Rivals

by Jilly Cooper

  She could smell the faint lemon tang of his aftershave as he moved nearer.

  ‘I’m absolutely mad,’ began Rupert.

  ‘Go on,’ stammered Maud.

  ‘About little Taggie, and she can’t stand me. Could you possibly put in a good word for me?’

  ‘Taggie,’ said Maud in outrage, ‘TAGGIE!’

  She might have been Lady Bracknell referring to the famous handbag.

  ‘For Christ’s sake,’ she screamed, ‘Taggie’s eighteen, you’re thirty-seven. She’s dyslexic, which makes her seem even younger. How dare you, you revolting letch, how dare you, how DARE you?’ And, bursting into tears, she fled upstairs and locked herself in her bedroom.

  She couldn’t bear it, she, who’d always got anyone she wanted, being spurned under the mistletoe by the biggest rake in Gloucestershire. And for Taggie, of all people, which made it far, far worse. Almost pathologically jealous of Taggie, there was no one in the world Maud would less like to lose a man to. Was that to be her fate, growing older and less attractive, until no one wanted her?

  An hour later in the kitchen Declan was still declaiming to an enraptured group.

  ‘Christ, I wish I wasn’t too tight to make notes,’ said Ralphie.

  ‘You see why he can’t go on doing crappy interviews with the Bishop of Cotchester,’ said Patrick to Cameron.

  Cameron nodded.

  A woman of so shining loveliness, [Declan was saying]

  That men threshed corn at midnight by a tress,

  A little stolen tress.

  He looked up and saw Maud. ‘A little stolen tress,’ he repeated slowly.

  For a minute they gazed at each other.

  There is grey in your hair, [he began very softly]

  Young men no longer catch their breath,

  When you are passing.

  Maud turned away, her face stricken.

  Declan dropped his cigarette into the sink and, stepping over the enraptured seated undergraduates, caught up with Maud on the stairs. Not having had anything to drink for a couple of hours, he was sobering up.

  ‘What’s the matter? Did he turn you down?’

  Maud nodded, tears spilling out between her eyelashes.

  ‘I’ve seen it coming since September. I wanted to warn you.’

  ‘Why didn’t you then?’

  Declan sighed: ‘Has there ever been any point? He’s no good for you. He’s a traveller. It might have lasted a week, a month, then he’d have dumped you.’

  He put his huge hands round her neck above the pearl choker.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘He’s just so attractive.’

  ‘I know. Hush, hush.’ He raised his thumbs to still her quivering mouth. ‘Let’s go to bed.’

  ‘We can’t in the middle of a party.’

  ‘What better time?’

  ‘I’ve spent so much money.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Declan as they went up the remaining stairs.

  ‘I love you,’ he said softly, ‘and I’m the only one of the lot of them who understands you.’

  ‘I know,’ whispered Maud.

  Declan shut the bedroom door behind them.

  Caitlin, going past, heard the key turn. Removing the sign outside the loo on which she had earlier written Ladies, Caitlin turned it over, wrote Do Not Disturb, Sex in Progress, and hung it on her parents’ door.

  Downstairs, the party showed no signs of winding down.

  ‘I love yew,’ said Lizzie, looking at a dark clump of greenery in the corner, as she danced round with Freddie.

  ‘I love you,’ said Freddie, giving her a squeeze. ‘Honestly, on my life and at least a bottle-and-a-half of Moët.’

  It was obvious that Tony wasn’t going to be able to prise Cameron away from Patrick for even a second.

  ‘We must go,’ he said bleakly to Monica.

  ‘All right,’ said Monica reluctantly. ‘I haven’t seen Archie for hours. Where is he?’

  ‘Upstairs, I think,’ said Caitlin.

  Monica swayed up the stairs, hanging onto the banisters. She hadn’t drunk so much since she was a deb; it was really rather fun.

  Finding several rooms heavily occupied by couples, she finally tracked down her elder and beloved son on a chaise-longue on the top floor, absolutely superglued to Tracey Makepiece, his hand burrowing like a ferret inside her white tricel shirt.

  ‘Archie,’ thundered Monica. ‘Drop!’

  Archie dropped.

  ‘We’re leaving,’ said Monica, ‘at once.’

  Downstairs, she told Tony what Archie had been up to.

  ‘Christ,’ exploded Tony, ‘he might put her in the club. Get him out of this bloody house as fast as possible.’

