Score!

Noticing Tristan’s hands clamped to his thighs to stop them shaking, Chloe said gently, ‘When I got my first Amneris at the ENO, I splurged on one of your father’s drawings.’

‘He would have loved painting you.’ Tristan found he could say it without too much pain. Chloe couldn’t have been prettier, he decided, very French, in fact. Her straw-coloured bob had a thick fringe, which emphasized permanently smiling, slightly dissipated eyes. Tristan had also noticed long slim legs and a black cashmere bosom, arching like a purring furry cat inside her dove-grey suit.

Glancing up, her eyes widened and held his for longer than necessary. She would be perfect to screw on location, he thought, but since Etienne’s death his libido seemed to have gone into hibernation. He knew he had snubbed Serena the other night, and would have to put in a lot of spadework if she wasn’t going to act up during the recording. Idly he noticed Chloe putting Sweetex into Alpheus’s cup of coffee, and wondered if they were having an affaire.

‘Carlos loved his granddad, Charles V, like Prince Charles loves the Queen Mum,’ Sexton was telling Granny’s boyfriend, Giuseppe, who had sunk nearly two bottles of red and was still flirting with Serena in the hope of a fat record contract.

At last Rannaldini had reached the table. Wafting ‘Maestro’, his famous scent, created specially for him by Givenchy, longing to goad all the male members of his cast that in Mikhail Pezcherov he had discovered the greatest bass baritone of the age, he immediately insisted that everyone swap places.

‘It is crazy,’ grumbled Tristan, who was now next to Granny, ‘Giuseppe, who is twenty-eight like me, is playing not only Alpheus’s father, but Fat Franco’s grandfather, and he must be half Franco’s age.’

‘That’s opera for you,’ said Granny, in his beautiful voice. ‘Although no stretch of the imagination would go round Franco’s waist these days.’

‘Have you met Rupert Campbell-Black?’ asked Tristan.

‘I would walk naked across the Arctic Circle for a touch of his nether lip,’ sighed Granny.

‘He thinks Don Carlos can’t work with Hermione and Franco.’

‘Then you’d better stamp your pretty foot and replace them, my dear.’

Hermione had finished her third helping of apricot tart when everyone was asked to toast the Queen.

‘Most people oughta be drinking to themselves,’ muttered Sexton. ‘Never seen such a bunch of fairies.’

A roll of drums, and the awards started. Having accepted his gold statuette of a harpist, Alpheus proceeded to thank everyone, from the sound engineer to his wife Cheryl, his fine sons and Mr Bones, his German shepherd, ending with Mozart who had, after all, composed the music.

‘How very caring.’ Hermione clapped vigorously. ‘I’m much looking forward to working with Alpheus.’

She was irritated that it was too dark, except on the platform, for everyone to see how lovely she was looking. Tristan de Montigny was lovely-looking too, and even seemed to be getting on with that acid-tongued Granny. As well as an affaire, Hermione was looking forward to having many in-depth conversations about herself with Tristan.

Rannaldini was table-hopping again. Posing for the Daily Express with David Mellor, he smirkingly fingered the carpet burns on his knees and elbows, acquired while seducing Serena Westwood in her new office last night. It had made him feel like a schoolboy.

‘I’ll have her but I’ll not keep her long,’ he murmured, blowing Serena a kiss across the tables. Just long enough to control her during the recording so that she used exactly the takes he wanted.

There was a great cheer as the newly married Viking O’Neill, golden boy and first horn of the Rutminster Symphony Orchestra, who had hit Rannaldini across the room after the Appleton piano competition, sauntered up to collect his award for his recording of the Strauss concertos.

‘What a beauty,’ murmured Granny, putting on his spectacles.

‘If Polygram’ll release him, I want him to play first horn in Don Carlos,’ whispered Serena.

‘Ladies and gentlemen.’ A grinning Viking seized the microphone. ‘Once upon a time, three dogs took part in an intelligence test at Crufts. They had to arrange a pile of bones in the best shape. The first dog who came in was an architect. He looked at the bones, built a pretty little house and everyone clapped and clapped.

‘The next dog was a town planner,’ went on Viking, in his soft Irish accent, ‘who scoffed at the dog architect’s little house, knocked it down, and rebuilt the bones as a beautiful town. Everyone clapped even more. Finally, the third dog came in. He was a tenor, and he ate all the bones, shagged the other two dogs and asked for the afternoon off.’

Such screams of laughter greeted this joke that Viking could hardly be heard thanking his record producer, the orchestra and his divine new wife, the conductor Abigail Rosen, which brought even more resounding cheers.

Returning to the Polygram table, Viking disappeared into the vast congratulatory embrace of Fat Franco on his way back from a grope or a toot or some other mischief. For a second, Franco pretended to box Viking’s ears for making snide jokes about tenors, then the two men put their heads together until Franco gave a bellow of laughter.

Seeing his chosen Don Carlos collapse on to his four gold chairs again, scooping up petit fours as though they were Smarties, Rannaldini shouted rudely: ‘Unless you give up sweet things, Franco, you’ll never get into Charles V’s tomb.’

‘You no give them up,’ shouted back Franco. ‘Viking tell me how you sail through air like dashing elderly gent on flying trapeze and flatten sweet trolley and member of Arts Council.’

You wait, vowed Rannaldini, as the roars of laughter subsided. I’ll cook your goose before you’ve had time to stuff your gross belly with it.

At the announcement that Chloe had won the People’s Award, the entire room rose cheering to its feet, except Hermione.

‘I am clapped so often that I am not used to clapping,’ she told Alpheus, as he returned, brandishing his award.

As Chloe, in her discreet dove-grey suit, reached the platform, a huge blow-up of her naked on the sleeve of her prize-winning record appeared, to even louder roars of applause, on the monitor.

As Serena put her hand on Giuseppe’s crotch, he fell into the petit fours.

‘Best place for him — young people need their sleep,’ said Granny, who was feeling much happier after a long chat with Tristan. The boy was too sweet for words and had wonderfully revolutionary views on playing the Grand Inquisitor.

‘Are you ready, Dame Hermione?’ asked one of the Identikit press officers, as vast illuminated olive-green letters announced the Opera Award of the Year.

‘This is the big one,’ said Hermione, whipping out her powder compact.

Meanwhile, losing no time for revenge — after all, Franco wasn’t a Shepherd Denston artist so they wouldn’t lose 20 per cent of his massive fee — Rannaldini was talking in an undertone to Howie Denston. ‘Do you know anything about a tenor called Baby Spinosissimo?’

‘Making waves in Australia, heartbreaking looks, I’ll check out his availability. And by the way,’ Howie lowered his voice, ‘we’ve got to watch Alpheus. He tried to get Liberty Productions, American Bravo and Shepherd Denston each to pick up the tab…’

‘You will ensure cash settlements for Dame Hermione,’ interrupted Rannaldini, as his mistress mounted the rostrum.

‘Good people,’ began Hermione, but alas, Rannaldini’s mobile had rung.

‘Tabitha is home, Maestro,’ said Clive, his leather-clad bodyguard, silkily.

Rannaldini leapt to his feet. ‘I ’ave to go,’ he told the astounded table.

‘But what about your award?’ cried an aghast Howie.

‘You accept eet,’ said Rannaldini blithely. ‘A family problem come up. I call you,’ he shouted to Tristan.

‘Most of all I would like to thank Maestro Rannaldini.’ Hermione wiped away a tear.

But she had lost her audience, as every eye followed Rannaldini out of the room.