After the dinner was over, however, he beat a discreet retreat, taking a bottle of brandy over to that other Wembley stadium, home of the Horse of the Year Show, where he persuaded an obliging groundsman with a couple of tenners to put on the lights.
Sitting in the competitors’ stand, drinking out of his bottle, he proceeded hazily to relive his past glories as a show jumper. And suddenly the huge arena seemed to be filled with coloured jumps and with the ghosts of all his great horses: Revenge, Rocky, Belgravia, Mayfair, Arcturus, Snakepit and even the cussed Macaulay. He could hear the sound of the bell, the screams of the Pony Club, the roar of applause, even the voice of the commentator, Dudley Diplock, who always got the names wrong. Oh Christ, what was he to do?
Putting his head in his hands, he was overwhelmed with despair as he realized, despite his political triumphs and the buzz of pitching for the franchise and stealing Cameron from Tony, how hopelessly empty his life was now. He hadn’t got fat when he’d given up show jumping, or taken to drink, except tonight, or to boring other people with endless anecdotes about his sporting glories as so many other great athletes had. But something had died inside him.
It was nearly midnight. The government car was still waiting outside. The groundsman wanted to lock up.
‘Probably fallen asleep,’ said Sydney, Rupert’s driver. ‘He’s a devil for dropping off anywhere. I’ll go and wake him.’
But when Sydney tapped him on the shoulder, the face Rupert raised was so stricken and haggard, that Sydney was prompted to ask if there’d been a death in the family.
‘Only myself,’ muttered Rupert, chucking away the empty bottle and stumbling to his feet. ‘Only myself.’
Taggie had just finished clearing up and feeding Gertrude the corned beef hash which Declan normally loved but had left half-eaten this evening, when the doorbell rang. Gertrude ran out barking as loudly as she could with her mouth full. Taggie followed, hastily kicking her mother’s rather grubby bra and French knickers under the radiator. For a second she thought she must be dreaming, for there, swaying in a dinner jacket, clutching a red box, was Rupert.
‘Hullo, angel. Thought I’d catch up on the gossip. Is your father in?’
‘Yes, but he and Mummy have gone to bed.’
‘I’m sorry. I saw a light on. Thought he might be working late.’
‘Do you want a drink?’
Oh God! Suddenly she remembered. Aengus had knocked over the whisky.
‘I’ve had enough,’ said Rupert. ‘I’d love a cup of coffee.’
His normally sleeked-back blond hair had flopped over his forehead, his black tie was crooked, his blue eyes crossing. Taggie realized he was absolutely plastered.
‘You didn’t drive down?’ she said in horror.
‘No, no, Syd dropped me off, Now, whatever I do I mushn’t lose this.’ Carefully he put his red box down on the kitchen table. ‘My red box, my unread box. I sometimes wonder if anyone would notice if I threw the whole lot in the Thames.’
‘Where have you been?’ said Taggie, putting the kettle on, wondering if by some miracle he might have had a bust-up with Cameron.
‘To the Cup Final.’
‘Of course. You were making a speech. How did it go?’
‘All right, I suppose. The speech that the department had written was so ghastly I tore it up and told a lot of blue stories instead. I hope no one was there from Corinium with a tape recorder.’
‘And they liked it?’
‘They seemed to. They could afford to be kind. It’s probably the last one I’ll make.’
‘What d’you mean?’ Taggie put three spoonfuls of sugar into the blackest cup of coffee and put it down on the table in front of him.
‘Thanks, darling. The PM’s announcing the election date as Thursday 24th June. At least I won a bet on it.’
‘But you’ll win,’ said Taggie, sitting down at the table beside him.
Rupert shrugged. ‘I’m not sure we will. The awful thing is, I don’t give a bugger. I’m fed up with politics.’
‘You’ll feel differently tomorrow,’ said Taggie.
At that moment Gertrude strolled in, looked beadily at Rupert, then, to Taggie’s amazement, jumped on to his knee and gave his face a quick lick, before settling down, leaving white hairs all over his dinner jacket. Rupert stroked her and laughed.
‘There are some small victories left to me,’ he said.
‘Was C-C-Cameron with you?’
Taggie felt it would be better if they could talk about her openly.
‘No, it was much too public. Every photographer would have picked us up. Anyway, Tony’s
in situ
this weekend.’
