Rancid Pansies (31 page)

On the 17th the great Tizia Sgrizzi-Pulmoni arrives in a Rolls Royce with a moustached chauffeur straight from central casting. As an old friend of Max’s she has accepted his invitation to stay at Crendlesham rather than in a London hotel. Many white leather suitcases with gold fittings are carried up to the immense guest bedroom with its four-poster bed. Josh has been sternly bidden to be on his best behaviour but the famous diva proves quite at ease with children. When Josh and Luna the cat burst into the kitchen through the back door, both well spattered with mud, she greets him in excellent English with a smile and presents him with a very small Leaning Tower of Pisa made out of chocolate, explaining that all the First Class passengers on her flight this morning were given one. Josh is instantly won over. So am I, for it pretty soon emerges that Tizia (as she insists we call her) is anything but grande dame and has a lively sense of humour, which she is probably going to need. But I can feel myself expand. At last – the sort of company I have been craving all my life!

With the star’s arrival things really begin to shape up and for the first time I’m required to take my place onstage. We run through the end of Act 1, finishing with the scene in Buckingham Palace in which Charles and Diana’s marital discord is finally established. In the background the Queen is pretending to read the
Tatler
and the Duke is merely sitting with his head in his hands while Diana and Charles are singing their closing duet:

When they have finished the final word comes from from the Duke, who bitterly observes ‘How are the matey fallen!’
Curtain
. Immediately, Tizia calls a halt.

‘Sorry, Max, there is something here I am not clear about. Gerry,
caro
, your libretto is quite wonderful, but it leaves so much to interpretation. Your Diana, we can read her in two ways,
non è vero?
But is she
simpatica
or do you laugh at her secretly?’

‘I agree,’ chimes in Brian Tydfil. ‘How are we supposed to be playing this opera – for laughs? Really, there’s nothing
inherently
funny
about a married couple falling out.’

Sententious Welsh git (but a wonderful voice). Maybe he’s a bit thick, this person from Wysiwyg, but on the other hand maybe he’s a Squidgy loyalist and this really is something of a crux. Either way it’s vital to get it out into the open and cleared up during rehearsal. In fact I’ve already had a session with Ken, the producer, about exactly this problem of how to pitch my complex work.

‘Can you think of anything about the royals that
isn’t
funny?’ I ask. But catching sight of Tydfil’s expression I think, Oh dear, she was after all the Princess of the Welsh and maybe we’re also touching a nationalist nerve here. Better back off. ‘This guy you’re singing, Brian – and very
beautifully
, if I may say so – don’t forget he talks to plants and
probably
tucks his shirt into his underpants. He’s also on record as likening himself to a tampon. “My luck to be chucked down the lavatory,” he said, “and go on and on, forever swirling round on top, never going down.” Now, you can’t tell me that’s not genius. By Windsor family standards that’s a bona fide surreal imagination. And he said lavatory rather than toilet into the bargain. I adore him. His
tragedy
is he can only express himself intimately over an insecure mobile phone.’

‘Ye-es,’ agrees Tydfil thoughtfully. ‘I see what you mean. A tragic figure really.’

‘But with sublime comic overtones. Don’t forget those.’

‘And Diana, we should play her as tragic, too?’ asks Tizia.

‘Certainly. Tragic, betrayed, worthy to be surrounded at the end by a quite unmerited aura of heroism as well as by tales of beatification and a probable ascent into heaven. In short, the whole operatic hog. Because while you’re doing that, both the script and Marta’s wonderful score are working to undercut it. This was a lady who spent £3,000 a week on clothes and went around the world cuddling children who couldn’t even afford underwear. It’s a hoot. Remember that Act 2 scene of yours in the Karachi slum when she’s talking to the mother? “I’d love to take your pretty chicks / For a shopping spree in Harvey Nicks”.’

‘But she is also spiritual.’

‘Exactly. Both she and Charles are. It’s hilarious.’

