Rivals (59 page)

    As he drove her slowly back to Penscombe, Chris de Burgh was singing 'Lady in Red' on the car radio. It was such a beautiful night. The moon was hiding behind a vast ebony cloud shaped like a yew tree, tipping its edges with silver; the rest of the pearly grey sky was threaded with stars. A few windows were still lit up in the village like cardboard cutouts.

    Just before he reached the right turn up the long chestnut avenue to Penscombe Court, Rupert slowed the car down almost to a standstill and raised a finger to Taggie's cheek.

    'Are you quite sure, angel?'

    He could feel her cheekbone rubbing frantically against his finger as she nodded. Totally adrift with love, she had no thought of refusing.

    'Fucking hell,' howled Rupert, as they drew up outside the house. Parked outside, beside Taggie's car, was a Lotus. In the moonlight it could have been any dark colour.

    Cameron, thought Taggie in horror.

    But the girl who came out of the front door had thick lustrous hair, as golden yellow as the sycamore leaves swirling across the gravel. It was Sarah Stratton. Sobbing, she threw herself into Rupert's arms.

    'I must talk to you. '

    'I must go,' said Taggie.

    'No, don't,' said Rupert sharply. Then, realizing what he was saying, added, 'Well, it is a bit late. We'll check through the rest of those names tomorrow, and we'll tackle the southern part of the region later in the week. '

    'Oh, the fucking franchise,' screamed Sarah.

    Leaving time only to squeeze Taggie's hand and say he'd

    ring her tomorrow, Rupert took Sarah into the drawing-room, where she collapsed sobbing on the sofa. The temperature suddenly seemed to have dropped several degrees. The house felt horribly cold and empty without Taggie and the children.

    It was a few minutes before he could get any sense out of Sarah. Evidently James Vereker had given her the bullet.

    'Tony ordered him to. He said everyone was gossiping about me and James, and it doesn't do Corinium's reputation any good in a franchise year. Jesus, and when you think of the way he was carrying on with Cameron.'

    Was is the operative word,' said Rupert, pouring Sarah a glass of brandy. 'There's no prude like a reformed rake.'

    'I know James loves me,' sobbed Sarah hysterically, 'but that shit Tony offered him the carrot of his own thirteen-part series on staying married, and ordered him to front it with Lizzie. Tony's convinced the IBA will adore the idea, what with all this panic about AIDS.'

    Rupert whistled. 'That's quite shrewd.'

    'So James and the podgy frump have to present a lovey-dovey united front until the franchise is in the bag, and James is going to go along with it.'

    'Ambition should be made of sterner stuffing,' said Rupert idly. 'And how's Lizzie taking it?'

    'Oh, lapping it up, I should think,' said Sarah viciously. 'Must be the first time anyone's slept with her in yonks.'

    Hum, thought Rupert. 'Well, you'll just have to be a bit more discreet until after 15th December,' he said.

    That's what I said, but James is refusing even to have a drink with me. If I talk to him in the passage at Corinium, he scuttles off like a daddy longlegs. He won't even gossip during the break in "Round-Up". I know he's vain and ambitious, but I love him. I can't live without him.' Her voice rose to a shriek.

    Slumped on the sofa, in a rucked-up amber mini-skirt, and a saffron yellow jersey, with her tousled tawny hair and her tear-streaked face, Sarah should have been the epitome of desirability. But, comparing her hard, petulant, demanding little face to Taggie's, so sweet, so infinitely kind and gentle, Rupert wondered how the hell he'd ever fancied her.

    'I can't live without him,' Sarah repeated shrilly. 'I'll never get over it.'

    'I hate to point it out,' said Rupert, 'but you said exactly the same thing to me after Christmas, and you've got over me pretty thoroughly, and no doubt when Paul thought he ought to do his duty and stay with Winifred you said the same thing to him.'

    'You can't compare the two,' said Sarah furiously. 'I've just spent a whole weekend with Paul,' she added with a shudder.

    'Paul's palled, has he?' said Rupert, topping up her glass.

