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‘You’re just overtired,’ said Tristan, putting an arm round her shoulders. ‘I found my washing in the dishwasher this morning, and my car keys in the fridge.’

He let her run on as he got out the takeaway. The waxy topping of orange fat looked disgusting.

‘I can’t go home tonight,’ Rozzy was whispering to herself. ‘Glyn’ll think I’m spying on him and Sylvia. Oh, Tristan, what are we going to live on if I can’t sing any more?’

For once when his mobile rang Tristan was relieved.

It was Baby in ecstasy, and having a large vodka, because Christy Foxe, who’d been such a trooper, had finally walked out.

‘He was fed up shunting Hermione around,’ explained Baby, ‘Rannaldini being so vile to Rozzy was the final straw. The brave little lad got up and sang “The Prisoners’ Chorus” from Fidelio. After he’d gone, he sent Rannaldini a message on his bleeper, saying, “Stuff job up your ass, rude letter to follow.”’

Tristan started to laugh.

‘After Christy walked out,’ went on Baby gleefully, ‘Alpheus, too vain to put on his glasses and too busy ogling Pushy Galore, failed to read Christy’s last pencil note on the score saying, “Please move back here, Herd of Elephant coming through”, so Dame Hermione ran slap into him. Hermione is now suing for a broken toe, Alpheus for a broken rib. I think you’d better find another PA, Tristan.’

Grinning and shaking his head, Tristan switched off his mobile.

‘We’re in luck. You can stay on at the Capital, and take over Christy’s job. You know Don Carlos backwards. And because you’re wonderful at sewing — that is most beautiful cushion I ever have — when we go on location, you can stop Griselda, the wardrobe mistress, having nervous breakdown. And to keep you on the cast list,’ Tristan chucked the takeaway cartons in the bin, ‘you can have the non-singing role of the Countess of Aremberg. All you’ll have to do is cry when the King sacks you, and you’re very good at that. Come on, I’ll buy you lunch.’

Rozzy got to her feet unsteadily. As he caught her before she fell, Tristan felt her desperate boniness.

‘You are the kindest person I’ve ever met,’ she said, in a choked voice.

Sexton and Serena, however, shook their heads at such unilateral brokering of a deal, and Rannaldini went ballistic at such prodigality: a singer’s salary for a neurotic geriatric PA.

That night, in revenge for Alpheus ogling Pushy, Chloe invited Sylvestre, Tristan’s handsome blond sound engineer, back to the Capital and discovered he was as good at twiddling knobs in bed as out. Afterwards, as they shared a bottle of Dom Pérignon on Liberty Productions, Sylvestre sighed that Tristan was too kind for his own good.

‘We had location manager on Lily in the Valley so useless he couldn’t find his own cock. Tristan called him into his caravan to sack him, but he spent so much time listing his good points so as not to demoralize him that the guy came out three hours later convinced he’d been promoted.’

More seriously, they were now without a page who, in Tristan’s new present-day version, had become a bodyguard. Tebaldo is not a huge part, but a vital one, a larky little fellow, usually played by a charming gamin.

Pushy Galore came forward immediately, ringlets and ribbons flying. She knew the part, could she audition? Rannaldini, Sexton, and Alpheus were all keen.

‘Give the young woman a chance,’ urged Hermione, because she knew it would irritate Chloe, who longed secretly to be admired and promoted by Hermione.

Serena, however, wanted to kick in Pushy’s buck teeth, because she was always making eyes at Rannaldini, and Tristan thought her ghastly and far too refined to play a bodyguard.

The argument was at full throttle in the control room when Viking wandered in. Despite their earlier differences, he had played like an angel throughout the sessions, and he and Rannaldini had achieved a grudging, if transient, respect.

‘Here’s one soprano who isn’t working at the moment.’ He chucked a photograph on the table.

The girl wore an ivory silk shift. She had a shiny dark red bob, pale gold skin sprinkled with freckles like a tiger lily, and cool, watchful green eyes.

Viking put a tape in the machine. Her voice was of such piercing, distinctive sweetness that Tristan had to hear only a few bars.

‘Bravo, Viking, who is she?’

‘Flora Seymour — she’s Georgie Maguire’s daughter, so it’s in the genes. She played the viola in my old orchestra, but trained as a singer as well. She’s got the most angelic voice in the world.’

‘Give me her telephone number,’ said Tristan.

He met a lot of opposition. Serena, Hermione and Chloe all thought Flora was a tramp, probably because she’d had affaires with both Rannaldini and Viking, and because they’d all three had designs in the past on the filthy rich, if slightly shady, George Hungerford, with whom Flora was now living.

Rannaldini didn’t want any advice from Viking and he’d fallen out badly with Flora. But he doted on her voice, which had never been properly exploited. He was enough of a mischief-maker as well to see the potential for avenging himself on Flora’s lover, George Hungerford, who as managing director of the Rutminster Symphony Orchestra had foiled Rannaldini’s takeover bid and who, as a developer, was also threatening to slap a motorway through Valhalla.

Sexton, who was watching the mounting costs in horror, was in favour because Flora sounded cheap.

‘How d’you know her so well?’ asked Tristan.

‘I was once hopelessly in love with her,’ said Viking.

Answering his mobile, he wandered out of earshot to speak to his new wife. ‘Abby darling, I love you too. I’ve also been matchmaking,’ he lowered his voice. ‘I’ve posted Tristan de Montigny down to Rutminster Hall to see Flora.’

14

Flora sat naked on the white shagpile drying her hair. In the long gilt bedroom mirror she could see three moles on her inside thigh and soft red pubic hair, still damp from the bath. Her small freckled breast rose every time she lifted her arm, but her two spare tyres didn’t shift.

Schiller’s Don Carlos was now open between legs grown far too chunky to play a page-boy poncing about in white tights. She mustn’t get too engrossed in the story, or she’d forget her hair and the sleek bob would shoot upwards like an explosion in a mattress factory.

‘A hundred eyes are hired,’ she read.

Surrounded by George’s guards, who watched her every move, Flora identified with Carlos. Then she looked up at George’s photograph on her dressing-table: cropped-haired, square-jawed, dark brown turned-down eyes, mouth set like a steel trap in the Harvey Smith/John Prescott rough, tough North Country mould — himself against the world. Only Flora knew how sensitive and kind George was behind the façade, but he was terribly possessive.

Having screwed up his first marriage because he was a workaholic, George had taken the autumn off to cement his relationship with Flora, but had returned to work because mega property companies and orchestras don’t run themselves. Most of his time was spent in Germany. Flora wanted to travel with him, but she couldn’t bear to be parted from Trevor, her little black and tan terrier, who was now asleep with a red ball in his mouth on the vast oval bed, whose headboard hummed with every dial. When she was away Trevor wouldn’t eat, and neither he nor she would survive quarantine, so she stayed behind and missed George dreadfully.