Rivals

47

Six days later the Gatherum, which was the neigbouring hunt to the West Cotchester, held their hunt ball in Henry Hampshire’s beautiful mouldering Elizabethan house. This was the last time the two consortiums would meet before their encounters with the IBA next week, and once again the whole place seemed to divide like the Dreyfus case. At one table sat Freddie and Valerie, Henry Hampshire, very much on his best behaviour as host and in the presence of his wife Hermione, Declan and Maud and Rupert and Cameron. Bas was turning up later with some ex-mistress, whose husband was conveniently in America.

Two tables away sat the Baddinghams, Ginger Johnson and his wife, Georgie Baines, with his long eyelashes cast down, and his wife, Paul and Sarah Stratton, and James and Lizzie Vereker. Although some of the women in both parties exchanged occasional banter and smiles, the men of one side studiously ignored those of the other side.

Maud appeared to be the only member of the Venturer party in tearing spirits. The two subsequent performances of The Merry Widow on Tuesday and Wednesday had been just as successful. She had had hundreds of letters and telephone calls of congratulation, and yesterday she had lunched with Pascoe Rawlings, who was arranging for her to audition as soon as possible for A Doll’s House. Tonight she looked stunning with her red-gold hair piled up, and an old-gold taffeta dress which looked suspiciously new, turning her green eyes a tigerish yellow. No doubt when Bas arrived, after the success of The Merry Widow, the band could be prevailed upon to play a quick waltz, and Bas would sweep her on to the floor.

Cameron, who’d been editing the Yeats rushes all week, and working hard with Declan on additional programme plans to present to the IBA next Friday, looked thin and drawn. She was worried Declan seemed suddenly distant. There was none of the intimacy they’d achieved in Ireland. Tonight, obviously hating being so near Tony, he was pale and edgy. As the only member of the party in a dinner jacket rather than a red coat, his black lowering presence seemed to accentuate Venturer’s gloom and tension.

Cameron was even more worried about Rupert, who had gone increasingly into his shell since she’d come back from Ireland. He also looked desperately tired. The new Socialist majority was so tiny that the Tories were determined to contest it to the full on every vote, which meant endless late night sittings. The interminable IBA rehearsals, even though both Henry and Wesley were word perfect now, were also taking their toll. Even Freddie didn’t seem his usual bouncy self. Only Valerie was appallingly unchanged.

‘What are you doing, Fred-Fred?’ she screeched, as Freddie started crawling around under the priceless Jacobean table.

‘Lookin’ for bugs.’

‘You’re more laikely to find woodworm,’ said Valerie disapprovingly. ‘I can’t think why Henry and Hermione don’t junk all this nasty dark stuff and invest in some decent Repro. And have you seen the state of the place?’ Valerie had already had a prowl round some of the bedrooms, the long gallery and the grand staircase with its heraldic leopards. ‘All the plaster’s peeling. There’s so much damp, and you should have seen the moths flutter out when I touched the drapes in Hermione’s bedroom.’

‘Didn’t you realize this is a moth sanctuary?’ said Rupert gravely. ‘You know Henry is Venturer’s conservation expert.’

Valerie looked at Rupert sharply. She was never sure if he wasn’t mobbing her up.

‘Actually I wanted to pick your brains,’ she said, lowering her voice, ‘about Fred-Fred’s birthday. There was an article in The Times yesterday saying the latest thing in the hunting field is to have a brass flask of sherry attached to your saddle.’

‘Sounds hell,’ said Rupert with a yawn. ‘The only thing I want attached to my saddle is my bum.’

At that moment Tony paused in front of the Venturer table — surveying them with amusement.

‘I see the devil has cast his net,’ he said loudly.

‘If the holes in his net were as big as your mouth, we’d all escape,’ drawled Rupert.

Everyone at the surrounding tables howled with laughter and Tony retreated discomforted.

‘And Ladbroke’s has us at 2–1 on today,’ Rupert yelled after him.

Valerie turned to Cameron. ‘You’re looking a bit washed out. I don’t think black’s really your colour — too deadening. Why don’t you pop into the boutique and buy something naice for all the Christmas functions coming up?’

