Rivals

13

Declan’s first programmes for Corinium were a colossal success. The press agreed that Johnny Friedlander was the best interview he’d ever done, that the ones with Jackie Kennedy and the Princess were even better, and the ones with Mick Jagger and Harold Pinter even better than that. The programmes sold everywhere abroad, and there was even talk at the Network meetings of moving the series to seven-thirty on Thursday in an attempt to knock out ‘EastEnders’. Declan sweat shirts, mugs and posters were selling faster than bikinis in June and Schubert must have looked down from heaven and been surprised but delighted to see his Fifth Symphony galloping up the charts.

Once the first programme was over Declan was much less aggressive and uptight and even drank in the bar with the crew, but he was no less intransigent about wanting his own way. Cameron smouldered and bided her time. Tony was besotted with Declan at the moment, but, knowing the nature of the two men, Cameron realized it wouldn’t last.

Meanwhile, although the flood of resignations at Corinium had been arrested by Declan’s arrival, Simon Harris was getting nearer his nervous breakdown and the staff were muttering even more mutinously into their glasses of Sancerre at the Bar Sinister that Cameron was about to be put on the Board.

But, to stop Cameron getting smug, Tony, ever the bubble-pricker, finally invited the ravishing Sarah Stratton to lunch and arranged for James Vereker to interview her in the ‘Behind Every Famous Man’ series early in November. Cameron was livid and vented her rage on the rest of the staff.

The same week Sarah was due to be interviewed, Tony summoned Declan to his office.

‘How’s your cold?’ Declan asked Miss Madden as he walked through the outer office.

‘Much better,’ said Miss Madden, flushing. ‘How amazing of you to remember. Better hurry. Cameron’s in there already.’

Cameron was lounging menacingly by the window, wearing a black polo neck, black leather trousers and spiky high heels. Declan wondered if she walked all over Tony in bed in them. The room was full of cigar smoke. Tony was drinking a brandy, but didn’t offer Declan one.

‘Sit down. Congratulations to both of you,’ he said briskly. ‘I’ve just heard off the record that we got our highest local rating ever for your interview with the Princess.’

Declan sank into one of the low squashy sofas, which, with his long legs, were desperately uncomfortable unless one was lying down.

Tony leant back in his chair: ‘Cameron and I have decided it’s time you spread your wings, Declan.’

Declan looked wary.

‘We’d like you to interview Maurice Wooton this week.’

‘He’s not big enough,’ said Declan flatly. Lord Wooton was a high-profile Cotchester property developer but of little interest nationally. ‘And I’m already doing Graham Greene this week.’

‘That’s OK,’ said Cameron. ‘Do Lord Wooton as a special after the ten o’clock news on Friday night.’

‘Why can’t James do him?’

‘James is already doing Sarah Stratton in the Famous Man slot on “Cotswold Round-Up”. Besides, we want you.’

‘I’m only contracted to do one interview a week.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Tony. ‘We’ll pay you extra. We just want you to get really involved in the station.’

‘I don’t have the time.’ It was so hot in Tony’s office that Declan could feel his shirt drenched in sweat.

‘That’s what researchers are for,’ said Cameron, as though she was explaining to a two-year-old. ‘Deirdre Kilpatrick’s been working on Maurice Wooton all week. She’s come up with some terrific stuff. After all,’ she added tauntingly, ‘a guy as great as Henry Moore wasn’t too proud to employ studio assistants.’

Like a dog struggling out of a weed-clogged pond, Declan heaved himself up from the squashy sofa. ‘I do my own research,’ he said coldly, and walked out.

Hooray, thought Cameron, it’s begun to work.

On Thursday morning Cameron rang Declan at home. It was his official day off. He’d stayed up until four in the morning reading Graham Greene. Inspired, he was determined to spend the next two days on his Yeats biography, and here was Cameron’s horrible rasp ordering him to come into a meeting tomorrow at eleven o’clock.

‘So we can kick some ideas around about the line you might take with Maurice Wooton.’

Declan hung up on her. When he hadn’t shown up by eleven-thirty the following morning, Cameron rang The Priory in a fury. She got Maud, who said she was sorry but Declan was in bed.

