At the end of a long drive through dark woods and deer-haunted parkland, Tristan and Baby were directed through the omnia vincit amor gates. Rannaldini’s all-devouring smile welcomed them at the front door. Inside they found Tabitha. Except for the puppy-farming T-shirt and the flowers in her hair, she was unrecognizable, her swollen eyes redder than carbuncles, her face grey, except where it was covered in blotches. Despite having thrown up after her terrible row with Rupert, she was still attacking the vodka.
Delighted by the turn of events, Rannaldini was about to introduce her, when Tab gave a cry of relief, and shoving Baby and Tristan aside ran towards a dark girl, who had followed them into the house. ‘Oh, Lucy, thank God you’ve come!’
One glance at Tab’s blubbered woebegone little face told it all.
‘Has your dad been horrible to you again?’
‘Horrible, horrible,’ sobbed Tab, as she led Lucy upstairs.
Lucy Latimer was Tabitha’s greatest friend. They had met when they became involved in animal rights. A vegetarian and a make-up artist, Lucy was very careful not to use cosmetics that had been tested on animals. Extremely successful because she combined a painter’s eye with a sympathetic, soothing nature, she fortunately had a spare day between filming to make up Tab and provide moral support.
‘Come on, Latimer.’ Tab gazed at the wreckage in her bedroom mirror. ‘This is the greatest challenge you’ll ever face.’
‘Don’t you worry.’ Lucy unpacked a roll of brushes, sponges and assorted bottles. ‘I’ll have you stunning as ever in a trice.’
‘And talking of stunning, did you see that man in the hall?’
‘Couldn’t miss him, really,’ sighed Lucy, ‘but you’ll have to put all that behind you now.’
Only a streak of saffron on the horizon gave a clue the sun was setting, but apple logs burned merrily in the Summer Drawing Room.
Rannaldini, looking very good in a morning coat, because the grey waistcoat matched his pewter hair, handed Tristan and Baby glasses of champagne, and apologized that they had run into a wedding.
‘Who’s getting married?’ asked Baby.
‘My stepdaughter, Tabitha.’
‘She doesn’t seem very keen on the idea,’ said Tristan, wincing at his father’s painting over the piano, of a leering man undressing a very young girl.
‘Just last-minute nerves.’ Rannaldini seemed to be killing himself over some private joke.
‘Who’s the lucky guy?’ asked Baby.
‘My dear boy, I thought you’d have known. It’s your jockey, Isa Lovell.’
The colour drained from Baby’s suntanned face. He seemed to shrink, like a larky March hare suddenly looking down a gun barrel.
‘Christ, he can’t be,’ he stammered. ‘What about Martie? He was talking of marrying her after Crimbo.’
Rannaldini always got a charge out of inflicting pain.
‘He’ll be in in a minute to tell you himself. He was irritated not to be riding at Cheltenham today.’
Tristan felt desperately sorry for Baby and put a hand on his rigid shoulders.
‘This happen very quick. You told me she only came home the day of the Gramophone Awards.’
‘Ah,’ sighed Rannaldini. ‘When one is young, love work like lightning. Like Carlos and Elisabetta.’
‘Carlos and Elisabetta happen so quick because they were giddy with relief an arranged marriage had turned out so well,’ protested Tristan.
‘I believe in arranged marriages,’ said Rannaldini warmly. After all, he had arranged this one.
‘I hope you’ll stay for the wedding,’ he begged. ‘You might even sing something during the signing of the register.’ He smiled at Baby who, having drained his glass of champagne, had got a grip on himself. ‘Dame Hermione is singing “Panis Angelicus”,’ went on Rannaldini. ‘Ah, here comes the bridegroom.’
And in strolled Isa, still in old cords and a tweed jacket.
‘Hi.’ He smiled almost mockingly at Baby, who found it impossible to act normally as he blushed and couldn’t speak. Isa always had this effect on him.
‘Hadn’t you better get changed?’ snapped Tristan.
‘Plenty of time,’ said Isa coolly. ‘I thought Baby might like to see round your yard, Rannaldini.’
It wasn’t long before Baby found his tongue again.
‘Why the hell didn’t you marry Tabitha’s brother Marcus?’ he hissed. ‘At least he’s the right sex. I suppose you knocked her up.’
‘This is a very nice mare.’ Isa opened a half-door.
‘She’ll lose it if she goes on hitting the vodka. I suppose it’s also for the money.’
‘Rupert won’t give her a penny,’ sighed Isa. ‘And Rannaldini will only help out if it suits him.’
‘Well, you’re not getting another cent out of me.’
In the safety of the loose-box, Isa ran a finger down Baby’s gritted jaw. ‘It doesn’t change anything,’ he said softly. ‘If you’re a good boy, I’ll tell you more about this amazing horse I’ve found. Did you know,’ he added idly, ‘gypsies consider it unlucky if a marriage takes place after sunset?’
Meanwhile Tristan was exploring Valhalla. Grey and spooky in the December twilight, it would be the perfect setting for Don Carlos. He could imagine the hunt streaming down those rides, or Eboli chasing Carlos through the maze. There were dungeons for Posa’s death, and a splendid mausoleum for Charles V’s tomb. Even the auto da fe, in which the heretics were burnt, could be staged in the courtyard outside the chapel.
As he wandered through rooms formed by yew hedges, statues of naked nymphs lurked in every corner. Tristan wished he could offer them all his jacket. To his right, the wood kept readjusting the mist like a shawl around its shoulders and, as he reached the big lawn, to the north four vast Lawson cypresses reared up, like monks in black habits with their pointed hoods over their faces. Gazing up from beneath them, Tristan suddenly felt the terror of the sixteenth-century man-in-the-street, overwhelmed by the dark, towering forces of the Inquisition.
Quickening his step as night fell, he nearly ran into a pack of paparazzi. As they levelled their long lenses like a firing squad at a new arrival, he decided they were part of some present-day auto da fe, destroying reputations for public delectation.
In a blinding flash, he realized that Don Carlos must be made in modern dress. The present English Royal Family were so similar to Verdi’s French and Spanish royalty. Elisabetta was so like both the sad Princess Diana and the wistful Queen Elizabeth, married to the short-fused, roving-eyed Prince Philip, who was not unlike Philip II of Spain. And they, too, had a son called Charles, who was romantic, idealistic, longed for a proper job, had a loving nature and was terrified of his stern, critical father, as Carlos had been. Whilst in Eboli, the feisty mistress in love with Carlos, could be seen an echo of Camilla Parker Bowles, and in the noble Marquis of Posa a touch of Andrew, her diplomatic soldier husband. They could start the film with these characters in the royal box, then cut to the two armies on the skyline.
But who was the modern equivalent of the Grand Inquisitor? wondered Tristan, as he retraced his steps to the omnia vincit amor gates. Who terrorized people to madness? Why not Gordon Dillon, the ruthless editor of the Scorpion, who would shop his own children to boost circulation and who went around in tinted glasses and soft-soled shoes, scaring his staff as shitless as the public? The Inquisition bully-boys, who cast such terrifying shadows over Don Carlos, could be represented as lurking paparazzi or as the chinless, ruthless courtiers who spent their time spying and manipulating at Buckingham Palace.