  ‘I don’t know where Declan and Maud are. We ought to thank them,’ said Monica, as Archie shuffled sheepishly down the stairs.

  Having witnessed the incident, Valerie gave her little laugh: ‘One must learn to be democratic, Ay’m afraid these days, Monica. Sharon, of course, gets on with all classes.’

  ‘Evidently,’ said Caitlin, sliding down the banisters and beaming at Valerie. ‘She’s been wrapped round Kevin Makepiece for the last two hours.’

  Giving a screech close to death, Valerie bolted upstairs.

  Caitlin turned to Monica, Tony and Archie with a beatific smile on her face. ‘I bet Kev a pound he wouldn’t neck with Sharon. I suppose I’ll have to pay him now.’

  ‘Are your parents around?’ said Monica.

  ‘I’m afraid they’ve gone to bed,’ said Caitlin.

  ‘Well, if you’d just tell them how very much we all enjoyed it,’ said Monica.

  ‘You may have enjoyed it,’ hissed Tony, slipping on the icy drive in his haste to get to the Rolls and the frozen chauffeur, ‘but frankly it was the most bloody party I’ve ever been to, and that child Caitlin is a minx.’

  ‘She’s sweet,’ protested Archie with a hiccup.

  ‘If you have anything more to do with any of the O’Hara children I’ll disinherit you.’

  About five in the morning, having behaved just as badly as everyone else, Rupert came back into the drawing-room looking for the whisky decanter, and saw a black and white tail sticking out from under the piano.

  ‘Gertrude,’ he said.

  The tail quivered. Crouching down, Rupert found both Gertrude and Taggie.

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’

  ‘A drunk’s passed out in my bed,’ said Taggie with a sob. ‘Every other bedroom in the house is occupied; a bloody great party, including Ralphie and his blonde are in the kitchen, so I can’t wash up, the disco people haven’t been paid, Mummy and Daddy have gone to bed, and I don’t want to be a wallflower and cramp everyone’s style.’

  ‘You won’t cramp mine. Come on.’ Rupert dragged her out.

  An empty champagne bottle rolled out at the same time.

  ‘You drink all that?’

  ‘Nearly.’

  Rupert threw a couple of logs on the dying fire and then sat Taggie down on the sofa beside him. Gertrude took up her position between them.

  ‘It’s been a wonderful party,’ he said.

  ‘It hasn’t,’ said Taggie despairingly. ‘It’s been a disaster. Patrick’s got off with Lord Baddingham’s m-mistress, which’ll make Lord Baddingham go even more off Daddy. And Mummy’s got a terrific crush on someone.’ She blushed, remembering it was Rupert, and added hastily, ‘I’m not sure who, and poor Daddy’s got to pay for it all. I tried and tried to keep the cost down, but then Mummy went off and ordered all that champagne, and invited hundreds and hundreds of people.’

  ‘Your father must earn a good screw from Corinium,’ said Rupert reasonably.

  ‘He does —’ Taggie cuddled Gertrude like a terrified child clutching a teddy bear – ‘but it’s not nearly enough. He’s got a massive overdraft and we still haven’t paid for our leaving party in London, and he got another huge tax bill yesterday, and he hasn’t paid the last one yet, and Mummy and Caitlin a
nd Patrick won’t take it seriously. They think Daddy’s a bottomless pit who’ll always provide.

  ‘To produce his best work,’ she went on, ‘he’s got to be kept calm. That’s why we moved to the country for some peace and for him to finish his book. And he loathes Lord Baddingham, he thinks he’s dreadfully cor – cor . . .’ She blocked on the word.

  ‘Corrupt,’ said Rupert.

  ‘That’s right, and shouldn’t be running Corinium at all. Daddy’s so headstrong, I’m sure he’ll walk out if there are any more rows, and he says the BBC won’t have him back.’

  Despite being drunk, Rupert appreciated it wasn’t at all an ideal set-up.

  ‘Of course the BBC would,’ he said. ‘Your father’s a genius. He’s got everything going for him.’

  ‘Except us,’ said Taggie with a sob. ‘We’re all a drain on him.’

  ‘You’re not,’ said Rupert.

  ‘I am. Ralphie doesn’t love me. No one will ever love me.’

  Rupert let her cry for a few minutes, then made her laugh by putting his black tie on Gertrude.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ stammered Taggie, wiping her eyes on someone’s discarded silk shawl. ‘I’m being horribly s-s-self-indulgent.’