‘At this hour? Is he ill?’

‘Not at all,’ said Maud. ‘He’s reading.’

‘Put him on.’

Declan told Cameron to go and jump in the River Fleet and that he’d no intention of coming in for any meeting. Tony then rang Declan and ordered him to come in that evening and interview Maurice Wooton. Declan, having just received an eighty-thousand-pound tax bill, which he had no way of ever paying unless he went on working at Corinium, said he’d be in later, but wouldn’t submit questions beforehand.

He slid into Corinium around two o’clock, when he knew Cameron and Tony would still be at lunch, and went down to the newsroom to talk to Sebastian Burrows, the youngest, brightest and therefore most frustrated of the reporters.

‘Deirdre Kilpatrick’s been working like mad on your Maurice Wooton interview,’ said Seb.

‘Deirdre Kill-Programme,’ said Declan.

Seb grinned: ‘You can say that again. Maurice is emerging as a total sweetie.’

‘You got any dirt on him?’ asked Declan.

‘He’s one of Tony’s best friends, isn’t that enough?’

‘Not quite — anything concrete?’

Sebastian’s thin face lit up. ‘I’ve got enough to send him down for ten years, but I daren’t use it.’

‘Give it to me,’ said Declan. ‘I’m going out.’

On the same Friday, Rupert Campbell-Black, having spent all week in meetings with the FA and the Club Managers trying to thrash out some suitable compromise on football hooliganism, decided he felt like a pit pony who needed a day off, and went hunting with Basil Baddingham.

Scent was very bad, however. It rained all day and the foxes sensibly decided to stay in their earths. Having re-boxed their horses, Rupert and Bas got back to Rupert’s dark-blue Aston-Martin to find the windscreen covered with leaves like parking tickets. Removing their drenched red coats and hunting ties, and putting on jerseys, they drove home through the yellow gloom.

‘Who shall we do this evening?’ said Bas, who was feeling randy.

‘No one,’ sighed Rupert. ‘I’ve got my red box to go through, and I’ve got to look in at some fund-raising drinks party.’

‘Pity,’ said Bas slyly, ‘I was going to show you the most amazing girl.’

‘That’s different,’ said Rupert. ‘Where does she live?’

‘Penscombe Priory.’

Thinking Bas meant Maud, Rupert said, ‘Isn’t she a bit long in the tooth for you?’

‘No, I’m talking about the daughter,’ said Bas. ‘She’s absolutely stunning.’

Back at The Priory, Grace, the housekeeper, who was making ridiculously slow progress sorting out the attic, stumbled on a trunk of Maud’s old clothes. Maud, who had just finished her last P. D. James and was suffering from withdrawal symptoms, wandered upstairs and started trying them on. Now she was parading round in a black-and-red-striped mini which fell just below her groin and showed off her still beautiful legs.

‘I remember walking down Grafton Street in 1968 in this,’ she said, ‘and an American clapping his hands over his eyes, and screaming: “Oh my Gard, can they go any higher?” My hair was down like this.’ Maud pulled out the combs so it cascaded down her back. ‘I was only twenty-four.’

‘You don’t look a day more than that now. Amizing,’ said Grace.

‘Oh, I adored this dress too.’ Maud tugged a sapphire-blue mini with a pie-frill collar out of the trunk. ‘I wore it to Patrick’s christening. I wonder if I can still get into it.’

‘Fits you like a glove,’ said Grace, who was trying on a maxicoat. ‘Amizing.’

As Maud admired herself in an ancient full-length mirror propped against the rafters, she heard Gertrude barking. Not displeased with her appearance, she went downstairs, then paused halfway. Below her in the hall, she could see two heads: one very dark, the other gleaming blond. Her heart missed a beat.

‘Maud,’ yelled Bas, ‘are you in?’

‘I’m up here,’ said Maud with the light behind her.

Bas looked up. ‘Caitlin,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d gone back.’

‘It’s me.’ Maud came slowly down the stairs. ‘Grice and I were being silly trying on my old clothes.’

‘How old were you when you first wore that?’

‘About twenty-one.’

‘You look about sixteen today,’ said Bas, kissing her.

