The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous (50 page)

    Then, against an ever-softening drum roll, the chorus joined in for the last two Delivera Mes and Boris, his stick like a scimitar, brought the work to a close. As the finalbrass sounded the last trump, the promenaders gathered themselves up like a great tiger. It seemed impossible that such a hush should be followed by such a deafening roar of applause as the entire audience, musicians, soloists and chorus rose from their seats shouting, screaming and cheering. The hall that had been so still was a churning sea of clapping hands. Richard Baker was so excited he could hardly get the words out.

    Then Boris, who seemed in a trance, broke down and sobbed like a wild animal until Monalisa Wilson pulled him comfortingly to her bosom and the bass lent him a red paisley handkerchief to dry his tears as the bravoes

    rang out.

    As he stumbled downstairs for the first time, Bob was waiting. His round, kind, ecstatic face told it all. 'Didn't you hear Giuseppi weeping with joy up in heaven? Oh, my dear boy,' and they were in each other's arms, frantically clapping each other's backs but

    not for long, Boris was next being smothered in kisses. Cecilia only had time to wipe away her mascara before they were back on stage.

    Running on, with a mosaic of red lipstick down the side of his face, clapping all the time like an excited child, Boris shook hands repeatedly with each of the soloists, then brought the section leaders to their feet, with as many of the orchestra as he could reach. To mighty roars of applause and thunderous stampings of feet, he made the entire chorus stand up again and again. Then there were more cheers for the chorus master.

    But the applause was for him and when two huge bunches of yellow carnations and lilies arrived for Monalisa and Cecilia, everyone laughed and yelled approval when Cecilia promptly gave hers to Boris with a little curtsy.

    'What are you doing later?' she murmured.

    'More, more, more,' yelled the entire Albert Hall, stamping their feet.

    'Vot shall I play? I breeng no music. I no expect,' said Boris.

    Bob smiled. 'I took the precaution of getting copies run off of one of your songs.'

    So Boris mounted the rostrum once more with Cecilia's flowers still under his arm and the hall fell silent.

    'I no spik good English,' he said in a choked voice, 'but I zank you all. I feel the good weel. She carry me. I will have zee orchestra play leetle composition of mine in style of Russian folk-songs. That grass is not more green on other side of fence.'

    Despite the orchestra and Cecilia sight-reading, the charm and haunting beauty of the little piece was indisputable and once more Boris was cheered to the rooftops and they were still applauding when Richard Baker regretfully bid goodbye to the viewers.

    That was the most wonderful programme I've ever seen,' said Georgie wiping her eyes. 'You really missed something,' she told Lysander as he came through the door weighed down with carrier bags.

    'I saw a bit in the chip shop,' said Lysander. Then, turning to Rachel, 'You must be so thrilled.'

    But Rachel was inveighing against Bob for not making Boris play one of his more ambitious compositions as an encore. 'Instead of that sentimental, derivative crap, and did you see the way Cecilia was pawing him? Talk about cradle-snatching.'

    'That's a very ageist remark,' said Flora gently, as she removed a McDonald's cardboard box out of the nearest carrier bag. 'Your ex-husband is without doubt one of the sexiest men in the world. All he had to do this evening was stand up and women of both sexes would have swooned all over him. As it was, he produced the most exciting and beautiful Requiem people will probably ever be privileged to hear and Cecilia sang like an angel, too. Unlike you, Boris hears music with his heart, not his ears, and you're such a bitch, I can see exactly why he left you.'

    'Darling,' protested Georgie.

    'You have no idea the sacrifices we've made,' went onFlora, getting out a burger and taking a large bite, 'I haven't had a cigarette for over an hour. You've wrecked my mother's and my last evening together and poor Lysander's had to miss EastEnders and The Bill and he can't even watch it later because we were taping Boris for you.'

    'Oh, shut up, Flora.' Lysander leant forward to fill up Rachel's glass. 'Boris did so well, it's a pity Richard Baker can't interview him afterwards like rugger players.'

