Rivals

42

After lunch, they went for a walk in Rupert’s woods. It was ridiculously mild. Insects moved leisurely in the rays slanting through the thinning beech trees, like specks of dust caught in the light from a projector. Birds sang drowsily, orange leaves drifted down on to already orange paths. The squirrels, stupefied by the sun, were fooling around on the ground instead of gathering nuts.

‘What are you singing at school?’ asked Taggie.

‘“Green grow the rushes-oh,”’ said Tab.

‘I’ll sing you three-oh,’ sang Marcus.

‘What is your three-oh?’ sang back Tab.

‘Three for the rivals, Two, two the lily-white boys, Clothed all in green-o,’ replied Marcus, his pure treble echoing through the soaring cathedral of beech trunks. Then both children took up the chant:

‘One is one and all alone, And ever more shall be so.’

‘Lovely,’ sighed Taggie.

‘Three for the rivals sounds like Corinium, Venturer and Mid-West,’ said Rupert.

He used up a couple of reels of film, then, exhausted after a strenuous week at Blackpool, fell asleep under a chestnut tree, while Taggie played games with the children.

‘D’you know,’ she said, drawing them away down the ride so they wouldn’t wake Rupert, ‘that every time you catch a falling leaf, you get a happy day? Let’s see if we can catch thirty, so we can give Daddy a really happy November when he wakes up.’

‘Easy peasy,’ said Tabitha, leaping forward as a yellow sycamore leaf pirouetted through the air towards her, then, caught by a puff of wind, dummied round her and fluttered to the ground.

‘It’s harder than it looks,’ panted Marcus, reaching out as a twig of ash leaves floated tantalizingly out of his grasp. ‘Would those have counted as seven?’

‘Not really,’ said Taggie.

‘Bugger,’ screamed Tab, as she just missed a beech leaf.

‘Hush,’ said Taggie. ‘We mustn’t wake Daddy.’

Silently they raced round the wood trying to suppress their screams of joy whenever they managed to catch a leaf. After a particularly piercing yell, when Tab tripped over a bramble cable but managed to hang on to a wand of chestnut leaves, Rupert woke up; but he pretended to be asleep. Watching Taggie, gambolling long-legged over the beech leaves, ponytail flying, looking, as the Manager had thought, not a day over fourteen, he was suddenly kneed in the groin with longing.

‘Here you are, Daddy,’ said Tabitha, her hands full of leaves, ‘a whole happy month for you.’

Rupert, who privately thought that the only thing that could make him happy at the moment was a whole month in bed with Taggie, said thank you very much.

‘Can we go and see the new Woody Allen?’ asked Tabitha.

Rupert looked at his watch: ‘It’s nearly four o’clock. You’ll be very late back.’ The last thing he wanted to do was to go to the cinema.

‘We can go on our way home,’ pleaded Tabitha.

‘We’ve done our homework,’ said Marcus.

Rupert turned to Taggie who said she’d adore to see it; anything to prolong the day with Rupert.

‘I’m going to sit next to Taggie,’ said Tabitha, seizing her hand.

‘I’m going to sit next to her too,’ said Marcus, taking her other hand.

‘If she sits on my knee, you can both sit next to her,’ said Rupert.

Severely jolted, he felt it was increasingly necessary to make a joke about the whole thing.

The Woody Allen was extremely funny, but Taggie hardly took any of it in, she was so aware of Rupert slumped in the seat beyond Tabitha gazing totally unmoved at the screen. How awful for Rupert being left by Helen and losing these heavenly children, living alone by himself in that big house.

‘One is one and all alone and ever more shall be so,’ sang Tabitha as they drove home.

Taggie felt Rupert’s loss far more acutely when she met Helen, who was simply the most beautiful woman she’d ever seen, with huge serious yellow eyes and long red hair drawn back in two combs from her freckled face, and incredibly slim ankles and wrists. She had the same colouring as Maud, reflected Taggie, but while Maud cavorted untrainably through life like a red setter bestowing her favours indiscriminately, Helen would be far more fastidious and sparing with her affections. Helen was like a red deer. If you tamed and won the confidence of anything so delicate and nervous, you’d feel incredibly proud.

