Appassionata (40 page)
Then, miraculously, as if magnetized by her longing, Viking looked round, stared for a fraction longer than was polite, and then smiled. Abby felt her exhaustion and depression vanish as her cramp had during the concert. Almost imperceptibly Viking jerked his head towards a door on the right marked ‘Private’.
‘Must go to the bathroom,’ mumbled Abby. ‘Great to meet you, Mrs Parker.’
She found Viking in a library, reading a book on fly fishing, Mr Nugent stretched out on a dark green damask sofa behind him.
‘Well done,’ he said softly. ‘That’s one concert I’d have done for nothing,’ which is the greatest compliment a musician can pay.
Abby flushed. ‘You were terrific, too.’
Viking noticed how tired she looked, but how the clinging gold body-stocking brought out the blazing yellow of her eyes, and how enticingly it clung to her breasts and flat midriff, and how his hand itched to follow it inside the black leather trousers down between her legs.
‘Nigel Dempster just told me you don’t want to be regarded as a woman,’ he said mockingly.
‘Not if it means the Press only concentrating on my sex life.’
‘Sure, sure. What happened just before the love duet?’
‘Cramp, my stick hand gave out.’
Viking picked it up idly, shooting a thousand volts through her.
‘Poor little hand, probably jealous of all the attention the left one’s been getting. I’ve got a mentally handicapped sister in Doblin. She’s otterly gorgeous, but everyone makes such a foss of her, her brothers and sisters sometimes feel very neglected.’
He picked up Abby’s other hand, subtly drawing her nearer as he examined the scar.
‘How’s this one coming on?’
‘I don’t know,’ Abby snatched both hands away. ‘I can’t talk about it.’ Although she wanted to terribly.
‘Mosst have been hell watching Hugo,’ said Viking gently.
‘Hell,’ confessed Abby. ‘His technique’s to die for and he has a beautiful sound, OK? But he lacks drama, right? I kept thinking how outrageously I’d have acted up at the beginning, and then how passionately and tenderly I’d have abdicated at the end.’
‘Abby-dicated,’ murmured Viking.
Embarrassed, close to tears, she glanced up at him, noticing the dark blur of beard on the hard, lean jaw, the big laughing lips, slightly reddened and bruised from having been pressed so long against his mouthpiece (oh lucky, lucky mouthpiece), the wide nostrils of his snub nose, the fan of dark gold eyelashes, above the long, speculative eyes that were slowly searching her face.
‘Oh yes, sweetheart,’ he said softly.
Abby jumped as Mr Nugent shot off the sofa and out of the door.
‘Where’s he gone?’
‘Must’ve heard your heart beating. Nugent’s terrified of thunder.’
‘It wasn’t!’ said Abby confused and indignant. ‘How can you assume? That’s ridiculous.’ Panic made her ungracious. ‘Anyway, they say you’re just a stud.’
‘Sure, that’s why I’m stoddying you.’
He had such an untroubled smile, so utterly confident of approval. Abby wondered if the silver locket round his neck contained a picture of Juno.
‘Bad luck getting trapped by Mrs Parker,’ said Viking. ‘She puts such a strain on her corsets. Blue and I thought of getting up a petition to Save the Whalebone.’
Abby laughed, relieved yet disappointed at the shift in subject. ‘Must be kinda fun playing for the RSO,’ she said, hearing tarzan howls coming from next door.
‘Kinda,’ Viking mimicked her. ‘You don’t earn any money. The difference is if you’re a bank manager and you’re caught holding hands with a cosstomer, you’re fired. Here, if the Second Bassoon is caught bonking a fifteen year old in the H.P. car-park—’
‘Or the instrument room,’ said Abby drily.
‘Or the instrument room indeed. Rodney will just say, “Which car? Where is she? I want part of the action.”’
‘Who’s taking my name in vain? My two favourite people.’ Rodney put his arms round both their shoulders.
Hell, hell, hell, thought Abby.
‘Am I pushing myself too hard?’ Rodney frowned at himself in the looking-glass opposite.
