Score! (11 page)

‘Ke-rist on a Harley-Davidson!’ gasped Baby.

‘Oh, Don Fatale,’ muttered Tristan, because the girl had one of those faces that makes everyone else’s look commonplace.

‘Where are you going to, Mademoiselle?’ shouted Baby, lowering his window.

‘It’ll be Madame in an hour or two,’ shouted back Tabitha, lifting the vodka bottle to her lips and driving on.

At the edge of town, she gave them the slip.

‘That’s one for the divorce courts,’ said Baby. Then, to Tristan’s surprise, he admitted he had been married briefly when he was twenty-one. ‘My brother had such a beaut stag party I wanted one too. So I had to get spliced. My stag party was so great, I only just made the wedding, passed out as soon as I got to the reception and didn’t wake up till next day. My mother-in-law never forgave me, and nor did my wife. It only lasted a few weeks.’

Baby told the story so wickedly that Tristan couldn’t help laughing, but neither could he stop thinking about the girl at the traffic lights. Then he remembered. He’d seen her in a silver frame on Rannaldini’s piano.

Across the world in Bogotá, Rupert had returned from a marvellous day out. Xavier had totally captivated the nuns, who had not seen him since Rupert and Taggie had adopted him four and a half years ago. He was so tall, straight-backed and confident now, and proudly showed them photographs of Taggie, Bianca — who’d come from the same convent — Bogotá his black Labrador, Gringo his pony, already covered in rosettes, and finally of his big brother, Marcus, winning the Appleton.

‘We read about Marcus in the papers,’ said Mother Immaculata. ‘You must be so proud — and what about your sister Tabitha?’

‘We don’t see her any more, thank God,’ said Xav flatly.

‘She’s in America, eventing,’ explained Rupert hastily, vowing to telephone her the moment he got back to England.

Returning to the Hilton, he found a message to ring Taggie urgently. When he heard the news he went berserk.

‘What time is it in England?’

‘About three thirty.’

‘We’ve got to stop it. Rannaldini’s set the whole thing up in revenge for Marcus winning the Appleton and the rows over
Don Carlos
. Gimme his number.’ Then, for once forgetting his wife’s reading problems, ‘For Christ’s sake, move it.’

As Tabitha breezed in from the hairdresser, a purring Rannaldini told her that her father was on the line. For a second her face lit up. Then, picking up the telephone, she was scalded — even thousands of miles away — by the lava of Rupert’s rage. If she
really
went ahead and married Isa, he would never speak to her again, never allow her back to Penscombe, never give her a penny.

‘So what else is new?’ screamed Tabitha. ‘You said exactly the same thing when Mummy married Rannaldini. I love Isa. It’s not just because I’m having your grandchild.’

‘Won’t be any bloody grandchild of mine! It’s spawn of the devil!’

‘Bollocks! You’re the devil. I know what you got up to — terrorizing Jake at school, and Tory when she was a deb, making Jake’s life a misery on the show-jumping circuit, pinching Revenge from him. I’d no idea that Revenge started off as Jake’s horse, or the reason Macaulay wouldn’t go for you in the World Championship was because you’d beaten him to a pulp in the past, just as you beat up Mummy.’

‘I bloody fucking didn’t!’

‘Yes, you did! You’re the biggest bastard that ever walked.’

‘You ain’t seen nothing yet!’ howled Rupert. ‘I’ll destroy your marriage and bring down Rannaldini and the entire Lovell family.’

‘Oh, go screw yourself!’ A shattered Tab slammed down the receiver.

Rupert was straight on to Taggie. ‘I can’t get back in time to stop the marriage but I’ll get it annulled tomorrow, and I’ll strangle you if you go to the wedding.’

The moment Rupert hung up, Tabitha called Taggie and begged her to go.

‘Christ! Look at Hammerklavier House of Horror,’ shivered Baby as, after extended drinks at the Pearly Gates, he and Tristan drove towards Valhalla. Rooks rose out of a shroud of mist, thickened by bonfires of wet leaves. Sinister, conspiratorial as its owner, the great grey house lurked behind its mighty army of trees. Its tiny deep-set windows, thought Tristan, were like the eyes of medieval scholars grown small from poring over learned texts lit only by a flickering candle.

As Rannaldini had wanted maximum publicity without alerting Rupert, he had waited until midday to invite the leading gossip columnists, who had dropped everything to be there. The rest of the paparazzi, in black leather jackets and dark glasses, tried to storm the electric gates, as they opened to admit Baby and Tristan. Remembering Étienne’s funeral, Tristan ducked in horror. Baby, on the other hand, waved happily.

