Rannaldini himself did not play cricket. An awkward ball on the hand could put him out of conducting for weeks, but he liked occasionally to distribute largesse to the village and flew in just before the match on Sunday to find that Kitty had been slaving all night preparing a magnificent tea and Bob Harefield had conjured up a formidable side consisting mostly of London Met musicians bussed down from London. These included a cellist who was a demon bowler and the horn player Rannaldini had sacked last March, who’d been hastily reinstated because he was a brilliant bat. Although the side would miss Wolfgang and his centuries, lustre had been added by Bob himself, who was a characteristically reliable wicket-keeper, Larry, who hadn’t been tested but who boasted a trial for Surrey, and Guy, who was by all accounts a class player. Other London Met musicians would spend the afternoon playing in the blue-and-white bandstand right of the pavilion.
Having wandered around finding fault with everything and ensuring none of his orchestra had more than one glass of wine at lunch, Rannaldini stalked upstairs to change.
The villagers were already streaming in by car or on foot. They liked to gawp at Valhalla, jump the Devil’s Lair, which had dropped two feet since Flora’s leap, get lost in the maze and marvel at Rannaldini’s famous all- delphinium bed whose blue spires seemed to touch the sky. Taking up position round the field, perched on car bonnets before they grew too hot, the men opened beer cans and the prettier girls stripped down to their bikinis in the hope that Rannaldini might claim droit de seigneur.
Of all the players Guy was the most anxious to make his mark. Determined to upstage Lysander, he also wanted to get on to the village cricket-club committee which would give him an excuse both to do good and to get out and ring Julia. He’d already joined the local Labour Party, the Parish Council and the Best-Kept Village committee.
His plans to ring Julia on the way to the match, however, were scuppered by Flora, who was desperate to see Rannaldini after a twenty-four hour absence, cadging a lift.
‘I’ll drive,’ she announced with all the assurance of one who had been manoeuvring Rannaldini’s Mercedes round Rome.
‘You will not!’ Guy snatched off the L-plates. ‘I’m not risking our only car. Where’s Mummy?’
‘Working. She’s coming later.’
Suddenly Guy had a feeling Georgie might be lingering to hear from Lysander. His worst fears were confirmed as he parked on the edge of the pitch and Natasha immediately joined them. Very tanned and wearing a sloppy black T-shirt and white shorts, which showed off her long slender legs, she looked unusually pretty and Guy told her so.
‘Why, thank you, Mr Seymour. How was Cornwall?’ she added to Flora.
‘Brilliant. Christ, look at that.’
Following Flora’s gaze, Natasha saw Lysander lounging against his blue Ferrari with a telephone glued to his ear and a Jack Russell and a shaggy reddy-brown puppy to each ankle. He was wearing his: SEX IS EVIL, EVIL IS SIN T-shirt.
‘We’re about to field,’ he was saying, ‘or I’d come over. Miss you too. You coming over? Or shall I nip over when he’s in the field? Right. See you later.’
He’s ringing Georgie, thought Guy furiously.
‘Blimey, who’s that?’ said Natasha in awe, as Lysander stripped off his T-shirt to show a dark bronzed back, still a little ribby from seasickness, before he plunged into his cricket shirt.
Next minute Ferdie had roared up in Lysander’s red Ferrari looking Mafiaesque in a white panama and dark glasses to oversee operations.
‘Afternoon, Lysander,’ called Guy. ‘Remember I told you about Flora? Well, here she is with her friend Natasha.’
‘Hi!’ Lysander turned round from greeting Ferdie and over the din of Jack and Maggie’s excited yapping introduced his mate.
‘Lysander’s taken Magpie Cottage just across the valley for the polo season,’ Guy told the gaping Flora and Natasha, ‘so I hope you young people get together.’
And bloody well stop pestering my wife, was the unmistakable implication as Guy strode off to the pavilion to find out the batting order.
Natasha had had a miserable few weeks. Aware of Rannaldini’s increasing neglect, she had expected to go abroad backpacking with Flora during the holidays when Flora had suddenly dropped out. Natasha’s mother was totally wrapped up in her new lover and her younger children. Bewildered, starved of affection, she gazed into Lysander’s smiling untroubled face and thought he was the best-and kindest-looking boy she had ever seen. For the first time in weeks she removed her sloppy black T-shirt to reveal an orange camisole top which left her splendid suntanned breasts to their own devices.
‘Can I look after this adorable puppy?’ she said, scooping up a startled Maggie.
‘That’s really kind, as long as you keep her in the shade,’ said Lysander. ‘Keep an eye on Jack,’ he added to Ferdie. ‘He’s rabbit-mad and they’re moving so slowly — must be myxomatosis — he keeps catching the poor little things.’
‘Some things like to be caught.’ Natasha threw Lysander a trapping look, then, smiling at Ferdie, who was getting a picnic basket out of the Ferrari, ‘Do come and watch with us.’
She had already noticed that Ferdie was red faced and sweaty beneath his dark glasses and panama and that, beneath his loose Hawaiian shirt, spare tyres billowed over his straining jeans, but she had enough of her father’s manipulative nature to realize that a way to Lysander would be through his friend.
‘Five minutes, Lysander,’ shouted Paradise’s captain, Michael Prescott. Landlord of The Pearly Gates and predictably nicknamed ‘Archangel Mike’, he had become great buddies with Lysander since he moved into Paradise.
‘How did you and Lysander meet?’ Natasha asked Ferdie.
‘At school.’ Kneeling down to lace up Lysander’s other cricket boot, Ferdie murmured, ‘How’s it going?’
‘OK. Guy’s uptight, but Georgie keeps blowing it by showing how hurt she is.’
‘Here comes another of your enemies,’ said Ferdie as a large purple and yellow striped helicopter caused a ripple of interest as it landed by the pitch and out jumped Larry Lockton, jewellery flashing in the increasingly hot sun.
‘If you come at me hostile I’ll fight you all the way,’ he was yelling into his mobile.
‘Get padded up, Larry,’ called Bob, who was opening the batting with the reinstated horn player. ‘I’ve put you at number four.’
On his way to the pavilion, Larry bumped into Rannaldini who’d just emerged from the house.
‘Who’s that boy by the blue Ferrari?’ asked Rannaldini, who knew perfectly well — his spies were everywhere — but who wanted to goad Larry.
Seeing Lysander for the first time, Larry snarled with rage.
‘Got some poncy name like Alexander Harley. For some reason Marigold’s let Magpie Cottage to him.’
In the old days Larry would never have allowed such a thing, but since his affair with Nikki he had less clout.
‘Extremely glamorous,’ remarked Rannaldini. No wonder Larry had been rattled.
Nodding to acquaintances, but not stopping, Rannaldini wandered over to the group round the Ferraris, which now included a slavering Ideal Homo wearing pale blue shorts and a little white sunhat.
‘Papa,’ Natasha hugged him joyfully, ‘you must meet Lysander.’
While Flora had slept off their sexual excesses in Rome, Rannaldini had studied scores, dictated letters and even held auditions on the balcony of his Roman villa. A tan as dark as treacle toffee was now enhanced by a white suit of such impeccable cut and panache that it instantly set him apart from the crowd both as host and warlord of the manor. Lysander gave a sigh of pure wonder. Prepared to detest Rannaldini, he hadn’t counted on such charisma or blazing vitality. He’d never met anyone as smooth or as sexy.
‘That is the sharpest suit,’ he stammered, ‘where did you get it?’
‘Some back street in Singapore,’ said Rannaldini with a smile which softened the glittering, deadly nightshade eyes.
God, the boy was heartbreaking close up. With a competitive surge of excitement, Rannaldini wondered if
