Rivals (17 page)

‘I’ve just met Rupert Campbell-Black,’ said Taggie.

Maud glanced up and saw Taggie was puce in the face, with her black cloudy hair standing up on end in a tangled mess, her red dress ripped and her long legs and arms scratched and bleeding and covered with white nettle stings.

‘My God,’ said Maud, roused out of her usual languor, ‘I know he’s got a fearful reputation, but surely you didn’t let him get that far?’

RIVALS

The following Sunday Monica Baddingham gave a lunch party at The Falconry to welcome Maud and Declan to Gloucestershire and launch the new conservatory built by Corinium’s studio carpenters. Accustomed to going out to lunch in London where people seldom ate before two o’clock or even two-thirty, Maud and Declan didn’t leave home until half past one. Declan tried to persuade Taggie to come too, but she blushingly refused when she heard Rupert might be there.

‘I’m sure Monica said left at The Dog and Trumpet,’ said Maud, applying a second layer of coral gloss to a pouting bottom lip.

Declan was in a vile temper. Not only had Maud made him late yet again by washing her hair at the last moment, but he had spent all morning trying to cut their hayfield of a lawn with a mower that kept choking on Gertrude’s shredded mutton bones. Now they seemed to be driving half way round Gloucestershire.

‘Why the hell can’t you take directions down properly?’ he snarled.

‘He’s your boss. You should have taken down the directions. Anyway it was you who wanted to move to the bloody country. Let’s go home.’

‘They’re giving the focking party for us. Why the hell don’t they put names on their houses in the country?’

‘You don’t.’

‘That’s because I don’t want anyone to come and see me.’

Declan was also aware that, although his wife was looking a billion dollars in a very low-cut black silk dress, a green shawl which matched her eyes, black stockings and black high heels, with her shiny red hair piled under the big black hat, she was quite unsuitably dressed for Sunday lunch.

‘There it is,’ said Declan at last, as he drove through two lichened gate posts topped with rather newer stone rams. ‘Christ, people are leaving already.’

As a dark-green BMW passed them coming the other way, the woman who was driving wound down the window:

‘Love your progamme. Frightfully sorry, we’ve
got
to go to a christening. Welcome to Gloucestershire; you must come to dinner. Better hurry or there won’t be any drink left.’

‘Jesus,’ muttered Declan.

The Baddinghams’ splendid Queen Anne house lay in a hollow surrounded by lush parkland. The stable clock was always kept twenty minutes fast so that people might worry they were late, and be encouraged to leave early.

In huge gold letters against a black background above the second door of the porch was written:
Peaceful is the Country that is strongly armed.
In the hall, stuffed heads of deer, tiger, stag and buffalo gazed down glassily.

‘My head’ll be up there next,’ muttered Declan as Tony came out of the drawing-room, plainly in a bait.

‘Can’t you ever get the time right, Declan? We’ve been trying to have lunch for three-quarters of an hour.’

‘I’m terribly sorry,’ said Maud in her most caressing tones. ‘Declan and I are used to London hours.’

‘Well, you’d better acquire a few rural habits. The Pimm’s has run out; what d’you want to drink?’

‘Oh, there you are.’ Monica swept in wearing a blue cotton shirtwaister and open-toed sandals on her big bare feet. ‘Taggie said you were on your way; pity you didn’t bring her, I’ve got so many spare men. Have a quick drink, and then we’ll have lunch. It’s probably the last time we’ll be able to eat outside this year,’ she added wistfully, thinking how much she’d prefer to be dividing the regale lilies.

Having given Maud a drink, she led her through the vast tapestried drawing-room out to the new conservatory, which stretched the entire back of the house at ground floor level and was crammed with statues of goddesses, iron seats painted white, lilies, palms, aspidistras and plants still wrapped, which people had brought as conservatory-warming presents.

‘Beautiful,’ murmured Maud, taking a huge slug of whisky.

Everyone, gathered on the lawn, turned round and stared.

‘Come into the garden, Maud,’ bellowed Charles Fairburn, who was already tight. Mistiming his kiss, his round red shiny face cannoned off Maud’s like a billiard ball.

‘Looking beautiful as usual,’ he said, drawing her aside.

‘You’re not to monopolize her, Charles,’ said Monica bossily.

‘I promise I’ll introduce her to everyone,’ said Charles. ‘Your husband’s certainly been stirring things up at Corinium,’ he added, lowering his voice.

