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.

‘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 three 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.

‘Get out! I’ll move out tomorrow, but leave me alone now.’ She collapsed, sobbing, on the sofa. Regurgitating her past with Patrick earlier had only underlined how terrifying it was to have no security. She was a panic-stricken sixteen-year-old again, racing through the night away from Mike with nowhere to go.

Tony poured two fingers of brandy into a glass, then moved towards her, until she could feel the solidness of his thigh against hers. She resisted the temptation to cling on to it, as a child might fling its arms around a tree for comfort.

‘You were jealous, really jealous,’ purred Tony. ‘Was that why you led that boy on?’

‘Sure.’

He caught her hair, yanking her head back. ‘Did you sleep with him?’

‘Yes,’ she muttered. Then, terrified he was going to hit her or throw the brandy into her face, ‘But not the way you think, I was so goddam tired. I hadn’t slept for nights worrying about everything. I crashed out on his bed.’

‘And nothing happened?’

‘Nothing, nothing! He’s just a kid.’ Oh please make him believe her.

‘Did Declan know you spent the night there?’

‘No, I never saw him. He never came out of the bedroom.’

With the franchise coming up this year, Tony decided, he didn’t really want to lose her, but he was going to enjoy torturing her a bit more.

‘And you promise never to see the boy again?’

‘I promise,’ said Cameron wearily. ‘But he may try to see me.’

‘We’ll have to put pressure on Declan to stop him then, won’t we?’ said Tony silkily, as he took off Cameron’s jacket.

‘That is a very disturbing dress. I’d rather you didn’t wear it in public again.’

Putting his hand under the skirt, he jabbed two fingers up inside her.

Cameron winced. ‘I can’t, Tony, not tonight. I’m really pooped.’

‘You can,’ said Tony softly, ‘if you want to be Controller of Programmes.’

Three days after Patrick’s party Taggie was gingerly testing her heart and finding that the ache for Ralphie was much less acute than she’d expected it to be when the doorbell rang.

In the doorway stood Rupert. His suntan was already beginning to fade.

‘Hullo,’ he said, soulfully gazing into her eyes. ‘Since your wonderful party, I haven’t been able to eat a thing.’

‘Oh my goodness,’ stammered Taggie, her heart beginning to thump.

Rupert grinned. ‘Could I possibly have my knives and forks and plates back?’

Taggie was used to unrequited love. Patrick, however, was not. Hopelessly spoilt by his mother, accustomed to attracting girls effortlessly, he couldn’t believe Cameron didn’t want to see him any more.

Despite Declan’s tirades and Taggie’s pleading, he continued to pester her with letters and telephone calls. Then, when these were not answered, he hung round the Corinium studios and outside her house.

Cameron, in fact, had hardly had time to think. As well as producing Declan’s programme and coping with her new job as Acting Controller of Programmes, she had to face a virtual palace revolution from a staff outraged by her appointment.

The afternoon before he was due to go back to Trinity, Patrick rang Cameron at the office. Expecting a call from Rupert about coming on Declan’s programme, Cameron unthinkingly picked up the telephone instead of leaving it to her secretary.

‘Can I speak to Cameron?’ said Patrick.

Cameron froze. Putting on a cockney accent, she said, ‘I’m afraid she’s not at her desk at the moment.’

‘Where is she?’ snapped Patrick. ‘Lying with the Managing Director under his desk.’

Cameron hung up.

The telephone was ringing again as she got home that evening. Running into the hall, she snatched up the receiver. It was Rupert answering her call.

‘We were talking about a date for you to come on Declan’s programme,’ she said with a confidence she didn’t feel. ‘I was just hoping to firm you up.’

Rupert laughed. ‘Extraordinary terminology you use in television.’

His diary was ridiculously full, but to her amazement he said he could make a Wednesday in February, which turned out to be St Valentine’s Day. He’d been so adamant he wouldn’t do the programme.

‘And in case I don’t bump into Declan beforehand, can you ask him if he’s free for dinner afterwards?’

