Rivals

by Jilly Cooper

  By comparison Valerie’s garden was utterly dreadful, but had certainly attracted large crowds, particularly round the television crew. Fighting her way through until she was blocked by a large bed of purple and salmon-pink gladioli, Cameron saw James up the other end interviewing Valerie and quickly stifled a scream of laughter. Valerie was dressed for Ascot in a yellow and white shirt-waister and a huge buttercup-yellow hat trimmed with yellow roses, but was totally unaware that someone had stuck a ‘Support Venturer’ sticker on her bottom.

  Looking across the sea of mauve and salmon-pink, Cameron caught her breath in joy, because there, beside Freddie and Lizzie Vereker, also trying very hard not to laugh, was Rupert. As if drawn by her longing, he looked up and gave a brief grin of surprise before instantly resuming his normal deadpan expression.

  ‘Cotswold Round-Up/Green Lawns/Take Four,’ said the second assistant, snapping the clapper board.

  ‘One only has to look at your flower beds, Valerie,’ said James as the camera panned slowly in on the sea of mauve and salmon-pink, ‘to appreciate what a truly caring gardener you are. Tell us your secret.’

  ‘Well, James,’ began Valerie; then her little laugh turned to a squawk of rage as the normally well-trained Beaver, suddenly seeing Cameron, who’d spent a great deal of time sharing his master’s bed recently, crashed across the bed of gladioli, snapping and flattening most of them, and throwing himself on her in total ecstasy.

  Just for a few seconds, to a crescendo of Valerie’s squawks, Cameron and Rupert were caught on camera, absolutely collapsing with laughter, before Rupert sharply called Beaver off.

  As she drove home rather tight later in the evening with James, Lizzie said, ‘Cameron’s the one you and Tony should be watching. I’m certain she’s having an affair with Rupert.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ snapped James. ‘Cameron only cares about Corinium.’

  On Sunday night on his way back from France, where he’d made great strides in acquiring a stake in French television, Tony dropped in at the office to see how The Falconry garden looked on video. The cameraman had left the tape on his desk. Loosening his tie, pouring himself a large drink, Tony put the tape in the machine and lay back on his squashy sofa to watch. He was enchanted with the results. Monica had really come up trumps this year. How right he’d been not to leave her for Cameron – when one considered the ghastly shambles Paul Stratton had made of his career after he’d left Winifred. Having played back The Falconry footage twice more, he decided to have a good laugh, and ran the tape on to have a look at Valerie’s garden. Having located it, he played the tape back five times, particularly freezing the frame on the last ten seconds.

  Then he walked out of the building not even bothering to lock the drinks cupboard or his office door, and drove straight over to Hamilton Terrace. Cameron was not there. Letting himself in, he searched systematically through the house. In the bedroom wastepaper basket he found what he was looking for. A pile of tiny torn-up scraps of paper. No one tore paper up that small unless they wanted to hide something. And it was an added precaution, as Cameron wasn’t expecting to see him until tomorrow night and by that time the daily would have emptied the basket. It took him a long time to put the pieces together because his hands were trembling so much, but finally he was able to read the words: Venturer meeting, Henry’s house, 12.30 Sunday.

  Cameron got home about midnight. Sated and reeling from Rupert, she hadn’t even bothered to shower afterwards as she wanted to keep the sweat and smell of him on and inside her body as long as possible. Dropping her briefcase in the hall, she wandered into the drawing-room. The bulb that turned on by the door had blown, so in the faint light from the street lamps she groped her way across the room to turn on the light by her desk. The next minute she leapt in terror as a hand shot out, grabbing her leg just above the knee. Burglars, was her first panic-stricken thought; then, as a light flashed on, she saw Tony crouched on the sofa like a venomous toad.

  ‘What are you doing skulking in the dark?’ she stammered.

  ‘What are you doing,’ said Tony in a voice that utterly froze her blood, ‘going to a Venturer meeting at Henry Hampshire’s house today?’

  Cameron’s gasp of horror gave it all away: ‘I-I-I had a tip-off. I went along to spy. I just hung around outside the gates, trying to see who was going in.’

  ‘Who gave you the tip-off?’

