‘Bags I be your asp,’ said Guy, who was showing off his splendid legs as a centurion.
Unlike most fathers, Rannaldini was not remotely inhibited by his daughter’s presence. Seeing a miserable, utterly upstaged Georgie retreating into an alcove, he went over to fill up her glass: ‘Hallo, Georgie.’
‘Oh hi, Rannaldini. God, I’m unhappy. I screwed up courage to go to Relate in Rutminster last night and came home full of resolutions to be nicer to Guy only to find he’d gone round to see Rachel and what is more—’
‘Georgie,’ Rannaldini cut into her monologue mockingly, ‘I only came to say Hallo. Talk of zee devil.’
Leaving Georgie squirming with humiliation he sauntered across the room to kiss Rachel, who, having been to a candle-lit peace vigil to protest against the Gulf War, had arrived in an embattled mood. Dressed as Ben Hur, she was brandishing a large whip.
‘Ah, Dolores, Lady of Pain,’ he said softly, sliding a brief caressing hand inside her thighs just below her tunic, ‘let me pull your chariot.’
‘I loathe fancy dress,’ snarled Rachel, but she had lost her audience, because Lysander had just walked in and as usual brought the room to a halt.
He wore ripped jeans, a dark blue shirt and Kitty’s Donald Duck jersey. His deathly pallor set off by the dark stubble and the purple shadows beneath the cavernous eyes, which searched endlessly for Kitty, only made him stand out more from the gaudy yelling revellers swarming around him.
‘Hi, Trouble,’ said Meredith, tossing a handful of rosepetals over him. ‘Calves in Ancient Rome were always garlanded with flowers before they were sacrificed.’
Lysander was followed by a tottering, leering Ferdie, who, as Bacchus, had draped himself in a wine-stained tablecloth. His mouth was smeared dark purple with one of Lysander’s lipsalves and a wreath of plastic vine leaves borrowed from The Pearly Gates fell over his nose.
‘Hie,’ said Ferdie, lifting a flagon of red to his lips.
‘Haec hoc,’ added Meredith. ‘Hermione should have come as Frontus. Any moment Guy will tumble down her cleavage.’
Kitty was so used to staying in the background that Rannaldini had the greatest difficulty in dragging her out of the kitchen. He certainly didn’t want Lysander sloping off there. Because she had no idea Lysander was coming, she had listlessly acquiesced when Rannaldini insisted on dressing her as a Vestal Virgin in clinging pleated white, which only emphasized her lack of colour, her swollen reddened eyes and her dumpy little figure.
Now she was carrying a big terracotta bowl loaded with green grapes and crimson cherries past the red morning room along to the dining room.
‘Kitty, darling, how are you? Let me take that,’ called out Bob, but next minute he had been waylaid by the leader of the orchestra, who’d come plus fiddle as Nero and who was already half-cut.
‘Where’s this famous toy boy who got off with Kitty?’ he demanded, not realizing she was within earshot.
‘I want to shake him by the hand for rattling that shit. I’ve never known him so histrionic, screaming down the telephone about deps at four o’clock this morning: “Those were completely deeferent musicians to zee ones I saw in rehearsal.” So I said: “It’s not surprising, Rannaldini. The first lot were so fucking frightened of being shouted at.” That must be him in the Donald Duck sweater. Jesus, what a beauty. It’s going to be like the first day of the sales once we start orgying.’
Hearing this, Kitty shot into the room and found herself looking straight at Lysander. He was clutching Jack and a huge bunch of snowdrops. Next minute the terracotta bowl crashed into the rosepetals.
‘Oh, Lysander,’ she whispered.
Unable to speak, Lysander stumbled forward thrusting the snowdrops into her hands, closing her fingers round them and stroking them. For a second they gazed at each other, stunned by the devastation both had wrought.
‘I can’t go on,’ stammered Lysander.
‘Welcome to the Underworld, Orpheus,’ murmured Rannaldini, gliding up. Then, snapping his fingers at a couple of waitresses to clear up the broken pieces, he turned to Kitty. ‘I want you to come and meet Rudolpho who’s going to play Macbeth.’
Dropping her snowdrops contemptuously on a side table, he frogmarched her across the room.
‘I thought you’d promised to geeve up Lysander,’ he hissed, squeezing her arm till she gasped with pain. Switching to purring conciliation, he introduced her to a very fat tenor covered in white make-up and his harpist boyfriend whose costume consisted of brown curling leaves. They had come as Decline and Fall.
‘Rudolpho, caro, I would like you to meet my wife, Keety, who’ll be sorting out your contract. Ring her eef you have any problem.’
From then on Kitty kept her eyes firmly down, deliberately avoiding looking at Lysander, who had collapsed dolefully on the sofa, muttering to Jack.
‘I assume you’d rather talk to that dog than me,’ said Hermione archly.
‘Yes, I would,’ snapped Lysander, holding out his glass to an admiring waitress for a refill.
The party was hotting up. Gluck’s Orphée was pouring out of the speakers. Ravishing female musicians and handsome gay opera stars, realizing that spare heterosexual beefcake was in short supply, hovered hungrily around Lysander, hoping he’d tread on their togas.
‘I wouldn’t mind a house down here,’ said Rudolpho, the very fat tenor.
‘I have secret information,’ said Ferdie in an undertone, ‘that Paradise Grange across the valley might be coming on to the market. I could show you around tomorrow if you like. Goodness, that’s nice,’ he added as a stunning blonde, inadequately clad in a pale blue cot sheet, appeared in the doorway. Perhaps she could jolt Lysander out of his despair.
‘That’s Chloe, Boris Levitsky’s girlfriend,’ said Rudolpho. ‘I did Aïda in Cardiff with her. Marvellous voice.’
‘Chloe, carissima.’ Rannaldini dropped a kiss on her bare brown shoulder, licking off wild strawberry and rose-hip body lotion. ‘How did you give Boris the slip?’
‘He’s working on his Requiem,’ said Chloe petulantly. ‘He didn’t even notice I’d gone out.’
‘Silly boy to neglect something so exquisite.’ Beckoning to a waitress, Rannaldini put a beaker of Krug in each of Chloe’s little hands. ‘You ’ave catching up to do. We are about to dine.’
‘I’m not sitting next to Rachel?’
‘No, next to me. That will upset everyone.’
Kitty’s snowdrops gave a long despairing hiss as he tossed them into the fire.
Dinner was served in the blue dining-room which was more intimate than the great hall. Guests lounged on multi-coloured silk cushions piled round low tables on which was arranged suitably Roman fare: great fishes swimming in herbs and butter, lobsters, barbecued geese, sucking pigs, great flagons of wine and big bowls spilling over with grapes, cherries and pomegranates.
Wrapped in imperial purple paper beside each gold plate was a condom and an Ecstasy pill. Rannaldini’s version of Ravel’s Bolero, said to be the sexiest ever, was pulsating out of the speakers like a great heartbeat, with the leader of the orchestra playing along.
‘I wish Rannaldini would spend as much on church flowers,’ grumbled Joy Hillary, glaring at the cliffs of freesias.
‘Who did the seating plan?’ grumbled Georgie who was stuck between the vicar and Rudolpho.
‘Rannaldini and I,’ said Hermione smugly. ‘I’ve put Guy next to the two prettiest women in the room — Rachel and Natasha. Is your phone out of order, by the way? I saw Guy coming out of the call box in Paradise High Street this afternoon.’ Then, suddenly furious, ‘What the hell’s Chloe doing next to Rannaldini? She must have gatecrashed. He was supposed to have Gwendolyn Chisleden on his right.’