Rannaldini had clearly been saving Serena’s child as well as sending a vast cheque to Save the Children because Serena immediately kissed him, thanking him in a cool, clear voice for flying up two of Helen’s young maids, Betty and Sally, for the night to look after her four-year-old daughter, Jessie.
‘Bussage masterminded the whole thing,’ said Rannaldini smoothly, ‘and it is good for Sally and Betty to have an outing.’
‘Jessie fell so in love with them she hardly noticed me leaving,’ said Serena, turning to an outraged Helen. ‘Oh, Lady Rannaldini, I know it’s a liberty hijacking your maids, but I’ve been stuck in Rome with Dame Hermione and rushed home to find my nanny had walked out, so Sir Roberto very kindly came to my aid. But it’s you I’ve got to thank.’
‘We cannot cast Posa without Serena,’ said Rannaldini. ‘Now we have time for a glass of champagne.’
‘How was Hermione?’ snapped Helen, who detested her husband’s mistress.
Serena waited until Rannaldini had left the room to get a bottle, then said, ‘Absolutely bloody. She’s recording Arsena in Rome next week so I spent all yesterday checking out hotels with her. They were either too hot, too cold, too dark, too light, too big and not cosy enough, too poky. I kept frantically apologizing to the hotel managers — you know how sweet and obliging the Italians are. She deserves a kick up the arsena.’
‘She does,’ agreed Helen ecstatically.
‘I finally flipped and shouted at her,’ confessed Serena. ‘So, as a peace offering, I sent her some ravishing lilies and the bitch rang up shouting that they made her sneeze. “I want yellow rosebuds in future, and I’ll tell you exactly which florist to go to.”’
What a lovely young woman, thought Helen, putting her arm round Serena’s shoulders in an utterly uncharacteristic gesture of intimacy.
‘Come and meet our director, Tristan de Montigny.’
‘He’s next door phoning his auntie Hortense,’ volunteered Sexton.
Poor old Hortense was being extremely cantankerous and giving Tristan a long-distance earful. For the first time in eighty-five years, she was no longer Étienne’s little sister. As head of the family, she was feeling old, arthritic and frighteningly exposed. Tristan so wished he could comfort her.
Oh, my goodness, thought Serena, as he wandered back into the room. He was wearing a battered leather jacket, a buttoned-down peacock blue shirt, and Levi’s clinging to his lean hips. Serena immediately wanted to plunge her fingers into his shock of dark hair, and run her tongue along his rubbery jut of lower lip before burying her mouth in his. Instead, she smiled coolly, accepted a glass of Dom Pérignon, and said, ‘Tell us about this Posa, Rannaldini.’
‘He’s called Mikhail Pezcherov. Solti call me after hearing him do the role in Russian. He’s now singing Macbeth in some crappy production and making ends meet belting out songs in a nightclub.’
‘And which do we have to endure?’
‘If we leave soon, we’ll make the second act of Macbeth.’
Landing in Prague, they were driven over the cobbles of ill-lit back streets to a crumbling opera-house. Rannaldini, well known to scream at latecomers, had no compunction in sweeping his party into their seats in the middle of the banquet scene. A rumble of excitement went through the theatre and Lady Macbeth stopped singing altogether to gaze at the great Maestro.
Another wild-goose chase, sighed Serena, who’d made sure she was sitting next to Tristan. The sets and costumes might have come from an amateur operatic society’s production of Brigadoon. Neither conductor, soloists nor chorus could agree on tempi. Attempting to glide through a castle wall, Banquo’s ghost sent it flying.
But out of this shambles came a voice of such beauty, so deep, rich, soft, yet intensely masculine, that Rannaldini’s party turned to each other in rapture. Tristan was so excited he hardly felt Serena’s pinstriped leg rubbing against his.
Mikhail Pezcherov was also an excellent actor, with a square, expressive face and strong features, enhanced by a black moustache and beard, and a curly bull’s poll tumbling over soulful dark eyes. More important, if he were going to play the gallant Marquis of Posa, he was of heroic stature, with long, strong legs that would look marvellous in tights.
Afterwards, he welcomed Rannaldini and his party backstage.
‘My knees knock, my tongue thicken in mouth, I can only croak hello, I am so excited,’ he announced, thrusting mugs of very rough red wine into their hands.
He wished he could afford something more expensive but all his money was going home to support his darling wife, Lara, and his children. Showing the visitors their photographs, he wiped away copious tears, but all would be worthwhile, if they could live together one day in comfort.
‘How did you meet your wife?’ asked Helen.
‘I was best man at wedding. Lara was bridesmaid. I sing “Nessun’ Dorma” at reception. Zat was zat,’ sighed Mikhail.
‘Lady Rannaldini and I had our first romantic weekend in Prague,’ purred Rannaldini.
‘Zat is good,’ said Mikhail. ‘I trust guys who love their wives.’
‘I too.’ Rannaldini caressed Helen’s cheek.
Really, thought Helen, when he’s as charming as this, I can remember why I married him.
Back at Rannaldini’s suite, Mikhail got stuck into a better class of red, wolfed down his own incredibly tough steak, and polished off everyone else’s leftovers.
Rannaldini, who for once hadn’t made a single bitchy remark, produced the score of Don Carlos and thumped away on the piano. When Mikhail came to the end of Posa’s wonderfully beautiful dying aria, it seemed impossible that only five listeners could have made such a noise, cheering and shouting until people in the next rooms banged on the thin walls.
‘So thrilling to find him together.’ A tearful Helen squeezed Serena’s hand.
‘You’re going to give the part exactly the right ker-pow quotient, Mick,’ Sexton told Mikhail. ‘Tomorrow our people will call your people.’
‘You better call my vife, she handle money,’ said Mikhail. ‘If I really have zee part?’
‘You have it,’ said Rannaldini, who had been particularly captivated when Mikhail congratulated him on his piano-playing. Not since Hermione had he discovered such a thrilling talent. Now, where had he put his treasured jade fountain pen? In his excitement, he must have handed it absent-mindedly to the waiter after he’d signed for room service.
‘May I call my Lara?’ asked Mikhail, as his glass was refilled yet again.
‘Go into our bedroom,’ said Rannaldini.
‘Can I possibly borrow your mobile to check on Jessie?’ Serena asked Sexton. ‘I’ve got a horrible feeling I’ve left mine in the taxi.’
Helen had buttonholed Tristan. When she’d first moved to England from America, she told him, she had worked as an editor in publishing, which had involved a lot of research. Perhaps she could help out on Don Carlos.
Tristan listened politely. Close up, Helen’s huge, staring eyes, ribby body, spindly legs and flesh worn down to her admittedly perfect bone structure, reminded him unnervingly of paintings of chargers dying of starvation in the Crimean War.
Across the room, trying to make Tristan jealous, Serena was chatting up Rannaldini, who was terribly sexy, but definitely not husband potential.
‘We must have dinner one evening,’ he was murmuring. ‘Bussage can always find a window for special people. At least promise to sit next to me at the Gramophone Awards on Tuesday.’