Rivals (36 page)

St Valentine’s Day dawned, causing the usual flutter of excitement at Corinium Television, and giving hernias to the postmen staggering up Cotchester High Street under sackfuls of coloured envelopes.

None of these envelopes, however, were addressed to Cameron. Not that she really noticed. Since she’d taken over Simon Harris’s job, she was working herself into the ground.

Not only was she still producing Declan and overseeing the production of a new series of ‘Four Men went to Mow’, but she was now in sole charge of Corinium Programmes, and seemed to spend her time scheduling, commissioning, arguing about budgets, or going to meetings with other Programme Controllers in London.

Patrick bombarded her with increasingly anguished letters to which she didn’t reply. Only that morning he’d sent her a huge Valentine bunch of lilies of the valley at home.

As she left for the office, Cameron put the lilies of the valley outside the back door in case Tony came home with her after Declan’s programme. Not that that was likely. Their relationship had deteriorated. They fought less, but formerly their rows had been the snapping of foreplay. Now when Tony made love to her there was a brutality and coldness never there before.

To make matters worse, Sarah Stratton, in all her radiant beauty, had joined Corinium as a prospective presenter, and her pussy-cat smile, her blonde halo of hair, her soft angora bosom and her wafts of Anaïs Anaïs, had affected the men in the building like Zuleika Dobson. James Vereker, wearing a different pastel pullover every day and behaving like a lovesick schoolboy, had been nicknamed Hanker-man by the newsroom. The Head of News was taking the task of initiating Sarah very seriously indeed. Even Tony chose every opportunity to see if she was all right, summoning her to drinks in his office after work, or to join board-room lunches to impress visiting bigwigs. Cameron consequently got more histrionic and ratty with the staff.

‘If Simon and Cameron are anything to go by,’ observed Charles Fairburn, ‘control is the one ingredient unnecessary for the job of Controller of Programmes.’

James had so many Valentines he decided to do a little item on ‘Cotswold Round-Up’ to thank his fans and conduct a studio discussion as to whether men were more romantic and caring than they used to be. Sarah received one Valentine card postmarked Penscombe with no writing inside. Having never had a letter from Rupert, she couldn’t be sure the flashy blue scrawl on the envelope was his, but she was almost certain. Declan’s Valentines arrived by the sackful, but he was too preoccupied with Rupert to open them.

Taggie had a trying day. No one sent her any Valentines. She was doing dinner for the Lord-Lieutenant that evening and had made a huge ratatouille and left it to cool overnight in the larder, only to find that Declan had put the whole lot out on the lawn for the badgers, who’d refused to touch it. Declan’s only distraction these days, apart from bird-watching, was putting food out at night and crouching in a dimly-lit kitchen waiting for the foxes and badgers to turn up.

Now he was roaring round the house in bare feet, complaining once again that his utterly bloody children had swiped every single one of the da-glo cat-sick yellow socks that he had made so fashionable. Looking for a pair under Caitlin’s bed, he found a vodka bottle, empty except for a cockroach, and said once again that they really must sack Grace.

‘Absolutely not,’ said Maud firmly. ‘I need my Greek chorus.’

Declan was just leaving for the studios, weighed down with poisoned rapiers to stick into Rupert, when Taggie came rushing into the kitchen, speechless with excitement and brandishing a vast Valentine covered in hearts, which had just arrived by special delivery, and which played ‘The White Cliffs of Dover’ on the xylophone every time you opened it.

‘What the hell’s that?’

‘It’s from Rupert. He’s sent Gertrude a Valentine.’

‘Whatever for?’ snapped Maud.

‘He once said she was ugly. He must have changed his mind. How gratuitously’ – Taggie brought out her word for the day in triumph – ‘kind of him.’

‘Bloody hell,’ thought Declan as he went out into the dank February drizzle. ‘Not content with groping Taggie and ensnaring Maud, he’s now trying to seduce my dog.’

Taggie ran after him. ‘You won’t give Rupert too hard a time, will you?’