    'I know.' Rachel's stony face crumbled in an avalanche of grief. 'He was absolutely miraculous, but I can't ring and tell him because Chloe'll be there.'

    Bob had spread the word before the concert and the green room was absolutely packed with Press.

    'Gimme a ring in the morning,' said Larry, who'd actually stayed awake throughout, pressing his card on Boris. 'I'll record that folk-song and anything else you've got at home.'

    In the past interviewers had slit their throats because Boris had been so inarticulate, but tonight he had found his tongue.

    'Why haven't you been discovered earlier?' asked the Standard.

    'I didn't know how to beat when I start. The reviews were so terrible they almost depart me. I became Rannaldini's assistant. Rannaldini never go seek.'

    'What happened to Rannaldini this evening?' asked the Mail.

    Boris grinned. 'I think he ran into french window.'

    'Why doesn't he programme more of your music?'

    'He don't like eet. He no understand avant-garde music.' Then, as an afterthought, 'Rannaldini ees a vanker.'

    The Press howled with laughter.

    'That's enough,' said Bob hastily. 'Boris has had quite a night, give him a ring tomorrow morning.'

    'I geeve lecture on Mahler in the afternoon.'

    'Be the last you'll have to give,' said Bob.

    Having extracted Boris rather reluctantly from Cecilia's clutches he took him out to dinner at The Chanterelle in Old Brompton Road. Boris's wrist ached so much he could hardly cut up his steak he

    wasn't very hungry anyway but

    he drank a lot of red wine and talked a lot about Rachel.

    'She geeve me a terrible cold shoulder. At zee end of our marriage she won't sleep wiz me because she tink I was carrying on, and I carried on because she wouldn't sleep with me. Is vicious triangle. She is beetch, but I love her. I 'ate Rannaldini living so near her. You know he 'ad Chloe at one time.'

    'She's only a bitch because she's insecure,' said Bob.

    'Chloe come home as I was leaving,' said Boris darkly. 'She could have come, but she was tired and her 'air was dirty. Rachel would have drop everything. But she would 'ave given me hard time because she was frighten for me. I once zink grass is greener on other side, but now I find eet cover een pesticide. Tonight was wonderful. I zank you, Bob, but I weesh Rachel and the children had been there. My new symphony is dedicated to Chloe. When I write it down in pencil, Chloe went over it in ink for me and put in the bars.'

    'I should keep your options open,' said Bob. 'Why not dedicate it to Cecilia? I've read it,' he went on. 'There are fantastic things in that symphony. I didn't know such sounds existed. I'd send it to Simon Rattle. Rachel is miserable and she loves you. Why don't you try again? If you had money, and you certainly will after this evening, things would be very different.'

    'Can I borrow the score?' said Boris as they went out a little unsteadily into the hot russet night. 'I like to go through and 'ighlight my mistakes.'

    'You can keep it,' said Bob. 'You've made history, like the night Lennie Bernstein took over from Bruno Walter.'

    This was confirmed by ecstatic reviews and news stories in all the papers the following day. The best notice camefrom The Times critic, whose wife Rannaldini had once taken to bed in revenge for a lousy review. Invitations to conduct, to compose, to appear on television and give press interviews poured in all day. Instead of lecturing his students about Mahler, Boris sat on the edge of a desk and told them about his night at the Albert Hall.

    Rannaldini, who watched the video with two very black eyes, was insane with jealousy. Ringing up Bob, he screamed at him for replacing him with such a hopeless amateur.

    'He was brilliant,' argued Bob. 'He had the longest ovation I've ever heard.'

    'Promenaders 'ave no discrimination. Eef Tabloid come on in a white tie they cheer their 'eads off.'

    Rannaldini was even crosser when the story, leaked by the bimbo next door, of the row with Cecilia and Hermione, was plastered all over The Scorpion.

    The next time he confronted the London Met to rehearse the Missa Solemnis they launched into 'Two Lovely Black Eyes' and, when he screamed at them, they refused to be intimidated and played it again. When it came to the public performance the front-desk cellist, whose Strad Rannaldini had endangered, deliberately played 'God Save the Queen' in the wrong key.

