Rivals (26 page)

    'And nothing happened?'

    'Nothing, nothing! He's just a kid.' Oh please make him

    believe her.

    'Did Declan know you spent the night there?'

    'No, I never saw him. He never came out of the bedroom.'

    With the franchise coming up this year, Tony decided, he didn't really want to lose her, but he was going to enjoy torturing her a bit more.

    'And you promise never to see the boy again?'

    'I promise,' said Cameron wearily. 'But he may try to see me.'

    'We'll have to put pressure on Declan to stop him then, won't we?' said Tony silkily, as he took off Cameron's jacket.

    That is a very disturbing dress. I'd rather you didn't wear it in public again.'

    Putting his hand under the skirt, he jabbed two fingers up inside her.

    Cameron winced. 'I can't, Tony, not tonight. I'm really pooped.'

    'You can,' said Tony softly, 'if you want to be Controller of Programmes.'

    Three days after Patrick's party Taggie was gingerly testing her heart and finding that the ache for Ralphie was much less acute than she'd expected it to be when the doorbell rang.

    In the doorway stood Rupert. His suntan was already beginning to fade.

    'Hullo,' he said, soulfully gazing into her eyes. 'Since your wonderful party, I haven't been able to eat a thing.'

    'Oh my goodness,' stammered Taggie, her heart beginning to thump.

    Rupert grinned. 'Could I possibly have my knives and forks and plates back?'

    Taggie was used to unrequited love. Patrick, however, was not. Hopelessly spoilt by his mother, accustomed to attracting girls effortlessly, he couldn't believe Cameron didn't want to see him any more.

    Despite Declan's tirades and Taggie's pleading, he continued to pester her with letters and telephone calls. Then, when these were not answered, he hung round the Corinium studios and outside her house.

    Cameron, in fact, had hardly had time to think. As well as producing Declan's programme and coping with her new job as Acting Controller of Programmes, she had to face a virtual palace revolution from a staff outraged by her

    appointment.

    The afternoon before he was due to go back to Trinity, Patrick rang Cameron at the office. Expecting a call from Rupert about coming on Declan's programme, Cameron unthinkingly picked up the telephone instead of leaving it to

    her secretary.

    'Can I speak to Cameron?' said Patrick. Cameron froze. Putting on a cockney accent, she said, 'I'm afraid she's not at her desk at the moment.'

    'Where is she?' snapped Patrick. 'Lying with the Managing Director under his desk.' Cameron hung up.

    The telephone was ringing again as she got home that evening. Running into the hall, she snatched up the receiver. It was Rupert answering her call.

    'We were talking about a date for you to come on Declan's programme,' she said with a confidence she didn't feel. "I was just hoping to firm you up.'

    Rupert laughed. 'Extraordinary terminology you use in

    television.'

    His diary was ridiculously full, but to her amazement he said he could make a Wednesday in February, which turned out to be St Valentine's Day. He'd been so adamant he wouldn't do the programme.

    'And in case I don't bump into Declan beforehand, can you ask him if he's free for dinner afterwards?'

    Cameron didn't say that after Declan had taken Rupert to the cleaners she thought it most unlikely.

    'That was a good party on New Year's Eve,' said Rupert. 'I saw you bopping in your suede dress. I hoped you'd jump

    out of your skin.'

    The next moment Cameron nearly did jump out of her skin, as she felt a kiss on the back of her neck. Patrick had walked in through the unlocked door.

    'Get out,' hissed Cameron, clapping her hand over the receiver.

    Shaking his head, Patrick sauntered into the living-room. She caught a blast of whisky as he passed.

    Talking gibberish, furious at having to wind up her conversation with Rupert so abruptly, she said goodbye and went into the living-room, where she found Patrick hurling darts at the dart board.

    'Nice place you've got here. I can see why you wouldn't want to give it up in a hurry."

    'Get out,' screamed Cameron.

    'Not until you tell me why you didn't ring back.'

    He went up to the board, and pulled out the darts. His hands were shaking, his eyes were black hollows in a deathly pale face. He must have lost pounds; he looked terrible.

    There was no reason to call back. We had a fun day.'

    'A fun day?' he asked incredulously. 'Was that all it meant to you, after the sunrise, and all you told me about your mother and Mike and you falling asleep in my arms?'

    'Shut up,' hissed Cameron, looking round in terror, expecting Tony to pop up from under the piano.

    Patrick picked up a huge bunch of anemones which he'd left on the dentist's chair.

    'I bought you these. For Christ's sake, I love you. Can't you understand that?'

