‘
Irrationally, Rupert wondered how Nemerovsky felt about getting fourth billing. His eyes seemed to fill with blood. He felt a thrumming in his head.
‘Here’s Flora for you.’ Nervously, Dizzy pulled him back to earth.
‘I think he’s dying, Rupert.’ Flora’s voice was shriller than ever with anxiety. ‘The hospital are worried stiff, although they’re keeping up a pretence that his condition is stabilized. I know you’ve had a row, but Marcus really, really loves you. He did everything for your sake. All that mattered to him was you not thinking he’d been an utter failure as a son.’
‘I hardly think this latest escapade-’
‘Oh shut up, let me finish. He never betrayed you with Rannaldini. He tried to stop Helen marrying him, and he’s refused ever to speak to Rannaldini since then, he’s
‘I’m not having anyone dictating-’
Flora lost her temper.
‘People who live in bloody glass historic houses shouldn’t throw stones. If you hadn’t carried on like a rabbit when Marcus was a child — causing scandal after scandal — what did you do in the Circulation War, Daddy? — and given him the tiniest bit of support, he wouldn’t have needed to search out father-figures like Malise or Nemerovsky.’
‘Have you finished?’ hissed Rupert.
‘Yes… but please go to him. It’s the one thing that might save him.’
‘What the fuck else do you think I was going to do?’
‘It’s Room Twenty-Five on the second floor,’ said Flora, and hung up.
The dearest and most precious horse Rupert had ever owned and trained was about to run in the most treacherous and demanding race in the world. Most people thought Pridie was past his best, and should not be subjected to such an ordeal. Nor had worry about this helped Rupert’s and Taggie’s romantic break.
Dizzy had told Taggie about Marcus. Rupert was ashen as he came down the steps of the box. Taggie ran to him, holding him in her arms, feeling him rigid with shock.
‘Oh darling, poor Marcus, poor you, we must go to him.’
‘What else can we do?’ said Rupert bleakly, then, turning to Dizzy: ‘Tell the pilot to refuel.’
Pridie whickered with relieved delight at the sight of his master and nearly pulled Sandra the stable girl over as he bounded down the ramp. He had been bred at Penscombe and had never run a single race without Rupert. Having given him a couple of Polos, Rupert quickly felt the little horse’s legs, praying he could find some swelling or heat to give him an excuse to pull him. But they were perfect, and Pridie’s coat gleamed in the soft autumn sunshine, redder and brighter than any of the RSO cellos.
Briefly Rupert hugged his old friend.
‘We’re going to have to cope without each other. Pray for me, Pridie.’
Taggie felt utterly helpless on the flight home, as Rupert glared unseeingly out of the window, tension flickering like lightning around his jaws. Only once did she try to tempt him with a large whisky, but he shook his head violently.
‘It’s probably just a one-off with Nemerovsky,’ she stammered. ‘He’s so powerful and glamorous, anyone would find him difficult to resist… Lots of people have flings.’
‘What the fuck do you know about it?’ snarled Rupert, gazing through the dusk down at the white horses flecking the English Channel.
‘N-nothing.’
‘Well, shut up then.’
‘He could be bisexual. One
‘Course he is… always has been.’
Taggie gave up. Oh dear God, she thought, please don’t let him be horrible to Marcus.
Back at Appleton Town Hall, the judges, after a jolly rest day visiting Delius’s old haunts in nearby Yorkshire, and enjoying a long lunch at the famous Box Tree Restaurant in Ilkley, were looking forward to a boring, untaxing evening. Although Benny would pull out the stops and wow the audience tonight, most of them had already chosen either Anatole or Natalia as the winner. But with only two contestants this evening, the edge had gone out of the competition. The bleak bulletins from Northladen General had cast a shadow over the proceedings. They all felt poor Marcus had been very shabbily treated. After all, as Dame Edith had pointed out noisily at lunch,
‘Everyone knows there are only three types of pianist — Jewish, Gay or Bad.’
‘Lucky, lucky Nemerovsky,’ sighed Pablo Gonzales.
‘Rather nice for Helen to have a gay son,’ said Dame Hermione with her head on one side. ‘They’re always so devoted to their mothers.’
Seven-fifteen… Benny had been to make-up and could be heard by the entire audience warming up in a practice room. The great clock of the town hall had been stopped for two hours to prevent it tolling during performances. Time would stand still, but hopefully the whole contest would be wrapped up by ten o’clock in time for the news.
As Benny left the practice room, Rupert gave his third police car the slip, hurtling a hired Mercedes through the driving rain towards Northladen General. A white-knuckled Taggie nearly bit her lower lip in half trying not to cry out in terror.
Meanwhile in Room Twenty-Five on the second floor, Marcus tried not to exhaust himself as, desperately slowly, he put on black evening trousers and the crumpled blue dress-shirt which he had pulled out of his suitcase which his mother had brought him from St Theresa’s.
He had waited, feigning sleep, until she had left for the town hall. Helen had sat with Marcus through the night and morning until he miraculously regained enough strength in his lungs to come off the ventilator. When the effects of the paralysing drug and sedatives had worn off, and he was able to swallow again, she had even fed him some pale tasteless scrambled eggs. But he was acutely conscious that she couldn’t meet his eyes, and was dreadfully embarrassed to be in the same room with him. No-one had let him see the papers, although Helen had told him Rannaldini had replaced Abby, but her face had said it all.
For now her ewe lamb wasn’t going to die, the other two nightmares had enveloped her life: her husband was a compulsive womanizer and her son was a homosexual, his career in smithereens. There was also a deep- seated guilt that her obsessive, clinging love might have caused both these things. If only Malise was still alive.
Rannaldini had been sympathetic, but always at Rupert’s expense.
‘If Rupert had not been a sadist, you wouldn’t have had to compensate so much. Marcus never had a father to relate to. You always implied Rupert and Billy Lloyd-Foxe were unnaturally close, and even more so, Rupert and Lysander. It’s in the genes, you mustn’t torment yourself.’
This situation suited Rannaldini perfectly. Marcus had been the only serious threat to Natalia in the competition and, with Helen cemented to Marcus’s sick-bed and unhinged with worry, he had had all the more opportunity to spend time with Natalia.
He had virtuously resisted from making love to her after her rehearsal in case it relaxed her muscles too much before the final. But between chatting to Northern Television and escorting Benny onto the platform, Rannaldini found time to slip into Natalia’s dressing-room. How adorable the sweet child looked with her shining hair in rollers.
‘Thees is how I warm up,’ he said sliding his soft, newly manicured hands inside her willow-green silk dressing-gown. Oh, the wonder of those large springy young breasts. Helen’s silicone replicas were like two buns on a cake rack since she had fretted away so much weight.
‘Good luck, my Maestro,’ whispered Natalia, resting her spiky head against his starched white shirt-front. ‘I am safe when you are ’ere.’
‘Tonight,’ promised Rannaldini, ‘we weel drink champagne together from the Appleton Cup.’
The RSO stopped tuning up and gave a great shout of relieved joy as George walked into the hall with Flora. They both looked very tired from worry about Marcus, but their glow of happiness in each other and in his recovery
