she burst into tears.
The pharmacist forced to serve her, because his assistant was late back from lunch, was totally thrown. His scrubbed face turned dark crimson, as his little eyes darted round looking for a way of escape. Lysander showed no such reticence. Leaping forwards, knocking over a rack of tweezers, he put an arm round the girl’s shuddering shoulders. Gently steering her towards the chair kept for pensioners awaiting prescriptions, he broke into a nearby box of pale blue Kleenex and started to blot up the tears. Unlike Martha, there was no mascara to run.
‘You poor thing, what a bastard. He’ll come back.’
‘Never, never,’ gulped the girl.
‘Go and make a cup of tea, Diane,’ snapped the chemist to his assistant who, buckling beneath carrier bags, had tried to sidle in undetected and was now gazing at Lysander in wonder.
Gradually between sobs and sniffs, Lysander elicited the information that the distressed beauty’s name was Rachel and that her husband Boris was a Russian dissident and an assistant conductor of the London Metropolitan Orchestra.
‘But he never gets to conduct in public because that bastard Rannaldini — he’s the London Met’s musical director — never gives him the chance. Boris’s compositions are wonderful, too, but no-one will programme them because they’re rather difficult.’
‘Dropped saucepan sort of stuff?’ asked Lysander helpfully.
‘If you mean atonal,’ said the girl bridling slightly, ‘yes, it is. Rannaldini could help; but he’s jealous of Boris’s genius. He actually told Boris, Boris’s compositions emptied concert halls. Thank you,’ she added as Diane, the assistant, now in a white coat, returned newly made-up and reeking of scent, and handed her a cup of pallid tea.
‘You’re all being so kind. Boris is kind really,’ she went on despairingly, ‘but being Russian he gets frustrated trying to communicate and we’ve got young children and they get on his nerves in a small flat.’
‘That’s no reason to walk out,’ said Lysander indignantly. ‘Have a slug of that tea, although you really need something stronger.’
Lifting the cup, Rachel’s shaking hand spilled so much, she put it down again.
‘Boris is in love with a mezzo called Chloe,’ she announced miserably. ‘The London Met’s recording
‘What a shit.’ Lysander tugged out another wadge of blue Kleenex.
‘I was so desperate,’ continued Rachel with a sob, ‘I went to see Rannaldini this morning, just barged past his secretary. Rannaldini had the temerity to offer me a gin and tonic, saying he couldn’t understand why I was making a fuss. He feels the “affaire”,’ Rachel choked on the word, ‘has added a new depth to Boris’s compositions, and Chloe has never sung so well. He’s a fiend, Rannaldini, he corrupts everyone.’ She broke into noisier sobs.
Having exhausted one box of Kleenex, Lysander broke into another. Due to the slow service of Diane, who was not the only one transfixed with interest by this beautiful couple, a long queue had formed — many of whom were beginning to chunter. The pharmacist also noticed that several regulars, who were too embarrassed to ask so publicly for cures for piles or chronic constipation, had sidled out again. He cleared his throat, then when Lysander took no notice, told him and Rachel they couldn’t stay indefinitely.
‘No, of course not.’ Rachel rubbed her forehead in bewilderment. ‘My God, I should have picked up the children.’
‘Where are they?’ asked Lysander, who’d been squatting down beside her, rising stiffly to his feet.
‘With a girlfriend.’
‘Well, we’ll find a pub and ring her. Then I’ll run you over there.’
Ferdie’s afternoon had been no more rewarding than his morning. A mega-rich German, for whom he’d been searching for months, had suddenly been found a two million pound property by a rival agent and an appalling survey had scuppered a deal that looked certain. Returning home that evening frozen and exhausted, Ferdie caught the telephone on its last ring.
It was Roger Westwood in a rage. He’d lunched with the Chief Executive of the PR firm and asked him back to the office to meet Lysander.
‘And the little fucker never showed. Didn’t even bother to call. Christ — what kind of idiot did that make me look?’
Ferdie had to crawl. ‘He left here at half-past one, Roger. I don’t see how he could have lost the address.’
‘Well, he’s lost the fucking job. After all the business I’ve put your way, Ferdie, you could have come up with someone better.’
‘Look, I’m really sorry.’
But Roger had hung up.
I am too young to have a coronary, thought Ferdie. How the hell could Lysander do this to me?
Fumbling to turn on the lamp by the fire, he once more surveyed the chaos. Jack, fed up with being alone, had chewed several tapes. Ferdie put the rest back in their box.
In the kitchen, nothing had been returned to the fridge. The milk had gone off, the pink grapefruit juice was tepid. Lysander had polished off his whisky last night. In a fury Ferdie ate quarter of a pound of cheese and the last of the Scotch eggs. His brooding was interrupted by Jack leaping on to the sofa, bristling with rage and wagging his stumpy tail as he peered out of the window.
Wearily joining him, Ferdie swore in disbelief. There, staggering down the street, was Lysander, arm in arm with a blind man, both of them being led by a resigned-looking guide-dog. Ferdie threw up the window.
‘We are two little lambs that have gone astray, Baa, Baa, Baa,’ sang the blind man and Lysander tunelessly as they tottered across the road.
Windows were going up all along the street. The gays opposite were nearly falling off their balcony. Passers- by stopped and stared as Lysander paused, swaying, outside the front door. Breaking a bar of chocolate into pieces he gave it to the drooling guide-dog, then handed Ferdie’s last fiver to the blind man. He took so long getting his key into the latch that Ferdie let him in. Lysander’s hair was flopping all over his face. The faded orange tan had a blue tinge.
‘Christ, it’s cold!’ Bending down to gather up an ecstatically yapping Jack, Lysander had great difficulty getting up again.
‘Where the fuck have you been?’ yelled Ferdie.
‘In The Goat and Boots,’ said Lysander with a hiccup.
‘Why didn’t you go to that interview?’
‘Ohmigod!’ Lysander’s palm smote his wide-open mouth. ‘I completely forgot. I’m
‘Oh no,’ moaned Ferdie.
‘Well, I had to look after her.’ Gently putting Jack down Lysander wandered into the kitchen fretfully upending the empty whisky bottle. ‘Honestly, she was so sad and so beautiful, and she had adorable children — God, I love kids — and her husband’s a Russian diffident. We went back to the flat. We got a bottle on the way and she was just telling me all about this bastard Rannaldini, who’s led her husband astray. She said he was legendary.’
‘Legendarily difficult,’ snapped Ferdie.
With mounting anger he watched Lysander get a tin of Pedigree Chum out of the fridge, fork it into a blue bowl of Bristol glass which normally lived in the sitting room, and scatter dog biscuits all over the floor.
‘Who is he?’ asked Lysander.
‘Rannaldini. About the greatest conductor in the world. Jesus, you’re a philistine.’
‘Well, he’s Boris’s boss. Rachel played some of Boris’s music. It sounded quite awful — like a lot of buffaloes in a labour ward. But it reminded her of him so she started crying, and I was comforting her when Boris walked in. He’d decided not to leave her. He wasn’t at all diffident when he saw me, and he’s a big bugger so I legged it before he blacked my eye.’
‘Then you could have used the eye-gel,’ said Ferdie, sourly sweeping up dog biscuits. ‘Well, you screwed up that bloodstock account job.’
