Rivals

by Jilly Cooper

  ‘Not a very artistic sign, Capricorn,’ Cameron said crushingly.

  ‘What about Mallarme?’ said Patrick. ‘One of the bravest, most dedicated of poets. He was Capricorn. He knew what slog and self-negation is needed to produce poetry. He understood the loneliness of the writer. Look, here’s the sun.’

  Hand in hand they watched the huge red sun climbing up behind the black bars of the beech copse on the top road, blushing at its inability to warm the day.

  ‘Looks like Charles Fairburn spending a night inside for soliciting,’ said Patrick.

  ‘God, I wish I had a crew,’ said Cameron. ‘D’you realize you can only afford to film sunrises in winter in this country? In summer it rises at four o’clock in the morning. That’s in golden time, when you have to pay a crew miles over the rate for working through the night. Christ, I hate the British unions.’

  Patrick turned towards her. ‘I only like American-Irish unions. Let me look at you.’

  Her dark hair, no longer sleeked back with water, was blown forward in black tendrils over her cheek bones, and in a thick fringe which softened the slanting yellow eyes, and the beaky nose. Her skin and her full pale lips were amber in the sunshine.

  Patrick sighed and took another photograph. ‘Even the sun’s upstaged. You’re so dazzling, he’ll have to wear dark glasses to look at you.’

  Cameron laughed. He’d be terribly easy to fall in love with, she was shocked to find herself thinking.

  ‘How many more terms have you got?’ she asked as they wandered back.

  ‘Two.’

  ‘What are your future goals?’

  ‘To take you to bed when we get home.’

  ‘Don’t be an asshole! Apart from that?’

  ‘Get a first, then write plays.’

  ‘Just like that?’

  ‘Just like that. I’ve started one already.’

  ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘Intimidation – by British soldiers in Ulster.’

  ‘You’re crazy – neither the BBC nor ITV would touch it, particularly in an election year. Nor will the West End.’

  ‘Broadway would, and a success there would come here.’

  ‘Very self-confident, aren’t you?’

  ‘Not particularly. I just know what I want from life.’

  He moved closer, putting his hands inside the three jerseys warming them on her small breasts.

  ‘I want you most.’

  Back at The Priory, people were beginning to surface. Bas, having put so many Alka Seltzers in a glass of water they’d fizzed over the top, was trying to find his overcoat. Caitlin was eating Alpen and reading Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Taggie was serving breakfast to Simon Harris’s monsters, trying to give the baby its bottle and comfort Simon Harris who was sobbing at the kitchen table with his face in his hands.

  ‘Oh Patrick, thank goodness you’re back,’ she said. ‘Could you possibly ring the doctor about . . .’ She nodded in Simon Harris’s direction.

  ‘No,’ said Patrick, backing out of the kitchen. ‘Sorry, darling, I’m busy.’

  ‘I’m going home to call the office and get some sleep,’ said Cameron.

  ‘No,’ said Patrick, suddenly frantic. ‘If we go to sleep it won’t be my birthday any more and we’ll break the spell.’

  He took her up the winding stairs to his bedroom in the east turret, which was painted dazzlingly white, as though the snow had fallen inside. There were no carpets or curtains, and the only furniture was a desk, a chair, a green and white sofa piled high with books, and a vast red-curtained oriental four-poster with bells hanging from the tops of the posts. The view, however, was magnificent, straight across the valley and up to Penscombe. You could see the weathercock on top of the church spire glittering in the sunlight.

  A volume of Keats lay open on the bed: the pages were covered with pencilled notes. Picking it up, Cameron crawled under the duvet and tried to decipher Patrick’s writing. Looking up, she saw the ceiling was painted dove grey with little stars picked out in white.

  If only she’d had a room like this when she was young, she thought bitterly. Patrick went off to get them some breakfast. He took longer than anticipated. Taggie was on the telephone ringing up some doctor about Simon Harris, but she ran after him and buttonholed him as he was going back upstairs with a tray, dragging him into the sitting-room, distraught that he had Cameron in his room.

  ‘She’s Tony Baddingham’s c-c-concubine.’

  ‘Is that your word for the day?’ said Patrick coldly.