    In answer Cameron snatched the flowers from him and hurled them into the fireplace. Patrick winced and turned back to the dart board. The first dart missed, crashing into the wall, the second hit the glass in the frame of one of Cameron's awards, the third hit a plate.

    'Pack it in," said Cameron more calmly. 'If Tony turns up, he'll kill us both.'

    'He's a fiend. I've been checking up on him,' said Patrick, sitting down at the piano. 'He's so avaricious,' he went on between crashing chords, 'even the bags under his eyes have got gold in them, and he's corrupting you too, turning you into his pet Rottweiler to savage any of his staff he wants to

    reduce to jelly. You'll never get out of the Underworld if you

    stay with him.'

    Tony suits me,' said Cameron over the din. 'We've been together for three years, OK? My career's the only thing that

    matters.'

    'So you agreed to drop me if he made you Controller of

    Programmes?'

    'You flatter yourself. What can you offer me?'

    Patrick's hands came down in a jumble of discords. 'I, being poor,' he said bitterly, 'can only offer you my dreams.'

    'Stop talking like a prime-time soap.'

    'You should know, you make enough of them. Can I have

    a drink?'

    'You've had enough,' snarled Cameron. Tony'll be here

    in a minute.'

    'And he'll settle you in that dentist's chair,' said Patrick scornfully, 'and say "open wide", and then it's Wham, bam, thank you, Mammon. My Christ.'

    He slammed the piano lid down and got to his feet.

    'Don't be obnoxious,' hissed Cameron.

    On New Year's Day, when she'd sobbed in his arms, he'd seemed so strong. Suddenly now he looked terribly young and frightened. Cameron was too insecure herself to be drawn

    to frailty.

    'I'm truly sorry,' he muttered. 'It hurts loving you, that's all. Look, I'll do anything. I'll chuck Trinity, get a job. It'll be easy with Pa's connections.'

    'Always fall back on Daddy, don't you?' taunted Cameron. 'You bitch about his philistine programme, but you'll bleed him white when it suits you. Well I'm not having you bleeding me white. Can't you get it into your Neanderthal skull that I don't want you around?'

    Guilt at the way she'd treated him made her even more

    brutal.

    'I can't help myself,' said Patrick, going towards the door. 'La Belle Dame sans merci has me totally in thrall.'

    He went to the nearest pub and drank until long after closing time. The landlady felt sorry for the beautiful, obviously desolate young man sitting there quietly gazing into space.

    At midnight Patrick parked his car four houses down from Cameron's and got out. It was a punishingly cold night. Cotchester slumbered beneath her eiderdown of snow. In a sky russet from the streetlamps huge stars flickered. Icicles glittered from Cameron's gutters. In front of the house beside Cameron's green Lotus was parked Tony's bloody great dark-red Rolls Royce with the Corinium ram on the bonnet. There was a light on in the top of the house Cameron's

    bedroom, guessed Patrick. He imagined Tony brutally clambering over her lovely body. The Sunday before last she'd lain in his arms, pliant as a child. He wanted to plunge one of the icicles into Tony's heart.

    Wearing only a jersey and an old pair of cords, he was shivering violently now. Then he noticed that Tony's car keys were still in the dashboard. Trying the car door he found it open. The lecherous bugger had obviously been in such a hurry to get at Cameron he'd forgotten to lock it.

    Easing open the door, pulling out the keys, Patrick chucked them into a nearby flower bed. They landed deep in a lavender bush, hardly scattering the snow.

    At four o'clock in the morning Tony looked at his watch. 'I must go.'

    Cameron didn't dissuade him. She was utterly shattered. To eradicate any memory of Patrick, Tony had recently insisted on indulging in sexual marathons. Four times that night, he thought smugly; no one could accuse him of losing his touch. Cameron daren't complain. She was also twitchy that Patrick might do something insane to rock the boat.

    Hearing Tony let himself out, she was just falling asleep when she heard a key turn in the door. It was a sound that always unnerved her, reminding her of Mike. For a wild moment of dread and longing she thought it might be Patrick.

    'Did I leave my keys here?' shouted Tony.

    By the time they'd upended the entire house, the car and

    the drive, screamed at each other and nearly frozen to death, the lights had come on in the houses opposite and curtains were twitching in the houses on either side. There was no way Tony could start the Rolls, or get someone to help push it out of the way. If he rang Percy, his chauffeur, it would be round the entire network in a flash, so he spent the next three hours frantically and abortively ringing round the country, trying to find another set of keys.

