by Jilly Cooper
Even the last Spanish minister, a Señora Mendoza, who had a black moustache, hadn’t fazed Sexton.
‘One bottle of bubbly and a tube of Immac and we was away.’
Unfortunately, shortly after this, Señora Mendoza had fallen from office and for Sexton, and was never off the telephone angling for another seeing-to. Contrary to Señora Mendoza’s forward behaviour, there was also a real problem of filming nudes and sex scenes in Catholic countries.
A substantial sum had been promised by a group of Saudi gun-runners, who wanted to raise their profile by having their names on the credits. (Unknown to the Saudis, Sexton was busy dealing with the Iranians.)
His greatest coup, however, was to enlist the support of the recently ennobled Declan O’Hara who was managing director of Venturer Television and a complete Don Carlos freak. Unknown to his tone-deaf partner and son-in-law, Rupert Campbell-Black, Declan had pledged ten million towards the film’s costs.
London had an untidy look on that chill mid-October morning. Grey and brown plane leaves littered the pavements and clogged the gutters. Brake-lights were reflected like flamingos’ legs in the wet road ahead as the traffic slowed in Park Lane.
Excited at the prospect of meeting a real lord, Sexton was glad he, Tristan and Rannaldini were going to work out a plan of action before Declan arrived. Rannaldini could rub people up the wrong way.
Sitting in Rannaldini’s exquisite flat overlooking Hyde Park, Tristan felt warmth creep back into his veins. He had just lunched on the fluffiest Parma ham omelette, sorrel salad, quince sorbet, black grapes, gently dissolving Camembert, excellent claret and very black coffee. It was the first food he had eaten in three days.
After the meeting, Rannaldini, Sexton and he were off to Prague to see the possible Posa: a Russian with lungs of steel called Mikhail Pezcherov.
Tristan was already mad about Sexton, who was now hoovering up black grapes with a big hand, gut spilling over his waistband, his face absolutely still, only his eyes swivelling in thought as he tried to persuade Rannaldini of the benefits of accepting laundered Russian money from the Iranians.
‘Don’t worry your pretty swollen head over that one, Ranners. The Saudis need never know.’
In preparation for meeting Declan, Tristan had whiled away last night’s insomnia speed-reading Declan’s massive biography of Yeats, which had just received ecstatic reviews. Declan had also once interviewed Étienne on one of his vastly watched, prestigious programmes. The two had clashed. Declan had accused Tristan’s father of meretriciousness and pornography.
‘That you’re a genius makes the whole thing more reprehensible.’
Étienne had stalked off the set. Tristan was ashamed how drawn he was to people who had seen through his father.
As Sexton and Rannaldini were still arguing about money, Tristan was glad there was so much to look at in Rannaldini’s sitting room. On the vermilion walls hung numerous portraits of Rannaldini. On every surface were silver-framed photographs of Rannaldini and the famous, dominated by one of him getting his knighthood, and another of him smiling at a very blonde girl. What a beauty. Tristan made a mental note to ask Rannaldini to introduce him: what wonderful things the camera could do with her face.
On a low table in the middle of the room beside a huge brass bowl of dark crimson orchids lay the score of Don Carlos with cuts and possible scenes pencilled in for discussion with Declan. As the sun appeared, casting its mellow autumnal light on the park, Tristan felt a surge of optimism.
‘Oh, look, there’s Rupert Campbell-Black in a morning suit,’ said Sexton, in excitement, ‘I wonder where ’e’s going.’
An outraged Rupert was in fact coming to Rannaldini’s flat. As a fellow director, having learnt about the ten million, he had spent half the night raging at Declan for such suicidal pledging of Venturer’s hard-earned cash. Rupert had never before questioned one of Declan’s artistic decisions, but as the last film he’d seen in the cinema had been a remake of The Incredible Journey, where he’d been outraged because the bull terrier had been changed to a more politically correct breed, and the last opera an amateur production of The Merry Widow, with Declan’s wife poncing around in the title role, he couldn’t see the point of Don Carlos at all.
‘I mean the guy’s in love with his stepmother,’ Rupert, who had loathed all his four stepmothers, had stormed at Declan.