Throughout the network Declan’s interview with Rupert had been trailed every hour on the hour during the day. Make-up had drawn lots as to who was to attend to him. Declan tried to snatch a quiet couple of hours in his office sharpening his poisoned rapiers, but was interrupted by one member of staff after another trooping in to grumble about Tony.

‘He bollocked me for not giving the reps extra bonuses in January,’ said Georgie Barnes, the Sales Director. ‘If I had, he’d have bollocked me for squandering Corinium’s resources.’

‘Last week he shouted at me because my desk was a mess,’ moaned Cyril Peacock. ‘So I had a big tidy out. Then, when he came in this afternoon and found me with an empty desk, he bawled me out for doing nothing.’

Charles Fairburn was furious because, for the seventh week running, his request for a hundred pounds to replace the fur hat Seb Burrows had put on the Corinium Ram at Christmas had been crossed off his expenses.

Sarah Stratton, wearing a clinging pale-grey angora dress, sat in the newsroom with the Head of News who was showing off his muscle by demanding why the BBC had had a story at lunchtime which his reporters had missed.

‘Of course “Cotswold Round-Up” is the company’s flagship,’ he told Sarah. ‘We lose or retain the franchise according to whether or not the programme truly represents local news and views. We have to be consistent, questioning, responsible and entertaining. It’s the one area where interference from Cameron or Tony isn’t tolerated. The autonomy of the newsroom is undisputed.’

Beside him the internal telephone rang. Taking his hand off Sarah’s knee, the Head of News picked up the receiver and turned pale.

‘Of course, Lord B. I quite understand. I’ll put someone on the story right away.’

Sarah smiled into her paper cup and said nothing.

On the air now, James Vereker, having thanked all his fans ver’ ver’ much for their caring Valentines, was interviewing a local witch who’d just made a record. She was wearing a black mini and crinkled black boots, and had huge bare mottled thighs which she kept crossing and re-crossing so James could see everything.

‘I’m sure you’re a very caring person, Tamzin,’ said James, averting his eyes, ‘but don’t you think the general public has a rather more sinister idea of witches?’

‘Turn him into a toad,’ screamed Seb Burrows in the newsroom, throwing a paper dart at the screen.

‘Wish she’d make an effigy of Tony and stick pins into it,’ said Charles Fairburn.

‘We could market a Baddingham pin cushion,’ said Seb. ‘It’d sell even better than Declan T-shirts.’

Sarah wasn’t listening. Rupert will be here soon, she thought. She’d warned Paul she might be late, because Tony wanted her to help at some PR party. Tony, in fact, had asked her up to the board room to watch Rupert’s interview and impress a couple of big advertisers. Rupert was bound to pop in after the programme.

I know he sent me the Valentine, thought Sarah, wriggling in ecstasy. He must want to come back.

Rupert, in fact, had had a very tough day. He had had an acrimonious meeting with the UEFA Committee, who were still refusing to let English soccer teams play in Europe next season. He’d had to smooth over the scandal of a Chinese ping-pong player caught shoplifting in an Ann Summers sex shop. He’d tried to persuade the Advertising Institute that there was no very good reason why a large condom manufacturer shouldn’t sponsor the Rugby League Cup Final next year, and coped with the Health Authority up in arms because a famous racing driver had gone on ‘Wogan’ in a Marlboro T-shirt. Because all these meetings ran late, he had only had half an hour to harangue a group of headmasters on the decline of competitive sport in schools, which had been exacerbated by the teachers’ strike.

Finally, just as he was leaving for Cotchester, the PM had summoned him, wanting him to lean on the British Lions to cancel their tour of South Africa to encourage the athletes to boycott the European Games next month.

Rupert lost his temper. ‘Politics shouldn’t be brought into sport,’ he snapped. ‘I’m not going to pressure anyone to boycott anything. You’ve absolutely no idea what it’s like to be an athlete. How would you have liked it if the day you became Prime Minister, someone had ordered you to refuse the job, and you’d been almost certain you’d never get another chance? You can’t force people to abide by principles you wouldn’t dream of sticking to yourself.’

