Jilly Cooper - Appassionata

‘I’m not on the p-p-pill,’ Flora hated herself for stammering.

‘Doesn’t matter. I want to fook you more than anything in the world,’ George stammered even more as he fumbled with his belt, ‘but I want you to know I luv you and want to marry you as well.’

Flora helped him with his zip and boxer shorts.

‘Oh my,’ she said in a choked voice, ‘you are well Hungerford.’

‘Don’t take the piss,’ pleaded George. ‘I can’t ’andle it. Let’s take things very slowly.’

‘’Andel’s Largo,’ began Flora, until George stopped her nervous prattle by kissing her.

Having exhausted the bed, they moved into the bathroom. Lying on the shag-pile, Flora admired the gleaming undersides of the lavatory bowl, and thought she must remember to clean under the loo at the cottage. Then she thought of nothing else except George.

Finally ending up on a pile of duvets on the bedroom floor, she staggered to her feet.

‘I have to sing “Ode to Joy”, in a few hours,’ she sighed, ‘but I’m so happy it’ll probably sing itself this evening.’

‘I luv you,’ repeated George, who was running water into a round cyclamen-pink bath next door. ‘I mean it about marrying you.’

‘And I mean it, too,’ said Flora, bending over to kiss him, ‘it’sjust a bit new and all. The bliss of having a bathroom en suite,’ she went on, ‘is that you don’t have to scuttle across the landing trapping a towel between your legs.’

A shadow flickered across George’s face.

‘Have you done that lots of times?’

‘A few.’

‘How many blokes have you been to bed with?’

‘I’ve lost Count,’ said Flora, ‘as Countess Dracula was always complaining. D’you want a bowdlerized version?’

‘No, I want the truth.’

‘Right, well,’ Flora took a deep breath. ‘I had several schoolboys at Bagley Hall, then I had Rannaldini. I wonder if women who’ve slept with Rannaldini make love in a certain way, like string players who’ve been to the Juillard.’

‘Go on,’ George almost snapped, as Flora’s body disappeared under the surface then emerged like a seal, the bubbles coating her freckled back.

‘Rannaldini obliterated everyone else. Then I tried a few students at the Academy to exorcize him, but it didn’t work. Then no-one till Jack, but I only went to bed with him because he rescued me from Carmine — rather like accepting a large brandy from a St Bernard when you’re stuck halfway up the Matterhorn.’

Unable to suppress a smile, George started to rub Pears soap, the colour of Flora’s wet hair, down her arm.

‘That’s all, except Viking,’ she said.

Dropping the soap, George’s hand did a Chinese burn on her wrist. He really minds, thought Flora, gazing at the red mark in wonder.

‘W-w-was it foontastic?’ asked George wistfully.

‘Yes and no, we were both a bit too expert like Torvill and Dean. Anyway, I honestly think Viking went to bed with me to get at Abby. He can’t leave her alone, he’s always bitching at her.

‘That’s about it. Truly. I’m at my journey’s end.’ Putting both arms up, feeling George as warm, wide and solid as an Aga against her, Flora pulled him into the bath with a huge splash. ‘You are the loveliest hunk.’

But George was still fretting.

‘Will I be exciting enough for you?’

‘Exciting,’ Flora’s eyes flooded with tears. ‘I can’t begin to tell you, like that great balloon soaring into the sky out of that limp rubber, what it’s like suddenly to be happy again, wildly, ecstatically happy with the most adorable man in the world. That’s exciting, I have to joke, I have to, I’m just so terrified it’s going to end.’

‘In my end is my beginning,’ said George, kissing her soapy hand. ‘I’m going to marry you the second my divorce is through.’

‘Oh goodness.’

‘And I want to say, Floora — ’ (she loved the way he pronounced it with a long first syllable) — ‘I’ve had a change of heart because of you. I know I’ve been greedy in the past, I’ve ridden roof-shod over folk, been a bastard. Knocking down houses, in-filling, leaning on old ladies, I’ve thought about it a lot. I’ve totally given oop the idea of buying H.P. Hall and turning it into a supermarket.’