‘Flattery will get you an enormous drink. I assume that’s what you’ve come for. Grice,’ Maud yelled up the stairs, ‘can you come down and fix some drinks? I’ll go and change.’

‘Don’t,’ said Rupert. ‘I bet Declan fell in love with you in that dress. I’m quite safe,’ he went on, also kissing Maud. ‘Some bloody hunt saboteur sprayed me with Anti-Mate this afternoon.’

‘Where’s Declan?’ asked Bas, as they went into the kitchen.

‘Ordered in to do an extra programme,’ said Maud, getting a bottle of whisky out of the larder.

‘My evil brother got the screws on him already?’ asked Bas. ‘Have you got anything to eat? I’m absolutely starving.’

‘There’s some chocolate cake and a quiche in the larder,’ said Maud, splashing whisky into three glasses. ‘Have a look and see what you can find.’

Rupert prowled round the room. There was a huge scrubbed table in the centre of the room, with chairs down either side. Poetry and cookery books crammed the shelves in equal proportions. A rocking-horse towered over Gertrude’s basket in the corner. Aengus the cat snored on some newly ironed shirts by the Aga. On the walls were drawings of Maud in Juno and the Paycock, and a corkboard covered with recipes and photographs of animals, cut by Taggie out of newspapers. Apart from a television set on a chest of drawers, every other available surface seemed to be littered with letters, bills, colour swatches, photographs waiting to be stuck in, dog and cat worming tablets, biros that didn’t work, newspapers and magazines.

‘Nice kitchen,’ said Rupert.

‘It’s like the room described by Somerville and Ross when they were packing up before moving,’ said Maud. ‘Under everything, there’s something.’

Valerie Jones, who dropped in half an hour later, didn’t think it was a nice kitchen at all. She was shocked to find Maud showing at least six inches of bare thigh, and Rupert and Basil with their long-booted legs up on the table, all getting tanked up on Declan’s whisky. Rupert was eating bread and bramble jelly and reading the problem page in Jackie. Bas was finishing up the remains of a mackerel mousse with a spoon. Gertrude, eyeing the remains of the quiche and the large chocolate cake, was now sitting drooling on the table on a pile of unironed sheets, which would no doubt go straight back on the beds, thought Valerie with a shudder.

Valerie herself, natty in a ginger tweed suit and a deerstalker, said she had just been to a Distressed Gentlefolk’s Committee Meeting with Lady Baddingham, and, deciding to ‘straike while the iron was hot’, had looked in to see if Maud had any jumble for the Xmas Bazaar next month.

‘Having just moved, you must have lots of old junk to throw out.’

‘Only her husband,’ said Bas, starting on the quiche.

‘Hush,’ reproved Maud softly. ‘Funnily enough, I’ve just been trying on all my old clothes. This was the dress I wore at Patrick’s christening. The priest gathered up my skirt with the christening robes by mistake and all the congregation were treated to the sight of my red pants.’

Valerie didn’t want to hear about Maud’s pants. ‘Then you must have lots of jumble,’ she said.

‘I never throw clothes away,’ said Maud.

‘Well, I’ve brought you a brochure of our Autumn range,’ said Valerie, determined to turn the visit to some advantage.

‘Kind,’ said Maud, chucking the brochure into the débris on the Welsh dresser. ‘Have a drink.’

‘Ay’m driving. Have you got anything soft?’ said Valerie.

‘Not round here, with Maud wearing that dress,’ said Rupert, cutting himself a piece of chocolate cake.

‘I’ll have a tea then,’ said Valerie, ‘and I’d love a piece of that gâteau, and those bramble preserves look quite delicious.’

‘Taggie picked the blackberries down your valley; we ought to give you a pot,’ Maud said to Rupert, as she put the kettle on. She felt wildly happy.

At that moment Grace walked in, wearing Maud’s red and black mini.

‘This is Amizing Grice,’ said Maud.

‘Amizing,’ said Grace, gazing at Rupert in wonder. ‘I’m just off to that lecture on glass-blowing at the Women’s Institute, Maud,’ she went on. ‘See you later.’

‘I didn’t know there was a WI meeting tonight,’ said Valerie, perplexed.