    In the end he had to order a taxi from the station. His temper was not improved by the driver recognizing him and slyly my Lording him all the way home.

    Arriving at The falconry, he had to provide Monica, with a ridiculously convoluted explanation that he'd decided to come home that night, but that his car had gone into a skid on the motorway and he'd had to abandon it. He then had to keep her in bed in the morning, so she wouldn't drive into Cotchester and see his car parked outside Cameron's house.

    As it was, poor, loyal Cyril Peacock tracked down a key and removed the Rolls by midday, but by then almost the entire Corinium staff had seen the car on their way in to work and had had a good laugh. That afternoon, Cameron passed the staff noticeboard. Beneath the card announcing her appointment as Acting Controller of Programmes, someone had added the words: 'and Mistress of the Rolls'.

    Later that day, Patrick rang Cameron from Birmingham Airport to say goodbye.

    'Did you steal Tony's keys?' she shouted.

    Tell him to look under the lavender on the left of the front door.'

    Cameron let Patrick have it. 'You stupid asshole. If Monica had come by and seen the car, you'd have landed Tony in a divorce court.'

    'I thought that's what you wanted.'

    'Don't be so fucking infantile.'

    'I couldn't help it.' Patrick's voice faltered. 'I can't bear to think of that great toad in bed with you.'

    'Get out of my life,' screamed Cameron. 'You don't know the rules.'

    'I love you.' Patrick was almost crying.

    'Well, I don't love you. You're a fucking nuisance. Piss off and try and do something worthwhile with your life.'

    She was dead scared of telling Tony about the keys, but was amazed to find that he was grimly pleased.

    'What a very silly little boy to put such a very large nail in his father's coffin.'

20

    At the end of January the IBA formally asked for applications for the new franchises. These applications, which had to be provided not only by the fifteen incumbent independent companies, but also by any rival consortium who sought to oust them, often ran to hundreds of beautifully bound pages, giving details of finance, staffing policies, plans for future programmes and proposed boards of management.

    After the applications were handed in in early May, the IBA would study them and then conduct a series of public meetings around the country, attempting to find out whether the public felt well-served by their particular local television company. After private meetings between the IBA and all the individual contenders in October and November, the franchises would be finally awarded in December.

    Anticipating a long year full of lobbying and hustling, Tony Baddingham's immediate task in the New Year was to strengthen the Corinium Board. Knowing the IBA and particularly Lady Gosling's penchant for women, he intended to make Cameron a director. But he wanted to punish her as long as possible for stepping out of line with Patrick, and, as the staff were still in a state of mutiny over her appointment, he didn't want a strike on his hands in franchise year. The staff, however, had short memories. Cameron had found Simon Harris's affairs in such a shambles that Tony had quite enough excuses to dispense with his services when he came out of hospital, but that would have to be done discreetly too. Then he could appoint Cameron to the Board just before the applications went in.

    Tony also had his lunch with Freddie Jones, who, heavily pressured by Valerie, was poised to join the Corinium Board. His only reservation was whether, with his electronics empire and his race horses and his hunting, he would have sufficient time. If he were a director, he wanted to do some directing.

    As an added incentive to Valerie, however, Tony invited Freddie shooting the last Saturday in January, and asked some extremely grand people to shoot as well. Never having shot with Freddie before, Tony issued a warning to the other guns beforehand.

    'Freddie Jones is a bit of a rough diamond, but exceptionally able. He's going to be very useful on our board, if you know what I mean. But I'm not sure how good a shot he is, so bring your tin hat.'

    In the master bedroom at Green Lawns Freddie Jones lay beside his wife in the vast suede oval bed, covered with dials for quadraphonic stereo, radio, dimmer switches, razors and vibrators which Valerie used to massage her neck. They had to leave for Tony's about nine. It was now only six forty-five, which left plenty of time for sex, thought Freddie hopefully. They had already drunk two cups of tea from the Teasmade. Reaching across, Freddie put his hand on Valerie's bush, fingering her clitoris from time to time as a door-to-door salesman, not very hopeful of entrance, might press a doorbell.

    Valerie sighed. She knew no wife should deny her husband his conjugal rights, but one of the joys of Freddie getting up early to go hunting every Saturday meant that she could pretend to be asleep as she did every weekday when he left for work at six-thirty.

    Valerie did everything to avoid sex. She had already taken back to Jolly's of Bath the absurdly sexy black lingerie an ever-hopeful Freddie had bought her for Christmas and replaced it with some peach satin sheets for the guest bedroom. She

    always wore woollen nightgowns buttoned up to the neck. If only she could sew up the bottom as well! The pressing finger was getting more insistent.

