Appassionata

Abby.

He had had a letter from Rodney:

Darling boy,

Beneath that golden exterior you have a heart of gold. Please be kinder to Abby, she is so isolated and sad. Genius should be pruned, but also sunned and fertilized. I suspect she analyses far too much and should let her instincts take over. If you, as leader of the pack, eased up on her a little, the boys and girls would follow suit. Dear me, I miss you all so much.

Viking wondered about being taken over by Abby’s instincts. He didn’t really fancy her. She was too overbearing, too self-centred, too troublesome, but she irritated him all the time like a sharp piece of apple lodged in his teeth.

The downpour stopped as he approached Rutminster. Pausing in a lane of traffic, he noticed harebells glinting like amethysts in the verge, and meadow browns and common blues dancing ecstatically over the drenched fields. A red admiral had also upended itself on the top of a thistle, avoiding the prickles, as it sucked the sweetness from the mauve flower. With Abby, you’d have to accept prickles and all.

Odd to have a traffic jam on this road, then he realized all the drivers were slowing down to gaze at a beautiful girl at the bus-stop. Her long blond hair and faded denim dress seemed to echo the gold wheat fields and the blue of the sky. With her were a boy and a girl, both very dark haired, pale and sloe-eyed. Must be the child- bride of some rich Arab, thought Viking dismissively.

Pulling up, he smiled and offered her a lift.

The girl brightened. Viking was very brown, his lion’s mane bleached. In the last three weeks, he’d got a little more sleep than usual. Such an attractive man, with his arm round such an adorable dog, surely couldn’t be an abducter.

‘You know,’ she consulted a letter, ‘the vay to Voodbine Cottage?’

‘I go right past the door, hop in. Over you go, Nugent.’

Leaping out, Viking gathered up a pile of scores, paperbacks, CDs and a big bag of duty free and dumped them in the boot, as the big black dog jumped obediently into the back seat.

‘He loves kids,’ he added, as he opened the back door for the two pale dubious-looking children, and ushered the heavenly blonde into the passenger seat.

Then, raising two fingers at the furiously jealous crescendo of car horns behind him, he drove off with a retaliatory flourish from Don Juan.

‘My name’s Viking.’

‘Mine’s Astrid.’ They gazed at each other in delight.

‘Who are you going to see?’

‘Boris Levitsky.’

‘At Woodbine Cottage?’

Viking was horrified at the idea of Boris hanging round Flora and Abby, exuding Russian machismo.

‘He finish Requiem,’ said Astrid, in her lilting singsong voice. ‘He have crisis. Someone called George wanted Boris to pay money back.’

Viking’s opinion of George Hungerford rocketed.

‘Boris dedicate Requiem to me,’ went on Astrid happily. ‘He say eet almost over. We stay weeth his in-laws, horrible people.’ Astrid lowered her voice. ‘Marmite sandwich for supper, salad viz no dressing, feenish up every bit, only children’s television, bed by eight, so we decided to surprise Boris.’

The two children soon cheered up when Viking stopped and bought them ice-lollies.

Traveller’s joy falling in creamy drifts stroked the top of the car, the rain had polished the dusty trees, Viking breathed in a smell of wet earth and moulding leaves as he splashed through the puddles up the rough track.

‘Are we nearly there?’ asked Astrid, as Nugent began to sniff excitedly.

‘Nearly,’ said Viking, driving as carefully as possible over the stones to enable Astrid to apply pale pink lipstick to her delicious mouth.

‘You look gorgeous,’ he added, ‘wasted on that Russian.’

‘I miss heem so much. Oh what a pretty leetle ‘ouse,’ exclaimed Astrid as the car drew to a halt.

Getting out, Viking put her hand on Nugent’s collar.

‘Just hang onto my dog till I see who’s in. He’s not safe with cats.’

Sauntering up the lichened path, Viking found the pale green front door locked.

‘I’ll check round the back.’

In the garden, he found Abby and Boris asleep, lying naked in each other’s arms. Wonder at Abby’s amazing body, rage at what she’d clearly been doing with it, gave way to consternation that Boris’s children mustn’t catch him like this.

Alas, Marcus’s car had conked out on the way home and Flora, meeting a returning Marcus and the cats, had walked back through the woods with them. As they came through the back gate, Mr Nugent had ducked out of his collar and joined his master. Suddenly seeing the two kittens, he hurtled across the lawn, in a frenzy of barking sending both cats scuttling up the horse-chestnut tree.

Rudely awoken, Abby and Boris groped for their clothes. Boris hadn’t quite pulled up Marcus’s boxer shorts when Astrid appeared round the corner, but a huge smile spread across his face.

‘Astrid, oh my Astrid,’ he cried running, slipping. across the lawn, with arms outstretched. ‘You have come to me, ’Ow I have meesed you.’

‘You ’avent meesed me at all,’ screamed Astrid, sizing up the situation. ‘You peeg, you absolute peeg.’ And she slapped Boris very hard across his face.

‘My darling, vy you do that?’ Boris clutched his cheek. ‘I finish my requiem. Abby and I just embrace for celebration.’ Then, turning most unflatteringly to Abby, said, ‘Tell Astrid it was nuzzing.’

‘Seems to have been a good deal of nuzzling,’ observed Flora. ‘Oh do shut up, Nugent.’

‘You peeg,’ repeated Astrid. ‘And I don’t want requiem dedicate to me.’ Bursting into tears she ran back to the car.

‘I do see her point,’ said Viking coolly. ‘I was just returning your kids, Boris, here they are.’ As Boris was safely covered now, he drew the two children round onto the lawn. ‘And as Astrid hasn’t had a day off for a month, I thought I’d take her on a jaunt.’

‘No,’ roared Boris.

But Viking was too quick for him, whistling to a reluctant Nugent while sprinting back to the car, he jumped in beside a still-sobbing Astrid, and reversed down the lane to the victorious accompaniment of Don Juan’s horn call.

Boris was demented.

‘Run after my Astrid, tell her it was a moment of euphoria,’ he beseeched Abby. ‘I love her, and more important I cannot afford to lose a wonderful nanny for keeds.’

‘Don’t be such a shit, Boris,’ said Marcus, putting an arm round Abby’s heaving shoulders.

‘Everyone ees against me,’ said Boris and stormed off to The Bordello.

Abby was livid. What was the point of being the Immortal Beloved if you had to share the honour with a Swedish au pair, and for someone, who delayed for ever when producing music, Boris had proved disappointingly precipitous when it came to making love.

Twenty minutes later, Boris was back, drenched again. Finding The Bordello locked, he had hammered on the door until Astrid had poured a bucket of water over him. He had then hovered in the bushes until Viking emerged to check he had gone and knocked out one of Viking’s front teeth.

‘I hope he suffer.’

‘He won’t, it’s always being knocked out, it’s only crowned,’ said Flora.

Boris proceeded to tear up the horn solo of ‘Rachel’s Lament’.

‘Bloody hell, I spent all yesterday copying that out,’ grumbled Flora, shuddering at the increase in maggots as she retrieved the page from the bin.

Nor was she very pleased herself. Boris had promised to dedicate the Requiem to her, and she’d spent far too much on a pair of new Black-Watch-tartan dungarees for Viking’s return, and now he’d shoved off with Astrid. The astrologers had been absolutely right that Jupiter, bringer of jollity, was about to be