‘It’s exactly eight minutes before you come in, Carmine, so don’t fall asleep.’

‘Not bloody likely.’

Carmine, in a new butch lumberjack shirt, winked at Lindy Cardew, who, in a tight shocking-pink sweater, was jabbing huge scented pink lilies, no doubt paid for by her husband’s massive backhanders from George, into vases along the front of the stage.

Any flowers or blossom played havoc with Marcus’s asthma. Flora, in a rare act of domesticity, had brushed and washed down his tails to save fumes from dry cleaning. But even worse chemicals were now wafting from the walls of his dressing-room, newly painted a restful green gloss to calm soloists.

Glancing in the mirror, he noticed his face had a sinister blue tinge. In case of any emergency attack he had brought a pre-loaded syringe but he was terrified of letting down Abby, the orchestra and George, who’d engaged him and been so particularly kind. Worried that Marcus was too thin and probably hadn’t eaten all day, George had arranged for lentil soup, grilled plaice and fruit salad to be sent in from the Old Bell, and Marcus had just thrown up the lot, panicking all the while that he might choke. The more he fretted the harder it was to breathe. It was as though someone had held a pillow to his face.

But the greatest terror was the Rachmaninov lurking ahead: dark, fierce, explosive, mysterious as the Russian continent, a huge monster waiting to be captured and tamed by his bare hands.

Passionate relief battled with bitter disappointment that neither Rupert nor Taggie had bothered to come or even send him a good-luck card. Helen, on the other hand, had rolled up an hour before the off and hung around reading his cards and moaning about Rannaldini who was taking a masterclass in Rome, until George barged in and bluntly told her to pack it in, because ‘the lad needs to distance himself.

George then whisked Helen off to wow the sponsors in the VIP lounge. Lady Rannaldini was looking particularly fetching in a Lindka Cierach suit of ivory silk with a short fitted jacket emphasizing her tiny waist and her newly lifted and remodelled breasts and bottom.

Was Helen in on George’s and Rannaldini’s plan for a super orchestra and market? wondered Flora. She couldn’t see Helen frolicking on a bouncy castle. At least Helen and George can have a good bitch about me, she thought wryly.

Still hubristic over yesterday’s renewal of her contract and her rapprochement with George, Abby had also nipped into Bath that morning and bought a wildly fashionable, very ostentatious orange satin bomber jacket, which she teamed with matching orange satin drainpipes and a black bra. With her wild, shaggy, dark curls, drug pallid face and snake hips she looked like a rock star.

‘Ladies and Gentlemen, please take your places on the platform,’ Knickers was shouting along the passage at the musicians.

‘Christ, here comes Sunset Boulevard,’ said Dixie, as Abby came out of the conductor’s room and popped next door to show herself off to Marcus, who was frantically flipping through his score. He could hardly see it for pencil marks.

‘Don’t look any more, right? You’ll confuse yourself.’

‘I’m going to throw up again.’

‘No, you’re not. I’ll take care of you. You’ve got a good twenty minutes. Leonora takes about fourteen, then they’ve got to get the piano on.’

‘Don’t take it too fast,’ pleaded Marcus, ‘It says allegro but ma non tanto.’

‘Trust me, d’you think George’ll like this pant suit?’

‘Fantastic, he’ll pant with lust.’

‘You reckon.’ Abby fluffed her hair in the mirror and sauntered off towards the stage.

Marcus felt that his hammering heart would soon leave internal bruising on his ribs. The only benefit of panic attacks was that they dulled the pain of Abby lusting after other men.

He picked up his mascot, the copy of The Tempest she had given him which he took everywhere.

‘Merrily, merrily shall I live now,’ he read

‘Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.’

Ariel couldn’t have been an asthmatic.

Viking and Flora should have already been on stage, but Viking had only just got back from recording the Brahms Horn Trio and Flora was giving him a whispered update on her raiding of the files, her confrontation of George and George’s new alliance with Abby.

‘The bastard,’ said Viking outraged.

‘We must tell the orchestra,’ pleaded Flora. ‘If they were prepared to strike to get rid of Abby, they’d certainly come out against a merger.’

Viking shook his head.

‘No-one loses strikes except musicians. They’d just close us down without any redundancy. Let’s see what George does next, he won’t want you shopping him to the Press or he might not get planning permission to pull down the hall. At least this gives us room to manoeuvre.’

