Jilly Cooper - Score!

‘Do drop in at Cherrylands, if you’re ever in Surrey,’ Pushy kept telling everyone.

Revellers even fell on the suntanned neck of Granny’s ex-boyfriend, Giuseppe, when he had the temerity to roll up with Serena Westwood, who was flashing a large ruby engagement ring.

‘What is the French for arsenic and strychnine?’ murmured Granny, who pointedly ignored them both.

‘Arsenic and strychnine,’ said Oscar, waking up to slot another Gauloise into his jade cigarette holder. ‘Malevolence is universal.’

‘The point of a wrap party’, announced Ogborne, who was motoring down his second bottle of Moët, ‘is to make your number with the director and producer so they’ll employ you again, then get rat-arsed and pull as many women as possible.’

‘I’ve pulled them all anyway,’ said Sylvestre.

‘You never pulled Simone,’ taunted Valentin.

‘Unsimple Simone.’ Sylvestre glanced across the room. ‘She looks pretty in that flowered dress. Maybe tonight is the night.’

‘I’m saving myself for my beautiful wife,’ said Valentin. ‘The only woman approaching her is Tabitha, and Rupert and lucky Wolfgang will put the biggest guard round her tonight.’

Oscar had fallen asleep again on the sofa, his head in Jessica’s lap. Tristan’s boys were very happy. They had worked hard and been well paid. Tomorrow they would go home to even better food, August in the country, then start work on Hercule in a few weeks.

Only Bernard was sad. After tonight he wouldn’t see Rozzy. He had had an original La Scala poster of Don Carlos , with Callas singing Elisabetta, framed for her as a wrap present. She was blow-drying her hair when he dropped it off. The hot blast swept the tendrils off her face, emphasizing the good bones but also the wrinkles on which one could play noughts and crosses. I would love her when she grew old, he thought despairingly.

Knowing singers love singing, George had booked a trio from the Rutminster Symphony Orchestra. Installed at the end of the big drawing room with a crate of red, they were now accompanying Alpheus. ‘“Some enchanted evening,”’ he sang, crinkling his eyes at Serena. He’d missed out on her during the recording but had always thought her very lovely.

‘It isn’t enchanted at all,’ said Pushy fretfully. ‘No Wolfie, no Mikhail, no Rupert or any of his tasty polo friends, and George, although perfectly gracious, would clearly far rather be alone with Flora. And none of those hunky PCs are allowed to dance with us, and where on earth are Sexton and Tristan?’

‘They’ve got an awful lot of loose finishes to tie up,’ explained Simone.

‘It’s called “supervising the winding-up of production”,’ said Flora who, as the thunder grew more ominous, was trying to get a tranquillizer down a panting, shuddering Trevor, ‘which, in Sexton’s case, is probably a euphemism for pleasuring Dame Hermione.’

‘And it’s no party without Lucy,’ said Jessica indignantly, looking at the mountain of presents piling up for her on the table. ‘I got her a little silver lurcher brooch from Past Times . I did want to see her open it.’

‘I got her a little eighteenth-century drawing of a greyhound,’ pouted Meredith. ‘I wanted to see her open it too.’

‘Why the hell did Tristan fire her? Here he is at last,’ said Jessica, wriggling out from under Oscar’s head. ‘I’m going to give him a piece of my mind.’

‘You won’t have much left, then,’ snapped Chloe, who was feeling utterly miserable. She was thirty-six. There was no man in her life. And she had not merely lonely hotel bedrooms but also a solitary Fulham flat to look forward to. How could Isa have dumped her?

The only bright spot, she told Flora, was four performances of Salome in Vienna.

‘Brilliant casting,’ said Flora enthusiastically, ‘it’s so rare to have a Salome whose veils people really want to come off.’

‘Chloe’s an old hand at taking off clothes,’ drawled Baby, who was missing Isa, jolted by Tab’s fall and extremely drunk. ‘Is there a goat in Salome ? Has anyone seen Chloe’s video? It’s called No Kidding .’

‘Shut up, Baby,’ muttered Flora.

‘Look out!’ yelled Valentin.

For Chloe had grabbed a carving knife off the table and jumped on Baby, screaming, ‘Take that back, you little fag-fucker.’

The band stopped and a gasp of horror went round the room.

‘Was that why you killed Rannaldini and Beattie? To shut them up?’ taunted Baby and, showing surprising strength for someone so languid, yanked the hand holding the knife down to thigh level.

‘No, I did not,’ shrieked Chloe.

For a few seconds, they struggled in a deadly embrace, eyes filled with loathing six inches apart.

‘You fucked up me and Isa,’ hissed Chloe.

‘Correc- shon . You fucked up me and Isa.’

‘You and Isa?’ whispered Chloe in horror. ‘I don’t believe it, you bloody liar. I’ll kill you.’

Tangled in the folds of her mesh dress, the knife quivered like a trapped fish.

‘George!’ screamed Flora.

But as he raced in through the French windows, Hermione made her entrance from the hall with her head held high.

‘Good evening, everyone.’ Then, catching sight of Baby and Chloe locked in their dance of death, ‘Good gracious, I had no idea you two were an item.’

For a second, Baby’s face twitched, then Chloe corpsed too, and they had collapsed in helpless laughter.

‘I’ll have that,’ said George, as the carving knife thudded on to the autumn-leaf-patterned carpet.

‘We’d better have another bottle and compare Black Cobra bites,’ said Baby, ruffling Chloe’s hair.

‘I’ll never understand singers,’ sighed Ogborne, piling on a second helping of strawberry Pavlova.

‘Gifts for all, gifts for all,’ cried Hermione, beckoning in Sexton, who was buckling under a log basket of presents.

‘How exciting,’ squeaked Jessica, tearing off the paper. ‘Thank you, Dame Hermione.’

‘What have you given us?’ asked Grisel.

‘Calendars,’ smiled Hermione.

‘How clever of you to get next year’s so early,’ said Pushy. After all, she might want to work with the old boot again.

‘They’re this year’s,’ said Grisel in outrage. ‘And it’s half-way through July.’

‘No-one’s interested in dates,’ said Hermione airily. ‘Particularly if one’s bookings extend beyond the millennium, as mine do. What matters is the lovely photographs.’

‘What are they of?’ asked Ogborne.

‘Why, me, of course. Next year, I’m hoping to show some of Cosmo’s oeuvre .’

‘“There is nothing like a dime ,”’ sang Sexton, as he bopped happily with Hermione. ‘I love you, Hermsie.’

‘D’you feel you can truly care for Little Cosmo?’

‘I love ’im already,’ said Sexton truthfully. ‘He’s so sharp, I’ll be able to veg out in his pram while he goes to the office for me.’

A tranquillized, cross-eyed Trevor was now lying in Flora’s arms like a baby.

‘Why are you looking so cheerful?’ she asked Meredith.

‘Tomorrow I’m flying to Oz.’

‘To meet up with Hermione’s husband, Bobby?’

‘But not for much longer.’ Meredith nodded at a bopping Hermione. ‘It looks as though Madam is at last going to give Bobby a divorce.’

‘I’m so pleased.’ Flora kissed him on the cheek.

‘Come on, Meredith, on your feet,’ boomed Griselda.

‘New trousers.’ Halting in mid-bop, Hermione looked beadily at Grisel’s Day-glo pink harem pants. ‘I’m sure you’ll find them very useful.’

‘Useful for getting the entire harem in there as well,’ murmured Flora to Simone, who, in her pretty flowery dress, was leaning against the wall, sipping iced water.