Appassionata

spare tyre. His feet looked vulnerably pale in loafers. Flora suppressed an insane urge to drop to her feet and kiss them. She must get a grip on herself.

‘What does anyone want to drink?’

‘Perrier, please,’ said Juno.

‘And me, too,’ simpered Hilary.

‘I’ll have an orange presse if it’s feasible,’ said Simon.

‘I’ll have a quadruple vodka and tonic,’ said Flora.

‘You won’t be able to play,’ reproved Hilary.

‘I’ve got to sing,’ said Flora. ‘It’s so hard, I’ll never get onto the platform if I’m sober.’

Having taken Flora at her word, and persuaded the others to accept a glass of champagne each, George introduced Ruth, who was much too done-up, in a frilly white shirt and shocking-pink trousers with gold high heels, for lunch-time in the campa.

Having given Flora a not-altogether friendly look she introduced her ‘partner’ Trevor.

Flora giggled. ‘I’ve got a partner called Trevor, too,’ she said. ‘Only in my Trevor’s case, he has black eyes, and a tight skin and a very curly tail, and a squeaky bark, and I rescued him.’ She rattled on. ‘You don’t look as though you need rescuing.’

Trevor II smirked, gave Flora slightly too hot a glance for Ruth’s liking, and asked her if she’d ever been up in an air balloon before.

Flora shook her head. Suddenly she was too shy to say anything in George’s presence.

‘We’re coming along to the concert this evening to look at George’s latest toy,’ said Ruth with a slight edge. ‘I love Beethoven’s Choral Symphony. To think the wonderful old man wrote the whole thing when he was deaf.’

She beckoned the maid to bring over the bottle.

‘Have some more shampoo.’

‘I shouldn’t,’ giggled Juno, ‘it makes my nose tickle.’ She smiled roguishly at George, who had also fallen oddly silent.

‘Just a half,’ said Hilary. ‘I expect we’ll be in the balloon soon.’

‘Oh no, Pedro-Maria takes at least half an hour to get it up,’ said Ruth.

‘Poor Mrs Pedro-Maria,’ murmured Flora. Just for a second her eyes met George’s and, to stop herself laughing, she sloped off and gazed at a hideous bed of red gladioli and purple asters. Ruth was hell. George was the one who needed rescuing.

Only George and the four musicians from the RSO, and Pedro-Maria to steer the thing, went up in the balloon. Extraordinary, reflected Flora, as they took off into the blue, that a slain dragon could swell up into something so huge and beautiful with the orange flame belching up into the purple-and-emerald-green dome. Turning, she saw George’s waving wife getting smaller and smaller.

It was literally heavenly. This is how God must feel, thought Flora, as she gazed down on the turning, tawny woods and the gold and green fields, as the darkness of the balloon’s shadow fell over the face of the earth. Below them flocks of sheep and herds of cows scattered in temporary terror.

Flora had deliberately positioned herself at the front of the basket as far away from George as possible, giving him the chance if he wanted to stand behind the Steel Elf. Everyone was oohing and aahing as they floated over a little village, driving dogs to hysterical barking and bringing children screaming with excitement into the streets.

Then a sudden gust tipped the basket forward and she felt a body, solid as a Rottweiler, thrown against hers, and knew instantly with a thumping heart that it was George’s.

‘Sorry,’ she gasped, ramming herself even harder against the front of the basket, putting half an inch between them, but a second later, the wind tossed the basket backwards, throwing her against him. As she leapt away, his big hands closed on her hip bones, steadying her, and he was right behind her giving her absolutely no room for manoeuvre. With St George and the dragon pitted against one poor damsel — what chance of escape did she have?

I must be dreaming, thought Flora in bewilderment, but she could have sworn George dropped a kiss on her bare shoulder and now his thumbs were softly stroking her ribcage, as the flames surged upwards with another dragon roar.

For a second, he took his right hand away, resting a muscular arm on her shoulder, the soft dark down tickling her cheek, as he pointed out hares racing up and down the rows of stubble.

‘What a wonderful view,’ gushed Hilary.

‘Mine’s much better,’ murmured George into Flora’s hair.

His right hand was back but higher up her ribs this time, and oh my God, his thumb was slowly caressing her right breast outside her dress, and now, oh heavens, it had crept inside — there was no mistaking it. Her nipples were pushing out the dove-grey sundress as proof, and it was the most blissfully erotic thing that had ever happened to her. It knocked any of Rannaldini’s caresses into a cocked cock. She was so faint with desire her insides were churning and disintegrating like peaches in a liquidizer.

She couldn’t bear it, gradually they were losing height, drifting down over a sage-green poplar copse. The lovely balloon of her happiness was going to subside.

‘That’s very good timing, George,’ said Simon.

In despair, Flora noticed two chauffeurs leaning against two hearse-like limos waiting at the edge of the big yellow field below them. She glanced sideways and realized that Hilary was gazing at George’s still-wandering right hand in absolute horror. Then another greater gust of wind caught the balloon. The next moment Hilary and Juno were screaming as they crashed and bumped to the ground like cats in a basket chucked out of a car, with everyone falling higgledy-piggledy on top of each other.

‘Get me out of here,’ shrieked Hilary, outraged to find herself trapped beneath an excited Pedro-Maria, who was in turn beneath an even more excited Simon.

‘You OK, Flora, luv?’ George’s accent was even broader with anxiety.

‘Gone to heaven,’ sighed Flora, squirming blissfully under the weight of his body.

A second later George had pulled her to her feet, lifted her out of the basket and dragged her across the stubble into the first limo.

Jumping into the driving seat, he screeched off in a cloud of dust, leaving behind the two drivers and the rest of the party waving and shouting impotently.

‘Plenty of room for the rest of them,’ he said, nearly removing a gatepost as he swung into the road. ‘Do oop your seat belt,’ then, after a long pause, ‘I luv you, I luv you, I bluddy luv you to distraction.’

‘What?’ squeaked Flora, ‘I thought you still loved Ruth.’

‘I came here last night to ask her for a divorce.’

‘I thought it was you who refused to give her one.’

‘You know a lot about my life, don’t you?’ said George, murdering unfamiliar gears as he swung onto the main road, and rammed his foot on the accelerator.

‘I hated Trevor,’ he said. ‘He was one of my competitors and he took my wife off me. Now I know he’s done me a good deed. I didn’t hate him any more today. Anyway, I want to be free to marry someone else.’

Flora was speechless, and reached for the strap above her window as the needle hit 100 m.p.h.

‘But I don’t understand, I mean — ’ then, as the car only just missed a bank — ‘Jesus!’

‘Yes, you better shoot up, and let me concentrate on driving.’

Reaching Ruth’s hacienda, he grabbed Flora’s hand again and, ignoring the party that was still roaring on the terrace, dragged her up three flights of stairs into his bedroom, and locking the door took her in his arms. For a second he gazed into her face, so sweet and apprehensive and striped by the sunlight streaming through the shutters, and then he kissed her.

Flora had never experienced such tenderness, nor passionate enthusiasm nor clumsiness all at once. Then he ripped off her sundress, and kissed her breasts, before tearing off her knickers and throwing her on the bed.

‘I’m not on the p-p-pill,’ Flora hated herself for stammering.

‘Doesn’t matter. I want to fook you more than anything in the world,’ George stammered even more as he fumbled with his belt, ‘but I want you to know I luv you and want to marry you as well.’

Flora helped him with his zip and boxer shorts.