What more is there to say about Jolly Jilly, the everlasting Essex girl [born in Hornchurch, but brought up in Yorkshire], gap-toothed and voluble, batty about animals who she claims love her more than people, flattering as only the deeply insecure can be?
Her latest bonkbuster, Appassionata, does for the world of orchestras what her previous four have done for showjumping, polo, television and toyboys in her fictional county of Rutshire, and includes many of her familiar heroes such as dastardly Rupert Campbell-Black. It is a world of divinely masterful men, women who worry about their breast size, characters twee at times and robustly sexual [there’s a coupling on the glockenspiel] at others.
Her mother adds that she was always attracted to preppy, blond, upper-class cads. Certainly, her own life is a sitcom, only more amusing and, sometimes sadly, over the top. It would be tempting, in this cynical age, to believe it is all a good marketing ploy, but the glorious thing about her is that she is genuine. No one could pretend to be that seriously dippy.
On the other hand, could anyone that seriously dippy spend three years writing such long books? Real life is a mystery, so we might as well relax at the wooden kitchen table in her Gloucestershire home for a delicious lunch cooked by her assistant, Pippa.
The "hoo-hah" was the lurid publicity in 1990 when, after years of writing about her thrillingly satisfactory home life, it was revealed that Leo, whom she married in 1961, having first met him at 14, had been having an affair for years. All that seems over. Only the other day a TV producer was anxious to film them à deux. "He assumed we had hobbies, but I told him the only thing we do together is make love occasionally, and the BBC wouldn’t let him film that. He was frightfully embarrassed. More wine?"
Glaring at me, from his perch near the breadboard on the table, is Simon Rattle, a furry black and white feline concoction with mean eyes, named after the conductor. "Isn’t he sweet?" says Jilly. "He likes you, so he’s going to do his number. He’s a bit mad, with a habit of jumping on your shoulders and clinging tight. It’s all right – except when you’re naked answering the telephone."
Not an activity I was contemplating, I mutter, but Jilly is all compassion again, this time clucking to the photographer about his assistant. "Will you feed your little girl? She looks so hungry. Would you like some potatoes to take away?"
"You should hear them on Mrs Mellor. They’d go to the stake for her because they think she’s beautiful, sweet and a bit wronged. I had one the other day who’d just driven Virginia Bottomley. She’s gorgeous, he said, even in a green track suit with no make-up after jogging. I’ve got a good new pun – the Arts Council [Mrs Bottomley’s responsibility] doesn’t have a Bottomley’s pit.
She is a neighbour, as is Ronnie Ferguson ("a wonderful man"), George Milford Haven ("a fantastically handsome polo player") and "Mickey Suffolk – the Earl of Suffolk and Berkshire – a lovely man. Everyone thinks he’s a bit like Rupert Campbell-Black, but Rupert isn’t any one person."
"But I’m completely one track and can only write if I’m not surrounded by jolly, laughing friends pouring a drink down me. I have lots of mates here, but don’t see them, which is boring. Now I’ve decided I’m going to fool around a bit. It’s silly to say ‘no’ all the time."
The only disappointment is the postponement – for financial reasons – of a TV adaptation of The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous. "It’s maddening, a real tragedy for the actors who were expecting a break." Not that she was too keen on the Riders dramatisation, where the only resemblance to the book was the title. "It irritates me when they completely re-write it. All they really want is the name, but I know nothing about screenplays. It’s probably very difficult. I’ve seen a bit of The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous. There are some good dogs in it. Excellent casting of a Jack Russell."
Fear, she adds, can be the parent of cruelty. "I think it applies to women bosses particularly. They are often unnecessarily cruel, and to their own sex, because they have to establish themselves. I’ve seen men bullies, but women are worse. The terrifying atmosphere you get in some womens’ magazines when they’re beastly to each other. I suppose it’s sacrilege to say women are shrill, but the decibel level of their voices when they’re together makes them that way."
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Through the French windows she watches Pippa hunting for Jeff the gardener – there are 14 acres. She giggles and says, "Leo’s worst thing - I love this - is having to wander around looking for the gardeners. That’s a terrible remark. How lucky to have a big enough garden to spend hours finding the gardeners."
As a child she played piano in duets with her father on the violin – "the only time I saw him cry. I’m trying to work out why everyone thinks music is so wonderful. Samuel Johnson said it was the only sensual pleasure without vice. Of course there’s snobbishness. One was brought up thinking Rachmaninov and Chopin were junk and Liszt was beyond the pale, but he is frightfully ‘in’ now.
"I’m not keen on modem composers. Some are good, but a lot are complete phonies. I don’t understand why they’d want to be phonies for so little money. At least I’m a phoney for a lot of money," she guffaws. "Have some cheese."
"Yes, because she’s skint," agrees Pippa, a trifle hyperbolically. Jilly adds, still managing to smile, "I’m not being aggressive or paranoid, well not much, but it’s the one thing that makes me cross. Polly Toynbee wrote a vicious piece in The Times asking why I write such rubbish when I don’t need the money. That hurts. All I’ve done for the last three years is this book.
"Everyone says I must be worth about five million. I have a big family, children, a large house, masses of tax, animals, and I’m such a flake I’m not very good at hanging on to it. Don’t laugh. I promise this is true. People don’t see either the inside of your bedroom or your bank statement. No one has any idea whether you have ancient aunts or a cat with a cocaine habit..."
Don’t worry, I say, sensitively, although with a certain hardening of the lips. Insecurity is the well spring of talent. "All right," she whoops. "I’m very insecure. Would you like cream with your strawberries?" She hunts in the fridge, finds none, and calls for Pippa who points out it is in a jug on the table. "Oh, that sums me up. I don’t recognise it when it’s decanted. I’m a mess in the kitchen."
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