Rivals

40

Taggie had a very wearing September. Getting a besotted and reelingly untogether Caitlin packed up and back to Upland House was bad enough, but dispatching Declan to Ireland was even worse.

As the departure date drew nearer, he grew increasingly reluctant to leave Maud or his precious franchise, which was just coming up to the boil.

Maud was plainly revelling in The Merry Widow. Declan was glad, but was her euphoria slightly over the top? And was it really necessary for her to have a bath, wash her hair and pinch yet more of Taggie’s clothes before every rehearsal? And when she carolled the words ‘All the world’s in love with love, and I love you,’ over and over again from the Southern Turret, who were they really aimed at? As the yellow woods turned gold and the swallows seemed to postpone their departure, and even the huge red suns sunk more slowly into Rupert’s woods in order to hear Maud’s exquisite notes floating down the valley, Declan prayed she wasn’t leading her leading man on too much.

Maud herself was much happier after Caitlin had gone back to school. No one was quicker on the draw than a teenager in love, which ruled out any illicit incoming telephone calls for Maud. But now it seemed Cameron Cook was always in the house, monopolizing the telephone and Declan, and not being deferential enough to Maud, the arrogant bitch. Anyone would think they were going off on a six months’ polar expedition rather than three silly weeks on location.

Maud also bitterly resented Cameron treating Taggie like a slave. Only this morning, on the eve of departure, Perry O’Donovan, who’d been cast as Yeats, wanted Cameron to call him back, and Taggie had taken the number down wrong.

‘Don’t keep apologizing,’ screamed Cameron, running out of breath after five minutes of invective. ‘Just get it right in future.’

The only person allowed to exploit and scream at Taggie, reflected Maud, should be Maud herself.

The eve of departure, in fact, was full of spats, and now at dusk Declan was in the library firing off last-minute instructions to Freddie, who was just back from Portugal again, and Rupert, who was just off to Virginia for a few days. Between them they would probably run things far more smoothly than Declan. The appalling Professor Graystock had also dropped in, returned from his working holiday in Greece to get ready for the new university year, and was, as usual, swilling Declan’s whisky. Dame Enid had just come down from upstairs, after going through Maud’s Merry Widow score with her and making some extremely helpful suggestions.

‘She’ll be totally irresistible,’ Dame Enid told Declan as she accepted a large pink gin. ‘Wish I were playing her leading man.’

Cameron sat in the corner going through her lists for tomorrow with half an ear on the meeting. She’d checked that everyone — actors, wardrobe, make-up, and crew — knew where to meet her and Declan at Birmingham Airport; she’d double-checked that the air-conditioned coach would be waiting to take them to Sligo by early evening, and that the hotel overlooking the bay would be expecting them for dinner.

Glancing across the room at Rupert, who was gazing moodily out of the window at Claudius chewing a library book, she knew that he was bored. There was nothing he loathed more than other people’s waffle. He’d been affectionate enough recently, but slightly detached; perhaps he always distanced himself before a separation. She hated the thought of him going to Virginia on his own. She couldn’t imagine American women leaving anything as beautiful or as explosively macho alone. She’d lived with him for sixty-eight days and — she glanced at her watch — eighteen hours, and she still wanted him continually.

‘Now, you all know that I’m on the end of the telephone,’ Declan was saying. ‘By the time I get back we should have the date for our IBA interview. Then we can start having dry-runs. I’ve booked Hardy Bisset to coach us. He’s ex-IBA so he’s witnessed the interviewing process from the other side. ‘There’s also a permanent exhibition on the history of television at the IBA,’ he went on. ‘Parties of school-children and tourists visit it every day. I think you should all try and have a look at it before the interview so you at least know something about the business you’re intending to run. Go in, in ones or twos, or it’ll look too obvious. We must get Wesley, Marti, Bas and particularly Henry along there, or they’ll make complete pratts of themselves at the interview. I think that’s all.’

He ran his hands through his hair and leaned back in his chair surveying the chaos on his desk in despair.

Rupert turned away from the window. ‘When d’you reckon Yeats’ll be finally in the can?’ he said.

