Rivals (6 page)

Nor would Corinium’s New York office tell her where Tony had gone, and, even worse, the morning paper had a charming picture of him coming out of the Four Seasons with Ali MacGraw.

In Los Angeles, when he wasn’t spreading the word about ‘Four Men went to Mow’, or finalizing the deal to buy the American distributors, which he’d had to acquire through a holding company so as not to upset the IBA, Tony thought about Cameron.

Back in New York, two days later, ignoring the increasingly desperate messages from NBS, he went to USBC and after screwing another quarter million dollars a programme out of them on the grounds that Disney were madly interested, he closed the deal.

He returned to the Waldorf, sweating like a pig, had a shower, poured himself an enormous whisky and rang Cameron. He had to hold the telephone at arm’s length.

‘Where the fuck have you been, you bastard?’ she screamed.

‘Busy,’ said Tony and, when she started to give him an earful, very sharply told her to shut up and calm down.

‘I’ve raised the cash for “Four Men went to Mow”.’

‘Who put it up?’ demanded Cameron.

‘USBC. The lawyers are thrashing out the nuts and bolts at the moment.’

‘Poor Ronnie. NBS aren’t going to be very happy – we didn’t even get to see it.’

‘Well, there you go.’

‘He probably will, right out of the front door, and never come back after this. Ronnie’s right – you are a shit.’

‘That’s no way to address your new boss.’

Cameron’s heart was hammering so hard, her palms were suddenly so damp, that the receiver nearly slid out of her hand.

‘Hullo, hullo,’ said Tony. ‘Have you thought about that job I offered you?’

‘You just fuck off like that. How do I know I can trust you?’

‘Give me the address. I’ll be over in half an hour and we’ll talk terms.’

Yet when he arrived at Cameron’s flat, armed with a bottle of champagne, he was outraged to find an impossibly handsome young man lounging in the dentist’s chair, holding a glass that definitely didn’t contain mouthwash.

‘Who the hell’s he?’ snarled Tony.

‘This is Skip, my lawyer. He dropped by to draw up my contract of employment,’ said Cameron.

‘Why the hell’s he wearing my shirt and tie?’

Cameron laughed. ‘Since I’m moving to England, I figured he deserved a leaving present. ‘

RIVALS

On a cold Friday in February, exactly twenty months after he’d signed up Cameron Cook in New York, Tony Baddingham made an infinitely more dramatic and controversial addition to his staff. Having exchanged contracts in the utmost secrecy in the morning, he popped into the IBA headquarters in Brompton Road for a midday glass of sherry with the new chairman, Lady Gosling, to dazzle her with the secret news of his latest acquisition before setting out on the two-hour drive down to Cotchester.

Even on a raw blustery February afternoon, Cotchester’s wide streets and ancient pale gold houses gave off an air of serenity and prosperity. To the north of the town, in the market square, a statue of Charles I on his horse indicated that Cotchester had once been a Royalist stronghold. Round the plinth, pigeons pecked among the straw left by the sheep and cattle sold in the market earlier in the day. To the south soared the cathedral, its great bell only muted during rush hour, the shadow of its spire on bright days lying like a benediction over the town.

Dominating the High Street was a fine Queen Anne building, once the Corn Exchange, now the headquarters of Corinium Television. Although, over the last twenty years, the building had been considerably extended at the back to include studios, dressing-rooms, an imposing new board room, and a suite of splendid offices for the directors, nothing except pale-yellow rambler roses had been allowed to alter its imposing façade. On the roof the vast dark red letters CTV could be seen for miles around, letters topped by a splendid ram standing four-square, with a Roman nose and curly horns. Originally chosen as a symbol of the wool trade which once characterized the area, according to some of Corinium’s more uncharitable employees the ram could now be used to symbolize Tony Baddingham’s sexual excesses.

At the back of the building an entire wall of the board room consisted of a huge window looking out on to the cathedral close, water meadows and willows trailing their yellow branches in the River Fleet, a peaceful scene totally at variance with the tensions and feuds within Corinium Television itself.

These tensions had been exacerbated that particular Friday by Tony returning unexpectedly from London and calling a programme-planning meeting at three o’clock, when he knew most of his staff would be hoping to slope off early.

