Score!

34

June melted into July. The birds fell silent. The heatwave intensified. Legend had it that when the ponds of Valhalla dried up, the head of the house would die. Hoovering up shrivelled petals on the burnt lawn, Mr Brimscombe noticed the dangerously low level of the pond near the rose garden and moved the gasping carp to the mere beside the maze. He was just making a note to fill up both from the house mains, when he was called away to round up the cows who, in search of grass, had forced their way into the woods near Rannaldini’s watchtower.

‘We’ll have to raise the voltage on the electric fences,’ Rannaldini told Tabitha.

‘Pity Mummy can’t do that to keep you in.’

‘Stony limits cannot keep in love, my darling.’

Tristan missed Tab desperately, but they were still so frighteningly behind schedule and over budget that he plunged into work, driving himself and the crew to a point of collapse.

He was incredibly forgetful, not finishing sentences or remembering names. Before, he’d kept the whole script almost to the line in his head; now Wolfie had to remind him what scene he’d shot an hour before.

His nights were racked by drenching sweats, and hideous dreams of rape, torched flesh and a black cobra curling evilly round the neck of Tabitha, who would suddenly become his lovely, naked mother. How could he blame Maxim for brutal, incestuous lust, when he was tortured himself by the same shaming desires for Delphine?

Often he was seen wandering round Paradise at dawn, muttering, ‘Rannaldini doesn’t know what he’s doing.’

He was still stonewalling about the introductions. The plot was now so cartoon simple he felt that constant reappearances by Rannaldini, explaining what was going on, would hold up the action. It would also mean agonizing cuts of other stuff, paring people like Colin Milton, Granny and Giuseppe down to nothing.

Not up to a tussle, however, he agreed that the Great Hall should be turned into an opera-house with a royal box. Rannaldini would then sweep in in his tails to conduct his overture.

Only two incidents marred the filming of this opening. Meredith was sacked because a falling piece of scenery missed Rannaldini by inches and Lucy, after everyone had raved that her make-up of Granny and the characters in the royal box would win her an Oscar, found an adder coiled in her make-up basket. A terrified Lucy told only Baby, whom she had to make up immediately after her discovery.

‘Must have crawled in by itself.’ Baby tried to cheer her up. ‘Adder in the basket’s better than chicken.’

Tristan had already shot two endings: Schiller’s, in which Philip hands Carlos over to the Inquisition, and Verdi’s, which has the ghost of Charles V, played by Granny’s boyfriend Giuseppe, emerging from his tomb (which looked, according to Granny, like a ‘public lavatory in Morocco’) and drawing a terrified Carlos inside.

Rannaldini now insisted on a third — with the principals of Act V on stage singing the last minute of Verdi’s version, then the film ending with himself on the rostrum acknowledging the ecstatic applause of the audience. The lighting rehearsal on his snow-white shirt-cuffs alone went on all morning. Griselda was then sacked because after twenty-nine fittings, he was unhappy with the cut of his tail-coat.

Rannaldini was even angrier that Giuseppe, thinking he wouldn’t be needed, had buggered off without permission to sing on a cruise ship in the Bosphorus.

‘Get heem back by tonight,’ screamed Rannaldini.

‘Quite right,’ said Granny approvingly. ‘Show him who’s Bosphorus.’

Granny was in a much happier mood. He had finished his patchwork quilt, darling Rozzy was sewing the pieces up for him, and it would look beautiful on his and Giuseppe’s bed. Tristan, heeding a word from Lucy that Granny was worried about work, had spoken to him about a future role as the wonderfully comic Baron Ochs in Der Rosenkavalier.

The day that Tristan shot Rannaldini’s ending was also Mikhail’s thirty-fifth birthday. Having been bumped off in Act IV, Mikhail was not needed and had been happily getting himself and everyone else plastered all day, except Lucy, who was still shocked by the adder and who had to stay sober because she had the loathsome task of making up Rannaldini. She had never met anyone so vain. He wanted bronzer, blusher, white on the inside of his eyelids, mascara, eyeliner and shading, and it took her hours to get his glossy pewter hair just right.

Familiar with Lucy’s body from the relay race and his monitors, Rannaldini kept making suggestive remarks and, when she was trimming the hair in his nostrils and terrified of nicking him, putting a warm, caressing hand between her thighs.

Meanwhile, word was whizzing round the set that Mikhail had been so stoical about missing his wife, Lara, that as a birthday surprise — and sod the budget — Sexton was flying her over from Moscow to emerge from Mikhail’s birthday cake later that evening.

As Lucy was darkening Rannaldini’s eyebrows, Wolfie popped in with glasses of champagne from Mikhail. Rannaldini refused. He never drank before a concert, so Wolfie left a single glass on Lucy’s table and told his father he was wanted on the set in two minutes.

Rannaldini was intensely sexually excited at the thought of being on camera. As Lucy removed the pale blue overall and was nearly asphyxiated by Maestro, his aftershave, he rose, a magnificent figure in white tie, black cummerbund embroidered with a silver skull, and beautifully cut black trousers.

