Rivals (10 page)

‘The youngest kiddy will make a friend for Sharon, although Sharon made a lot of friends at Pony Club camp. I must get them together when the O’Haras move in,’ said Valerie.

Catching Sarah’s eye yet again, Lizzie decided Sarah was definitely going to be a mate.

A group of young waitresses from other tables were now hovering, wondering if it were the right moment to ask James Vereker for his autograph. Tony was also looking at James and experiencing a glow of pure pleasure. Corinium’s most popular presenter was feeling all the pique and disquiet of a big fish who’s been basking for years in a rock pool, then suddenly sees the fin of a shark coming over the horizon. James’s exquisitely straight nose would be frightfully put out of joint by Declan’s arrival. James, Tony decided, had been getting a shade above himself recently. There was nothing Tony loved more than cutting people down to size.

As liqueurs and cigars came round, Tony moved down the table beside Freddie Jones. Now Rupert had stood him up so summarily, he was even keener to get Freddie on to the Board. With satellite television in the offing, Freddie’s millions and electronic expertise would be invaluable.

‘When Declan arrives, we’ll get him to interview you,’ said Tony.

Valerie also changed places and sat next to Monica.

‘What a lovely meal, Lady Anthony,’ she said.

‘Oh, please call me Monica.’

‘Well, thank you, Monica,’ said Valerie gratified. ‘You may, if you like, call me Mousie. That’s Fred-Fred’s pet name for me. I only allow very special friends to become members of the Mousie club.’

Oblivious of Monica’s look of amazement and Sarah’s and Lizzie’s complete hysterics, Valerie ploughed on. ‘I wanted to pick your brains, Monica, about public schools. Wayne is eleven but he’s extra bright, so we’re thinking of Winchester or even Eton, but I just wondered if you and Tony had been satisfied with Rugborough.’

‘Well, Archie’s very happy there,’ said Monica, her raucous voice softening. ‘The only problem, if one’s got a flat in London, is that Rugborough’s on the Central Line and, whenever he gets bored, Archie keeps nipping home on the tube. It drives Tony demented. Archie’s supposed to be doing his O-levels.’

‘Our problem,’ said Valerie smugly, ‘is to
stop
Wayne working. Not that he’s a sissy, Monica – he’s really plucky at sport – but you know how important qualifications are.’

The band was playing ‘Red Red Wine’. The brilliantly lit ballroom beckoned. The vast springy floor was now filling up with couples. Like a shaken kaleidoscope, the red coats of the men with their flying tails clashed gloriously with the stinging fuchsia pinks and electric blues of the women’s dresses.

‘I wouldn’t mind if Tony’d given me an inkling beforehand,’ said James Vereker furiously, as, oblivious for once of the admiring glances of most of the young girls in the room, he lugged Lizzie round the floor, ‘but I looked such a pratt, knowing nothing about it, and Monica actually admitted never watching my programme. Says she prefers BBC 2. What kind of a Chairman’s wife is that?’

Lizzie let him rabbit on. She felt terribly sorry for him, but it was such exciting news that Declan was moving to Corinium, and she was fascinated by what was happening on the floor.

Monica was dancing with the Lord-Lieutenant now. For someone so mad about opera, she had no sense of rhythm. Gyrating three feet apart, they looked like two ostriches on hot bricks.

‘Red
red wine
,’ sang the Lord-Lieutenant over and over again, which were the only words he knew.

As the tempo speeded up, Valerie took the floor with Freddie, showing off her ‘Come Dancing’ skills, fishtailing, telemarquing, reversing, correcting Freddie sharply whenever he made a mistake. Freddie, his little black shoes twinkling, laughed and took it in good part.

‘What on earth did you find to say to James Vereker’s wife?’ asked Valerie, as the band paused for a moment. ‘What a mess, can’t have combed her hair for weeks, and that fraightful gown.’

‘Nice lady,’ said Freddie firmly. ‘I liked her a lot.’

Valerie gazed at Freddie as uncomprehendingly as Lizzie had gazed at James when, earlier, he’d called Valerie ‘a poppet’.

‘And that new wife of Paul Stratton’s looks a handful,’ she went on.

Freddie refrained from saying he’d love to have his hands full of Sarah Stratton.

Paul and Sarah were dancing together now. He was holding her close, his hands moving over her flawless gold back, as if testing she were real. Perhaps she’d made a special effort to look particularly stunning tonight, thought Lizzie, knowing Winifred was such a chum of Monica’s.

