‘There’s a light bulb out there,’ he added grimly, as he frogmarched her up the aisle, ‘and this curtain was hanging off its rail the first time I came down. This is an unloved hall.’

‘It’s an unlovable hall,’ snapped Abby. ‘We need a new one or at least a couple of million to restore it, right? Not to mention the chairs that all squeak and the music-stands which clunk.’

She was still listing imperfections when they reached George’s office which had already been re-wallpapered in brushed suede in a rather startling ginger, and re-carpeted in shaggy off-white. It was also now humming with smart computers. The Stock Exchange Index on the television screen showed that George Hungerford shares were up ten pence. The news of his appointment to the RSQ couldn’t have reached the City yet, thought Abby sourly.

The three-piece suite in shabby Liberty print had gone too, replaced by squashy pale brown leather sofas and chairs. A big oak desk dominated the room and on nearby tables like doll’s houses, stood exquisitely made Perspex models of domestic properties and office blocks, which George was currently developing.

On the walls a Keith Vaughan and an Edward Burra of rugged Northern landscapes and a Lowry of a bleak school playground mingled uneasily with aerial views of buildings and a huge map of the British Isles with various property sites ringed.

George had clearly found himself a nice base in the West Country. John Drummond, washing his black fur on the window-sill as he eyed up the brushed suede as a potential scratching-board, and a green vase of Old Cyril’s lilies of the valley, beside the four telephones on the oak desk provided the only cosy note.

Having dispatched a swooning Miss Priddock to make tea and peremptorily ordering Miles’s secretary to hold all calls, George launched into a list of Abby’s imperfections.

The trumpets in the first movement of Elgar’s Second Symphony had come in two bars too early, and the whole thing had been ten minutes too long.

Immediately Abby was on the defensive.

‘Rattle and Previn have both taken longer.’

‘I don’t bluddy care. It pushed the orchestra into overtime, I want the leader’s ass off his seat by nine-thirty. Same thing this afternoon, your little masterclass on the ‘Dance of the Seven Veils’ again pushed them into overtime.’

‘And I know whose head I’d like on a platter,’ muttered Abby, particularly when George said he wanted her to attend the receptions after every concert, so she could chat up sponsors and council members.

‘That’s your job,’ grumbled Abby. ‘My job is to improve the orchestra.’

‘Haven’t made a great success of it so far,’ said George bluntly. ‘And you won’t have an orchestra at all if we go on losing money like this.’

He then ordered her to turn up at tonight’s party.

‘You’re still a celeb, there’s no price put on the buzz folk get from meeting you. Sponsors need more than their names on the programme, they want their clients to meet the stars. And you can put on a dress. I gather you haven’t been out of trousers since you’ve been here. Your legs are probably the only hidden asset this orchestra possesses.’

Removing his spectacles, he made his eyes redder by rubbing them. He looked very tired, but Abby refused to be mollified.

‘I don’t have the time to socialize.’

‘Uh-uh,’ countered George. ‘You’re coming to this do, and you’ll chat up tonight’s sponsor, Dick Standish. He runs Standish Oil. He’s bringing another potential sponsor, Paul Nathan, CEO of Panacea Pharmaceuticals.’

‘We can’t be sponsored by drug companies. They do such horrific things to animals.’ Protectively Abby stroked John Drummond, who purred in loud agreement.

‘Don’t be fatuous,’ said George irritably. ‘There wouldn’t have been any Michelangelo without the Medicis.’

Swiftly changing the subject before she could argue, he added: ‘And you ought to know your orchestra by now. Americans are supposed to be good at names. First Flute, Second Trombone’s far too impersonal.’

Then, as Abby opened her mouth to protest, he continued, ‘It has far more effect when you’re bawling people out, if you use the correct name.’

‘Right, Godfrey,’ said Abby briskly, then as Miss Priddock came in with a tray weighed down by rainbow cake and daisy-patterned porcelain, ‘No, I haven’t time for a cup of tea, thanks, Miss Prism.’

The party was held in a blue-and-white striped tent outside the hall. The section leaders had been invited to mingle with the Great and the Good, but were far more interested in stuffing their faces with as much food and drink as fast as possible.

An eager-looking matron in chewstik-pink polyester immediately collared Davie Buckle, the timpanist. Davie’s face was as round and as blank as a satellite dish, and he wiled away long bars of rest playing patience on top of his kettle drums.

‘What d’you do?’ asked the matron skittishly.

‘I’m a basher.’ Davie grabbed two glasses of white and thrust one into her hand.

‘What’s a be-asher?’

‘I play the drums,’ said Davie, seizing a fistful of prawns in batter.

‘How exciting. I’d love to do that if I had the time. Percussion looks so easy.’

Accustomed to such inanities, Davie didn’t rise.

‘Why don’t you have any time?’ he asked.

‘Well, I have to look after Dick. My husband,’ she added by way of explanation, ‘he sponsored tonight’s concert, he’s in oil.’

‘What is he? A bleeding sardine?’ asked Davie and choked on his drink, because Abby had just stalked in looking absolutely sensational in a red body, no bra and the minutest wrap-over skirt.

‘I said a dress, not you oonderwear,’ said George furiously.

Peggy Parker was even crosser. She was livid about Abby’s plans to audition the choir and her suggestion that Peggy and several of her more august cronies, including Lindy Cardew, the wife of Rutminster’s planning officer, who all screeched like hungry seagulls, should stand down.

Nor had Peggy been charmed by the scrumpled-up photograph of Charlene, 44-22-35, playing the ‘Flowers of the Field’ on a slit-kilted Scotsman without the aid of bagpipes, which had landed in her lap in the middle of Mother Goose two nights ago.

She now ambushed Abby on her way to the bar.

‘Why d’you persist in rejecting my ge-owns. As musical director you should be projecting an image of femininity, graciousness and dignity.’

Abby was about to snap back that weighed down with Peggy Parker’s rhinestones, she’d hardly be able to lift her stick, but opting for tact, mumbled that she didn’t feel confident enough as a conductor to draw attention to herself so dramatically.

Mrs Parker swelled like a bullfrog.

‘You clearly feel confident enough to dispense with most of the choir.’

‘Must get a drink and circulate,’ Abby cut across her in mid-flow. ‘George only invited me this evening to brown-nose sponsors.’

And she was gone leaving Peggy Parker, furiously mouthing and appropriately pegged to the damp grass by four-inch scarlet heels.

The party was spilling out of the tent. Emerging into a starry evening lit by chestnut candles, Abby was waylaid.

‘Hi Abby, I’m Jison.’

Jison turned out to be a dodgy local car-dealer. After three-quarters of a bottle of Sancerre and a long look at Abby’s legs, he agreed to put ten thousand pounds into sponsoring Messiah, which the orchestra was performing in Cotchester Cathedral at the end of November, and which would later be transmitted on Christmas Eve.

‘Grite to drive one of the Ferraris up the aisle,’ Jason said excitedly.

‘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.