Score!

later, Tristan’s young mother committed suicide. She had been suffering from postnatal depression. It was left to Etienne’s sister, Hortense, a rusty old battleaxe, to organize Tristan’s christening, at which, as one of Delphine’s last wishes, Rannaldini was a godfather.

Etienne’s indifference persisted. Tristan was the only one of his children he pointedly ignored and never praised. The boy had been brought up with the rest of Etienne’s gilded pack in Paris or at the chateau in the Tarn, but he was always the wistful calf which grazes away from the herd, longing for yet shying away from love.

Which was why his godfather was so important to Tristan and why on that wintry November evening in 1977 he could hardly contain his excitement as, in his first dark suit, his gold hair slicked down with water, he peered out at the galloping black clouds and frenziedly thrashing trees of the Bois de Boulogne for a first glimpse of Rannaldini’s Mercedes.

Although Rannaldini got a Machiavellian kick from singling out Tristan for attention, knowing it irritated the hell out of Etienne, he was genuinely attached to the boy. He had also been a wonderful godfather: writing from all over the world, never forgetting Christmas or a birthday, taking Tristan to concerts whenever he swept through Paris. For his confirmation he had even given him a Guarneri cello, valued at thousands, which Tristan had been practising for days hoping Rannaldini might ask him to play. Tristan had also painted him a watercolour — not too much like Degas — of polo players in the Bois.

There was Rannaldini’s Mercedes. Tristan hurtled downstairs, beating the housekeeper, slithering on a rose- patterned rug across the floorboards, shyly shaking his godfather by the hand, before submitting to a warm, scented embrace.

As usual, Rannaldini was in a hurry. As a tenth-birthday present, he was taking Tristan to Verdi’s greatest opera, Don Carlos. The curtain would rise in an hour so they were cutting it fine, but first he wanted to hear Tristan play and whisked him into the library.

Here Rannaldini paused only to admire himself on the cover of Paris-Match, and clock any new artists on the dark red walls. Over the centuries, the Montignys had increased their fortune buying paintings ahead of fashion. Rannaldini had considerably bolstered his coffers by using Etienne’s eye to build up his own collection.

Opening the piano score of Don Carlos, at the great cello solo at the beginning of Act IV, he placed it on Tristan’s music stand.

‘Try this.’

Even though Tristan was sight-reading, he played with total concentration and the sad sound blossomed as his long fingers vibrated on the strings.

‘Excellent,’ cried Rannaldini in delight. ‘You work very hard. And this is excellent too,’ he added, putting Tristan’s watercolour inside the piano score. ‘I will hang it in my study. We must go.’

‘I hope you will not be bored,’ said Rannaldini, manoeuvring the Mercedes through the pre-theatre and dinner traffic at a speed that astounded even the Parisians. ‘It is long opera but very interesting. I will briefly explain story.

‘France and Spain are ending long, bloody war. To unite the two countries, Elisabetta, the French king’s beautiful daughter, is to marry Carlos, the son of King Philip II of Spain. Understand?’

Tristan nodded. He loved the way Rannaldini never talked down to him.

‘Young Carlos reach France in disguise, wanting to see if he has been lumbered with ugly cow, but when he see Princess Elisabetta out hunting in the woods,’ Rannaldini gesticulated at the Bois de Boulogne, ‘he find her utterly beautiful, with dark hair to her waist. When he reveal he is Carlos, her future husband, she fall in love too. They will live ’appy ever after.’ Jumping a red light, Rannaldini made a V-sign at an outraged crone in a Volvo.

‘Then awful thing ’appen. Carlos’s father, Philip II, decide he want Elisabetta for himself and marries her instead. This is very selfish because King already has beautiful girlfriend called Eboli.

‘Poor Carlos, however, cannot stop loving Elisabetta even though she is now Queen of Spain, married to his father, and she still love him. But everywhere in Spanish court they are spied on. I won’t spoil the ending.’

They were approaching the opera house.