Tony devoted the rest of the evening to wooing Freddie, but he allowed himself the treat of a dance with Sarah. She was really gorgeous, he decided. One could understand exactly why Paul let his heart rule his very swollen head and ditched Winifred, but would he ever hold Sarah? She had obviously fallen in love with Paul because he was powerful and unobtainable. Now his career had taken a nose dive in the party and he’d been sacked from the Cabinet, he was neither of these things. Nervous of losing his seat at the next election, he kept angling for Tony to offer him an executive directorship on the Corinium Board.

But Paul shouldn’t have patronized Tony in the past. How much more amusing, thought Tony, to employ Paul’s new wife instead. Holding her dazzlingly full and exciting body, breathing in the scent of her thickly piled-up blonde hair, trying not to gaze too openly at the beautiful gold breasts, Tony felt the stirrings of lust. If she was any good, she’d be perfect to present the new late night show. That would really put Paul in a tizz.

‘It’s terribly exciting about Declan,’ said Sarah. ‘I’m such a fan. Those programmes are like Rembrandts. Did you see the one on Placido Domingo?’

‘You must come and meet him as soon as they move in,’ said Tony. ‘You’re going to be a distinct asset to Gloucestershire.’

Suddenly Sarah looked terribly young. Even in the dim light Tony could see she was blushing.

‘It was angelic of you to ask us tonight, knowing what friends you were, particularly your wife, of Winifred’s. Paul’s friends haven’t been exactly friendly. They think I’ve screwed up Paul’s career.’

Tony gave a piratical smile. All he needs between his teeth is a cutlass, thought Sarah.

‘You’ve given Paul a cast-iron excuse not to be Prime Minister,’ he said. ‘He’d never have made it. He has neither the bottle nor the conviction.’

‘You’re speaking of the man I love,’ said Sarah.

‘I’m sorry.’ Tony didn’t sound it. ‘I’m going to tell James Vereker to interview you for our new “Behind Every Famous Man” series.’

Sarah smiled, showing very small, white, even teeth.

‘You’d do better to interview Valerie. She drives poor Fred-Fred on with a pitchfork.’

‘Probably spent half the day reading etiquette books on the correct way to hold your pitchfork,’ said Tony.

Back at the table, the waiter poured more Krug, but Tony put a hand over his glass.

‘I’m driving to London after this,’ he said. ‘We’re announcing Declan’s appointment tomorrow, so all hell’s going to break loose.’

‘The Gloucestershire poacher strikes again,’ said Lizzie, receiving a sharp kick on the ankle from James.

As everyone swarmed out into the High Street after the ‘Post Horn Gallop’ and ‘Auld Lang Syne’, they found a thick layer of snow on the pavements. Down the road, high above them, the Corinium red ram was already wearing a white barrister’s wig of snow on his curly poll.

‘Drive carefully, Tony,’ called Monica, as Percy the chauffeur held open the door of the Rolls for her. ‘See you tomorrow evening.’ Happily she settled back in the grey seat. Soon she’d be home to at least an hour of
Lohengrin
before she fell asleep.

‘Bet the old ram’s making a Cook’s detour via Hamilton Terrace,’ said James Vereker savagely, as Tony set off for London in the BMW, waving goodbye to the last of his guests.

Tony drove towards the motorway, but, sure enough, as soon as he’d shaken everyone else off, he did a U-turn and, just as the snow started to fall again, belted back to Cotchester.

RIVALS

It was three o’clock in the morning but Cameron Cook was still working on the first story outline for the new series of ‘Four Men went to Mow’. On Monday she’d start commissioning writers. Ones that were talented and bullyable were not easy to find.

Beyond having a shower and brushing her teeth, she’d made no preparations for Tony, no satin sheets, no black silk negligées, no Fracas – the sharp, dry scent he so adored and which he brought her by the bucket – sprayed round the room. She was wearing the same brown cashmere jersey she’d worn to the office earlier, tight black trousers and no make-up. After twenty months, the one thing that held Tony was her indifference, her refusal to jump to his ringmaster’s whip.

Perhaps he wouldn’t turn up at all to punish her for being so bloody at the meeting. But she was so pissed off with him going to the Hunt Ball without her, and even worse inviting that jerk James Vereker, that she’d refused to speak to him after the meeting and stormed off home. She mustn’t drop her guard like that. Once Tony detected weakness, he stuck the knife in.