‘I know someone who could do with a bit of in-filling at the moment,’ said Flora slyly.

Rising up in the bath, she started to kiss her way down his body, plunging into the water until his cock came up to meet her. Then she looked up, quickly gasping for breath, eyelashes like star fish.

‘Abby’s always telling me to play with every inch of my beau.’

George ruffled her hair.

‘You’re utterly deranged.’

‘Let’s have a deranged marriage then.’

‘When can I start telling everyone?’

‘Not until I tell Abby,’ said Flora. ‘I’m not sure how pleased she’ll be.’

Abby was in a murderous mood and shouted at Flora as she slid in late to the rehearsal and took her place beside the other three soloists.

‘She’s in a terrific paddy,’ whispered Clare in awe.

‘Correction,’ whispered Candy, ‘a terrific Paddy’s been inside her.’

Poor Abby, in fact, had just had a hideous session with Hilary. Oozing spurious concern like a lanced boil, Hilary had come into the conductor’s room, and begged Abby not to take Viking’s seduction too seriously.

‘The sweepstake was just a bit of fun, Abby. And you must remember the musicians aren’t wealthy like you. That two thousand would have got most of them out of debt, saved the repossession of Barry’s barn, paid for Janey’s hip, cushioned Cyril’s retirement, bought Randy some new clubs.’

‘And a new prayer-mat for Miles.’

‘Oh, Miles would never involve himself with anything so tacky.’

‘Unlike fucking Viking.’

Hilary sighed deeply.

‘I’m afraid Viking’s too lazy to get anywhere in life. He’d never have scraped together enough money to send Granny Wexford to America, if he hadn’t won it. They’ll think he’s such a hero in Dublin, and of course he has to keep up his reputation as the orchestra stud.’

‘The son-of-a-bitch,’ hissed Abby, ‘I’ll get him for sexual harassment.’

‘I’m afraid the orchestra will say the boot was on the other foot — they’ll swear black’s white for Viking.’

‘I’ve been made a complete fool of, right?’

‘Where’s your sense of humour, Abby?’ Hilary was loving this. ‘Get things in proportion. If you need some counselling when you get back to England, Miles will arrange it.’

‘Can he arrange for Viking to be Bobbitted as well?’

Hilary sighed. ‘Miles and I are praying for you.’

Certainly during the rehearsal Abby’s wrath was reserved for Viking.

They were only running through the last movement from where the chorus and soloists come in, but she wasted everyone’s time singling out any intervening horn passages, and pulling them to pieces, particularly Viking’s contribution.

‘More pianissimo, First Horn,’ she screamed until Viking wasn’t making any sound at all. ‘Play it again.’

‘Why? It was perfect.’

‘Don’t smart-ass me, leave your brains in your trousers where they belong.’

The minute she said that, Abby could have kicked herself.

‘You should know,’ chorused the Celtic Mafia.

‘I said, on your own, First Horn.’

And Viking, who’d never been called First Horn in his life except by Rannaldini, retaliated by playing the solo from Ein Heldenleben which had so bewitched her on her first day at the RSO. Abby promptly burst into tears and stormed out.

Julian ran after her, but she wouldn’t talk to him. After last night she didn’t know who to trust, not even Flora, who’d been grinning like a jackass throughout the rehearsal.

Somehow, by the evening, fortified by a couple of beta-blockers, Abby had pulled herself together, and the applause, as always, even for a run-of-the-mill Beethoven’s Ninth, was tumultuous because it was such a happy piece, and because so many of the chorus’s relations were swelling the audience.

George sat in a box high above the orchestra. It was hard to tell who looked more frozen with misery, Viking or Cyril, for whom it was his last concert abroad, and who had been denied the great horn solo in the third movement.

But George couldn’t be bothered with other people’s problems tonight. And the moment Flora filed on with the other soloists, he never took his eyes off her, rejoicing in every note, as her piercing exquisite voice soared above everyone else’s, even when she joined in the chorus. Several times she smiled up at him and even made Foxie give him a wave. She has brought radiance to my life, thought George. Thank you, God, for giving me a second chance.