  ‘No, that’s what Daddy calls her. Do you want to ruin his career?’

  ‘Tony B couldn’t be that petty, firing a megastar like Pa, just because I took his mistress off him.’

  ‘He could! He’s really evil!’

  ‘Well if he’s that evil, Pa shouldn’t be working for him. Now, get out of my way, sweetheart. The coffee’s getting cold.’

  ‘And I’ve had enough of entertaining your friends,’ Taggie screamed after him.

  ‘Bicker, bicker,’ said Caitlin, looking up from Lady Chatterley’s Lover. ‘Pity it isn’t Spring, then Cameron could festoon your willy with forget-me-nots. Oh my God,’ she screamed, as an ashen Daysee Butler shuffled downstairs in a white towelling dressing-gown. ‘It’s The Priory ghost.’

  Upstairs, Patrick found Cameron wearing his new red and silver dressing-gown and reading Keats. The sun shining through the stained glass of one of the windows had turned her face emerald, ruby and violet like a nymph of the rainbow. Patrick felt his heart fail.

  He had brought up croissants, Taggie’s bramble jelly, a bunch of green grapes, a jug of Buck’s Fizz and some very strong black coffee. Cameron, who’d had no dinner the night before, was starving and ate most of it. It was astonishing, thought Patrick, that she looked desirable even with croissant crumbs on her lips. But even the black coffee couldn’t keep her awake for long. Patrick didn’t sleep. He sat making notes on Keats, which was one of his set books, but spending more time gazing at her. In sleep her face lost all its aggression.

  It was almost dark when she woke up. For a second she looked bewildered and utterly terrified.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Patrick gently. ‘You’re safe now.’

  She got up and looked out of the window. Orion, the swaggering voyeur, was looking in at her. The great yews and cedars were black against the snow. She could hear an unearthly strangulated croaking.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Foxes barking. It’s a love call. Come here.’

  ‘Not till I’ve cleaned my teeth.’

  Grabbing her bag she went down the landing, terrified of bumping into Declan. Instead, coming out of the bathroom she found Caitlin and Maud having a row.

  ‘I’m nothing like Lady Chatterley,’ Maud was screaming. ‘Good evening, Cameron. Nothing at all.’

  ‘You’re so lucky to have a family,’ said Cameron as she slid back under the duvet beside Patrick. He was still wearing a jersey and trousers.

  ‘How many times have you been home, since you came over here?’ he asked.

  ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘Why not? One must see one’s family occasionally if only to fight with them.’

  The argument outside was growing more clamorous.

  ‘My parents are divorced. My father’s married again. My mother lives with someone. I don’t want to talk about it,’ said Cameron shrilly. Suddenly she was trembling, her teeth chattering, her eyes darting and frightened.

  ‘You must,’ said Patrick. ‘How can I love you properly if I don’t know everything about you?’

  ‘No!’ It was almost a scream.

  ‘Come on. It’ll help, I promise.’

  They argued for some minutes before she gave in.

  Suddenly he reminded her again of Declan. He had the same gentle but relentlessly probing voice, the same way of never taking his eyes off her face, and almost hypnotizing her into telling him everything.

  ‘My mother walked out on my father
when I was fourteen,’ said Cameron tonelessly. ‘Decided she wanted to be her own person. She dabbled in a lot of things, peace marches, consciousness raising, but she wasn’t sufficiently focused and when the money ran out she moved to a female commune. Took me with her, but left my dog behind, because it was male.’ Cameron gave a bitter, choked laugh, ‘I never forgave her for that. My father got married again, and got all tied up with his new wife. Then Mom shacked up with Mike.’

  ‘Your step-father?’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘You could call it that. Mike was a dyke. My mother wrote a piece about coming out in the Village Voice. All her friends thought she was real brave. My classmates just sniggered and nudged each other.’

  ‘You poor little baby.’ Patrick took her trembling hands.

  ‘Then Mike and Mom moved to Cincinnati and Mike got the job of City Editor on the local paper. I could have put up with her being gay, but she was a real bull dyke, more macho than a guy really, with a skin like the surface of the moon, and hip measurements in treble figures, and a beer-gut spilling over her leather belts.’ Cameron shuddered. ‘She had a huge motorbike and she used to take Mom on the pillion. They joined a crazy organization called “Dykes on Bikes” and roared round the country in black leather going to gay parades.’

