Rivals

49

Up in London that night the fourteen directors and senior staff of Corinium Television had an extremely successful final dry run before their meeting at the IBA the next afternoon. Tony, in a new dark-blue pin-stripe suit paid for by Corinium, was in coruscating form.

‘They can have one drink,’ he told Ginger Johnson beforehand, ‘and then not one drop until we’ve been round the course — and I’m going to grill them.’

No one at the meeting tomorrow, he said, was to speak until he’d introduced them. There was now, as a result of recent hiring and firing, a most satisfactory preponderance of ex-production people on the Board who would do most of the talking. The money-men, like Ginger and Georgie Baines, who brought in the vast advertising revenue, would keep a low profile. In fact it would be better if the word ‘profit’ were not mentioned at all. All the men had had hair cuts.

‘No doubt,’ muttered Sarah Stratton to James Vereker, ‘there will be a nail inspection in the morning.’

Afterwards they all dined wisely but not too well at the Carlton Tower, where they were staying overnight. No shellfish was allowed, nor liqueurs after dinner. Everyone was very impressed with Ailie Bristoe, the new Programme Controller, who’d flown over from Hollywood for the occasion, and seemed as beautiful as she was bright. James Vereker, in particular, thought she looked very caring.

‘I’m surprised Tony hasn’t put the women in separate hotels,’ grumbled Sarah, as they were all sent up to bed early.

‘Be sure to order a Scorpion for tomorrow,’ was Tony’s parting shot. ‘You’ll all find it very interesting reading.’

Back in Gloucestershire, Declan finally stormed out of The Priory around ten o’clock, having failed to get a confession out of Cameron. Utterly devastated that he and Freddie could possibly think she was the mole, Cameron was slumped on the sofa, still cuddling Blue when the telephone rang. It was some girl, saying Rupert wouldn’t be back until the morning, but he sent his love. There was a terrific din in the background and the girl sounded as though she was ringing from a bar. Bastard, thought Cameron, but she was too proud to ask where he was. As she put the telephone down it rang again.

‘Can I speak to Rupert Campbell-Black?’

‘He’s not here.’

‘Is that Cameron Cook?’

‘This is she.’

The voice thickened and became oily as though it was asking for extended credit.

‘This is the Messenger here. Wondered what you feel about Rupert’s memoirs in the Scorpion.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Rupert’s really done it this time. Bloody bad timing on the day before your IBA meeting.’

Cameron had had a long day and was not connecting well but gradually it sank in that Beattie Johnson had finally got her revenge on Rupert by telling all to the Scorpion. Not only, according to the Messenger reporter, had she produced every kind of salacious detail about her two years with Rupert and the unbelievably kinky things they’d got up to, but, even worse, revealed intimate details of his sex life with other women, including Helen.

‘Oh my God!’ whispered Cameron. ‘Does he mention me?’

‘Not yet, sweetheart,’ said the reporter, who’d already seen and admired Cameron’s photograph, ‘but you may be in Saturday’s instalment. They’re trailing the spread that’s going out on Friday, the morning you go to the IBA. It’s all about Rupert’s affair with Amanda Hamilton, wife of the shadow Foreign Secretary. Very pretty lady, evidently she liked being spanked.’

Cameron groaned.

‘And there’s a particularly damaging bit tomorrow,’ said the reporter, who was beginning to enjoy himself. ‘I’ll read it. Beattie writes: “I always felt Rupert was unnaturally close to fellow show jumper Billy Lloyd-Foxe. Rupert admitted that when they were in Kenya, he, Helen and Billy and his journalist wife Janey (who left Billy for nine months soon after they were married) had a naughty foursome. Did Helen (who started an affair with Jake Lovell shortly after this incident) discover the true nature of Rupert’s sexual preference that night?”’

‘I don’t want to hear any more,’ screamed Cameron, slamming down the receiver. It rang again. It was the Sun.

‘Go away,’ she screamed.

Immediately she’d put down the receiver, she dialled out.

‘Fuck off, all of you,’ snarled a voice.

‘Declan, it’s Cameron. Have you heard about Rupert’s memoirs?’

‘Yes,’ said Declan, ‘and I don’t know where the fuck to get hold of him.’

‘Nor do I,’ sobbed Cameron.

The juggernauts rumbling along Cotchester High Street woke Rupert next morning to the worst hangover in recorded history. Moaning, he pulled the blankets over his head. There was a knock on the door.

