‘You’ve got to dress up as a Roman,’ said Ferdie, ‘preferably a decadent one. Most people’ll go in sheets and Duo-tan.’

‘I loathe fancy dress.’ Lysander had gone whiter than the snow outside at the thought of seeing Kitty again. ‘And I’ve got a zit.’

‘First time in your life. I can’t see it.’ Then, as Lysander lifted the curls off his forehead, ‘That’s nothing.’

‘It’s massive. If I stood in Paradise High Street, I’d stop the traffic.’

‘You better start eating.’

‘I can’t. I must go into Rutminster and get Kitty some flowers before the shops close.’

‘You could go in the buff as an Ancient Brit,’ suggested Ferdie. ‘You’ll be so blue with cold at Valhalla, you won’t have to bother with woad.’


53



The thunder and surge of Schoenberg could be heard all the way down the valley which glittered in the icy light of a moon hardly softened by a rusty halo presaging storm. Outside Valhalla the Press stamped their feet, desperate for the latest on Kitty and Lysander. But, determined to prevent any drawbridge crashers, Rannaldini had posted a fleet of minions and guard-dogs on every gate. Only guests with invitations were allowed in and, directed by Mr Brimscombe, who was almost more desperate to join the orgy than the Press, to park their cars and helicopters on the lawn.

Rannaldini had laid his plans with care. The scarlet morning room and the yellow summer parlour were radiant with candles and carpeted with pink rosepetals. The central heating, most uncharacteristically, was turned up to tropical, huge banked logs smouldered like the fires of hell in every grate so anyone who had turned up in anything hotter than a toga was soon stripping off.

Great vases of lilies, roses and jasmine poured forth their overpoweringly voluptuous scents, recalling Rannaldini’s garden during last summer’s heatwave. The air was blue with many kinds of smoke as soothsayers, slaves, emperors, Mercurys in tinhats and fig-leaves and goddesses, holding in their tummies and wishing they’d cut down on the turkey left-overs, got stuck into the Krug.

Having frozen at Rachel’s party, Larry had made the mistake of wearing a lion’s costume and was now twitching a yellow tail as he yelled into his mobile.

‘He’s trying to set up a new business with some Japs,’ explained Marigold, who’d come as Minerva. Having fallen asleep under the sun lamp she was redder in the face than Percival Hillary who, as Julius Caesar, had recycled his Cavendish House nightgown and put a laurel wreath on his wispy grey curls.

‘Julius Seize-him, more likely,’ giggled Meredith, lissom in a beige tunic. ‘Rannaldini is not promiscuous, Marigold, just terribly, terribly frightened of the dark, so he cannot sleep alone.’

‘What are you on about?’ said Marigold, adjusting the owl on her shoulder.

‘I’ve come as a Christian,’ said Meredith, folding his hands piously, ‘so I can’t bitch about anyone. Isn’t Hermione a sweet person? Hasn’t Percy got lovely breath? Doesn’t Rachel cheer one up? How the hell did Gwendolyn Chisleden wangle an invite? She could have come as Caligula’s horse without dressing up. Whoops, I’ve sinned again!’

‘Ay think Gwendolyn looks very dignified in that midnaight-blue shirtwaister,’ signed Marigold. ‘Ay wish Ay hadn’t bothered with fancy dress.’

Most chillingly sinister of all was Rannaldini as Janus, the two-faced Roman God, guardian of the gateways and appropriately of January. A best-selling item at music shops round the country was a Rannaldini mask, so lifelike that musicians crossed themselves when they suddenly encountered it. Tonight Rannaldini had attached this second face to the back of his head so wherever you were in the room the black hypnotic eyes seemed to follow you. With his smooth brown torso, black loincloth, and thick gold snake coiled round his arm, he looked menacing and terrifyingly sexy.

Belle of the ball, however, was definitely Hermione as the Botticelli Venus with her glorious figure barely disguised by a flesh-coloured body stocking and her serenely beautiful face framed by a long curling strawberry-blond wig looped back with a silver ribbon.

‘You can count every hair on her pubes, silly old tart,’ fumed Meredith, ‘I don’t know why she didn’t come as herself. She’s so lifted no-one would have recognized her. Doesn’t Bobby look divine as Brutus?’

‘The nobbliest Roman of them all,’ said Bob deprecatingly, looking down at his bare knees. ‘Christ, it’s hot in here. Shouldn’t someone open a window?’

Poor Georgie had felt absolutely stunning in gold robes and a black wig as Cleopatra until Natasha rolled up totally unexpectedly after ten days in Barbados, as an infinitely more seductive version in her mother’s Angel Gabriel gold tunic and with her own dark curls straightened and cut in a fringe.

