The orchestra watched mildly interested and later heard Hermione and Rannaldini squealing in her dressing room like pigs in an abattoir, until Rannaldini stormed out.
When Hermione rang Rannaldini in his flat overlooking Hyde Park to continue the row the London secretary put her on hold so she had to listen to herself singing Donna Anna’s aria from Don Giovanni: ‘All my love on him I lavished’, on the recorded musak which made her crosser than ever.
Rannaldini spent the rest of the afternoon auditioning singers and musicians for Fidelio who had to hump their instruments up eight flights of stairs because the lift wasn’t working. He then read through a letter he had dictated to Rachel’s husband Boris, who, having waded through a mountain of unsolicited scores sent into the London Met, had weeded out half a dozen of merit, putting Boris’s Berlin Wall Symphony, dedicated to his new love Chloe, on top.
Rannaldini needed Boris. He was aware that a great conductor is assessed in part by the new music he brings into being. Boris had been invaluable on a freelance basis, pulling out the good stuff, often presenting it in a simplified form to save Rannaldini time. He didn’t want to upset Boris too much.
‘My dear Boy,’ he wrote in black ink, then reading the typing, ‘Thank you for the latest batch, from which I am returning your symphony. Since we are friends, I know you would prefer me to be frank. When I read your music, I do not hear it. For the enormous orchestra it requires, it is highly complex. No-one could sing the chorus correctly. One would have to hear it a dozen times to begin to understand it. Neither I nor the public have the time nor the inclination. The good news is that I have a series of lectures to do for BBC2 in the autumn. I shall need research done. I will call you. Best to Chloe.’
His London secretary didn’t type as well as Kitty but she was much prettier. As he scribbled ‘Yours ever, Rannaldini,’ he felt he had been very good to Boris.
Showered and scented in a new grey satin dressing-gown, having assembled some exciting sex toys, including a three-fingered vibrator bought in Paris on the way home, and several phials of amyl nitrite, Rannaldini waited for Flora. Clive was collecting her from Heathrow. Outside, the dusty plane trees were past their best and the bleached grass of the park was already covered in curled-up brown leaves and couples in T-shirts and shorts sharing a bottle before tonight’s performance. Tomorrow you wouldn’t see a blade of grass for crowds jostling to gaze at him and Hermione.
While he waited, he flipped through the Requiem. He had conducted it so many times but one must always try and bring something new and exciting to a work. His thoughts strayed to Cordelia, the blond camera-person. She was new and very exciting. Tomorrow Flora had to return to Paradise to get her trunk packed for the autumn term, so he would ask Cordelia out after the performance. Then he could invite her to light his bedroom with its shiny indigo walls and ceiling, its dark mirrors and its rich crimson four-poster. He might even offer her a job on Fidelio. He would have loved a threesome this evening, but Flora, despite her habitual cool, would never wear it. Even so he was roused out of the most erotic fantasy by crashes on the door louder than Verdi’s thunderclaps. Through the spyhole he could see Hermione.
‘Let me in, Rannaldini.’
Hermione could cry louder than she could sing, and as the editor of The Scorpion had installed a bimbo in the next-door flat, Rannaldini let her in at once.
‘I cannot bear it, Maestro. Life is too short.’
Rannaldini agreed and opened a bottle of Krug.
‘You have been behaving very badly, Carissima.’
‘I know, Rannaldini.’
‘You will ’ave to stand in the corner, and you know what that means.’
‘Yes, yes.’ Hermione’s eyes glistened with excitement; he could smell the goaty reek of her body.
‘What a peety Keety is due any minute,’ Rannaldini smiled sadistically, ‘and you must leave now.’
‘Kitty won’t mind,’ protested Hermione, ‘say we’re rehearsing.’
‘We promised to treat Keety with compassion, remember?’
Hermione remembered no such thing.
‘When we get back to Valhalla,’ briefly Rannaldini massaged her bottom, ‘it will be the punishment bell.’
He was so worried Flora would arrive, as there was no late-night shopping to hold her up, that he was forced to get dressed and go down the eight flights of stairs and bundle Hermione into a taxi.
Flora arrived twenty minutes later wearing Georgie’s emerald-green leotard, weighed down by carrier bags full of knickers and bringing him duty-free Armagnac, Givenchy for Men and a new biography of Swinburne, whom he admired. Rannaldini, who never wore any other scent but Maestro, was touched. Knowing him to be rich, women seldom gave him presents. Rather indiscreetly he told her about the screaming match.
‘You need some Hermione Replacement Therapy.’ Flora took a slug of Krug. ‘The only time the silly old bag hits top E these days is when some journalist reveals her real age.’
‘You should take your singing seriously. Then you can replace her. What d’you think of these?’
He threw half a dozen photographs on the little table beside her.
‘Uck! Who are they?’
‘You, my angel.’ Rannaldini slid his hands over her breasts. ‘Don’t you recognize yourself?’
‘My God!’ Fascinated, Flora examined her own shining pink clitoris and glistening labia lips laid back like butterfly wings.
‘I enter two prints anonymously in competition in German pornographic magazine,’ announced Rannaldini proudly, ‘you win first prize!’
‘That’s nice! As I’m obviously going to plough my A levels I can put that in my cv when I start job-hunting. It might help in times of recession.’
At a rare loose-end Hermione went back to hers and Bob’s house in Radnor Walk. Always grumbling that she never had an evening in, she now had absolutely no idea what to do with herself. Bob, still tying up all the details for tomorrow, wouldn’t be home for hours. The maid, about to go out on her evening off, made Hermione a prawn omelette and was understandably irritated to find seven-eighths of it in the bin the following morning. Having sung a lullaby over the telephone to little Cosmo, who rudely told her to piss off, Hermione picked up the score of the Requiem. She’d show Rannaldini he couldn’t do without her tomorrow when she moved the promenaders to tears and then frenzied applause. How dare he boot her out because Kitty was in London? On impulse, to reassure herself she rang Valhalla.
‘’Allo.’ It was Kitty’s breathless voice. ‘’Oo’s that?’
Hermione thought she must have rung the London number. Dropping the telephone she re-punched the Paradise number, got Kitty again and hung up.
In a fury she rang Rannaldini, who had his head between Flora’s legs and mumbled truthfully that he couldn’t talk. Then when Hermione threatened to come round, he said he would take it in another room. Having put on the mute button while he brought Flora to orgasm, he proceeded to tell Hermione he had lied to her.
‘I am with Cecilia not Keety, but I didn’t want to upset you before your big night. I want you to sleep well and ’ave beautiful dreams.’
‘Why are you seeing Cecilia?’ demanded Hermione.
‘A crisis about Natasha’s future. We have to discuss UCCA forms.’ Rannaldini lowered his voice. ‘I must go, Carissima.’
‘Why are you such a terrible liar?’ asked Flora fascinated.
‘When I was five I own up to stealing chocolate and my mother beat me, which I didn’t like. So I never bother with the truth again.’