‘Bugger off. I feel terrible.’

‘You’re not going to feel any better when you read this,’ said Bas, handing him a Fernet Branca and the Scorpion, which Rupert read in silence.

‘The dirty bitch,’ he said softly. ‘She said she’d get me in the end.’

It was as though some terrible monster from his past had put a hand up from a manhole and dragged him down into the mire and slime below. He went straight to the lavatory and threw up.

‘Lend me a toothbrush, and then a telephone,’ he said to Bas. He was put straight through to Freddie.

‘Look, I’ve only just seen the Scorpion. I’m ringing up to resign.’

‘Don’t be daft,’ said Freddie.

‘I’ve got to. There are two more days to go, and it’s bound to get worse. Unless I pull out, there’s no way you’ll get the franchise.’

‘Don’t be rash, mate. We won’t be much good at running a TV station if we can’t ride out somefink like this. Got to stick togevver. Come over ’ere and we’ll sort out the best plan of action, but you’re not resigning.’

‘Up to me really,’ said Rupert. ‘I must see Cameron, and then I’ll be over.’

Arriving at Penscombe, he found cars parked all the way up his drive, and the gravel in front of the house completely hidden by journalists, photographers and television crews. Corinium had even had the temerity to send a mobile canteen. Stony-faced, greyer than the trampled snow, Rupert got out of his car.

‘Fuck off, the lot of you,’ he snarled as they all surged forward. ‘I’ve got to talk to my lawyer.’

‘What about the franchise?’ asked the Mail on Sunday.

‘Come on, Rupe,’ said the Star. ‘Give us a quote. We’ve waited all fucking night.’

‘I’ve got nothing to say. I’ll put my dogs on you if you don’t beat it.’ Fighting his way into the house, he slammed the door behind him.

‘Well, well, well,’ said Cameron from halfway up the stairs.

She wore no make-up, and her hair was sleeked back from her face which was deathly white.

‘I’m sorry,’ began Rupert.

‘Fuck off,’ screamed Cameron, as a photographer appeared at a side window. Racing downstairs, she drew the curtains.

‘Come upstairs,’ said Rupert.

They went into his bedroom, the set for so much of the action in the first instalment of the memoirs. Almost as though the great four-poster would contaminate her, Cameron gave it a wide berth and went over to the fireplace.

‘How could you?’ she whispered. ‘Have you told people those sort of things about me?’

‘Never, never,’ said Rupert. Suddenly dizzy, he slumped on the flowered chintz-covered chair in front of Helen’s old dressing table. ‘Beattie was a special case. The thing that turned her on was stories of my screwing other women. She must have had a tape recorder running under the bed the whole time.’

‘Then you did say those things. They’re disgusting, insupportable.’ She shuddered. ‘You realize your career’s finished? You’ll be kicked out of the party. I hope you’ve already resigned from Venturer. And I suppose Saturday’s instalment will be all about your touching designs on Taggie O’Hara. How the great rake was reformed and approached his waiting bride with a tenderness which was all the more careful, the more considerate because he knew the depths of her apprehension — Ker-rist!’ Her voice rose to a screech.

Rupert looked at her incredulously. Expecting the exocet from the front, he was suddenly being torpedoed from underneath.

‘You’re in love with her, aren’t you?’ said Cameron.

Rupert looked across the valley at his white fields. He’d always seen them as arms protecting Taggie. Now they seemed like a great predatory polar bear, crushing The Priory to death.

He turned back to Cameron.

‘OK,’ he said flatly, ‘I do love her. If I’m honest, I’ve loved her ever since New Year’s Eve, probably long before that. I’m desperately sorry, I know I’ve dealt you a marked card. I’m much too fond of you to kid you along any longer, just for the sake of the franchise, that you and I are going to end up together.’

Cameron opened her mouth to yell at him, but Rupert raised his hand for a second’s more silence.

‘I didn’t know a thing about these memoirs coming out — not that you’d want me anyway after reading them — but I want you to know that I was intending to level with you today about Taggie.’

For a second Cameron seemed to sway with frenzy, like a viper about to strike, then she screamed: ‘You won’t get her. Declan knows about it too, and there’s no way he’ll let you ever get your filthy depraved hands on his darling daughter.’

‘I know there isn’t,’ said Rupert. ‘This —’ he picked up the Scorpion and wearily dropped it in the wastepaper basket — ‘has finally done for us.’