Despite his indignation and the insensitivity that so often goes with social fearlessness, Rupert noticed Tristan’s black tie the moment he entered the room and said how sorry he was about Étienne’s death.
‘Bought a couple of oils of his twenty years ago. Bloody good painter, and bloody well rocketed in value,’ he added, even more approvingly.
As Rupert was wearing a morning coat, Rannaldini smoothly suggested a glass of champagne. Feeling he could use it, Rupert was about to accept, then noticed the photograph of his daughter, Tabitha, on the piano and curtly refused. The thought of Rannaldini having access to her drove him to madness.
‘Haven’t you grown since I last saw you?’ he drawled, then, tilting his head sideways to glance at Rannaldini’s lifts, ‘Or maybe your shoes have.’
Trouble ahead, thought Tristan, as Rannaldini’s face contorted with fury.
Étienne had always painted in a north-facing studio, claiming that the harsh light picked out every wrinkle and red vein, showing the face as it was. Rupert must be forty-six or forty-seven but, as he sat down on the window-seat looking north over the park, his beauty made Tristan gasp. The sleek, thick gold hair, untouched by grey and brushed back from the wide suntanned forehead, emphasized the lovely shape of the head. The long, heavy-lidded, rather hard lapis-lazuli blue eyes, the high cheekbones, the Greek nose, the short upper lip pulling up the curling mouth, the smooth olive complexion could all have belonged to a Latin or a statue, the face was so still. Then Rupert caught a glimpse of a portly mongrel in a tartan coat, waddling along behind an old lady, which reminded him of his wife’s dog, Gertrude. His eyes softened and his mouth lifted, and Tristan wondered how any woman ever resisted him.
‘Sorry Declan can’t make it,’ Rupert was now saying, in his light, flat, clipped drawl. ‘He forgot he was taking my children, his grandchildren, to Toad of Toad Hall. He always swore he’d never accept a peerage and now he has it’s clearly unhinged him, particularly if he’s intending to waste ten million on some crappy opera.’
Rupert then proceeded to tear the project to shreds. The only person he praised was Sexton for raising such an incredible amount to subsidize such tosh. Rannaldini immediately rose to his feet and opened the door.
‘If you won’t come in with us,’ he said icily, ‘we’d better look elsewhere.’
‘We can’t, Ranners,’ said Sexton aghast. ‘It’s goin’ to be a mad scramble as it is. We gotta start filming by the end of March because the first scenes take place in a forest wiv no leaves. It’s goin’ to be grite,’ he added to Rupert, his eyes shining brighter than his gold necklace. ‘Two mighty armies meeting on the skyline, and then the ’unt streaming down the ’ill.’
‘Where’s that being filmed?’ asked Rupert.
‘Fontainebleau,’ said Tristan quickly. ‘The French government have put in a lot of money.’
As Venturer were putting in even more money, countered Rupert, the film should be made on Venturer territory, namely in his woods at Penscombe.
‘Most beautiful beechwoods in the country,’ he added, haughtily.
‘That is debatable,’ snapped Rannaldini.
‘Let’s debate it, then,’ snapped back Rupert. ‘We can also get the Cotchester Hunt for virtually peanuts, and hounds won’t have to go into quarantine. You’ll never find decent hounds in France.’
Tristan had visions of drawing his sword for his country’s canine population.
The reason Rupert wanted his woods filmed was to categorize them even more firmly as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty to scupper any evil plans to slap a motorway through his estat
e.
Rannaldini, who was determined the first act should be shot in his beechwoods at Valhalla, also to stop any motorway through his estate, said the French would never agree to it being filmed at Penscombe.
‘Anyway, your house at Penscombe was only built in the late eighteenth century, too modern for Carlos,’ Rannaldini added dismissively, ‘whereas Valhalla is medieval and steeped in religious tradition.’
Seeing Rupert’s eyes narrow, Sexton said hastily, ‘We do need to film in a monastery-type situation, Rupe.’
So Rupert switched to the fatuousness of the plot.
‘I mean, the guy’s in love with his stepmother.’
‘Can’t agree more, Rupe,’ interrupted Sexton excitedly. ‘I was just saying to Ranners, why don’t we make Elisabetta Carlos’s real muvver? Incest is really hot at the moment.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Rupert, who disliked his mother even more than his stepmothers.