  ‘You’re not.’ Suddenly Rupert felt very avuncular and protective as he did when one of his dogs cut its paw. He wished a visit to the vet and a few stitches could cure Taggie’s problems.

  ‘I’m going to get that drunk out of your bed and then you can go to sleep.’

  ‘I must pay the disco – but no one seems to want them to stop – and the Makepieces. I’ve got the money.’ She got a large wad of tenners out of the George V Coronation tin on the desk.

  ‘I’ll pay them,’ said Rupert, taking the money. ‘You’re going to bed.’

  Up in Taggie’s turret bedroom, with some effort, Rupert lifted Charles Fairburn out of the bed and, lugging him down the winding stairs, put him on the chaise-longue recently vacated by Archie and Tracey Makepiece. As Taggie’s room was like the North Pole, he returned with a duvet he’d whipped off a fornicating couple in the spare room. Taggie had got into a red flannel nightgown and cleaned her teeth. Lady in Red, thought Rupert. She had huge black circles under her eyes. She looked about twelve.

  ‘Everything’ll work out all right,’ he said, tucking her in.

  ‘You’ve been so kind,’ stammered Taggie. ‘I’m sorry I was so rude to you before, and thank you for the pendant.’

  But as Rupert put out a hand to touch her cheek, Gertrude, still in her black tie, growled fiercely.

  ‘You may have forgiven me,’ said Rupert, ‘but Gertrude hasn’t.’

  RIVALS

  19

  At seven-thirty the disco was still pounding. All over the house Patrick’s friends, with ultra-fashionable cat-sick yellow socks over their eyes like aeroplane eye masks, had crashed out on arm chairs and sofas. Charles snored happily on his chaise-longue. In the small sitting-room, watched balefully by Gertrude still in Rupert’s black tie, Cameron and Patrick opened Patrick’s presents, throwing the wrapping paper into the fire to ignite the dying embers. Cameron had never seen such loot: gold cufflinks, Rolex watches, diamond studs, a Leica camera, a Picasso drawing, a Matthew Smith, a red-and-silver-striped silk Turnbull and Asser dressing-gown.

  Patrick was like the prince in the fairy story, thought Cameron, whom each of the neighbouring kings was trying to win over with more and more extravagant presents. She thought bitterly back to her own twenty-first birthday. Neither of her parents had even bothered to send her a card.

  ‘You’ll never remember who gave you what. That’s neat,’ she added, as Patrick drew out a copy of The Shropshire Lad from some shiny red paper.

  ‘Very,’ said Patrick. ‘First edition. What have you got there?’

  ‘Silver hip flask, from someone called All my Love Lavinia. She’s had it engraved. Who’s she?’

  ‘My Ex,’ said Patrick, collapsing onto the sofa to read The Shropshire Lad.

  ‘How Ex?’

  ‘About two minutes before midnight last night. Listen: When I was one-and-twenty, I heard a wise man say, Give crowns and pounds and guineas, but not your heart away. Hope that’s not prophetic. I wish Housman hadn’t used the word “Lad” so often; so appallingly hearty. Who’s that from?’

  Cameron pulled a long, dark-brown cashmere scarf from a gold envelope. ‘Georgie and Ralphie.’

  ‘I bet Georgie paid for it – kind of them, though.’

  He got up and wound the scarf round Cameron’s neck, holding on to the two ends and slowly drawing her towards him.

  ‘It’s yours. Everything I have is yours,’ he said, kissing her, only breaking away from her because the telephone rang.

  He grinned as he put down the receiver. It was the vicar of Penscombe asking if they could turn the disco down for an hour so he could take early service.

  ‘I must go,’ said Cameron.

  ‘You must not. I’ll tell those disco boys to go and have some breakfast and then you and I are going to watch the sun rise.’

  Wearing three of Patrick’s sweaters, a pair of Taggie’s jeans, rolled over four times at the ankle, Caitlin’s gumboots, and a very smart dark-blue coat with a velvet collar left over the banisters by Bas Baddingham, Cameron set out with Patrick.

  ‘I’ve shaved so I won’t cut your face to ribbons,’ he said.

  ‘The wind’ll do that,’ grumbled Cameron.

  The wind, in fact, had dropped, but a vicious frost had ermined all the fences, roughened the surface of the snow and turned the waterfall in the wood to two foot-long icicles. Gertrude charged ahead leaping into drifts, tunnelling the snow with her snout.