‘Straight up to the pub,’ explained Maud, as the front door banged.

‘It’s not a very good idea to be on Christian name terms with one’s help,’ said Valerie reprovingly. ‘We don’t really do it in Gloucestershire, you know.’

‘’Bye, Grace! Have a good evening,’ yelled Rupert.

Valerie’s small mouth tightened. Watching Maud pouring boiling water over a teabag, she hoped the mug was clean.

‘This quiche is seriously good,’ said Bas. ‘And for Christ’s sake leave some of that chocolate cake, Rupert.’

‘Did Grace make it?’ enquired Valerie. Maybe Grace was more of a treasure than she had at first appeared.

‘Grace can’t cook a thing,’ said Maud. ‘Taggie made all this. She wants to break into catering and do people’s dinner parties.’

‘She’d better come and work at the Bar Sinister,’ said Bas. ‘Darling, I wondered where you’d got to.’ He swung his feet off the table and stood up as Taggie came in.

She was very pale, with her hair in a thick black plait down her back, and wearing one of Declan’s red shirts above long, long bare legs.

‘Hullo,’ she said in delight to Bas. Then, embarrassed that he aimed straight at her mouth, turned her head slightly so he ended up kissing her hair. At that moment, over his shoulder, she saw Rupert. She gave a gasp of horror and turned as red as her shirt.

To Valerie’s equal horror, Maud removed the teabag from Valerie’s tea with her fingers. Then she introduced Taggie to everyone.

Smiling at Valerie, but totally ignoring Rupert, Taggie took a tin of baked beans out of the fridge and started to eat them with a spoon.

‘I’m sure we’ve met before,’ said Rupert, puzzled. ‘You’re not a Young Conservative, are you?’ Then, suddenly he twigged and started to laugh. ‘I remember now. It was at a tennis party.’

Taggie blushed even deeper.

‘Brilliant quiche, stunning mousse, marvellous chocolate cake,’ said Bas with his mouth full.

‘Oh, it was for Daddy’s supper,’ began Taggie, distressed, then stopped herself. Sometimes she could murder her mother. She was about to go upstairs when Bas grabbed her hand and, sitting her down beside him, tried to persuade her to work for him at the Bar Sinister.

‘It’s really kind of you,’ mumbled Taggie, ‘but I worked in a restaurant for two years. I want to branch out on my own.’

‘You can come and cook my breakfast any day of the week,’ said Rupert. She looked so different from the angry child who’d screamed at him about his stubble. ‘You were quite right,’ he added to Basil.

Again Taggie ignored him.

‘It’s very good of Bas,’ said Maud with a slight edge to her voice. ‘Most girls would leap at a job like that. I always had to de-emphasize my career for Declan,’ she added fretfully.

Taggie, however, was totally thrown. She couldn’t take in what Bas was saying. She was only conscious of this horrible monster, who’d haunted her nightmares for weeks, whom she’d last seen oiled, brown-skinned, erect in every sense of the word and as totally unselfconscious of his nakedness as a Zulu chief, and who was now drinking her father’s whisky and laughing at her across the table. Out of sheer nervousness, she leapt up and turned on the television.

‘Pratt,’ yelled Rupert, as James Vereker appeared on the screen.

Over at Corinium Television Sarah Stratton sat in Hospitality going greener (perhaps that was why it was called a green room), and wishing she’d never agreed to go on James’s programme.

The appalling Deirdre Kill-Programme (as everyone called her now) had visited her at home earlier in the week and worked out lots of questions that James could ask Sarah to promote discussion and bring in James’s caring nature.

Paul, furious that Sarah had been asked on, and not him, went on and on about how her high profile wouldn’t help his career at the moment. He was also furious that she’d spent a fortune for the occasion on a new black mohair dress with daisies embroidered on the front and huge padded shoulders, which she was not sure suited her. Thank God Rupert was at some Tory fund-raising bash at the moment, and wouldn’t watch the programme. Earlier, James had paid a fleeting visit to Hospitality to say hullo, rather like a famous surgeon in an expensive hospital, popping in before he removes half your intestine.