    'D'you want to come, Fred-Fred?'

    'Do you?'

    'Not really. I want to be fresh for Tony and Monica.'

    'Will you help me then?'

    Valerie sighed again. Kneeling, she raised the red woollen nightgown, so Freddie could admire her candy pink nipples and her neatly clipped bush. She loathed watching him, but at least it stopped her getting messy.

    'You're so beautiful,' sighed Freddie. 'You've got the body of a little girl.'

    'Here's some tissues. Don't waste a clean towel, Fred-Fred.'

    He had barely finished his lonely act before Valerie had reached up to press another switch on the bedhead which instantly sent boiling water gushing out of the 22-carat-gold mixer taps into the vast onyx and sepia marble double bath next door. Then, remembering she didn't want a flushed face, Valerie twiddled another knob to lower the temperature.

    Snowdrops spread in a milk-white blur on either side of Tony Baddingham's drive. The guns, in their dung-coloured clothes, gathered outside The Falconry, pulling on gumboots and bellowing at excited dogs that whisked about lifting their legs on Monica's aconites.

    At nine-thirty, just as it stopped raining, Freddie's freshly cleaned red Jaguar roared up the drive.

    'Oh dear,' said Freddie, leaning out of the window and roaring with laughter at the other guns' filthy Landrovers, 'I forgot to chuck a bucket of mud over my car before I came out. Amizing, those snowdrops,' he said, clambering out. 'Just like a big fall of snow.'

    He was wearing a red jersey, a Barbour and no cap on his red-gold curls. Next minute Valerie emerged from her side in a ginger knickerbocker suit, with a matching ginger cloak flung round her shoulders, and a ginger deerstalker.

    'Christ,' muttered Tony to Sarah Stratton.

    'It's Sherlock Lovely Homes,' said Sarah, making no attempt not to laugh. 'All she needs is a curved pipe and a spy glass.'

    'What's that?' asked Valerie gaily.

    'We were admiring your -er

    outfit,'

    said Sarah quickly.

    'All from my Spring range,' said Valerie, looking smug. 'Better hurry, it's selling like hot cakes.'

    Tony oozed forward, exuding charm.

    'You both know Sarah and Paul Stratton of course, and my brother Bas,' he said smoothly, and when he went on to introduce Valerie to the Lord-Lieutenant Henry Hampshire, two peers and a Duke from the next county, Valerie nearly had the orgasm Freddie had so longed to give her earlier. Fred-Fred must definitely join the Corinium Board, thought Valerie. It might be a Prince, or even a King, next time.

    'Hullo, Valerie,' said Monica, who was wearing a green sou'wester over a headscarf. 'Would you like a cup of coffee?'

    'Naughty,' chided Valerie, waving a tan suede finger. 'I said you must call me Mousie, No, I won't have a coffee, thank you.'

    She didn't want to have to go to the toilet behind a hawthorn bush mid-morning in front of all the gentry.

    They were about to set off when the phone rang loudly in Freddie's car.

    "Ullo, Mr Ho Chin, how are fings?' said Freddie in delight. 'Grite, grite. Fifty million, did you say? Yeah, that seems about right. Look, 'ave a word with Alfredo and see if 'e wants to come in too, and phone me back. Yes, I'll be on this number all day.'

    The guns exchanged looks of absolute horror, as Freddie extracted the telephone from the car, all set to bring it with him. Tony sidled up. 'D'you mind awfully leaving that thing behind? Might put off the pheasants.'

    "Course not,' said Freddie, putting it back in the car. 'If Chin can't get me 'ere, he'll ring my office.'

    'D'you take your telephone hunting too?" asked an appalled Paul.

    'Always,' said Freddie.

    They started off up an incredibly steep hill behind the house. It was one of those mild January days that give the illusion winter is over. A few dirty suds of traveller's joy still hung from the trees. No wind ruffled the catkins. It was hellishly hard going. Valerie, wishing she hadn't worn her long Johns, tried not to pant.

    As it started to rain, she put up her ginger umbrella which kept catching in the branches. On the brow of the hill the guns took up their position, which they'd drawn out of a hat earlier. Except for Freddie's distracting red-gold curls, the flat caps along the row were absolutely parallel with the gun barrels. Shooting in the middle of the line between Tony and the Duke, Freddie jumped from foot to foot swinging his gun through the line like Ian Botham hooking.

    The Duke, who had three daughters and was hoping for a son so the title wouldn't pass to a younger brother, was not the only gun looking at Freddie with extreme trepidation.