‘For Chrissake, dumbass,’ screamed Cameron, ‘I’ve told you a hundred times, it’s pronounced “Yates”.’

Declan raised a disapproving eyebrow. Dame Enid was much more up front. ‘You haven’t learned to pronounce the word “hostile” yet, young lady,’ she snapped, ‘but you certainly manage to be it most of the time.’

‘Thank you, Enid. The age of chivalry is not entirely dead,’ said Rupert lightly, but his face had lost all expression.

Oh, God, thought Cameron, I shouldn’t have said that.

‘The answer to your question,’ said Declan to Rupert, ‘is sometime in December. We’ll have to edit and do all the VOs when we get back.’

‘I hope you’ve got in the story about Yeats cutting his precious fur coat in half because he didn’t want to disturb a cat who was sitting on it,’ said Dame Enid. ‘Must have been a good bloke to do that.’

‘Or the time that he signed a lot of cheques “Yours sincerely, W. B. Yeats”,’ said Professor Graystock, determined not to be upstaged. ‘Or even the story. .’ he began.

Rupert had had enough — fucking intellectuals. He walked out of the library, out of the front door, and down the garden. Migrating arrows of birds were flapping down the valley. There had been a storm at lunchtime; roses were pulping and disintegrating; tobacco plants prostrated themselves like palms before his feet. Beyond the garden, in one of his fields, the grass had been flattened by the deluge, as though a herd of elephants had been having a gang bang.

Half a dozen young steers grazing there had recently been joined by a Guernsey cow and a little chocolate-brown calf, which a grateful neighbouring farmer had sent Rupert as an early birthday present. Now he could see the steers pushing the baby calf away and drinking her mother’s milk. With her long-legged gawkiness, her big eyes and long fringed eyelashes, the calf reminded him of Taggie. He looked at the mother’s pink udder with its four teats. Perhaps Cameron would pronounce them ‘tates’. Fucking intellectual. He’d get the mother and calf moved to a field of their own tomorrow.

Instead of returning to the library, he went round to the kitchen and found Taggie listening to pop music and trying to iron a great pile of Declan’s shirts and read a recipe at the same time.

‘Dashing away with a smoothing iron, she stole my heart away,’ said Rupert.

Taggie gave a start. ‘I don’t see how anyone could steal anybody’s heart away when they’re ironing,’ she mumbled. ‘One gets so red in the face.’

‘And you’re about to singe that shirt,’ said Rupert.

Hastily Taggie upended the iron. ‘You’re just the person I wanted to see. Sarah Stratton wants me to do a dinner party for her the week after next, and she’s given me this recipe all in French, and I can’t make head nor tail of it.’

Rupert, who’d had plenty of experience of Sarah’s writing, took the piece of paper and reeled off the recipe.

‘Oh marvellous! Could you read it out to me?’ said Taggie, grabbing a pencil.

Rupert was about to take the pencil, saying it’d be much quicker if he scribbled it down himself. Then he remembered something he’d read recently about encouraging dyslexies. Very slowly, making sure he didn’t get too far ahead, resisting the urge to touch Taggie’s white neck, revealed in all its vulnerability as her black ponytail fell sideways, he read it out.

‘You are brilliant,’ sighed Taggie as she finished. ‘No one else could translate it. Daddy doesn’t read French, nor Mummy, nor even Cameron.’

Suddenly Rupert felt ten feet tall again. What a bugger he had to fly to Virginia tomorrow, but he desperately needed a new stallion and he hoped to get in a few days’ hunting. He was about to make a firm date for dinner the moment he got back when the repulsive Professor Graystock wandered in.

‘Ah, Taggie,’ the Professor’s formless mouth widened, showing crooked yellow teeth. ‘I’m frightfully hungry; only had time for a bowl of soup at lunchtime. Could I have something to eat? Nothing fancy, simple repast, bread and cheese will be quite sufficient.’

Disgusting old goat, thought Rupert with a shudder, typical leftie with his second house, and no school fees to pay, bumming off anyone he regarded as capitalist. Taggie tried to smile. The Professor gave her the creeps, too. He still never missed an opportunity to squeeze her, or gaze at her breasts, or make risqué remarks.