Ushered into the studio during the commercial break, Sarah was now sitting on the famous pale-pink sofa beside him. Catching sight of herself on the monitor, she wished she hadn’t worn the mohair; it was much too hot and the padded shoulders made her look like an American footballer. On rushed the make-up girl to tone down her flushed face.

‘Collar up, James,’ said Wardrobe.

‘I did it deliberately, Tessa,’ said James. ‘Thought it looked more casual. Remember to look at me, not the camera, Sarah.’ She was desperately nervous, which didn’t help. Glancing round at the idiot board to find out what question he was supposed to ask her first, he saw chalked in large letters: ‘James Vereker can’t do his programme without having a bonk first’.

‘Turn it over,’ hissed James, as a burst of ‘Cotswold Round-Up’ theme music signified the end of the commercial break.

Sarah, who had also seen the idiot board, screamed with laughter, and it was thus that the viewers had their first glimpse of her.

‘Sarah Stratton,’ said James, reading from the turned-over board, ‘you’ve been married to Paul Stratton, our member for Cotchester for nearly nine months now. How do you see your role as the wife of an MP, Sarah?’

Sarah straightened her face: ‘To support my husband in every possible way,’ she said, gazing straight at the camera.

In the O’Haras’ kitchen, Rupert turned up the sound.

‘Isn’t that Lizzie Vereker’s husband?’ said Maud. ‘I like Lizzie.’

‘She’s lovely,’ said Rupert. ‘If she lost three stone, I’d marry her.’

‘James is hell,’ said Basil. ‘Put him in front of a camera, you can’t get him down with a gun.’

‘Some viewers may find the following scenes disturbing,’ said Rupert. ‘Sarah’s nervous. Look at the way her eyes are darting and she’s licking her lips. Looks bloody good, though.’

Whatever she thought to the contrary, Sarah looked stunning on camera. She was now saying how hard it was falling in love with a married man.

‘I put no pressure on Paul to leave his first wife,’ she said demurely.

‘Bollocks,’ howled Bas. ‘She carried a chisel round in her bag for years, trying to chip Paul off like a barnacle.’

‘But because he did eventually leave her for me,’ went on Sarah, ‘and he made the decision, I’m branded a scarlet woman.’

‘With some justification,’ said Rupert. ‘And her husband is as mean as the grave. It’s so hard to get a drink in his house, the PM ought to make him the Minister for Drought. Which is not something anyone could accuse you of, Maud darling,’ he added, as Maud splashed the last of the whisky into his glass.

Taggie, who was ironing sheets, was as perplexed as Rupert had been earlier. ‘I’m sure I’ve seen her somewhere before,’ she muttered, then once again went absolutely scarlet as she realized that Sarah was the beautiful blonde who’d been playing nude tennis with Rupert.

‘She’s quite excellent at ball play,’ said Rupert, reading Taggie’s thoughts. ‘And you’re going to burn that sheet.’

Furiously, Taggie went on ironing. Fortunately a diversion was created with Valerie asking how Caitlin was getting on at Upland House.

‘It seems more like St Trinian’s than Enid Blyton,’ said Maud. ‘Caitlin says they all smoke like chimneys and have bottles of Malibu under the floorboards. But I had a nice half-term report from her house mistress, saying Caitlin was a dear girl who’d settled in well, but was too easily satisfied.’

‘Not something her future husband is going to grumble about,’ said Rupert, who was watching Taggie. He liked making her blush.

‘Caitlin’s like Taggie,’ said Maud. ‘Watches too much television.’

‘Sharon’s only allowed to watch occasionally at weekends,’ said Valerie smugly. ‘When I was young, my sister and I made our own amusements.’

‘So did I,’ agreed Rupert, ‘until Nanny told me it would make me go blind.’

Ignoring him, Valerie thought how much more attractive was James, with his charming boyish smile, than Rupert, who was always leading Freddie astray and making risqué remarks.

James, winding up Sarah’s interview, asked her if she had any plans for a career.

‘You must know — as a very famous man yourself,’ Sarah answered admiringly, ‘that wives of famous men have to take second place.’

‘It is possible to be famous and caring, Sarah,’ said James huskily.