Silence briefly falls as Tizia and Tydfil digest this and I’m thankful old Joan has gone into Woodbridge for the morning because I have a feeling she might raise fierce, nicotine-stained objections to my reading of her blonde heart-throb, who
anyway
wasn’t blonde by nature and had to spend £4,000 a year having her hair bleached. Then the divine Tizia says:

‘I shall sing her as
simpaticissima
, then, but with tragedy inside. That is my Diana.’

‘You’re the diva, Tizia. Whatever you do will be wonderful.’

‘So when in Act 2 she’ – Tizia rapidly turns the pages of her score – ‘yes, here, she sings “I feel tarty / And so party, / All disco and risko and free” and Marta has that brilliant
citazione
from
West Side Story,
Diana is going out for the evening to have fun and never mind what consequences? Even if one day they will be tragic?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Very
simpatica
. I shall sing her as I feel her, then. Thank you, Gerry.’

‘Brian?’

‘I think I understand what you’re getting at. I’m not sure I approve, but I’ve been hired to sing Charles and I’m taking him at face value.’

‘That will be perfect. The soloists should sing their parts straight, as if they were doing Puccini, while it is the orchestra, the chorus and the words that now and then undermine them with satire and mockery. I’m so sorry, Max,’ I say, turning to the conductor who, like his orchestra, has been obliged to down tools. ‘I hope I’m not encroaching on your
interpretation
. Ignore everything I’ve said if I am.’ But at your peril, Buster.

‘Not at all, Gerry. A very useful clarification. We have no disagreement. Marta’s score speaks for itself.’ He slaps his baton on the music stand and turns to his players. ‘Fine,
everybody
. Could we go to Act 2, please, cue 46? We’ve got to be right on top of Brian when he’s pointing out the different
flowers
or else it will sound ragged.’

Ah yes: one of my favourite scenes. Charles and Diana are in their private garden at Kensington Palace, which is
represented
very simply on the stage by some shrubs in tubs and a heraldic pair of iron-barred gates (in front of which she will later sing ‘Don’t Cry for Me, Kensington’). As the orchestra plays softly Charles wanders about, alternately speaking to the plants and explaining their history to Diana. ‘This mulberry was planted by George the Third.’ ‘Princess Romanovna gave us the original cutting of this Crimean rose in 1803.’ ‘These beauties were planted by my great-uncle Louis. He adored pansies.’ Meanwhile, Diana notices some children pressing their noses to the gates and exclaims: ‘Oh Charles, can’t we let them in?’ But Charles takes a stern view of intruders into his garden, like the late Sir Douglas Monteith into whose Suffolk demesne I blundered and whose bad-tempered shade probably inspired me to write this scene. ‘No!’ he exclaims. ‘They don’t understand such precious histories, / They’ll just trample over our private mysteries. / They’ve the whole damned world as their playground, / Surely we’re allowed one little compound?’ And no, none of the children at the gates bears the wounds of crucifixion, for this is no nod to Oscar Wilde’s lachrymose story of the Selfish Giant but an acknowledgement of certain
people’s obdurate need for privacy and beauty – a need that is always begrudged them, especially if they are princes. As Max hints, it is a difficult scene and not merely because the
orchestra
needs to co-ordinate its interjections with Brian’s
meanderings
about the stage and his exclamations over each flower. It’s written against the grain of expectation. Charles’s music is gentle and soulful whereas Diana’s is upbeat and a little bossy. But it goes well, and by the time we break for lunch I think we’re all pleased by the way the opera’s coming together.

