Appassionata

the night in The Bordello. Great armfuls of female underwear had been hastily chucked in the cellar. Viking had agreed to vacate his bedroom for Randy’s mother-in-law and planned an away fixture. Flora was extremely twitchy about Abby.

On rolled Miss Priddock’s cake on its trolley. The hundred candles were lit which set off the smoke alarm so five butch firemen suddenly appeared. Everyone was convinced they were a stripagram so they stayed on for the party to Nellie’s delight.

Rodney had sent six crates of Moet over as a Christmas present so everyone had plenty to drink. Very generously under the circumstances, Peggy Parker had given each member of the orchestra a turkey. Blue didn’t get a chance to speak to Cathie because Carmine was watching her, but he did manage to slip a little sapphire ring into the pocket of her coat hanging up in the Ladies and prayed she’d find it.

By eleven o’clock Marcus, slightly drunk and happy because he’d felt he’d comforted Abby a little in the last week, had lost his nerves enough to play the piano.

Not realizing how many people had stopped to listen and started to dance, he meandered through Gershwin and Cole Porter, then launched into a Seventies hit called ‘Madly in Love’ with Abby accompanying him swooningly on the violin.

What he didn’t realize was that Abby had persuaded Charlton Handsome to slip a recording mike in front of him which also picked up the ecstatic cheering and shouts for more at the end.

‘That recording’ll be worth a fortune one day,’ murmured Julian.

‘Boy plays like an angel,’ George said proudly to Miles, ‘I’m right glad we booked him.’

Abby and Marcus left soon afterwards because she was flying back to Philadelphia first thing the following morning. As Flora and Viking tottered out arm in arm several hours later, they found Eldred on the H. P. Hall steps, weeping at the prospect of a wifeless Christmas.

‘I’m coming back to Woodbine Cottage on Boxing Day,’ Flora comforted him. ‘I’ll ring you, you must come and try our erratic cooking and Marcus, you and I can play chamber music. We could start off with the Mozart Trio.’

Flora only stopped crying over Eldred as Viking drove over Rutminster Bridge and pointed out a very drunk Davie Buckle hurling his turkey into the River Fleet, yelling: ‘Go on, you bastard, fly.’

Trying to creep in without turning on any lights, Flora and Viking knocked over an umbrella stand and fell over Abby’s cases already out on the landing. Abby pulled a pillow over her head in anguish. Would she ever sleep again?

It seemed only seconds later that she was woken up by horrifying screams. Wrapping her naked body in a towel, tiptoeing onto the landing, she could hear Viking saying, ‘It’s OK, sweetheart, I’m here, it’s OK.’

He sounded so tender and loving. Almost deranged with misery, Abby could hardly read her watch. Five- thirty. She had to leave for Heathrow in an hour, she might as well get up.

Tottering wearily downstairs, she found it was still dark. Rain was rattling against the windows, pounding away the last patches of snow on the lawn. As she filled up the kettle, she heard piteous mewing. Frightened away earlier by Nugent, but seeing a light on, Sibelius had jumped onto the ledge and was squashing his drenched fur against the window-pane.

‘Oh, poor baby.’ Abby opened the window and, whipping off her towel, began to dry him, crooning how much she was going to miss him, patting his piebald face, squeezing water out of his furry tail.

Only when he was purring and almost dry did she hear a wolf-whistle and whipped round. To her horror, lounging in the doorway, wearing only jeans and a highly amused smirk on his evil, debauched face was Viking. She had no idea how long he’d been there.

‘What in hell are you doing?’ she howled. ‘Ouch!’ she screamed as a terrified Sibelius dug his claws into her breasts.

‘I’ve just come down to make a cup of tea, Flora had a nightmare,’ said Viking.

‘Called Viking O’Neill,’ sobbed Abby.

Seizing her towel, crashing against the door to avoid touching him, she fled upstairs.

Poor Sibelius was mewing again, hoping for an early breakfast. Switching on the kettle, Viking picked him up. His face was expressionless, as burying it in the cat’s fur, he breathed in Abby’s scent.

Depressed that Abby seemed almost suicidal when he got up to wave her off, Marcus was cheered when the post brought a Christmas card from Taggie, containing three hundred pounds, smuggled out of her private account. But it didn’t make up for not hearing from Rupert, and Marcus was so cast down by an enchanting photograph in the Daily Express of Rupert, Taggie, Xav and Bianca arriving in Monhaut for a skiing Christmas, that Flora persuaded him to come home to Paradise and stay with her parents.

‘I shall be playing the referee’s whistle, so you can accompany me. We must drop off a bottle of whisky on the way for poor Eldred.’

Despite Viking ringing every day from Dublin, Flora was ashamed how thrilled she was to hear that Helen’s Christmas with Rannaldini’s ex-wives and brat-pack had been a disaster. She had never been gregarious, and Rannaldini’s endless sexual games had absolutely horrified her.

‘I could have told you Helen of Troilism wasn’t a viable proposition,’ quipped Flora.

Marcus was demented.

‘I should have gone out there to protect her.’

What Helen hadn’t told him was that for Christmas Rannaldini had given her a blank cheque to have her face, breasts and bottom lifted.

‘But you said in Prague you loved me as I am,’ sobbed Helen.

‘I did, and I know it will hurt dreadfully,’ purred Rannaldini, ‘but I want you to be even more beautiful.’

Also if Helen was confined to barracks recovering from surgery, it would give him more free time.

FORTY-FOUR

After their fortnight off the RSO sank into deep gloom. Life seemed to be summed up by Francis’s turkey which he had forgotten to take home and which was found in the band room under Nellie’s camisole top belching forth maggots.

Francis had other things on his mind. His house had been repossessed and he had moved into a council flat.

‘My children are on free dinners,’ he said wearily. ‘My milkman earns more than I do.’

Mary-the-mother-of-justin was horrified to find she was pregnant. Her husband had lost his smart job in television, and was at home looking after Justin and giving Mary a lot of grief.

Everyone except Carmine, Hilary and Juno had overspent at Christmas, couldn’t pay their bills and were chasing after fewer teaching jobs as the education departments slashed the music grants to colleges and schools.

Flora was delighted to have a letter from Eldred thanking her for the Christmas bottle of whisky, but worried that she got no answer when she kept ringing to invite him to supper. Finally police broke in on 4 January and found Eldred had been dead for a week from an overdose.

The empty bottle of whisky was at his feet, he was clutching his clarinet and the Mozart Trio, which he had obviously been planning to play with Flora and Marcus, was on the music-stand. The gramophone was still on — he had been listening to one of his old records.

‘If he hadn’t had his coffee black, people would have known from the milk bottles,’ sobbed Flora. ‘If I’d rung earlier I might have saved him.’

Everyone was too stunned and ashamed to oppose Hilary when she immediately applied for Eldred’s job of First Clarinet. She was soon busy auditioning candidates for Second Clarinet.

‘One should intercept them at the H.P. Hall gate,’ said Viking, ‘hissing: “escape while you can, don’t work with that bitch.”’

With her step-up to section leader, Hilary’s bossiness increased a thousand-fold. She was singing madrigals