  Cameron’s mind raced. ‘I overheard people talking in the Bar Sinister – in the next booth.’

  ‘You bloody liar,’ hissed Tony. ‘And how long has Rupert been stuffing you?’

  ‘He isn’t,’ gibbered Cameron, wincing as his hand tightened on her leg. ‘He’s a bastard. The last person I’d shack up with.’

  Tony tugged her towards him, burying his nose briefly in her groin.

  ‘You reek of him, you fucking whore. And how come his dog knows you so well? It’s all on tape, sweetheart.’

  And the next moment he’d hit her across the room. She fell with a crash, catching her head on the bookshelf. Then he was on her again, picking her up by her shirt and smashing his left fist into her face. This time she crashed back into a small table, knocking over a vase of buddleia.

  He’s going to kill me, she thought, as he lunged at her again, kicking her in the ribs until she groaned for mercy. Yet, at the same time, another part of her terror-crazed mind was thinking that she had to get out of there before he got his hands on her briefcase which contained all her notes on the meeting, and, even worse, the names of the Corinium moles.

  As he dragged her to her feet and hit her again, she managed to grab a chair and, swinging it round, caught him on the side of the head, narrowly missing his eye with one of the legs. It gave her a breathing space. Grabbing the vase of buddleia that was now leaking onto the floor, she hurled it at him and stumbled out of the room, banging the door behind her. Gathering up her briefcase, she just managed to put up the double catch on the front door, locking him in as she slammed it. By the time he’d managed to clamber out of the drawing-room window, she’d started up the Lotus and was on her way to Rupert’s.

  Putting her hand up to her head where she’d hit the bookcase, she could feel her hair sticky with blood. Looking in the driving mirror she saw more blood pouring out of her right eye and nearly blacked out. She had got to make it to Rupert’s with the briefcase, or Tony would catch up and kill her. Somehow, in a daze of pain and sickness, constantly wiping the blood out of her eyes, she managed to reach Penscombe.

  Rupert’s front door was unlocked. The hall was dimly lit. Tripping over the dogs she screamed for him.

  ‘Angel, how nice. Have you forgotten something?’ he said, coming down the stairs wearing only a pair of jeans and reading Horse and Hound.

  Then she found and switched on the main hall light and he saw her properly. Her right eye had closed up now and her upper lip was cut and terribly swollen. Her face, hair and shirt were drenched in blood.

  ‘My Christ,’ he said, appalled. ‘What the fuck happened?’

  ‘Tony found out.’

  ‘My poor little baby.’ He raced down the stairs, drawing her into his arms, feeling the stickiness of her blood-soaked hair and the frantic racing of her heart. ‘The bastard, where is he? Let’s get you a doctor, then I’m going round to kill him.’

  ‘I’m OK,’ mumbled Cameron. ‘He had provocation. You’d probably have done the same thing under the circs.’ The next moment she passed out.

  When she regained consciousness she was in Rupert’s double bed, dressed in one of his shirts, with most of the blood washed off. A Doctor Benson, who was rather smooth and glamorous, had rolled up in his dinner jacket, reeking of brandy and Gold Spot, and, after examining her, assured her that her face wouldn’t be marked. Having patched her up, saying she might have to have stitches in her head in the morning, he gave her a shot to sedate her.

  ‘I don’t want my head shaved,’ she muttered when Rupert came back.

  ‘Your hair’s so sh
ort it’s practically shaved already,’ said Rupert, sitting down on the bed and taking her hands. ‘I’m so desperately sorry, angel. I got you into it.’

  It took all Cameron’s pleading to stop him going straight round to Hamilton Terrace or even to The Falconry to beat Tony to a pulp.

  ‘Think of the adverse publicity. It’ll only trivialize Venturer’s bid.’

  ‘Nothing trivial about those bruises,’ said Rupert, touching her swollen lip with his finger. ‘How did he rumble us?’

  ‘Saw the video of Valerie’s opening and Beaver’s crash-landing in the gladioli. And somehow he found out I was at the Venturer meeting yesterday.’

  Very, very gently Rupert was stroking her cheek. Despite the pain in almost every part of her body, she had never felt safer or closer to him.

