Rivals (21 page)

    Despite being horribly broke, Declan sold a first edition of Trollope and gave everyone who worked on his programme, including Cameron, a Christmas pudding and a pep pill for Christmas. He also took them out to a splendid lunch at The Dog and Trumpet outside Cotchester, whose manager subsequently barred anyone from Corinium Television from ever crossing the threshold again.

    As the Senior Cameraman pointed out, 'You don't need directions to go to one of Corinium's Christmas parties - just follow the blue flashing lights.'

    Afterwards they all conga-ed down Cotchester High Street back to the office, where Declan found Charles Fairburn, who was meant to be organizing the live transmission of Midnight Mass from Cotchester Cathedral that evening, drinking Cointreau and doing his expenses.

    Russian hat Ł100, wrote Charles, dinner with Dean and Chapter 80 pounds pence Dinner with Chapter 100 pounds pence.

    'The trouble with you, Declan,' he said, shaking his head, 'is that you're not creative enough in your expenses.'

    In the newsroom the Corinium weather man leant out of the window at sunset, just to check that the forecast he was about to give on air of a very fine evening was correct. Next

    moment he received a bucket of cold water over his newly washed hair.

    'It's raining, you berk,' shouted a voice from above. Declan took a box of chocolates up to Miss Madden, who'd always been nice to him. After she'd thanked him profusely, she confided that her nephew, who was a chorister, had been chosen to sing a solo at Midnight Mass.

    'My heart felt like bursting with pride, and I wanted to cry at the same time,' she said.

    Cotchester by midnight, with the golden houses and the great cathedral floodlit, was at its most beautiful. The huge blue spruce just inside the cathedral gates, which was normally a glorious sight festooned with fairy lights at Christmas, was sadly bare this year, because the conservationists, headed by Simon Harris, had claimed the lights were harmful to it.

    The church which was lit by candles, white fairy lights on the Christmas tree and television lights, was absolutely packed, with people hoping both to appear on television and to catch a glimpse of Declan O'Hara.

    Tony read the first lesson and stumbled twice, to his entire staffs delight. Rupert read the second in his flat drawl, and hardly a girl in the congregation, except Taggie, didn't long to have him in her stocking the following morning.

    'Please God, if you think it's right, give me Ralphie,' prayed Taggie.

    Caitlin, taking communion, couldn't stop thinking about AIDS. But she knew one had to swallow three pints of saliva before one caught it. As she clumped down the aisle in her new black suede brothel-creepers and her wildly fashionable da-glo cat-sick yellow socks, she could have sworn Rupert was looking at her. In the long wait while everyone else took communion, Patrick, also wearing wildly fashionable da-glo cat-sick yellow socks, held out a cracker and Caitlin pulled it with a loud bang.

    'I wonder if Aengus and Gertrude knelt down at midnight to honour the birth of Christ,' said Patrick, as they drove home. Far from honouring anyone's birth, sulking at being left behind, Aengus had knocked off and smashed several balls from the Christmas tree and Gertrude had opened three presents from underneath and also chewed the label off a small parcel for Taggie. Inside was the most beautiful silver pendant inlaid with amethysts on a silver chain. She gasped as she slowly read the note:

    'Darling Taggie, I'm sorry I've been such a sod. Have a lovely Christmas See you on New Year's Eve. All Love R.'

    'Oh it's beautiful,' she said with a sob, and fled upstairs, clutching herself in ecstasy.

    Outside, the stars and the new moon seemed to be shining just for her. Ralphie had remembered after all, and in seven days she'd see him again.

17

    By New Year's Eve the Christmas decorations at The Priory were sagging, the evergreens had brewer's droop, and Wandering Aengus, having smashed every coloured ball on the Christmas tree, had taken up crash-landing in the Christmas cards.

    Outside, a force five gale, Hurricane Fiona, as Patrick had called her, was rampaging up the valley, rattling the windows, and howling down the chimneys. On the lawn a huge pink-and-white-striped marquee, heated by gas burners, wrestled with its moorings.

