The National Hunt season was nearly over. Isa’s winnings were shoring up Jake’s yard so money would grow even tighter. Playing his usual cool waiting game, Isa had not pestered Mr Brown about Peppy Koala.

Finally, Mr Brown rang him. ‘I’m dead choked your little Tabitha lost the baby. How is she?’

‘Pretty depressed.’

‘Not surprising, the way you treat her. If you can’t be nice to a pretty lady like that, how can I trust you with my little horsy?’

‘That’s crazy,’ said Isa sharply. ‘No-one fusses over horses like my father. Where were you thinking of sending him?’

‘Well, Sir Roberto Rannaldini’s offered me so much dosh I nearly sold to him, but in case Peppy’s that good I’m giving him to your other father-in-law, Rupert Campbell-Black.’

If Isa couldn’t blame Tab for losing the baby, he could, and certainly did, for the loss of Peppy Koala.

The following day Rannaldini and a suicidal Tab rode round Paradise. A big red sun was disappearing into the mist like the brake light of Apollo’s chariot, putting a pink rinse on the bare trees and a rose flush along the horizon. Conscious that they were about to be invaded by far more famous singers, robins and blackbirds were carolling their heads off.

‘I’ve had some lovely letters about the baby,’ muttered Tab, ‘from Lucy in Belgium, Meredith, Mr Brown, and even from that glamorous French director you invited to our wedding. He sent me a lovely poem about Little Rupert really existing and being a plant of light.’ For a second, her stony little face softened.

That one would have to be knocked on the head very quickly, thought Rannaldini.

‘Mrs Brimscombe told Isa how sorry she was about the baby,’ he said idly. ‘Isa said, “At least it’s given Tab something new to grumble about.”’

‘The bastard,’ gasped Tab.

‘I suggested you get a part-time job.’

‘And what did Isa say?’

As the sun sank, all the birds that had been singing so madly went silent. As the glow in the west became an orange fire, Rannaldini noticed a little adolescent moon turning her slim back on such ostentation. She reminded him of Tabitha.

‘He said you were unemployable.’

‘God, he’s a shit. You wait till the bloody ban’s lifted — we’ll show him.’

‘That’s how I wanted you to react,’ said Rannaldini silkily.

As he moved his horse close to The Engineer, his hypnotic black eyes were level with Tab’s. Perhaps he had such an impact on women, she thought, because he was small enough to dazzle them, like a low-angled winter sun.

‘Filming starts the week after next,’ he announced. ‘I’d like to offer you a job on Don Carlos. As mistress of the horse,’ he added sententiously.

‘Sounds perverse?’

‘As well as hunting, war scenes and polo during the overture, horses will be needed for Philip’s coronation, and Tristan might want to film Carlos and Posa galloping across country. We need someone to organize it. We’ll pay you a very good fee.’

‘Won’t people think it a bit odd you hiring a totally inexperienced member of your wife’s family?’

‘Not in the least. Tristan has already signed up his delectable niece, Simone, to handle continuity.’

‘Can The Engineer have a part?’

‘A starring role.’

‘Then I’ll do it.’

She was flaming well going to show Isa and Rupert that she could do her bit for the marriage.


19


What Rannaldini did not tell Tab was that also joining the crew, as second assistant director, and as hellbent on proving himself, was his eldest son, Wolfgang. This had come about because Rannaldini, wildly jealous of Rupert’s rapprochement with Marcus and closeness to Xavier, wanted his son back, and had ordered Sexton to employ him.

The twenty-four-year-old Wolfgang, who had just gained an excellent law degree in Germany, had agreed to work on Don Carlos as a filler before taking up a plum job in Berlin. He had not been back to Valhalla for six years, ever since Rannaldini had pinched from him his beloved Flora Seymour, who was then a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl.

Highly, if somewhat rigidly, intelligent, Wolfgang had read Schiller in the original, and parallels between the cold, tyrannical Philip stealing Elisabetta from his son Carlos were not lost on him.

Now a jackbooting Eurocrat with a slimline briefcase and narrowed eyes, Wolfgang was determined not to let Rannaldini bully him. His job would be to run errands, keep the chorus in order and yank singers out of their dressing rooms, which in turn would give plenty of opportunity for bullying.

I am completely over Flora, Wolfgang told himself firmly and repeatedly, as he hurtled down the M4.

The only car that overtook him was a red Ferrari. Glancing right as it shot past, Wolfie nearly rammed the car in front, for in the passenger seat, yacking her head off to a beautiful boy instantly recognizable as the tenor playing Carlos, was Flora in person.

