But, flipping through the pages, there were two Everests still to conquer: Rupert’s women. There was only a head shot of the divine Taggie, taken at Tab’s wedding, but by secreting hidden cameras in both her bedrooms, at Valhalla and at Magpie Cottage, he had some stunning shots of Tabitha, naked, slender and most disdainful of them all.
Rannaldini felt chained to a lunatic by his lust, his cock about to detonate. He had fantasized recently of marrying Tab, and giving her blond, beautiful babies.
But things hadn’t gone to plan. Rannaldini found himself increasingly identifying with Philip II. He had ‘sought in the vast desert of men, for a friend’. He had found Tristan, but Tristan had flouted his authority and won Tab’s affection.
It was the same with Wolfie. Rannaldini had wanted his son back so much, but how could it happen that Flora once, and now it seemed Tabitha, had grown increasingly fond of such a ham-fisted, formal, slightly ridiculous, hopelessly romantic young man.
Tab was infatuated with Tristan, but Wolfie was busy gaining ground. In his son’s top drawer, under the lining paper, Rannaldini had found Polaroids of Tab in her dunce’s cap. He’d kill rather than relinquish her to Wolfie. Suddenly he had a brainwave and picked up the telephone.
‘Clive, I want you to make a trip to Penscombe.’
36
Tab was amazed and touched when Chloe rang her the following day, which was a Sunday, asking her to come to Harvey Nichols’ sale in Rutminster. But who was there to buy dresses for? Isa was as cool as ever, and Tristan hadn’t telephoned since he’d blown her out. But knowing that he wanted polo in Don Carlos and that Rannaldini was baulking over the expense, Tab explained to Chloe that she was going over to Rutminster Polo Club that afternoon, to try and persuade some of the England players, all mates of Rupert, to appear in the film for a crate of Moët apiece.
‘Not much of a hardship negotiating with those guys,’ said Chloe. ‘At least drop in on the tennis tournament later.’
‘I can’t, Chloe. Evenings are the only time it’s cool enough to work The Engineer.’
‘Well, look after yourself, little one.’
Tab wiped away the tears. How kind of Chloe to be so solicitous.
Inspired by a fortnight’s Wimbledon, and the fact that it was 8 July, the day the real Carlos had been born, the tennis tournament had been scheduled for early evening in the forlorn hope that the heat might have subsided. Alas, it was hotter than ever, with black storm-clouds massing like the Grand Inquisitor’s army in the west.
The tennis courts at Valhalla flanked Hangman’s Wood. Already the poplars were yellowing and every chestnut leaf was edged with brown. It was so still, the smouldering trees seemed turned to stage scenery. Rannaldini had retired to his watch-tower to drool over the newly arrived rushes of himself on the rostrum. Over and over again the opening bars of the overture, like hunting horns deep in the wood, advertised his evil presence.
To add to the tension, people who had fondly arranged to partner one another weeks ago were no longer on speaking terms. Pushy was playing with Alpheus, which would put Cheryl into orbit, Chloe, a reputed demon on the court, with Mikhail, which would equally enrage Lara.
After Friday’s débâcle Mikhail had also decided he loathed Chloe, and rolled up at the tennis tournament swigging vodka out of a two-litre Smirnoff bottle.
‘“ ’Appy birthday, Don Carlos, ’appy birthday to you,”’ sang Mikhail, ‘And I hop’ he had better bloody birthday than I ’ave on Friday.’
‘Today’, boomed Griselda, resplendent in a vast white tent dress, ‘is also the birthday of Rozzy’s husband, Glyn, probably an even greater shit than the original Carlos, so horoscopes do work.’
‘And it is my aunt Hortense’s birthday,’ piped up Simone. ‘She is terrible tart too.’
‘I think you mean “tartar”, sweetie,’ said Griselda fondly.
‘Uncle Tristan is probably still at her birthday party now,’ said Simone, glancing at her watch. ‘She’ll be very angry I rattled at the last moment.’
‘You couldn’t miss a chance of having Wolfie as your partner,’ mocked Chloe, swiping at a passing wasp with her racquet.
Seeing poor Simone — who was unaware that her crush on Wolfie was common knowledge — going absolutely crimson, Griselda said quickly, ‘Rozzy’s been cooking chicken breasts to be wrapped in smoked salmon, sea trout and raspberry Pavlova for that bastard Glyn all weekend.’
Paid for by me, thought Lucy bitterly.
‘Oh, look,’ said Meredith, as a black helicopter approached from the south-east and landed on the lawn of River House. ‘Hermione has returned from Milan. She’s clearly not too mortified to make use of Maestro’s chopper.’
Meredith was partnering Flora, neither serious players, particularly Meredith, whose Christopher Robin sunhat fell off if he ran too fast. To everyone’s amazement, they took out Mikhail and Chloe, because Mikhail smote every ball into the dark midgy canopy of Hangman’s Wood.
‘I hop’ I break every window of his bloody vatchtower,’ he growled.
‘Why don’t you take up golf?’ snarled Chloe, as they walked off the court.
Afterwards they could be heard yelling at each other in the maze, in which they would be filming next week.
‘No doubt rehearsing the bit when Posa pulls a knife on Eboli,’ said Flora, collapsing on the burnt, scratchy grass to watch Bernard and Jessica, Sexton’s beautiful secretary, pounding balls at Lucy and Ogborne, who was still keeping the midges at bay with Hermione’s wine-stained sunhat.
Flora was coming apart at the seams, in floods one minute, screaming with laughter the next. Now she was crying because she could hear Tabloid, the Rottweiler, howling and stuck in baking solitary confinement beneath Rannaldini’s watch-tower.
‘Why doesn’t bloody Clive take him for a walk?’
Then, as the hunting horns from the rushes echoed through Hangman’s Wood again, ‘If I hear that overture once more, I’ll scream.’
The horror of the photos Rannaldini had shown her had now kicked in. She hadn’t come on yet. What happened if she was pregnant and produced a little HIV baby? If George saw those pictures, he’d never take her back. Every time a mobile rang, she leapt three feet in the air.
Granny, who was partnering Griselda, was equally suicidal. How could he have let himself go in Rutminster yesterday? Every time a car came up the drive, he expected blue lights and sirens. Even more cruelly, an indignant Howie had just confirmed that Serena Westwood was on the cruise ship with Giuseppe. Rannaldini’s evil matchmaking had worked a treat. Granny’s dreams were now as shredded as his patchwork quilt. But, being Granny, he refused to spoil everyone else’s fun, and plucked his tennis racquet like a banjo.
‘“He said that he loved her but, oh, how he lied,”’ sang Granny. ‘“Oh, how he lied, oh, how he lied.”’
‘“And then they were married and somehow she died. Somehow she di-hi-hi-ed,”’ joined in Flora.
On three glasses of white, and no food since Friday, Granny was also in a fuck-it mood. His sneaky underarm service was soon whistling over the net. Griselda, galumphing around in her white tent, turned out to have a murderous backhand. To everyone’s noisily cheering surprise, they routed the number-one seeds, Alpheus and Pushy.
‘Pushy’s gone white with rage to match her tennis kit,’ muttered Ogborne to Lucy. ‘I reckon Alpheus threw that game.’
As Pushy came off the court, Meredith was reading out a Sunday Times piece claiming that the coveted part of Delilah had not gone to Chloe or even Pushy, but to Rannaldini’s ex, Cecilia. With a frantic jangling of bracelets and earrings, Pushy burst into tears.