Come Saturday and the evening of the first performance I’m all of a doo-dah. Adrian arrived late yesterday and sat through rehearsals this morning. From the tone of his enthusiasm I can tell he had misgivings. His sudden ardour has all the hallmarks of relief, frankly, which shows how little confidence he had in me, not to mention in his illustrious brother-in-law’s musical judgement. But then of course he
is
a scientist and we must make allowances. Anyhow, he seems tickled pink after hearing only short and fragmentary excerpts and bets it will ‘divide the audience in an interesting way’, whatever that means. But he has to acknowledge I am at last in my element. This is what Samper was born for. Last night I sat in the kitchen at
Crendlesham
Hall listening to one of the world’s greatest sopranos swap reminiscences with one of its greatest conductors.
Tizia
was still wearing the red T-shirt she’d worn onstage in
rehearsal
with the slogan ‘It’s Over. Fat Lady Sings’. To think that less than eighteen months ago I was having to trail around after Millie Cleat and pretend to listen respectfully to her
vainglorious
blusterings! And before that I sat, glazed, while that
odious
little racing driver Per Snoilsson harangued me about the aerodynamics of Formula One racing cars. He later
complained
to my editor that I had nodded off during the
interview
, which was not strictly true because he had long since turned the interview into a lecture on something called – and I can remember it to this day – Computational Fluid Dynamics. Anyway, I was dog-tired as well as bored out of my tiny skull.
Well, as I say, those days and that sort of company are over for good and have been decisively replaced by a scene more in sympathy with my true talents, where serious people discuss serious things like
portamento
and whether Tito Gobbi was incontinent onstage singing Scarpia to Callas’s Tosca at Covent Garden in 1964.

The only person I feel sorry for – and even a little guilty towards – is Frankie. I could not have wished for a better agent, and this new phase of mine hardly seems a decent reward for his assiduousness over the years. After the rich pickings of
Millie
!
in particular, a mere opera libretto will scarcely keep him in cigarettes for a week. Still, he’s done very nicely out of my Champions Press books and if he dies a
pauper
as well as emphysemic it won’t be my fault.

And now it is The Night and the car park is full and Haysel Hall is itself filling up nicely. You can tell they’re the right sort of people because of their collective smell drifting up into the ancient rafters. This is a complex fragrance with top notes of Guerlain and mothballs, some spicy middle notes of gin-based juniper, and bass notes of foie gras discreetly emitted and
filtered
through upholstery. I prowl around restlessly backstage in my plus-fours and Duke of Edinburgh wig, wishing
everyone
good luck and constantly testing myself on my lines. It all takes me back to school theatricals. I don’t think I’ve worn this much slap since I was fifteen. I risk a quick peep at the
auditorium
and to my relief I see Derek is there. What’s more, he seems not to have anybody with him, unless his guest is either the oxidised-looking parson on his left or the mountainous lady in peach taffeta on his other side. As I have hinted earlier, one never knows with Derek. I now realise Pavel Taneyev was never going to be here in any case. Max tells me he’s playing Rachmaninov in Boston tonight.

The orchestra is now assembling out there beyond the
curtain
. Their random tootlings and tunings are laid over the soft hum of the audience’s conversations and provide that
pulse-quickening
atmosphere of pleasurable anticipation. In the
occasional barking laugh I think I detect signs of pre-
Christmas
jollity. No doubt some of the audience came on directly from an office party. Suddenly there is a burst of applause as the leader of the orchestra takes his seat, followed by even louder clapping as Max mounts the podium. An expectant hush falls. Then as Marta’s overture strikes up Ken appears in the Green Room and says, ‘Places, everyone, please.’ I walk out to my chair at left front. (This of course means the
righth-hand
side of the stage as seen by the audience. We actors have our own point of view.) The music on the other side of the heavy curtain sounds very loud and close. Also thumpy. Right below me I’ve got the three timps and two squeezed-together bassoons, and beyond them the double basses, so I’m getting mostly bottom notes from my perch. Behind me on the set I see Diana, Charles, the Queen and a drugged corgi take their places in the drawing room at Balmoral. The dog is doped because for some reason it became hysterical when it caught sight of the mannequins of the two princes and obviously something drastic had to be done. The sight of them set it off barking furiously from the moment it was delivered backstage and I remember Adrian said some brave soul was going to push half a Valium tablet up the animal since this route
provided
the quickest absorption. This must have been done, because I’ve seen Josh’s doggy pyjama bag look livelier than this animal. It looks to me as though the Queen may have something genuine to fuss over while she’s on her knees on the hearthrug. She might even have to give it mouth-to-muzzle before this scene’s finished, something that I’m sure wouldn’t faze the real Mrs Windsor for a moment. And then
woops
, right on cue as the orchestra plays the last five bars of the
overture
, the curtain is slowly rising and leaving me stranded on the edge of a dark abyss, dazzled by footlights.