Rivals

by Jilly Cooper

  The dogs converged, barking, as a car drew up at the front door. Cameron hoped it was Rupert, but it turned out to be a youth delivering some boxes of T-shirts, who gazed at Cameron in admiration.

  ‘This is the first lot. Mr C-B wanted them in a hurry,’ he said. ‘Tell him the stickers, the posters and the badges’ll be ready by Monday.’

  Cameron couldn’t resist having a look. The T-shirts were a beautiful cerulean blue, with a dark bronze drawing of a boy shading his forehead on the front and the words Support Venturer on the front and the back. They must be for some sporting event. Taking one upstairs, Cameron stripped off and put it on. It fell just below her bush. Suddenly feeling incredibly randy, she hoped Rupert hadn’t got anything planned for the afternoon. As it was much colder, she shut the window, trapping a tendril of clematis which was already wilting and bruised from being trapped on previous occasions. Trying to insinuate its way into Rupert’s bedroom, like her and every other woman, thought Cameron wryly.

  Next minute the front door banged. Very slowly she walked downstairs. Rupert was looking at the boxes in the hall.

  ‘They’re great,’ she said. ‘Can I keep one?’

  Rupert glanced up and froze for a second.

  ‘Hullo, angel. Did you sleep well?’

  ‘So well,’ murmured Cameron seductively, ‘that I’m ready to be exhausted again.’ She lifted the T-shirt to show him her bush. Then, when he didn’t react as she’d expected and come bounding up the stairs, she said, ‘What is Venturer, anyway?’

  Rupert’s eyes seemed to have gone a darker, more opaque shade of blue and lost all their sparkle. ‘Come and have a drink,’ he said.

  Disappointed, Cameron followed him into the drawing-room. Suddenly he seemed incredibly tense and, when she refused a drink, poured himself two fingers of neat whisky and drank it in one gulp. Then he pulled her down on to the sofa beside him.

  ‘Look, sweetheart, this is a bit difficult, but there’s something I’ve got to tell you.’

  Cameron went white. Suddenly in that baggy T-shirt, she looked as fragile, pale and defenceless as one of the anemones that strewed the paths of Rupert’s woods.

  ‘You want to pack me in?’ she whispered.

  ‘No, no, quite the reverse.’ Very gently he smoothed a tendril of dark hair behind her ear and stroked her rigid, quivering cheek.

  ‘But you may want to pack me in. Freddie Jones, Declan and I are pitching for the Corinium franchise. We’ve called ourselves Venturer.’

  At first she was so relieved that he wasn’t trying to end the relationship she couldn’t think straight.

  ‘You and Declan? How long has this been going on?’

  ‘Since the day after Declan walked out.’

  ‘So turning up in Madrid wasn’t only to see a football match?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or showing such interest in my career and the goings on at Corinium?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you read the application in my briefcase?’

  ‘I photostated it.’

  She was trembling violently now and her lips were quite white.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he reassured her. ‘Declan was so appalled by my skulduggery he refused to read it; so we haven’t pinched anything.’

  ‘And I suppose you arranged those riots as an excuse to fly straight home once you’d got what you wanted?’

  ‘Uh-uh,’ protested Rupert. ‘Two stabbed cops, twenty-five people injured and a burnt-down stand is going too far even for me.’

  ‘But driving down to see me before I flew out to LA and all those questions you asked me? Did you give that “Stowaway” story to Dempster?’

  Rupert nodded. Truth, however devastating, was the only answer now.

  ‘And, Christ, how much have I already told you this weekend?’ whispered Cameron, looking at her watch. ‘And our application’s already gone in.’

  Rupert had expected rage, tantrums, having his face clawed, but not this numb state of shock.

  ‘I trusted you,’ she said slowly. ‘You’re the first person I’ve trusted since I was fourteen. I thought you were so caring, you bloody Judas. This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.’

  ‘It isn’t as awful as it seems,’ said Rupert soothingly. ‘I thought you were the sexiest thing on two legs the moment I saw you. Didn’t I offer you a lift home after Valerie’s dinner party? I would have moved in both at Declan’s party, if young Patrick hadn’t been making the running, and at Corinium, if Tony hadn’t been hanging about. If I hadn’t fancied you to death, I’d never have bothered coming out to Madrid. I wanted to level with you but I didn’t know how you’d react. We couldn’t afford to let you rush back to Tony and tell him everything, in case he exoceted our bid before it got off the ground.’