All the same her stint in England had been terrifically exciting. She remembered so well the July day she had arrived. Tony had met her at Heathrow and driven her straight down to Cotchester to the quiet Regency terrace to the honey-gold house he had bought her. It was the only time she’d ever known him nervous.

Inside, as they’d gone from room to room, as finely proportioned and delicately coloured as the eggs of a bird, primrose and Wedgwood blue, lemon-yellow and cream, pale green and white, with large sash windows, and pretty alcoves with shelves for china scooped out of the walls, Cameron hadn’t said a word. Apart from a fully equipped kitchen and a television set in the living-room, there was no furniture except a huge brass four-poster in the upstairs attic, which spread across the whole top floor.

Cameron had opened the window and gazed out at her new back yard with its pale-pink roses, and three ancient apple trees at the end. Someone had just mowed the lawn, and, as she breathed in the smell of grass cuttings, and admired the grey-gold spire of Cotchester Cathedral rising from its bright-green water meadows, she burst into tears.

Tony, who hadn’t touched her until then, thinking she hated the house, or was feeling homesick, moved forward like lightning and took her in his arms.

‘Darling, what’s the matter? We’ll find something else if you don’t like it.’

Then Cameron sobbed into his Prussian-blue silk shirt that it was the loveliest house she’d ever seen, and why didn’t they christen the bed – and their love-making turned out to be even more rapturous than it had been in New York.

But that was the last time she’d displayed weakness in his presence. From the moment she’d arrived she’d had no time to consider whether she was homesick or not. When she wasn’t producing and master- minding every detail of the thirteen episodes of ‘Four Men went to Mow’, battling with directors, designers, actors and technicians, who weren’t at all pleased to have a twenty-seven-year-old American upstart ordering them around, she was furnishing the house, driving from Southampton to Stratford, from Bath to Oxford, picking up antiques, thoroughly acquainting herself with the Cotswold area and seeking new ideas for programmes.

Otherwise her life revolved around Tony. He managed to spend several evenings a week with her; people noticed he’d started leaving official dinners and cocktail parties abnormally early. He also took her to all the big events in the television calendar: Edinburgh, Monte Carlo, Cannes, New York, New Orleans, where she’d justified her existence a hundred times over selling Corinium programmes and acquiring new ones.

But there was still the married side of Tony’s life, from which she was so ruthlessly excluded. She had only been once to his beautiful house, The Falconry, when Monica and the children were away, and that, she was sure, was because he wanted to show the place off.

Going into the drawing-room, she had exclaimed with pleasure at the Renoir over the mantelpiece.

‘Don’t touch it,’ screamed Tony, ‘or you’ll have the entire Gloucestershire constabulary on the doorstep.’

Cameron had only met Monica once or twice at office parties, or at the odd business reception. And occasionally Monica sailed into Corinium to collect Tony. The galling thing was she never recognized Cameron. In one way, Monica’s lack of interest in Tony’s job made it much easier for him to deceive her. In another, brooded Cameron, if you had a rival, you wanted her at least to be aware of your existence.

‘Lady Baddingham is a real lady,’ Miss Madden was fond of saying when she wanted to get under Cameron’s skin.

Cameron liked to think Tony only stayed with Monica because the silly old bag gave him respectability, and he didn’t want any scandal before the franchise was renewed.

Getting up from her desk, Cameron wandered round the living-room. It was the only room in the house she’d redecorated, papering the walls in scarlet with a tiny blue-grey flower pattern and adding scarlet curtains, and a blue-grey carpet, sofas and chairs. She had acquired a new piano in England, lacquered in red, but had brought with her from America the dentist’s chair upholstered in scarlet Paisley, the dartboard, the gold toe from the Metropolitan Museum, and all the videos of her NBS programmes. Beside them on the shelf were now stacked the thirteen prize-winning episodes of ‘Four Men went to Mow’ and the two documentaries Cameron had also made on All Souls’ College, Oxford, and on Anthony Trollope, who’d based Barchester on Salisbury, which was, after all, within the Corinium boundary.

On the mantelpiece was a signed photograph of the four young actors who’d starred in ‘Four Men went to Mow’, and a huge phallic cactus, given to her as an end-of-shoot present by the entire cast.
‘Darling Cameron,’
said the card, which was still propped against it,
‘You’re spikey, but you’re great.’