‘He’s in Bogotá with Xav.’
Immediately, Taggie knew she’d said the wrong thing, as Tab, who was as jealous of Xavier and Bianca as she was of Marcus, slammed down the telephone.
A disgusting smell of burnt cheese sauce brought Taggie back to earth, as Gertrude the mongrel wandered over stiffly and laid her head on her mistress’s knee. ‘Oh, Gertrude, what am I going to do?’ sobbed Taggie.
‘Is your name really Spinosissimo?’ asked Tristan, as he edged his navy blue Aston on to the M4.
‘Course not,’ said Baby. ‘I got it out of a rose catalogue. My real name’s Brian Smith. But you can’t have Smith alongside the Pavarottis and Domingos on a record sleeve.’
Outrageous, incredibly glamorous, Baby Spinosissimo had burnt-sienna curls, thickly lashed debauched grey eyes, a beaky little nose and a pouting, but wickedly determined, mouth. Slightly plump already, he finished a whole box of Quality Street on the way down, chucking his sweet papers out of the window. He also spent a lot of time on Tristan’s telephone talking to his bookmaker.
Responding to Tristan’s ability to listen, Baby was soon telling him about his sex life. Women ran after him in droves, but the only person he was remotely interested in was his trainer and jockey Isa Lovell.
‘He’s got such a capacity for menace. I can’t sleep at night for imagining him gripping me as he grips those horses.’
Baby also confessed that buying horses for Isa to train had screwed him up with the taxman.
‘Jan one, and the debtor’s prison looms.’
In return Tristan told Baby about his problems with Don Carlos.
‘Fat Franco won’t rehearse.’
‘He’s got half Colombia up his nose, for a start,’ said Baby dismissively. ‘And he hates the part of Carlos. Thinks it’s very difficult and not important or sympathetic enough. Domingo feels the same. He dismisses Carlos as a wimp with one solo.’
‘What d’you think?’ asked Tristan.
‘If the part was decently acted by someone hugely attractive…’ Baby smoothed his curls. ‘What else are you up to?’
The Lily in the Valley was nearing its final cut, said Tristan. Tomorrow he was nipping over to Paris to re-do some dialogue with Claudine Lauzerte.
‘Are you pleased with it?’
‘Yes,’ admitted Tristan, ‘but one has no idea what will happen when it faces an audience.’
‘Claudine Lauzerte,’ Baby rolled his eyes, ‘is a terrific gay icon in Oz.’
They were in deep country now. The sun hadn’t appeared for days, probably singing Otello in Milan. But despite bare trees and lowering skies, the winter wheat spilling like a jade sea over the rich red ploughed fields gave a feeling of spring.
Driving through the russet cathedral town of Rutminster approaching some traffic lights, they drew level with a black Mercedes driven by a young girl. She was wearing a Stop Puppy Farming T-shirt but her pale blonde hair was fantastically garlanded with pink and white flowers like a Botticelli angel. A Labrador puppy as yellow as her hair lay across her thighs. Her seat-belt was undone and she was unashamedly taking slugs out of a vodka bottle. Tristan, who knew he’d seen her before, nearly ran into the car in front.
‘Ke-rist on a Harley-Davidson!’ gasped Baby.
‘Oh, Don Fatale,’ muttered Tristan, because the girl had one of those faces that makes everyone else’s look commonplace.
‘Where are you going to, Mademoiselle?’ shouted Baby, lowering his window.
‘It’ll be Madame in an hour or two,’ shouted back Tabitha, lifting the vodka bottle to her lips and driving on.
At the edge of town, she gave them the slip.
‘That’s one for the divorce courts,’ said Baby. Then, to Tristan’s surprise, he admitted he had been married briefly when he was twenty-one. ‘My brother had such a beaut stag party I wanted one too. So I had to get spliced. My stag party was so great, I only just made the wedding, passed out as soon as I got to the reception and didn’t wake up till next day. My mother-in-law never forgave me, and nor did my wife. It only lasted a few weeks.’
Baby told the story so wickedly that Tristan couldn’t help laughing, but neither could he stop thinking about the girl at the traffic lights. Then he remembered. He’d seen her in a silver frame on Rannaldini’s piano.
Across the world in Bogotá, Rupert had returned from a marvellous day out. Xavier had totally captivated the nuns, who had not seen him since Rupert and Taggie had adopted him four and a half years ago. He was so tall, straight-backed and confident now, and proudly showed them photographs of Taggie, Bianca — who’d come from the same convent — Bogotá his black Labrador, Gringo his pony, already covered in rosettes, and finally of his big brother, Marcus, winning the Appleton.
‘We read about Marcus in the papers,’ said Mother Immaculata. ‘You must be so proud — and what about your sister Tabitha?’
‘We don’t see her any more, thank God,’ said Xav flatly.
‘She’s in America, eventing,’ explained Rupert hastily, vowing to telephone her the moment he got back to England.
Returning to the Hilton, he found a message to ring Taggie urgently. When he heard the news he went berserk.
‘What time is it in England?’
‘About three thirty.’
‘We’ve got to stop it. Rannaldini’s set the whole thing up in revenge for Marcus winning the Appleton and the rows over Don Carlos. Gimme his number.’ Then, for once forgetting his wife’s reading problems, ‘For Christ’s sake, move it.’
As Tabitha breezed in from the hairdresser, a purring Rannaldini told her that her father was on the line. For a second her face lit up. Then, picking up the telephone, she was scalded — even thousands of miles away — by the lava of Rupert’s rage. If she really went ahead and married Isa, he would never speak to her again, never allow her back to Penscombe, never give her a penny.
‘So what else is new?’ screamed Tabitha. ‘You said exactly the same thing when Mummy married Rannaldini. I love Isa. It’s not just because I’m having your grandchild.’
‘Won’t be any bloody grandchild of mine! It’s spawn of the devil!’
‘Bollocks! You’re the devil. I know what you got up to — terrorizing Jake at school, and Tory when she was a deb, making Jake’s life a misery on the show-jumping circuit, pinching Revenge from him. I’d no idea that Revenge started off as Jake’s horse, or the reason Macaulay wouldn’t go for you in the World Championship was because you’d beaten him to a pulp in the past, just as you beat up Mummy.’
‘I bloody fucking didn’t!’
‘Yes, you did! You’re the biggest bastard that ever walked.’
‘You ain’t seen nothing yet!’ howled Rupert. ‘I’ll destroy your marriage and bring down Rannaldini and the entire Lovell family.’
‘Oh, go screw yourself!’ A shattered Tab slammed down the receiver.
Rupert was straight on to Taggie. ‘I can’t get back in time to stop the marriage but I’ll get it annulled tomorrow, and I’ll strangle you if you go to the wedding.’
The moment Rupert hung up, Tabitha called Taggie and begged her to go.
‘Christ! Look at Hammerklavier House of Horror,’ shivered Baby as, after extended drinks at the Pearly Gates, he and Tristan drove towards Valhalla. Rooks rose out of a shroud of mist, thickened by bonfires of wet leaves. Sinister, conspiratorial as its owner, the great grey house lurked behind its mighty army of trees. Its tiny deep-set windows, thought Tristan, were like the eyes of medieval scholars grown small from poring over learned texts lit only by a flickering candle.
As Rannaldini had wanted maximum publicity without alerting Rupert, he had waited until midday to invite the leading gossip columnists, who had dropped everything to be there. The rest of the paparazzi, in black leather jackets and dark glasses, tried to storm the electric gates, as they opened to admit Baby and Tristan. Remembering Étienne’s funeral, Tristan ducked in horror. Baby, on the other hand, waved happily.