Rupert’ll kill Declan in a minute, thought Gerald in panic. No one’s ever dared ask him these questions.
‘I was principally outraged that she should distract me and Jake, when we should have been concentrating on a team gold,’ said Rupert.
‘But you still got your medal, despite dislocating your shoulder, and riding with one arm.’
‘That was just to show them that, even riding one man short and one man injured, we could beat the whole world.’
Prompted by Declan, Rupert went on to talk about the Olympics and Rocky, the horse he’d won a gold medal on, who still lived at Penscombe.
‘I’m so cruel to Rocky,’ drawled Rupert, ‘that he has the entire run of my garden, and spends his time trampling over the flower beds and peering in at the drawing-room window.’
I like this man. Why I am trying to crucify him? thought Declan.
I like this man, even though he’s trying to crucify me, thought Rupert.
Tony went into the next-door office to ring Cameron, so the advertisers wouldn’t hear him.
‘Declan’s gone soft, for Christ’s sake. Tell him to fucking nail him.’
‘What did you feel,’ Declan was asking now, ‘when Helen split up with Jake and married your old team manager?’
‘Well, I didn’t let off fireworks. It was like one’s childhood sweetheart marrying one’s headmaster.’
‘Do you mind her being happy now?’
‘Not at all,’ said Rupert in surprise. ‘It’s better for the children. Anyway she deserved it; she had a rough time with me.’
‘In what way?’
‘Show-jumping and marriage don’t mix. I was never there when she needed me. When she was having Marcus I was stuck on an alpine pass. She was an intellectual and I hardly know Oscar Wilde from Kim Wilde. Then the dogs were always getting in the bed.’
‘Yes,’ said Declan. ‘People say you were fonder of your black labrador, Badger, than of Helen.’
‘I had him first,’ said Rupert flatly. ‘He lived with me six years after she left me. He never criticized or tried to improve me.’
‘Is that what you want from women, uncritical adulation?’
Rupert grinned. ‘Probably.’
The questions were still barbed, but the animosity had gone.
‘Your name’s been linked since your divorce with some dazzling women. Have you ever thought of marrying again?’
‘Just because I enjoy flying on Concorde doesn’t mean I want to buy the plane. These questions are giving me earache,’ grumbled Rupert.
Out of the corner of his eye, Declan could see the Floor Manager holding up his hand for three minutes.
‘When you get any free time, what’s the thing you like doing best?’
Rupert put his head on one side: ‘I thought this was supposed to be a family programme.’
‘You must have some hobbies,’ said Declan hastily.
‘Hunting, shooting, fishing,’ said Rupert.
‘All the blood sports.’ Declan’s lip was curling.
‘Not all. I didn’t include being interviewed by you on television.’
‘Touché,’
said Declan, laughing. ‘Who are your heroes? If you could choose, who would you like to meet in an afterlife?’
For a second Rupert seemed to have difficulty in speaking: ‘I’d like to see Badger again,’ he muttered.
‘Oh, how sweet,’ said Daysee, who was now revving up for her most important moment: pressing the cue switch. The Floor Manager was making wind-up signals to Declan.
‘Looking back on your sixteen years in show-jumping, can you remember the hardest thing you had to do? Was it getting the first bronze, winning the King’s Cup three years running, clinching the team gold in 1980, or finally winning the World Championship?’
There was another long pause.
‘What was the hardest thing?’ Declan urged him.
Just for a second the despair showed through on Rupert’s face.
‘The thing that nearly killed me,’ he said bleakly, ‘was giving it up.’
As Schubert’s Fifth Symphony pounded out and the credits came up, Declan most uncharacteristically could be seen getting out of his chair and shaking Rupert by the hand. As soon as they were off air, Cameron came down onto the studio floor. Maybe it was because she was blinking in the unaccustomed light after the darkness of the control room, but for once her yellow eyes seemed to have lost all their aggression.
‘Great programme, Declan. Best you’ve done for us – and you were marvellous.’ Flushing slightly she turned to Rupert. ‘Declan threw you some really tough questions and you handled them so well.’
‘I hope my boss thinks so,’ said Rupert. ‘Coming on your programme’s rather like being interrogated by the IRA. I was expecting electrodes any minute.’
Cameron had amazing legs, he noticed, as she walked upstairs in front of them.