Cameron didn’t say that after Declan had taken Rupert to the cleaners she thought it most unlikely.

‘That was a good party on New Year’s Eve,’ said Rupert. ‘I saw you bopping in your suede dress. I hoped you’d jump out of your skin.’

The next moment Cameron nearly did jump out of her skin, as she felt a kiss on the back of her neck. Patrick had walked in through the unlocked door.

‘Get out,’ hissed Cameron, clapping her hand over the receiver.

Shaking his head, Patrick sauntered into the living-room. She caught a blast of whisky as he passed.

Talking gibberish, furious at having to wind up her conversation with Rupert so abruptly, she said goodbye and went into the living-room, where she found Patrick hurling darts at the dart board.

‘Nice place you’ve got here. I can see why you wouldn’t want to give it up in a hurry.’

‘Get out,’ screamed Cameron.

‘Not until you tell me why you didn’t ring back.’

He went up to the board, and pulled out the darts. His hands were shaking, his eyes were black hollows in a deathly pale face. He must have lost pounds; he looked terrible.

‘There was no reason to call back. We had a fun day.’

‘A fun day?’ he asked incredulously. ‘Was that all it meant to you, after the sunrise, and all you told me about your mother and Mike and you falling asleep in my arms?’

‘Shut up,’ hissed Cameron, looking round in terror, expecting Tony to pop up from under the piano.

Patrick picked up a huge bunch of anemones which he’d left on the dentist’s chair.

‘I bought you these. For Christ’s sake, I love you. Can’t you understand that?’

In answer Cameron snatched the flowers from him and hurled them into the fireplace. Patrick winced and turned back to the dart board. The first dart missed, crashing into the wall, the second hit the glass in the frame of one of Cameron’s awards, the third hit a plate.

‘Pack it in,’ said Cameron more calmly. ‘If Tony turns up, he’ll kill us both.’

‘He’s a fiend. I’ve been checking up on him,’ said Patrick, sitting down at the piano. ‘He’s so avaricious,’ he went on between crashing chords, ‘even the bags under his eyes have got gold in them, and he’s corrupting you too, turning you into his pet Rottweiler to savage any of his staff he wants to reduce to jelly. You’ll never get out of the Underworld if you stay with him.’

‘Tony suits me,’ said Cameron over the din. ‘We’ve been together for three years, OK? My career’s the only thing that matters.’

‘So you agreed to drop me if he made you Controller of Programmes?’

‘You flatter yourself. What can you offer me?’

Patrick’s hands came down in a jumble of discords. ‘I, being poor,’ he said bitterly, ‘can only offer you my dreams.’

‘Stop talking like a prime-time soap.’

‘You should know, you make enough of them. Can I have a drink?’

‘You’ve had enough,’ snarled Cameron. ‘Tony’ll be here in a minute.’

‘And he’ll settle you in that dentist’s chair,’ said Patrick scornfully, ‘and say “open wide”, and then it’s Wham, bam, thank you, Mammon. My Christ.’

He slammed the piano lid down and got to his feet.

‘Don’t be obnoxious,’ hissed Cameron.

On New Year’s Day, when she’d sobbed in his arms, he’d seemed so strong. Suddenly now he looked terribly young and frightened. Cameron was too insecure herself to be drawn to frailty.

‘I’m truly sorry,’ he muttered. ‘It hurts loving you, that’s all. Look, I’ll do anything. I’ll chuck Trinity, get a job. It’ll be easy with Pa’s connections.’

‘Always fall back on Daddy, don’t you?’ taunted Cameron. ‘You bitch about his philistine programme, but you’ll bleed him white when it suits you. Well I’m not having you bleeding me white. Can’t you get it into your Neanderthal skull that I don’t want you around?’

Guilt at the way she’d treated him made her even more brutal.

‘I can’t help myself,’ said Patrick, going towards the door. ‘La Belle Dame sans merci has me totally in thrall.’