    'I can't stand living with him a moment longer. He won't stop pawing me,' wailed Sarah. 'And he's so old. I mean he's nineteen years older than me. It was all right when I started working for him. I was twenty and he was thirty-nine and he seemed so wonderfully forceful and dynamic and experienced. But now I'm twenty-nine and he's forty-eight, and his body's going, and he looks all grey and rumpled when he wakes in the morning, and he wears cornplasters and snows scurf on his suits, and he's always clearing his throat and picking his nose behind the FT and peering at me over his spectacles.' Sarah's voice rose to a screech again as she catalogued his crimes. 'I can't stand it.'

    Mindlessly, Rupert patted her heaving shoulder, as he bleakly worked out that the age gap between him and Taggie was exactly the same, or would be when he was thirty-eight next month. Gradually Sarah stopped crying.

    The one thing that puts men off is scenes,' said Rupert. 'You'll just have to grin and not bare it until 15th December. Everyone's going to be behaving in a pretty tense way for the next two months. I honestly can't see James and Lizzie's rapprochement lasting very long, and at least if you concentrate on your career at Corinium you'll be able to support yourself. You won't be able to afford two hunters, a Lotus and Jasper Conran dresses if Tony kicks you out, which he will do if you don't leave Vereker alone.'

    Sarah sat up and rubbed the mascara from under her eyes.

    'I suppose I'd better seduce Tony, but he's got one cloven hoof in the grave too. You and Cameron are so lucky being

    near in age.'

    Then her eyes narrowed. 'And while we're on that subject, what were you doing rolling up with the Galloping Gormless just now?'

    Rupert's mind raced. He'd got to kill that rumour stone dead. If Sarah told Tony he'd been out with Taggie, Tony'd make sure it went straight back in a wildly exaggerated form to Cameron.

    'I had the children for the weekend,' he said carefully, 'Cameron's away, so Taggie was helping me amuse them, She's nearer their age.'

    'Well, that's a relief,' said Sarah. 'I thought for one ghastly moment you were after her as well. I mean, she's simply not up to it. Very sweet and all, but not very bright. A bit loco, James thinks. The last thing she needs is a lascivious old ram like you. You'd crucify her. Anyway you're far too old. It'd be just like Paul and me in a few years' time.'

    It was like a dentist hitting a raw nerve with a high-speed drill. Rupert never dreamed remarks could hurt him quite so much. Mercifully he was saved by the telephone. Then the dentist seemed to hit another nerve.

    'Christ, I've missed you,' said Cameron's seductive rasp. 'Sorry I haven't called, but we've been up to here. Perry O'Donovan's such an asshole, and he can't stand Esther McDermott. She's an asshole too, and they've both had such rows with Declan, he's walked off the set twice.'

    'So it's all going as planned,' said Rupert.

    As Cameron rattled on about the cock-ups and frustrations of filming, all he could hear was prison doors clanging shut on him.

    'So we've managed to finish a day early,' she said finally.

    'God, what a bore,' said Rupert who hadn't been listening.

    'Sweetest, this is a terrible line, I said I'll be coming home a day early. Declan and I are flying in tomorrow.'

   'Great,' said Rupert, feeling sick. 'I'll come and meet you.'

    'No, I've got the car at the airport. I'll see you late

    afternoon, and darling,' her voice dropped huskily, 'I've been celibate for three weeks. We've got a lot of catching up to do, so cancel any appointments for the rest of the day. I love you.'

    The too,' said Rupert automatically.

    'Good,' said Sarah, as Rupert put down the receiver and went and poured himself a large whisky. 'An absolute bastard like you needs an utter bitch like her to keep you in order.'

    After she'd left, Rupert couldn't face going to bed. He took the dogs into the garden. As they weaved about snuffling and barking after badgers and masochistically lifting their legs on rose bushes, he looked across the valley. The moon had set; black clouds covered the sky; a chill wind was shepherding beech leaves irritably across the lawn; The Priory was in darkness, except for one light in Taggie's bedroom. Rupert almost wept. He longed to ring her now to explain why he wouldn't be ringing her tomorrow, or any day after that, but he didn't dare in case he weakened.