‘What’s the difference between a shop and a boutique?’ asked Henry, who’d got bored of welcoming people.

‘They sell exactly the same stuff, but a boutique is about five times as expensive,’ said Rupert.

Valerie looked very boutique-faced as Rupert turned his back on both of them.

People were sitting down at their tables now and the waitresses were beginning to carry plates of smoked trout down the aisles. Looking round, Rupert noticed the place was absolutely crawling with beautiful, only-too-available women. It was just the sort of evening he once would have revelled in, getting drunk and off with half of them, behaving atrociously, not a cordoned-off four-poster untested. What the hell was the matter with him? He didn’t even want to sleep with Cameron any more.

‘Where’s Taggie?’ asked Valerie, picking up her fork. ‘No, leave your bread roll, Fred-Fred.’

‘Dog-sitting,’ said Maud, holding up her glass for more Muscadet. ‘I don’t know what’s got into her at the moment, she’s so lethargic. I tried to persuade her to come this evening, but she wouldn’t. She hadn’t got a partner. When I was her age I had hordes of boys chasing after me.’

‘When all this franchise business is sorted out, we must all put our heads together and find her a decent guy,’ said Cameron.

‘Don’t be fucking silly,’ snapped Rupert. ‘You can’t find people for other people. Taggie’s perfectly capable of finding someone herself.’ He put his fork down, his trout hardly touched, and, refusing wine, asked the waiter to bring him a bottle of whisky.

Across at the Corinium table, Sarah Stratton plonked herself down beside James.

‘You shouldn’t be here,’ he hissed, giving her the sort of look delphinium growers reserve for slugs. ‘The High Sheriffs wife is supposed to be sitting there.’

‘I shifted the place cards,’ hissed back Sarah. ‘You don’t want to sit next to that old bag.’

‘But you’ve totally ruined Monica’s placement,’ said James in outrage. ‘And that means Tony’s got to sit next to the High Sheriff’s wife, which he won’t like one bit.’

‘Serve him right for trying to split us up. I love you.’

‘Keep your voice down.’ James looked furtively round.

‘I’ll talk even louder if you don’t let me stay. Surely you must have a programme in your marriage series on coping with temptation? Well, you can bloody well research it tonight.’

Home at The Priory, Taggie, having dispatched her parents to the ball, was wondering forlornly what to do for the rest of the evening. The only decent film on television was Italian, and she wouldn’t be able to read the subtitles fast enough to get the gist of it. It was a vicious night. The wind was howling round the windows, trying to get in out of the cold. The snow was falling steadily, already lining the window-ledge and bowing down the evergreens. At least there was a nice fire in the little sitting-room. Gertrude, Aengus and Claudius were all stretched out in front of the blaze. The logs came from their wood, or rather it was Rupert’s wood now; everything seemed to come back to him.

How will I ever get through my life without him, she thought hopelessly, when I can’t even face a much-longed-for free evening?

She jumped at a sudden pounding on the door. The bell was still blocked up with loo paper to discourage creditors. Outside was Hazel, one of the make-up girls from the BBC, who’d once worked on Declan’s programme and become a great family friend. Flakes of snow like brilliants in her hair gave her an added glamour. She’d been doing a job in Bristol and was on her way home.

‘Everyone’s out except me,’ apologized Taggie, ‘but come in and have a drink.’

‘What a lovely house, really Gothic,’ said Hazel in awe as they went into the sitting-room.

‘Not too large,’ she squawked, as Taggie poured her a vodka and tonic. ‘I’ve got to drive back to London.’

‘You must stay the night,’ urged Taggie. ‘You can’t drive in this weather and Daddy’ll be d-devastated to have missed you.’

‘I can’t believe Caitlin’s taking O-levels. She was such a wee little thing,’ said Hazel twenty minutes later. ‘And Patrick got a first, and he’s as tall as your Dad. I do hope your Dad gets the franchise. We’re all rooting for him at the Beeb. Tony Baddingham’s such a shit.’