And the Prime Minister had dismissed Rupert very frostily, saying she hoped he’d have second thoughts on the matter.

‘I feel like a football at the end of the Cup Final,’ said Rupert as he collapsed into the black Government car beside Sydney, his official driver. ‘Everyone’s having a go at me today. Who won the three-thirty?’

They discussed racing until the Heathrow exit, then Rupert fell asleep. Sydney liked working for Rupert. He enjoyed the glamour and Rupert’s erratic hours brought him spectacular overtime.

Gerald Middleton, Rupert’s private secretary, sat in the back with the light on, going through Rupert’s red box, streamlining as much as possible, pencilling in little notes on what action to take. Glancing at the sprawled elegant figure in front, with the head fallen sideways, Gerald fought the temptation to stroke the sleek blond hair. Rupert would never know the self-control Gerald had to exert day after day, never to betray his feelings. It must be some death wish that made him pour all his energies into Rupert’s career, ensuring Rupert’s rapid escalation up the political scale to the head of a far grander ministry, away from Gerald – that is, unless Rupert did something silly, like going on Declan’s programme tonight.

Gerald looked at his watch. They were cutting it very fine. Just as well – Rupert wouldn’t have time for too many whiskys in Hospitality beforehand.

Cameron went to the control room early. She liked to have half an hour before the programme to take a deep breath and think about what she had to do. As she closed the door, the
Jaws
theme belted out from the sound room next door. This joke had been going on ever since she was made Controller of Programmes. She found it very unfunny, but, looking though the glass windows and the vertical blinds at the guffawing sound men on one side and the vision controllers on the other, it obviously creased up everyone else.

Rupert’s cool unsmiling face stared out at her from every single monitor screen, except those that would feed in stills, telecine and video tape to illustrate aspects of Rupert’s life during the programme. On the studio floor they were checking the order of the stills. Up on the monitor came pictures of Rupert winning the World Cup and standing on the Olympic rostrum with his arm in a sling, of his beautiful ex-wife Helen, of Beattie Johnson and Nathalie Perrault and Amanda Hamilton, wife of the Foreign Secretary. There was Jake Lovell, Rupert’s arch-rival on the circuit, and his
chef d’équipe
, Malise Gordon, who’d ended up with Helen. They looked like characters in some glamorous Hollywood mini-series. Declan was clearly hell bent on carnage.

The rest of the crew drifted into the studio after their dinner break. Daysee Butler, weighed down with stop watches and blue mascara and wearing a new pale-pink jersey with a large grey cat knitted on the front, took up her position on Cameron’s left.

‘Rupert’ll be here in five minutes. Go and meet him, Daysee, and take him straight to Make-up,’ said Cameron.

On the monitor she could already see Declan slumped in his wizard’s chair. Flicking the key switch, she warned him of Rupert’s arrival.

‘Are you going to have a drink with him beforehand?’

‘I am not.’

He looks shattered, thought Cameron. He’d lost so much weight recently. His black hair was even more threaded with grey. The violet shadows under his eyes reminded her of Patrick. But she mustn’t think of Patrick.

‘Just do a Maurice Wooton on him, Dec, and Tony’ll die happy.’

‘As long as he dies,’ growled Declan, ‘I don’t care if he’s happy or not.’

Rupert, Sydney and Gerald waited in Reception, looking at photographs of Declan, Charles Fairburn and James Vereker, who was no longer obscured by the Christmas tree.

‘Fuckin’ ’ell, it’s Farah Fawcett Major,’ said Sydney, as Daysee swayed down the royal-blue steel staircase, giving them the benefit of her bouncing strawberry-blonde hair and undulating figure.

‘Can I take you straight to Make-up, Minister?’ said Daysee.

‘Can’t you and I go to the Cotchester Arms instead?’ said Rupert.