Appassionata

‘I had a memory lapse.’

‘Stupid jargon. You stop. So? Eef one takes reesks one makes meestakes. You work ‘ard on piece, no?’

Marcus nodded.

‘You will always have to. Eef you have no originality, it is easy to reach perfection. The Levitsky piece is beautiful, too. But next time put the Chopin at the end so the audience stay because they have some bon-bons to look forward to.’

‘My piano teacher said the same.’

‘I don’t take pupils any more,’ went on the old man, ‘but eef you feel like a week in Spain, I have lovely house, you would be very welcome. I would be ‘appy to geeve you lessons.’

In what? wondered Marcus. He never knew what to do when men made advances, the old ones in particular were much harder to turn down; it seemed so rude. He was also sure he’d seen this man before.

‘You’re seriously kind,’ he mumbled, ‘but my stepfather died and basically I have to look after my mother.’

‘She will recover.’ The old man creaked to his feet, then holding his sticks with one hand, he got a card out of his pocket.

‘Don’t forget. The invitation is always there. But I may not be much longer.’

‘Thank you.’ Marcus pocketed the card.

Then to his intense embarrassment, the old man raised a hand and started stroking his cheek.

‘You have beautiful face which help in our profession.’

Marcus just managed not to leap away in horror. Thank God there was a knock on the door. He never thought he’d be so pleased to see Miss Smallwood, who was anxious to pay him and get off home. She even gave him a fiver for petrol, about enough to get the Aston round the statue of Charles I and back. Only when he’d thanked her and signed the receipt and was letting himself out of a side-door did he bother to glance at the card. He gave a gasp and rushed under a street-light. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t. It was, too. The card said: PABLO GONZALES.

With a whoop of joy, Marcus swung twice round the street-light, then, fighting for breath, tore up a side- street to see if he could catch the old man, his hero, his utter God. But, like the minibus, the huge Bentley had swept off down the High Street towards London.

The only media reference the next day was that as Rupert had been leaving his son Marcus’s concert, he and Lysander Hawkley (the man who made husbands jealous, now married to Kitty Rannaldini, etc.) had got into a fight with the hunt saboteurs.

NINETEEN

Taggie was of such a forgiving nature that Rupert was amazed the following morning when she still only snapped back in monosyllables and crashed his bacon and eggs down in front of him at breakfast.

‘What is the matter?’

‘You should have switched off your mobile.’

‘Not when someone was trying to tell me my best three year old’s been kicked. She’s as lame as a cat this morning. That’s more important than some tin-pot concert.’

‘Not to Marcus, it wasn’t.’

‘Tut up, Daddy,’ beamed Bianca.

‘And you can belt up, you cheeky monkey,’ Rupert turned on her.

‘Stop being horrible to all your children, you great bully,’ shouted Taggie, and Rupert stalked out, kicking Kevin’s rose even harder on the way.

Rupert was as skilled as Stalin at sustaining cold war. But it was such a beautiful day, and the robins and blackbirds were singing. Yellow celandine and coltsfoot exploded on the verges and after yesterday’s downpour, all the little streams, hurtling into his lake had set it glittering like a tiara on the brow of the valley.

Best of all, the vet had reassured Rupert his filly would be fit for the One Thousand Guineas. Returning from lunching with an owner, remembering that Kitty was taking Xav, Bianca and Arthur to a children’s party, Rupert felt suddenly springlike and decided to slope home early.

A great orange sun was filling his rear mirror and warming the lichened trunks of his chestnut avenue as he roared up the drive.

Ringing Taggie to tell her he would check things were all right in the yard, and then be in and she was to get upstairs and out of all her clothes, was met with an extremely icy response. Taggie then hung up. Storming into the kitchen, Rupert found his wife still fully dressed, her face pink and shiny, as she took the skin off a just-boiled ham.

‘Why are you still sulking?’

‘I am not sulking, I’m angry. The only thing I really hate, hate, hate about you is the way you’re so vile to Marcus. It was a good concert. The people who know about music gave him a standing ovation.’

‘All five of them. They were just relieved such a bloody awful din was over.’

‘You’re be-e-e-e-estly,’ screamed Taggie. ‘See pigs jolly well can fly.’

Grabbing the ham, she hurled it at Rupert, who ducked so it crashed into the dresser behind him, breaking two coronation mugs, and smashing the glass on a framed photograph of Gertrude the mongrel, who led the stampede of dogs from the room.

Rupert couldn’t stop laughing which made Taggie crosser than ever.

‘Get out of my life,’ she shrieked.

Having cleared up, chuntering like a squirrel the while, washed the ham, and sprinkled the fat with breadcrumbs, Taggie had cooled down, and went in search of Rupert. She had been turning out the attic and nearly filled up a skip with the contents.

By the time she had searched the house, the huge gold sun had deepened to scarlet, and was flaming the puddles in the yard. Then she saw Rupert, on top of the skip. He was sitting on an ancient sofa, whose springs had gone, sharing a packet of crisps with Nimrod the lurcher, and reading Horse and Hound.

As Taggie burst out laughing, Rupert leapt down, pulling her into his arms, nuzzling at her neck.

‘Let’s go to bed.’

‘Not until you promise to be nicer to Marcus.’

‘That’s blackmail.’

‘I mean it, and we ought to give a twenty-first birthday party for him next month.’

‘And then he can invite all his ghastly bearded musical friends. Oh all right, you can see how badly I want to go to bed with you.’

‘And you’ll be nice at the party.’

‘I promise, and if you don’t come upstairs, I’ll take you here and now in front of all the lads.’ Rupert started to pull Taggie’s jersey over her head, so she scuttled protesting inside.

Marcus, however, quashed the idea. Helen, he said, was still in mourning and not up to a party. Privately, after the horrors of Christmas and his debut concert, he couldn’t face a family get-together.

Rupert was relieved he didn’t have to cough up, but, again pestered by Taggie, gave Marcus a beautiful Munnings of one of Eddie’s old steeplechasers, Pylon Peggoty, who’d won a lot of races. Rupert had been trying to track the painting down for years. Marcus wasn’t wild about horses, they gave him asthma, but he was deeply touched, knowing Rupert would have given anything to keep the painting.

Flora, who was broke, but always incredibly generous, had gone busking for three days, and bought Marcus Pablo Gonzales’ recording of all Chopin’s piano music. Marcus listened till he was cross-eared. Abby sent him a crate of champagne, and said they were all missing him in London. While she was in Lucerne with Rodney she’d discovered a fantastic nineteenth-century composer called Winifred Trapp, who’d written among other things a