The telephone rang. It was Bas. ‘Taggie, babe, you’re coming to the ball.’

‘I can’t,’ squeaked Taggie. ‘I’ve got someone here.’

‘Well get rid of them. Annabel, my date, has been out all day with the Belvoir, and the snow’s too bad for her to drive down, and anyway, she’s bushed. So I’ve got no one to go with and I can’t think of anyone more delicious than you.’

‘I haven’t got anything to wear.’

‘Fret not, I’ll be over in an hour with some frocks.’

‘I’ve been asked to the Hunt Ball,’ said Taggie in awe.

‘Wonderful,’ said Hazel excitedly. ‘I’ll dog-sit. Go and wash your hair and have a bath. I’ll make you up. You’ll come up beautifully.’

Bas, naughty as his word, arrived an hour later with a back seat loaded up with ball dresses.

‘Where did you get them?’ asked Taggie incredulously.

‘Corinium’s wardrobe department,’ said Bas. ‘Their security is atrocious.’

‘What a gorgeous man,’ murmured Hazel enviously, ‘and I’ve had some heart-throbs through my fingers in my time.’

‘This dress is made by B-A-L-Main,’ spelt out Taggie slowly. ‘What happens if I put my foot through it?’

‘Try the crimson one,’ said Bas. ‘It’s much the best colour for you and at least it won’t show up the red wine that’s bound to get poured over you.’

‘It’s awfully low-cut,’ said Taggie dubiously.

‘All the better,’ said Hazel, checking the Carmen rollers. ‘Hurry up and decide. I want to do your hair.’

Back at the ball, dinner was over and dancing had begun. It was a measure of Monica’s niceness that no one else but she knew that Valerie had auditioned and been turned down for both Maud and Monica’s parts in The Merry Widow. Still smarting from the rejection (she would have been so much better than Maud), Valerie was now determined to demonstrate her dancing skills and had dragged a reluctant Freddie on to the floor. She was soon bawling him out.

‘Can’t you concentrate for one minute, Fred-Fred? I said fish-tail not telemarque.’

Through a swirling herbaceous border of red coats and brilliantly coloured dresses, Freddie could see Lizzie in fuchsia pink being humped round the floor by James, who’d at last managed to shake off Sarah.

As they passed Tony sitting at the Corinium table, James deliberately pressed his cheek and his body against Lizzie’s.

I can’t stand it, thought Lizzie wretchedly. She’d imagined it would be better seeing Freddie tonight, than not seeing him at all, but it made everything much, much worse.

Watching across the room, Freddie wanted to punch James on his perfectly straight nose, and then whisk Lizzie upstairs on to a moth-infested four-poster and tear off her fuchsia dress and kiss her all over.

‘Fred-Fred,’ screeched Valerie in his ear, ‘are you tipsy? This is a foxtrot.’

Declan danced with Maud, who was well away. Over his shoulder she glanced at her gold watch. Bas was very late. At the Venturer table it was plain to Cameron, watching Rupert pour another large whisky, that he was deliberately setting out to get drunk. People kept pausing to say hullo, but, seeing the set expression on his face and the sinister glitter in his eyes, they didn’t stay long. Cameron, acutely conscious of Tony two tables away talking in lowered tones to Ginger Johnson and watching her every move, tried to talk to Rupert. A slow anger rose in her when he only answered in monosyllables.

Why make it so obvious that you’ve absolutely no interest in me, she wanted to scream. Was he deliberately goading her to go back to Tony?

‘The next dance is definitely mine,’ said Henry to Cameron.

‘Oh, good. Here’s Bas at last,’ said Maud, pinning up a tendril of hair at the back.

‘Good Lord,’ said Henry in wonder, his glass of wine poised halfway to his lips. ‘What a stunning girl!’

‘Annabel Kemble-Taylor’s hardly a girl,’ said Rupert, who had his back to the floor. ‘Half Leicestershire’s been up her.’

‘She is pretty. Most dramatical,’ said Freddie, putting on his spectacles. ‘Blimey, it’s Taggie.’