  Cameron leapt to her feet, tugging down the T-shirt. ‘And I figured you were really interested in me. What a joke. I know how Declan detests me. He must have cracked up, and I suppose Patrick and that dumbass Taggie were in on it too. Christ, you must have been all laughing yourselves sick.’

  She was crying now – angry, agonized rasping tears, and Rupert suddenly appreciated her terrible insecurity, her paranoia, her vulnerability and her terror; for the first time his heart was truly touched by her. Getting up, he tried to take her in his arms and comfort her.

  ‘Angel, you’ve got it wrong. No one’s laughing at you. I want you, I absolutely adore you. We all want you to join Venturer. We were just picking our moment. We’ve got an absolutely alpha line-up, but you’d be the jewel in our crown, and you’d be totally free to make the programmes you wanted.’

  ‘Get out of my way!’ screamed Cameron. ‘I hate you! I never want to see you again!’ And, diving under his outstretched arms, she bolted out of the door.

  Rupert had never felt such a shit in his life. She’ll have to get her clothes and her suitcase from upstairs, he thought; I can cut her off on her way downstairs. But Cameron shot straight out of the front door, and next moment he heard the wheels of the Lotus crunching on the gravel. Tony was probably still on his way down from London and Cameron couldn’t rage round to The Falconry in nothing but that T-shirt, but she’d be on to him on the telephone in a flash. The early-warning system had gone off. It was just a matter of time before the H-bomb landed.

  RIVALS

  30

  All over the country on Sunday, 2nd May, the independent companies and those consortiums who sought to oust them were assembling, colour-coding and ring-binding forty copies of their application document on A4 paper – complete with attached confidential material – to be delivered to the IBA headquarters in Brompton Road by noon the following day.

  Corinium, to be on the safe side, had submitted their application the day before. Venturer, who were pushed for time, spent a wildly exciting Sunday at Freddie’s house in Holland Park knocking their final draft into shape.

  Everyone agreed that Declan had done a masterly job. But Freddie and Marti Gluckstein, who arrived looking like a costive lizard, felt Declan’s bald and somewhat arrogant claim that ‘We can find £15 million; just ring Henriques Bros’ was inadequate, and were therefore considerably extending the financial section. Freddie and Lord Smith were going through the technical specifications with a toothcomb, while Harold White, Janey Lloyd-Foxe, Charles Fairburn, Dame Enid and Professor Graystock were having fun jazzing up the programme content.

  Bas, having provided architects’ plans for the conversion of Cotchester House into studios and offices should Tony turn nasty, was now playing chemmy with Henry Hampshire, the Lord-Lieutenant, who hadn’t spent a Sunday in London for twenty-five years, and with Wesley Emerson, who had nothing really to add to the bid except his illustrious presence. The Bishop was driving up to London immediately after Evensong. Maud, who’d come for the ride, was playing the piano. Upstairs, Ursula and Freddie’s secretary were frantically typing and re-typing drafts and then running okayed pages off on the word processor.

  Taggie was in t
he kitchen. She had given everyone pâté and cheese for lunch, and was now making chicken Estragon for the celebration dinner. Four plump boiling chickens, carrots and onions were already simmering in a huge pan on the Aga. There was an extremely complicated and hazardous sauce to be made later, involving egg yolks, cream and lemon juice which might easily curdle. But at least having tramped the length of Notting Hill Gate that morning, she’d found some fresh tarragon.

  From the next-door room she could hear screams of laughter.

  ‘We must do a series on local studs called “Dongs of Praise”,’ Janey Lloyd-Foxe was saying. ‘We can start off with Rupert; then we won’t have to pay him a fee.’

  ‘Rupert’d screw a fee out of us anyway,’ said Charles.

  ‘Well, the programme’s about screwing,’ said Janey.

