Score!

‘Both Schiller and Verdi were obsessed with oppression,’ Tristan continued, ‘the tyranny of Philip II over his family and his subjects, the tyranny of the Church over everything. Today, the Church has loosed its stranglehold, instead we — and particularly the Royal Family and the government — are controlled by the media. That is why we have set our Don Carlos in modern dress, with a corrupt press baron replacing the Grand Inquisitor.’

As part of her job Lucy never stopped watching faces. Seeing the rapt attention of Flora, Chloe, Pushy, Hermione, Helen and even Tab, her heart sank. How stupid to think she had a hope against such dazzling competition. Lost as a star, when all the rest are shining in the sky, she thought sadly. As if to comfort her, James laid his long nose on her knee. At least she hadn’t had to go abroad this time and leave him behind.

In the flickering candlelight, Tristan’s face had lost its hollows and yellow-greyish pallor. His eyes glowed with conviction.

‘None of us is going to get him into bed,’ murmured Meredith to Baby. ‘Like Spielberg, he only fucks the movie.’

‘In real life Don Carlos was horrible person,’ Tristan was now telling his audience. ‘He roast animals alive, he gallop his horse to death, he assault and flog palace maids, he even bit the head off a pet lizard and ate it.’

‘Ooh,’ squealed Pushy.

‘I could have murdered a whole lizard at Champney’s last week,’ called out Baby.

‘You are very beautiful now, so it pay off,’ laughed Tristan, then serious again. ‘Tomorrow we begin filming the first act, which is perhaps the most tragic. Dusk is falling on a great forest. The huntsmen are riding home. Elisabetta and Carlos experience le coup de foudre, first love striking like lightning. They have few moments of ecstasy, thinking they will live happy for ever. Then it is over.’

Noticing the desolation on Tabitha’s face, he was ashamed to feel a flicker of satisfaction her marriage might not be working out. He had been haunted by dreams of her lean, jeaned body and garlanded head ever since the wedding.

After he’d wished everyone good luck for the morning, there was applause, coffee and liqueurs.

Down the table Hermione was telling Alpheus that Rannaldini often lent her his Gulf IV for overseas engagements. Why shouldn’t the Maestro do the same for his principal bass?

Misinterpreting the excitement on her lover’s face, Chloe tried once more to galvanize Wolfie. ‘Do you like opera?’ she asked.

‘I liked you in Nabucco,’ admitted Wolfie, ‘when the ENO brought it to Munich.’

‘It’s pronounced Na-book-o,’ snarled an eavesdropping Rannaldini.

I hate my father, thought Wolfie, I should never have come back. I hate Helen. She had always been a pain in the arse when her son Marcus and Wolfie had been at school together. And now she had put him back in his old room, which she’d obviously been using as a spare room, then expected him to rave over the chintz curtains and the flower paintings on the pretence she’d redecorated it especially for him.

I loathe Tabitha, he thought. She’s a spoilt brat, worse than Little Cosmo, more arrogant than her father, and now in possession of the nicest cottage on the estate. And there, laughing across the table with Chloe, was Flora, his old love, bloody gold-digger, covered in his father’s fingerprints, now shacked up with a guy as old as and probably richer than his father. He had forgiven neither her nor Rannaldini, and Flora, seeing the antagonism battling with the longing in Wolfie’s eyes, found it very disturbing. As solid as Tebaldo’s gun, she fingered the mobile in her jeans pocket, willing George to ring.

Rannaldini was now talking about Valhalla.

‘Part of the house is twelve century. It has been owned since the beginning by aristocrats or monks.’

‘Certainly by neither today,’ said Tabitha sourly, as she reached through the white daffodils for the Kummel.

‘Sometimes,’ Rannaldini ignored her, ‘on summer nights we ’ear the most beautiful plainsong from the chapel, but no-one is there. A sad, weeping lady in grey, Caroline Beddoes, is often seen gazing out of a blocked-up window on the north side. She has blood on her dress and a little dog in her arms. Sometime she glide through doors which exeest no longer. You can hear the hiss of her silk skirts on the flagstones.

‘And, of course, as in many great houses, there is a legend that when the lake dries up the head of the family will die.’

‘It looked promisingly low on the way down,’ murmured Baby.

Everyone laughed nervously, glancing furtively into the shadowy corners — except Alpheus.

‘Did you really manage to negotiate a cash settlement?’ he was asking Hermione.

‘Do you believe in ghosts, Sir Roberto?’ quavered Pushy.

The lights seemed to dim.