Appassionata

‘Why don’t you have any time?’ he asked.

‘Well, I have to look after Dick. My husband,’ she added by way of explanation, ‘he sponsored tonight’s concert, he’s in oil.’

‘What is he? A bleeding sardine?’ asked Davie and choked on his drink, because Abby had just stalked in looking absolutely sensational in a red body, no bra and the minutest wrap-over skirt.

‘I said a dress, not you oonderwear,’ said George furiously.

Peggy Parker was even crosser. She was livid about Abby’s plans to audition the choir and her suggestion that Peggy and several of her more august cronies, including Lindy Cardew, the wife of Rutminster’s planning officer, who all screeched like hungry seagulls, should stand down.

Nor had Peggy been charmed by the scrumpled-up photograph of Charlene, 44-22-35, playing the ‘Flowers of the Field’ on a slit-kilted Scotsman without the aid of bagpipes, which had landed in her lap in the middle of Mother Goose two nights ago.

She now ambushed Abby on her way to the bar.

‘Why d’you persist in rejecting my ge-owns. As musical director you should be projecting an image of femininity, graciousness and dignity.’

Abby was about to snap back that weighed down with Peggy Parker’s rhinestones, she’d hardly be able to lift her stick, but opting for tact, mumbled that she didn’t feel confident enough as a conductor to draw attention to herself so dramatically.

Mrs Parker swelled like a bullfrog.

‘You clearly feel confident enough to dispense with most of the choir.’

‘Must get a drink and circulate,’ Abby cut across her in mid-flow. ‘George only invited me this evening to brown-nose sponsors.’

And she was gone leaving Peggy Parker, furiously mouthing and appropriately pegged to the damp grass by four-inch scarlet heels.

The party was spilling out of the tent. Emerging into a starry evening lit by chestnut candles, Abby was waylaid.

‘Hi Abby, I’m Jison.’

Jison turned out to be a dodgy local car-dealer. After three-quarters of a bottle of Sancerre and a long look at Abby’s legs, he agreed to put ten thousand pounds into sponsoring Messiah, which the orchestra was performing in Cotchester Cathedral at the end of November, and which would later be transmitted on Christmas Eve.

‘Grite to drive one of the Ferraris up the aisle,’ Jason said excitedly.

‘Great,’ agreed Abby absent-mindedly because Viking had walked in.

He had skipped the rest of the afternoon’s rehearsal. It was late-night shopping and Blue had discovered him and Nugent fast asleep in one of the four-posters in Parker and Parker’s bedding department just in time for the concert. Whiter after yesterday’s excesses than his crumpled evening shirt, he was still surrounded by admiring women. Glancing at Abby, however, he raised his glass of red and wandered over.

‘You look glorious, sweetheart.’

Totally thrown by a compliment, Abby became ungracious.

‘Can’t say the same for you. Why in hell d’you drink so much?’

Viking laughed, making his bloodshot eyes narrower than ever.

‘If you’re as charming as I am, you get your glass filled up more often.’

To prove this, as he emptied his, waitresses converged from all sides to fill it up again.

‘This is Jason,’ Abby introduced the beadily hovering car-dealer. ‘I thought you’d given up drink anyway,’ she added reprovingly.

‘Not any more, Juno’s thrown me out.’

‘How come?’ asked Abby, trying desperately not to show how thrilled she was.

‘Juno wasn’t entirely pleased with the state in which I returned. The Prima Donna had been on the mobile to her. And I left Nugent with her.’ Glancing down, he ran his fingers through the dog’s silky fur. ‘I hoped if they spent some time together, they might make friends.

‘Alas, Nugent escaped in disgosst and rolled and in disgosst at the state in which he returned home, Juno went out and bought a kennel and chained him up in the garden. I was also in the dog house when I got home, so I crawled out and joined Nugent, but he was a bit smelly, so we decided to walk home to The Bordello.’

Abby couldn’t help laughing.

‘But aren’t you miserable it’s over?’ she asked.

‘Not at all. Thanks, sweetheart.’ Gathering up a handful of sausage rolls from yet another lingering waitress, Viking fed them to Nugent.

‘Nugent certainly looks pleased.’

‘He is. Blue gave him a bath this morning.’

In fact the only casualty, went on Viking, was his BMW which had finally packed up.

‘You should invest in one of my Ferraris,’ said Jason, patronizingly. ‘Then you could really pull the birds.’

Viking replied with considerable hauteur, that he could pull the birds when he was riding a tricycle, and threw a goat-cheese ball at Lionel, who, after a quick bonk in the leader’s room, had waited until the party filled up to smuggle in Hilary, who had not been invited.

Why is Viking’s arrogance to die for and Lionel’s so repulsive? wondered Abby as she watched Lionel licking his teeth, fluffing up his ebony locks, squaring his shoulders as, with head erect, he awaited his stampede of fans.

He was delighted at first to be clobbered by Mrs Dick Standish but less amused when she asked him what was his daytime job.

‘You may see us looking glamorous in our tails,’ he said petulantly, ‘but you don’t realize how much practising, rehearsing, travelling and admin goes into each concert.’

‘At least you have job satisfaction.’

‘Not so as you’d know it,’ said Hilary glaring over at Abby, then bristling with disapproval, as Clare, who’d been smuggled in by Dixie, bounded up to them.

‘I say, Romeo and Juno have split up.’

‘That’s very stale buns,’ said Hilary crushingly.

‘But seriously exciting. Viking seems to be getting on rather well with our musical director, perhaps she’ll be the next swastika on his fuselage.’

Abby was trying not to feel wildly elated that Viking had stayed beside her so long. He was just telling her about a cottage by the lake, when she was accosted by a little bearded man in sandals with a pasty face and a straggling pony-tail, who immediately introduced himself as Peggy Parker’s son, Roger — ‘But everyone calls me Sonny,’ — the composer of the Eternal Triangle Suite. Had Abby fixed a date for the premiere?

Abby said she wasn’t sure. With George’s arrival, the schedule was all up in the air.

‘Is anyone recording your stuff?’ she asked him.

As Sonny shook his head, his pony-tail flew like a horse irritably swatting at flies.

‘After all the popular, easily digested fare around, people tend to find my music gritty and complex, but I am philosophical. The Marriage of Figaro was a disaster when it was first programmed.’

‘I was so moved,’ he went on earnestly, ‘to hear the toilets flushing during the Sibelius two nights ago, particularly in the last bars, that I have commenced a new work for full orchestra. I plan to provide sound effects of a rumbling train, pneumatic drills, people coughing, rustling toffee papers, cars back-firing,’ he ticked off the list with black-nailed fingers, ‘and finally a chorus of flushing toilets.’

Abby burst out laughing.

‘You must include the snoring of the Rutshire Butcher then.’

But, receiving a sharp kick on the ankle from Viking, she realized Sonny was utterly serious.

‘My goal is to prove great music can overcome any interruption.’

‘I look forward to hearing it,’ mumbled Abby.

Sonny was droning on, and Abby was praying he’d leave her and Viking alone, when Blue came over.

‘Who are all these spivs in sharp suits wandering around H.P. Hall sticking penknives into the brickwork?’ he