Up in Hospitality, Tony Baddingham was feeling far from hospitable, but had to restrain himself in front of his two big advertisers, who were terrific fans both of Declan and Rupert, and who felt they had just witnessed a great gladiatorial contest. With a shaking hand, the normally teetotal Gerald helped himself to a triple whisky.
‘Wasn’t it wonderful?’ said Sarah, busily powdering her nose and undoing another pearl button of her little grey dress. ‘Declan brought out a really vulnerable side of Rupert. I’m sure he just needs the love of a good woman.’
And the attention of a whole harem of mistresses as well, thought Gerald. He had disapproved very strongly of Rupert’s affair with Sarah, regarding it as political dynamite. He hoped it wasn’t going to start again.
But, as Rupert walked in with Declan and Cameron, Sarah rushed up and flung her arms round his neck, giving him the benefit of unsupported breasts and half a bucket of Anais Anais. ‘Darling, you were wonderful, so honest.’
‘Not much else I could do without walking off the set.’
‘When am I going to see you?’ murmured Sarah. ‘Thank you so much for your Valentine.’
But before Rupert had time to answer her, Gerald muscled in.
‘I’m sorry, Minister, I never dreamed Declan’d go that far.’
Rupert raised an eyebrow at Gerald’s glass of whisky.
‘Are we in trouble?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Gerald. ‘The press are going berserk already. I told the switchboard to say you’d left. We’ll have to smuggle you out by a side door.’
Tony, having introduced the big advertisers to Rupert, went and vented his fury on Declan.
‘I thought I told you to fucking well crucify him.’
‘I tried to,’ said Declan coldly, ‘but he was too good for me,’ and, turning on his heel, he headed towards the drinks.
Seeing Tony coming to give her an earful, Cameron grabbed a plate of quiche and took it over to Rupert, who, to Sarah’s fury, turned away from the group to talk to her. After the tension of the interview, he was gripped by the lust that always used to overwhelm him after a big show-jumping class. In the old days he would have screwed a groom or a show-jumping groupie in the back of his lorry. Tonight he was sure he could choose between Daysee, Sarah or Cameron. Daysee was too thick, Sarah too possessive, Cameron on the other hand had a reckless, scrawny nymphomania and pulling her would have the added charm of irritating the hell out of Tony.
‘Well,’ he said icily, ‘I had to box bloody clever to get out of that one. I suppose Tony put Declan up to it.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Cameron.
Glancing up, she found she couldn’t tear her eyes away.
‘Being sorry isn’t enough,’ said Rupert softly. ‘I’m going to get my own back.’
Cameron gasped. She could see Tony bearing down on them.
‘I was wondering if you’d like to come on another programme? It’s the third Thursday in March,’ she stammered.
‘And have open-heart surgery all over again without an anaesthetic? No, thanks. Besides it’s Cheltenham.’
‘It’s not until the evening,’ said Cameron quickly. ‘All we’d want you to do is to judge “Miss Corinium Television” with Declan. There are some beautiful girls entered.’
‘I might just be able to drag myself away,’ said Rupert, ‘as long as you promise me a night in the Cotchester Arms with the winner as second prize.’
‘What’s the first prize?’ said Cameron, knowing the answer.
‘A night in the Cotchester Arms with you,’ said Rupert, ‘and my God, I’d make you walk differently in the morning.’
It was several seconds before they both realized that a tense-looking Gerald was tapping Rupert on the arm.
‘Telephone. It’s the PM.’
‘Oh Christ,’ said Rupert. ‘Back benches here I come.’
‘Well done,’ said the Prime Minister in her rich deep voice that always sounded like Carnation Milk pouring out of a tin. ‘We were very proud of you.’
‘You were?’ said Rupert in amazement.
‘Well, what else could you have done, faced with that spiteful little pinko? You handled him very well. That interview will do us a lot of good in the opinion polls.’
‘Good God,’ said Rupert putting down the telephone, ‘she actually liked it.’
‘Was that really the PM?’ said one of the big advertisers in awe.
‘Did she mention me?’ said James, who’d rolled up from a Save-the-Aged fund-raising party.
‘I’ve booked a table for us at the Horn of Plenty at nine-thirty,’ said Cameron casually to Rupert. ‘The cars are waiting downstairs.’
Despite her off-hand manner, Rupert noticed she was quivering with expectancy, like a greyhound ordered to sit when the woolly rabbit sets off round the track. Then he caught a glimpse of Declan, looking grey and utterly shattered. Once again he remembered Taggie’s tears on New Year’s Eve.