    'Perhaps we could enter it for the Americas Cup,' said Caitlin.

    'We can line all the drunks round the bottom to hold it down," said Patrick, taking another slug of Moe't.

    'You'll be one of them if you don't stop knocking back that stuff,' said Caitlin reprovingly.

    'It's my birthday. Everyone is entitled to behave appallingly on their birthday. Oh, I've got the key-hee-hee of the door, never been twenty-one before.' He was extremely happy because, unknown to his father, his mother had given him a new Golf for his birthday.

    As Maud had gone off to the hairdressers and to pick up a new dress that was being altered, Patrick and Caitlin carried on doing the seating plan she had started. Taggie had tried to write names on some of the cards', but was in such a state of excitement about Ralphie's arrival that her spelling had gone totally to pot. Worried about the marquee coming down, she had gone off to ring the firm who'd put it up. Her arms ached from mashing the potato for a dozen enormous shepherds' pies. She seemed to have put crosses in a million sprouts and peeled a billion grapes for the fruit salad. The garlic bread lay like a pile of silver slugs in its aluminium foil. The turkey soup only needed heating up. The kedgeree for breakfast was in four huge dishes on top of the deep freeze, with cucumber, prawns and hard-boiled eggs, ready chopped to add at the last moment. Patrick's birthday cake, in the shape of a shamrock, rested in the fridge.

    An extension lead still had to be found for the disco, a bulb was needed for the outside light, and Caitlin still hadn't written out large cards to show people where the loos were and where to hang their coats.

    But things were gradually getting under control. Taggie had never felt so tired in her life. She had cooked herself into the ground, but she kept telling herself that if she got through everything and didn't grumble, God would reward her with Ralphie.

    Back in the marquee, Caitlin was hastily rewriting new name cards for people Taggie had seriously misspelt.

    'Monknicker Baddingham,' she giggled. 'Do let's leave that one. Put Monknicker on Daddy's right.'

    'I'll put Joanna Lumley on his left. He needs some fun,' said Patrick, 'although, as it's my birthday, I ought to have her next to me.'

    'Look,' screeched Caitlin. 'Utterly bloody Mummy's put Rupert Campbell-Black next to her. I'm bloody sitting next to him.'

    Removing the card from Maud's right, she bore it off and placed it reverently beside hers, three tables away and behind a huge flower arrangement, so her mother couldn't spy.

    'In fact '

    she scribbled Rupert's name on to a second card 'I'm

    going to put him on both sides of me so there's no slip up.'

    Looking at his place, Patrick noted that he was sitting next

    to Lavinia, his current girlfriend, and someone called Sarah Stratton.

    'Oh, I'll swap her,' said Caitlin, seizing Sarah's card. 'She's ancient -at least twenty-six.'

    'I was rather excited by the sound of her,' said Patrick. 'Mum said she was very beautiful and voluptuous, with a rich crumbling husband. My only answer is to marry a rich wife. I wish Pa would cut me out of his will. If I inherit all his debts, I'm finished.' 'Oh well, I'll swap Sarah back again,' said Caitlin. 'I've put Tag next to Ralphie.'

    Patrick shook his head: 'I wouldn't. He and Georgina Harrison have been inseparable all term. He's bringing her tonight.' 'Well, why did he send Tag that amethyst pendant then, and apologize for being such a sod?'

    'Sounds most unlikely. Last week he couldn't afford to buy his mother a box of handkerchiefs for Christmas, and he still owes me fifty pounds. Are you sure it was Ralphie?' 'Quite sure, the two-timing shit.'

    'Shut up, she's coming.'

    'I got through to the tent man; he's coming over. He says they're going all round Gloucester double-checking their erections,' said Taggie with a giggle, then turned pale as the doorbell rang. But it was only two young pink and white Old Etonians who were doing the disco, and Maud back from the hairdressers, with her hair set in a mass of snaky curls. 'It looks lovely, Mummy,' said Taggie.

    'It looks gross,' muttered Caitlin.