  ‘Hell knows no fury like a womanizer scorned,’ he said lightly. ‘Well, he had to know some time. You’d better move in here.’

  Cameron utterly despised women who cried in front of men. It was taking an unfair advantage and outraged her feminist principles. But once the tears started spilling out of her bruised eyes, she found she couldn’t stop them.

  ‘Is it such a ghastly thought?’ said Rupert, taking her in his arms.

  ‘No, no it’s the nicest thought in the world. I guess I don’t want to railroad you.’

  ‘You’re not. You’ve no idea how I hated letting you go back every time, particularly to Tony. I’m sick of never seeing you. Don’t worry about your brilliant career. I’ll look after you. And tomorrow, as a symbol of your new dependence, I’m going to chuck that beastly briefcase into the lake.’

  Cameron managed a weak smile. ‘You had better take the papers out first, or Tony’ll be dropping by, using the truth drug on your duck.’

  She was drowsy with dope now, so he laid her back on the pillow.

  ‘I’ll try not to get under your feet,’ she muttered. ‘I d-do love you – so so much.’

  ‘I know you do.’ Rupert got to his feet. ‘Now go to sleep.’

  ‘Please don’t go.’ She was suddenly frantic. ‘You will sleep here, won’t you?’

  ‘’Course I will. I’ll be back in a minute. I’m just going to take the dogs out.’

  Wandering mindlessly through the garden, Rupert found himself on the edge of the lake, breathing in the soapy smell of the meadowsweet, listening to the frogs croaking. There were no stars, and, glancing across the valley, he saw Taggie’s turret was in darkness.

  RIVALS

  35

  Valerie Jones was absolutely furious when nothing about her Opening appeared on ‘Cotswold Round-Up’, but not nearly as angry as Declan when Rupert told him what had happened.

  ‘What the fock were you doing taking a dog you can’t control to Valerie’s opening?’

  ‘I control my dogs a bloody sight better than you.’

  ‘We’re not talking about me. Think of the adverse publicity.’

  ‘There won’t be any. I refrained from beating Tony to a pulp.’

  Declan sighed. ‘And how the hell is Tony going to explain the overnight loss of his mistress and Programme Controller to his staff? Someone’s going to leak the story. Pirated tapes of Beaver’s flatfoot through the gladioli are no doubt circulating the network already, and it won’t be long before they reach the press and the IBA.’

  ‘It was terribly funny. I wish you’d seen Valerie’s face.’

  ‘It’s not funny,’ thundered Declan. ‘I suppose you’re used to having your character blackened but it won’t do Venturer any good. The IBA don’t like this kind of thing.’

  He couldn’t understand how Rupert could be so unrattled by such a catastrophe. He supposed he’d always lived in the eye of the storm.

  ‘I don’t know who comes out worse,’ Declan went on, ‘you setting out coldly and deliberately to seduce Cameron so we had a mole on our side, or Tony who beat her up. A lot of people will feel Tony was justified. He was only acting in the heat of the moment.’

  ‘Oh, come off it,’ snapped Rupert. ‘Talk about making mountains out of moles. The story we leak is that Cameron and I were attracted to each other when we met, when you interviewed me in February. We resisted it because we were on opposing sides for as long as we could, but now she’s moved in with me and Venturer has the best Head of Drama in the country. Christ, we’re both free agents. It’s Tony who’s the adulterer and the mistress-basher. He won’t want to make a big thing of it because of Monica and the IBA.’

  A story was duly leaked and appeared in the Mail the next day that Cameron Cook had changed sides, moved in with Rupert and that Tony was devastated to lose his star producer. No reference was made to Cameron being Tony’s mistress, or of her being beaten up by him.

  Rumour, however, was rife and by Wednesday Corinium had leaked a counter-story accusing Venturer of poaching and cold-blooded enticement, and putting the blame firmly on Rupert.

  ‘A lonely, single woman nearing thirty, worried about missing the marital boat, is in a particularly vulnerable position,’ Tony was quoted as saying.

  Rupert was furious. ‘All we have to do is give a photograph of Cameron’s bruises to the press.’