‘Of course,’ said Sarah. ‘I’m just saying if you marry someone who’s been married before, you’re just that little bit more anxious to make the marriage work, to not put your own career first — to prove everyone wrong who said it wouldn’t last. So you just try harder.’

Taggie was shocked. How could Sarah say that, when she was busy having an affair with Rupert? It was only after a few minutes Taggie realized that Valerie was telling her all about the boutique.

‘You must pop in some time,’ said Valerie. ‘I know it’s difficult, dressing when you’re so tall, but I’m sure I could find something lovely for you.’

‘That’s really kind,’ said Taggie gratefully.

Rupert, watching Taggie, decided she really was very beautiful. It was as though someone had taken a fine black pen and drawn lines along her lashes and round the irises of those amazing silver-grey eyes. Her nose was too large, but the curve of the soft pink mouth emphasized by the very short upper lip was adorable, and he’d like to see all that lustrous black hair spilling over a pillow. She must be nearly five foot ten, he reckoned, and most of it legs, and she had the gentle, apologetic clumsiness of an Irish wolfhound, who can’t help knocking off teacups with its tail.

Noticing Rupert observing Taggie with such lazy, almost lustful affection, Maud felt a stab of jealousy.

‘Go and get another bottle of whisky from the larder, Tag,’ she said sharply, ‘and clear away all these plates.’

‘But it’s Daddy’s last bottle,’ protested Taggie.

Furious, Maud turned on her. ‘As if your father would deny a guest a drink in his own house.’

Trembling, Taggie switched off the iron, fetched the bottle from the larder and dumped it on the table with a crash. Gertrude was whining by the back door.

‘I’ll take you out, darling,’ said Taggie, pulling on a pair of black gumboots.

‘Do wrap up warm,’ said Valerie. ‘And if you want to get on in the country, you should wear green wellies,’ she added kindly.

‘If you really want to get on in the country,’ drawled Rupert, ‘you should get that dog’s tail straightened.’

It was the final straw. Giving him a filthy look, Taggie went out, slamming the back door behind her.

‘What’s up with her?’ asked Bas.

‘In love,’ said Maud, unscrewing the bottle of whisky. ‘Some friend of Patrick’s who hardly knows she exists. You know how moody teenagers are.’

Outside it was deliciously mild. The wind was shepherding parties of orange leaves across the lawn and sighing in the wood. The stream after the recent rain was hurtling down the garden. Above, russet clouds like stretched cotton wool didn’t quite cover the sky. Every so often through a chink glittered a brilliant star. Still shaking, Taggie tramped down the rose walk that so often in the past must have been paced by nuns, like her, praying for deliverance.

‘Oh, please God, get that horrible horrible man out of the house.’

She couldn’t stop thinking of Rupert’s lean oiled body, under the dark-blue jersey and mud-spattered white breeches. It was obvious her mother was wildly attracted to him; she’d seen the rapt expression, the flushed cheeks, the wild drinking so often before. And Rupert was leading her mother on, making those beastly salacious (there, at last she’d used her word for the day) remarks, and drinking all her father’s drink, and eating all his supper.

Despite the mildness of the night, she shivered as she contemplated the rows ahead if Maud started one of her things. She, Taggie, would get dragged in to provide alibis. Well, she wouldn’t cover up for her mother this time, she wouldn’t, she wouldn’t.

Her father didn’t want hassle at the moment; he needed keeping calm. Turning towards the house, its great battlements and turrets confronting the shadowy garden with a timeless strength, she felt slightly comforted. Surely the house would look after them.

After ‘Cotswold Round-Up’, James and Sarah, both feeling rather elated, were soon cut down to size.

‘What did you think of the interview, Cameron?’ asked James.

‘I’d rather watch slugs copulate,’ snapped Cameron.

Sarah in turn rang Paul. ‘Was I OK?’ she asked eagerly.

‘You were very clear,’ said Paul. ‘Have you seen Tony?’

‘Yes,’ said Sarah sulkily.

‘Did he say anything about putting me on the Board?’

‘No,’ said Sarah.

‘Come and have a drink,’ said James, as she slammed down the receiver.

‘Yes please,’ said Sarah.

Soon after Taggie took Gertrude out, Valerie went home. Maud, Basil and Rupert carried on carousing. Going into the kitchen much later, Taggie was relieved to find only Bas and Maud.

