‘Wolfgang, Wolfgang,’ Hermione charged forward, ‘I haven’t seen you since you were in short pants.’
‘And hasn’t he turned out yummily,’ sighed Meredith, to giggles all round. Poor Wolfgang blushed dark crimson.
‘Tabitha, you look just laike your sibling,’ said Pushy Galore, who although only in the chorus, had somehow pushed her way into the party and, to match the décor, was busting out of red velvet braided with gold, ‘but not laike your dad or mum.’
‘Rannaldini’s not my father,’ spat Tabitha, ‘any more than he’s my brother.’ She scowled at Wolfgang, who scowled back.
An awkward silence was defused by Tristan wandering in. His hair was still wet from the shower, his eyes bloodshot from late nights poring over the storyboards of each scene, which, like an extended comic strip, covered the walls of his suite upstairs.
Tristan apologized profusely for being late and for Lady Griselda who, knowing everyone in Rutshire as well as Dorset, had gone out to dinner, for his delectable niece Simone, who needed ten hours’ sleep on the eve of a shoot, and for Bernard, his first assistant director, who was handling some row with Equity and couldn’t make it either. He was then so charming to everyone, particularly Helen, that she soon forgot about dust, breakages and chipped paintwork.
In fact, Tristan was incredibly uptight. He always got blinding headaches before filming started, particularly after that row with Rannaldini. He needed five more hours on the score. His confidence had been jolted because his cult film The Betrothed had just lost out in the Oscars to a mainstream American comedy. He was alsosad to see the large salacious Étienne de Montigny of Abelard and Héloïse, which his father had left Rannaldini, hanging opposite the fireplace, to Helen’s obvious distaste.
Oscar, the director of photography, and his son-in-law Valentin, however, were both jolted out of their habitual languor by the painting. ‘That’s the look we need for the shove-and-grunt scenes, Tristan,’ said Oscar, waving his green cigarette-holder in the direction of Héloïse’s left breast. ‘Beautiful flesh tones. Your father certainly knew about light.’
‘I love that painting too,’ said Hermione, smiling warmly at Oscar because she wanted him to light her beautifully, and because she liked the piratical good looks of his son-in-law. ‘Étienne de Montigny was always begging me to sit for him.’
Tristan had had enough and belted off to the more reassuring comfort of Lucy, who had been deserted by Tabitha in need of more vodka, and who went scarlet when Tristan kissed her on both her already flushed cheeks. Oh, why had she worn a red wool twinset to stand by a blazing fire?
‘Thank you ever so much for the bluebells,’ she stammered.
‘I know you love them, and I remember very good poem about Lucy.
‘A violet by a mossy stone,
Half hidden from the eye.
Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.’
Tristan reeled off the verse in triumph.
But no-one looks at her when all the other stars come out, thought Lucy. She’d never found the poem very flattering.
There was a pause.
‘And this must be James.’ Tristan put out a hand to stroke Lucy’s lurcher, who was now curled up on the crimson throne initialled E for Excellent.
‘You remembered,’ said Lucy rapturously.
‘Of course. He is beautiful. How old is he?’
‘About twelve, the vet says.’
‘Where did you get him?’
‘I was on a shoot in the East End. He was running round the streets, terrified, with his lead flapping, so I coaxed him into my caravan with a bit of quiche. He was starving.’
The words were tumbling out of Lucy’s big, trembling mouth. ‘Then he leapt on to a chair, as if he wanted me to make him up, so I took off his lead to make him feel at home and put it on the table. Would you believe it? The next moment, he’d leapt down, snatched back his lead, put it on his chair, jumped back and sat on it.’ As Lucy caressed James’s brown velvet ears, her voice broke. ‘He was desperate not to lose the only possession he had in the world. I had to keep him after that. I’m sorry,’ Lucy wiped her eyes, smearing her mascara, ‘I’m boring you.’
‘I would run around East End with lead trailing,’ said Tristan gently, ‘if it found me an owner like you.’
Squawking, like a pheasant disturbed in a wood, was coming from the other end of the room. Oscar, not recognizing Hermione, had put up the terrible black of assuming Tabitha was the beautiful young girl who was going to play Elisabetta, and loudly assuring her he would have no problem lighting her at all.
Hermione was hopping.
Touching Lucy’s blushing cheek with one finger, Tristan shot off to calm Hermione, which also gave him a chance to say hello to Tab. But Tab had grabbed a bottle and, saying quite untruthfully that Lucy’s glass was empty as an excuse to fill her own, shot past him going the other way.
‘Who’s that man who looks as though a marmalade cat’s died on his head?’ she hissed.
‘That’s Colin Milton,’ grinned Lucy, lowering her voice. ‘Poor old boy’s been in the wilderness for years. Kept forgetting his lines and then had a nervous breakdown. He’s playing the Spanish ambassador. He’s really sweet.’
Meanwhile, anxious to make Alpheus jealous, Chloe was chatting up Wolfgang and, to prove she was not just a pretty face, discussing Schiller.
‘In the play,’ she said, ‘Philip offers his mistress, Eboli, in marriage to a disgusting old courtier.’
‘He also offers Carlos up to the Inquisition,’ said Wolfgang bleakly, ‘because both his mistress and his wife are in love with Carlos. His religion gave Philip a marvellous excuse to murder a son he hated.’
Wow, thought Chloe, you’re a chilly boy, ruthless as your dad. The combination of blond, chiselled, Luftwaffe-pilot looks with Rannaldini’s night-dark eyes was very disturbing.
‘Oh, goodee!’ Hermione clapped her hands. ‘Here’s Alpheus.’
Alpheus, who had deliberately arrived late to make an entrance, looked splendid, deeply tanned, wearing a frilly cream shirt tucked into dark blue velvet trousers to show off his T-bone figure. Helen’s eyes widened with excitement as he kissed her hand.
‘Here comes the Lothario from Long Island,’ said Baby sourly.
‘He is handsome,’ reproached Flora.
‘Like a lobster,’ snapped Baby. ‘Tasty body, but a head full of shit.’
‘Dinner is served,’ grumbled Mr Brimscombe, the gardener, who was violently opposed to Rannaldini’s plan to obliterate his flower-beds in a great Buckingham Palace sweep of lawn down to the lake, and who had only agreed to butle because so much crumpet was on view.
21
As the Great Hall was being transformed by Meredith’s myrmidons into Philip II’s bedroom, they dined in the old Prussian blue dining room, which now had walls the tawny red of beef consommé, and a gold ceiling to match all the gold plate and the frames of the portraits on the walls. A brass trough filled with white daffodils stretched down the middle of the table.
‘“And then my heart with pleasure fills and dances with the daffodils,”’ said Tristan, who had been summoned to sit on Helen’s right, but hoped Lucy and therefore Tab might come and sit on his other side. But, tossing her ringlets, Pushy Galore nipped in and stole the seat.
‘How the hell did she get in here?’ Chloe hissed to Flora.
‘Sexton brought her. In that dress, she looks as though he ordered her from the Past Times Christmas catalogue. The last shall be first — she’ll probably end up marrying Tristan.’