‘It must be awfully difficult for you both.’
‘Worse for her. At least I don’t have to sleep with Tony. I wish she wasn’t so fucking insecure. She’s like a Jack Russell. One spends one’s time removing her from the target of her aggression – usually oneself.’
‘Patrick said she had a terrible childhood,’ said Taggie. ‘He didn’t give any details,’ she added quickly. ‘Just said she’d really been through it.’
What on earth am I doing defending her, she wondered.
‘I don’t believe all that junk about terrible childhoods,’ said Rupert. ‘I’ve had four stepmothers and five stepfathers. You had Declan and Maud, which is even worse.’
Taggie giggled.
‘We’re not screwed up,’ said Rupert.
That was debatable, thought Taggie.
Rupert picked up the petition. ‘Look at all these names!’ His eyes ran down page after page. ‘Christ, you’ve been working hard.’
‘It wasn’t so good today,’ said Taggie. Then she told him about the rugger club.
Rupert was absolutely furious. ‘The bastards,’ he howled. ‘Give me their names and I’ll get their ground ploughed up. But what can you expect from a lot of rugger yobbos? Poor darling, I’m so sorry. It must have been awful.’
He yawned without even putting his hand over his mouth, showing a long pink tongue, and teeth without a single stopping. Then he said, ‘Why have you written L and R on the back of your hands?’
Blushing, Taggie shoved her hands under the table.
‘I’ll drive you home,’ she said quickly.
As she started up the car, the tape came on. Frantic with embarrassment, she tried to tug it out of the machine, but Rupert’s hand closed over hers like a vice.
‘Leave it.’
‘Turn left at the A412,’ said Taggie’s deep breathy voice, ‘then keep going for two miles, then turn left just before the Old Mill pub, then keep going till you come to a big barn, turn right, then left up a winding road. Winchley Women’s Institute is at the top on the right.’
Pulling out the tape, Rupert looked up at the windscreen, on which a large capital L and R were stuck on opposite sides.
‘You poor little duck,’ he said softly.
The chestnut candles were shedding their white petals along his drive, a couple of horses blinked in the gloom. As Taggie drew up in front of the house, he said again, ‘You poor little duck.’
Taggie hung her head. ‘I can’t map-read very well. It takes me so long and signposts are difficult too, because I don’t know the words. If I put it on tape it speeds everything up, and we’ve got so much ground to cover before July.’
Rupert couldn’t bear it. What was it about Taggie that so often brought a lump to his throat?
‘Angel, you can’t go round on your own. Particularly not at night.’
‘I don’t always. Dame Enid’s come with me, and the Bishop, and Professor Graystock once or twice.’
Rupert shuddered. ‘That’s worse than being alone.’
Enforced celibacy was not natural to Rupert. It was like asking a man who smoked sixty cigarettes a day only to smoke ten cigarettes one day a week. Denied Cameron, he was certainly not used to sleeping alone. Still very drunk, he only just stopped himself taking Taggie in his arms to comfort her, and Christ knows where that would have led to. Declan would take him apart and Cameron would bolt straight back to Tony.
Getting out of the car, however, a brilliant idea struck him. ‘I’ll be travelling all round the area canvassing over the next month. You can come with me and hand out Venturer posters and stickers, and paddle the Venturer canoe at the same time. We can even use the Tory loudspeaker to plug Venturer when no one from the Party’s listening.’
‘Is that allowed?’ said Taggie in awe.
‘Politics is a dirty business,’ said Rupert blandly. ‘The Socialists paid a lot of actors twenty-five pounds to dress up in shit order and pretend to be a dole queue for their election poster last time.’
RIVALS
33
Next morning Caitlin rang up The Priory, wild with excitement.
‘Gertrude’s in the
Daily Mail
! She looks so sweet.’
‘What’s she doing?’ asked Taggie.
‘Wearing a Venturer T-shirt and an expression of absolute outrage. She’s sitting on your knee. You look nice, much better than that old tart Sarah Stratton.’
‘Oh goodness,’ said Taggie. ‘What’s the piece about?’
‘The headline says:
“Rival Beauties weigh in for the Battle of the Box”
,’ read Caitlin. ‘They’ve used the two posters of you and Sarah.