‘Daddy’s interviewing Lord Wooton in a few minutes,’ she said.

‘My husband,’ Maud told Basil, ‘always becomes the person he’s interviewing. When he did Margaret Thatcher he spent the week wearing power suits, talking about “circum-starnces”, and calling me Denis in bed.’

Noticing Taggie’s look of disapproval, Basil patted the chair beside him and said the interview should be interesting as Tony was pulling out every stop to get Maurice Wooton to join the Corinium Board.

Rupert returned from the downstairs loo, waving the New Statesman. ‘Don’t tell me Declan reads this,’ he said in outrage.

Maud nodded. ‘And actually believes it.’

‘But he can’t be a socialist when he earns such a vast salary.’

‘I know,’ sighed Maud. ‘He’s utterly inconsistent.’

‘I expect he’d like to give some of it away,’ protested Taggie angrily, ‘if everyone didn’t spend it all.’

‘If you can’t keep a civil tongue in your head,’ snapped Maud, ‘you’d better go to bed.’ She’d never known Taggie answer back like this.

Over in Studio 3 Declan always went into himself before a programme, but he nodded when Tony came on to the floor, reeking of brandy and waving a huge cigar. Tony was in an excellent mood; two of Corinium’s news stories had been used with a by-line by ITN; he’d just had an excellent dinner with Maurice Wooton, and now he’d got his way about Declan doing this interview, it was the thin end of the wedge. Declan couldn’t refuse to do other specials now — Freddie Jones next week, perhaps.

‘Maurice is just having a pee. He’s been made-up,’ he said to Declan. ‘Give him a nice easy ride. He may have a reputation as a hatchet man, but he runs a huge empire, he’s devoted to his grandchildren and does an enormous amount for charity. He’s also delightful if you get him on to opera or his cats.’

‘Just show his caring face, Declan,’ said Cameron from the control room. ‘And Camera 2, can you try to avoid Lord Wooton’s bald patch?’

Tonight’s vision mixer, sitting in front of her row of lit-up buttons, massaged her neck and opened a Kit Kat. It had been a long day. Daysee Butler fingered her stopwatch. In his earpiece Declan could hear her talking about her boyfriend: ‘He’s cooking supper for me tonight, cod in cheese sauce out of a packet. He’s got such charisma.’

Lord Wooton was now being ushered in by the floor manager. He had plainly had too much to drink with Tony, but Make-up had toned him down with green foundation, and blacked out his greying sideboards. His revoltingly sensual face with the big red pouting lower lip was just like one of Tony’s orchids, thought Declan, as he rose to his feet to welcome him.

‘Very warm night,’ said Lord Wooton.

‘Very,’ said Declan.

The introductory package, which Cameron had written, was full of nice stills and clips of Lord Wooton romping with cats, visiting children in hospital, playing cricket with grandsons, watching the first bricks of various buildings being laid, and collecting an OBE at the Palace. He was plainly delighted.

‘Don’t know where they dug up all those old photographs,’ he said untruthfully.

‘Ten seconds to end of opening package, Declan,’ said Daysee from the control room.

Surreptitiously Declan removed his earpiece and put it in his pocket. His first question was sycophancy itself.

‘As the leading property developer in Gloucestershire, probably the whole of the West Country, you must be proud of your achievement.’

Maurice Wooton put his hands together happily.

‘One is only as good as the people who work for one, Declan,’ he said smoothly. ‘You must know that. I have first-rate people, hand-picked of course.’

‘Pity you don’t take better care of them,’ said Declan amiably.

He then proceeded to carve Maurice Wooton up, starting with one of his managers who’d been sacked while he was in hospital recovering from open-heart surgery, then proceeding to another who’d been given no compensation when he broke his back falling off some scaffolding.

Tony rang Cameron in the control box.

‘What the fuck’s going on?’ he roared. ‘Tell him to ask Maurice about his fucking grandchildren.’

‘I can’t get through to him,’ yelled Cameron. ‘He’s taken out his earpiece.’

‘Well, tell the floor manager to tell him to put it fucking back in again.’

