Rivals (62 page)

‘I was jealous. I’m sorry.’

He breathed in Fracas, the dry bitter sexy scent she always wore; it made his senses reel.

‘I’m sorry too,’ he said. ‘I over-reacted, but I feel so sorry for her.’

Under the blue dress he could feel Cameron’s nipples stiffening. Glancing at the kitchen clock he saw that it was a quarter to eight.

‘We haven’t got time. It’d muss you up.’

‘
You
have,’ said Cameron.

Dropping to her knees, she unzipped his flies. This was one skill she knew she was better at than Taggie O’Hara.

A battered dark-green GTI was parked outside The Priory as they drove up. The front door was open; the hall was filled with clothes, books and suitcases.

‘Perhaps she won’t want to come out to dinner,’ murmured Cameron hopefully.

‘’Course she will,’ said Rupert.

It was debatable who got the worse shock, Cameron or Rupert, when they went into the kitchen and found Taggie sobbing in the arms of a tall black-haired, incredibly beautiful young man. The only difference was that Cameron instantly recognized Patrick, whereas Rupert did not. Patrick looked round, still with his arms round Taggie.

‘Well?’ he said icily.

Taggie glanced up, gave a gasp, then tugging herself away from Patrick, blindly snatched at some kitchen roll, frantically wiping her eyes and blowing her nose.

‘I’m sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘Hullo, Rupert, hullo, Cameron. How are you?’

She was amazed to see Rupert glaring at Patrick with such hostility. Perhaps he resented him as Cameron’s ex.

‘I don’t think you’ve met my brother Patrick, have you?’ she said quickly.

‘Your brother!’ Instantly the hostility was gone. ‘I didn’t twig. It was your party on New Year’s Eve, wasn’t it? How did your finals go?’

‘Perfectly all right,’ said Patrick shortly.

Turning back to Taggie, Rupert dumped two bottles of Dom Perignon on the table beside Patrick’s white carrier bag of duty free.

‘Happy birthday, angel. They’re just out of the fridge. Open them,’ he added to Patrick, totally unaware of the look of utter loathing that Patrick was shooting in his direction.

Oh hell, thought Cameron, poor Patrick. Taggie must have told him about me moving in with Rupert.

Cutting short Taggie’s stammering thanks for the champagne, Rupert seized her hand and led her out to the car. ‘Come and see your proper present.’

‘You d-don’t have to bother,’ stammered Taggie in the hall. ‘I’m having a lovely birthday. Mummy and Daddy have just rung. They’re bringing my present back tomorrow afternoon. They couldn’t pick it up until today, and Patrick brought me back the most gorgeous Arran sweater. He’s just got back. He had so much stuff to bring after three years.’ She was rattling now, on the verge of tears again.

‘Sweetheart, what’s the matter?’

‘I’m absolutely fine,’ she said. How could she possibly explain to him that the blown fuses, the night in the dark, and the forgotten birthday, were mere irrelevancies, that it was Cameron finally moving in with him that had brought the world down round her ears.

She knew he couldn’t ever be serious about someone as stupid and unsophisticated as she, but, as they’d gone round the country together, they’d become friends, and now she’d never see him again without Cameron.

‘You were all on your own last night in the dark,’ he said.

‘Who told you?’

‘Mrs Makepiece told the whole village shop.’

‘It was my fault. I read the directions on the fuse box wrong.’ She tried to smile. ‘I seemed to spend the whole night pushing poor Gertrude round the house in front of me. Things seem to creak so much if you’re in the dark.’

Rupert took her hands. ‘Look, next time something awful happens, will you promise to ring me? That’s what I’m across the valley for. It crucifies me to think of you all by yourself and frightened like that.’

She wouldn’t look at him – all he could see was her reddened, swollen eyelids. Reluctantly he let her go.

Outside, the puppy, with its speckled paws on the car ledge, was grinning out through the open window.

‘Oh, how adorable,’ breathed Taggie. ‘What’s he done to his paw?’

‘It’s nearly better. He’s your birthday present. I was going to buy you a guard dog, but I got sidetracked.’

Taggie was in ecstasy. No one had ever given her anything so lovely.

‘Gertrude will be very jealous to begin with,’ warned Rupert, as the puppy rushed off on to the lawn, quartering frantically, pursuing various cat and dog smells. ‘You’ll have to make a lot of fuss of her.