He had other sexual games planned for later in the evening, but as Lucy put back the tops on her bottles, he couldn’t resist putting a hand up her skirt.

‘I know you want Tristan,’ he purred, ‘and he loves only Tabitha, but don’t be sad, Lucy, you have interesting body, and eef I give you few lesson, you could be very passionate.’

His probing fingers wandered upwards.

Utterly revolted, Lucy leapt back, jolting the table, spilling the champagne. The next moment she had slapped Rannaldini’s face.

‘I don’t care if you fire me,’ she said furiously. ‘And I’m not toning those down,’ she added, as her finger-marks reddened on Rannaldini’s cheeks.

Rannaldini laughed, smelling his fingers in ecstasy. Shrugging on his new coat, the poetry of whose cut was undeniable, he adjusted his gardenia, picked up the glass of champagne and raised it to his lips as he strode towards the Great Hall. But before he could take a sip, Hermione’s top E, as she warmed up in her dressing room, had shattered it. Rannaldini’s smile broadened. He had been right not to drink.

‘Maestro Rannaldini,’ tiny Simone stepped bravely into his path, ‘you were not wearing cummerbund with death’s head in opening shots.’

‘When did continuity take precedence over aesthetic consideration?’ said Rannaldini haughtily. ‘The skull forecasts death of Carlos and Elisabetta,’ and, shoving Simone out of the way, he strode on.

Half an hour later, Baby was tempted to walk out. Hermione had obviously persuaded Rannaldini to substitute a different take of the last duet to the one on the cassette, which he had been sent. On that one she had had a distinct wobble. Now, over the speakers, she sounded wonderful and he distinctly off.

Fucking bitch! Baby wanted to kick her on the ankle as he gazed soulfully into her eyes.

‘Farewell, my son, farewell for ever,’ sang Hermione.

One camera was trained on Rannaldini. A second, up on a crane, kept cutting from stage to royal box to enraptured crowd. Suddenly Philip, the Grand Inquisitor and a pack of paparazzi in leather, their long lenses raised like machine-guns, charged in. Philip had just grabbed Elisabetta, when the ghostly presence of Charles V slowly emerged from his tomb.

Giuseppe has got back after all, thought Baby, in surprise, as his glorious rich voice poured out of the speakers like the expensive red wines of which he was so fond. As the rest of the cast fell back in terror, Rannaldini whipped the orchestra through the last deafening chords, but as the ghost put out his hand to seize Baby’s, Baby crashed to the ground in a dead faint.

‘Pissed again,’ said Ogborne.

‘It was a ghost, a real ghost,’ protested a terrified Baby, when he came round. ‘He cast no shadow on the wall, and his hand went straight through mine.’

‘I told you never to touch spirits,’ chided Granny.

No-one, on the other hand, had seen Giuseppe arrive or leave.

Returning to her caravan still shuddering from Rannaldini’s grope, Lucy found that the spilt champagne had burnt a hole right through the red checked cloth to the table beneath. Someone was trying to kill either her or Rannaldini.

She gave a shriek as a tall figure loomed out of the darkness, but it was only a hollow-eyed Wolfie. Was she coming to Mikhail’s birthday party? Lucy was knackered, but she loved Mikhail. Hoping a few drinks might dull her sense of foreboding, she decided to pop in for an hour, and went slap into a full-dress row.

Chloe and Mikhail had both had tip-offs that they’d landed the parts they wanted in Samson and Delilah. A plastered Mikhail was just kissing Chloe in congratulation, covering himself in crimson lipstick, when — with fiendish timing — Rannaldini urged Mikhail’s newly arrived wife, Lara, to peep out of her bedroom window for a sneak preview of her beloved. Her reunion with Mikhail was therefore most acrimonious, and no-one emerged from any birthday cakes.

Lara kicked off by slapping Mikhail’s face so hard he fell in a nearly empty fish-pond. She then turned on Chloe. ‘You are scarlet voman I read about in Evening Scorpion on vay down.’

‘Oh, Beattie’s piece must have come out,’ said Chloe, in excitement. ‘If you’ve got a copy, I’d love to see it.’

So Lara slapped Chloe’s face as well. Chloe’s squawks, however, were nothing to her hysterics when she tracked down the Scorpion. Beattie had portrayed her as a ruthless careerist and husband-snatcher, and quoted all the bitchy remarks Chloe had made off the record, including the one about Hermione farting every time she hit a top note.

‘Delilah was an absolute cow,’ said Baby reassuringly, ‘so you’ll only have to play yourself, Chloe.’

Chloe fled sobbing to her room. Mikhail, trailing muddy pond weed, stormed round Valhalla trying to find Lara. Everyone, as a result, was very wary of a grungy crone in granny specs and flowing black robes, who was reverently being hawked round the party by Hype-along as Eulalia Harrison of the Sentinel. Eulalia was doing an in-depth piece on the whole production that would redress the harm done by Beattie. Helen, who loved the arts pages in the Sentinel, had even given Eulalia a bedroom in the south wing.

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.’