  Janey was absolutely gorgeous, thought Taggie. Rupert had said she was nearly forty, but, except for the fine pencilling of lines round her wicked dark brown eyes, you’d never have known it. Poor Billy, her husband, was abroad covering the Paris Tennis Tournament for the BBC, and Janey had turned up with the most adorable baby, who was so fat, smiling and gurgling that even the men wanted to hold her. And Janey was so blonde and beautiful, and had such wonderful brown breasts after a week in Portugal, that no one minded her breast-feeding at all.

  ‘I’ve got a terrific idea for a game show,’ Janey was now saying. ‘You have a panel and they have to guess who the celebrity is by interviewing the cleaners who work for them. We call it “Daily Daily”. Mrs Makepiece can give us some wonderful stories about James Vereker, and Mrs Bodkin would be riveting about Rupert’s goings on. Mrs Bodkin used to work for us,’ continued Janey, shifting the baby to her right breast. ‘The first time we got a cordless telephone she found it in our bed and, assuming it was some auto-erotic device, discreetly hid it in my pants’ drawer. Then, when it started ringing, Billy, who was expecting some summons to jump for Britain, went frantic trying to find it.’

  Everyone screamed with laughter.

  ‘Don’t you think it’s a brilliant idea, Declan?’

  ‘No,’ said Declan, who already adored Janey. ‘The IBA would think it otterly undemocratic.’

  ‘Well, what about an English “Dallas”, wife-swapping in the Royal triangle?’ said Janey.

  ‘Later,’ said Declan, ‘when we’ve got the franchise.’

  They were all so bright and clever, thought Taggie wistfully. She had contributed nothing. ‘An army marches on its stomach,’ Declan was fond of telling her, but she was sure that everyone would have been just as happy with an Indian takeaway this evening and that her father had only suggested she did the food in order to involve her.

  In the house opposite, a lot of young people were sprawled on the drawing-room carpet drinking red wine and reading the Sunday papers. It all came back to reading, thought Taggie despairingly. If she didn’t keep at it, she’d lose the ability more and more, like not talking French. She must try harder.

  She pored over the Estragon recipe in the book, but half the words were in French. Embarrassed at having to resort to a tape recorder she shut the door, so no one could hear.

  She was worried about Rupert too. He’d been edgy and refused to eat anything when he’d popped in earlier, then furious because he’d forgotten to bring up the T-shirts. He’d also taken an instant dislike to Professor Graystock, whom he hadn’t met before, and who had black straggly hair, like a jumble-sale crone, a wet, sensual mouth and a pale, waxy, formless face.

  ‘Who’s he in mourning for?’ Rupert asked Taggie in horror.

  ‘No one, I don’t think.’

  ‘Must be. Look at his fingernails and the inside of his collar.’

  Then Rupert had pushed off, promising he and the T-shirts would be back later. Taggie was sure he didn’t look after himself properly. If she made the chicken particularly nice, he might eat something this evening.

  At eight o’clock the first bottle of Bollinger was cracked as they waited for the final draft to be ready. Declan had just re-written the last page to give the whole thing a uniformity of style. Ursula and Freddie’s secretary were busy collating everything and Freddie and Declan were now folding up the confidential memos listing Harold White, Georgie Baines, Charles, Seb and Billy as Heads of various departments and putting these memos into envelopes.

  ‘Pity we can’t add Cameron Cook,’ sighed Freddie.

  ‘Rupert would have rung by now if he had anything to report,’ said Declan, who preferred it that way.

  Dame Enid and Maud, both well away, were now playing duets. The Lord-Lieutenant had lost so much money to Bas he’d probably have to sell another Pre-Raphaelite, but he couldn’t have enjoyed himself more. There were so many pretty women to gaze at, and they were all such splendid chaps, and Rupert had promised he should meet Joanna Lumley very soon.

  Janey, who was well stuck into the Bollinger, was breastfeeding again.

  ‘Mother and child – a lovely sight,’ said the Bishop who’d just arrived.

  ‘So much prettier than Deirdre Kill-Programme and her disgusting brat,’ said Georgie Baines to Seb Burrows.

  ‘Please,’ said Charles Fairburn faintly.

  ‘That baby’s drinking neat Bollinger,’ said Bas. ‘That’s why it’s so cheerful.’