‘What
have
you been up to?’ said Abby, noticing fuchsia-pink lipstick all over his shirt.
have
you been up to?’ said Abby, noticing fuchsia-pink lipstick all over his shirt.
Pressed against his belly, Abby and Viking stared at each other.
‘Oh, there you are, Rodney, at last I’ve caught up with you.’
It was Mark Carling looking distraught, closely followed by Nugent licking his lips.
‘Can I pin you down on repertoire? You know we’re planning a Haydn/Stravinsky festival for next March.
The Rite of Spring
hasn’t been taken . . . I was just wondering.’
The Rite of Spring
hasn’t been taken . . . I was just wondering.’
‘Darling boy, I couldn’t do the first fucking bar of that, you know I’m useless at those big orchestral thingies. Juno darling, you get prettier by the second.’
It was the Steel Elf.
‘Oh, there you are, Victor,’ said Juno coolly. ‘Get off the settee, Nugent.’
As Nugent slid off the sofa, Viking slid out of Rodney’s embrace.
‘You’re tired, sweetheart.’ His voice was gentle and solicitous.
‘A little.’
‘I’ll take you home.’
As he put an arm round Juno’s shoulders, she looked as tiny and delicate as one of Oberon’s fairies.
‘’Night, Mark. Congratulations, Maestro,’ Viking nodded at Abby. ‘See you when you get back, Rodney.’
Watching him dropping a kiss on Juno’s hair as they went out, Abby felt as though she’d been kicked in the gut.
‘Why does he wear that goddamn locket round his neck?’
‘It contains the mingled earths of Northern and Southern Ireland,’ said Rodney.
‘I wondered if I could introduce you to some of our sponsors, Abby?’ asked Mark diffidently.
The next moment, shouting, ‘Call you in the morning, Viking,’ Howie erupted into the room.
‘Where in hell did you get to?’ he reproved Abby. ‘You gotta meet Sir Larry Lockton of Lockton Records. They’ve just had a massive injection of Japanese dough.’
But everything was suddenly too much for Abby.
‘All I want you to do,’ she begged Howie tearfully, ‘is to tell Christopher I did well this evening.’ And she fled from the room.
Marcus finally tracked her down in the spare room where people had dumped their belongings. She had taken someone’s violin from its case and had it under her chin. Her right hand was wielding the bow, but the fingers of her left hand, with all the pathos of a crushed daddy-long-legs, were impotently scrabbling at the strings. She was crying helplessly.
Horrified, Marcus ran to her.
‘Abby darling, please don’t. You did brilliantly this evening.’
‘I don’t give a damn about conducting. All I want to do is play the violin again. And you can fuck off, and get out of my hair.’
‘Pissed,’ commiserated Dixie, coming out of another spare room as Marcus stumbled down the stairs. ‘My wife’s the same. Drink always gets women like that.’
Rodney took Abby back to the Old Bell.
In the morning, she discovered Marcus had gone.
TWENTY-FOUR
Abby’s reviews were sensational.
MIGHTY LIKE A ROSEN,
wrote the
Observer
,
ABBY INTERNATIONAL
, said the
Telegraph
. Even the Rutshire Butcher, a local malcontent, who strung and strung up for
The Times
, who had a terrifying influence over the Arts Council and who usually flayed the orchestra alive, was extraordinarily complimentary and compared Abby to Lester Piggott galvanizing a seaside donkey into winning the Derby.
MIGHTY LIKE A ROSEN,
wrote the
Observer
,
ABBY INTERNATIONAL
, said the
Telegraph
. Even the Rutshire Butcher, a local malcontent, who strung and strung up for
The Times
, who had a terrifying influence over the Arts Council and who usually flayed the orchestra alive, was extraordinarily complimentary and compared Abby to Lester Piggott galvanizing a seaside donkey into winning the Derby.
