Rivals

by Jilly Cooper

  As a gesture of defiance, on the steel-blue tables which rose like mushrooms at the side of each rostrum, Crispin, the designer, had placed blue-and-red-striped glasses and carafes.

  ‘I want plain glasses,’ snapped Declan.

  ‘Oh, they’re so dreary.’ Crispin pouted.

  ‘I want them – and get rid of those focking flowers.’

  ‘Cameron ordered them specially.’

  Declan picked up the bouquet threateningly.

  ‘Are you trying to bury me?’

  ‘All right, no flowers,’ said Crispin sulkily.

  At six-thirty there was a very scratchy run-through.

  ‘Can’t you ad lib us through your line of questioning?’ asked Cameron.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You must know your first question.’

  ‘Depends on his mood.’

  ‘May be looped, you mean. Your bloody fault, asking a junkie on the first programme.’

  Declan went off and shook in the men’s lavatory for half an hour. When he returned to the studio the crew were lining up their four cameras before the meal break.

  ‘Have you heard the latest Irish joke?’ the Senior Cameraman was saying. ‘There was this Paddy who went into a chemist for his heroin fix.’

  The crew gathered round, grinning at the prospect of more Hibernian idiocy. Halfway though the story the Senior Cameraman realized he’d lost his audience. Next moment, he was grabbed by the scruff of the neck.

  ‘You may be the best focking cameraman in ITV,’ roared Declan, ‘but you’ll not work on my programme if you’re going to tell Irish jokes. You don’t dare tell jokes about Jews and blacks or cripples any more; why pick on the poor bloody Irish?’

  With a final shake, which threw the Senior Cameraman half-way across the studio, he stalked out.

  ‘I’ll report you to my shop steward,’ screamed the Senior Cameraman rubbing his neck.

  In the bar they were gathering to catch a glimpse of Johnny Friedlander and to support Declan by watching his programme. There was still a latent esprit de corps at Corinium. Someone had deliberately changed the colour on the bar television, so James Vereker’s face looked like a Jaffa orange.

  ‘What’s your idea of a romantic hero, Ashley?’ he was saying.

  ‘You are, James.’

  ‘That’s very sweet of you, Ashley.’ James smoothed his streaks. ‘What’s romantic about me?’

  ‘Well, you’re so caring, James, and you’ve got an inner strength like Leslie Howard.’

  ‘Turn the sound down,’ screamed a Rude Mechanical, hurling a handful of peanuts at the screen.

  ‘Anyone seen Declan?’ asked Daysee Butler, putting her top half, which had Goofy appropriately knitted on the bosom, round the door to a chorus of wolf-whistles. It was getting perilously close to transmission time.

  ‘In the bog,’ said Charles Fairburn. ‘I’m surprised he doesn’t move his dressing-room in there. Can’t even keep down a brandy.’

  ‘Declan,’ shouted the Senior Cameraman. ‘You can stop worrying. Daysee’s too embarrassed to come in ’ere, but Johnny Friedlander’s people have just phoned to say they’ve come off the M4 and they’ll be wiv us in twenty minutes.’

  ‘Thank Christ for that,’ groaned Declan.

  ‘And ’ere’s a letter for you.’ A piece of writing paper appeared under the door.

  ‘Dear Declan, it said. ‘We’re sorry we was telling Paddy jokes. We won’t any more, you was quite right.’

  All the crew had signed it.

  ‘PS. Have you heard the one about the Englishman, the Welshman and the Scotsman?’

  Declan grinned, then he glanced at his watch, and nearly threw up again. He’d be on air in less than an hour.

  Johnny Friedlander arrived in a black limo which seemed to stretch the length of Cotchester High Street. He was accompanied by a publicity girl and four security men. In a second limo were four lawyers. Looking at the bulges in the security men’s suits, the press allowed Johnny to be smuggled into the building without too much hassle.

  From the start Johnny’s visit to Corinium went off with a bang. Taking one look at the ravishing Daysee, he pulled her into his dressing-room and locked the door. The four security men stood outside with folded arms.

  ‘Who’s she?’ asked Johnny’s publicity girl in horror.

  ‘A piece of ass,’ said one of the security men.

  ‘Are you quite sure she’s not a reporter?’

  ‘Couldn’t report a burglary,’ said Charles Fairburn, whisking past, thoroughly overexcited by so much security muscle.