He noticed Taggie was still wearing jeans and an old torn red-and-white-striped shirt of Declan’s.

‘Aren’t you going to change? We’ve booked a table for nine. Patrick can come too. I’ve never met him properly.’

Taggie blushed. ‘It’s terribly kind of you but we’re fine on our own.’

‘Don’t be silly, I’m not having you cooking on your birthday.’

‘Patrick and I haven’t seen each other for ages.’

‘You’ve got the rest of the summer.’

‘He’s going abroad tomorrow. He – er – he—’

‘Yes,’ said Rupert, pulling her down beside him on to the old bench on the side of the lawn.

Taggie blushed even more deeply. ‘He adores Cameron, you see, and he’s absolutely d-d-devastated about her moving in with you.’

‘Ah,’ said Rupert.

Taggie was frantically peeling paint off the bench. As the puppy bounded back to them, she gathered him up, cuddling him for comfort.

‘Patrick could accept her having an affair with Tony because he thought she was doing it for her career, b-but you’re different.’

‘Why?’ said Rupert, suddenly anxious to know the answer.

Taggie buried her crimson face in the puppy’s ginger ears.

‘Because one wouldn’t need any incentive . . .’

‘Is that your word for the day?’

‘No.’ She shook her head frantically. ‘. . . any incentive to move in with you.’

Inside, Cameron was gazing at Patrick. He’s grown up, she thought. He’s much tougher and more detached and less vulnerable.

‘How did you really get on in your finals?’

‘Got a first.’

‘Have they told you?’

‘No, but I know.’

He got a packet of Marlboro’s out of the duty-free bag and lit himself a cigarette without offering her one. As the match flared she could see the bitterness in his face.

‘I gather you’ve just become our next-door neighbour,’ he said.

‘Aren’t you going to wish me joy?’

‘What joy? He’ll only make you miserable. Christ, you’ve got awful taste in men,’ he added irritably. ‘Tony was a disgusting thug. This man —’ he couldn’t bring himself to say Rupert’s name – ‘is like a foxhound. Can’t you understand? You can’t domesticate him. He’ll always be hunting for something new. It’s in his blood. He’ll get bored with you in a few weeks, and if he doesn’t, you’ll get bored with him; he’s the most ghastly philistine, never read a book in his life.’

‘He’s street-wise.’

‘That expression always seems to me a euphemism for someone with extremely shady morals, which means he’ll dump you sooner or later – and he’ll smash your career. Tony at least encouraged that.’

‘You’re just jealous.’

‘Not any more,’ said Patrick wearily. ‘I am ashes where once I was fire.’

‘He’s very funny. You’ll like him when you get to know him.’

‘I’m not going to give myself the chance. I’m going abroad tomorrow.’

Cameron was put out. She liked talking to Patrick. Now they weren’t hamstrung by Tony’s jealousy, she’d hoped he might grow into a friend, and that his admiration, like Tony’s, would act as a spur to Rupert.

‘Where are you going?’

‘Australia – to work on a sheep farm. I’m not hanging round for the rest of the year seeing you all scrapping over the franchise and watching your relationship with that bastard self-destruct.’

‘He isn’t all bastard. Look how kind he’s been to Taggie.’ Cameron was fishing now.

‘He’s totally fucked her up.’

Cameron’s throat went dry. ‘Has he tried anything?’

‘Nothing according to Tag. Just swans in in his bloody
droit de seigneur
, Lord Bountiful fashion, bombarding her with presents – silver necklaces, Fabergé eggs.’

‘Fabergé eggs?’ said Cameron, appalled.

‘Oh, Taggie didn’t know that it was. He brought her that back from Madrid. I don’t know what’s on offer today. A Monet perhaps, or a Henry Moore!’

‘A puppy,’ said Cameron in a frozen voice. ‘This is it.’

The next moment Aengus shot into the kitchen, tail fluffed out like a lavatory brush, growling ferociously, and took refuge under the kitchen dresser. The puppy frolicked after him, trying to join him under the dresser, then let out a piercing shriek as Aengus caught him with a punishing right hook on his pink nose. Instantly Gertrude bustled in, the personification of outrage. The puppy bounced up to her, then let out another shriek as Gertrude bit him sharply on the ear.

‘Oh Christ,’ said Patrick. ‘Not content with disrupting humans, Rupert has to disrupt animals as well.’