    Machiavellian as ever, Rannaldini decided to avenge himself on Boris by laying siege to Rachel. This would not only enrage Hermione and Cecilia, with whom he was still furious, but also Flora who refused to take the whole eye-blacking incident seriously. She insisted on calling him Panda II and had been cheeky enough to insist that Boris's Requiem had been the best thing she had ever heard.

    Rannaldini was further turned on by Rachel's animosity and the way she kept firing off incensed letters to the local papers complaining about his clay shoots, his closing of footpaths, and his spraying with pesticides.

    Ignoring such bombardment, Rannaldini started dropping in at Jasmine Cottage, occasionally at weekends encountering Lysander, who was at a loose end with Guy at home and the polo season over. Rannaldini had also persuaded Catchitune to sign up Rachel to record the Rachmaninov piano concertos in the autumn with himself conducting. He knew it was too big a break for her to refuse. He was amused that, despite his largesse, Rachel kept an icy distance. And just as the husbands of Paradise had tried to make the best chocolate cake for the fete, now following Rannaldini's example, they vied, unknown to their wives, to be the first to comfort Rachel.

    Lysander thought the whole thing hilarious and promptly picked up the telephone.

    'Ferdie, Ferdie, you'll never guess. Rachel, my eye-gel friend has emerged in Paradise, and all the husbands are mad about her. They're all putting up shelves for her health foods and stalling their mowers with unleadedpetrol. First they rolled up with trays of tomatoes for chutney, last week it was two-legged carrots, this week it's apples. Her cottage looks like Harvest Festival, and Rachel chucks out most of it because it's not organic enough, so Arthur and Tiny are doing terribly well.'

    'Who's after her?' asked Ferdie beadily.

    'Well, Rannaldini, Guy, Larry, Bob and the vicar for starters.'

    'Larry and Guy bloody shouldn't be,' snapped Ferdie, thinking of Marigold's retainer and Georgie's fat monthly cheque. 'Your only justification for being down there is to keep them keen on their wives. You'd better come back to London and earn some serious money. I've got a terrific job for you in Kenya, beautiful rich wife, shit-of-a-parasite husband, stacks of polo and racing.'

    'I'm happy in Paradise,' bleated Lysander in a panic at the thought of leaving Georgie. 'None of them is serious about Rachel. They just don't want each other to get her. Rachel's a crosspatch, but seriously good-looking. I wouldn't mind giving her one myself.'

    'If you stopped at one, I wouldn't mind,' said Ferdie disapprovingly. 'I had to cope with your father yesterday, rolled up in a strop because you hadn't written. He's left you a letter.'

    'I won't read it. It'll be just another lecture about getting a proper job. I've been working Rannaldini's horses,' said Lysander by way of mitigation. 'He wants me to race ride for him in the winter.'

    'That won't keep you in fags.'

    'Fags want to keep me; the vicar's asked me to go to the Holy Land.'

    'Don't be fatuous. How's Natasha?' asked Ferdie. Even her name still caused him pain.

    'Gone back to school. But she and Flora are home on Sunday for Rannaldini's famous tennis tournament. Do you want to play?'

    'OK. I'll come down for the weekend.' It would bean excuse to see Natasha and protect his investment.

    Poor Kitty, meanwhile, had been having a dreadful summer. Increasingly desperate for a baby, she had spent nearly all the running-away money she had saved in case things became too awful, hawking herself from one gynaecologist to another, putting up with the embarrassment of endless tests and internal probings. But even when her tubes were blown, no-one could find anything wrong.

    'And it's not my husband, he's got loads of kids already,' Kitty kept telling the doctors.

    Rannaldini, who bitterly resented any time Kitty took off, felt she should have been satisfied with her seven stepchildren eight

    including little Cosmo.

    'Concentrate on being a mother to them, and a secretary tome.'

    But I'm almost the same age as your older children, thought Kitty, and the young ones, although very cute, made her feel guilty about longing so much for one of her own.