    Sarah was right. He was too old, too shop-soiled, too reprobate. He'd only bring her unhappiness. Besides, Cameron was coming home tomorrow and he couldn't jeopardize the franchise by risking her running back to Tony. It was his fault; he'd gone into the whole thing with his flies open. Not only had the prison door clanged shut, but he could hear a huge key turning for ever in the lock.

    One is one, and all alone, and ever more shall be so, he thought despairingly.

43

    Across at The Priory, by some lucky chance, a starry-eyed but slightly sheepish Maud swanned in at five to twelve just in time to take a telephone call from Declan saying he was coming home tomorrow. Cameron would drop him off and, bar fogs or airport strikes, he would be with her by twilight.

   All next day Taggie waited for Rupert to ring, and by some vicious twist of fate, as she cleaned the house and cautiously dusted and hoovered round the chaos of precious papers in her father's study and put clean sheets on her parents' bed, the telephone rang incessantly. But it was only Archie ringing once again to say goodbye to Caitlin, or members of the cast I ringing for Maud, or every member of Venturer ringing to I ask whether Declan was back. Each time, Taggie pounced on the telephone, and each time, like a stray dog dumped bewildered on the motorway hoping each passing car might be her master returning, when it wasn't Rupert she slunk back in utter despair. And as the day ebbed, so did her hopes. Once Cameron was home, he wouldn't ring.

    The weather had changed too, and as the grey skies closed in on the October afternoon, the black tracery of ivy fretted against the casement windows and sharp bitter winds swept the leaves from the lime walk and drove them in withered heaps along the dry gravel paths. However many jerseys she put on, however much she raced about the house, Taggie was still cold, while upstairs Maud oiled and scented herself for Declan's return, no doubt leaving a horrible mess both in the bathroom and bedroom, which Taggie had just cleaned. In the kitchen, having put some green tomato chutney to cook on the Aga, Taggie was trying to find a place on Caitlin's incredibly skimpy pants to sew a name tape. Caitlin, having scattered breadcrumbs all over the dresser, dumped papers and magazines on the table, left the orange juice carton out and her scrambled-egg pan unwashed in the sink, was now peeling an orange.

    Give me to drink mandragora,

    That I might sleep out this great gap of time

    My Archie is away [she moaned].

    'One day you'll be sewing the name Caitlin Baddingham and a coronet on my pants. Don't you think I'll make a good Lady Baddingham?' She dropped a deep curtsey. 'I'm going to bunk out of school next weekend so I can see him.'

    "I wouldn't,' said Taggie, breaking off a thread with her teeth. 'You'll get expelled and it's bound to get in the papers. Oh, for God's sake," she snapped, as Caitlin dropped her orange peel on the table, 'can't you ever throw anything in the bin?'

    'Don't nag,' said Caitlin. 'When I grow up I'm going to live in a really messy house.'

    'What happens when you meet a fantastic man at a party and want to bring him back for a cup of coffee afterwards?'

    'I'd go to his house," said Caitlin. 'How can I live without Archie till next weekend?'

    How can I live without Rupert for ever? thought Taggie, getting up to give the tomato chutney a stir. She jumped as Gertrude and Claudius rushed in and leapt on to the window-seat, bristling furiously. They were followed by Maud in a big fluffy pink towel.

    'What on earth are you cooking?' she demanded in outraged tones.

    Tomato chutney,' said Taggie, through gritted teeth.

    What a disgusting smell to welcome home your poor

    father, and there are cows in the garden doing great splattering cowpats all over the lawn and the paths, which is even worse. They must be Rupert's. Ring him up and tell him to take them away.'

    'You ring him,' screamed Taggie. 'I can't do everything.'

    'Temper temper,' said Maud, exchanging surprised glances with Caitlin. 'Well, I certainly haven't got time to ring. Someone's got to be ready to welcome him.'

    'Scrubbing off other men's fingerprints,' said Caitlin scornfully, as Maud flounced off upstairs.

    She put a hand on Taggie's shoulder.

    'You OK?'

    'N-not really.'

    'Is it Rupert? Did you have a lovely day?'

    Taggie nodded. 'But Sarah Stratton was waiting for him when we got back, so I came home. He said he'd ring, but…" Her voice trailed off. She stared at the great congealing brown mass of onions, brown sugar and tomatoes. Her mother was right. It was a repulsive smell.