‘For Christ’s sake open one of those bottles,’ said Cameron.

‘I don’t want a drink,’ said Patrick sulkily.

‘You’ll need it. We’ve come to take you out to dinner.’

‘Well, we’re not coming. We don’t want any of your fucking charity. Poor little O’Hara kids, eating their hearts out. Let’s throw them a few crumbs of comfort.’

A black lock of hair had fallen over his forehead, a muscle was going in the beautiful pale right cheek. His eyes were as dark and forbidding as the depths of the huge cedar outside the window.

‘Please don’t hate me so much,’ Cameron was amazed to find herself pleading. ‘I really need a friend to talk to.’

They both jumped as the telephone rang. It was Caitlin who was staying with a friend in Newbury, ringing to wish Taggie many happy returns. By the time they had finished talking, Rupert and Cameron had left.

‘How did you get rid of them?’ asked Taggie.

‘I told them both to fuck off and that we didn’t need their charity,’ said Patrick, opening one of Rupert’s bottles. ‘At least we can now get drunk at their expense!’

RIVALS

Cameron and Rupert had a disastrous dinner at the White Elephant after that. Rupert was outraged at being thrown out by Patrick. ‘Arrogant little fucker, just like his father.’

‘I thought you adored his father.’

‘Not when he’s playing God, or neglecting his children.’

‘You certainly aren’t neglecting one of them – silver necklaces, Fabergé eggs, handicapped puppies – singularly appropriate in a franchise year.’

‘Oh, shut up.’

The row continued until they got to bed, when Rupert maddened Cameron most of all by falling asleep when she was in mid-harangue. She woke next morning, feeling suicidal, to find Rupert gone. Wondering if he were already collecting his children, she went downstairs, found the paella gathering flies on the oven and chucked it out. There was a chicken in the fridge. She supposed she’d better roast it for lunch. Dispiritedly, she peeled some potatoes, put them on to parboil, then started to make a french dressing. There wasn’t any dill. If she sent Rupert off to the village shop he’d come back with nutmeg.

Outside, the sun was shining through the mist like a dog’s identity disk. Cameron longed to go out to the pool and swim off her hangover. Until last night, with the Bodkins away, she had at last been able to enjoy a marvellously sybaritic few days with Rupert, swimming and sunbathing naked, brazenly tantalizing him away from whatever he was doing. She had even galloped bareback down the valley at twilight one night with no clothes on, until Rupert had caught up with her, pulled her off the horse and pulled her in the meadowsweet. Cameron had half-hoped that Taggie, on a late-night walk with Gertrude, might have caught them at it and realized that at last Rupert had found someone with a sex drive equal to his own.

But last night’s row had ruined all that, and now, with the kids around, there’d be no more nude frollicking this weekend. She jumped as the dogs barked and the front door banged.

‘Cameron,’ yelled Rupert.

As he sauntered into the kitchen, blithe as a skylark, as though there’d been no row at all, Cameron frantically stirred the french dressing.

‘We’re out of dill,’ she said.

‘Dildos! Hardly need one of those with me around! I’m sorry I don’t give you presents,’ he went on, kissing the back of her neck. ‘Vainly, I thought my presence was enough. Which hand will you have?’

‘Both,’ said Cameron sulkily.

‘Telepathic,’ said Rupert, uncurling his fingers.

Glittering on each palm was a diamond ear-ring, a two-inch-long chandelier, lit by little diamonds instead of crystals. Cameron was speechless. Incredulously, she ripped out the gold hoops she normally wore and hooked on the diamonds, running to the kitchen mirror, rubbing away the steam with her sleeve to have a look.

The ear-rings hung halfway down her slender neck, throwing rainbows of light on the lean, tense jawline, illuminating and softening the truculent hostile little face. Next minute Rupert’s reflection appeared beside hers.

‘Like them?’

In answer, she turned, kissing him with a fury and passion he’d never known in her. Cupping her face with his hands, he felt the tears sliding into his fingers. Very gently he unhooked the ear-rings.

‘Shame to take them off so soon, but I must have you before I pick up the children.’

By the time they’d finished, the potatoes were too soft to roast, so Cameron mashed them instead.

Groggy with love, she waited to love Rupert’s children. At half past one, trailing barking dogs, Tabitha erupted into the kitchen. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright with excitement. She was clutching a huge box of chocolates.