But before she had much time to observe Helen or her husband, Malise, who seemed very old, Taggie was dragged off to the stables by Tabitha to meet Biscuit and Dollop. Then she had to see Marcus’s room and then Tabitha’s room, both extraordinarily tidy (in fact, the whole house was incredibly tidy for a Sunday evening), by which time it was well past the children’s bedtime.

Back in the drawing-room, Taggie found Helen tapping her beautifully shod foot and looking at the clock, and Rupert standing in front of an unlit fire, holding an empty glass and looking absolutely glazed.

‘What would you like to drink?’ Malise asked Taggie.

Taggie glanced at Rupert, who almost imperceptibly moved his head in the direction of the door.

‘Nothing, thank you very much,’ she said.

‘We must go,’ said Rupert. ‘I’ve got to get this child home.’

So the day was to end just like that. Taggie suddenly felt suicidal. Malise, seeming to sense her depression, said, ‘Helen and I are tremendous fans of your father’s. I do hope he gets the franchise. Corinium’s programmes are absolutely ghastly.’

‘Oh, The Dream was excellent the other night,’ protested Helen. ‘Marcus said Cameron Cook had something to do with that, Rupert. You must bring her over sometime. I’d love to discuss the production with her. It was a most original interpretation. They set it in Victorian England and had some fascinating parallels between Queen Victoria and John Brown and Titania and Bottom.’

Rupert stifled a huge yawn.

‘I think Taggie and Rupert want to go, darling,’ said Malise gently, putting his arm round Helen’s shoulders.

He has the most charming smile, thought Taggie. I can see why she finds him attractive, but not compared with Rupert, and he is terribly old. The children came to see them off.

‘Promise, promise, we can see you next time we come over,’ said Tabitha, clinging to her like a monkey.

‘Thank you so much for the fudge,’ said Marcus.

‘Rupert is awful,’ said Helen, having packed the children upstairs to have baths. ‘That girl must still be at school.’

‘She’s a bit older than that, but not much,’ said Malise, straightening the Sunday papers. ‘D’you know, she gives me the same ghastly sense of forboding I had when I first met you?’

‘I hope you haven’t fallen in love with her too,’ said Helen, somewhat too archly.

‘No. One just knows he’s going to break her heart,’ said Malise grimly, ‘and feels powerless to do anything about it.’

‘He may have mellowed,’ said Helen. ‘She’s the first girl he’s ever brought here, and the kids obviously adore her.’

Malise shook his head. ‘He’s like a hound. You can’t domesticate him. Hunting’ll always be in his blood.’

Rupert was very quiet on the drive back to Penscombe. Taggie, feeling utterly miserable because the day was almost over and the Aston-Martin seemed to be gobbling up the miles, assumed he was merely depressed because his ravishing wife and children didn’t live with him any more. Rupert, however, for the first time in his life, was battling seriously with his conscience.

Taggie was Declan’s teenage daughter; he was committed to Cameron, who was already paranoid about Taggie, and there were deadly serious things like franchises to be won.

Then, in the light from a street-lamp in Cheltenham, he caught sight of Taggie. Everything seemed to turn upwards, her nose, her long sooty eyelashes, her adorably short upper lip, and those beautifully soft breasts, which he’d dreamed of the other night. His conscience lost.

‘Would you like some dinner?’

‘Oh yes, please,’ said Taggie joyfully. ‘If you’re sure you’re not too tired and I look smart enough?’

‘Never, never get smart,’ said Rupert. ‘I loathe done-up women.’

‘They’re such adorable children,’ said Taggie. ‘And so beautiful. Not surprising really with such a beautiful mother.’ In the darkness of the car, now they were out of the town, it seemed easier to talk. ‘Is it absolutely agony every time you see her again?’

‘Agony,’ said Rupert soulfully. Then, shooting a sideways glance at Taggie, he explained, ‘Because she bores the fucking tits off me.’

Taggie gave a gasp of shocked laughter.

‘I can’t think how the hell I stayed married to her for seven years. While you were upstairs, she gave me the entire plot of the Italian film they’d seen that afternoon, and, if Malise hadn’t shut her up, we’d have had a five-act analysis of Midsummer Night’s Dream. How he puts up with it!’

