Knickers was in a further twist. Retrieving his white dinner-jacket from Francis to wear at the party, he found it covered in black boot polish. Francis would lose his job at this rate.

Benny was even more upset, having decided to plump for second best, he couldn’t find Nellie the Nympho anywhere.

‘Yodellayayo,’ came an ecstatic cry from the shrubbery.

‘Someone’s dropped a pair of lederhosen,’ sniffed Fat Isobel, who was crying because she wouldn’t see Viking for a month.

‘I’m going to miss you, Lady C,’ Dixie was telling Clare in that ghastly Glaswegian accent which had become music to her ears. ‘The moors will be purple with heather.’

‘Daddy’s going up to Scotland for the 12th,’ said Clare, ‘I could go with him, then we could meet.’

‘We certainly could,’ said Dixie looking much happier. ‘Piss off you disgusting Frog,’ he added as Benny slid a too high hand round Clare’s waist.

Peter Plumpton, the First Flute, being small always got drunk very quickly.

‘Putti, putti, putti,’ he cried, as he advanced with an outstretched hand on a group of reconstituted-stone cherubs.

Miss Parrott was sharing a log, a bottle of white and a plate of Dover sole and lobster poached in Sauterne with Dimitri.

‘That opening to William Tell was the loveliest thing Ay’ve ever heard,’ she was telling him.

‘Your solo in Wrist’s Piano Concerto was perfect,’ confided Noriko.

‘Three agents have tried to sign me up, I’m going to be the next Evelyn Glennie,’ giggled Cherub, squeezing her little hand.

Meanwhile favoured customers, who hadn’t heard Abby yelling at Lindy Cardew, were congratulating Peggy Parker, who hadn’t either, on the graciousness of the occasion.

‘Abigail will be de-own shortly,’ promised Mrs Parker regally.

Mrs Parker’s bathroom had a dressing-room mirror with lights going round in a semicircle. Watching the moths helplessly smashing their wings and bodies against the burning bulbs, Abby gave a sob. It was just like her and the RSO. Out of the window she could see members of her orchestra chucking the stuff down their throats no doubt laughing themselves sick to see her so humiliated.

She jumped at a banging on the door.

‘We’re waiting,’ called Crystelle.

‘Just a sec,’ shouted Abby, turning on the shower.

At home having checked her sleeping children and paid the babysitter out of her pathetic housekeeping allowance, Cathie Jones climbed wearily upstairs. She was too tired to eat.

Gazing out of her bedroom at the stars she started to cry, then not wanting to wake the children, fished in her skirt pocket for a tissue and found a piece of paper on which someone had scrawled the words: ‘Darling Cathie, Thou art fairer than the evening air, clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.’

Five minutes later, Abby stalked out into the garden and as usual everyone fell silent. She had changed back into her red vest and bicycle shorts. Her hair was slicked back and still dripping, her make-up totally washed off. There was a long, long pause.

‘What the fuck,’ snarled George.

Huge, menacing, he bore down on her.

‘Get bluddy oopstairs and back into that dress.’

Abby had never seen anyone angrier, except perhaps Mrs Parker.

‘What’s happened to your beautiful ge-own,’ she screeched.

‘I left it and the shoes on your bed.’

‘And what about those rubies.’

‘They’re on your dressing-table,’ said Abby, then waving an ironic hand at the RSO who were now filling their faces with Dover sole and lobster. ‘Why should I need rubies, when my orchestra are my jewels.’

THIRTY-THREE


The month of August was traditionally a holiday for the RSO. All in all, Abby got a rotten end-of-term report. An enraged Mrs Parker was threatening to withdraw her promised one hundred thousand pounds, and in cahoots with Miles and a horrified Canon Airlie, who had both heard Abby shouting at Lindy Cardew, were agitating for her dismissal. George fired off a written warning about consistently subversive behaviour, pointing out that Abby had only seven months left on her contract. Abby promptly tore up his letter. She should have spent August relaxing and, in the light of her disastrous conducting career, seriously attempting to play the violin again. The physio and the London specialist both said there was nothing more they could do. The block was in Abby’s head. But Abby couldn’t bring herself to try, terrified her genius had deserted her, and after her Strad, any violin would be a let-down.

She had hoped to spend August in Lucerne, enjoying Gisela’s cooking and having her feathers unruffled by Rodney. He appeared to have made an excellent recovery from his heart attack and was now teaching himself the cello, playing with great vigour and a lot of wrong notes.

In Lucerne, as in England, the heatwave showed no signs of abating and had already singed the woods around the lake, whose level had dropped more than a foot. Two days after her arrival, Abby stretched out in an orange bikini, lake water drying on her darkening gold body.

Despite the heat she and Rodney had just polished off the palest green avocado mousse and an exquisite fish salad, which Gisela had made for lunch, plus a bottle of Pouilly-Fumé. Abby was now misery-eating her way through a bowl of figs, her big white teeth tearing at the scarlet flesh. From the nearby shadow of a blue striped umbrella, Rodney sat drinking Armagnac, puffing at a large cigar, and listening as he had done since she arrived. He was very distressed to see her so unhappy.

‘Which of my naughty boys is causing you the most bother?’

‘They all hate me,’ moaned Abby. ‘Dixie, Randy, that vile Carmine, Quinton, El Creepo (beneath his smarmy manner), Davie Buckle, Lionel, Viking most of all.’

‘Are you apologizing enough, darling? If you start with the wrong beat, if you show three instead of four, you must say, “It’s my fault”.’

‘That’s weakness,’ stormed Abby. ‘Basically they hate taking orders from a woman, right. And we’ve got such terrific stuff coming up. I told you about Fanny Mendelssohn and Winifred Trapp.’

‘You don’t want too much of that.’ Rodney tipped his ash on the parched yellow grass.

‘Celebrating women in the Arts?’ demanded Abby.

‘Lot better places to celebrate them.’ Then, seeing the outrage on Abby’s face, added hurriedly, ‘You know I adore your sex, but I don’t feel they’re at their best composing music.’

‘That’s because you’ve never bothered to listen to them. Christ it’s hot.’ Angrily, Abby peeled off her bikini top. ‘And I bet they’d have delivered on time, if any one had really appreciated their music, not like Boris Levitsky. We’re recording Rachel’s Requiem next season and not a squeak out of Boris, and I gotta learn the wretched thing. Wasn’t Viking a friend of Boris’s?’

Always she returns to Viking, thought Rodney, feeling his cock stir as he glanced at the beautiful breasts only slightly less golden than the rest of her body.

‘Not really a friend,’ he said ‘Viking’s spoilt — he and Boris were in spiky competition over who could pull the best girls. Lionel’s your main problem. One can’t operate if the leader’s against one — I’m afraid he’ll always be a thorn in your deliciously firm young flesh, darling.’

‘Not so young any more,’ grumbled Abby. ‘I’ll be twenty-nine in October.’

‘And I’m going to be seventy-nine in October, don’t be a silly-billy.’

Abby sat up swinging her legs sideways. ‘I wish all men were like you.’

‘I’m not that different from the rest of them.’ Stretching out a warm hand as though he was testing a peach, Rodney gently fingered her breast.

Abby gasped, amazed at the sudden quivering warmth between her legs.

‘I–I see you as the grandfather I never really had,’ she stammered.

‘Really?’ Rodney raised a mocking eyebrow, as his thumb caressed a rapidly hardening nipple.

‘Where’s Gisela?’ whispered Abby.

‘Making crab-apple jelly. Artists are oblivious when they are in the process of creation.’

Abby shut her eyes as the languid practised caress continued.

‘You’re the one turning me to jelly; d’you really want me, Rodney?’