She paused so long on the high note that Rannaldini felt the hair rising on the back of his neck, then she smiled and went on:
‘Oh no Juan, no Juan, no Juan no.’
Rannaldini’s straight black eyebrows underlined a forehead almost without lines. Not a man who worries or who suffers from guilt, thought Flora. His lips were absolutely on a level with hers. She was sure he was going to kiss her and shut her eyes. Then he laughed and moved away.
‘Come and see my tower.’
Flora could hear the distant hum of a tractor trying to get the hay cut before the storm. The sun had set, but the heat was still murderous. As they moved through the wood Rannaldini held back nettles and brambles and, having climbed a stile overgrown with elder, turned to help her. The starry elderflowers that fell into her hair were as creamy as her skin. Overcome with lust, Rannaldini let his hand stray over her right breast testing its soft springiness.
Leaping away, livid with her heart for pounding like the hoof-beats of Rannaldini’s horses, Flora hurled a clump of goosegrass at him to lower the tension.
‘Clinging but instantly detachable, like the perfect woman,’ said Rannaldini, peeling it off his silk shirt and throwing it back at Flora who ducked and ran down the path. As she reached the clearing a crack of lightning lit up Rannaldini’s tower, then thunder boomed like a twelve pounder. The Rottweilers collided against their master’s legs in terror. Rannaldini just had time to kick them into their kennel and bustle Flora into the tower when the heavens opened.
The ground floor, where Rannaldini worked, was completely walled by records, tapes and editing equipment.
‘It’s soundproof, so however much you scream—’
‘It won’t sound as awful as Hermione,’ mocked Flora.
As the soundtrack of Rannaldini’s film of
Flora looked up at the bright scarlet walls and ceiling. ‘Like being wrapped in the flames of Don Giovanni’s hell,’ she said.
On a side table beside a shoal of silver photographs of Rannaldini being congratulated by the famous, including Gorbachov and Princess Diana, stood a big yellow bowl overflowing with pink-and-green grapes, peaches, mangoes, persimmons and fruit so exotic Flora had never seen it before. A yellow Aubusson carpet swimming with roses and oak leaves caressed her bare feet. The only pictures were an Eric Gill panel of an ambiguous-looking madonna offering a perfect breast to a rather too-knowing and adult baby and a Picasso girl whose eye squinted over Rannaldini’s ivory-silk shoulder as he opened another bottle of Krug.
The bathroom, also in pale grey and scarlet with a mirrored ceiling and walls, was dominated by a vast Jacuzzi.
‘Mother Courage’s famous Ju-Jitzu bath,’ giggled Flora. ‘I can’t tell you how much I admire her, she makes my father’s shirts look as though Dinsdale’s slept in them and she told Mum that Mrs ‘Arefield ’ad just had her back passage painted bottle green. You should know presumably.’
Even though a faint smile flickered at the corner of Rannaldini’s mouth Flora decided not to tell him about Rattledicky.
‘I could listen to her for hours.’
‘Unlike Boris Levitsky’s compositions,’ said Rannaldini handing her a glass. ‘To us.’
‘To my guardian devil.’ Trying to suppress her surging excitement Flora sauntered next door into a bedroom which was all bed, with a mural above it of an endlessly applauding opera audience, beautiful bare-shouldered women in wonderful jewels, handsome men in dinner-jackets, all cheering and clapping so realistically you could smell the carnations in their buttonholes and hear the bravoes ringing out.
‘Christ, you’re a narcissist,’ snapped Flora. ‘Do you delay your entrance even here? How’d you take out your teeth without a bedside table?’
She jumped as a huge clap of thunder burst overhead. Her heart was beating almost as loudly. Any moment Rannaldini would pounce.
‘
‘Exquisite,’ sighed Rannaldini and, going downstairs, he turned on Wimbledon to watch a replay of an excruciatingly boring women’s singles match.
Feeling absurdly let down Flora slumped on one of the silk footstools, sulkily consuming an entire bunch of green grapes, pips and all, by which time Leporello was listing Don Giovanni’s conquests to a distraught Donna Elvira.
Dark, blond, fat, thin, tall, tiny, all were fair game to the Don.
‘
Realizing that the rain was no longer machine-gunning the roof and windows Flora knocked back her Krug.
‘Well, I can’t stay here all night gazing up Miss Sabatini’s knickers.’
‘I’ll walk you home. Are you tired?’ Rannaldini switched off the television and the soundtrack.
‘No, bored.’
‘Ees the same thing.’
As they were leaving he flicked on his answering machine. Suddenly the tower was filled with desperate weeping.
‘Rannaldini, it’s Beatrice, I must see you, I love you so much.’
With an irritable shrug Rannaldini turned off the machine. ‘Some stupeed flautist want her job back.’
‘And you, too, by the sound of it,’ reproved Flora. ‘How can you hang a cross round your neck and behave so horribly?’
‘Theenk how much worse I would behave if I didn’t wear it. Women make such a fuss. As a sex, you will soon be expendable. The Japanese invent a robot that makes exquisite love. Afterwards you sweetch it off.’
‘It must be called Hermione.’
Rannaldini laughed.
‘You should scowl more often,’ mocked Flora, going towards the door, ‘you’re too attractive when you smile.’
Rannaldini punched her gently in the belly.
‘You wanna go ’ome?’
‘While I still can.’
‘Peety, you have no idea of the unimaginable pleasure you will miss. See these leetle footstools. They are very old. Italian voluptuaries used to kneel their mistresses up on them so they could spend hours licking their bottoms.’
‘How disgusting.’ Flora was rigid with shock.
She’s a child, thought Rannaldini.
‘Come, leetle wild thing.’ Putting a warm hand on her neck, he drew her towards him and kissed her gently on each corner of her mouth, then slowly worked inwards, his mouth cool and tasting faintly of Krug.
Supported by the door, Flora just remained standing.
‘Now I can tell them at Bagley Hall I’ve snogged Rannaldini.’
26
