Rivals (34 page)

Wearing only a jersey and an old pair of cords, he was shivering violently now. Then he noticed that Tony’s car keys were still in the dashboard. Trying the car door he found it open. The lecherous bugger had obviously been in such a hurry to get at Cameron he’d forgotten to lock it.

Easing open the door, pulling out the keys, Patrick chucked them into a nearby flower bed. They landed deep in a lavender bush, hardly scattering the snow.

At four o’clock in the morning Tony looked at his watch. ‘I must go.’

Cameron didn’t dissuade him. She was utterly shattered. To eradicate any memory of Patrick, Tony had recently insisted on indulging in sexual marathons. Four times that night, he thought smugly; no one could accuse him of losing his touch. Cameron daren’t complain. She was also twitchy that Patrick might do something insane to rock the boat.

Hearing Tony let himself out, she was just falling asleep when she heard a key turn in the door. It was a sound that always unnerved her, reminding her of Mike. For a wild moment of dread and longing she thought it might be Patrick.

‘Did I leave my keys here?’ shouted Tony.

By the time they’d upended the entire house, the car and the drive, screamed at each other and nearly frozen to death, the lights had come on in the houses opposite and curtains were twitching in the houses on either side. There was no way Tony could start the Rolls, or get someone to help push it out of the way. If he rang Percy, his chauffeur, it would be round the entire network in a flash, so he spent the next three hours frantically and abortively ringing round the country, trying to find another set of keys.

In the end he had to order a taxi from the station. His temper was not improved by the driver recognizing him and slyly my Lording him all the way home.

Arriving at The Falconry, he had to provide Monica with a ridiculously convoluted explanation that he’d decided to come home that night, but that his car had gone into a skid on the motorway and he’d had to abandon it. He then had to keep her in bed in the morning, so she wouldn’t drive into Cotchester and see his car parked outside Cameron’s house.

As it was, poor, loyal Cyril Peacock tracked down a key and removed the Rolls by midday, but by then almost the entire Corinium staff had seen the car on their way in to work and had had a good laugh. That afternoon, Cameron passed the staff noticeboard. Beneath the card announcing her appointment as Acting Controller of Programmes, someone had added the words: ‘and Mistress of the Rolls’.

Later that day, Patrick rang Cameron from Birmingham Airport to say goodbye.

‘Did you steal Tony’s keys?’ she shouted.

‘Tell him to look under the lavender on the left of the front door.’

Cameron let Patrick have it. ‘You stupid asshole. If Monica had come by and seen the car, you’d have landed Tony in a divorce court.’

‘I thought that’s what you wanted.’

‘Don’t be so fucking infantile.’

‘I couldn’t help it.’ Patrick’s voice faltered. ‘I can’t bear to think of that great toad in bed with you.’

‘Get out of my life,’ screamed Cameron. ‘You don’t know the rules.’

‘I love you.’ Patrick was almost crying.

‘Well, I don’t love you. You’re a fucking nuisance. Piss off and try and do something worthwhile with your life.’

She was dead scared of telling Tony about the keys, but was amazed to find that he was grimly pleased.

‘What a very silly little boy to put such a very large nail in his father’s coffin.’

RIVALS

At the end of January the IBA formally asked for applications for the new franchises. These applications, which had to be provided not only by the fifteen incumbent independent companies, but also by any rival consortium who sought to oust them, often ran to hundreds of beautifully bound pages, giving details of finance, staffing policies, plans for future programmes and proposed boards of management.

After the applications were handed in in early May, the IBA would study them and then conduct a series of public meetings around the country, attempting to find out whether the public felt well-served by their particular local television company. After private meetings between the IBA and all the individual contenders in October and November, the franchises would be finally awarded in December.

Anticipating a long year full of lobbying and hustling, Tony Baddingham’s immediate task in the New Year was to strengthen the Corinium Board. Knowing the IBA and particularly Lady Gosling’s penchant for women, he intended to make Cameron a director. But he wanted to punish her as long as possible for stepping out of line with Patrick, and, as the staff were still in a state of mutiny over her appointment, he didn’t want a strike on his hands in franchise year. The staff, however, had short memories. Cameron had found Simon Harris’s affairs in such a shambles that Tony had quite enough excuses to dispense with his services when he came out of hospital, but that would have to be done discreetly too. Then he could appoint Cameron to the Board just before the applications went in.