  In his dressing-room a pretty make-up girl with sheep in a field knitted on her bosom fussed around Declan. He wished he could lie down in her field and go to sleep.

  ‘At least let me paint out the dark rings and give you a bit of base; you’re so pale,’ she murmured. ‘And we’ll have to do something about the beard area. You really ought to shave.’

  ‘I’m shaking so much I’ll cut myself.’

  ‘I’ll shave you.’

  Next moment Cameron stormed in.

  ‘Johnny Friedlander’s barricaded himself into his dressing-room with Daysee.’

  ‘Best place for him,’ said Declan. ‘At least if he’s having a bang, he’s not snorting coke.’

  In his fifth-floor office, Tony Baddingham, even more nervous than Declan, was dispensing Krug to his special guests, who included several big advertising clients, the Mayor and Mayoress of Cotchester and Freddie and Valerie Jones. By a ghastly mischance, they had also been joined by the Reverend Fergus Penney, a former Prebendary of the Church of England. A fearful old prude constantly inveighing against sex on television, he had recently become a member of the IBA board, and was currently on a tour of the Independent television companies. Now, primly sipping Perrier, he kept peering across the corridor to the board room, where the press, assembled to watch Declan’s first programme on a big screen pulled down against the far wall, were getting drunk and stuffing their faces with quiche and chicken drumsticks.

  In a corner of the board room, as disapproving as the ex-Prebendary, sat Johnny’s four lawyers, also sipping Perrier and fingering calculators at the prospect of litigation.

  ‘Why the fuck d’you ask so many press?’ Tony hissed to Cyril Peacock, who knew he’d have been equally roasted if only a handful had turned up.

  Nor did the fact that Tony had been entirely responsible for hiring Declan stop him now blaming everything on Simon Harris. ‘You ought to be able to control Declan, Simon. That’s what you’re here for. He hasn’t even given Cameron a running order.’

  ‘All she needs now is a prayer sheet,’ said Charles.

  ‘Declan’s my favourite telly star,’ the Lady Mayoress was saying excitedly to Valerie. ‘I can’t wait to meet him later.’

  ‘Oh, we know him quaite well,’ said Valerie Jones, on the strength of last Sunday’s lunch party. ‘He always singles me out – because Ay tell him the truth. Ay think famous folk get so bored with flattery.’

  A curious tension was building up through the building.

  ‘Declan’s just cut me dead,’ complained James Vereker, going into the bar. ‘Awfully uncool to get so uptight.’

  Daysee came out of Johnny’s dressing-room, looking as though she’d found the Holy Grail.

  ‘He’s having a quick shower,’ she said. ‘Then he wants Make-up.’

  ‘Well, send in a boot,’ said Cameron. ‘We don’t want him banging her as well.’

  It was five minutes to blast off. The four security men had taken up their positions in the studio. In the control room the production team sat at a desk like a vast dashboard, gazing at two rows of monitor screens. On four of the monitors which came direct from the studio, Cameron could see Johnny Friedlander’s carved, beautiful, degenerate face with its hollow cheek bones and Californian suntan. His fair hair was the red-gold of willows in winter, the irises of the deep-set Oxford-blue eyes were almost as dark as the pupils. Thin almost to the po
int of emaciation, he lounged easily in his three-thousand-dollar suit, with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow. But the air of relaxation was false.

  ‘Why the hell did I agree to do this shit?’ he drawled.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Declan, meaning it.

  ‘Aw that’s OK. I just don’t feel I’ve got proper lines when they’re my own. Rupert called, by the way. He said: “You can trust this guy, he’s one of us.”’

  In his earpiece Declan could hear Daysee saying: ‘The pink strapless is more dressy, but my holiday tan’s nearly gone.’

  ‘Can we have some level?’ asked the Floor Manager. ‘What did you have for breakfast, Johnny?’

  Johnny laughed. ‘You want to get me arrested?’

  On Cameron’s left, Daysee was checking different stopwatches. The moment they were on air she would forget pink strapless dresses and become as cool as a computer, timing the programme to the second.

  On the right sat the vision-mixer in a red T-shirt, hands at the ready over regiments of square buttons, lit up like spangles, ready to punch up the correct picture when Cameron demanded it.

  ‘Good luck, everyone,’ said Cameron, crossing her fingers. ‘Stand by Studio, stand by Opening Titles, stand by Music.’