Rupert swung round and caught his breath. There, undulating across the floor, rouged, lipsticked, her eyes vast and black-lined with kohl, black hair a mass of snakey ringlets, her shoulders, far creamier and lusher than Maud’s, rising out of a ruched crimson dress with a bustle, was indeed Taggie. Everyone was turning round to gawp at her. Basil, who’d been slowly stalking her for fourteen months, looked beside himself with pride.

‘You look like a Christmas cracker,’ he whispered in her ear, as he fingered the ruched dress, ‘and, my God, I can’t wait to pull you.’

Taggie giggled. She was slightly overwhelmed by how different Hazel had made her look and the sensation she seemed to be creating. Her only aim was to please Rupert. She wanted to show him that she had at last grown up. But as he stared at her, his face totally unsmiling, her courage failed and she gave the dress a desperate tug upwards. Then, just as she and Bas reached the Venturer table, the band started again.

‘Lady in Red,’ said Basil in delight. ‘How appropriate.’ And, taking Taggie’s bag from her and dropping it in front of Rupert in a curiously insolent gesture, he swept her onto the floor.

‘I can’t dance,’ pleaded Taggie, half-laughing. ‘I truly, truly can’t.’

‘You can with me,’ said Bas, putting his hand round her waist. ‘This is a nice slow one to start with. This song could have been written for you, you are so so beautiful. ‘Never seen you looking so lovely as you do tonight,’ he sang, never seen you shine so bright.’

‘I find all this lipstick a bit strange,’ said Taggie.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll kiss it all off later.’

Taggie blushed. He was at least five inches taller than her, and so supple and strong, and with such a Latin sense of rhythm, that Taggie was soon following him perfectly in time.

‘You dance beautifully,’ he said, laying his cheek against her hair.

‘I can do it,’ said Taggie excitedly. ‘I can really dance.’

‘The lady in red is dancing with me, sang Bas gazing deep into her eyes, ‘There’s nobody here, just you and me.’ What a good thing Annabel had such an exhausting day with the Belvoir.’

‘Lady in red, Lady in red,’ sang Taggie dreamily and tunelessly, not knowing any of the other words. ‘It is a most gorgeous song.’

‘And you’re the most gorgeous girl,’ said Basil, french-kissing her shoulder.

‘Very fast man across country, Bas,’ said Henry approvingly.

‘Very fast man on the dance floor,’ said Freddie. ‘Don’t they go well togevver?’

Maud was looking extremely wintry. Cameron was watching Rupert. His face was like marble, but the tendons on the back of his hand, which was clenched round his glass, were like underground cables. He never took his eyes off Taggie as she and Bas moved round the floor. Then, suddenly, as the music stopped and Bas bent his otter-sleek head and kissed Taggie on her crimson mouth, his hand tightened on the glass so convulsively that it shattered. Amazingly he didn’t cut himself, but there was glass everywhere.

‘My Auntie was so superstitious,’ said Valerie, as a waitress rushed in with a dustpan and brush, ‘that if she broke something precious she’d rush down to the bottom of the garden and smash two jam jars to break the run of bad luck.’

‘As Rupert’s heart’s just been broken as well,’ said Cameron viciously, ‘we only need smash one more thing.’

‘Shut up,’ snarled Rupert, pouring a slug of whisky into a nearby wine glass.

Declan shot him a warning look. Nor were matters improved by Bas arriving at the table with Taggie.

‘Haven’t I done well?’ he said smugly. ‘Annabel dropped out, so the understudy took her place. I knew you’d be pleased, Maud darling,’ he added blithely as he bent down to peck Maud’s gritted cheek. ‘You were just complaining yesterday Taggie never had any fun.’

‘You look absolutely perfick,’ said Freddie.

‘Where did that gown come from?’ asked Valerie accusingly.

‘Corinium wardrobe department,’ said Basil, lobbing Freddie’s roll at Georgie Baines at the next table. ‘Suits her, doesn’t it?’

‘She looks great,’ said Declan proudly. ‘But make sure it isn’t bugged.’