‘Really,’ said Maud, only mildly interested.

She’d never been wild about Charles. He knew too much about her, and with such fantastic men around she didn’t want to waste her first party on one who was both drunk and gay.

‘Is that very good-looking man over there Rupert Campbell-Black?’ she asked.

‘Unfair to Rupert,’ said Charles. ‘That’s James Vereker, Corinium’s most popular presenter, drinking Perrier and working the room. He’s fearfully put out by your husband joining Corinium.’

James was, in fact, absolutely furious. He’d arrived as late as he dared in order to make an entrance, then Declan had swanned in even later. Now he was trapped by three of Monica’s friends who ‘did an enormous amount for charity’, silly old bags who all wanted him to open their Autumn bazaars and Christmas fayres for nothing. To look at Monica’s toe nails, thought James in disgust, you’d have reckoned she weeded the garden with her feet; and Paul Stratton, who’d put on a hell of a lot of weight, looked ludicrous in those tight new jeans, and a denim shirt undone to the waist to reveal scanty grey chest hair. James, who’d nearly worn jeans and an unbuttoned blue shirt, was so glad he’d put on instead a new grey jersey with a pink elephant on the front, knitted by one of his adoring fans.

‘Come and meet Maud O’Hara, James,’ yelled Charles Fairburn.

James extracted himself from the old bags and wandered over. Maud O’Hara was certainly extraordinarily beautiful.

‘Is that pink elephant on your bosom meant to reproach the rest of us for not drinking Perrier?’ said Charles.

‘If the cap fits, Charles,’ smirked James. ‘Don’t you think it’s a nice sweater, Maud? Sent me by a fan.’ He smiled engagingly.

Charles peered at the sweater: ‘Not sure about the collar.’

‘It might look better if you wore a brooch,’ said Maud.

James suddenly decided he didn’t think Maud was beautiful at all.

‘Hullo,’ said Lizzie Vereker, coming over and hugging Maud, ‘lovely to see you, I’m so pleased you’ve met James. Thank you for all that lovely whisky the other day. Are you straight yet?’

‘Don’t ever ask
me
that question,’ said Charles with a shudder. ‘What’s all this about five fire engines rolling up at Rupert’s house and catching him playing nude tennis with a blonde. Talk about Wobble-don.’

Lizzie giggled: ‘Rupert’s convinced some animal rights freak called the fire brigade because she thought he was cruel to burn his stubble.’

‘Who was the blonde?’ asked Charles. ‘Beattie Johnson?’

‘No, that finished months ago. Rupert won’t say. The
on dit
is that she’s the girl playing Mustard Seed in
Midsummer Night’s Dream.
’

‘Have you heard that Titania’s so petrified of getting AIDS, she’s refusing to kiss Bottom until he’s had a blood test?’ said Charles.

‘Is Rupert here?’ asked Maud, who was not interested in Corinium gossip.

‘Somewhere. Probably wandered off down one of those garden glades in which everyone except Monica behaves badly,’ said Lizzie.

‘Speak for yourself,’ said James disapprovingly.

It was certainly a beautiful garden. Rising out of a sea of lavender, roses coming up for a second pale-pink innings rampaged up the walls of the house. Pastel drifts of delphiniums, Japanese anemones, and Michaelmas daisies were sheltered from the bitter winds by yew hedges nine feet high. Two plump labradors panted on lawns as smooth as an Oxford quad. Beyond was a fish pond and a water garden, fed by the same winding River Fleet that flowed through Cotchester.

‘What are you going to do about the Priory garden?’ asked Lizzie.

‘Get a donkey to keep down the lawn,’ said Maud.

‘I hope to God we eat soon,’ said a harassed-looking man with a moth-eaten yellow beard, and a sleeping baby hanging from a baby sling. He was also hanging on to two frantically struggling children by the scruffs of their necks.

‘There is a limited amount of time one can entertain one’s kids feeding Tony’s fish,’ he added helplessly.

Lizzie introduced Simon Harris. All his skin seemed to be flaking in the open air, thought Maud.

‘How’s Fiona?’ asked Lizzie.

‘Still in hospital for another three weeks. It’s the nanny’s day off, or I’d never have brought this lot,’ said Simon, as the two hyperactive horrors strained at their collars like bull terriers after a cat. ‘If they get at Monica’s Meissen I’m finished. I just couldn’t resist a square meal,’ he added pathetically.