The RSO grumbled that it was always the same, if a concert was bad, the orchestra got slated, if good the conductor was praised, but in reality they were euphoric, and so were the management. The takings, plus an unexpected one hundred thousand pound legacy from some local philanthropist, went a long way to wiping out the massive overdraft run up by Rodney overpaying his famous friends.
Despite the accolades, Abby felt very flat and restless after the concert. She was also ashamed of being vile to Marcus, but when she rang the Old Rectory, Mrs Edwards, in high excitement, revealed that Marcus had moved out and not left an address.
Back at H.P. Hall, however, Mark Carling had received a fax from Boris’s agent: Boris wanted to duck out of conducting the Modern Music series, because he was still wrestling with
Rachel’s Requiem
, which would now have to be rescheduled yet again.
Rachel’s Requiem
, which would now have to be rescheduled yet again.
As a result, Howie and Mark engaged in a little horse trading. Abby would be allowed to cut her teeth on the Modern Music series, and Howie would let the RSO have Shepherd Denston soloists and singers at a discount. Megagram were delighted. Abby’s reissued records were racing up the classical charts. The orchestra was thrilled. The Modern Music series, known as ‘Squeakygate’, and only put on to suck up to the Arts Council, was anathema, and now they could at least relieve the boredom by lusting after Abby. Abby was equally thrilled and, already getting above herself, talking to Flora in grandiose fashion about being the next Giulini.
Temporarily she decided to stay at the Old Bell, and was put in the Lord Byron Suite overlooking the river. There was a facsimile of
‘So, we’ll go no more a roving’
on the wall, and a painting of Byron in a turban, looking as dark and explosive as Abby herself.
‘So, we’ll go no more a roving’
on the wall, and a painting of Byron in a turban, looking as dark and explosive as Abby herself.
With concerts most Saturdays, the orchestral weekend fell on Sunday and Monday. Arriving on her first Tuesday, Abby found the dark red H.P. Hall rising out of a ruff of white cherry blossom.
Standing on a flat roof, letting down rolls of different brands of lavatory paper to test which was the longest, were Miss Priddock, assorted secretaries and John Drummond the cat, who fancied himself in an Andrex ad.
This was yet another economy measure, along with stopping the orchestra using the management telephones, reducing the wattage of the light bulbs, and not replacing musicians when they resigned.
On the way to the dressing-room, Abby passed the sanctimonious and detested general manager of the orchestra, Miles Brian-Knowles, inevitably known as ‘Brown-Nose’. Miles had thatched mousy hair, a complexion like luncheon meat, caused by frequent outbreaks of acne, a permanently pursed mouth and eyes so close together they could see through the same keyhole. A born-again Christian, who held prayer meetings with selected members of the orchestra, Miles always wore shirts with a high white collar giving him an ecclesiastical look, and softly soled shoes, enabling him to spy out bad behaviour and then sneak to Peggy Parker. He’d achieved Olympic-level at sucking up to his superiors hence the nickname. He was now having a row with Viking.
‘You were not at your great-aunt’s funeral,’ he was saying in an aggrieved fluting curate’s voice. ‘I saw you with my own eyes playing on television for the London Met.’
‘Indeed you did not,’ Viking was saying indignantly. ‘That was my twin brother Danny, he’s a far finer player than me.’
‘Why wasn’t he burying your great-aunt?’
‘Danny has no sense of duty.’ Viking raised his eyes piously to heaven.
‘I do not believe you, Viking. You did not apply for a letter releasing you to play for the London Met. You could be sacked for this. And please don’t bring that dog in here.’ He glared at Mr Nugent who sat listening with his head on one side.
Viking’s spreading his wings, thought Abby, Covent Garden last month, the Festival Hall this. Juno’s pressurizing was beginning to work.
In the auditorium the orchestra were re-assembling, discussing rooms they’d wallpapered or plants they’d bought over the weekend. A violinist was cutting his nails. Two women viola players were trying to organize a dinner party.
Abby was given a desultory clap when she came in. In return she thanked the RSO for a wonderful concert, and said how happy she was to see them again.
‘Now let’s have an A, Simon,’ she asked the First Oboe.
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