‘It’s him,’ the reporter proffered her tape-recorder as casually as if it had been a packet of fags. ‘How long have you been having an affaire with Nemerovsky?’
But Marcus, blue in the face, could only give desperate little whimpers, stretching out pleading hands for help.
‘You sure it’s him,’ said the photographer snapping away like a jackal, ‘more like some kind of deaf mute.’
‘Probably a ruse to fox us,’ said the girl. ‘Have you told Abby yet, Marcus?’
‘Looks as though he’s having an epi. You OK, mate?’ the photographer lowered his camera.
Ducking round them, Marcus collapsed with a crash on the stone steps.
‘Christ, someone better give him the kiss of life,’ said the reporter.
‘Don’t touch him,’ shouted the doctor, who’d arrived to treat Carl’s tendonitis, then taking one look at Marcus. ‘He’s having a massive asthma attack.’
Fortunately in his car he had a portable nebulizer, a breath mask, which delivered the drug Marcus so desperately needed in tiny drops of damp air. In an attempt to rally him, the doctor also gave him a steroid injection, but Marcus was too far gone, the blue had a purple tinge now, his airways had closed up like one of Simon’s oboe reeds, and he was too weak and exhausted to draw in air through such minuscule holes.
The doctor had to make a lightning decision. It would take too long to summon an ambulance. Appleton’s little cottage hospital only worked skeleton shifts at weekends; Marcus must be rushed the ten miles to Northladen General.
‘You drive,’ he ordered the cameraman, as they laid Marcus down in the back of his estate car, ‘I’ll look after him and direct you. You telephone Northladen Intensive Care, and tell them he’s going to need a ventilator,’ he added to the reporter.
‘Who is he anyway?’ he asked as the cameraman, used to chasing Princess Di round Gloucestershire, hurtled at a steady 80 m.p.h. between high stone walls.
‘Rupert Campbell-Black’s son — what d’you give his chances?’ the reporter had kept on her tape-recorder.
‘Not a lot, he’s not responding at all, poor little sod. I wonder if he’s been taking beta-blockers, a lot of contestants do to calm the nerves. Fatal with asthma.’
Aware that they had a ‘very important patient’, Intensive Care was already all stations go. Within seconds of his arrival, to the accompaniment of bells and flashing lights, a lifeless, unconscious Marcus had been laid on a bed, and given an injection to paralyse him totally. This was so that he couldn’t resist the transparent tube which had been shoved down his throat, and which was now pumping air and oxygen from a huge black box into his lungs.
‘Christ,’ muttered the anaesthetist, glancing at the box to judge the extent of the resistance in Marcus’s lungs, ‘he’s up to eighty.’
‘Is that bad?’ asked the reporter, who, passing herself off as Marcus’s sister, had infiltrated herself into the room.
‘Let’s say a normal person’s between ten and twenty.’ Then catching a flicker of terror in Marcus’s staring eyes, the anaesthetist put on a heartier voice, ‘It’s all right, lad, we’ve had to paralyse you, only temporarily, to keep the tube down your throat. This is to sedate you, so you don’t fight against it.’ And he plunged another injection into Marcus’s arm. ‘Don’t fret yourself, we’ll soon have you breathing on your own.’
They’re lying to me, thought Marcus in panic, I’ve had a stroke, or I’ve broken my back falling over, I’m going to be trapped inside this coffin of a body for the rest of my life. Oh please let me see Alexei once more, and he drifted back into unconsciousness.
Marcus was sinking. Sister Rose, a pretty nurse from Glamorgan sat by his bedside talking to him all the time in case he woke and panicked. Mozart piano concertos were being played to soothe him. They had tried taking him off the ventilator for short spells, but he had showed great distress and no sign of being able to breathe on his own.
‘We better alert his next of kin,’ said the anaesthetist. ‘He doesn’t seem to have any will to live, he must have had some terrible shock.’
What this was became evident when the piece on Marcus and Nemerovsky appeared in The Evening Scorpion, as vicious as it was damaging. Spectacles misted up, grey buns stood on end, as every judge in the lounge of the Prince of Wales read The Scorpion inside their copies of the Daily Telegraph and the The Times.
Although Miles had issued a brief emollient statement that Abby had resigned and been replaced by Rannaldini, it soon leaked out that she’d been fired and had vanished without trace. Both the hospital and the hotel were besieged by reporters. Helen, in a state of mounting horror, sat beside Marcus’s bed, as drips, tubes, catheters, huge black machines and most of Northladen General appeared to be fighting to save his life.
‘I know it’s difficult,’ kindly Sister Rose gave Helen a cup of tea, ‘but try not to show how worried you are, it’s crucial that Marcus is subjected to as little stress as possible.’
To complicate matters, Rupert had taken off for a twenty-four-hour break with Taggie before the Czech Grand National and, leaving no telephone number, could not be traced.
The RSO arrived in Appleton, already hot and bothered because Miles in the latest economy drive had insisted they travel on coaches without air-conditioning. As they hung up their tails and black dresses in the town hall dressing-rooms, they learnt from a distraught Charlton Handsome that Marcus was on the critical list, Abby had been sacked and Rannaldini had taken over — news that both outraged and terrified them. In one maestro stroke, Rannaldini had virtually gained control of both the CCO and the RSO.
He was already cleverly infiltrating CCO players into the RSO instead of extras. One of their fiddlers had replaced Bill Thackery on the front desk of the First Violins.
Nicholas, when badgered, mumbled something about Bill being off with a frozen shoulder.
‘More likely, been frozen out,’ said Dixie. ‘Now L’Appassionata’s been given the push, Rannaldini doesn’t need Bill’s vote any more, nor does he have to put up with Bill’s terrible sound.’
Quinton had moved up to First Horn, but the entire section was shocked to find the Third Horn seat had been filled by Rowena Godbold, the CCO’s charismatic blond First Horn.
‘Couldn’t you and I just merge with each other and forget about orchestras,’ said Quinton with a leer, as he followed Rowena’s tight-jeaned bottom up onto the platform.
Blue, on the other hand, was totally unmoved, sunk into despair. His mobile had been switched on since the tour, but Cathie hadn’t telephoned.
Little Han Chai couldn’t stop crying over Marcus and was almost too upset to rehearse Beethoven’s Third, her chosen concerto. At first Rannaldini was moderately accommodating, announcing that Northladen General had his mobile number and would ring if there were any change in Marcus’s condition. But he was soon picking on individual players, and talking sinister notes into a pocket computer.
‘That is a strange sound your instrument ees making,’ he sneered at Barry.
‘That’s because it didn’t have any time for lunch,’ Barry cuddled the sunburnt Junoesque curves of his double bass defensively.
‘What does it eet for lunch?’
‘Conductors,’ snarled Barry.
But the laughter was nervous and uneasy. Never had the orchestra been more in need of Viking to raise their spirits.
It was during the break that the RSO clapped horrified eyes on The Evening Scorpion and realized that poor Abby had not just been the victim of a coup d’état, but also, since Marcus had been outed, of a homosexual conspiracy. Like many departed conductors, she had suddenly become very dear to them. They had only needed a rehearsal to remind them how much they loathed Rannaldini.