Tony also had his lunch with Freddie Jones, who, heavily pressured by Valerie, was poised to join the Corinium Board. His only reservation was whether, with his electronics empire and his race horses and his hunting, he would have sufficient time. If he were a director, he wanted to do some directing.

As an added incentive to Valerie, however, Tony invited Freddie shooting the last Saturday in January, and asked some extremely grand people to shoot as well. Never having shot with Freddie before, Tony issued a warning to the other guns beforehand.

‘Freddie Jones is a bit of a rough diamond, but exceptionally able. He’s going to be very useful on our board, if you know what I mean. But I’m not sure how good a shot he is, so bring your tin hat.’

In the master bedroom at Green Lawns Freddie Jones lay beside his wife in the vast suede oval bed, covered with dials for quadraphonic stereo, radio, dimmer switches, razors and vibrators which Valerie used to massage her neck. They had to leave for Tony’s about nine. It was now only six forty-five, which left plenty of time for sex, thought Freddie hopefully. They had already drunk two cups of tea from the Teasmade. Reaching across, Freddie put his hand on Valerie’s bush, fingering her clitoris from time to time as a door-to-door salesman, not very hopeful of entrance, might press a doorbell.

Valerie sighed. She knew no wife should deny her husband his conjugal rights, but one of the joys of Freddie getting up early to go hunting every Saturday meant that she could pretend to be asleep as she did every weekday when he left for work at six-thirty.

Valerie did everything to avoid sex. She had already taken back to Jolly’s of Bath the absurdly sexy black lingerie an ever-hopeful Freddie had bought her for Christmas and replaced it with some peach satin sheets for the guest bedroom. She always wore woollen nightgowns buttoned up to the neck. If only she could sew up the bottom as well! The pressing finger was getting more insistent.

‘D’you want to come, Fred-Fred?’

‘Do you?’

‘Not really. I want to be fresh for Tony and Monica.’

‘Will you help me then?’

Valerie sighed again. Kneeling, she raised the red woollen nightgown, so Freddie could admire her candy pink nipples and her neatly clipped bush. She loathed watching him, but at least it stopped her getting messy.

‘You’re so beautiful,’ sighed Freddie. ‘You’ve got the body of a little girl.’

‘Here’s some tissues. Don’t waste a clean towel, Fred-Fred.’

He had barely finished his lonely act before Valerie had reached up to press another switch on the bedhead which instantly sent boiling water gushing out of the 22-carat-gold mixer taps into the vast onyx and sepia marble double bath next door. Then, remembering she didn’t want a flushed face, Valerie twiddled another knob to lower the temperature.

Snowdrops spread in a milk-white blur on either side of Tony Baddingham’s drive. The guns, in their dung-coloured clothes, gathered outside The Falconry, pulling on gumboots and bellowing at excited dogs that whisked about lifting their legs on Monica’s aconites.

At nine-thirty, just as it stopped raining, Freddie’s freshly cleaned red Jaguar roared up the drive.

‘Oh dear,’ said Freddie, leaning out of the window and roaring with laughter at the other guns’ filthy Landrovers, ‘I forgot to chuck a bucket of mud over my car before I came out. Amizing, those snowdrops,’ he said, clambering out. ‘Just like a big fall of snow.’

He was wearing a red jersey, a Barbour and no cap on his red-gold curls. Next minute Valerie emerged from her side in a ginger knickerbocker suit, with a matching ginger cloak flung round her shoulders, and a ginger deerstalker.

‘Christ,’ muttered Tony to Sarah Stratton.

‘It’s Sherlock Lovely Homes,’ said Sarah, making no attempt not to laugh. ‘All she needs is a curved pipe and a spy glass.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Valerie gaily.

‘We were admiring your – er – outfit,’ said Sarah quickly.

‘All from my Spring range,’ said Valerie, looking smug. ‘Better hurry, it’s selling like hot cakes.’

Tony oozed forward, exuding charm.

‘You both know Sarah and Paul Stratton of course, and my brother Bas,’ he said smoothly, and when he went on to introduce Valerie to the Lord-Lieutenant Henry Hampshire, two peers and a Duke from the next county, Valerie nearly had the orgasm Freddie had so longed to give her earlier. Fred-Fred must definitely join the Corinium Board, thought Valerie. It might be a Prince, or even a King, next time.