He went to the nearest pub and drank until long after closing time. The landlady felt sorry for the beautiful, obviously desolate young man sitting there quietly gazing into space.

At midnight Patrick parked his car four houses down from Cameron’s and got out. It was a punishingly cold night. Cotchester slumbered beneath her eiderdown of snow. In a sky russet from the streetlamps huge stars flickered. Icicles glittered from Cameron’s gutters. In front of the house beside Cameron’s green Lotus was parked Tony’s bloody great dark-red Rolls Royce with the Corinium ram on the bonnet. There was a light on in the top of the house — Cameron’s bedroom, guessed Patrick. He imagined Tony brutally clambering over her lovely body. The Sunday before last she’d lain in his arms, pliant as a child. He wanted to plunge one of the icicles into Tony’s heart.

Wearing only a jersey and an old pair of cords, he was shivering violently now. Then he noticed that Tony’s car keys were still in the dashboard. Trying the car door he found it open. The lecherous bugger had obviously been in such a hurry to get at Cameron he’d forgotten to lock it.

Easing open the door, pulling out the keys, Patrick chucked them into a nearby flower bed. They landed deep in a lavender bush, hardly scattering the snow.

At four o’clock in the morning Tony looked at his watch. ‘I must go.’

Cameron didn’t dissuade him. She was utterly shattered. To eradicate any memory of Patrick, Tony had recently insisted on indulging in sexual marathons. Four times that night, he thought smugly; no one could accuse him of losing his touch. Cameron daren’t complain. She was also twitchy that Patrick might do something insane to rock the boat.

Hearing Tony let himself out, she was just falling asleep when she heard a key turn in the door. It was a sound that always unnerved her, reminding her of Mike. For a wild moment of dread and longing she thought it might be Patrick.

‘Did I leave my keys here?’ shouted Tony.

By the time they’d upended the entire house, the car and the drive, screamed at each other and nearly frozen to death, the lights had come on in the houses opposite and curtains were twitching in the houses on either side. There was no way Tony could start the Rolls, or get someone to help push it out of the way. If he rang Percy, his chauffeur, it would be round the entire network in a flash, so he spent the next three hours frantically and abortively ringing round the country, trying to find another set of keys.

In the end he had to order a taxi from the station. His temper was not improved by the driver recognizing him and slyly my Lording him all the way home.

Arriving at The Falconry, he had to provide Monica with a ridiculously convoluted explanation that he’d decided to come home that night, but that his car had gone into a skid on the motorway and he’d had to abandon it. He then had to keep her in bed in the morning, so she wouldn’t drive into Cotchester and see his car parked outside Cameron’s house.

As it was, poor, loyal Cyril Peacock tracked down a key and removed the Rolls by midday, but by then almost the entire Corinium staff had seen the car on their way in to work and had had a good laugh. That afternoon, Cameron passed the staff noticeboard. Beneath the card announcing her appointment as Acting Controller of Programmes, someone had added the words: ‘and Mistress of the Rolls’.

Later that day, Patrick rang Cameron from Birmingham Airport to say goodbye.

‘Did you steal Tony’s keys?’ she shouted.

‘Tell him to look under the lavender on the left of the front door.’

Cameron let Patrick have it. ‘You stupid asshole. If Monica had come by and seen the car, you’d have landed Tony in a divorce court.’

‘I thought that’s what you wanted.’

‘Don’t be so fucking infantile.’

‘I couldn’t help it.’ Patrick’s voice faltered. ‘I can’t bear to think of that great toad in bed with you.’

‘Get out of my life,’ screamed Cameron. ‘You don’t know the rules.’

‘I love you.’ Patrick was almost crying.

‘Well, I don’t love you. You’re a fucking nuisance. Piss off and try and do something worthwhile with your life.’

She was dead scared of telling Tony about the keys, but was amazed to find that he was grimly pleased.

‘What a very silly little boy to put such a very large nail in his father’s coffin.’