Appassionata

‘Oh Abby,’ sighed Flora, ‘when will you learn not to be a bitch in the manger?’

‘Thank you.’ Gwynneth’s small mouth was watering like a waste pipe as a great vat of caviar was placed in front of her. ‘Did you mention Bradford?’ she called out to Marcus.

Marcus nodded, mortified still to be the centre of attention.

‘Did you have time to visit the Early Music Shop?’ asked Gwynneth. ‘What a pity, Gilbert brought a portative organ set from there and made it up for my birthday. He’s thinking of tackling a crumhorn or even timbrels next.’

‘What wild ecstasy,’ murmured Flora, contemplating a black, shiny mountain of mussels and wondering how hungry she felt.

‘Did you listen to the CCO at the proms?’ asked Gilbert, forking up lobster at great speed. ‘There is no doubt, they are the best orchestra in the South of England and played as such.’

‘That’s rubbish,’ called Flora down the table. ‘We can play just as well as the CCO. Ow, ow, ow.’ She glanced reproachfully at George. ‘Why d’you kick me like that? Just as well, particularly now we’ve got Julian.’

‘Zat is true,’ Boris dragged his eyes away from Astrid. ‘Zank you for your support, Julian, and welcome to England. Let us drink to Julian.’ Another glass smashed in the fireplace.

Flora turned giggling to Jack, who had demolished his smoked salmon in a trice, and was now helping himself to her mussels.

‘We’ve had Boris living with us on and off for the last two months. He’s exactly like a two year old, smashing everything and getting his words muddled up.’

Boris grinned down the table at them.

‘Always Flora take the puss out of me, but she is good friend who help me. To Flora!’ Crash went a third glass.

‘Cheaper to hire them by the two dozen,’ suggested Julian.

But Gwynneth had put on a soppy, artists-will-be-artists smile. ‘And what is your next opus, Mr Levitsky?’

‘He’s going to write a moonlighting sonata for Viking,’ announced Flora.

Gwynneth raised a reproving hand with another crash of bangles. ‘I asked Mr Levitsky.’

‘I’m going to write opera of King Lear.’

‘That could be very fine,’ mused Gwynneth. ‘Good women’s roles, and you could make an important statement about paternal oppression.’

‘Oh get real,’ muttered Flora.

‘Will you use a Russian translation or tackle iambic pentameter?’ asked Gilbert earnestly.

‘Dactyl and Sponsor,’ grinned Flora, raising her glass to Jack Rodway, who promptly put his arm round her shoulders.

‘I ’ave to say, George, I’ll only sponsor concerts in the future if I can have Flora sitting next to me afterwards.’

‘George ordered me to be nice to you,’ said Flora. ‘And it hasn’t been difficult at all,’ she added, kissing Jack on the cheek.

George was clearly hopping, but, trapped by the need to behave well in front of Gwynneth, he was powerless.

‘You’ve no idea the fun I’ve had playing on Gilbert’s small organ,’ she was now telling him. ‘Of course today’s musicians need an organ that will fit into an estate car or in Gilbert’s case to fold up in a briefcase. Were you aware, Mr Hungerford, that small organs were neither usual nor common until recent times?’

‘I’ve always said they had more fun in the Middle Ages,’ interrupted Flora. ’Ow, ow, why d’you keep kicking me?’

‘Just shut up,’ whispered George with a flash of clenched teeth.

Finishing up the juice under her moules, Flora missed her mouth with the spoon and realized how drunk she was. She looked at George through her eyelashes. Why did they all think he was so attractive? He almost had a treble chin from so many sponsors’ dinners, and the big horn-rimmed spectacles emphasized the tired, belligerent eyes. He also had the restlessness of the emotionally involved elsewhere. For such a macho man, it must have been a terrible blow when his wife walked out.

Gwynneth was obviously thinking along the same lines. ‘D’you have a partner, Mr Hungerford?’

‘I’m separated,’ said George curtly. ‘Did you both try relationship counselling?’

‘I don’t hold with that sort of thing.’ George was fed up with being nice to her.

‘Don’t be so on the defensive,’ teased Gwynneth. ‘Even Gilbert and I are counselled every six months, a sort of spiritual MOT.’

Her mouth was watering again as a waiter flambeed her tournedos au foie gras on a side-table.

‘I am not a meat-eater normally, but “when in Rome”,’ Gwynneth smiled round as if she were making a colossal concession.

‘My mother went to a marriage-guidance counsellor,’ said Flora. ‘She said they were useless and had more problems than she did.’

Gwynneth ignored Flora, but persisted with George. ‘You want to get in touch with your feelings.’

Flora decided George needed rescuing. She must be drunk.

‘What I’d like to ask,’ she said to Gwynneth, ‘is why the London Met — yes, I read it in The Times — are allowed to push off for three months every summer, so their hall can be used for jazz, pop concerts, gospel, cajun music and other relative garbage, and you pay them a massive thirteen million a year, which is more than the RSO grant for the next forty years. Meanwhile we play all the year round except for a month in the summer. We travel fifty thousand miles in coaches, providing music for nine counties and we pay more back to the Government in VAT than you give us in rotten subsidy. So actually we’re a net earner.’

‘That’s enoof, Flora,’ said George who entirely agreed with her, but couldn’t be seen to support her in public.

‘I cannot reveal the reasons we give subsidies to other institutions,’ said Gwynneth primly.

‘Why not?’ demanded Flora. ‘You receive government money, therefore the public (and that’s me) has the right to know. Everyone needs rises down here.’

‘Hear, hear,’ agreed Jack, ignoring a glare from George and filling Flora’s glass. ‘Too much bloody fudgin’.’

Gwynneth’s little brown eyes were suddenly as dead and opaque as sheeps’ droppings, her furious face twitching.

‘I adore that top, Gwynnie,’ said Miles hastily. ‘You look marvellous in indigo.’

‘It comes from a planet-friendly range,’ said Gwynneth, looking most unfriendly towards Flora. ‘Even the buttons are biodegradable. I’ll give you their card for your partner.’

Marcus could feel Serena’s ankle rubbing against his leg like Scriabin, making him incapable of eating his Dover sole. He’d given eight piano lessons earlier in the day, he ought to practise for a couple of hours when he got home, but he’d do anything for a fat record contract, and Serena looked rather like Grace Kelly in High Society.

Across the table, Abby and Julian had hardly touched their food.

‘It was a wonderful concert,’ Julian was saying.

‘I’m really looking forward to conducting Winifred Trapp next week,’ said Abby.

‘Must have a slash,’ said Jack getting up.

‘As long as no-one slashes our grant any more,’ Flora shouted after him.

Relieved to see that Gwynneth was still nose to nose with Miles, George looked across at Flora.

‘Pleased with Julian?’

‘Oh yes,’ sighed Flora, ‘he’s given us such confidence, and he’s so approachable after Lionel. No problem’s too small for him, not even Gilbert’s organ.’

George shook his head. ‘You’re a minx.’

‘I’m a cunning little vixen.’

‘Your doggy bags, Mr Hungerford,’ the waiter put two foil-wrapped packets beside George’s plate.

‘You’ve got dogs?’ said Flora in surprise.