Appassionata

the Arts Council and who usually flayed the orchestra alive, was extraordinarily complimentary and compared Abby to Lester Piggott galvanizing a seaside donkey into winning the Derby.

The RSO grumbled that it was always the same, if a concert was bad, the orchestra got slated, if good the conductor was praised, but in reality they were euphoric, and so were the management. The takings, plus an unexpected one hundred thousand pound legacy from some local philanthropist, went a long way to wiping out the massive overdraft run up by Rodney overpaying his famous friends.

Despite the accolades, Abby felt very flat and restless after the concert. She was also ashamed of being vile to Marcus, but when she rang the Old Rectory, Mrs Edwards, in high excitement, revealed that Marcus had moved out and not left an address.

Back at H.P. Hall, however, Mark Carling had received a fax from Boris’s agent: Boris wanted to duck out of conducting the Modern Music series, because he was still wrestling with Rachel’s Requiem, which would now have to be rescheduled yet again.

As a result, Howie and Mark engaged in a little horse trading. Abby would be allowed to cut her teeth on the Modern Music series, and Howie would let the RSO have Shepherd Denston soloists and singers at a discount. Megagram were delighted. Abby’s reissued records were racing up the classical charts. The orchestra was thrilled. The Modern Music series, known as ‘Squeakygate’, and only put on to suck up to the Arts Council, was anathema, and now they could at least relieve the boredom by lusting after Abby. Abby was equally thrilled and, already getting above herself, talking to Flora in grandiose fashion about being the next Giulini.

Temporarily she decided to stay at the Old Bell, and was put in the Lord Byron Suite overlooking the river. There was a facsimile of ‘So, we’ll go no more a roving’ on the wall, and a painting of Byron in a turban, looking as dark and explosive as Abby herself.

With concerts most Saturdays, the orchestral weekend fell on Sunday and Monday. Arriving on her first Tuesday, Abby found the dark red H.P. Hall rising out of a ruff of white cherry blossom.

Standing on a flat roof, letting down rolls of different brands of lavatory paper to test which was the longest, were Miss Priddock, assorted secretaries and John Drummond the cat, who fancied himself in an Andrex ad.

This was yet another economy measure, along with stopping the orchestra using the management telephones, reducing the wattage of the light bulbs, and not replacing musicians when they resigned.

On the way to the dressing-room, Abby passed the sanctimonious and detested general manager of the orchestra, Miles Brian-Knowles, inevitably known as ‘Brown-Nose’. Miles had thatched mousy hair, a complexion like luncheon meat, caused by frequent outbreaks of acne, a permanently pursed mouth and eyes so close together they could see through the same keyhole. A born-again Christian, who held prayer meetings with selected members of the orchestra, Miles always wore shirts with a high white collar giving him an ecclesiastical look, and softly soled shoes, enabling him to spy out bad behaviour and then sneak to Peggy Parker. He’d achieved Olympic-level at sucking up to his superiors hence the nickname. He was now having a row with Viking.

‘You were not at your great-aunt’s funeral,’ he was saying in an aggrieved fluting curate’s voice. ‘I saw you with my own eyes playing on television for the London Met.’

‘Indeed you did not,’ Viking was saying indignantly. ‘That was my twin brother Danny, he’s a far finer player than me.’

‘Why wasn’t he burying your great-aunt?’

‘Danny has no sense of duty.’ Viking raised his eyes piously to heaven.

‘I do not believe you, Viking. You did not apply for a letter releasing you to play for the London Met. You could be sacked for this. And please don’t bring that dog in here.’ He glared at Mr Nugent who sat listening with his head on one side.

Viking’s spreading his wings, thought Abby, Covent Garden last month, the Festival Hall this. Juno’s pressurizing was beginning to work.

In the auditorium the orchestra were re-assembling, discussing rooms they’d wallpapered or plants they’d bought over the weekend. A violinist was cutting his nails. Two women viola players were trying to organize a dinner party.

Abby was given a desultory clap when she came in. In return she thanked the RSO for a wonderful concert, and said how happy she was to see them again.

‘Now let’s have an A, Simon,’ she asked the First Oboe.

Because it was April Fool’s Day, Simon Painshaw, with a completely straight face, played A flat.

‘Everyone transpose half a tone up,’ said Abby, who had absolute pitch and knew it was April Fool’s Day, and brought her stick down.

Caught on the hop, the orchestra burst out laughing and gave her a proper round of applause.

The morning was spent sifting through repertoire, struggling with a lot of swearing through a horror by a member of the Lesser Avant-Garde of Bulgaria, full of grunts and shrieks as though a tom-cat was being gang-raped by elderly badgers. They then moved on to an appalling serenade for solo triangle, cow bells and tom-toms with extended catawauls on the strings, written by someone called Roger Parker.

Viking immediately took out a final reminder from British Telecom and on the back drew a bucket, and wrote ‘crap’ on the side, then handed it down the row. Abby, of the same mind, called a halt after five minutes.

‘We’re not programming this garbage.’

‘Maestro,’ Dixie Douglas, the troublemaking First Trombone, put down page three of the Sun and raised a large red hand. ‘I would respectfully submit that this is a work of towering genius.’

The orchestra laughed.

Dixie then explained that the ‘garbage’ entitled ‘Eternal Triangle’, had been composed by ‘Sonny’ Parker, Peggy’s ghastly son, the RSO’s composer-in-residence.

It was hoped Mrs Parker would give a quarter of a million pounds towards the orchestra’s centenary celebrations next year.

‘A concert has been planned for her sixtieth birthday,’ concluded Dixie, ‘in the gre-ounds of her ’uge house.’

‘I don’t care,’ said Abby mutinously. ‘It’s still garbage.’

The orchestra exchanged delighted glances. A run-in between L’Appassionata and Nosy Parker had distinct possibilities.

Later Abby had a cup of coffee with Mark Carling who was beginning to meet her eyes and joke with her.

‘“Magnificent” is not the word you’d use about this office,’ he gazed round at the chaos.

Mark was a sweet man, who loved music with a passion and who had previously been very happy running an early music group in London.

‘Hugo says you did awfully well today,’ he told Abby. ‘It’s lovely to see the orchestra happy. They do tend to grumble a lot. But I believe they have a tough life for very little money. I try to think of that when they barge in here and behave horribly.

‘I envy you winning their confidence so quickly,’ he added wistfully. ‘When I go into the band room, they part like the Red Sea.’

‘I guess they think a lot of you.’ Abby tried to sound convincing.

‘They’d forgive me if I were able to give them rises,’ sighed Mark. ‘The malaise is general. Orchestras everywhere are finding that with audiences plummetting, reduced Arts Council and local government funding and sponsorship being harder to come by, there’s less and less money to spare.’

Abby was too wrapped up in the next week, digesting the arcane repertoire and imparting her findings to the orchestra, to notice how bad things were financially. Not only had Rodney overspent dreadfully, but the obscure music chosen by Mark to appease the Arts Council had not pulled in the crowds. Recordings, television and film work had dried up. There had been no more proms since Rodney fell asleep on the rostrum during Daphnis and Chloe and, for the first time in years, the orchestra had not been invited to take part in the next county’s prestigious Cotchester Festival.

On her second Tuesday morning Abby got an ecstatic letter from Rodney. The Swiss were going to name a train after him.

‘Just imagine the darling boy chugging through the mountains, we can all go for rides on him