‘I don’t trust him.’

‘I quite like the guy,’ admitted Viking.

‘Only because he’s offering you a job in the new orchestra. He’s just swanned off with Lady Rannaldini.’

‘Is Sir Roberto here?’

‘He’s in Rome,’ said Flora bitterly. ‘Taking a mistress-class.’

Unable to stop himself, Viking pulled her into his arms.

‘I know how this hurts you, sweetheart.’

‘What the fuck are you two doing?’ screamed Abby, jealousy surging up as uncontrollable as vomit, at finding them together when she was convinced the affaire was over.

Flora nearly dropped her viola.

‘You both should have been on stage five minutes ago,’ yelled Abby. ‘Julian is waiting to go on, Knickers is going ballistic looking for you.’

‘Great outfit, Maestro.’ Totally unabashed, Viking wandered towards the stage. ‘Onotterably chic to match it to your soloist’s hair.’

‘Have you got some sort of death-wish?’ Abby turned her fury on Flora. ‘I told you last night, OK? Your job’s on the line.’

Once again, not wanting to rattle Abby with the merger plot in case she flipped and unnerved Marcus, Flora blurted out that Viking was boasting that he’d just pulled Jessica.

‘It’s called liaising with the management,’ she muttered and fled.

Abby, who still went weak at the knees, every time she remembered Viking kissing her outside St Clement’s, was totally thrown. Somehow she got through the overture because the orchestra could play it in their sleep. She didn’t even notice that Carmine was late on his off-stage entrance because he’d been kissing Lindy Cardew in the instrument room.

But arrogantly thinking she knew the Rachmaninov well enough and opting to conduct without a score she got hopelessly lost in the first movement.

Flora was bowing away furiously among the violas, worrying about Marcus’s set white face and his faltering sound. Looking up for reference, she found Abby’s beat wasn’t there, lost confidence and started to panic and make mistakes. Soon the rest of the orchestra, who had also been hopelessly under-rehearsed, were all over the place, half of them coming in, half of them not, unravelling and about to stop dead.

‘Fucking brown-trouser job,’ muttered Dixie to Randy.

Ironically this was Marcus’s salvation. He had nearly fainted with terrror when he first saw the size of the audience. Fighting for breath, his smile sellotaped to his face, his fingers, when he began playing, had been impossibly stiff and wouldn’t do anything he told them.

But, realizing his darling Abby was in desperate trouble, he forgot himself, concentrating on saving her. Steady as a Welsh cob, he kept going, hammering away repeatedly at the first subject, Dum, di-di, dum di-di, dum, dum, nodding until the orchestra found their place.

Abby, with no score for reference, however, was still floundering, her gaudy orange suit making her all the more conspicuous. Towards the end of the movement she got completely lost again so Marcus, with amazing assurance, skipped a page, plunging straight in to the cadenza, so everyone knew where they were and could have some breathing space.

He had chosen Rachmaninov’s second cadenza which was far more demanding. Gradually, as he relaxed and the music he adored took over, he forgot everything else. His pale tortured face grew happy and peaceful. Listening to the melancholy torrents of sound, glittering like a waterfall in the moonlight, Flora ached at the beauty of it. Glancing round, she caught Viking looking straight at her, although he smiled, his eyes were as wet as her own.

Marcus held his breath as the cadenza drew to a close. Not having rehearsed it at all, would Abby know when to cue in the orchestra? He had to accompany brief, beautiful echoes from Peter Plumpton on the flute, then Simon, then Hilary and finally Viking and Quinton, but they all came in on the dot, and the movement finished more or less together.

In the intermezzo where Marcus interpreted the word pianissimo in a multitude of different ways, and in the heroic splendid finale, he grew and grew in stature. Beneath his racing fingers, the great dark Russian monster had become suddenly biddable, and was carrying him home as joyfully as Arion’s dolphin.

But it was a close-run thing. Marcus got an ecstatic reception, in part because he’d looked so vulnerable and terrified at the beginning and so handsome and touchingly amazed at the applause at the end. Most of the audience hadn’t a clue anything had gone wrong. But the orchestra had, and they cheered him to the leaking rooftops, rattling their bows, beating out a tantivy of approval on the shoulders of their cellos and basses.

Utterly distraught, Abby fled to her dressing-room refusing to return, so none of the soloists within the orchestra were raised to their feet for a special clap, which enraged Hilary.