Appassionata

Peter Plumpton, Simon, Hilary, Militant Moll (and a reluctant Ninion), along with others who were either desperately broke or tight with money. This group, because breakfast was the only meal provided, came down, stuffed themselves, then loaded rolls, cheese, ham, yoghurt, apples, even cartons of decanted prunes into carrier bags, and lived off that for the rest of the day. This meant they could go home with enough totted-up lunch and dinner allowance to pay the gas bill or buy a microwave. They never went out boozing.

In utter contrast, Moulin Rouge led by the Celtic Mafia were hell bent on whooping it up.

‘If you make breakfast,’ as Dixie was fond of saying, ‘you’re not regarded as one of the lads.’

It would be hard to decide which group disapproved more strongly of the other. With the making of Abby on the agenda, however, the two groups became blurred with Ninion realizing he could buy an inferno of microwaves with the two thousand, and Francis appreciating he’d be able to pay for a hip operation for his wife, instead of waiting a year for one on the NHS. Peter Plumpton had already earmarked a button-backed sofa in an antique shop in Eldercombe.

To add to the tension as the days passed, the schedule was absolutely punishing. Seville, Granada, Santiago, Corunna, in four days, with Madrid, Barcelona and Toledo to come, which meant rising at dawn to catch the coach to get to the airport or station followed by a long journey, no time to unpack before a rehearsal in a strange hall, with hardly any more time to change, tart up or snatch something to eat before the concert. After which it was natural to have a few drinks and let off steam. Staggering into bed around three o’clock in the morning, they all had to be up at crack of dawn to get on the coach to the next town the following day.

The tour was an even worse nightmare for Miles and Nicholas, who not only had to keep Moulin Rouge in order, but also had to hand out and retrieve all the hotel-room keys at every stop, get suitcases into the right rooms, and drag musicians out of their beds into the coaches as alarm calls were increasingly ignored.

No matter how many signs Knickers put up at each concert hall, the buggers still wandered round bleating: ‘Where’s the stage? Where’s the changing-room? Where’s the bog?’ which was odd when they never had any difficulty finding a pub or restaurant the instant the concert was over. There was a frightful row in Corunna because breakfast consisted only of croissants, coffee and orange juice. Pond Life, with nothing to live on for the rest of the day, nearly refused to get on the coach taking them to the station.

Abby’s suitors got very excited in Santiago, when Viking started a rumour that she’d gone up the cathedral spire with Blue. Having panted to the top, with Old Henry and El Creepo nearly dying of heart attacks in the process, they found only Militant Moll bawling out Ninion, because she’d caught him peering into the women’s changing- room. With the coast clear, meanwhile, Viking had belted round to Abby’s hotel, only to find she’d gone out shopping.

Her seducers had principally drawn a blank in the past few days because after the first night Abby’d been staying in different hotels.

Tonight, however, they’d all be together in the Picasso Grand in Madrid. So many people were trying to bed her, in fact, that Abby-baiting had been suspended as the chief orchestra pastime and mobbing-up Miles had taken its place.

In Corunna, a pedal had fallen off the piano and Miles had managed to put it back.

‘First time you’ve lain between a pair of legs and been able to find the right aperture,’ shouted Dixie to cheers all round.

On the express to Madrid, which looked like a long grey electric shaver, Cherub charmed the guard into letting him use the Tannoy.

‘I’m afraid,’ he announced in his shrill voice, ‘that this train has run out of bog paper. Anyone in need — particularly anyone who had Squid Corunna in the Sir John Moore Wine Bar last night — is advised to apply to Miles Brian-Knowles for RSO contracts which are probably worth considerably less.’

Roused by guffaws, Miles stopped telling Hilly how much he was looking forward to showing her Guernica and the other Picassos in the Prado.

Julian, halfway through War and Peace, was sitting next to Mary who had nearly finished her sampler.

‘Dear Little One,’ read Flora over Mary’s shoulder, ‘I wish to give you two things: roots and wings. Oh, that’s lovely.’

Flora’s eyes filled with tears. Roots and wings should be the basis for any happy relationship. She suddenly wondered how George was getting on in England and hoped Trevor was OK.

Her reverie was interrupted by Cherub’s shrill voice over the Tannoy again, interspersed with fits of giggles.

‘This is a special message for all members of the RSO. Tonight’s rehearsal has been cancelled.’

An enraged Miles then had to hurtle up and down the train, denying this and thrusting aside garlic-reeking peasants, sleek businessmen, and Randy and Candy, once again straightening their clothes as they emerged from the loo.

As the train stopped at a station Miles saw Cherub belting down the platform in the other direction.

‘This is your last life, Wilson,’ he yelled out of the window.

‘Look at Thrilary, mouth vanished altogether,’ murmured Viking to Blue. ‘She is being screwed by Miles.’

As reddy-brown fields and orange, pink and green rock like vegetable pate flashed by, Steve was waving the rule book at poor Knickers. ‘An orchestra marches on its stomach,’ he was shouting. ‘That breakfast was a diabolical travesty.’

‘Foxie is so hungry,’ piped up Flora, making her puppet fox clutch his furry tummy, ‘that he’s going to eat Miles in a minute.’

‘Gimme that fox.’ Dixie, still plastered from the night before, snatched and threw Foxie to Randy, who threw him down the open compartment to Davie who threw him to Barry, who threw him to Carmine, who threw him out of the window, whereupon a screaming Flora pulled the communication cord, and the orchestra never made the Madrid rehearsal at all. Hilary was absolutely hopping because she was not going to see Guernica.

‘Why bother?’ said Viking. ‘It’s all around you.’

The result was a duff Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The only thing which excited the fur-coated Madrid audience was Davie Buckle, his fluffy white drum heads frenziedly dancing on the surface of his kettle drums, going beserk in the scherzo.

‘Apart from Beethoven Nine and The Rite of Spring, all music is piffle,’ Davie told anyone who would listen, as he got legless afterwards in the bar of the Picasso Grand.

It looked as though Abby’s suitors thronging the foyer just after midnight were going to be disappointed again. Returning from dinner with King Carlos, she had escaped to her suite up the back stairs.

‘No-one is going to get L’Appassionata into bed this evening either,’ announced Viking firmly. ‘She’s got to practise the Mozart concerto for tomorrow night.’

‘We’ll see about that,’ muttered Davie.

As the week progressed, Abby in fact had hardly noticed her suitors, even Viking, because she was increasingly terrified about playing again in public. She was now so engrossed in perfecting the langorous trills of the adagio, she didn’t even notice the bulky figure on the balcony outside. Davie, having downed twelve pints of beer, and dropped his mobile down the lavatory trying to ring Brunnhilde in England, had intrepidly climbed across from the next-door balcony, and settled down to wait for Abby to finish practising.

Three hours later, she wandered next door into her bedroom. Finding Old Henry sitting up in her bed, wearing only pyjama bottoms and reading Murder on the Nile, she was so bombed that she thought she’d strayed into the wrong room.

‘Oh Henry, just the person I wanted to see. I’m so sorry to barge in, but could you possibly help me with the dynamics in the rondo? Mozart puts in so few marks.’

‘It’s the same with his later piano concertos,’ Henry put a book mark in Murder on the Nile. ‘He leaves it up to you.’

Even when they’d sorted out the problem and Abby asked Henry to rub tiger balm into her aching neck and shoulders, he made no pass.

‘She’s playing better than ever,’ he sighed to a lurking band of suitors when he finally left her room.

‘That two thousand could have bought you a bow and paid your gas bill,’ said Barry reprovingly.