Appassionata

they swung into Bolero.

Blue didn’t want to dance, so Dixie got up with Candy and Clare, Viking and Flora followed them.

Viking was a wonderful dancer, he had the endless legs, and narrow rubber hips that slide into any rhythm.

‘Dum, de-de, dum, de-de, de-de, de-de, dum de-de-dum,’ sang Flora, writhing like a charmed snake in front of him, her hips occasionally grazing his body, her black skirt and red hair flying.

‘Marvellous beat to fock to,’ Viking drew her against him, rotating his pelvis against hers.

‘OK, Marcus?’ gasped Flora as she emerged from his embrace two minutes later with buckling knees.

What would she have done if I’d said I wasn’t, wondered Marcus, as he idly picked out the first subject of Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto — moody, mysterious, impossibly difficult music. He wished he could go home and look at the score, which he had only two months to learn. It would be like taming a dragon.

He’d prayed for a break like this for so long, but looking across at Viking and Flora, he felt hollow with loneliness and would have given every note of the concerto to be able to wipe Abby out with the same white-hot passion. Marcus sighed. Viking had a terrible reputation. He did hope Flora wouldn’t be hurt again, and Abby was going to be insane with jealousy when she found out. What an awful lot of pieces to pick up.

The band and the lasagne arrived at the same time. Neither Viking nor Flora wanted theirs, so Nugent ate both.

‘It’s such years since anyone put me off my food,’ said Flora happily.

Turning towards her on the bench-seat, blocking out the others’ view with his broad back, Viking removed her mantilla from her left shoulder, examining a row of long scratches.

‘Jack Rodway do that?’

‘No Scriabin — he thinks he’s a witch’s cat, and takes flying leaps onto my bare shoulders.’

‘Locky Scriabin,’ Viking kissed the longest scratch. ‘Why’d d’you go to bed with Jack?’

‘I needed a practice fence.’

‘I was so opset.’

‘You’re so glamorous,’ Flora ran a finger along his jutting lower lip. ‘One can’t imagine you upset about anything except playing badly or not uniting Ireland.’

‘I’ve dreamt for a long time of being united with Flora.’ As insistent as the Bolero beat, his hand was stroking the inside of her arm, her jawline, her earlobes.

Then she told him about Carmine trying to rape her.

‘Jack was the escape route, he had a green Exit sign on his forehead, and a push bar at his waist.’

Viking laughed. Only by his hand tightening on her shoulder did he show his fury.

‘The basstard,’ he said slowly, ‘and he keeps his wife in a veal crate. Cathie didn’t have flu, he broke her jaw.’

‘Omigod, is that why Blue’s so down? They ought to elope, she’s so good, she could easily support herself.’

‘Carmine’s ripped away every thread of her self-esteem.’

The waiters were back with menus offering puddings.

Viking shook his head. ‘I’m having a pause.’

‘You’re going through the male menu-pause,’ said Flora, falling about at her own joke.

‘I’m sorry,’ Viking pulled her to her feet, ‘I have to fock you.’

Outside it had snowed and frozen again.

‘D’you think I’m too dronk to drive?’

‘Frankly yes,’ said Flora swinging round a lamp-post. ‘If you even looked at a Breathalyser it would play “The Drinking Song.”’

‘Why don’t we try one of these bikes?’

Hearing a loud bang outside, the others, who’d started trashing the place, rushed out swinging lavatory chains, to find Nugent barking, Flora giggling in the snow, Viking sitting beside her rubbing her laddered knees and an ancient blue bike on its side with its wheels going round and round.

After that everyone had a go on it, drink insulating them against the cold, their shouts of laughter sending windows shooting up all round the Close. Any grizzled head foolish enough to emerge was pelted with snowballs. Cherub was so drunk he kept climbing into the engine of Dixie’s car. Clare kept patting a black litter-bin, mistaking it for Mr Nugent. As Flora had another go, the seat shot upwards, nearly depositing her on the ground.

‘It’s a Fanny cycle,’ she shrieked, narrowly avoiding a pillar-box. ‘Oh Gilbert, Gilbert, oh fa la, la, la.’

‘Stop that noise,’ said a ringing voice from above.

‘Oh fuck off,’ said Randy. ‘It’s my turn now, Flora.’

Vaguely Marcus remembered he had been invited to a wassail party in the Close.

Clambering on board, Randy set off guiding the bike with one hand, swinging a Close Encounter lavatory chain with the other. Shooting across the grass in the centre of the square, straight through a bed of sleeping wallflowers, he hit the fountain where Charles I had refreshed himself during the Civil War with an almighty bang.

The bicycle was a crumpled heap, the fountain in intensive care, the imprint of Randy’s huge body lay etched in the snow, but remounting, the intrepid trumpeter shot off down the path, falling off again, so the bike carried on up a ramp, and disappeared through the door of some ecclesiastical building. This was followed by another loud bang to the accompaniment of police sirens.

‘Quick,’ Viking seized Flora’s hand. ‘They segregate the sexes in police cells.’

Very slowly Viking drove back down the middle of the road. Snow on top of hoar frost had fluffed up the trees on either side like cherry orchards in bloom. Huge flakes drifted down soft as butterflies.

‘Your place or mine?’ asked Viking.

‘Oh yours,’ said Flora, remembering the compost heap of her bedroom and that Abby would be home.

Viking kissed one of her hands.

‘So young and soft,’ he said mockingly.

‘Hands that don’t do dishes, I’m afraid. I’m an awful slut.’

‘But the nails are bitten — I noticed that at your audition. You smiled, pretty as a daffodil. You played In the South to tear the heartstrings. But I knew you were sad.’

‘I’m OK,’ squeaked Flora, jumping as the top of the car scraped against some bowed-down branches.

‘Who hurt you?’

‘Oh Christ, a guy called Rannaldini. I was terribly young — I can’t talk about it.’

‘I’ll kill anyone who hurts you.’ Somehow Viking manoeuvred the car into the lane down to the lake, skidding most of the way.

‘I’ll exorcize Carmine, I’ll exorcize Rannaldini,’ he added dismissively.

‘Better buy me an exorcize bicycle,’ said Flora.

Between towering beeches, like ice cliffs, the lake glittered in the moonlight, arctic white along the frozen edges, but with a dark badger stripe of flowing water down the centre.

‘I’ve always wondered what this house looks like inside,’ said Flora, getting out of the car.

The ground floor of The Bordello trebled up as a kitchen, dining-room and drawing-room. Shabby, different coloured armchairs and a dark blue sofa were grouped around an open fireplace with a huge television set on the right. Chucked into a corner were golf clubs, tennis rackets, cricket bats, an old saddle, football and cricket boots. A not-often-scrubbed table by the oven was weighed down with old newspapers, Racing Posts, Sporting Lifes, Clare’s Tatlers, scores, books, shoulder pads, unopened bills.

Flora’s eyes, however, were drawn up to an old-fashioned clothes-horse, from which hung white evening shirts and a rainbow riot of clothes, no doubt belonging to the women in Viking’s life.

‘Why are you so bloody promiscuous?’ She was appalled to hear the petulance in her voice.

Viking, who was getting a key out of a blue teapot, smiled sweetly.

‘Like Marlon Brando, I have to have at least three women a day to prove I’m not gay. I’ve only had two this evening, come here.’

But, overwhelmed with shyness and longing, Flora had fled upstairs to the bathroom to find more dripping tights and exotic underwear. She had seen those French knickers on Candy, and the camisole top trimmed with blue