‘Look out, Viking,’ yelled Julian.

‘Run,’ shrieked Cousin Deirdre.

It was sage advice.

Viking realized he couldn’t take on both Clive and Nathan, particularly as a shiny dark object glinted menacingly in Nathan’s huge hand.

‘Get him,’ hissed Rannaldini, rubbing Black Forest gâteau out of his eyes.

And Viking was off, darting through the little tables, sending a huge vase of bronze chrysanthemums flying, catching Trevor and Jennifer in flagrante behind the carving trolley, out through a side-door, up a flight of stairs.

Shouting voices and footsteps pounding after him sent him hurtling along a corridor. There was no time to catch the lift, the footsteps were getting nearer. At the end of the corridor were stone stairs and, panting down seven flights and sidling across the lounge, Viking found himself in the lobby.

But as he paused to catch his breath, Clive emerged from the lift. Dummying past him, Viking hurled himself into the revolving doors, only to find Nathan leering at him on the other side, still waving the same menacing shiny object.

With huge yuccas to left and right of the door, there was no escape. Wincing as Clive grabbed his arm, Viking turned, looking into the vicious, unpitying face of Death.

‘The basstard had it coming,’ muttered Viking.

For a second or two, Death stared at him, then suddenly warmed up and smiled almost affectionately.

‘Couldn’t agree with you more, dear,’ lisped Clive. ‘Been waiting ten years for someone to give Rannaldini his comeuppance. May I shake you by the hand?’

Then, as Viking’s jaw dropped, Nathan bounded in through the revolving doors with a grin as wide as the keys on a Steinway, and thrust the menacing object into Viking’s hand.

‘You dropped your wallet, man.’

‘We’d very much like to buy you a drink,’ said Clive.

‘It’s very generous of you both,’ Viking started to shake, not entirely with laughter.

Through the revolving doors, he could see his taxi-driver polishing off a pork pie and a can of lager to sustain him after the first leg of the journey from Holyhead.

‘I’m on my way to Heathrow,’ said Viking, ‘but perhaps I’ve josst got time for a quick one.’

Rannaldini, swearing vengeance, had disappeared to wash crême brulée out of his pewter hair before the emergency board meeting, when the bellboy walked in with a telephone.

‘Call for you, Mr Hungerford.’

As George lifted the receiver, everyone around him could hear the frantic squawking as if a hen had just laid a dinosaur’s egg.

‘Mr Hungerford,’ cried Miss Priddock, ‘Ay saw you in the audience. Thank goodness you’re back. An amazin’ thing has happened. I don’t know quaite how to tell you.’

‘Try,’ said George unhelpfully.

But as he listened, his I-don’t-want-to-be-bothered-with-paper-clips scowl creased into a huge smile.

‘That is amazing, Miss P. Woonderful in fact. Are you at home? I’ll call you later. Yes, it was great — Marcus won.’

As he switched off the telephone, he turned to Flora: ‘Well done, John Droommond.’

‘He’s caught the biggest rat in the world?’ giggled Flora.

Cherub had reached the prehistoric chapter, his finger moving shakily along the line: ‘The largessht exshtinct animal in the world wash the two hundred and fifty ton supersaurus,’ he informed his audience.

‘And the most extinct ensemble in the world,’ said George draining his glass of brandy, ‘is Rannaldini’s Super Orchestra.’

CODA


‘Happy birthday,’ said Gisela, thrusting out a big bunch of autumn crocuses.

Abby looked round listlessly and put down her violin.

‘Thank you, they’re lovely,’ she examined the delicate veins on the pale mauve petals. ‘In fact they’re exquisite. You’re so good to me, Gisela. I’d forgotten it was my birthday. I guess hitting thirty’s kind of painless compared with losing everything else in my life.’

‘The autumn crocus bloom when everything else is dying,’ said the housekeeper gently.