‘He seems very nice,’ said Taggie, ‘but he’s almost like a grandfather to the children.’

‘Thirty years older than Helen,’ said Rupert, ‘but he’s made her very happy.’

‘And what happened to you after she walked out?’ asked Taggie.

‘Oh well, I had one or two fish of my own I was frying at the time,’ admitted Rupert. ‘But the fat began to spit too much, so I backed off. Then I had a long stint with an engaging tramp called Beattie Johnson, and then a few games of tennis with Sarah Stratton.’

‘Oh God,’ moaned Taggie.

Rupert laughed. ‘I’m half-tempted to stop the car and see how much you’re blushing. Were you terribly shocked when you saw us?’

‘Yes, no, yes,’ mumbled Taggie. ‘More for Gertrude, really. She’s led such a sheltered life. It must have been awful all those fire engines turning up.’

‘We were bloody lucky,’ said Rupert. ‘Cameron tells me that the Corinium newsroom give the Cotchester Fire Brigade so much booze at Christmas that invariably the firemen tip them off and keep their hoses running until the television crew arrive. Sarah and I in the buff would have been a sensation on “Cotswold Round-Up”.’

Taggie giggled. She didn’t like to tell him how much in the last few months the memory of his oiled, mahogany-tanned, wonderfully constructed body had haunted her dreams.

The White Elephant at Painswick was packed and taking last orders, but still managed to find a corner for Rupert. Taggie fled to the loo. All she had in her bag was a defunct mascara wand, a comb, some scent and a picture of Claudius. If only she could clean her teeth. She made do with soaking the roller towel, rubbing some soap on it, rubbing her teeth, then rinsing her mouth out with water. Then she de-tangled her hair and put it back in its ponytail.

When she got back to the table, Rupert, realizing she would be totally floored by the French menu, had ordered a bottle of Pouilly Fumé and smoked salmon and scrambled eggs for both of them.

‘And you’re going to eat the lot.’

At first they discussed the children.

‘I wish they got on better with Cameron,’ sighed Rupert, ‘but, being totally unused to children, she makes neither extra beds nor allowances.’

It was good that they could talk about Cameron naturally now, thought Taggie, suddenly longing to touch the fan of fine lines at the corner of Rupert’s eyes. Perhaps she could become his long-term confidante, and even when he was eighty, he’d come roaring over to The Priory and tell her he’d met some marvellous new fifty-year-old. At least it’d be better than not seeing him.

‘Does it still upset you going to the Horse of the Year Show when you’re not winning all the cups any more?’ she asked tentatively.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s why I wanted you to come along last week — ’ he took her hand — ‘to hold my hand. I don’t think I realized at the time how desperately I minded giving up. Just stopping overnight after the World Championship, burying myself in politics, refusing to recognize I was suffering from withdrawal symptoms far worse than any junkie. There’s so little time to think while you’re show jumping. Even on those interminable drives there was always Billy to yak to, or some horse to natter about, always something to look forward to, a prize to be won, someone else’s time to be beaten, a horse to be sorted out, a girl to be laid. I suppose I never gave myself time to grow up, and when Helen buggered off I blocked that out too.’

Still holding her hand, he looked into her loving, infinitely understanding and sympathetic eyes. Christ, he’d never admitted things like this to anyone, not even Billy. Then she asked the same question: ‘Does it still hurt seeing Helen?’

Rupert shrugged. ‘I got bored with hating her, I guess. The only thing that really irks me is that Malise succeeded where I failed. I can’t honestly say I’ve ever made any woman happy, or not for very long.’

‘You make me very happy,’ said Taggie gruffly.

For a second they gazed at each other and he watched the colour mounting in her cheeks.

‘I’d like to try,’ he said softly. ‘I’ll just pay the bill and we’ll go.’

As he drove her slowly back to Penscombe, Chris de Burgh was singing ‘Lady in Red’ on the car radio. It was such a beautiful night. The moon was hiding behind a vast ebony cloud shaped like a yew tree, tipping its edges with silver; the rest of the pearly grey sky was threaded with stars. A few windows were still lit up in the village like cardboard cut-outs.

Just before he reached the right turn up the long chestnut avenue to Penscombe Court, Rupert slowed the car down almost to a standstill and raised a finger to Taggie’s cheek.

