The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous

orchestra, narrowly missing a lady clarinetist. ‘Now steek to eet, and eef you ’aven’t learn it properly by tomorrow, I won’t go on on Sunday.’ And he stalked out, leaving Hermione, who was expecting lunch at San Lorenzo, mouthing in outrage.

‘What can we do?’ asked the manager of the Mozart Hall in despair. ‘You can’t sack all those musicians.’

Bob shrugged. ‘Rannaldini’s just jackbooting around because he’s been away and he can’t bear his orchestra playing well for someone else. Also,’ Bob dropped his voice, ‘Cecilia — wife number two — is in London. She’s come over for Lucia at Covent Garden, so he wanted an excuse to storm out early and take her to lunch and double bed at The Savoy. She lives in New York, but he always sleeps with her when she comes over, or if he’s in New York.’

‘What’s she like?’ asked the leader of the orchestra, forgetting his hangover.

‘Little black mamba in little black numbers. Eats men for breakfast, or would if she wasn’t always on a diet.’ Bob shook with laughter.

‘Goodness,’ said the sacked oboe player, momentarily roused out of his despondency, ‘Does Hermione know?’

‘Christ, no! Why upset her? Cecilia’s supposed to be going down to Bagley Hall this evening to some end-of- term concert. Boris Levitsky’s the music master so the standard may have improved a little. I suppose Rannaldini may roll up as well, and Hermione. They’ll all fly in different helicopters.’

‘That guy’s a saint,’ said the leader of the orchestra, as Bob moved off to calm Hermione down.

17

Bagley Hall was a chic progressive boarding-school set amid rolling green parkland on the edge of the Rutminster-Gloucestershire border. The parents, who tended to be arty or from the media, had chosen the school mostly because they heard the music was wonderful, and they believed that their somewhat problematical darlings wouldn’t come to much harm amid such remote rural surroundings. The former assumption was certainly true since Boris Levitsky had become music master. Last seen threatening to beat up Lysander for comforting his wife Rachel after they met in a London chemist’s, Boris had shortly afterwards left the London Met, where he had worked as an assistant conductor, in an attempt to save his marriage.

Boris had loathed being an assistant conductor, which meant he was a glorified understudy, who took rehearsals, memorized scores and kept a tailcoat hanging in a cupboard backstage, ready to come on at a moment’s notice — but alas the moment never came.

This, with the added frustration of never getting any of his compositions published or performed, had driven Boris into the ego boost of an affaire with Chloe the mezzo.

Envious of Boris’s genius both as composer and conductor and not wanting competition at the London Met, Rannaldini had actively helped him to get the job at Bagley Hall, not least because he felt his daughter Natasha, and less so his son Wolfgang, who was in his last year and musically disinclined, could do with some decent teaching.

Boris found teaching much worse than being an assistant conductor. It was so draining that he had no effort left for composition. He was thirty-one and he was aware of time running out, particularly now that Europe, after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, was flooded with Russian musicians. His novelty value was ebbing away. He would never achieve recognition.

Now the concert hall was filling up. Through the thick green velvet curtains, Boris could see Kitty Rannaldini, so sweet and downtrodden being ignored by her stepdaughter, Natasha. A voluptuous sixteen year old, almost incestuously in love with her father, Natasha had inherited both Cecilia’s and Rannaldini’s histrionic temperaments but not alas their talent. Her voice was powerful, but harsh. Assuming it must be good, however, she never listened to criticism.

Boris’s best pupil was Marcus Campbell-Black, who at seventeen played the piano with such sensitivity and imagination that there was little left to teach him. Through the curtain, Boris could see Marcus’s father, the legendarily handsome Rupert. Only dragged here on sufferance by his wife Taggie, Rupert was determined to leave early. He didn’t want to be buttonholed by his ex-wife Helen, who was sitting in the row behind.

Rupert had not forgiven Helen for not sending Marcus to his old school, Harrow. Convinced that there was no money in playing the piano as a career, it had taken Rupert a long time to get over the shock, four years ago, when Marcus had timidly announced that he wanted to become a concert pianist.

Today Rupert was worrying about the recession. At Venturer, the local ITV company of which he was a director, advertising had slumped. The bloodstock market had also taken a dive. Finally he had been up all night with a sick filly, who was a distinct possibility for the Guineas and The Oaks and he wanted to get back to her.

He was, therefore, the only adult not thrown into turmoil because Rannaldini had just telephoned Natasha to say he would be attending the concert after all. Parents and teachers were all in a tizz in case one of their darlings was discovered. The pupils, on the other hand, were more excited by the presence of Georgie Maguire and Guy Seymour who were becoming cult figures since the launching of Rock Star. Natasha Rannaldini, who saw herself as the victim of a broken home, thought ‘Rock Star’ was the most wonderful song, and that the reason she wasn’t as popular at Bagley Hall as Flora Seymour was because she didn’t have parents as happy as Guy and Georgie. Amazed to see them arriving with her dreary stepmother, whom she usually passed off as the younger children’s au pair, Natasha was forced to speak to Kitty in order to meet them.

‘Shame your father isn’t here to hear you singing,’ said Guy.

‘But he will be.’ From under heavy eyelids, Natasha shot a spiteful glance at Kitty. ‘He just rang to say he’s on his way.’

For a second, Guy thought Kitty would black out with horror as she remembered she hadn’t turned on the central heating in the tower, or put clean sheets on Rannaldini’s bed there or in her bedroom, in case he deigned to sleep with her this evening. There was nothing special for supper, and Rannaldini’s guard-dogs were still down in the village with their handler. He liked a pack welcome.

‘I must go,’ she mumbled white-lipped, ‘I’ll get a taxi.’

‘You will not.’ Firmly Guy took her arm. ‘It’s Rannaldini’s fault for arriving a day early. He can join us at The Heavenly Host.’

Georgie, still smarting because Rannaldini had dismissed ‘Rock Star’ as derivative, was even more livid that Guy hadn’t let her wash her hair. She’d had to make up in the car and now, in the crowded, overheated hall, was terrified that her pale skin would grow red and blotchy. She was also piqued that while everyone else’s children were crowding around asking for autographs, Flora, whom she hadn’t seen since before the American tour, hadn’t showed up.

Although she had only been at the school one term, Flora had already established herself as the Bagley Hall wild child, determined to buck the system. Wolfie Rannaldini had a massive crush on her, so did Marcus Campbell- Black, but he was too shy to do anything about it. Like most of the girls in the school, Flora had a massive crush on Boris Levitsky, who had sallow skin, wonderful slitty dark grey eyes and high cheek-bones. With his long blue jacket and shaggy black hair in a pony-tail, he would be perfectly cast as Mr Christian in Mutiny on the Bounty.

The concert had been due to start at five o’clock. It was now five-thirty, and there was still no sign of Rannaldini. The orchestra had tuned up and up. Parents were looking at their watches. Many of them had long drives home and would be forced to stumble out in the middle, ruining the concert, which was probably Rannaldini’s intention, thought Boris darkly. Determined to impress his old mentor, he was getting increasingly strung up. He was very tired, because sustained by vodka he was playing the fiddle in a Soho night-club to make ends meet.

Out in the hall, distraction was provided by the arrival of the great diva, Hermione Harefield, who’d just rolled up with Bob and plonked herself down between Kitty and Guy in the seat that was being kept for Rannaldini. It was twenty-five to six. Miss Bottomley, the headmistress, vast and Sapphic, had just risen furiously to announce that the concert could be delayed no longer, when Rannaldini’s helicopter landed on the lawn outside, squashing a lot of