Score!

One of Cosmo’s best buys, acquired for 20p at the Paradise Conservative fête, had been a second-hand Scout uniform, in which he always dressed when he was collecting house to house for himself.

For 50p, Alpheus allowed Cosmo into Jasmine Cottage to clean his shoes. Once inside Little Cosmo produced his favourite photographs of Alpheus outside the summerhouse watching Hermione and Sexton, with twelve lilies in one hand and an enormous hard-on in the other.

When Alpheus tore up the photograph, Cosmo, echoing his late father, replied that he had the negs.

‘Let us do a deal,’ suggested Cosmo. ‘I’d like cash before I hand over the negs. Otherwise I thought I’d offer copies as going-away presents at the wrap party tomorrow night.’

Considerably richer, Little Cosmo left Jasmine Cottage. Closing the gate behind him, he broke into Elisabetta’s last aria in a flawless treble, then pedalled off on his bike into the gloom with a maniacal cackle. Alpheus gave a shiver. Could Little Cosmo have murdered his father and Beattie to gain control of the memoirs?

Having been too tired to draw the curtains, Tristan was woken at four by Pegasus, Aries and Taurus, a veritable zoo of brilliant stars, blazing in through the big square window, and a silver glow in the east. Switching on the wireless he learnt of storms causing havoc to flights and cross-Channel ferries. He hoped a returning Wolfie and Lucy would be struck by lightning or horrendously seasick. Then he remembered despairingly that he was still Maxim’s bastard son without any money, and that in a few hours the world would be picking over his affaire with Claudine. Perhaps her husband would call him out and he would die impaled on a sword, like Beattie on Rannaldini’s unicorn.

His musings on the ruins of his life were interrupted by a forecast of a beautiful day with temperatures in the nineties. Opening the window, he breathed in the smell of meadowsweet and wet earth, and felt a warm breeze caressing his skin. Then he noticed the cathedral spire, black on the horizon as the Grand Inquisitor’s pointed hood, and remembered he had only one day left to make a great film.

Oscar was aghast to be woken so early. Anticipating a light half-day’s shooting, he and Valentin had been out on the toot. On the bedside table was a half-eaten Parma ham and artichoke baguette, an empty Moët bottle and a glass of red wine in which several moths had drowned. By hastily pulling up the duvet over Jessica’s russet curls, Oscar revealed her bright mauve toenails.

‘It’s going to be a scorcher,’ announced Tristan. ‘And we are going to reshoot all yesterday’s scenes.’ Then, cutting short Oscar’s stream of expletives, ‘We can do it if we really motor. I want polo under a burning sun as a contrast to the hunt in winter. Jessica has booked everyone’s plane tickets and tomorrow they will disperse, not necessarily to the right place,’ Tristan waggled Jessica’s left foot, ‘but to different parts of the world. This is our last chance. Tell Bernard to round everyone up, I want to start shooting by nine.’

‘This is the last time I work for you,’ said Oscar, draining the glass of red, moths and all.

By a miracle, René, the finest make-up artist in France, who had made Claudine look so delectable in The Lily in the Valley, had yesterday been discovered to be available. For a fat fee and a favour to Tristan, and an even fatter fee from Paris-Match for an interview on his day’s work, by eight o’clock he was busy transforming hung-over geese into swans.

By nine o’clock, by even more of a miracle, all Tristan’s troops — in various states of disarray — including Rupert’s polo friends, had assembled on George’s field for a pep talk. Giving them no time to gossip over the Daily Mail or let the Alka-Seltzers melt in their glasses, Tristan quietly told them exactly how much they had to get through, and how long they could allow for each set-up.

‘This is the clock,’ he pointed to the big, tickless clock that timed the polo chukkas at the end of the field, ‘this is the schedule. There will be no tantrums. We are going to concentrate and get it right on the first take.’

Surreptitiously reading the Mail, folded to the size of a CD case, Oscar’s eyebrows were getting nearer and nearer to his widow’s peak.

‘No wonder Tristan was uptight yesterday,’ he murmured to Valentin. ‘And where does this put Tabitha?’

‘Oooh!’ squawked Jessica, looking over Oscar’s shoulder. ‘You’re in the paper, Tristan, “Froggy would a-wooing go”. What a gorgeous picture of you, and oh, my goodness—’

‘Put that away and just shut up.’ Tristan’s voice wiped any incipient grins off people’s faces.

‘I would, dearie,’ whispered Meredith, stemming Jessica’s protest with half a buttered croissant. ‘He’s not as sunny as usual. Have a read in the break.’

‘There will be no breaks,’ said Tristan icily.