    'I'll ring him about the cows,' said Caitlin. 'That'll remind him.'

    But when she got through, Rupert was on the other line and the secretary said she'd send the farm manager over at once to remove the cows.

    'Rupert's probably terribly busy,' said Caitlin consolingly. Then, as the telephone rang, 'There, that'll be him now.'

    'You answer it,' gasped Taggie. Please God make it be Rupert, she whispered over and over again into the vat of chutney.

    'Hullo, Upland House Bakery. Which tart would you like to fill?' said Caitlin. 'Oh Archie, darling, I won't survive either.'

    She was interrupted by frantic barking. Gertrude and Claudius shot off the window-seat, taking the cushions with them, and rushed into the hall as a car crunched on the gravel.

    'My father's just got back. He'd lynch me if he knew I was talking to you,' said Caitlin hastily. 'I'll write tonight. Love you madly. Ciao,'

    Fighting back the tears, Taggie went out to welcome Declan. He looked wonderful, incredibly suntanned from filming outside and much less tired. He was about to hug her when she was" sent flying by Maud, a tornado of Arpege and desire, wearing Taggie's new grey cashmere jersey. Throwing herself on Declan, she buried her face in his chest so that he shouldn't see the guilt flickering in her eyes.

    'Darling, you're so brown and handsome,' she murmured. 'I've missed you every single minute.'

    Caitlin, lounging in the doorway, whistled, then she quoted sardonically:

    When my love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her, though I know she lies.

    Declan was too delighted to find Maud in such good spirits to take in what Caitlin was saying. 'Cameron's outside,' he said. 'Come and say hullo while I unload the car.'

    Taggie's heart sank as Cameron came through the door. Like Declan, she looked wonderful. Her face seemed even softer, her hair less severe. She was wearing a cream silk shirt tucked into brown suede jodhpurs above tight, shiny brown boots. Either it had been a highly successful shoot or she was obviously over the moon about seeing Rupert again.

    Ignoring Taggie and Caitlin, she went straight up to Maud and hugged her. 'Ireland was terrific, but we sure missed you. If you'd been playing Maud Gonne, we'd get an Emmy. Esther McDermott was just awful. But Declan was such an inspiration. His sarcasm can bruise, but, wow, it makes you grow.'

    'Really,' said Maud, not altogether enthusiastically.

    Taggie, unable to take any more, went out to the car, where she had no difficulty in picking out her father's battered roped-together leather case from Cameron's Louis Vuitton. On the second journey she picked up a couple of carrier bags.

    'No,' said Cameron sharply, appearing in the doorway. 'Those are gifts for Rupert and the kids. I must show you what I got Tabitha, Maud.'

    She produced a little leather pony, with a girl rider, and bridles and saddles that came off.

    'Isn't it neat?'

    'Lovely,' said Maud without interest.

    Cameron had bought a beautifully illustrated book of Irish' legends for Marcus, and a pair of gold cuff links for Rupert, which she insisted on showing to Taggie.

    'I'll get his crest put on later,' she said. Taggie stared at her dumbly.

    'Very nice, I'm sure," said Caitlin tartly. Then, looking at Cameron's jodhpurs, 'Are you going for a ride?'

    'I sure am," said Cameron with a sudden lascivious smile. 'After three weeks away I need one, and not on the back of a horse. I'm off, Declan,' she yelled into the house, 'I'll call you as soon as I know when we can see the rushes.'

    'Bitch,' screamed Caitlin at the departing Lotus. Taggie shook her head. Cameron was the one who Rupert belonged to.

    Taking a bottle of duty-free whisky, Declan and Maud went up to bed. Taggie also went up to her room, and, with trembling hands, tried to hold Caitlin's binoculars still as she looked across the valley to Penscombe Court. Enough leaves had come off the trees now for her to see lights on downstairs in the kitchen and the drawing-room. Then, like a firefly lighting up the almost leafless chestnut avenue, she saw Cameron's Lotus storming up Rupert's drive. In an unbearably short time another light went on, which Taggie knew from Tabitha's guided tour of the house yesterday was Rupert's bedroom. No one bothered to draw the curtains.