‘Oh Gisela,’ Abby turned hastily towards the window to hide her tears. She had already wept enough to fill Lake Lucerne, which as far as the eye could see sparkled brilliant blue and utterly unsympathetic in the afternoon sunshine.

In her old rust-red jersey and brown suede skirt, which was now hopelessly loose on her, she had all the sad defencelessness of an autumn leaf blown against the window.

‘You must eat, child,’ urged Gisela. ‘I’ve just made onion soup and there’s bread fresh from the oven.’

‘You’re so darling, I’m sorry, I’m just not hungry, and I can’t practise any more. I’ll take a walk along the lake. Can you put the flowers in water? Thank you, I just love them.’

Handing back the crocuses, Abby ran from the room. A crawling restlessness, an inability to settle to anything was part of her malaise.

‘Put on a coat,’ Gisela shouted after her, but the front door had banged.

Gisela had never seen such despair.

Abby reminded her of a child, whose family had all been killed, huddling in the ruins of a bombed-out city.

It was a beautiful day. The air was misty and silky. The lake, reflecting a big cloud that had drifted overhead, was grey-blue now. Little waves caressed the banks along which autumn blazed. Amid the amber gloom of the woods, the beeches stood out stinging red like huntsmen riding by. Abby could almost hear their horns. Oh Viking, Viking!

Splashing through the puddles from last night’s deluge, she battled to come to terms with the anguish of last weekend. After the first dreadful shock of being conned and betrayed, Marcus being outed had been almost a relief. It explained his lack of desire (except for those heady frenzied days when he’d first met Alexei), which had made her feel such a failure as a woman. But she missed him as a best friend, as she missed Flora, who now belonged to George. In addition, her violin wouldn’t sing to her, and she was eaten up with guilt and sadness at abandoning her friends in the orchestra to the non-existent mercies of Rannaldini. She had let them down, she had blabbed to the Press. She had loved not wisely.

But it was the loss of Viking that wiped her out. Not only did she frantically crave his love-making, but only now did she appreciate how much she had looked forward to seeing him every day, how his dreadful sexist cracks had warmed her blood.

What d’you call a woman maestro? Mattress. Oh Viking, she sighed, you can lie on me whenever you want. How she’d enjoyed the sparring, how she missed his kindness, his louche elegance, the sun in his arms.

I’ve grown accustomed to his face, thought Abby, as she watched the leaves drifting down for a last kiss with their reflection on the surface of the lake.

‘It was my thirtieth year to heaven,’ she quoted sadly. ‘My birthday began with the waterbirds… and I rose in rainy autumn and walked abroad in a shower of all my days.’

What the hell could she do with the rest of all her days? She couldn’t go back to the loneliness of being a soloist. Being the tallest poppy, waiting to be hacked down, the Press pulling out her petals, this week we love her, this week we love her not. She supposed she could try for a job as a leader. But as a soloist, she had her own distinctive sound. She would have to learn to fuse with the rest of the orchestra.

I’ve never been able to fuse with anything in my life, she thought wearily.

She had the temporary security of Rodney’s house on the lake, but that was being contested by his family. She missed Rodney so much, too. Every room was filled with his ghost, a faint waft of lemon cologne and cigars. Every evening, she expected him to bounce in brandishing a bottle of champagne, wearing nothing but his pin-striped apron.

‘Oh well, it was worth a try.’

Only now did she realize how much Rodney had given her, letting her stay for so long, putting up with her tantrums, always ready to listen. She was sure his big heart had failed in the end because he had given so much of it away to other people. She wished he could send her a fax just to tell her he was OK.

Ahead Mount Pilatus, already covered in snow, gleamed in the sunshine. Pilate had come to the lake to suffer.

‘How did you hack it, Pontius?’ pleaded Abby. ‘If you and God have made it up, put in a good word. It was my thirtieth year to heaven,’ she intoned wearily, as she shuffled through a thick carpet of curling sycamore leaves, ‘or rather hell.’