  Patrick drew her to him. He could feel the pouring sweat, the terrible fits of shivering sweeping over her.

  ‘Go on, darling,’ he whispered.

  ‘I prayed Mike would crash and kill herself. Then, as a last straw, Mom decided their union should be blessed and went off and got pregnant by AID. Mike was mad about the idea at first, strutted round as though she was the real father. Then when the baby arrived, it was a boy, poor little sod, and she got jealous. Mom was over forty. She had a terrible labour. She was in hospital for ten days. I was alone in the house with Mike. Every night she came home plastered. Then one evening I remember she spent about ten minutes getting her key into the lock. I was trying to work in my room. I can’t tell you. I’ve never told anyone this.’ She was suddenly frantic like a cat struggling and clawing to escape. Patrick held onto her. ‘It’s OK. You’ve got to trust me. Come on, sweetheart, come on.’

  ‘Mike yelled for me to come downstairs and fix her some supper.’ Cameron’s voice was toneless again, and so quiet Patrick could hardly hear her.

  ‘I was frying her eggs and bacon when suddenly she came up behind me and started to grope me, ripping my clothes off, trying to kiss me. Ugh. She was terribly strong. I swung the pan round and hit her with it. Then I ran out into the night.’

  Cameron put her fingers in her hair, rubbing the ball of her hand over and over again against her forehead, as if to blot out the memory. Patrick waited.

  ‘I went to some neighbours. I lied that Mike had tried to beat me up. They said they’d expected it for months. They called Dad in Washington. He came the next day and took me to live with him. He’d been dying to get something on Mom and Mike and the court ruled I should stay with him.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘It didn’t work,’ said Cameron wearily. ‘The honeymoon wore off. My stepmother’s a lawyer, my father’s a diplomat; they had a young baby. They’re Very Civilized People and Very Busy; they couldn’t handle a savage like me. I disrupted their lives, I made awful scenes, stayed out all night. They couldn’t see I was crying out for someone to care. I ran away from them too in the end. I got a scholarship to Barnard, worked in the Vac to support myself, got a job on the New York Times, and finally moved to television. The rest is hysterics.’ She gave her bitter mirthless laugh again.

  ‘You poor darling.’ Patrick pulled her back into his arms again, kissing her forehead. No wonder she was screwed up and aggressive and desperately insecure after that. He’d never felt so sorry for anyone in his life.

  ‘Didn’t you have a boyfriend to look after you?’

  ‘Oh I screwed around like crazy, just to prove I was heterosexual. Then the AIDS scare started in the States. Then Tony came along.’

  ‘Hardly the ideal father figure,’ said Patrick.

  ‘I’m not dependent on him,’ snarled Cameron too quickly. ‘I’m not dependent on anyone. The only time I feel I belong is when my credits come up on the screen.’

  She was shuddering violently now, furious with herself for dropping her guard and revealing so much.

  ‘I guess you’ll run to Declan now and tell him the whole thing, so you can have a good laugh.’

  ‘Don’t be childish,’ snapped Patrick. ‘I’m going to look after you. I’ll blot out all the bad memories, even if it takes a lifetime.’

  Never taking his eyes off her face, he started to unbutton his shirt.

  ‘It’s too soon,’ she whispered.

  ‘I’m not going to fuck you,’ said Patrick. ‘I’m just going to hold you close. You’ve got to learn that someone loves you for other things besides your heavenly body, and your skills as a career bitch.’

  Patrick was as good as his word. Gradually the shuddering stopped and he soothed all the tension out of her. Exhausted by so much revelation, she even slept again. At midnight she insisted on going back to her house. He was very loath to let her go.

  ‘Let me get dressed. I’ll run you home.’

  ‘I’ve got my car.’

  ‘I want to see your house.’

  ‘That’s Tony’s patch.’

  ‘Not any more. Tony’s past history.’

  Cameron sighed. ‘I guess it’s a bit more problematical than that.’