‘Are you quite sure, angel?’

He could feel her cheekbone rubbing frantically against his finger as she nodded. Totally adrift with love, she had no thought of refusing.

‘Fucking hell,’ howled Rupert, as they drew up outside the house. Parked outside, beside Taggie’s car, was a Lotus. In the moonlight it could have been any dark colour.

Cameron, thought Taggie in horror.

But the girl who came out of the front door had thick lustrous hair, as golden yellow as the sycamore leaves swirling across the gravel. It was Sarah Stratton. Sobbing, she threw herself into Rupert’s arms.

‘I must talk to you.’

‘I must go,’ said Taggie.

‘No, don’t,’ said Rupert sharply. Then, realizing what he was saying, added, ‘Well, it is a bit late. We’ll check through the rest of those names tomorrow, and we’ll tackle the southern part of the region later in the week.’

‘Oh, the fucking franchise,’ screamed Sarah.

Leaving time only to squeeze Taggie’s hand and say he’d ring her tomorrow, Rupert took Sarah into the drawing-room, where she collapsed sobbing on the sofa. The temperature suddenly seemed to have dropped several degrees. The house felt horribly cold and empty without Taggie and the children.

It was a few minutes before he could get any sense out of Sarah. Evidently James Vereker had given her the bullet.

‘Tony ordered him to. He said everyone was gossiping about me and James, and it doesn’t do Corinium’s reputation any good in a franchise year. Jesus, and when you think of the way he was carrying on with Cameron.’

‘Was is the operative word,’ said Rupert, pouring Sarah a glass of brandy. ‘There’s no prude like a reformed rake.’

‘I know James loves me,’ sobbed Sarah hysterically, ‘but that shit Tony offered him the carrot of his own thirteen-part series on staying married, and ordered him to front it with Lizzie. Tony’s convinced the IBA will adore the idea, what with all this panic about AIDS.’

Rupert whistled. ‘That’s quite shrewd.’

‘So James and the podgy frump have to present a lovey-dovey united front until the franchise is in the bag, and James is going to go along with it.’

‘Ambition should be made of sterner stuffing,’ said Rupert idly. ‘And how’s Lizzie taking it?’

‘Oh, lapping it up, I should think,’ said Sarah viciously. ‘Must be the first time anyone’s slept with her in yonks.’

Hum, thought Rupert. ‘Well, you’ll just have to be a bit more discreet until after 15th December,’ he said.

‘That’s what I said, but James is refusing even to have a drink with me. If I talk to him in the passage at Corinium, he scuttles off like a daddy longlegs. He won’t even gossip during the break in “Round-Up”. I know he’s vain and ambitious, but I love him. I can’t live without him.’ Her voice rose to a shriek.

Slumped on the sofa, in a rucked-up amber mini-skirt, and a saffron yellow jersey, with her tousled tawny hair and her tear-streaked face, Sarah should have been the epitome of desirability. But, comparing her hard, petulant, demanding little face to Taggie’s, so sweet, so infinitely kind and gentle, Rupert wondered how the hell he’d ever fancied her.

‘I can’t live without him,’ Sarah repeated shrilly. ‘I’ll never get over it.’

‘I hate to point it out,’ said Rupert, ‘but you said exactly the same thing to me after Christmas, and you’ve got over me pretty thoroughly, and no doubt when Paul thought he ought to do his duty and stay with Winifred you said the same thing to him.’

‘You can’t compare the two,’ said Sarah furiously. ‘I’ve just spent a whole weekend with Paul,’ she added with a shudder.

‘Paul’s palled, has he?’ said Rupert, topping up her glass.

‘I can’t stand living with him a moment longer. He won’t stop pawing me,’ wailed Sarah. ‘And he’s so old. I mean he’s nineteen years older than me. It was all right when I started working for him. I was twenty and he was thirty-nine and he seemed so wonderfully forceful and dynamic and experienced. But now I’m twenty-nine and he’s forty-eight, and his body’s going, and he looks all grey and rumpled when he wakes in the morning, and he wears cornplasters and snows scurf on his suits, and he’s always clearing his throat and picking his nose behind the FT and peering at me over his spectacles.’ Sarah’s voice rose to a screech again as she catalogued his crimes. ‘I can’t stand it.’