‘Rannaldini, Rannaldini,’ shouted admirers, surging forward.

A group protesting against nuclear tests was also lurking. One, a handsome but ferocious blonde, banged on the Mercedes window, which Rannaldini lowered a fraction.

‘How would you like your testicles shrivelled by radiation?’ she yelled.

‘Sounds interesting,’ murmured Rannaldini, closing the window as her furious face disappeared in a tidal wave of fans.

‘I’m getting a bodyguard,’ he complained, as a couple of doormen finally dragged him and Tristan through the stage door.

Tristan was unfazed, particularly when Rannaldini, while donning the splendour of white tie and tails, offered him a birthday glass of Krug. All down the passage, singers could be heard warming up.

A white gardenia in a glass box for Rannaldini to slot into his buttonhole was delivered to the Maestro’s dressing room. Most of the flowers arriving were for Cecilia Rannaldini, his second wife, who was singing Eboli, and who now could be heard screaming, ‘When will people learn I only like red roses,’ as she hurled everything else on to the floor.

Chic and svelte for a diva, Cecilia had done much to advance Rannaldini’s career, not least by changing her famous name to his. Having barged into the conductor’s room and smothered Tristan in kisses, she started rowing with Rannaldini in Italian.

Carlos was being sung by a plump, good-looking Italian, Franco Palmieri. Rannaldini’s latest discovery, an unknown South African called Hermione, was making her debut as Elisabetta.

The packed audience was too old to interest Tristan but, with his chin resting on the front of the red velvet box, he gazed down in wonder at the glittering instruments in the pit. Opposite him were the cellos and behind them towered the double basses, red-gold as beeches in autumn. But once the action started on stage, and hunting horns heralded Hermione as Elisabetta riding in on a real grey horse, Tristan hardly noticed the orchestra. Hermione’s thick brown hair did indeed curl to her waist and he couldn’t take his eyes off her cleavage, which seemed to part like curtains whenever she hit a high note — and how gloriously she sang!

Rannaldini’s black hair was drenched with sweat, as his dark eyes sent laser beams to singer or musician so they responded almost without realizing it. Now he was smiling at Hermione, magicking increasingly beautiful sounds with a twitch of his baton.

Cecilia Rannaldini had a pure, clean voice. But, not realizing that shouting and crying all night can harm the vocal cords, Tristan thought she sounded very rough. She was, however, a great actress and, as she glared at Hermione, put him in mind of the wicked queen in Snow White. King Philip, on the other hand, was so stern and cold with his son Carlos, he reminded Tristan of his own father, Etienne.

Alone in the big box, he was also terrified by the Grand Inquisitor, blind, hooded, bent over his sticks like a black widow spider, and when the flames began to flicker round the poor bare feet of the heretics, Tristan leapt to his own feet screaming, ‘No, no they mustn’t burn,’ which was luckily drowned, by orchestra, church bells and chorus loudly praising God and the Inquisition.

Every role in Don Carlos is demanding, but it was the young Hermione who drew the most rapturous applause. Tristan clapped his hands until they were as pink as the carnations that cascaded down on her.

After more champagne and hugging, as people poured backstage to congratulate them, Rannaldini, Cecilia, Fat Franco, who’d sung Carlos, and Hermione swept Tristan off to the Ritz, where he still couldn’t speak for excitement. Everyone was sweet to him because Rannaldini made sure they knew both of his birthday and of his famous father.

The management presented him with a frothy fruit cocktail filled with coloured straws. Rannaldini, who never minded what the boy ate, allowed him to have lobster Thermidor with sizzling cheese topping, followed by blackcurrant sorbet.

Hermione, who’d changed into low-cut dark blue lace, presented him with one of her pink carnations. Then a birthday cake arrived with ten candles and he opened Rannaldini’s presents: a red leatherbound copy of Schiller’s play Don Carlos on which Verdi had based his opera, and a video camera. Tristan couldn’t stop saying thank you.

‘He already play cello very well,’ boasted Rannaldini.