing.
‘How dare he say artistic consideration come before continuity?’ fumed Simone, as Rannaldini clapped his hands and announced the cabaret.
Earlier in the shoot, after a particularly trying day, Meredith and Rannaldini had joined Tristan in his caravan and, over a bottle of whisky, they had discussed everyone. Rannaldini had taped the conversation and now relayed it on speakers around the house and garden.
Clearly Tristan had been enjoying the catharsis of a really good bitch. The sound of his laughter, which had not been heard since the
auto da fe
, drew the outside revellers in round the terrace.
Having mimicked most of the cast, particularly Pushy and Alpheus, Meredith had savagely taken the piss out of Sexton, but his venom had been reserved for Hermione, as the wife of Bob, his long-term lover. Tristan had defended her manfully, only when Meredith started impersonating her in a screeching falsetto could he be heard crying with helpless laughter.
Initial guffaws from the guests quickly faded into appalled embarrassed silence. Sexton looked as though he was going to cry.
‘I never knowed I was that common.’
No-one dared look at Hermione, who for once was lost for words.
As Tristan wandered into the party, Rannaldini could be heard saying on the tape, ‘Do you theenk we should replace Hermione?’
‘Superfluous Harefield,’ giggled Meredith. ‘Well, Pushy’s already sung her top notes, so why not get some pretty actress, half her age, to play her on film?’
‘With an ass a quarter the size,’ Tristan had suggested, to shouts of mirth.
‘Turn that bloody thing off,’ howled the real Tristan, and his hands were round Rannaldini’s neck. ‘I keel you, you bastard.’
If Wolfie, Bernard and a racing-up Valentin hadn’t pulled him off, he would have strangled Rannaldini. ‘D’you want to screw up everything we achieve, you fucking madman? Let me get at heem,’ he snarled, struggling to break free of their clutches.
‘My dear boy,’ sneered Rannaldini, straightening his collar, ‘how very excited you’re getting over a bit of fun.’
A second later, everyone was distracted by Hermione screaming.
‘It isn’t true about my top notes?’
Sexton was about to protest that of course it wasn’t, but Pushy was too quick for him. ‘Ay’m afraid it is, Hermione,’ she said smugly. ‘Roberto couldn’t bear you to sound less than perfect.’
Screeching that she would get both Pushy and Rannaldini, and never work with Tristan again, Hermione flapped off towards River House, so like a great goose that everyone expected her to break into flight.
‘Shame the river’s too low for her to drown herself,’ sighed Baby.
But her departing screech was interrupted by a far more pitiful sound. In the summer drawing room, Granny was crouched weeping over his patchwork quilt, which had been slashed into such tiny pieces that, unlike Foxie, it couldn’t be sewn together again. Like eaglets fluttering round a mother bird with an irrevocably broken wing, Lucy, Baby and Flora surged forward, frantic to comfort him, but Granny refused to let Tristan call the police. ‘No, no, nothing can bring it and my darling boy back again.’
Ten minutes later, utterly unmoved by such tragedy, Pushy returned from cleaning her teeth in Helen’s bathroom (after all, it would be hers soon) and, sidling up to Rannaldini, asked if it were too early to slope off to the watchtower.
‘Frankly it is,’ smirked Rannaldini. ‘Because I ’ave subsequent engagement,’ and singing, ‘Life is just a bowl of Cheryl,’ he disappeared into the dark.
Ten minutes later he let himself into the watchtower.
‘My darling,’ he crooned to Mikhail’s Lara, who Clive had just smuggled down a newly strimmed ride. ‘Don’t spoil your lovely eyes with tears. Suffering will make your wayward husband sing even more beautifully, and you will have a night to tell your great-grandchildren about.’
Then, as a feisty blonde in a foxglove-pink and purple dressing-gown came down the spiral staircase, ‘I don’t think you know Cheryl Shaw.’
35
The next two and a half days, thank God, were rest days. Tristan had a big press screening of
The Lily in the Valley
in Paris on Saturday night, and then a lunch party for Aunt Hortense’s eighty-sixth birthday on Sunday. Night-shooting would start on Monday evening.
Roused early on Saturday morning from the same hideous nightmare, Tristan found his light on and Rannaldini standing in his bedroom doorway. With his bare muscular chest soaring out of tight black trousers, he was hideously reminiscent of himself in
The Snake Charmer
.
‘If I have any more hassle from you,’ Tristan reached for a Gauloise with a shaking hand, ‘I’m taking my name off this film.’
‘What name?’ taunted Rannaldini. ‘You’re not a Montigny any more. In fact, your lack of roots is showing, my dear.’
Tristan felt churning black loathing. Unless he jumped to Rannaldini’s tune, the bastard would tell the world Étienne wasn’t his father.
‘Hurry or you’ll miss that plane,’ smirked Rannaldini, ‘and do give my best to Claudine Lauzerte.’
Strolling down the landing, Rannaldini was greeted by his cat, Sarastro, mewing with rage. Stooping to stroke him, Rannaldini found his white fur drenched. How could this be, when it hadn’t rained for weeks? Out of the window, through the pre-dawn half-light, he saw Rozzy with a watering-can, like a nurse in the trenches, trying to bring succour to his dying plants.
Padding downstairs out into the garden, he caught her so red-handed, she dropped the watering-can.
‘First, you water my cat, next my flagstones.’
‘I’m terribly sorry, Rannaldini. I’m so shortsighted I mistook poor Sarastro for some white violas.’