‘Two Cleos! You should have come as Georgie’s daughter,’ said Hermione laughing heartily.

‘Bags I be your asp,’ said Guy, who was showing off his splendid legs as a centurion.

Unlike most fathers, Rannaldini was not remotely inhibited by his daughter’s presence. Seeing a miserable, utterly upstaged Georgie retreating into an alcove, he went over to fill up her glass: ‘Hallo, Georgie.’

‘Oh hi, Rannaldini. God, I’m unhappy. I screwed up courage to go to Relate in Rutminster last night and came home full of resolutions to be nicer to Guy only to find he’d gone round to see Rachel and what is more—’

‘Georgie,’ Rannaldini cut into her monologue mockingly, ‘I only came to say Hallo. Talk of zee devil.’

Leaving Georgie squirming with humiliation he sauntered across the room to kiss Rachel, who, having been to a candle-lit peace vigil to protest against the Gulf War, had arrived in an embattled mood. Dressed as Ben Hur, she was brandishing a large whip.

‘Ah, Dolores, Lady of Pain,’ he said softly, sliding a brief caressing hand inside her thighs just below her tunic, ‘let me pull your chariot.’

‘I loathe fancy dress,’ snarled Rachel, but she had lost her audience, because Lysander had just walked in and as usual brought the room to a halt.

He wore ripped jeans, a dark blue shirt and Kitty’s Donald Duck jersey. His deathly pallor set off by the dark stubble and the purple shadows beneath the cavernous eyes, which searched endlessly for Kitty, only made him stand out more from the gaudy yelling revellers swarming around him.

‘Hi, Trouble,’ said Meredith, tossing a handful of rosepetals over him. ‘Calves in Ancient Rome were always garlanded with flowers before they were sacrificed.’

Lysander was followed by a tottering, leering Ferdie, who, as Bacchus, had draped himself in a wine-stained tablecloth. His mouth was smeared dark purple with one of Lysander’s lipsalves and a wreath of plastic vine leaves borrowed from The Pearly Gates fell over his nose.

‘Hie,’ said Ferdie, lifting a flagon of red to his lips.

‘Haec hoc,’ added Meredith. ‘Hermione should have come as Frontus. Any moment Guy will tumble down her cleavage.’

Kitty was so used to staying in the background that Rannaldini had the greatest difficulty in dragging her out of the kitchen. He certainly didn’t want Lysander sloping off there. Because she had no idea Lysander was coming, she had listlessly acquiesced when Rannaldini insisted on dressing her as a Vestal Virgin in clinging pleated white, which only emphasized her lack of colour, her swollen reddened eyes and her dumpy little figure.

Now she was carrying a big terracotta bowl loaded with green grapes and crimson cherries past the red morning room along to the dining room.

‘Kitty, darling, how are you? Let me take that,’ called out Bob, but next minute he had been waylaid by the leader of the orchestra, who’d come plus fiddle as Nero and who was already half-cut.

‘Where’s this famous toy boy who got off with Kitty?’ he demanded, not realizing she was within earshot.

‘I want to shake him by the hand for rattling that shit. I’ve never known him so histrionic, screaming down the telephone about deps at four o’clock this morning: “Those were completely deeferent musicians to zee ones I saw in rehearsal.” So I said: “It’s not surprising, Rannaldini. The first lot were so fucking frightened of being shouted at.” That must be him in the Donald Duck sweater. Jesus, what a beauty. It’s going to be like the first day of the sales once we start orgying.’

Hearing this, Kitty shot into the room and found herself looking straight at Lysander. He was clutching Jack and a huge bunch of snowdrops. Next minute the terracotta bowl crashed into the rosepetals.

‘Oh, Lysander,’ she whispered.

Unable to speak, Lysander stumbled forward thrusting the snowdrops into her hands, closing her fingers round them and stroking them. For a second they gazed at each other, stunned by the devastation both had wrought.

‘I can’t go on,’ stammered Lysander.

‘Welcome to the Underworld, Orpheus,’ murmured Rannaldini, gliding up. Then, snapping his fingers at a couple of waitresses to clear up the broken pieces, he turned to Kitty. ‘I want you to come and meet Rudolpho who’s going to play Macbeth.’

Dropping her snowdrops contemptuously on a side table, he frogmarched her across the room.

‘I thought you’d promised to geeve up Lysander,’ he hissed, squeezing her arm till she gasped with pain. Switching to purring conciliation, he introduced her to a very fat tenor covered in white make-up and his harpist boyfriend whose costume consisted of brown curling leaves. They had come as Decline and Fall.

‘Rudolpho, caro, I would like you to meet my wife, Keety, who’ll be sorting out your contract. Ring her eef you have any problem.’