Score!

‘I can’t.’ Rozzy started to cry again. ‘He’ll be so cross with me. Thank you, Lucy, for being such a friend.’

Lucy didn’t sleep all night, thinking of a ravishing voice that would sing no more, like a nightingale being strangled. She had been sworn to secrecy, but Tristan, seeing her red eyes next morning, wheedled the truth out of her and was equally horrified. Pretending he’d no idea that Rozzy was ill, he casually asked her out to dinner. Inevitably Rozzy asked Lucy to do her make-up.

‘I can’t let Tristan dine with an awful old hag.’

At the Old Bell, away from gossips, Tristan told Rozzy he’d been asked to direct Der Rosenkavalier at Glyndebourne. ‘Eef your voice is rested enough, I would like you to sing the Marschallin. It won’t be for two years.’

It was lucky they were sitting in a dark alcove so no-one could see Rozzy weeping again. Tristan knew she would never be able to take up the offer: she might be dead in two years, if, as Lucy suspected, she had secondaries elsewhere, but at least it would give her hope.

Next day Rozzy was beside herself. ‘I never dreamed Tristan thought that much of me,’ she kept saying to Lucy, who was bitterly ashamed to find herself feeling irritated.

27

At the end of May, the weather finally gave way to heatwave. Rozzy coughed more in the dry, dusty heat and grew thinner, her adoring eyes growing bigger in her shrunken face as she gazed at Tristan. Bernard gazed longingly at Rozzy, but even on the hottest day he wouldn’t take off his shirt in case it dented his authority. He encouraged Wolfie to do the same.

For the first year ever, Rannaldini didn’t sprinkle his lawns, so they would look more parched and Spanish. He allowed Mr Brimscombe to water only selected plants: the rest could die of thirst, thus realizing his plan of a Buckingham Palace sweep down to the lake, which was getting perilously low.

Again, despite delays, rows and nightmarish re-scheduling, beautiful scenes were being shot, particularly of the great duet in which gallant Posa defies Philip II on the subject of religious persecution. Here, he so captivates the King, he is nicknamed ‘the King’s Favourite’ by the entire court. It became a running gag on the set that anyone singled out by Tristan became ‘le favori du roi’.

Playing Posa movingly, however, was not enough to Mikhail, who was getting bored. Paradise was a lovely little village but he wished there were more of it. He was also frightfully jealous that Baby was about to have a shove-and-grunt scene with Chloe.

The occasion, shot in the cow-parsley in the shade of a huge lime to blot out the burning sun, was not without incident. They were just about to turn over, when Lucy hissed, ‘Cover up, Chloe, nous avons company.’

It was Percy the Parson, pretending to be birdwatching.

‘Obviously looking for great tits,’ said Ogborne as, with great presence of mind, Wolfie whipped off his dark blue polo shirt and pulled it over Chloe’s head.

The beauty of his young, broad-shouldered body was lost on no-one. Simone immediately took a Polaroid.

‘Oh, hunky, hunky dory,’ sighed Baby.

‘I’ve never been topless before,’ joked Wolfie, to hide his embarrassment.

‘It’s Baby the vicar’s mad about,’ hissed Chloe, as Percy raised his binoculars to peer through an elder bush. ‘Better slip a dunce’s hat over his cock.’

‘My cock is not a dunce.’

‘May I have this dunce?’ asked Meredith, who shouldn’t have been there either, as there were no sets to dress, and everyone collapsed with laughter.

Precious shadows drained away until at last Percy moved on.

‘Get Wolfie’s shirt off, Chloe,’ yelled Tristan. ‘Christ, I feel like Icarus about to melt,’ he added, taking off his director’s cap to mop his brow with his arm.

‘At least you don’t have to sustain a hard-on,’ grumbled Baby.

‘Dong Carlos,’ said Chloe.

They had all corpsed once more when Tabitha thundered round the corner on The Engineer, who shied violently and nearly unseated her. The sight of Tristan, a half-naked Wolfie and all the crew leering joyfully at a naked Chloe and Baby, additionally put her into orbit.

‘You disgusting perve,’ she screamed at Tristan, ‘turning yourselves on making revolting porn movies.’

Swinging The Engineer round, she galloped off in a cloud of dust.

‘Pissed as usual,’ drawled Baby. ‘I dropped off a cheque for her husband last night. Even Sharon was drunk.’

‘Don’t be a bitch, Baby,’ said Lucy furiously.

‘Shut up, all of you,’ shouted Bernard, seeing how upset Tristan was.

But the fun had gone out of the day.

As Chloe walked into the canteen Wolfie handed her a big glass of iced lime juice.

‘Oh, you angel,’ said Chloe, taking a great gulp. ‘Will you marry me when you grow up?’

‘I’m afraid there’s rather a long queue,’ piped up Meredith. ‘I’d like a very small prawn salad, Maria darling.’