‘Serve you fucking right,’ yelled Cameron. ‘I’m getting out of here, and I never want to see you again.’

She rushed downstairs out of the front door, then kicked and punched her way through the waiting journalists, sending several of them leaping for safety as the Lotus stormed down the drive.

‘Nice quiet girl,’ said the Mail on Sunday, picking himself out of the snow.

Arriving at Green Lawns, Rupert found Freddie and Declan desperately trying to salvage the IBA meeting. As a result of Rupert’s memoirs, two of the major financial backers had pulled out and Professor Graystock had resigned. As Rupert went into Freddie’s study, the Bishop rang up:

‘I’m afraid in the light of Rupert Campbell-Black’s quite appalling revelations, I shall have to withdraw my support for the Venturer bid.’

‘You can’t,’ said Freddie, aghast. ‘The meeting’s tomorrow morning. Your not being there will really tip the scales. I fort the Church of England were supposed to forgive sinners.’

‘I have to set a good example to my flock,’ said the Bishop and rang off.

‘Lily-livered bastard,’ said Freddie furiously. ‘We’re well shot of ’im.’

‘He’d have impressed the IBA,’ said Declan bleakly, who couldn’t look Rupert in the eye. Was it because of Taggie or the memoirs?

‘Then I must resign,’ said Rupert. ‘It’s the only honourable thing to do.’

‘No, you won’t,’ said Freddie. ‘It don’t add up. Beattie Johnson was a slut, but she ’ad a good ’eart. I don’t fink she’d ’ave written those rings wivout considerable financial inducement. Seb Burrows has got nuffink to do at the moment. I’m going to put him on to the story and see what he can dig up. And can’t we slap an injunction on the Scorpioni?’

Rupert shook his head wearily. ‘I wish we could, but I’m afraid it’s all true. Although, it’s appallingly slanted. The only wrong thing is that Billy and I aren’t gay. Seven-eighths of it was never, never meant for publication, but she was such a fucking good listener, and you know I can never resist making people laugh. We were together for two years, for Christ’s sake.’

‘How’s Cameron taken it?’ asked Declan harshly. ‘She was in a terrible state last night. Thinks you and she are kaput.’

Rupert slumped on the sofa, putting his head in his hands.

‘We are. I’ve just told her.’

Declan lost his temper. It was like an earthquake and a volcano erupting at the same time.

‘Can’t you ever keep your fucking trap shut? First you tell everything to Beattie Johnson, then you have to give Cameron the boot. Don’t you realize this’ll screw up any final chance we have of getting the franchise? No Bishop, no professor, no financial backing, no Cameron — she’ll bolt straight back to Tony and tell him everything she hasn’t told him already.’

‘What d’you mean?’ Rupert looked up, the bloodshot eyes suddenly alert.

‘Haven’t you read The Times yet?’

‘Bas muttered something about it last night, but I forgot to read it.’

‘Cameron leaked all our plans to Tony on Tuesday.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘We put a private detective on to Tony. They spent an hour and a half together in the Royal Garden. ‘

‘So?’ said Rupert. ‘They were having a bunk-up. Cameron’s straight, I swear it.’

‘So do I,’ said Freddie.

‘Well, it’s purely academic now, since Rupert has seen fit to kick her out.’

‘I’m sorry, Declan.’

‘It’s not bloody good enough.’

Unshaven, putty-coloured, his shirt on its second day, his suit crumpled, Rupert looked so desolate and so ill, slumped on the sofa, that Freddie went over and put a hand on his shoulder.

‘Could ’appen to anyone. You’ll come out of it.’

‘Venturer won’t. I’ve done for the lot of you.’

At that moment Valerie marched in.

‘I’ve read every word of your disgusting memoirs,’ she screeched. ‘I don’t want you in the house. You might give Wayne or even Fred-Fred some horrid disease.’

‘Shut up,’ snapped Freddie. ‘He’s ’ad enough punishment. Now just bugger off and bring us some black coffee.’

Feeling he was such an irritant to Declan, Rupert left soon after that. Holing up in Bas’s flat, he spent the rest of a nightmare day on the telephone, trying to resign from the party, from his constituency and from the International Olympics Committee. To his frustration no one would accept. The Leader of the Opposition, for example, was amazingly sanguine:

‘Wait until the franchises have been awarded,’ she said. ‘That tramp Beattie Johnson took me to the cleaners just before I became leader — slanted the whole interview. Jolly nearly cost me the job. The Amanda Hamilton business is unfortunate, I grant you, but Rollo’s only Shadow Foreign Secretary at the moment, and you haven’t done anything illegal. There’s been absolutely no security leak, and it isn’t as though you were married when you were in office. Just hang on a bit.’