Ignoring all Maurice Wooton’s spluttering denials, Declan moved on to illegal takeovers, shady deals, and then produced a just-published secret Town Hall report, which claimed that, despite a huge grant from the Council, his firm had built a block of flats cheap to faulty specifications.

Temporarily speechless now, Maurice Wooton was mouthing like a great purple bull frog.

‘Another even more unattractive aspect of your business career,’ went on Declan relentlessly, ‘was the way you bribed three Labour councillors in the housing department at Cotchester Town Hall to give you the contract for the tower block development on Bankside.’

‘This is preposterous,’ exploded Maurice Wooton.

‘You deny it?’

‘Of course I do.’

Out of the corner of his eye, Declan could see the floor manager making frantic signals for him to replace his earpiece.

Ignoring them, he said: ‘Why, then, do Councillor Bridie, Councillor Yallop, and Councillor Rogers have five thousand pounds entered on their bank statements, paid in by you from a Swiss bank account? Here are the photostats of the bank statements, the cheques, and your letters to them.’ Declan brandished them under Maurice Wooton’s hairy expanding crimson nostrils, then threw them down on the table. ‘Thank God there are some Town Hall officials left with integrity.’

Cameron was so insane with rage, she stubbed her cigarette out by mistake on the hand of the vision mixer, who, screaming, pressed the wrong button, which ran in telecine of a lot of very fat schoolgirls doing an eightsome reel.

‘Go back to one, take fucking one,’ screamed Cameron.

The schoolgirls disappeared in mid-dance to be replaced by Maurice Wooton, standing up and shouting at Declan that the whole thing was a trumped-up pack of lies, and he was going home to ring his lawyers. Next moment he’d stormed out, leaving the studio in uproar. Declan sat turned to stone in his chair.

To their great disappointment, Corinium’s viewers were then treated to soothing music and a film showing close-ups of Cotchester’s wild flowers, so they missed Tony roaring into the studio, so angry he could hardly get the words out.

‘I’ve spent five years courting that man,’ he spluttered. ‘He was just about to join the Board and put fifteen million into our satellite project.’

Declan rose to his feet, towering over Tony.

‘You should have given me time to research him properly,’ he said coldly. ‘I might have found something nice to ask him, but I doubt it.’ And with that, he walked out of the studio.

Back at The Priory, Rupert, wiping his eyes, turned to Maud: ‘That was the best television programme I’ve seen for years and free schoolgirls thrown in, too. After Tony Baddingham, Maurice Wooton is without doubt the biggest shit in England, and your husband is the first socialist I’ve ever really admired. The Corinium switchboard must be absolutely jammed, or “preserved”, as dear Valerie would say, with congratulatory calls.’

At that moment the telephone rang. Rupert picked it up.

‘Brilliant programme,’ said a voice. ‘It’s the Western Daily Press. Is Declan in?’

‘What did I tell you?’ said Rupert, handing the receiver to Maud. ‘Don’t look so cross,’ he added to Taggie. ‘I’ll nip home in a minute and get your father another bottle.’

After Rupert had returned with the whisky, and he and Bas had left, Taggie watched her mother go to the hall mirror, fluff up her hair on top and smooth the dress over her hips, before sitting down at the drawing-room piano. She must be very drunk, thought Taggie, judging by the number of wrong notes.

What on earth could she give her father for supper, she wondered wearily, as she started to load the washing-up machine. Perhaps she ought to accept Bas’s offer of a job, and get out and meet people. She couldn’t eat her heart out for Ralphie for ever. She heard the front door bang. Going into the hall, she saw Declan gazing into the drawing-room at Maud playing Schumann in the dress she’d worn when they were first married, living blissfully on no money in Ireland. Her hair almost touched the piano stool.

Putting his hands on her shoulder, he said, ‘Why did you put that on?’

‘Grice and I were tidying away some of my old clothes.’

‘You look beautiful.’

Schumann halted abruptly, as Declan’s hands slid under the pie-frill collar. ‘Let’s go to bed.’

As Maud walked upstairs in front of him, his hands slid up between her bare thighs:

‘Christ, you’re wet.’

Maud smiled sleepily. ‘I’ve been thinking all evening about your coming home.’