Tristan, who often fell asleep in meetings, was really enjoying this one, and having great difficulty not laughing.
‘The plot’s far too complicated,’ went on Rupert. ‘Needs a narrator to tell you what’s going on. We’d better use Declan.’
Then, at least, Venturer’s lawyers could claw back a massive fee for Declan’s services. Rannaldini, who intended to introduce the opera himself for an even more massive fee, said this was totally unacceptable, so Rupert attacked the cast.
‘They’re all geriatrics. How can that old bat Hermione Harefield, who must be well into her forties, play a girl in her teens?’
Then before Rannaldini could reach for his sword:
‘Or Fat Franco, who’s forty-six and at least forty-six stone, play a twenty-year-old Infante? Don Kilos, that’s a joke, and there aren’t many of those in the opera.’
‘Fat Franco goes down very well wiv punters,’ said Sexton, reasonably. ‘He’s one of the biggest names of opera.’
‘Biggest being the operative word. Here’s the guy you want.’ Rupert chucked a photograph down on the table.
‘Wow, who’s he?’ Tristan grabbed the photo in excitement.
‘An Aussie called Baby Spinosissimo, not sure that’s his real name.’
‘Speenoseeseemo,’ said Rannaldini coldly. ‘He’s totally inexperienced.’
‘And breathtakingly good-looking,’ said Rupert. ‘Taken them by storm in Oz. Done well enough to buy himself several racehorses.’
‘And, eef he landed the part of Carlos, would no doubt be able to afford more horses for you to train,’ said Rannaldini bitchily. ‘Leave the casting to us. You don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘How about Elisabetta becoming an American?’ suggested Sexton, who never gave up. ‘They adore Dame Hermione in the US.’
‘Shows how stupid they are,’ snarled Rupert. ‘America was hardly built, like my house,’ he glared at Rannaldini, ‘in the middle of the sixteenth century, and Hermione would have even more difficulty in passing herself off as a Red Indian than as an eighteen-year-old virgin.’
The meeting ended in uproar.
‘Who’s getting married?’ asked Tristan.
‘Lovely girl – conductor actually – called Abigail Rosen, marrying a lucky sod called Viking O’Neill,’ said Rupert, breaking off one of Rannaldini’s crimson orchids and putting it in his buttonhole.
‘Rannaldini knows Viking,’ he added nastily. ‘He’s the horn player who hit him across a hotel dining room a few nights ago. Easy as a shot-putter – or shit-putter, in Rannaldini’s case.’
But the gods were on Rannaldini’s side. As the front door banged behind Rupert, Helen Rannaldini rushed into the sitting room.
What a beautiful woman, thought Tristan, admiring the tragic, ravaged face, as he leapt to his feet. But Helen was too distraught to notice him.
‘Oh, Rannaldini, Tabitha’s on the phone. She’s been fired! I hoped I’d catch Rupert.’
‘He’s gone, let me talk to her.’ Rannaldini whisked out of the room. ‘Perhaps you could organize some drinks, my dear.’
He was sweating with excitement as he picked up the telephone. As he had predicted, his stepdaughter had flipped when his faxes had arrived. Tabitha had always been Rupert’s favourite child and suddenly Marcus, her brother, had stolen his affection. She was shocked rigid to discover Marcus was gay, and crazy with jealousy that Rupert seemed to approve of Marcus’s new love.
‘Daddy was always so foul about my boyfriends, and now he’s crawling all over some poofter. And there’s even a photograph of Marcus and Nemerovsky hugging on the front of the Washington Post – yuk!’
Having read the faxes, Tabitha had ridden in a cross-country competition, hurtling over the fences as though death were the favourable alternative, before sliding off her horse, The Engineer, fifty yards past the post. The course doctor had diagnosed her as dead drunk.
Yesterday morning she had been suspended for nine months, mostly because of her appalling language and lack of contrition. Afterwards, she had gone out and got even drunker, she had only just woken and screwed up courage to ring England. How fortunate that Rupert and she had missed each other.
Rannaldini was smiling broadly. ‘My naughty child! Come home so I can spank your bottom,’ he quivered in delighted expectation. ‘You have been away far too long. I’ll send the Gulf.’