‘Cameron’s looking for you, Rupert,’ said the Professor pointedly. ‘She wants to go home.’

Rupert took no notice and went on stroking Aengus, who was stretched out by the Aga.

Mouth watering, the Professor watched Taggie put out a loaf of wholemeal bread, some Brie and Cheddar, and half a pound of butter.

‘Any celery?’ he asked. ‘I’m partial to celery. With Father in Ireland and Mother rehearsing all the time, you’re going to be rather lonely, Taggie. Perhaps you’ll come over one evening to the campus and cook supper for a lonely old man?’

‘She’s working every night,’ snapped Rupert. ‘Someone’s got to keep this doss house in whisky.’

‘No need to over-react, dear boy,’ said the Professor, cutting a doorstep of bread and spreading it thickly with butter. ‘I’ve got an intellectual poser for you both. What would you have done — ’ he leered at Taggie — ‘if you’d discovered, as I did last term, your most brilliant first-year student — guaranteed to get a first — in bed in college with a naked girl? Would you have sent him down?’

‘If she’d been pretty,’ said Rupert coldly, ‘I’d have confiscated her.’

Cameron felt twitchy as she packed. She was still kicking herself for showing Rupert up in front of the others, but she got so uptight before she went on location. It was a million times worse than before a period. At the bottom of her bags she’d packed a book on coping with stepmotherhood. When she came back from Ireland, she was determined to get it together with Marcus and Tab. Wandering into Rupert’s dressing-room, she found him also packing. He was catching Concorde in the morning.

‘I love you,’ she said, putting her arms round him. ‘You will fly out to Ireland when you get back from the States, won’t you?’

‘Of course,’ said Rupert, as he hastily flipped a book called Overcoming Dyslexia under a pile of shirts.

For a man so confident in business matters, Freddie Jones was surprisingly timid in matters of the heart. For months he had longed to ring up Lizzie Vereker, but only screwed up the courage the day Declan and Cameron left for Ireland.

‘How about lunch today?’ he said, wading straight in.

‘Where’s Valerie?’ asked Lizzie.

‘In Portugal.’

Because she had the curse, two large spots, dirty hair, hairy legs, unpainted toe nails, needed a hundred years to go on a crash diet and had been caught on the hop, Lizzie said no, she was frantically busy. Then felt absolutely miserable. ‘What about next week?’ she asked hopefully.

‘Valerie’ll be home,’ said Freddie despondently.

‘Well, ring me anyway,’ said Lizzie.

All week Lizzie was very absent-minded. She spilt red wine over a review copy which she hadn’t reviewed, and which James intended to give to his mother for a birthday present. On Thursday morning she kept filling up cups of coffee with cold water and even swallowed a conditioning pill herself which she’d intended to give to the dog. Perhaps she’d go barking mad. She knew she ought to be working on her new book, but all she could think about was Freddie. Distracted and miserable, she walked in the pouring rain down to the lake. A moorhen was summoning her chicks into the rushes with a strange fluted call. The beeches trailed their red leaves in the raindrop-pitted water. Suddenly Lizzie heard shouting from the french windows. It was Jilly, her treasure of a nanny, who seemed even more of a treasure when she said Mr Jones was on the telephone.

‘’Ullo,’ said Freddie. ‘Fort you might like to go for a picnic?’

‘But it’s pouring,’ said Lizzie joyfully.

‘We could ’ave it indoors at Green Lawns.’

‘Where’s Valerie?’

‘At the Nearly New Sale for the Distressed Gentlefolk.’

Anticipating adultery was rather like going to the doctor, mused Lizzie as she painted her nails, washed her hair, bathed and shaved and cleaned her ears. Then she rubbed body lotion into every centimetre of her body — one really had to get oneself up.

The only problem was that she had forgotten that the Corinium Television gardener (one of James’s perks) came that morning. He must have been amazed to see so many gallons of soapy water gushing into the bathroom drain, and to see Lizzie emerging so startlingly painted and scented at midday, to announce that she was off to the Nearly New Sale and then going on to do some shopping, so would he weed the main herbaceous border, which she had already thanked him profusely for weeding last week. She’d even rung James to tell him she was going to the sale and to ask if he needed anything in Cotchester.

