Only half the principals were in situ: neither Mikhail, Granny, his wayward boyfriend Giuseppe, Alpheus nor Chloe would be needed for a couple of weeks. Alpheus had come down ostensibly to show solidarity and to inspire the cast. After all, he was the principal male singer now Fat Franco had been fired. In reality he wanted to screw Chloe without having to fork out for a hotel — particularly as his wife Cheryl always went through the Amex receipts.

Looking down, he could see Tristan and Rannaldini walking towards the house, their arms waving as they yelled at one another, their shadows long and black behind them.

Inside the dairy, Meredith, like a small child comforting his mother, was patting the vast shoulders of a sobbing Lady Griselda.

‘It’s just first-night nerves, don’t take it personally.’

Griselda gave a sniff.

‘Try not to get lippy on that hunting tie, Hermsie,’ she called out, ‘and I’d be grateful if you’d all put your clothes back on the hangers.’

‘What time’s dinner?’ asked Baby.

‘Seven thirty for eight,’ said Flora, as she wriggled back into her old grey jersey and scruffy black jeans. ‘I can’t be bothered to go home and tart up.’


20


Dinner began scratchily. Helen, a lousy hostess at the best of times because she never refilled glasses or introduced anyone, was clearly livid at being invaded by so much mess and so many strangers. As a final insult, drinks were being served in the old red morning room, which she had spent two years of her excruciatingly unhappy marriage transforming into an exquisite symphony of faded blues and rusts. Almost overnight, it had been reduced to a gaudy riot of cherry-red walls, gilded ceilings, floor-length mirrors framed with gold leaf, and two crimson thrones initialled E and PII at the end of the room. Worst of all, three huge glittering chandeliers, hovering overhead like Spielberg spaceships, highlighted every bag and wrinkle — an unkind contrast to the ludicrously flattering painting of herself over the fireplace in which she was portrayed as Athene, goddess of wisdom, with an owl perched on her head.

Having flown in from a wildly successful Mahler’s Resurrection in Berlin, to ensure Valhalla’s cuisine exceeded anything French, Rannaldini had unearthed the Krug and was welcoming guests, and accepting compliments on the room. ‘It ees, of course, based on Throne Room at Buckingham Palace,’ he told anyone who would listen.

As the crew gathered in one corner puffing Gauloise smoke, and the cast retreated to another trying not to breathe it in, gossip whizzed back and forth in all languages. Everyone was also assessing talent.

‘How can I tell Tristan’s boys apart when they’ve all got beards?’ said Baby fretfully.

‘Jesus must have had the same trouble with his disciples,’ said Meredith, ‘except this lot have got gorgeous names like best-boy and focus-puller. Valentin the camera operator’s heaven, but he’s just back from his honeymoon.’

‘Best time to turn them, before they start looking round for other women. God, he’s divine.’

‘Also Rannaldini’s son, Wolfgang, so he’s out of bounds, very straight and rather fierce. I’m sure he’s going to insist we all have uniform willies — like Common Market carrots. He’s nice.’ Meredith nudged Baby, as Sylvestre, the sound man, who’d tied back his long blond hair in a pony-tail, wandered through the door.

‘Even straighter and utterly monosyllabic,’ said Baby dismissively.

Having grabbed a drink, Sylvestre was soon comparing notes with Ogborne, the chief grip. Flora looked sexy enough, even if she did need a bath, they decided, but those sodding great rings on her hand suggested a rich boyfriend.

‘That blonde looks a goer,’ said Ogborne.

Sylvestre, who’d much enjoyed Chloe’s goings and comings during the recording, agreed.

Then both men choked on their drinks as Tabitha stalked in, turquoise eyes flashing, hair slicked back from her forehead like Rudolph Valentino. She was wearing a cashmere crop top to show off a sea-horse tattooed below her left breast and very low-slung black hipsters. Having filled a glass with so much vodka that the ice she added made it overflow, she made a beeline for Lucy and dragged her over to the fireplace.

‘Why do the most beautiful girls always pal up with dogs?’ said Ogborne, still sour at not being asked to share Lucy’s bed.

‘Because their dogs like each other,’ said Sylvestre, as Sharon the Labrador bounced up to James the lurcher, who went up on his toes and nearly sent a bowl of grape hyacinths flying with his long wagging tail.

Tab immediately launched into the state of her marriage.

‘Isa was there when I got home from auditioning horses. Then he went straight out, saying he’d gotta go over to bloody Jake’s and couldn’t make dinner tonight. So I press the redial button, and guess who answered? Fucking Martie in Australia. I’m going mad, Luce.’ She drained half her vodka, hand trembling.

‘And what was even worse, when I ran down the garden trying to catch Isa, I saw this man on a horse, his hair white-blond in the moonlight, and for a second, I thought, by some miracle, Daddy had come to take me away from this nightmare. Then I realized it was bloody Wolfgang having a snoop. He’s furious Rannaldini’s lent us Magpie Cottage. And Rannaldini’s given him this ace job and he’s got no experience. Can’t you see The Ladybird Book of the Cinema sticking out of his pocket?’

Lucy was about to say how sorry she was, when Rannaldini clapped his hands for silence.

‘I would like to welcome you all to the Throne Room at Valhalla on this very special evening,’ he said smoothly, ‘and introduce my wife Helen, our daughter Tabitha, by the fireplace, and our son, Wolfgang.’ He turned to smile at the extremely handsome but undeniably boot-faced young man standing by the window.

‘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.’