Mindlessly, Rupert patted her heaving shoulder, as he bleakly worked out that the age gap between him and Taggie was exactly the same, or would be when he was thirty-eight next month. Gradually Sarah stopped crying.

‘The one thing that puts men off is scenes,’ said Rupert. ‘You’ll just have to grin and not bare it until 15th December. Everyone’s going to be behaving in a pretty tense way for the next two months. I honestly can’t see James and Lizzie’s rapprochement lasting very long, and at least if you concentrate on your career at Corinium you’ll be able to support yourself. You won’t be able to afford two hunters, a Lotus and Jasper Conran dresses if Tony kicks you out, which he will do if you don’t leave Vere-karing alone.’

Sarah sat up and rubbed the mascara from under her eyes. ‘I suppose I’d better seduce Tony, but he’s got one cloven hoof in the grave too. You and Cameron are so lucky — being near in age.’

Then her eyes narrowed. ‘And while we’re on that subject, what were you doing rolling up with the Galloping Gormless just now?’

Rupert’s mind raced. He’d got to kill that rumour stone dead. If Sarah told Tony he’d been out with Taggie, Tony’d make sure it went straight back in a wildly exaggerated form to Cameron.

‘I had the children for the weekend,’ he said carefully. ‘Cameron’s away, so Taggie was helping me amuse them. She’s nearer their age.’

‘Well, that’s a relief,’ said Sarah. ‘I thought for one ghastly moment you were after her as well. I mean, she’s simply not up to it. Very sweet and all, but not very bright. A bit loco, James thinks. The last thing she needs is a lascivious old ram like you. You’d crucify her. Anyway you’re far too old. It’d be just like Paul and me in a few years’ time.’

It was like a dentist hitting a raw nerve with a high-speed drill. Rupert never dreamed remarks could hurt him quite so much. Mercifully he was saved by the telephone. Then the dentist seemed to hit another nerve.

‘Christ, I’ve missed you,’ said Cameron’s seductive rasp. ‘Sorry I haven’t called, but we’ve been up to here. Perry O’Donovan’s such an asshole, and he can’t stand Esther McDermott. She’s an asshole too, and they’ve both had such rows with Declan, he’s walked off the set twice.’

‘So it’s all going as planned,’ said Rupert.

As Cameron rattled on about the cock-ups and frustrations of filming, all he could hear was prison doors clanging shut on him.

‘So we’ve managed to finish a day early,’ she said finally.

‘God, what a bore,’ said Rupert who hadn’t been listening.

‘Sweetest, this is a terrible line, I said I’ll be coming home a day early. Declan and I are flying in tomorrow.’

‘Great,’ said Rupert, feeling sick. ‘I’ll come and meet you.’

‘No, I’ve got the car at the airport. I’ll see you late afternoon, and darling,’ her voice dropped huskily, ‘I’ve been celibate for three weeks. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do, so cancel any appointments for the rest of the day. I love you.’

‘Me too,’ said Rupert automatically.

‘Good,’ said Sarah, as Rupert put down the receiver and went and poured himself a large whisky. ‘An absolute bastard like you needs an utter bitch like her to keep you in order.’

After she’d left, Rupert couldn’t face going to bed. He took the dogs into the garden. As they weaved about snuffling and barking after badgers and masochistically lifting their legs on rose bushes, he looked across the valley. The moon had set; black clouds covered the sky; a chill wind was shepherding beech leaves irritably across the lawn; The Priory was in darkness, except for one light in Taggie’s bedroom. Rupert almost wept. He longed to ring her now to explain why he wouldn’t be ringing her tomorrow, or any day after that, but he didn’t dare in case he weakened.

Sarah was right. He was too old, too shop-soiled, too reprobate. He’d only bring her unhappiness. Besides, Cameron was coming home tomorrow and he couldn’t jeopardize the franchise by risking her running back to Tony. It was his fault; he’d gone into the whole thing with his flies open. Not only had the prison door clanged shut, but he could hear a huge key turning for ever in the lock.

One is one, and all alone, and ever more shall be so, he thought despairingly.