Tony had actually returned in an excellent mood. His meeting with Lady Gosling had been decidedly satisfactory. Simon Harris, the ex-BBC Golden Boy, and Cameron Cook had so improved Corinium programmes over the last twenty months that he was no longer seriously worried that his franchise would be taken away in mid-term. But, in case there were rival groups who might pitch for the Corinium franchise when it came up for renewal next year, he had made the decision on the way down to clean up Corinium’s act well in advance.

Until that time therefore, until Corinium were officially re-selected, he was determined not only to trail some of the most glittering names in television and the arts in front of the IBA, but also to put on some really worthy regional programmes.

It was to map out ideas for these programmes that he’d called the impromptu meeting. Unfortunately half the staff were away. The Head of News was in Munich on a freebie, the Head of Documentaries was in Rome getting a prize, the male Head of Light Entertainment and the comely female Head of Kids’ Programmes were both away with gastric flu, which caused a few raised eyebrows, as they had been seen looking perfectly healthy the day before.

Tony took the chair, but was instantly summoned to take an urgent call from Los Angeles. The only people in the room who didn’t appear terrified or at least extremely wary of him were Charles Fairburn, Head of Religious Programmes, who’d got pissed at lunchtime, and Cameron Cook, now Head of Drama.

The Head of Sport, Mike Meadows, a once-famous footballer with ginger sideboards, whose muscle-bound shoulders had grown too big for his shiny blue blazer, smoked one cigarette after another.

Simon Harris, the Controller of Programmes, who was principled and intelligent and always saw both sides of every problem, and was therefore labelled indecisive, trembled on Tony’s right. He kept his hands under the table to hide a nerve rash he had scratched raw. His thin face twitched. In an attempt to gain some kind of authority he had recently grown a straggly beard. When he took off his coat – Tony always kept the central heating tropical – you could hear the rattle of the Valium bottle, and see the great damp patches under his arms.

Beyond Simon was Tony’s PA, Cyril Peacock, DFC, Corinium’s ex-Sales Manager, once a stocky, jolly, assertive fellow, sensational at his job. The point of a PA, however, is that he should be utterly loyal. Some Chief Executives in television buy this loyalty with money, which is dangerous, because someone else can buy it with more money. Tony bought it with fear. After making Cyril his PA, and sometime publicity officer, Tony had encouraged him to invest his savings in a company that promptly went broke. Now the terror of the Luftwaffe was someone Tony hung his coat on – a poor old dodderer in his early sixties, with loss of job and pension hanging over his head like a sword of Damocles. Tony took great pleasure in making Cyril do his dirty work – he had four people for him to fire on Monday.

On Tony’s left was Miss Madden, his secretary, also in her sixties, plain, and utterly dedicated, whose chilblains were itching because of the central heating, and who never let anyone into Tony’s office without an appointment except Cameron Cook, on whom she had a love—hate crush.

Finally, down the table, opposite Cameron sat James Vereker, the impossibly good-looking, beautifully coiffeured Anchorman of the six o’clock regional news programme, ‘Cotswold Round-Up’.

James should have been in the newsroom getting ready for the evening’s programme, but, hating to miss anything, he had muscled in on the meeting and was now using Tony’s absence to rewrite the links he would have to say later on air to fit his own speech patterns.

Glancing across at Cameron, James wondered if she and Tony had rehearsed the whole meeting in bed earlier this week, turning each other on by seeing who could be the most gratuitously bloody to everyone else. He looked at Cameron’s dark-brown cashmere jersey, snugly fitting the lean body, the pale-brown suede skirt, the Charles Jourdan boots and the lascivious unmade-up face, and felt a wave of loathing. Today her short hair had been coaxed upwards in gelled spikes, like a hedgehog who’d rolled in chicken fat.

James pointedly moved the arrangement of Spring flowers left over from Wednesday’s board meeting up a couple of inches to obscure his view of her and, getting out a packet of Polos, handed one to Miss Madden, who went slightly pink as she accepted it.

James offered Polos to no one else. He knew who to suck up to. Properly courted, Miss Madden would sing his praises to Tony and admit him to the inner sanctum when necessary.

As Tony walked back into the room, everyone rose from their chairs except Cameron, who pointedly ignored him. Perhaps they’ve had a bust-up, thought James Vereker hopefully.