Lizzie had had no intention of going to bed with Freddie that day. She wouldn’t have if she hadn’t bought a lovely blue tweed skirt for a pound at the clothes stall and passed Valerie noisily manning the produce stall on the way out.

‘Look,’ cried Lizzie, waving the skirt, ‘look at my lovely bargain.’

‘You’ll never get into that!’ said Valerie crushingly. ‘That used to be Sarah Stratton’s.’

Valerie was looking very Sloane, Lizzie decided, in a pale-blue cashmere jersey, dark-blue stockings and Gucci shoes, with her hair drawn off her forehead in a velvet bow.

‘Do you know what that absolute swine Tony Baddingham is threatening to do?’ Valerie went on, lowering her voice. ‘Build twenty homes on a field next to our grounds. It’ll ruin our view. I mean, we are designated an area of outstanding natural beauty.’

‘He won’t get planning permission,’ said Lizzie.

‘Probably will, with all those bribes he offers. Tell James to absolutely refuse to interview any of the Planning Committee on “Cotswold Round-Up”. So embarrassing when Monica and I are such close friends.’

Valerie’s beady eyes fell on Lizzie’s purse. ‘Now what are you going to buy? I’m sure James likes beetroot slices in vinegar. I’ll give you a penny off.’

‘I’ll buy that coffee cake; it looks delicious. How long are you stuck here for?’ asked Lizzie.

‘Until four o’clock,’ said Valerie crossly. ‘Someone has to hold the fort.’

‘It’s the fort what counts,’ murmured Lizzie.

‘I fort you was never coming,’ said Freddie as he opened the door. In the kitchen was a bottle of Dom Perignon on ice and a huge plate of smoked salmon. Freddie had picked Rupert’s brains about seducing techniques.

‘The ideal picnic,’ sighed Lizzie. ‘I brought us some coffee cake for pudding.’

They stayed in the kitchen, in case they messed up the cushions poised on their points on Valerie’s settees. Briefly they discussed the franchise.

‘D’you think you’ll get it?’

‘I know we will,’ said Freddie. ‘Now let’s talk about us. I want to see a great deal of you, Mrs Vereker, but it won’t be easy wiv Tony Baddingham, an’ Valerie, an’ James breaving down our necks.’

‘James won’t be,’ said Lizzie.

‘Where is he at the moment?’

‘Inside Sarah Stratton, I should think.’

They both roared with laughter and, for the first time, Lizzie found she didn’t mind. She liked everything about Freddie, she decided — the way his eyes turned down at the corners, and his beer gut, and the damp patches under his arms because he was so nervous, and the way he smoked with his cigar between finger and thumb to eke it out, and coiled into the palm of his hand as though he was still hiding it from the foreman, who was probably now called Valerie.

As a writer, she told herself firmly as Freddie led her upstairs, one has to experience life. All the same she didn’t think she would have gone to bed with Freddie on that first day, and certainly not in Valerie’s bedroom, if she hadn’t found four of her favourite books in the spare room bookshelf, which she’d lent to Valerie when she’d had flu and which Valerie’d sworn she’d given back to Lizzie.

When they got upstairs Freddie initially seemed far more interested in showing off his gadgets — the eight-horsepower Jacuzzi and the bath which turned on by remote control and regulated the water from the bed, which was huge and oval, with its great dashboard of buttons at the head.

‘Shall we sleep in it,’ whispered Lizzie, ‘or hi-jack it and fly it to paradise?’

‘You do say the loveliest rings,’ said Freddie, drawing her close. His paunch slotted in below her splendid breasts, so it was very easy for them to kiss.

‘What music would you like?’ asked Freddie.

‘Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto,’ said Lizzie.

Next moment, incredibly, it flooded through the room. ‘I must have a pee first,’ said Lizzie, wading through the shagpile to the bathroom.

‘I’ll get undressed,’ said Freddie.