‘I’ll make my own way. I want to travel with The Engineer. Could you possibly lend me a couple of grand?’
Euphoric at the thought of Tabitha returning, Rannaldini swept into the drawing room and promptly invited her mother to join the trip to Prague. After all, Prague had been where he had first bedded Helen on the stage of an opera-house where, earlier in the evening, he had conducted Don Giovanni, and he didn’t want her to give him a lousy press as a husband if Tabitha was coming home.
‘I can’t go,’ wailed Helen. ‘I’ve got to host a dinner for Save the Children.’
‘Bussage will cancel it, and tomorrow I will send Save the Children a large enough donation to quell any disquiet,’ said Rannaldini expansively.
‘I would love to go,’ Helen told Tristan wistfully. ‘Prague was the place—’
‘Where you and I spent our first wonderful romantic weekend, exactly one year, eleven months and three days ago,’ said Rannaldini, kissing her.
‘You remembered the exact date.’ Helen’s eyes filled with tears.
‘Of course,’ said Rannaldini smugly. It had not been difficult, it had also been his forty-fourth birthday.
‘But I haven’t packed.’
Rannaldini looked at his watch.
‘You have half an hour. Serena won’t be here until five.’
Serena Westwood was a young, ambitious record producer, who had just been poached by Rannaldini’s record company, American Bravo. Her first assignment was to produce the recording of Don Carlos.
Helen nearly refused to go to Prague when she saw Serena, who looked like a brunette Grace Kelly. Her heavy hair, drawn back into a French pleat from a snow-white forehead, was shinier than her patent leather ankle boots, and she was wearing nothing under her austerely cut pinstripe suit.
Rannaldini had clearly been saving Serena’s child as well as sending a vast cheque to Save the Children because Serena immediately kissed him, thanking him in a cool, clear voice for flying up two of Helen’s young maids, Betty and Sally, for the night to look after her four-year-old daughter, Jessie.
‘Bussage masterminded the whole thing,’ said Rannaldini smoothly, ‘and it is good for Sally and Betty to have an outing.’
‘Jessie fell so in love with them she hardly noticed me leaving,’ said Serena, turning to an outraged Helen. ‘Oh, Lady Rannaldini, I know it’s a liberty hijacking your maids, but I’ve been stuck in Rome with Dame Hermione and rushed home to find my nanny had walked out, so Sir Roberto very kindly came to my aid. But it’s you I’ve got to thank.’
‘We cannot cast Posa without Serena,’ said Rannaldini. ‘Now we have time for a glass of champagne.’
‘How was Hermione?’ snapped Helen, who detested her husband’s mistress.
Serena waited until Rannaldini had left the room to get a bottle, then said, ‘Absolutely bloody. She’s recording Arsena in Rome next week so I spent all yesterday checking out hotels with her. They were either too hot, too cold, too dark, too light, too big and not cosy enough, too poky. I kept frantically apologizing to the hotel managers – you know how sweet and obliging the Italians are. She deserves a kick up the arsena.’
‘She does,’ agreed Helen ecstatically.
‘I finally flipped and shouted at her,’ confessed Serena. ‘So, as a peace offering, I sent her some ravishing lilies and the bitch rang up shouting that they made her sneeze. “I want yellow rosebuds in future, and I’ll tell you exactly which florist to go to.”’
What a lovely young woman, thought Helen, putting her arm round Serena’s shoulders in an utterly uncharacteristic gesture of intimacy.
‘Come and meet our director, Tristan de Montigny.’
‘He’s next door phoning his auntie Hortense,’ volunteered Sexton.
Poor old Hortense was being extremely cantankerous and giving Tristan a long-distance earful. For the first time in eighty-five years, she was no longer Étienne’s little sister. As head of the family, she was feeling old, arthritic and frighteningly exposed. Tristan so wished he could comfort her.
Oh, my goodness, thought Serena, as he wandered back into the room. He was wearing a battered leather jacket, a buttoned-down peacock blue shirt, and Levi’s clinging to his lean hips. Serena immediately wanted to plunge her fingers into his shock of dark hair, and run her tongue along his rubbery jut of lower lip before burying her mouth in his. Instead, she smiled coolly, accepted a glass of Dom Pérignon, and said, ‘Tell us about this Posa, Rannaldini.’