  ‘One minute to air,’ said Daysee, clenching her stop-watch and glaring at the leaping red number of the clock. ‘Twenty seconds, ten, five, four, three, two, one and in.’

  Schubert’s Fifth Symphony started on its jolly jazzed-up course. On the screen a rocket exploded in coloured stars above a night-lit Cotchester, and then cascaded down to form the word Declan. A great cheer went up in the bar. Tony puffed on his cigar.

  ‘I want another gin and tonic,’ said an already drunk reporter from the Mail on Sunday.

  ‘Shut up,’ said Johnny’s four lawyers in unison, who were listening to the opening package like hawks, in the hope of finding something defamatory.

  As Daysee cued Declan in, as a concession to Cameron, he swung round to talk directly to camera. For a moment his throat went dry. He’s forgotten his first question, thought Cameron in anguish. Then he said: ‘I welcome my first guest in this new series with the greatest humility. He is simply the best actor to come out of America in the last fifteen years. But this is the first interview you’ve ever given.’ He turned to Johnny, ‘Why?’

  ‘I hate publicity,’ drawled Johnny. ‘If all journalists were exterminated life would be just fine.’

  Up in the board room a howl of protest went up from the press, who stopped filling up their drinks and started listening.

  ‘The press detest success,’ went on Johnny, ‘and they screw up your sex life. However much you try not to get fed up, it pisses you off when you read lies that your latest girlfriend’s been two-timing you with some Greek masseur. Every day, my exes are offered millions to tell all.’

  ‘How d’you cope?’ said Declan.

  ‘I don’t read press cuttings any more. I just weigh them; if they’re light I start worrying.’

  ‘By deliberately avoiding publicity, aren’t you actually courting it?’

  ‘Don’t give me that crap,’ said Johnny lightly.

  And they were off, sparring, laughing, fooling about almost like two old friends discussing someone they knew and liked, but frequently disapproved of. Johnny was being absolutely outrageous now about his exploits with his leading ladies, but he drawled out his answers so honestly and engagingly that the press quickly forgave him for his earlier sniping. The lawyers were clutching their heads, but they were laughing and even the ex-Prebendary was looking moderately benign.

  It’s going to be all right, thought Cameron. ‘Ten minutes to the commercial break, Declan,’ she said into his earpiece. Following a tip-off from Rupert, Declan then said, ‘And you’re about to face your greatest acting challenge . . .’

  Johnny raised an eyebrow.

  ’. . . playing Hamlet at Stratford next year,’ said Declan.

  Johnny looked startled. Upstairs the board room was in an uproar.

  ‘No one knows that,’ screamed the lawyers. ‘The god-dammed contracts haven’t been fucking exchanged yet.’

  ‘I figured I ought to have a crack at it,’ said Johnny. ‘Women don’t get taken seriously as actresses these days until they allow themselves to look ugly and sweaty and get raped on screen. Guys still have to play Hamlet. And I like the guy. I mean he had a stepfather problem. I don’t figure Claudius bumped off Hamlet’s father at all. That was Hamlet’s fantasy; he hated his stepfather. I hated mine.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He married my mother. I was jealous. He was a bass-tard.’

  ‘Why?’

  Tony drew on his cigar; the lawyers fingered their calculators; even the press were still.

  Declan paused, waiting unbearably long. On his pale-blue island in a sea of dark blue, Johnny suddenly seemed terribly vulnerable.

  ‘He groped my baby sister the whole time,’ he said. ‘So I quit. My stepfather called to say my mother was dying of cancer. I didn’t believe him, so I didn’t go home.’ Johnny put his head in his hands. ‘But she did die the next day. She topped herself. I ain’t never told no one that.’

  ‘Why did she commit suicide?’ asked Declan quietly.

  Johnny looked up, his eyes cavernous. ‘She was jealous because my stepfather preferred my sister. Christ, what a mess.’

  ‘Out of order,’ screamed the lawyers apoplectically. The Prebendary was looking equally outraged.

  ‘Are you worried, being American, you won’t be taken seriously as Hamlet?’ asked Declan.

  Relieved at a change of subject, Johnny fast recovered his poise. ‘He was a Dane, for Christ’s sake. He didn’t speak like Leslie Howard.’

  In the bar James and the lady novelist exchanged caring smiles.