The good thing about Tony, reflected Charles Fairburn, Head of Religious Programmes, was that he did cut out the waffle. There was a good chance that Charles, who was going to the ballet at Covent Garden that evening, would be out of the building by five.

‘I’d like to start,’ said Tony briskly, ‘by congratulating Cameron on being nominated for a BAFTA award. As you all know, “Four Men went to Mow” has not only been a huge network success, and sold everywhere overseas, but also because of the exceptional camera work, attracted scores of tourists to the area, and last month toppled “Howard’s Way” in the ratings. We’re looking for more programmes like this that project the area into the network.’

‘Hear, hear,’ said Cyril Peacock, his false teeth rattling with nerves.

Tony’s conveniently forgotten that ‘Four Men went to Mow’ was my idea in the first place, thought Simon Harris bitterly. Cameron, still ignoring Tony, gazed sourly at the framed photograph on the wall of him smilingly assisting Princess Margaret to plant a cherry tree on the Corinium front lawn.

Christ, they
have
had a row, thought James.

‘I’d like to give the go-ahead for a second series,’ Tony went on. ‘We’ve got the co-production money again from USBC, but I think it would be a good idea, Cameron, if you introduced perhaps a black unmarried mother into the cottage of the agricultural students to appeal to the IBA.’

Charles Fairburn suppressed a grin. The IBA were crazy about minority groups. Cameron looked outraged.

‘Black unmarried mothers don’t become agricultural students,’ she snarled.

‘There’s always a first time,’ said Tony smoothly. ‘She could be the girlfriend of one of the four boys.’

‘For Chrissake, why not have a gay shepherdess with one leg?’ said Cameron.

‘Why not a deaf, unemployed merry peasant?’ suggested Charles Fairburn with a hiccup. ‘Or a handicapped harvester?’

‘That’s enough,’ snapped Tony.

He then went on to OK plans for an obscure Michael Tippett opera, which Cameron also scowled at, detecting Lady Baddingham’s influence (Tony’s wife was crazy about opera) and a production of
Midsummer Night’s Dream
as a sop to Stratford-on-Avon which was just within the Corinium boundary.

Now it was the turn of James Vereker, who, having finished re-writing his links, helped himself to a glass of Perrier and then suggested Corinium ought to show its ‘caring face, Tony’ and do a series on poverty and the aged.

‘Jesus, how turgid,’ said Cameron, glaring at him through the screen of fading daffodils. ‘Of all the boring . . .’

Tony raised his hand for silence, his huge signet ring catching the light.

‘Not a bad idea. We could do a very cheap pilot to impress the IBA. We don’t have to make the series. Perhaps Cyril,’ he smiled malevolently at his PA, ‘could front it. He’s been looking rather old and poverty-stricken lately.’

Cyril Peacock cracked his twitching face, trying to smile back. Thus encouraged, James suggested they should do something ‘very strong, Tony’ on rioting and drug abuse at Cotchester University. Swiftly Cameron swooped, the falcon Tony had trained, tearing into James:

‘What a crappy awful idea,’ she screamed. ‘D’you want to antagonize the entire Tourist Board because everyone’s scared to visit Cotchester any more? No one will want to invest money here. We’re trying to boost the area for Chrissake.’

‘What about a programme on the role of women in Cotchester town hall?’ stammered Simon Harris, tugging at his straggling yellow beard.

‘And have the town halls at Bath, Southampton, Oxford, Winchester, Stratford, et cetera et cetera in an uproar because we haven’t done programmes on them,’ said Cameron crushingly.

‘I thought your idea, Tony, of interviewing the wives of celebrities living in the area looked a winner,’ said Cyril Peacock, desperate to get back into favour.

‘“Behind Every Famous Man”?’ Cameron turned on Cyril furiously. ‘That was my idea.’

‘We could start with one of our director’s wives, or perhaps,’ Cyril lumbered on, ‘even Lady Baddingham.’

Tony looked not unpleased. ‘I think that would be a bit close to home.’

‘Why not do a series on the very very rich?’ said Charles Fairburn, who had not quite sobered up, ‘They’re far more of a minority group than anyone else. We could start with you, Tony.’

He was quelled by an icy glance from Tony, who, aware that the meeting was slightly lacking in carnage, suddenly realized that his Head of Operations, whose role was to tell creative people what they could not do, was missing.