‘All the bug would pick up is the hammering of her heart because she’s with me,’ said Bas, squeezing Taggie’s hand.

Taggie glanced shyly across at Rupert, who was now looking at her with complete indifference. Suddenly she felt utterly deflated. Even with every stop pulled out, there was no way she could win him. But there was little time to fret. Next minute a thoroughly over-excited Henry had whisked her off to dance. They were just circling decorously when the band broke into ‘Rock around the Clock’.

‘Ha ha ha,’ said Henry, suddenly galvanized like an over-adrenalized tarantula. ‘I know this tune. There’s life in the old dog yet.’ And he flung Taggie across the floor with great energy.

Every time he twirled her round he nearly pulled her out of her cracker dress. He’ll discover a paper hat and a motto in a minute, she thought as she frantically tugged it up again. As soon as the band stopped, a young blood swooped and asked her to dance, and then another, and another. Each one took her telephone number and said they’d ring her.

Great excitement, because it was regarded as highly symbolic, was caused at the Corinium table when Tony won a portable television on the Tombola.

‘He won’t be needing that much longer,’ growled Declan, who was getting increasingly worried about Rupert.

Freddie had also vanished, ostensibly to fetch Valerie some lemon squash, but he’d been away for three-quarters of an hour, and James Vereker could be seen hunting everywhere for Lizzie as he tried to escape from Sarah. Bas claimed another dance with Taggie and persuaded the band to play ‘Lady in Red’ again. As he and Taggie danced past them, all the band stood up in salute to her beauty.

Rupert was three-quarters of the way down his bottle of whisky when he was tapped sharply on the shoulder by one of his more forceful lady constituents.

‘I know this isn’t the time, but could we have a word about the Swindon — Gloucester motorway?’

She had a face the colour and texture of corned beef and it was now very close to Rupert’s.

‘Bugger the motorway,’ he said.

The corned beef seemed to engorge and darken like the interior of black pudding.

Getting to his feet, leaving her mouthing apoplectically, Rupert reached the dance floor just as Taggie and Bas were coming off. Grabbing Taggie’s hand, he dragged her back onto the floor. Alone in the centre, they gazed at each other. Slowly Rupert examined the huge, blackened, almost feverish eyes, the trembling ruby mouth, the quivering white breasts hardly covered by the crimson ruching. Adoring the way she looked normally in old clothes, with hardly any make-up, he detested this new grown-up, glamorous Taggie.

‘What’s the matter?’ she stammered, stepping back as though scorched by the disapproval in his eyes. ‘I hoped you’d l-l-like it.’

‘You look like a complete tart,’ he said viciously, ‘and as you’re with Bas, you’re obviously going to behave like one.’

Taggie gave a gasp of horror as, turning on his heel, Rupert walked straight back to the table.

‘What was that about?’ taunted Cameron. ‘I thought you liked little girls with bust measurements bigger than their IQs.’

‘I like them better than fucking American smart asses,’ snarled Rupert.

Spitting with fury, passing heraldic shields, suits of armour and antlers of several kinds of deer, Cameron fled to the Ladies. Rupert was a bastard, an utter asshole. But as she looked at her reflection in the ancient, dusty mirror, which should have flattered her, she couldn’t blame him for neglecting her. She looked awful, and the black dress she’d thought so sophisticated and understated had understated her so much she was practically invisible. Why the hell hadn’t she worn her black suede dress? Savagely she daubed her cheekbones with blusher and emptied the remains of a bottle of Jolie Madame — what a singularly inappropriate name — over her wrists and neck.

Coming out into the long gallery, she saw Tony emerging from behind a suit of armour and went sharply into reverse. He was too quick for her. Grabbing her wrists, he drew her into an alcove behind a huge urn filled with blue hyacinths. She tried to wriggle away, but he was too strong for her. Oh, why did that sweet, heady smell make her almost faint with longing?

‘I’ve missed you,’ he said, as he regained his breath. ‘I’ve never stopped missing you. I need you. Corinium needs you. Come back to us.’