Amanda Hamilton, on the other hand, was absolutely gibbering with anger when Rupert rang her. Rollo was intending to sue, she said.

Malise Gordon, by contrast, was icy cold with rage that Helen’s name had been dragged into it.

‘I’m not excusing what’s happened,’ said Rupert, ‘but I was very raw when Helen left me. Beattie lived with me for two years. Naturally I confided in her about my marriage, it never entered my head she’d shop me. None of the stuff that’s been printed was intended for the memoirs. Will you tell Helen how desperately sorry I am? I did tell Beattie hundreds of good things about her, which she conveniently forgot to put in.’

‘I’m sure that’ll be a great comfort to Helen,’ said Malise acidly.

‘Look, I’m going abroad immediately after the IBA meeting tomorrow,’ said Rupert. ‘I won’t be back for Christmas. I must see the children before I go.’

‘I don’t think that’s at all a good idea,’ said Malise crushingly, ‘and I know Helen won’t either. Tab’s far too young to understand, and I doubt if Marcus will ever speak to you again after the things you said about his mother. The press are howling round the place; your presence would only exacerbate things. Just bugger off and leave us all alone.’

‘I must explain —’ just for a second Rupert’s voice faltered — ‘that whatever’s happened, I still love them. For Christ’s sake, Malise.’

‘You can always write,’ said Malise, and hung up.

Rupert sat slumped for a long time. Then he borrowed two hundred pounds in cash from Basil’s till, a piece of writing paper and an envelope.

‘Darling Taggie,’ he wrote, ‘I’m sorry I was bloody the last two times we met. Of course we’re still friends. One day you’ll find some nice boy who’s worthy of you, and he’ll be the luckiest sod in the world. In the meantime could you spend the enclosed on Christmas presents for Marcus and Tab. You’ll know instinctively what they’d like. Thank you for everything. God bless you. . Rupert.’

Shoving the cash and the letter in an envelope, he gave it to Bas to deliver to The Priory.

Towards nightfall, over at Green Lawns, Freddie and Declan were just trying to prevent another backer pulling out when the private detective rang on another line. He had something too important to tell them over the telephone. He’d be straight round. He turned out, to Declan’s surprise, not to be some seedy unfrocked cop in a dirty mac, but a delightfully understated, mouse-haired young Wykehamist with an innocent pink and white face. Nor did he beat about anyone’s bush.

‘Tony Baddingham spent yesterday afternoon in a Stow-in-the-Wold motel with a woman. I’ve got pictures of them arriving separately and then leaving together, and exchanging kisses in the car park.’

He threw the pictures down on the table. Fascinated, Freddie and Declan got up to have a look. In the first photograph the woman had her black coat collar turned up and was wearing a black beret, dark glasses and her hair tied back. In the second, coming out of the motel, her coat was unbuttoned, she was laughing, holding the dark glasses and the beret in one hand, with her glorious red hair trailing down her back. In the third, she was kissing Tony in front of Taggie’s car.

‘Is this some kind of a joke?’ hissed Declan.

‘I’m afraid not,’ said the private detective. ‘I’m awfully sorry, Mr O’Hara. After they’d gone I talked to the receptionist. After I’d bunged her, she admitted they’d been there several times before. She showed me the register — they’d signed in as Mr and Mrs Jones. The girl remembered Mrs O’Hara because she was so beautiful.’

Declan started to shake. It was like seeing the first stroke of the woodcutter’s axe going into a great oak tree, thought Freddie.

‘But it was Bas, not Tony,’ muttered Declan.

‘Bas must have been a front,’ said Freddie.

‘Look how upset she was the other night when Taggie turned up with Bas,’ said Declan, frantically trying to convince himself.

‘That’s because she’s jealous of Taggie,’ said Freddie wisely. ‘It was only later she got really upset, which was when you told us you’d just seen Cameron with Tony — and she did know all about Dermot MacBride and the Shakespeare plays. ‘

‘I don’t believe it,’ muttered Declan. ‘She wouldn’t. I must find her.’ He stumbled towards the door.

‘For Christ’s sake, drive slowly,’ warned Freddie.