    Taggie collapsed on the bed. What was that expression her father was always quoting? 'The heart transfixed upon the huddled spears.' She knew what it meant now. Two minutes later there was a bang on her door.

    'Go away,' she groaned.

    Caitlin walked in with the dogs, who leapt on to the bed, frantically trying to lick away Taggie's tears..

    'You got over Ralphie; you'll get over Rupert,' said Caitlin.

    'Anyway you may not have to. He's got to keep that bitch sweet until after the franchise.'

    'Bugger the franchise,' sobbed Taggie. 'What would you do if you saw Archie and some woman in bed?'

    'I'd light a cigarette, have a drink and go and stuff my face,' said Caitlin. 'Look, I hate intruding on your grief, but the tomato chutney smells even more disgusting burning, and as those carnal beasts won't emerge from their bedroom before morning, I'm afraid you'll have to take me back to Uplift House.'

    'There's a pauper just behind me and he's treading on my tail,' groaned Declan the following morning as, reeling from hangover and too much sex, he went through the pile of final reminders and endless requests from charity organizations for his time, his money or 'one of his very personal things'.

    'Why don't you send them all a lock of your hair?' suggested Ursula.

    'I'd be bald in a week.'

    'It's only because you're a household name that people mistakenly assume you're rolling,' said Ursula soothingly.

    'I'll be a poorhouse-hold name at this rate.' Declan winced as he bent down to retrieve an unopened letter that had fallen under the table among the debris of biros and pencils chewed up by Claudius. 'This looks more interesting."

    The letter was from the IBA telling Venturer that their interview would be at ten o'clock on 29th November at the IBA headquarters at 80 Brompton Road.

    Declan immediately swung into action and called a Venturer meeting the following week. The room over the nightclub in Cheltenham was considered too risky, so a suite was booked in an obscure Bloomsbury Hotel. For security's sake, a large board in the lobby announced in white plastic letters that the O'Hara, Black & Jones Drainage Co. Sales Conference was being held in the Virginia Woolf Suite on the fourth floor. The whole of Venturer turned up except Dame Enid, who had a concert in New York, Janey Lloyd-Foxe, whose

    baby had gastric flu, and Bas who had ostensibly been caught up in some crisis at the Bar Sinister.

    Cameron took special trouble with her appearance, wearing a new very waisted red silk suit with padded shoulders, a very plunging neckline and an extremely short skirt. This was because she was meeting Rupert's best friend, Billy Lloyd-Foxe, for the first time. He'd been away making a film on rugger for the BBC for the past three months and Cameron was determined to make a good impression. She needn't have worried. Billy came up to her straight away with that famous smile which had been described as 'able to beam into millions of homes without the aid of satellite'.

    'Hullo, gosh, I've been longing to meet you,' he said, kissing her. 'I'm mad about "Four Men went to Mow". Janey's taped all the episodes for me. It's exactly how Rupe and I used to carry on before we were married. It was just starting in Australia when I left, and being marvellously received.'

    He was extremely attractive, Cameron decided. His light-brown hair had gone greyer and he'd thickened out since his show-jumping days, but he had such a young face, and his turned-down eyes were so merry you didn't notice the broken nose or the doubling chin. He also had a sweetness and an air of life being hilarious, but at the same time a little bit too much for him that had endeared him as much to the BBC viewers as to everyone in the sporting world. Janey was mad to mess him around, thought Cameron. She wondered if that was why Bas wasn't here today.

    Rupert and he seemed to know each other so well, they slipped into familiarity like a pair of old bedroom slippers, arguing about horses, finishing each other's sentences, howling with laughter at each other's jokes. It was nice to see Rupert happy again, thought Cameron. His fuse had been very short since she got back. She suspected, although he denied it, that he hated being in opposition a

    shadow minister of his former self.

    'When you come back to Penscombe, we're bloody well going to start a racing stable,' Rupert was saying in an undertone.

    'I thought we were going to run a television station,' said Billy.

    'We are, but with the revenue coming in, we'll have access to a hundred and twenty-five million a year. Just think what we can do with that.'