‘Only if I can wear my scarlet coat,’ said Hermione mulishly.
‘English women don’t wear—’ began Tristan.
‘But I’m not English,’ said Hermione, with a peal of merry laughter, as though she’d made a frightfully good joke. ‘I’m South African.’
‘Reimpose sanctions,’ muttered Baby.
Valhalla, like many ancient ecclesiastical buildings, was H-shaped with the north and south wings forming the verticals of the H. Rannaldini and his family lived in the south wing overlooking the valley.
Meanwhile, in the north wing, other members of the cast and the upper echelons of the crew were bagging their bedrooms, which in contrast to the lavishness of the south wing consisted rather creepily of ex-monks’ cells reached by badly lit uncarpeted staircases and long, narrow corridors.
‘Bit scary,’ quavered Lucy, pushing a reluctant James into a darkly panelled rabbit warren, almost entirely occupied by a big mahogany double bed.
‘I don’t mind sharing,’ said Ogborne, Tristan’s cocky and Cockney chief grip, who had a shaved head, an earring, and looked like a self-confident pig. Employed to hump equipment around and shove heavy cameras along tracks, Ogborne had had no difficulty in carrying all of Lucy’s cases upstairs.
‘Plenty of room for you, me and Fido in here,’ he said, patting the bed.
‘I talk dreadfully in my sleep, and James snores,’ said Lucy hastily.
Down the corridor, Alpheus Shaw, psyching himself into the part of Philip II, was getting more regal by the second, referring to himself as ‘one’, and striding around with his hands behind his back. He had also demanded the biggest bedroom, which had the biggest four-poster and small leaded windows looking north into the woods and east up the valley.
However, he was deeply displeased that, unlike Tristan, he had not been put in the lush south wing, which he had admired loudly on a previous visit.
Only half the principals were in situ: neither Mikhail, Granny, his wayward boyfriend Giuseppe, Alpheus nor Chloe would be needed for a couple of weeks. Alpheus had come down ostensibly to show solidarity and to inspire the cast. After all, he was the principal male singer now Fat Franco had been fired. In reality he wanted to screw Chloe without having to fork out for a hotel — particularly as his wife Cheryl always went through the Amex receipts.
Looking down, he could see Tristan and Rannaldini walking towards the house, their arms waving as they yelled at one another, their shadows long and black behind them.
Inside the dairy, Meredith, like a small child comforting his mother, was patting the vast shoulders of a sobbing Lady Griselda.
‘It’s just first-night nerves, don’t take it personally.’
Griselda gave a sniff.
‘Try not to get lippy on that hunting tie, Hermsie,’ she called out, ‘and I’d be grateful if you’d all put your clothes back on the hangers.’
‘What time’s dinner?’ asked Baby.
‘Seven thirty for eight,’ said Flora, as she wriggled back into her old grey jersey and scruffy black jeans. ‘I can’t be bothered to go home and tart up.’
20
Dinner began scratchily. Helen, a lousy hostess at the best of times because she never refilled glasses or introduced anyone, was clearly livid at being invaded by so much mess and so many strangers. As a final insult, drinks were being served in the old red morning room, which she had spent two years of her excruciatingly unhappy marriage transforming into an exquisite symphony of faded blues and rusts. Almost overnight, it had been reduced to a gaudy riot of cherry-red walls, gilded ceilings, floor-length mirrors framed with gold leaf, and two crimson thrones initialled E and PII at the end of the room. Worst of all, three huge glittering chandeliers, hovering overhead like Spielberg spaceships, highlighted every bag and wrinkle — an unkind contrast to the ludicrously flattering painting of herself over the fireplace in which she was portrayed as Athene, goddess of wisdom, with an owl perched on her head.
Having flown in from a wildly successful Mahler’s Resurrection in Berlin, to ensure Valhalla’s cuisine exceeded anything French, Rannaldini had unearthed the Krug and was welcoming guests, and accepting compliments on the room. ‘It ees, of course, based on Throne Room at Buckingham Palace,’ he told anyone who would listen.
As the crew gathered in one corner puffing Gauloise smoke, and the cast retreated to another trying not to breathe it in, gossip whizzed back and forth in all languages. Everyone was also assessing talent.
‘How can I tell Tristan’s boys apart when they’ve all got beards?’ said Baby fretfully.
‘Jesus must have had the same trouble with his disciples,’ said Meredith, ‘except this lot have got gorgeous names like best-boy and focus-puller. Valentin the camera operator’s heaven, but he’s just back from his honeymoon.’
‘Best time to turn them, before they start looking round for other women. God, he’s divine.’
‘Also Rannaldini’s son, Wolfgang, so he’s out of bounds, very straight and rather fierce. I’m sure he’s going to insist we all have uniform willies — like Common Market carrots. He’s nice.’ Meredith nudged Baby, as Sylvestre, the sound man, who’d tied back his long blond hair in a pony-tail, wandered through the door.
‘Even straighter and utterly monosyllabic,’ said Baby dismissively.
Having grabbed a drink, Sylvestre was soon comparing notes with Ogborne, the chief grip. Flora looked sexy enough, even if she did need a bath, they decided, but those sodding great rings on her hand suggested a rich boyfriend.
‘That blonde looks a goer,’ said Ogborne.
Sylvestre, who’d much enjoyed Chloe’s goings and comings during the recording, agreed.
Then both men choked on their drinks as Tabitha stalked in, turquoise eyes flashing, hair slicked back from her forehead like Rudolph Valentino. She was wearing a cashmere crop top to show off a sea-horse tattooed below her left breast and very low-slung black hipsters. Having filled a glass with so much vodka that the ice she added made it overflow, she made a beeline for Lucy and dragged her over to the fireplace.
‘Why do the most beautiful girls always pal up with dogs?’ said Ogborne, still sour at not being asked to share Lucy’s bed.
‘Because their dogs like each other,’ said Sylvestre, as Sharon the Labrador bounced up to James the lurcher, who went up on his toes and nearly sent a bowl of grape hyacinths flying with his long wagging tail.
Tab immediately launched into the state of her marriage.
‘Isa was there when I got home from auditioning horses. Then he went straight out, saying he’d gotta go over to bloody Jake’s and couldn’t make dinner tonight. So I press the redial button, and guess who answered? Fucking Martie in Australia. I’m going mad, Luce.’ She drained half her vodka, hand trembling.
‘And what was even worse, when I ran down the garden trying to catch Isa, I saw this man on a horse, his hair white-blond in the moonlight, and for a second, I thought, by some miracle, Daddy had come to take me away from this nightmare. Then I realized it was bloody Wolfgang having a snoop. He’s furious Rannaldini’s lent us Magpie Cottage. And Rannaldini’s given him this ace job and he’s got no experience. Can’t you see The Ladybird Book of the Cinema sticking out of his pocket?’
Lucy was about to say how sorry she was, when Rannaldini clapped his hands for silence.
‘I would like to welcome you all to the Throne Room at Valhalla on this very special evening,’ he said smoothly, ‘and introduce my wife Helen, our daughter Tabitha, by the fireplace, and our son, Wolfgang.’ He turned to smile at the extremely handsome but undeniably boot-faced young man standing by the window.