‘Hullo, Valerie,’ said Monica, who was wearing a green sou’wester over a headscarf. ‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’

‘Naughty,’ chided Valerie, waving a tan suede finger. ‘I said you must call me Mousie, No, I won’t have a coffee, thank you.’

She didn’t want to have to go to the toilet behind a hawthorn bush mid-morning in front of all the gentry.

They were about to set off when the phone rang loudly in Freddie’s car.

‘’Ullo, Mr Ho Chin, how are fings?’ said Freddie in delight. ‘Grite, grite. Fifty million, did you say? Yeah, that seems about right. Look, ’ave a word with Alfredo and see if ‘e wants to come in too, and phone me back. Yes, I’ll be on this number all day.’

The guns exchanged looks of absolute horror, as Freddie extracted the telephone from the car, all set to bring it with him.

Tony sidled up. ‘D’you mind awfully leaving that thing behind? Might put off the pheasants.’

‘’Course not,’ said Freddie, putting it back in the car. ‘If Chin can’t get me ’ere, he’ll ring my office.’

‘D’you take your telephone hunting too?’ asked an appalled Paul.

‘Always,’ said Freddie.

They started off up an incredibly steep hill behind the house. It was one of those mild January days that give the illusion winter is over. A few dirty suds of traveller’s joy still hung from the trees. No wind ruffled the catkins. It was hellishly hard going. Valerie, wishing she hadn’t worn her long johns, tried not to pant.

As it started to rain, she put up her ginger umbrella which kept catching in the branches. On the brow of the hill the guns took up their position, which they’d drawn out of a hat earlier. Except for Freddie’s distracting red-gold curls, the flat caps along the row were absolutely parallel with the gun barrels. Shooting in the middle of the line between Tony and the Duke, Freddie jumped from foot to foot swinging his gun through the line like Ian Botham hooking.

The Duke, who had three daughters and was hoping for a son so the title wouldn’t pass to a younger brother, was not the only gun looking at Freddie with extreme trepidation.

‘I’m ’ot,’ said Freddie, shedding his Barbour. Seeing the Duke’s and Tony’s looks of horror at Freddie’s red jersey and Bas laughing like a jackass, Valerie, who’d been yakking nonstop to Sarah Stratton about puff-ball skirts, sharply told Freddie to put it back on. For once Freddie ignored her.

Suddenly the patter of rain on the flat caps was joined by the relentless swish of the beaters’ flags.

‘Come on, little birdies,’ cooed Paul, caressing the trigger.

I hate him for being him and not Rupert, thought Sarah despairingly.

A lone pheasant came into view, high over Freddie’s head.

‘Bet he misses,’ said Paul.

The Duke and Tony raised their guns in case he did.

But a shot rang out and the pheasant somersaulted like a gaudy catherine wheel and thudded to the ground.

Next moment a great swarm appeared, some steeply rising, some whirring close to the ground. There was a deafening fusillade and the air was full of feathers as birds cartwheeled and crashed into the grass.

The whistle blew; the first drive was over. Dogs shot off to retrieve the plunder. It was plain from the number of brace being amassed by Freddie’s loader that he’d shot the plus twos off everyone else.

‘Freddie Jones seems a bloody good shot,’ said Bas.

‘Beginner’s luck,’ snapped Paul, who had easily shot the least.

For the next drive the guns formed a ring round a little yellow stone farmhouse with a turquoise door and a moulting Christmas tree in the back yard.

Once more the shots rang out, once more the sky rained pheasants. To left and right, Freddie, the Duke and the Lord-Lieutenant were bringing down everything that came over. Tony fared less well. Valerie was standing behind him with Monica and her endless chatter put him off.

At the end of the drive Tony’s loader, knowing the competitive nature of his boss, pinched a brace from Bas on one side and another from the Lord-Lieutenant who was gazing admiringly at Sarah.

‘Those are mine!’ said the Lord-Lieutenant sharply.

‘Sorry,’ said Tony smoothly. ‘My loader’s very jealous of my reputation.’

‘Jealous loader, indeed,’ muttered the Lord-Lieutenant.

The next drive was a long one, with the guns dotted like waistcoat buttons down the valley. Valerie was bored. Only the birds and the chuckling of a little stream interrupted the quiet. Monica, who found shooting as boring as Corinium Television, was plugged into the Sony Walkman Archie had given her for Christmas. Now she was transfixed by the love duet from
Tristan und Isolde
, eyes shut, dreamily waving her hands in time to the music and tripping over bramble cables.