Appassionata

‘We better start making our own wine,’ muttered Flora. ‘Go and jump on a few elderberries, Marcus.’

‘And make our own amusements,’ said Marcus, and he and Flora sat down to bash out a four-handed version of Schubert’s Marche Militaire on the ancient upright in the drawing-room.

‘Abby’s clearly going to take rural life very seriously,’ giggled Flora. ‘She’s already bought galoshes, gloves, a rain hat and a Dryzabone for country walks.’

‘She can count me out,’ sighed Marcus, ‘I can’t do more than forty yards at the moment.’

Wandering out into the back garden, clutching a still purring Scriabin, the browning lawn scratching her bare feet like horsehair, Abby jumped as she heard the glorious horn call from Don Juan echoing through the woods. For a second she thought the others, bored of duets, had put on a record. But no-one could mistake that radiance and clarity. It was Viking practising for next week’s concert. There it was again, hardly muffled by the leaves.

The Celtic Mafia’s Bordello, rented so they could play music and hell-raise as loudly as they liked, lay on the other side of the lake. Perhaps they could start giving Woodbine Cottage dinner parties round the big kitchen table. Was Viking putting out signals playing Don Juan on her first day? Perhaps he didn’t know she had moved in. She must get some change of address cards printed, she thought with a shiver of excitement.

That night she fell asleep instantly for the first time in months, soothed by the sound of the stream under her window rushing down to join the lake.

Returning to work after her three weeks’ break was like going back to prison. Miles and Lionel, who’d chiefly employed Flora to put her nose out of joint, couldn’t wait to break the news of her appointment.

‘We would have waited for you to OK her,’ said Miles smugly, ‘but she’s so talented, we decided to snap her up.’

‘The Academy says she’s got a fantastic voice,’ even Lionel was looking quite moony, ‘which is useful if we ever need an understudy.’

‘What’s her name?’ Abby was idly flipping through her post.

‘Flora Seymour,’ Miles laughed heartily. ‘We all want to see more of Flora.’

‘Georgie Maguire’s daughter,’ said Abby, opening a typed envelope with a London postmark.

‘I said Seymour not Maguire.’

‘Still Georgie’s daughter.’

‘You sure you’ve got the right girl?’

‘Quite,’ said Abby with a malicious smile. ‘Flora and I were at the Academy together. She auditioned while I was away on vacation, right? So I couldn’t be accused of bias. She’s living in the cottage I’ve bought by the lake.’

‘Bought a cottage,’ spluttered Lionel. ‘You’re planning a long stay with the RSO?’

‘Sure am,’ crowed Abby. ‘Get a look of this.’

It was confirmation from Howie Denston that Megagram wanted to record all Fanny Mendelssohn’s music and all four of Winifred Trapp’s Harp Concertos with Abby and the RSO.

‘Who’s Winifred Trapp?’ asked Miles scornfully.

‘It’s pronounced Vinifred,’ said Abby rudely. ‘She’s a terrific nineteenth-century Swiss composer. She had to stop home and care for her elderly parents, so her oeuvre was only performed by family and friends, which meant she used a very small orchestra, which means Jackboot Hungerford can cut down on extras. I discovered her when I was living with Rodney in Lucerne. She makes marvellous use of yodelling and cowbells.’

‘Yet another hall-emptier,’ snapped Miles, but even he couldn’t argue with a fat record contract.

Wandering back to her dressing-room, Abby bumped into Viking and her heart stopped. His lean normally pale face was tanned a warm gold. Sunbathing with his hair drenched in lemon juice had turned it nearly white. He was wearing a sea-green polo shirt and dirty white shorts.

Abby couldn’t resist telling him she had heard him last night.

Viking looked alarmed.

‘Don’t tell anyone you heard me practising — it’s terrible for my image.’

On an ego trip, Abby had to break the news about Winifred Trapp and Fanny Mendelssohn.

‘It’s nearly the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Fanny’s death.’

‘Fanniversary,’ Viking grinned broadly.

‘Must you trivialize everything?’

‘I have a theory about obscure repertoire,’ said Viking, ‘If it’s onplayed, there’s very good reason. It’s either onplayable or onotterably bad. If you record it, however, you get a reputation for brilliance and innovation because there’s nothing to compare it with.’

‘You would have an utterly defeatist attitude.’ Abby flounced off in a fury.

To save money, it was decided to run a joint Mendelssohn and Trapp series in the late autumn, then Megagram could perhaps be leant on to pay for the rehearsals. There was just time to slot this change of repertoire into next season’s smart brochure, which had a picture of Abby on the front.

George had also effected a saving of thirty thousand pounds a year by sacking the marketing manager, who’d kept coming up with fatuous ideas about laser beams and back projections and the orchestra playing in their national costumes to prove how international they were.

Abby returned from her holiday to find Clarissa had left as threatened — not to London — but to join Hugo and the CCO. Abby felt betrayed and as though she had lost an ally. But she wasted no time in bringing in a new Principal Cellist, called Dimitri, who refused to be parted from his cello because it was the only possession he had managed to smuggle out of a Russian Labour Camp. Speaking precious little English he had difficulty getting a job and was as thin as a skeleton. But after spending a couple of nights in the attic bedroom at Woodbine Cottage and playing chamber music with Flora and Marcus, he soon regained his confidence. Although he cried everytime the orchestra played The Great Gate of Kiev, he added wonderful gravitas and a great deep Russian sound to the cello section. As a result, Dimitri adored Abby and was horrified by the orchestra’s deep disrespect for her.

Despite Miles’s and Lionel’s belief that it would put Abby’s nose out of joint to employ Flora, Abby liked pretty women in the orchestra, as long as they played well. She had therefore spiced up the back of the violins with an enchanting Japanese girl called Noriko. Noriko couldn’t pronounce her ‘L’s and kept everyone in stitches ordering River and Bacon at the Shaven Crown and suggesting the Steel Elf, who was having trouble paying her mortgage since Viking moved out, ‘should take in a roger’.

Viking and Juno were both too proud to make it up, but romance-watchers had noticed Juno definitely making big bluey-green eyes at George Hungerford.

‘That would be a dangerous liaison,’ said Dixie gloomily, ‘she would have us all out in a trice.’

Flora’s first rehearsal with the RSO at the beginning of July was greeted with a chorus of wolf-whistles. She had tied back her newly washed hair with a grey ribbon, she wore no make-up on her gold freckled skin. Her legs in grey linen shorts were almost chunky. But there was an undeniable sexuality about her, perhaps because she was totally lacking in new-girl nerves. Used to playing solo at college, she attacked every piece with vigour, and if she came in too early, or played a wrong note, she burst out laughing, thus giving confidence to other newcomers like Jenny and Noriko who were too shy of scorn even to practise in public.

Flora took Foxie, her puppet-fox mascot, everywhere with her, reducing the nearby players to fits of giggles by making him conduct with her pencil, or putting his paws over his ears and shaking his head at moments of discord or stress. Flora also chattered to everyone and was absurdly generous.

In her second week when they were waiting for Abby who’d been delayed by some management wrangle, Flora plied her own section and the surrounding players with lemon sherbets. They were about to rehearse the Valse des Fleurs, which required a harpist, and even contained an important harp cadenza.

Harpists are often regarded as something of a joke in orchestras. But, if the RSO laughed at Miss Parrott, they also loved and admired her. A middle-aged spinster with piled-up strawberry-pink hair, she always wore high heels and very bright colours: ‘If you’re in the shop window for a long tayme you tend to fade so Ay like to look colourful,’ and rose above the orchestra as dignified as her gold harp, which she plucked at with long red fingers.