‘Don’t be fucking infantile,’ hissed Cameron. ‘After the dirty trick you’ve pulled on us?’

‘I’m going to bury Venturer,’ he said evilly, ‘and you’ll go under too. You’ve just no idea what I’ve got up my sleeve.’

Cameron tried not to appear fazed: ‘You’ll never get away with it. The IBA knows you’re as bent as hell.’

‘By the time I’ve finished with Venturer I’ll look like a shining white angel.’

Drawing her towards him, he slowly fingered her rib cage, then pressed the ball of his hand up against her breast, at the same time running the other hand equally slowly over her bottom. It was an act of assessment — not of lust.

‘Dear, dear,’ he sighed, ‘you used to have such a beautiful body. Now you could do a commercial for famine relief.’

‘Don’t be disgusting.’

‘I’m just sad you’ve lost your looks.’ The hand still rotated on her bottom. She shuddered, unable to stop the squirming, helpless, revolted longing. Tony always did this to her.

‘I’ve been working, for Chrissake.’

‘You always thrived on work. You’re having Rupert trouble. I watched you tonight and last Friday.’

Suddenly Cameron realized what the scent of the blue hyacinths reminded her of — the much fainter smell of bluebells in Rupert’s wood the first weekend she spent at Penscombe.

‘He’s got the hots for Taggie O’Hara, hasn’t he?’ gloated Tony. ‘Everyone’s talking about it.’

In the distance the band was belting out ‘Mac the Knife’. It was as though Tony was turning it in her heart.

‘Bullshit,’ she said with a sob, and fled away from him, hearing his laughter following her all down the long gallery.

Cameron was so distraught, she didn’t see Declan standing in the shadows of a high tallboy. Worried about her scrap with Rupert, he’d come looking for her, wanting to comfort and steady her. He was about to call out. The next moment he froze as he saw a man emerging from behind the urn. The glint of his huge signet ring as he smoothed his hair, and the almost orgasmic expression on his face as he passed, made him instantly recognizable.

Declan went straight back to the Venturer table, but found only Maud and Freddie.

‘You was so dramatical in The Merry Widow,’ Freddie was saying.

‘Was I really?’ said Maud, looking very happy.

‘What’s hup?’ said Freddie in alarm as he saw Declan’s face. Sitting down, Declan came straight to the point.

‘I’ve just seen Cameron talking to Tony.’

‘Just saying ‘ullo.’

‘No, it was a long and very intimate conversation. She was in tears when she left him. He looked delighted with himself.’

‘Shit,’ said Freddie. ‘It’s Rupert’s fault. He’s been diabolical to Cameron all evening.’

‘What’s much, much worse is that she and I have been working on the Dermot MacBride deal and the Royal Shakespeare negotiations all week. If she leaks those to him we’re stymied.’

‘I still don’t fink she’s like that,’ said Freddie. ‘They was probably just reminiscing.’

‘We’re off,’ said a voice.

It was Bas with his arm round a somewhat tearstained Taggie.

‘You’ve only just arrived,’ said Maud hysterically.

‘I know, but we’ve got somewhere else to go on to,’ said Bas.

Suddenly there was a shriek of excitement as Henry rode a horse into the ballroom and round the floor, followed by hounds. He had snow on his shoulders and his black hat, and all the hounds had snow on their faces and their frantically wagging sterns. Everyone came rushing in to cheer them. There were terrific view holloas, as a hound trotted calmly up to the Corinium table and lifted its leg on the back of Tony’s chair.

‘Wish that dog was a member of the IBA,’ said Freddie.

By the time the hounds had gone, Cameron and Rupert were back at the table. Rupert, Declan noticed, had snow on his hair too and was shivering uncontrollably. Maud, too, seemed suddenly terribly upset, particularly when Valerie pointed out how keen Bas seemed on Taggie.

‘Much better for him to find someone nearer his age,’ she said smugly. ‘Where are they, anyway?’

‘Gone,’ said Declan.

‘Where?’ asked Rupert, looking up sharply.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Get your coat,’ said Rupert to Cameron.