Wolfie had to pull into Membury service station to recover.

I am not over her, he told himself bleakly.

Unaware of the havoc she had just caused, Flora was much too busy worrying about tomorrow’s filming.

‘You just have to hit the mark and mime to your own voice,’ said Baby soothingly. ‘It’ll be a doddle, I promise you.’

‘Hey doddle doddle, I’m sure it’s going to be more difficult than any of us think.’

‘There’s bound to be a voice coach around to bring us in. God, I could murder a burger. Let’s stop at that Little Chef.’

‘You mustn’t. You look fantastic. Adonis Carlos.’

After a week at Champney’s, Baby had lost his double chin and his gut.

‘I can wear all my jackets as wraparounds like the Queen Mother,’ he crowed. ‘And I adored being whipped by all that seaweed.’

Flora gazed gloomily at the yellowing verges. It hadn’t rained for weeks. The motorway was littered with furry corpses desperate to reach the river. Crows hung overhead like vultures.

‘George and I were so miserable at the prospect of being separated.’ She sighed. ‘We had a stupid row last night and slept back to back loathing each other. We were just making up when Trevor barked hysterically at some non-existent burglar. By the time I’d defied George and let Trev out and in, the mood was broken. And Trev doesn’t give a stuff,’ she added, as the little dog raced back and forth along the top of the back seat, yapping furiously at dogs in other cars.

‘And that’s the precious life blood of a master spirit you’ve just devoured,’ she said reproachfully, as she retrieved a chewed-up copy of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin from the back seat.

‘That’s a nice ring,’ said Baby, admiring the row of coloured stones on her left hand.

‘It’s called a regard ring. Victorian men gave it to their sweethearts if they were separated as a token of their regard. George gave it to me before we started rowing last night,’ she added dolefully.

‘You are entering the misnamed Valley of Paradise,’ she intoned half an hour later.

From the south side, they realized the immensity of the operation. Opposite lay the great abbey of Valhalla, as grey and brooding as the clouds hanging over it. Around it, all over Rannaldini’s parkland, like a huge circus, sprawled lorries, caravans, tents, a mobile canteen, Portaloos and vast generators.

‘God, it’s a creepy place.’ Flora shivered. ‘Rannaldini is rumoured to have a torture chamber under the house. It’s safer to walk round Brixton after dark. My parents live there,’ she pointed to a large Georgian house on the right of Valhalla, ‘and that’s Dame Hermione’s shack further down the valley. Golly, the river’s low. And up that little lane to the left is Magpie Cottage, where Isa and Tab clearly aren’t going to fifteen rounds.’

‘Spoilt brat,’ said Baby dismissively.

‘Takes one to know one,’ chided Flora. ‘D’you fancy Tristan?’

‘I certainly do. Don’t you?’

‘One can’t not. He’s so Holy Grailish, and separate. And so sad behind all that charm. D’you think he’s gay?’

‘Hope so, but at least we’ve got three months to find out. Shall we have a quickie in the Pearly Gates?’

‘No,’ said Flora firmly. ‘We’ve got to behave.’

Valhalla swarmed with technicians, everyone obsessed with his own agenda. Meredith, determined to produce the most memorable sets, whisked about trailing comely chippies, who could transform a dog kennel into Aladdin’s cave in twenty-four hours. Not only had they ripped apart the Great Hall and the two drawing rooms, but also the dining room, the entrance hall and Rannaldini’s study and bedroom too.

Tristan was outraged, and having a shouting match with Meredith as Baby and Flora arrived.

‘Those other rooms were not on the budget!’

‘They might just get into shot,’ said Meredith blithely. ‘Rannaldini didn’t want to risk it. I love it when you act masterful.’

Tristan stormed off, as Meredith turned to Baby and Flora.

‘My dears, it’s all too exciting, and wait till you see Tristan’s boys. They’re so glamorous, he must be gay.’

Tristan’s boys — the crew, mostly French — were, indeed, a glamorous bunch. They all seemed to have skiing tans and lean jaws, rapidly being hidden by beards so they wouldn’t have to shave when they dragged themselves out of bed at the crack of dawn. Totally professional, they had already checked and tested their equipment for the first shoot day, making sure that lights and sound gear were in working order and camera and lenses properly calibrated.

Poised to grumble at everything anglais and to blow Gauloise smoke in the face of any singer who played up, they were also acting bolshie because most of them hadn’t been invited to Rannaldini’s smart dinner party that evening.