At the end of a long drive through dark woods and deer-haunted parkland, Tristan and Baby were directed through the
omnia vincit amor
gates. Rannaldini’s all-devouring smile welcomed them at the front door. Inside they found Tabitha. Except for the puppy-farming T-shirt and the flowers in her hair, she was unrecognizable, her swollen eyes redder than carbuncles, her face grey, except where it was covered in blotches. Despite having thrown up after her terrible row with Rupert, she was still attacking the vodka.

Delighted by the turn of events, Rannaldini was about to introduce her, when Tab gave a cry of relief, and shoving Baby and Tristan aside ran towards a dark girl, who had followed them into the house. ‘Oh, Lucy, thank God you’ve come!’

One glance at Tab’s blubbered woebegone little face told it all.

‘Has your dad been horrible to you again?’

‘Horrible, horrible,’ sobbed Tab, as she led Lucy upstairs.

Lucy Latimer was Tabitha’s greatest friend. They had met when they became involved in animal rights. A vegetarian and a make-up artist, Lucy was very careful not to use cosmetics that had been tested on animals. Extremely successful because she combined a painter’s eye with a sympathetic, soothing nature, she fortunately had a spare day between filming to make up Tab and provide moral support.

‘Come on, Latimer.’ Tab gazed at the wreckage in her bedroom mirror. ‘This is the greatest challenge you’ll ever face.’

‘Don’t you worry.’ Lucy unpacked a roll of brushes, sponges and assorted bottles. ‘I’ll have you stunning as ever in a trice.’

‘And talking of stunning, did you see that man in the hall?’

‘Couldn’t miss him, really,’ sighed Lucy, ‘but you’ll have to put all that behind you now.’

Only a streak of saffron on the horizon gave a clue the sun was setting, but apple logs burned merrily in the Summer Drawing Room.

Rannaldini, looking very good in a morning coat, because the grey waistcoat matched his pewter hair, handed Tristan and Baby glasses of champagne, and apologized that they had run into a wedding.

‘Who’s getting married?’ asked Baby.

‘My stepdaughter, Tabitha.’

‘She doesn’t seem very keen on the idea,’ said Tristan, wincing at his father’s painting over the piano, of a leering man undressing a very young girl.

‘Just last-minute nerves.’ Rannaldini seemed to be killing himself over some private joke.

‘Who’s the lucky guy?’ asked Baby.

‘My dear boy, I thought you’d have known. It’s your jockey, Isa Lovell.’

The colour drained from Baby’s suntanned face. He seemed to shrink, like a larky March hare suddenly looking down a gun barrel.

‘Christ, he can’t be,’ he stammered. ‘What about Martie? He was talking of marrying her after Crimbo.’

Rannaldini always got a charge out of inflicting pain.

‘He’ll be in in a minute to tell you himself. He was irritated not to be riding at Cheltenham today.’

Tristan felt desperately sorry for Baby and put a hand on his rigid shoulders.

‘This happen very quick. You told me she only came home the day of the Gramophone Awards.’

‘Ah,’ sighed Rannaldini. ‘When one is young, love work like lightning. Like Carlos and Elisabetta.’

‘Carlos and Elisabetta happen so quick because they were giddy with relief an arranged marriage had turned out so well,’ protested Tristan.

‘I believe in arranged marriages,’ said Rannaldini warmly. After all, he had arranged this one.

‘I hope you’ll stay for the wedding,’ he begged. ‘You might even sing something during the signing of the register.’ He smiled at Baby who, having drained his glass of champagne, had got a grip on himself. ‘Dame Hermione is singing “Panis Angelicus”,’ went on Rannaldini. ‘Ah, here comes the bridegroom.’

And in strolled Isa, still in old cords and a tweed jacket.

‘Hi.’ He smiled almost mockingly at Baby, who found it impossible to act normally as he blushed and couldn’t speak. Isa always had this effect on him.

‘Hadn’t you better get changed?’ snapped Tristan.

‘Plenty of time,’ said Isa coolly. ‘I thought Baby might like to see round your yard, Rannaldini.’

It wasn’t long before Baby found his tongue again.

‘Why the hell didn’t you marry Tabitha’s brother Marcus?’ he hissed. ‘At least he’s the right sex. I suppose you knocked her up.’

‘This is a very nice mare.’ Isa opened a half-door.

‘She’ll lose it if she goes on hitting the vodka. I suppose it’s also for the money.’