“Will the blonde or the brunette pack the greater punch?”
it starts. Then there’s a lot of guff about Sarah being Paul Stratton’s second wife, and Corinium’s latest star presenter, who pulls in three hundred fan letters a week.
‘Then it goes on:
“The dark horse (or rather beauty) in the race is Agatha O’Hara, 18-year-old daughter of TV megastar Declan O’Hara, who’s bidding to oust his ex-boss Lord Baddingham in the Corinium franchise fight. Agatha runs her own business” . . . get you . . . “cooking for the great and famous, but sadly she can no longer undertake dinner parties for her favourite client, Tony Baddingham’s wife, Monica, in case state secrets slip out over the soufflé.
”’
‘Gosh,’ said Taggie in amazement. ‘Where did they get all that from? I hope Lady B isn’t cross. How are you anyway?’
‘All right. Fed up with revising. Can you send me some money? And tell bloody Mummy and Daddy to write.’
‘They’ve been really busy with the franchise and things,’ said Taggie.
‘Mummy’s never busy with anything,’ said Caitlin bitterly.
The long, hard grind of getting Venturer’s message across to the people who mattered continued throughout the long, hot summer. But things were much easier now for Taggie. Several other papers reproduced the poster and, as she toured the area, people began to know all about Venturer, recognize her, welcome her and even ask her to autograph the poster.
More important, she spent much of May and June driving around with Rupert on his campaign trail. Leaving him to canvass or to rally support for other South-West Tory MPs. Taggie nipped off to visit vicars, youth clubs and Chambers of Commerce.
Rather too often for Tony Baddingham or Central Office’s liking, the two campaigns merged. Rupert was not above urging people to support Venturer on the Tory loudspeaker, or sticking Venturer posters up on the van alongside those urging the public to vote Conservative. Everywhere he and Taggie went, they handed out Venturer publicity material and had great fun after dark, driving round plastering the gateposts of Corinium directors, and even the Corinium building itself, with ‘Support Venturer’ stickers.
To add to Tony’s apoplexy, Rupert conducted the entire campaign in a blue Venturer T-shirt and twice appeared similarly clad on ‘Cotswold Round-Up’, and, even worse, with huge ‘Support Venturer’ posters on the Tory party van behind him.
Tony was quoted as saying the Venturer T-shirts had been chosen entirely by Rupert to match his blue eyes, and that no doubt the boy shading his forehead on the front symbolized all those Gloucestershire husbands trying to see where Rupert had hidden their wives. Rupert cracked back that everyone knew who the Corinium Ram was supposed to symbolize.
And so the mudslinging went on, with the local press and radio stations uniformly backing Corinium, but the National and Trade press, having scrutinized the applications and the candidates, universally agreeing that Venturer had the more exciting programme plans. Dame Enid wrote a battle song, sung by Maud, called ‘Everything Venture’, which to Venturer’s relief didn’t get into the charts.
On 24th June Labour won the election by twenty seats, with the SDP holding the balance of power. Paul Stratton lost his seat. Rupert kept his. He had, in fact, fought a brilliant campaign. Taggie’s presence seemed to soothe him, so he was far less acerbic with bores and hecklers, and, as he was one of the only Tories returned with a much increased majority, Central Office had to stop grumbling about him using Tory funds and equipment to promote Venturer.
In an unprecedented move, Owen Davies, the new Labour Prime Minister, asked Rupert whether he would like to stay on as Minister for Sport if the post was made non-political. Rupert was deeply touched, but refused. He was fed up with swimming galas and ping-pong matches, and there was a big row brewing about players taking drugs at Wimbledon, which he was only too happy to hand on to his successor. He was also immediately offered a job by the International Olympics Committee, but refused that too for the moment, knowing it would mean more buzzing round the world.
He wanted a breathing space, to spend the rest of the summer at home concentrating on the yard, seeing something of his children and putting in a lot of spade work with Cameron, who was getting increasingly uptight. Falling more and more in love with Rupert, she found it almost impossible to pander to Tony’s sexual needs and cope with the demanding job of Programme Controller at Corinium. While Rupert was fighting the election, he’d been constantly hounded by the press, baying for franchise gossip and trying to catch him out in some new affair, so he and Cameron had had to be doubly careful.
‘All this secrecy’s just like adultery, darling,’ said Rupert on one of their few meetings. ‘Very good training for when you’re married.’