  ‘Don’t be so bloody stupid,’ said Declan crushingly. ‘You’ve no proof Tony did it and not you. It isn’t as though you’ve exactly got a blameless reputation when it comes to beating up.’

  Tony, once he had cooled down, was absolutely shattered by Cameron’s defection. He’d had no idea how much both he and Corinium had come to depend on her, both as an inspiration and a sparring partner.

  Discovering through his spies that Rupert would be in London opening a new sports stadium on Thursday, Tony drove over to Penscombe to see her. Surrounded by Rupert’s pack of dogs, with Mrs Bodkin in the kitchen and Mr Bodkin strimming the long grass round the lake, Cameron felt safe to let him in. Dressed in an orange bikini, she still looked as though she’d just done fifteen rounds with Barry McGuigan.

  Tony followed her out to the pool, which sparkled brilliant turquoise in the sunshine and was no longer filled with leaves. It killed him to see her in this beautiful opulent setting, stretched out oiled on one of Rupert’s reclining chairs, guarded by Rupert’s lurcher Blue, who lay by her feet panting, but growling every time Tony approached.

  Immediately Tony begged her to come back, telling her for the first time how much he loved her and, when that had no effect, offering to leave Monica and marry her. He didn’t even lose his temper when she told him to bugger off.

  ‘Your job’s open for you to come back whenever you want it, and here are the keys to Hamilton Terrace.’ He threw them on to the table. ‘The house may belong to Corinium, but it’s still yours when you need it. Come and get your clothes whenever you want to. I shouldn’t have beaten you up, but I love you and I just saw red.’

  ‘Just like you did the last time I came home late after spending the day with Patrick,’ said Cameron. ‘Get out.’

  Tony, predictably, couldn’t remain nice for long. ‘You know it’s only a matter of time until Rupert ditches you,’ was his parting shot. ‘Five days, five weeks; he may even keep you five months until Venturer finally don’t get the franchise; then he’ll kick you out like all the rest and you’ll come running back to me.’

  Cameron didn’t believe Tony would leave Monica, particularly during the franchise year, but at least it now meant she could pick up her clothes, her books, and, much more important, her tapes and prizes from Hamilton Terrace. She also felt privately that it was nice to have Tony as a bolthole in case Rupert started playing her up.

  Rupert, in fact, couldn’t have been more angelic those first few days, fussing over her, seeing she didn’t get too tired, ensuring Mrs Bodkin made her delicious food (which Cameron privately thought contained far too much seasoning and fats), making love to her with surprising gentleness and subtlety, so he didn’t crush her bruised ribs or her battered face.

  The weather was beautiful too – long hot days, followed by short sweet night
s. Cameron was happy to sleep and read and sunbathe and explore Rupert’s woods and fields with the dogs. Gradually, as the black eye and the swelling on her lips disappeared, she felt she was healing inside and out.

  The only drawback was Mr and Mrs Bodkin, shadowy, polite, running Rupert’s life like clockwork, but always there in the background. Cameron wanted Rupert on her own, she was not used to servants. She wanted to wander round the house naked and make love in the kitchen if she felt like it. She was also inclined to treat Mr and Mrs Bodkin like Corinium minions, rapping out orders, snapping at slowness and even more at ignorance.

  Even Rupert, famous for his caprice and short fuse with staff, had to pull her up repeatedly: ‘Taggie O’Hara increases her vocabulary by learning a new word every day. You could start off with: please and thank you.’

  Any reference to Taggie sent Cameron through the roof, so, the second week after she moved in, determined to prove to Rupert that she could cook and run a house much better than Taggie, she persuaded Rupert to give Mr and Mrs Bodkin a few days off.

  ‘I’m better,’ she insisted. ‘I want to look after you. I’m going to cook you some decent food. You’re getting far too much cholesterol.’

  ‘Do I look as though it’s harming me?’ said Rupert, who was eating white bread and dripping sprinkled with salt as he sat immersed in the Scorpion.

  ‘No, but it’s futile to abuse a magnificent constitution. It’ll catch up with you. And why don’t you try to read the Guardian occasionally instead of that trash?’

  ‘Because it uses much too long words and makes snide remarks about my party,’ said Rupert.