Lizzie opened her mouth to ask him to supper, then closed it again. Simon was so boring at the moment, and she knew James, who was convinced Simon was about to get the bullet, would think it a waste of time.

The panting labradors struggled to their feet, waving their tails as Monica appeared at the conservatory door.

‘Lunch,’ she said. ‘You stay outside with the children,’ she added firmly to Simon. ‘I’ll get someone to bring you something out. I like children normally, but Simon’s two will keep pulling the dogs’ ears, and they keep knocking over my new plants,’ she added in an undertone to Maud.

As Maud walked into the dining-room, Declan came towards her looking really happy for the first time that week: ‘Darling, you must meet Rupert. He knows Johnny very well. He’s given me some great stuff about him. It’s added a totally new dimension to his character.’

Maud caught her breath. How could I ever have mistaken James Vereker for
that
, she wondered.

Rupert and Declan were both tall and broad in the shoulder, but there the resemblance ended. Declan, with his heavily lined, broken-nosed, shaggy-haired splendour, was like a battle-scarred charger returning from the wars. Rupert was like a sleek capricious thoroughbred, rippling with muscle and breeding, about to win the Derby at a canter. Yet in their great fame and their intrinsic belief (despite Declan’s current self-doubts) that they were still the greatest in the world at what they did, they were the same, and therefore separate from the rest of the party. At that moment both James and Maud felt a bitter stab of envy, that Declan had been admitted so effortlessly to the same club to which Johnny Friedlander and Rupert belonged.

‘Welcome to Penscombe.’ Rupert kissed Maud on the cheek. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t at home when you moved in, but I’ve been frantically busy.’

‘So we hear, Rupert,’ said Charles archly. ‘What’s this about fire engines and a burning bush?’

‘Fuck off, Fairburn,’ said Rupert, grinning.

‘Come on, don’t hold up the queue,’ said Monica, beckoning from behind a long white table. ‘You’re getting Coronation chicken again, I’m afraid.’

Maud stood in front of Declan and Rupert, gulping down her third glass of wine and feeling totally unnerved.

‘I know your house very well,’ Rupert told her. ‘I remember pursuing something that wasn’t a fox across your haha at one party. Ended up ripping the front of my trousers off on the barbed wire. How’s the garden?’

‘A groundsel estate, and the nettles are on the warpath,’ said Declan.

‘Better get those tackled professionally,’ said Rupert, ‘or you’ll never get rid of them. I’ve got a man who’ll do it for you.’

‘What about the wood?’ asked Declan.

‘Forestry commission’ll give you a grant for that. They’ll whip out all the dead stuff and plant you new young trees as a quid pro quo for the firewood.’

‘How wonderfully positive you are,’ murmured Maud. ‘Perhaps you can give me advice on re-decorating our bedroom?’

‘Re-decorating’s never been a priority of mine. Not in bedrooms,’ said Rupert.

‘Tuck in, Maud,’ said Monica impatiently. ‘And you haven’t met my brother-in-law, Bas. He’s dying to meet you.’

Bas was about five inches taller than Tony and decidedly attractive in a sleek, wicked, Latin way. He kissed Maud’s hand, then turned it over and buried his lips in her wrist.

‘Calêche,’ he murmured. ‘I adore it. Do you wear it all over?’

Maud laughed. ‘Are you local?’

‘Near enough as the helicopter flies. I can land on the palm of your hand. I’ve got a wine bar in Cotchester High Street,’ he went on. ‘Most of my evil brother’s staff gather there to plot against him. No doubt your famous husband will shortly join them. You must get him to bring you in one day.’

‘Don’t be silly, Bas,’ said Monica briskly. ‘You haven’t met Paul Stratton, Maud, our MP for Cotchester, nor his wife Sarah.’

She looks more like his daughter, thought Maud. With his anxious, lined, somewhat petulant face, and his brushed-forward blue-grey hair, Paul looked like one of those once-famous television personalities who eke out a middle-aged existence advising housewives to buy soap powder in television commercials.

Even Maud, who had a dismissive attitude to the charms of her own sex, had to admit that the wife was ravishing.

‘Ah, the newly-weds,’ said Bas, kissing Sarah on the mouth. ‘When are you going to start being unfaithful to Paul? We’re in Beaufort country here, you know, high fences and low morals.’

‘
Basil
,’ snapped Monica. ‘Do stop holding up the queue. And you haven’t met Freddie Jones, our electronic whizz kid have you, Maud?’