  ‘I hope all our burn money isn’t being squandered on bubbly,’ said Professor Graystock, who was on his fourth glass.

  ‘It isn’t,’ said Taggie quickly. ‘Rupert’s paid for all of it.’

  Helped by Seb, she was now putting out big plates of chicken Estragon and rice salad. She’d worried herself sick that the sauce had gone wrong, but mercifully it had thickened as it cooled.

  ‘That looks marvellous, Taggie. I wish you’d marry me when I grow up,’ said Bas, who was now comfortably ensconced on the sofa with Janey and a full bottle.

  ‘This tomato salad is out of this world,’ said Seb, carrying the bowl in.

  Taggie liked Seb. He had a good body, hunky without being fat, thick light-brown hair, short at the back and long at the front, very direct slate grey eyes and he was very nearly as tall as she was.

  Then, as Big Ben struck nine, the applications were ready: forty copies of beautifully typed, ring-bound pages. On the front, beneath the clear plastic cover, was a drawing of a beautiful boy with his hand to his forehead, standing on the capitals T and U of the word Venturer against a clear cerulean background. On the back, also protected by a plastic cover, was an exquisite water-colour map of the area, painted by Caitlin, including the towns and villages, with little drawings of the relevant houses, where all the prospective Venturer directors lived, and with pale blue arrows from each of them converging on Cotchester. It had cost a lot to print, but they’d all thought it was worth it.

  Everyone went mad with excitement as they sat round reading, and at last holding in their hands tangible proof that it was all really happening.

  ‘Don’t spill drink over them, for Christ’s sake,’ said Declan.

  ‘It’s very good, Declan,’ said Harold White. ‘I’d forgotten how well you write. I love the bit about “carpets being so thick and offices so sound-proofed on the Corinium directors’ floor, that all one can hear is the faint rustle of nests being feathered”.’

  ‘I liked that bit too,’ said Declan, blushing.

  ‘And I love this bit about Corinium’s local news programmes being presented by “pretentious pastel-clad narcissists”,’ boomed Dame Enid. ‘That boring little fart Vereker won’t like that one bit.’

  ‘I hope that’s not actionable,’ said Professor Graystock primly. ‘And are you quite sure there was a Roman camp at Whychey?’

  ‘Quite,’ said Declan.

  ‘I like my cottage,’ said Marti Gluckstein, examining the map at the back. ‘I must come and look at it some time. Ouch!’ he yelled, as Freddie kicked him sharply on the ankle.

  ‘Sorry, but Declan thinks you spend every weekend there,’ whispered Freddie.

  ‘I do like your
ideas for religious programmes,’ said Janey, smiling up at the Bishop, who went very pink.

  Declan saw that everyone’s glasses were full, then got to his feet. ‘I’d just like to thank you all for having the courage to join Venturer, and for all the hard work you’ve put in already. But I must warn you, this has been the easy bit. Once it’s out in the open that we’re pitching for Corinium, Tony Baddingham is going to do everything to discredit us and rake up dirt about all of us. Our only hope is to stick together and trosst each other.’ He smiled round at everyone. ‘This is a very very proud day for me. Let’s all raise our glasses.’

  ‘Victory to Venturer,’ said Henry Hampshire, and amazingly, unselfconsciously, everyone followed suit.

  ‘I shall compose a battle song for Venturer and we’ll make a record,’ said Dame Enid.

  ‘I hope it’s better than the song cycle she’s just written,’ muttered Seb to Taggie. ‘It sounded more like a lot of tom cats being garrotted by knicker elastic. This chicken is just as much a work of art as your father’s application,’ he went on. ‘Can I have some more?’

  Everyone jumped as the doorbell went.

  ‘I can’t help thinking it’s Tony with a pitchfork,’ said Georgie Baines nervously.

  But it was only the man with the T-shirts and once again everyone went wild and put them on, including the baby and Gertrude. They were baggy enough, having been ordered to Caitlin’s specification, to fit Dame Enid and Charles Fairburn, and even the Bishop wore one over his dog collar. Janey wore hers just over pants to show off her long brown legs, and, after a lot of persuading, Taggie did the same.