‘Rozzy, my dear,’ said Rannaldini silkily, ‘I had such an interesting session with James Benson yesterday.’
The colour stole from Rozzy’s cheeks as though she was bleeding to death.
Flora woke when the sun was high in the sky to find Baby had already left. It was too hot to wear anything but cotton, so she wandered out to the facilities unit in her white nightie. As Trevor rushed reproachfully around lifting his leg on wheels and guy ropes, she could hear Meredith’s voice issuing petulantly from Make Up.
‘How can I expect darling Sexton to re-instate me, when Rannaldini plays that loathsome tape?’
‘Baby sent his love, Flora, and said he’d be back some time on Monday,’ called Rozzy, as she emerged from Wardrobe clutching a large Harrods bag. ‘I’ve got the remains of Granny’s patchwork quilt in here,’ she added conspiratorially, shoving it into the boot of the car. ‘I’m going to try and save it.’
‘Poor old boy,’ said Flora sadly. ‘I bet Giuseppe’s doing more cruising than singing in the Bosphorus. Although I can’t really believe Baby saw a ghost.’
She handed Rozzy another carrier-bag. ‘I got Mum to sign two photos and her new album for Glyn.’
‘Oh, you darling child.’ Rozzy hugged her.
‘It was the least I could do after you mending Foxie. Are you OK, Rozzy? You look dreadfully pale.’
‘I’m fine,’ sighed Rozzy. ‘I’ve got to be.’
‘Well, don’t work too hard. I hope Glyn jolly well appreciates his birthday party.’
‘You look pretty pale too,’ Rozzy called after her. ‘Why don’t you ring your nice George?’
An almighty bang made them both jump. Wolfie, who hadn’t put a foot wrong throughout the shoot, had been bullied into filling up Alpheus’s Jaguar from Rannaldini’s petrol pumps. Catching sight of Tabitha leaving Magpie Cottage, however, he had driven slap into Bernard’s Peugeot. This gave Alpheus the excuse to storm upstairs to Rannaldini’s study where he found his executive producer signing fan mail.
Alpheus flipped. Not only was his Jaguar totalled but how dare Rannaldini also lie to Cheryl that he’d been humping Pushy, Chloe and Hermione? Cheryl was threatening to divorce him and expose him to the tax-man if he didn’t accede to her outlandish demands.
‘And she wants custody of Mr Bones, the family dog,’ Alpheus shouted finally.
‘I am not surprised.’ Admiring his beautiful hands, Rannaldini picked up a nail file. ‘Eef Mr Bones can hold down job worth two hundred thousand dollars a year on your books
and
bite the postman, he’s quite a find. I ’ave to confess I find that emerald stud in Cheryl’s
labia minora
quite enchanting, but I think she has the ’ots for Mikhail, so I suggest you get it insured before they get together.’
‘I’ll get you, Rannaldini…’
Alpheus’s bellows of rage could be heard all over Valhalla.
Flora had just screwed up enough courage to punch out George’s number when Rannaldini catfooted up, suggesting a walk round the garden. Flora was so depressed she thought Rannaldini would be better than no-one to talk to. She was wrong.
As they reached the pond near the rose garden, Rannaldini said, ‘I wonder when Baby will tell his little friend Isa that he’s just tested HIV positive.’
Flora stopped in her tracks, breathing in a sudden stench of fox. ‘How d’you know?’
‘I recommended him to a doctor,’ said Rannaldini smoothly. ‘The poor boy only heard this morning. He’s demented, and so must you be, my darling.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Well, if you swing all ways and sleep around as much as Baby does, it was only a matter of time.’
‘Oh, my God.’ Flora slumped on a stone bench.
Trevor had disappeared after the fox. In the almost non-existent water of the pond, a couple of carp gasped and writhed. Then, from his inside pocket, Rannaldini produced an even worse horror.
‘What will George theenk of these pretty pictures?’
Flora gave a groan because the top one was of Baby making love to her on the lawn at Angels’ Reach.
‘Give them to me,’ she screamed, snatching the polythene folder.
‘Have them.’ Rannaldini gave a sigh of delight. ‘I have the negs. They should make George relinquish his plans for a Paradise bypass. And, eef not, Gordon Dillon will adore them.’ And whistling ‘This is my last, my finest day,’ Rannaldini sauntered back to the house, pausing only to switch on his mobile:
‘Bussage, my dear, can you ring Fleet Water Board and get them to fill up the lake and the ponds?’
Flora whimpered with terror. Baby, who’d been mysterious about his weekend plans, always switched off his mobile. There was no way she could call him and check the truth. Looking round, she saw that Trevor was tossing something in the air.
‘Stop!’ she screamed.
But by the time she had got there it was too late. It was a little black mole, probably in search of water. Lost above ground, blinded by the sun, the earth was baked too hard for him to tunnel to safety. There was something so pathetic about his tiny pink hands. Sobbing helplessly followed by an insufficiently contrite Trevor, Flora set out to find a spade to bury him. She felt she had bypassed Paradise for ever.
Entering Valhalla, Rannaldini had bumped into his leading mezzo.
‘“Dear Chloe, how blubbered is thy pretty face,”’ he quoted, in amusement.
‘It’s all because of Beattie’s horrible piece,’ sobbed Chloe. ‘Howie’s just rung in his undertaker’s voice saying I haven’t got Delilah. Even worse he says the money’s on Gloria.’