    The telephone rang. It was Bas Baddingham.

    'Darling Maud, may I bring my new new lady?'

    'Of course,' said Maud. 'More the merrier. Damn,' she added as she put down the telephone, 'another really attractive spare man paired up. Who the hell's going to dance with Cameron Cook?' 'You haven't asked her?' said Taggie in horror, thinking of the wrecked smoking jacket. 'Daddy can't stand her.' 'How many d'you reckon are coming?' said Patrick, giving a glass of Moet to each of the pink and white Etonians, who were both staring at Taggie. 'About two to three hundred,' said Maud airily.

    'But we haven't hired nearly enough plates or knives or forks or anything,' said Taggie aghast, 'or got anywhere to seat them.' Maud turned to Patrick. 'Pop across the valley to Rupert's and borrow some,' she said.

    'I didn't know he was coming too,' whispered Taggie, even more horrified. 'I thought he was away skiing.'

    'He's come back specially for the party,' said Maud dreamily. 'It was too windy for him to land the helicopter but I've just seen him driving through Penscombe. Well, if there's nothing else for me to do, I'm going upstairs to paint my nails.' As she went out, running her eyes over the table seating, she caught sight of Rupert's cards on both sides of Caitlin. Tearing one up in a rage, she put the other back on her right. 'You will not sit next to Rupert, Caitlin, you're going to sit next to Archie Baddingham and like it.' She turned back to Taggie. 'Has Grace made up the beds for all Patrick's friends?'

    'Someone insulted her in the pub at lunchtime,' said Taggie. 'Introduced her as Declan O'Hara's scrubber, so she's gone to bed in a huff.' 'Well, get her up,' snapped Maud. 'At least you've got Valerie Jones's char and her two children and that butler Reg and his friends coming to help, but you better make up some more beds.' 'They can all sleep in armchairs,' said Patrick soothingly as he gathered up his new car keys. 'I'll go and borrow those plates from Rupert.' 'I've made up a bed for Ralphie in the spare room,' said Taggie, blushing.

    At six-thirty Declan returned home having recorded an interview with the Bishop of Cotchester, which he was aware

    was totally lacking in sparkle. He had been wracked with increasing foreboding during the day, as one person after another Charles

    Fairburn, James Vereker, Simon Harris, Daysee Butler and then, horrors, Cameron Cook and Tony Baddingham said

    they'd see him this evening. Maud had obviously got tighter than he'd realized at the Corinium Christmas party. But he never expected the frantically billowing pink and white tent on the lawn or the tables laid for two hundred people, or the disco boys checking acoustics, or the three hundred bottles of Moet on ice in various baths round the house.

    Roaring upstairs, he found Maud lying on the bed naked except for a face pack and an Optrex eyepad.

    'What the fuck is going on? Do you want to ruin me?' He slammed the door behind him.

    In the drawing-room below, a group of Patrick's glamorous friends, who'd just arrived and were having a drink, could see the mistletoe hanging from the chandelier trembling beneath Declan's demented pacing. Then they heard Maud screaming.

    'Oh dear,' sighed Caitlin, 'Daddy doesn't seem in a party mood.'

    Upstairs, Taggie was frantically making up beds for Patrick's friends. Perfectly happy to sleep together in the narrowest of beds all term at Trinity Dublin, now they were sleeping in the house of one of their friend's parents, all the girls, overcome by a fit of morality, said they wanted separate rooms.

    The din was increasing in her parents' room.

    Maud was careful not to be too provocative. She didn't want her eye blacked. Eye-shadow and mascara were more becoming.

    'Peace on earth, and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled,' sang Caitlin outside the door. 'Shut up you two, you're upsetting Gertrude.'

    Taggie could hear another lot of Patrick's friends arriving downstairs, crying: 'Happy Birthday.' Running to the banisters, she could see Patrick's exquisite girlfriend, Lavinia, giving him a present. She was followed by a beautiful dark girl and behind her Taggie

    caught her breath just

    under the mistletoe in the hall, stood Ralphie. He seemed to have got even more beautiful with his big blue eyes and blond curls.

