Jilly Cooper - Score!

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.

‘We’ve got our director back,’ muttered Ogborne to Bernard. ‘At least on a polo field there won’t be any pretty ornaments for Meredith and Simone to fight over.’

‘Except the players,’ giggled Meredith, gazing in wonder at Rupert’s friends, Ricky France-Lynch and the Carlisle twins.

Oscar glanced round at rain-fluffed, already turning trees, at the emerald-green pitch, the wonderful view, dotted with russet villages, fields striped where the hay had been cut, and pale gold where the wheat ripened, the blue curve of the river Fleet emerging from the mist, and sighed with pleasure.

‘Tristan was right to reshoot. But what the hell is Rupert going to say?’

‘Of all the fucking two-timing shits,’ roared Rupert, brandishing the Mail .

‘Whatever’s the matter?’ said Taggie, aghast.

‘Montigny’s been screwing Madame Lauzerte for the past three years. They only released him from gaol because he was caught bonking her in Wales the night Rannaldini was murdered.’

‘Oh, the beast,’ wailed Taggie.

‘And all the time he’s been two-timing darling little Tab. I never liked him, poncy intellectual, you can’t trust the Frogs. And he had the gall to summon her onto the set by nine o’clock. She mustn’t see the Mail , it’ll break her heart.’

Tristan was very white when he came off the telephone to Rupert.

‘He’s one to talk,’ said Meredith indignantly. ‘There was a frightful scandal some years ago when it came out that he’d been rogering Amanda Hamilton, who was not only aeons older than him and the wife of the finance minister but also liked being spanked. Rupert’s conveniently forgotten all that. Don’t let it faze you.’

‘I won’t,’ said Tristan.

He knew exactly what he wanted, rattling out orders like a Kalashnikov, driving everyone. Seldom had there been such tension on a film. But despite police everywhere and a murderer in their midst, by one thirty they had beaten the clock by one minute twenty seconds. They had shot mêlées, cavalry charges, throw-ins, and polo groupies slavering over Baby chucking down his stick. The temperature was rising steadily, the grass drying off fast. Mist swirled upwards all over the park. At any moment the puddles would boil over. The extras, even if they did all look like Claudine Lauzerte, had cooperated all the way; the discipline of the crew, despite thumping headaches, had been superb. There was just Alpheus’s little scene and Tab’s big one when she rode Baby off, and they could wrap.

‘Claudine’s pompous husband is close friend of Papa,’ Simone whispered to Griselda. ‘Should I accept huge sum for interview with the Daily Express ?’

‘Of course, sweetie. Imagine Tristan and Claudine being an item. Jolly humiliating for little Tab to lose out to a woman nearly three times her age.’

Tab, the only person not cooperating, was in a worse mood than yesterday: sending Alpheus and Bernard flying with her pony, and yelling at Wardrobe because her polo shirt had suddenly become too loose, her toggle too shiny, her hat too big and her boots too revoltingly new.

She had also refused to let René make her up — ‘I don’t want to look like bloody Claudine Lauzerte’ — even though René was raving over her beauty.

‘Look at the length of her nose and the eyes, and the moulding of her face. She must steal the show.’

‘That’s another reason for wanting to murder her,’ said Chloe sourly. ‘I think we can take it she’s read the Mail .’

Now Tab was bawling out the props department.

‘You’ve put out the wrong fucking saddle for my pony. Mine’s got a blue and black check saddlecloth. None of this would have happened if flaming Wolfie had been here.’

Wolfie and Lucy learnt in St Malo that Tristan had been released, and duly celebrated. The following morning, they caught the early boat. While Lucy was buying a large bottle of Femme for Rozzy for looking after James, Wolfie picked up the Mail , turned green and hastily hid it. The bastard, he thought furiously. How could Tristan have done that to poor, darling Tab? He must get home and comfort her.

Having dumped the hired car at St Malo, they took a taxi back to Valhalla. To steady her nerves, Lucy took increasing nips from a bottle of brandy she’d bought for Tristan. Last night she had written him a long letter, explaining everything she had learnt at Montvert and then sealed it into a huge brown envelope, which contained all the other relevant material. Then she wrote ‘Tristan de Montigny, Private and Confidential’ on the outside. She had also washed her hair, shaved her legs, bronzed them with Piz Buin. Then, in a St Malo boutique, she had spent too much money on a lovely short-skirted sleeveless dress in wild rose pink and on a sexy sophisticated scent called Fracas to wear at the wrap party.