‘Sweet of you,’ he said to Cameron, ‘but Declan and I are going back to Penscombe. We’ve got things to discuss.’
Aware of Tony watching her, Cameron hid her bitter disappointment. Being very young, Sarah had no such reserve. ‘You can’t go,’ she wailed. ‘We’ll be far too many girls.’
‘James can come instead,’ said Tony smoothly. ‘That’s if he hasn’t got to rush home to Lizzie.’
‘Of course not,’ said James.
‘That’s rather uncaring of you,’ said Sarah sulkily.
‘Work comes first,’ said James sanctimoniously. ‘And you haven’t told me what you thought of my Valentine, Sarah. I thought it was rather nice that it was sold to raise money for the Cat’s Protection League.’
Back at Penscombe, two Jack Russells, a young black labrador, two springer spaniels and a blue lurcher threw themselves on Rupert in ecstasy. Once inside, Rupert whisked Gerald and Declan past tapestried hunting scenes and portraits of ancestors, only pausing to point out a huge oil painting of Badger, into the kitchen, which was low-beamed with a flagstone floor, and a window looking over the valley. As Gerald found a bottle of whisky and three glasses and Rupert investigated the fridge and the larder, Declan looked at the pictures on the wall. They were mostly paintings of dogs and horses and framed photographs of two incredibly beautiful children.
‘That’s Tabitha,’ said Rupert, pointing to a little girl on a pony festooned with rosettes.
‘She’s magic,’ said Declan.
‘She’s doing bloody well in junior classes already.’
‘Does the boy ride?’ said Declan, looking at the sensitive, nervous face and the huge eyes.
‘No. He gets asthma, but he skis well, and he’s extremely clever.’ There was a slight edge to Rupert’s voice.
‘Can I have a look round?’ asked Declan.
‘Go ahead,’ said Rupert.
As he wandered through beautiful pastel room after pastel room admiring the incredible pictures: a Romney, a Gainsborough, a Lely, a Thomas Lawrence, and two Stubbs for starters, and the lovingly polished furniture, he thought the whole house was like a museum, beautiful but crying out for someone to live in it, or like a horse, constantly bridled, saddled and groomed to perfection, but with no one to ride it.
Finding the library, Declan was lost in admiration. He’d never seen such books in a private house – first editions of Scott, Dickens, Trollope, Wordsworth, Keats and Shelley, and a whole set of Oscar Wilde, and other books so rare there couldn’t be more than half-a-dozen copies in the country.
Half an hour later Rupert found him, oblivious of time, immersed in a first edition of
Middlemarch.
‘Supper. Christ, you can’t read in this light!’
‘Can I come and live here?’ said Declan, shaking his head in bewildered reverence.
‘Borrow anything you like whenever you want to. No one else reads them. Helen pretended to, but never seemed to get beyond the first chapter.’
Laid out on the kitchen table was smoked salmon, brown bread, gulls’ eggs and half a heated-up chicken pie. Gerald had also made a tomato salad and fried some potatoes.
‘It’s very good of you,’ mumbled Declan. ‘I couldn’t have faced dinner with Tony.’
‘Not up to Taggie’s standard, I’m afraid,’ said Rupert, adding casually, ‘How is she?’
‘Very pleased with Gertrude’s Valentine.’
‘Oh, she got it?’ said Rupert. ‘Ironic that the first Valentine I ever sent in my life should be to a dog.’
They talked about politics, horses and sport, and then Rupert filled Declan in on local gossip, and some of the early history of Penscombe.
‘I hope Penscombe waits for me,’ sighed Declan. ‘I’ve been so busy since we’ve lived here, I’ve never had a chance to explore it. I haven’t even been into the local pub yet.’
It was not until they’d both got pretty drunk, and Gerald had gone to bed, that Rupert asked how things were at Corinium.
‘Bloody awful,’ said Declan.
‘Tony?’
Declan nodded wearily. ‘I seem to go from Baddingham to worse.’
‘He didn’t look very happy after the programme.’
‘He wasn’t. He wanted me to carve you up.’
Rupert grinned. ‘You had a bloody good try. I know why Tony was out for my blood, but why you? Just because I’m a Tory?’
‘No, for screwing up Tag at Valerie Jones’s dinner party.’