    In a panic she rushed back into the spare room, put another log on the fire, and re-arranged the Christmas roses in the blue jug beside the bed. At least they had curtains in this room, and a really comfortable bed for Ralphie and

    perhaps her. Taggie clutched herself; she must not be presumptuous. There was a knock on the door.

    'Come in,' croaked Taggie, hanging on to the mantelpiece for support.

    The beautiful dark girl she'd seen in the hall came through the door. She was very slim and tiny, not more than five foot one.

    'Oh what a lovely room,' she said, dumping a squashy bag and a black ruched dress on the bed, 'and a fire too. You are kind. Will I be able to have a bath?'

    'Of course,' stammered Taggie, 'but it may not be a hot one.'

    'You must be Taggie,' said the girl. 'You look just like Patrick. Oh, look at the lovely Christmas roses! You shouldn't have bothered.'

    Taggie, blushing so hard she felt she could fry an egg on her face, said, 'Actually this is Ralphie's room.'

    'And mine,' said the girl happily. 'I'm Georgina Harrison, Ralphie's girlfriend.'

    Patrick had never seen such grief. Taggie seemed almost deranged, her whole body shuddering and shuddering with sobs.

    'I can't bear it, I can't bear it, I love him so much.' 'Angel, I know you do. But really it's not on. He's frightfully shallow, and you're simply not his type. It's not anything you've done, you're just too large for him. It's like expecting a chihuahua to mate with a wolfhound. Well, not quite, but, being small, he feels daunted by tall girls. He said to me last

    summer, "Your sister'd be absolutely heartbreaking, if only she were tiny."

    'I can't shrink.'

    'Go off and nibble a mushroom.'

    'Don't make jokes,' sobbed Taggie.

    'Sweetheart, you've got to pull yourself together and get dressed. Mum and Dad have stopped rowing, but there's no way they can organize the grub. Mrs Makepiece has arrived with two frightful teenage children, and Grace and Reg the butler and his friends are all getting stuck into the Moe't. You must go down and supervise them. Now be a good girl and dry your eyes. I'm not twenty-one every day.'

    Maud had the ability to make houses look beautiful. There were no curtains on the windows, but huge fires crackled in all the downstairs rooms, which were lit by hundreds of red candles and decorated by huge banks of holly, yew and laurel. She was also totally unfazed by being a hostess, or by the frightful row she'd just had with Declan. She had certainly never looked more beautiful. The Medusa curls had dropped a little after her bath, and framed her pale face to which the heat from the fires had given a touch of colour. She was wearing a very low-cut ivy-green taffeta dress with a bustle, which brought out the witchy green of her eyes and clung to her figure. She'd lost seven pounds, hardly eating a thing over Christmas. Pearls gleamed at her wrists, her ears and her throat. If she couldn't ensnare Rupert tonight, she never would.

    'New dress,' snarled Declan, tying his black tie in the drawing-room mirror.

    'Oh, this old thing,' said Maud mockingly.

    'The old thing's in the dress,' said Caitlin sourly.

    Pinching some of her mother's scent, she had seen the bill for the dress, and really thought her mother had overdone it this time. Why did she need to spend that much money on clothes when she'd already got a man?' Caitlin was worried that her father was deliberately setting out to get drunk, and even more worried about poor old Taggie. But at least at a

    ball with hundreds of people, Taggie might meet someone new.

    'Pretend it's a job, pretend it's a job,' Taggie told herself through gritted teeth, as she stirred the great vats of turkey soup.

    'Could you possibly ask Caitlin to make sure Aengus is locked in one of the bedrooms? I'm afraid he might get under a car,' she said to Mrs Makepiece's daughter, Tracey, who, dressed in the tightest of black skirts and a white tricel shirt and pearls, was upwardly mobilizing her spiky hair in the kitchen mirror. Tracey was plainly avid to have a crack at one of Patrick's friends.