As Declan walked into The Priory Maud came out of the drawing-room with a glass of champagne in her hand. She was wearing a black polo-neck jersey, a black coat, black stockings, black flat shoes and a black beret on the back of her head. She was very pale, she wore no lipstick, but her skin had a glowing luminosity and her eyes were huge and dreamy. Declan thought she had never looked more beautiful, and suddenly knew she was as guilty as hell.

‘Darling — I got it!’ she said ecstatically.

‘What?’

‘The part — Nora — in A Doll’s House. We start rehearsing immediately after Christmas and they’re paying me four hundred a week, so our money worries are all over.’

How little she knows about anything, thought Declan — how can a child have done such terrible things?

‘Where’s Taggie?’ he asked.

‘Cooking supper, I think. You don’t seem very pleased for me, darling.’

As if in a dream he led her into the drawing-room, shutting the door and then opening it again to let in Claudius and Gertrude. Gertrude had a Bonio sticking out of the side of her mouth like a pipe. She could sit there for hours, saliva hanging in festoons. Declan leant against the door for support, watching Maud put a log on the fire. Despite all Maud’s grandiose plans for The Priory, there were still no curtains at the windows which were as black as her clothes.

‘How long have you been having an affair with Tony?’ he asked almost conversationally.

Maud’s face went as blank as a digital clock in a power cut.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Don’t prevaricate. I’ve got evidence.’ Declan threw the photographs down on the sofa. Slowly Maud examined them.

‘Rather good, that one.’ She took a leisurely sip of her champagne. ‘I might use it as a publicity photograph.’

‘How long’s it been going on?’

‘Since September.’

‘So you told him everything?’

Maud shrugged: ‘I really don’t remember. We found so much to talk about.’

This can’t be happening to me, thought Declan. I don’t feel anything. It’s as though we’re discussing two characters in a play.

‘But why Tony? Bas I can understand, but not —’ for the first time he betrayed any emotion — ‘not that filthy venomous toad.’

Maud looked at him for a moment, her hand gently stroking Claudius’s ears.

‘Because he was kind, because he listened to me, because he was interested in me as a person — not just as a hole between two legs.’

Her sudden uncharacteristic coarseness shocked Declan almost more than her betrayal.

‘Tony!’ he said in amazement, ‘kind?’

Suddenly Maud flipped. ‘You’re so obsessed with your fucking franchise,’ she yelled, ‘you don’t know anyone else exists, except when you want to fuck them. You couldn’t even forget it for one moment to get back for my first night, when I really needed you. Christ — I needed you! And then swanning in and ordering me away from my own first-night party.

‘I was only fooling around with Tony until then. It was only after that that it got serious. He arranged for me to meet Pascoe Rawlings. He saw that a car delivered me to Pascoe’s office last week and brought me back. He fixed for me to be driven to the audition today, and even though he’d got his IBA meeting this afternoon, he still rang me this evening to see how I’d got on. You’d even forgotten I was going.’ She laughed; it was a horrible sound without any merriment. ‘The great interviewer, so praised for his judgement of character and his consideration to the staff, who doesn’t know a thing about his own wife.’

‘Can’t you understand that he’s using you?’ said Declan slowly. ‘The only thing that turns Tony on is acquisition. You’ve just lost us the franchise, and you were going to stand by and let me blame Cameron.’

‘Serve her right — arrogant little bitch,’ cried Maud hysterically.

Outside in the hall Taggie could hear her mother’s screams getting louder and louder. Oh God, her father didn’t need upsetting any more when he had the IBA meeting in the morning. Next moment the drawing-room door burst open.

‘I’m leaving you,’ screamed Maud.

‘Come back,’ roared Declan.

‘Never, and don’t send Ursula looking for me at the Lost Property Office, because I won’t be there.’ She shot past Taggie and out of the front door, banging it so hard the whole hall rattled.

Taggie ran to open it. Outside it was snowing again. She watched Maud drive off in her car, hell for leather, down the drive.

‘What on earth’s the matter?’ she said, turning to Declan, who was standing as if blasted white by lightning.

‘She was the mole.’

Taggie gave a gasp. ‘She couldn’t be. She can’t have meant to.’

‘She did,’ said Declan in a voice of utter despair, ‘because I neglected her. It’s all my fault. I blamed Cameron last night and Rupert today, and just now I blamed her. But through my focking obsession and hubris I’ve brought us all down.’