‘Rupert won’t give her a penny,’ sighed Isa. ‘And Rannaldini will only help out if it suits him.’

‘Well, you’re not getting another cent out of me.’

In the safety of the loose-box, Isa ran a finger down Baby’s gritted jaw. ‘It doesn’t change anything,’ he said softly. ‘If you’re a good boy, I’ll tell you more about this amazing horse I’ve found. Did you know,’ he added idly, ‘gypsies consider it unlucky if a marriage takes place after sunset?’

Meanwhile Tristan was exploring Valhalla. Grey and spooky in the December twilight, it would be the perfect setting for
Don Carlos
. He could imagine the hunt streaming down those rides, or Eboli chasing Carlos through the maze. There were dungeons for Posa’s death, and a splendid mausoleum for Charles V’s tomb. Even the
auto da fe
, in which the heretics were burnt, could be staged in the courtyard outside the chapel.

As he wandered through rooms formed by yew hedges, statues of naked nymphs lurked in every corner. Tristan wished he could offer them all his jacket. To his right, the wood kept readjusting the mist like a shawl around its shoulders and, as he reached the big lawn, to the north four vast Lawson cypresses reared up, like monks in black habits with their pointed hoods over their faces. Gazing up from beneath them, Tristan suddenly felt the terror of the sixteenth-century man-in-the-street, overwhelmed by the dark, towering forces of the Inquisition.

Quickening his step as night fell, he nearly ran into a pack of paparazzi. As they levelled their long lenses like a firing squad at a new arrival, he decided they were part of some present-day
auto da fe
, destroying reputations for public delectation.

In a blinding flash, he realized that
Don Carlos
must be made in modern dress. The present English Royal Family were so similar to Verdi’s French and Spanish royalty. Elisabetta was so like both the sad Princess Diana and the wistful Queen Elizabeth, married to the short-fused, roving-eyed Prince Philip, who was not unlike Philip II of Spain. And they, too, had a son called Charles, who was romantic, idealistic, longed for a proper job, had a loving nature and was terrified of his stern, critical father, as Carlos had been. Whilst in Eboli, the feisty mistress in love with Carlos, could be seen an echo of Camilla Parker Bowles, and in the noble Marquis of Posa a touch of Andrew, her diplomatic soldier husband. They could start the film with these characters in the royal box, then cut to the two armies on the skyline.

But who was the modern equivalent of the Grand Inquisitor? wondered Tristan, as he retraced his steps to the
omnia vincit amor
gates. Who terrorized people to madness? Why not Gordon Dillon, the ruthless editor of the
Scorpion
, who would shop his own children to boost circulation and who went around in tinted glasses and soft-soled shoes, scaring his staff as shitless as the public? The Inquisition bully-boys, who cast such terrifying shadows over
Don Carlos
, could be represented as lurking paparazzi or as the chinless, ruthless courtiers who spent their time spying and manipulating at Buckingham Palace.

Tristan couldn’t wait to tell Rannaldini.

‘Monsieur de Montigny.’ A soft lisping voice made him jump out of his skin.

In his path lurked what appeared to be yet another leatherclad member of the paparazzi, with hair as pale as his bloodless face and the leer of a chemist when asked for something embarrassing. Before Tristan could tell him to piss off, the sinister creature introduced himself as Clive, Rannaldini’s henchman.

‘Sir Roberto was worried you were outside without an overcoat. He thought you might like a cup of tea, or something stronger, before the service starts in half an hour.’

Fifty miles away at Penscombe, Taggie Campbell-Black was still tearing out her dark hair. Rupert’s reprobate old father, Eddie, had invited himself for the weekend. Having ensconced him happily in the study with a bottle of Bell’s and racing on television, Taggie took the opportunity, as she hastily made up her face for Tab’s wedding in the kitchen mirror, to discuss the crisis with Rupert’s assistant, Lysander Hawkley. Lysander, who was married to Rannaldini’s young third wife, Kitty, and who had also ridden his horse Arthur in the Rutminster Cup the same year Isa had ridden Rannaldini’s delinquent Prince of Darkness, was absolutely horrified.

‘Tab can’t marry Isa, Taggie, he’s an evil bugger. He spat at me before the race and made some seriously insulting remarks about Arthur — who, being a horse, couldn’t answer back — and he gets up to wicked tricks on the course. Nearly rode me into the rails and called me “Campbell-Black’s bumboy”,’ Lysander flushed. ‘Bloody insult. Not that,’ he added quickly, ‘if I was that way inclined, I could think of anyone nicer than Rupert.’