He was waiting in the hall, glaring at a buffalo whose eyes were as glassy as his own, making no effort to conceal his impatience.

‘It’s not easy extracting one’s coat from underneath a heaving husband and someone else’s wife,’ snapped Cameron.

Outside, the snow was already four inches deep. As the long dresses of departing guests trailed over the white lawn, flurrying flakes seemed to blur the great house and a party of whooping young bloods, all no doubt with Taggie’s telephone number in their breast pockets, engaged in a snowball fight. Cameron felt she had gone back four hundred years.

‘I’ll drive. You’re drunk,’ she said to Rupert as they reached the car.

Careful, she told herself, as the Aston-Martin slid all over the road like Thumper on the ice, he’s reached that pitch of drunkenness that will erupt into violence at any minute. Having been beaten up by Tony, she was terrified of it happening again. But as they drew up outside the front of Penscombe Court, Rupert waited until she got out of the car, then slid across into the driving seat and set off in a tremendous flurry of snow.

Sobbing uncontrollably, Cameron let herself into the house and, shouting at the dogs to get out of her way, went straight to Rupert’s office and started searching. In the bottom drawer of his desk, under the lining paper, she found what she was looking for — that impossibly ill-spelt and ill-punctuated letter Taggie had written Rupert, thanking him for Claudius, and two photographs of her running in the wood. She stiffened when she saw the second. Rupert’s kids were there as well as Taggie. They were holding her hands and laughing. The leaves were flame-red on the beech trees, so it must have been autumn, and Tab was wearing her puff-ball skirt, so it must have been this year. Shit — and they all looked so happy. It must have been while she was away in Ireland. That was why Rupert had been so reluctant to have the kids over since, and insisted on taking them out on his own, in case they babbled on about Taggie. That was almost the worst thing, that she had utterly failed with the children, where Taggie had succeeded. Also under the lining paper, which she couldn’t interpret, was a pile of faded leaves.

Rupert knew he was far too drunk to drive, but he didn’t care. Anyway, he had always jumped horses when he was pissed with that much more dash and brilliance. Unable to stop himself, he drove straight into Cotchester and parked outside the Bar Sinister. The roofs of the honey-coloured houses were completely hidden with snow now. Flakes were landing like huge polar bears on his bonnet, almost obscuring his vision, but not so much that he couldn’t see the lights in the flat above. Bas was plainly at home.

Christ — why had he been such a shit to Taggie? She’d looked so fucking gorgeous and he’d detested it because he wanted to keep her as his little teenager. At the back of his mind he’d expected her to be always there. Rationally he knew he must never make a play for her, that one day she’d find some nice dull kind boy of her own age to take care of her. But he hadn’t thought the whole thing through, or realized he’d be driven into a maddened frenzy of jealousy because she’d been stolen from under his nose by the second worst rake in the county who was probably expertly initiating her into the pleasures of the flesh at this moment.

He slumped on the steering wheel, groaning. He wanted to break down the door, to kill Bas, to drag Taggie back to The Priory like a father out of a Victorian melodrama. In his misery he didn’t even feel the cold. Gradually the snow obscured the entire windscreen and he had to turn on the engine to start up the wipers, when suddenly the balcony doors opened and Bas and Taggie came out. She was wearing Bas’s red coat. Winding down the window, Rupert could hear her cries of joy at the beauty of the snow. Next moment Bas had gathered up the snow along the balcony rail to make a snowball and handed it to her, but she only managed to chuck it a few yards down the ghostly whitening street.

‘Tell you never played cricket at school,’ said Bas fondly.

Then, drawing her close by the lapels of his coat, he slowly kissed her. They were so preoccupied, they didn’t even notice Rupert. Totally sobered up, he drove back to Penscombe.

The rest of the weekend was like the Phoney War. Rupert and Cameron were perfectly polite to each other. She worked on the franchise, he was off to Rome on Sunday for a meeting with the International Olympics Committee, but would be home on Wednesday night.

The only time she saw him with his guard down was when she caught a glimpse of him watching a Lassie film in the study. He was clutching Beaver and the tears were running down his cheeks.