Lizzie washed herself with Valerie’s flannel, but not too much, in case she rubbed away all the lubrication. She wanted Freddie to know how excited she was. For a second she examined the lips of her labia, just peering out of her bush, like a wrinkled old tortoise, then shoved them inside. How could men possibly find women beautiful down there? Would her opening be prettier than Valerie’s? she wondered.

Coming out, she opened the wrong door and nearly went into the linen cupboard. Goodness it was tidy, as though it had been laid out with a set square. Adultery certainly taught you about other people’s houses. She expected Freddie to be completely undressed by the time she got back, but he had so much jewellery to remove that she beat him to it.

‘I’ve dreamed and dreamed of this moment,’ said Freddie as he stretched out beside her. ‘Ever since we first met at that ‘unt ball, eighteen monfs ago. I fort, what a lovely lady.’

‘I’m so fat,’ sighed Lizzie.

‘You’re not,’ said Freddie. ‘It’s much more fun climbing Everest than the foothills.’

Lizzie put her hand on his cock. ‘And it’s so nice to see software becoming hardware.’

‘And I’m going to declare this an area of outstanding natural beauty,’ said Freddie. Reaching for his glass of champagne on the bedside table, he emptied it into her bush and proceeded to lick it all off. After Mousie’s fragility, he reflected as he climbed on top of her, it was like having a wonderfully sturdy cob between your thighs.

‘I hope you’re using a Condom Perignon,’ mumbled Lizzie half-laughing and half-crying with pleasure as he entered her.

Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto was her favourite piece of music, but from then on she forgot its existence until the last ecstatic bars of the final Allegretto.

‘You’re absolutely perfick,’ whispered Freddie. ‘You’re the big fing in my life now.’

‘I love you,’ said Lizzie.

‘And I love you,’ said Freddie.

Afterwards they had another bottle and ate all the coffee cake, and longed to make love again, but decided it was too risky. To establish an alibi, Lizzie then went shopping in Cotchester, so drunk and happy she could hardly get the clothes back on the hangers. Coming out of the chemist, having bought a huge guilt present of Aramis for James, which she thought she might give to Freddie, she heard a car tooting.

Not being vain, she didn’t even turn round when it went on tooting, and only did so when Tony Baddingham lowered his electric window and yelled out to her.

Keeping her mouth tight shut so he wouldn’t catch the champagne fumes, wondering if he could see the words ‘adulterer and traitor’ branded on her forehead, she edged towards him.

‘You’re looking great,’ said Tony smoothly. ‘Really great.

Must have been a good holiday. What have you been buying?’

‘Scent for James,’ said Lizzie.

‘How very nice,’ said Tony. ‘And it isn’t even his birthday!

You’re a good wife, Lizzie. Look forward to seeing you on Saturday week.’

‘Saturday?’ said Lizzie, bewildered.

‘Sarah Stratton’s dinner party,’ said Tony. ‘We’ll have a good talk then.’

Back at Lake House, Lizzie rushed upstairs, washed off all her make-up and scent, removed the nail polish from her toes and got into her old clothes in case James came home early. Fortunately he was very late, so she was able to watch almost the entire production of Midsummer Night’s Dream by herself. It was magical, despite Titania’s bulge, and must have won Corinium a lot of Brownie points in the franchise battle. Throughout the performance, Lizzie kept thinking of Freddie, and how cuddly and sweet and kind he’d been, and how she wanted him to make love to her over and over again.

‘Funny goings on at Venturer,’ said James in a pleased voice, pouring himself an uncharacteristic drink the moment he got in. ‘Evidently Cameron’s pushed off to Ireland with Declan, and I’ve just seen Bas coming out of the Bar Sinister with Maud.’

Funny goings on everywhere, thought Lizzie dreamily, what with James and Sarah, and her and Freddie, and Rupert probably still hankering after Taggie. It was as though they’d all been affected by Puck’s mischievous witchery like the mortals and Titania in Midsummer Night’s Dream. James fell asleep the moment his head touched the pillow.

‘I am the mistress of a very nice man,’ wrote Lizzie ecstatically in her diary before she turned out the light.