    'I'm 'of,' said Freddie, shedding his Barbour. Seeing the Duke's and Tony's looks of horror at Freddie's red jersey and Bas laughing like a jackass, Valerie, who'd been yakking nonstop to Sarah Stratton about puff-ball skirts, sharply told Freddie to put it back on. For once Freddie ignored her.

    Suddenly the patter of rain on the flat caps was joined by the relentless swish of the beaters' flags.

    'Come on, little birdies,' cooed Paul, caressing the trigger.

    I hate him for being him and not Rupert, thought Sarah despairingly.

    A lone pheasant came into view, high over Freddie's head.

    'Bet he misses,' said Paul.

    The Duke and Tony raised their guns in case he did.

    But a shot rang out and the pheasant somersaulted like a gaudy Catherine wheel and thudded to the ground.

    Next moment a great swarm appeared, some steeply rising, some whirring close to the ground. There was a deafening fusillade and the air was full of feathers as birds cartwheeled and crashed into the grass.

    The whistle blew; the first drive was over. Dogs shot off to retrieve the plunder. It was plain from the number of brace being amassed by Freddie's loader that he'd shot the plus twos off everyone else.

    'Freddie Jones seems a bloody good shot,' said Bas.

    'Beginner's luck,' snapped Paul, who had easily shot the least.

    For the next drive the guns formed a ring round a little yellow stone farmhouse with a turquoise door and a moulting Christmas tree in the back yard.

    Once more the shots rang out, once more the sky rained pheasants. To left and right, Freddie, the Duke and the Lord-Lieutenant were bringing down everything that came over. Tony fared less well. Valerie was standing behind him with Monica and her endless chatter put him off.

    At the end of the drive Tony's loader, knowing the competitive nature of his boss, pinched a brace from Bas on one side and another from the Lord-Lieutenant who was gazing admiringly at Sarah.

    Those are mine!' said the Lord-Lieutenant sharply.

    'Sorry,' said Tony smoothly. 'My loader's very jealous of my reputation.'

    'Jealous loader, indeed,' muttered the Lord-Lieutenant.

    The next drive was a long one, with the guns dotted like waistcoat buttons down the valley. Valerie was bored. Only the birds and the chuckling of a little stream interrupted the quiet. Monica, who found shooting as boring as Corinium Television, was plugged into the Sorry Walkman Archie had given her for Christmas. Now she was transfixed by the love duet from Tristan und Isolde, eyes shut, dreamily waving her hands in time to the music and tripping over bramble cables. Sarah was equally uncommunicative. Weekends were the worst, she reflected, because, knowing Paul was at home, Rupert would never ring. She'd only come out today for

    something to do. Spring returns, she murmured, looking at the ruby and amethyst haze of the thickening buds, but not my Rupert. He had been so keen, but suddenly after Valerie's dinner party he had lost interest. Was it Nathalie Perrault, or Cameron Cook, or even Maud O'Hara he was running after now? Perhaps he was just busy and would come back.

    A diversion was provided by the arrival of Hermione Hampshire, the Lord-Lieutenant's wife, who looked like a sheep, had a ringing voice and appeared to be on so many of the same committees as Monica that she even merited having the Walkman turned off.

    'Freddie's been shooting wonderfully,' said Monica kindly, and then started rabbiting on to Hermione Hampshire about shooting lunches.

    Valerie listened to them. One could pick up lots of tips about pronunciation from the gentry. But it was confusing that Monica said 'Eyether' and Hermione said 'Eether'.

    In the next field she was somewhat unnerved by some black and white cows who cavorted skittishly around, startled by the gunfire. She edged closer to Monica and Hermione.

    'D'you know," Monica was saying, 'I never spend less than forty minutes on a cock.'

    Valerie was shocked to the core. She'd always imagined Monica was somehow above sex.

    'I agree,' said Hermione Hampshire in her ringing voice. 'I never spend less than thirty minutes on a hen.'

    'They're talking about plucking,' whispered Sarah with a giggle, 'and I don't think either of them have heard of rhyming slang.'

    It was the last drive before lunch. Freddie, like a one-man Bofors, was bringing down pheasants with relentless accuracy. 'Got my eye in now,' he said, grinning at the Lord-Lieutenant.

    He raised his gun as another pheasant flew towards him, then swore as it crashed prematurely to the ground.

    'Sorry,' said Tony, who couldn't bear being upstaged a moment longer. Thought you were unloaded.'

    This time it was carnage. The air was raining feathers. Dogs circled, loaders went round breaking the necks of the wounded.