  ‘Wow, it’s beautiful,’ said Cameron, as the valley stretched out below them. ‘How much of it’s yours?’

  ‘To the bottom of the wood. The rest of the valley belongs to Rupert Campbell-Black.’

  Christ, it’s a kingdom, thought Cameron, looking across at the white fields, the blanketed tennis court, Rupert’s golden house with its snowy roof and the bare beech wood rearing up behind like a huge spiky white hedgehog.

  ‘We’re trying to get him on your father’s programme.’

  ‘Why bother? Pa could interview him by morse code across the valley. He’s the most awful stud. Evidently resentful husbands all over Gloucestershire bear scars on their knuckles from trying to bash down bedroom doors.’

  ‘He was there last night,’ said Cameron.

  ‘Was he?’ said Patrick. ‘I only had eyes for you.’

  They had reached the water meadows at the bottom of the wood. Here the snow had settled in roots of trees, in the crevices of walls, and in six-foot drifts anywhere it could find shelter from yesterday’s blizzard. The blizzard had also laid thick white tablecloths of snow fringed with icicles on either side of the stream which ran with chattering teeth down the valley. It was deathly quiet except for Rupert’s horses occasionally neighing to one another. But it was getting lighter.

  ‘Nice scent,’ said Patrick, burrowing his face in her neck. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Fracas.’

  ‘Very appropriate. Who gave it to you?’

  ‘Tony.’

  ‘Why hasn’t he got a neck?’ Patrick hurled a snowball into the woods. Gertrude hurtled after it. ‘You’d have thought with that much money he could have bought himself a neck.’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Cameron. ‘Tell me, do your mother and father always slope off to bed in the middle of their own parties?’

  ‘It’s a very odd marriage,’ said Patrick, pointing his new Leica at her. ‘Look towards the stream, darling. My father has always seen my mother as Maud Gonne.’

  ‘The woman Yeats was fixated on?’

  ‘Right. Yeats fell in love with her at exactly the same age my father fell in love with my mother. Look, badger tracks.’ Patrick bent down to examine them. ‘Maud Gonne was a rabid revolutionary. Yeats knew he wouldn’t impress her with poetry, so he got caught up in a political movement to
unite Ireland. Then she married John MacBride, another revolutionary. Broke Yeats’s heart, but it made him write his best poetry. He claimed Maud Gonne was beyond blame, like Helen of Troy.’

  ‘But your mother isn’t a revolutionary, for Christ’s sake, and she hasn’t married someone else.’

  ‘No, but she has Maud Gonne’s tremendous beauty, and my father has an almost fatalistic acceptance that she’s above blame and will have affairs with other men.’

  ‘Doesn’t your mother care for him?’

  ‘In her way. I once asked her why she messed him about so much. She said that, with every woman in the world after him, she could only hold him by uncertainty.’

  Cameron digested this.

  ‘But if he only loves her, and doesn’t want all these women, why can’t she stop playing games and love him back?’

  ‘That’s far too easy. She’s convinced that, once he’s sure of her, his obsession would evaporate. So the games go on.’

  ‘I wish they wouldn’t,’ said Cameron. ‘It sure makes him cranky to work with.’

  She sat on a log and watched Patrick write ‘Patrick loves Cameron’ in huge letters in the snow. Then he got out his hip flask, now filled with brandy, and handed it to her.

  ‘You warm enough?’

  Cameron nodded, taking a sip.

  ‘Do you have a drinking problem?’ she asked, as Patrick took a huge slug.

  Patrick laughed. ‘Only if I can’t afford it. Whisky’s twelve pounds a bottle in Dublin. Will you come and stay with me at Trinity next term?’

  It’s crazy, thought Cameron. He’s utterly unsuitable and eight years younger than me, but the snow had given her such a feeling of irresponsibility, she hadn’t felt so happy for years. The only unsettling thing was that he reminded her so much of Declan. They had the same arrogance, the same assumption that everyone would dance to their tune. Patrick seemed to read her thoughts.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m not at all like my father. Being Capricorn, I have a very shrewd business head. I may be overexacting, but I’m also cool, calculating and calm, whereas my father is very highly strung and overemotional. Capricorns also have excellent senses of humour and make protective and loving husbands.’ He grinned at her. The violet shadows beneath the brilliant dark eyes were even more pronounced this morning, but nothing could diminish the beauty of the bone structure, the full slightly sulky curve of the mouth, or the thickness of the long dark eyelashes.