  ‘It’s the acting that matters,’ went on Johnny. ‘I could play him like JR.’

  He launched into ‘To be or not to be’ in broad Texan; it was so funny, the cameramen could hardly keep their cameras still. Halfway through Johnny slid into Prince Charles’s accent, which was even funnier; then for the last ten lines, he played it straight and was so good that Declan felt his hair standing on end. At the end, Johnny said, ‘That’ll be five hundred pounds, please,’ in a camp Cockney accent.

  ‘You’ll be taken seriously,’ said Declan.

  ‘I can switch moods, that’s why I’m a good movie actor,’ said Johnny. ‘But to be on stage four hours, that’s something else. But then I’ve always lived dangerously. . . .’

  Declan took a deep breath. ‘Is that why you went back to America to face trial?’

  ‘That is definitely out of order,’ screamed the lawyers, positively orgasmic now at the prospect of lucrative litigation. ‘We agreed he wouldn’t talk about that.’

  ‘I went back because I missed the States,’ said Johnny. He still appeared relaxed, but his knuckles were white points as he gripped the arms of his chair.

  ‘Have you always fancied very young girls?’

  ‘Sure, if they’re pretty. Most men do. This one was very pretty.’

  ‘Did you know she was only fourteen?’

  The Prebendary was about to have a seizure.

  ‘I think you ought to have a word with the control room,’ he spluttered to Tony.

  ‘Sure, I guess it was wrong, but she was so sweet, I really cared for her. I know I screwed her, but I don’t figure I screwed her up. She’s very happily married with a baby now.’

  ‘How d’you get on in prison?’

  Johnny’s eyes were cavernous again. ‘It’s not a very nice place to be. But if you’re a famous movie star you’re trapped anyway; going to gaol is just exchanging one kind of captivity for another. And I learnt a lot. I could burglarize your place tonight, while you were in it. And I’m shit-hot at insider trading.’

  Declan stretched out his legs.

  ‘Extraordinary coloured socks,’ said the girl from the Mail on Sunday, pouring herself another gin.

&nb
sp; ‘Did they give you a hard time inside?’ Declan asked Johnny.

  ‘Not really. One guy who couldn’t count – he thought the girl was four not fourteen – worked me over a bit, but I made some good friends.’

  ‘Have you never fancied older women?’

  Johnny thought for a minute, then he smiled wickedly.

  ‘No, they have droopy asses. Droopy asses are so cold in bed.’

  The telephone rang in the control room.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, get him off sex,’ yelled Tony. ‘The lawyers are going to take us to the cleaners, and Fergus Penney’s having a coronary. We’ll lose the franchise if you don’t shut him up.’

  ‘It’s a fucking good programme,’ said Cameron, and hung up.

  Then she took the telephone off the hook.

  ‘Five seconds to the cue dot,’ intoned Daysee. ‘Five, four, three, two, one.’ She flicked the cue switch to warn people all over the network to get ready in sixty seconds to roll in the commercials, which were, after all, the life-blood of the station.

  As the End-of-Part-One caption came up, Johnny shot out of the studio, saying he must have a leak.

  ‘You stay here,’ Cameron screamed at Daysee. ‘Well done, Declan.’

  Johnny may not have been able to have Daysee in the break, but he had certainly taken something. In the second half he was even more outrageous, but utterly relaxed. Declan, in his wizard’s chair, had only to prompt him here, jog his memory there, and curb his amazing honesty when he looked like going over the top.

  The floor manager thrust the back of his hand with splayed-out fingers towards Declan to indicate five minutes more.

  ‘I was on location in Texas,’ Johnny was saying as he waved his cigarette around. ‘Staying in my hotel was this glorious German girl. She gave me her room number, told me to come up in half an hour. I must have been looped. When I hotfooted upstairs later and banged on her door, someone let me in, but the room was in darkness.’

  ‘Oh Christ,’ thought Cameron. ‘What’s he going to say?’

  ‘Well, I undressed and got into bed, and I reached out, and I felt a boob, like a wrinkled fig. I figured this was odd. Then moving down I found I could play Grieg’s Piano Concerto on her ribs, so I groped for the light, and there were her teeth grinning at me from a glass beside the bed. I don’t know which of us screamed the louder. I mean, she must have been ninety, if she was a day. I mean, under-age girls are one thing, gerontophilia’s quite another.’ Johnny smiled helplessly.