  ‘I feel like Demeter letting Persephone go back to the underworld,’ said Patrick as he fastened her seat belt. ‘For Christ’s sake, drive carefully. The roads are like glass. I’ll ring you tomorrow. I love you.’

  Hell, thought Cameron, as she drove up to the house, I must have left the living-room light on. She glanced in the hall mirror. Not a scrap of make-up. Despite the sleep, the circles under her eyes were darker than her eyebrows. Patrick had really seen her in the raw, yet she felt strangely cleansed and at peace at having told him everything. Tomorrow they’d make love. She knew it would be wonderful. The slow lazy smile of anticipation was wiped off her face when she went into the living-room and found Tony.

  The videos of her programmes lay scattered over the floor. The ashtray was filled with cigar butts. The whisky bottle, which had been half-full, was empty now. Tony was a slow drinker; he must have been there hours. Cameron shut the door and leant against it, her heart crashing. With a particularly unpleasant smile on his face, Tony picked up some papers lying on the table.

  ‘I’ve been looking at your contract,’ he said amiably. ‘D’you want to leave now or work out your notice?’

  It was as though the last twenty-four hours had never existed. Here was reality. Her whole career, her only security, was crashing round her ears in ruins.

  ‘I haven’t done anything. You can’t fire me,’ she whispered in terror.

  ‘I don’t have to. Your contract runs out in six weeks. Such a pity you blew it.’ He examined his square, beautifully manicured fingernails. ‘I came round to tell you that Simon Harris gave in to his nervous breakdown and was carted off to a loony bin this afternoon on extended leave. But you know what I feel about unpunctuality and twenty-four hours is a little late to come home from the ball.’

  ‘But I never normally see you on a Sunday,’ said Cameron illogically. She seemed too stunned to take anything in.

  ‘That doesn’t mean I don’t expect you to be here.’

  Smiling, he picked up his glass of whisky.

  ‘You bloody little whore,’ he said softly. The next moment he’d hurled it in her face.

  For a second she was speechless, as the liquid dripped down on to the suede dress.

  ‘How odd,’ she said in a strained, high voice. ‘Every time I buy something new and expensive some jerk spills something all over it.’ Then she lost her temper.

  ‘You bastard,’ she screamed. ‘I haven’t taken a weekend off in thre
e years. I’m always at your fucking beck and call.’

  ‘That’s what I pay you for,’ said Tony. His eyes were sparkling with pleasure now.

  ‘You bloody don’t. If you paid me golden time for the hours I put in for you, I’d be Howard Hughes by now. You frig around doing exactly what you like, expecting me to behave like a fucking nun, except when you require my services. Well, it’s not bloody good enough.’

  She sprang at him, trying to claw his face, but he grabbed her wrists. He was not bull-necked and thick-armed for nothing. As his grip tightened, Cameron gasped with pain.

  ‘I’d put up with it,’ she said through clenched teeth, ‘if the relationship was remotely even. You raise hell if I date anyone else, but you’re quite free to take darling Sarah Stratton out to lunch and make passes at her and offer her a job.’

  Tony’s eyes gleamed. ‘So that’s it. Who told you that?’

  ‘She did,’ yelled Cameron, desperately struggling to get away. ‘And she said you still sleep with Monica.’

  Tony grinned. ‘She must have an excellent spy system.’

  ‘The Old Bag system. Monica told Winifred, who told Paul, who told Sarah that, as you were always pestering her, Monica restricts you to once a week. And you told me you hadn’t laid a finger on her for years. You bloody liar.’

  ‘It’s rather exciting sleeping with Monica,’ mused Tony. ‘There’s a rarity element about it.’

  ‘So that’s why you sent Madden tripping out to James Garrett on Christmas Eve to buy us both diamond bracelets. Jesus Christ!’

  Starting to laugh, Tony let go of her wrists. ‘You discovered that too, did you? Poor little Cameron, you must have been festering over Christmas. Jealousy is the most destructive of emotions, you know. It hurts only oneself.’

  ‘I hate you,’ screamed Cameron, wrenching off the bracelet and hurling it at him. Missing him, it hit the window, slithering scratchily down the glass like a fingernail on a blackboard.