Rivals

33

Next morning Caitlin rang up The Priory, wild with excitement.

‘Gertrude’s in the Daily Mail! She looks so sweet.’

‘What’s she doing?’ asked Taggie.

‘Wearing a Venturer T-shirt and an expression of absolute outrage. She’s sitting on your knee. You look nice, much better than that old tart Sarah Stratton.’

‘Oh goodness,’ said Taggie. ‘What’s the piece about?’

‘The headline says: “Rival Beauties weigh in for the Battle of the Box”,’ read Caitlin. ‘They’ve used the two posters of you and Sarah. “Will the blonde or the brunette pack the greater punch?” it starts. Then there’s a lot of guff about Sarah being Paul Stratton’s second wife, and Corinium’s latest star presenter, who pulls in three hundred fan letters a week.

‘Then it goes on: “The dark horse (or rather beauty) in the race is Agatha O’Hara, 18-year-old daughter of TV megastar Declan O’Hara, who’s bidding to oust his ex-boss Lord Baddingham in the Corinium franchise fight. Agatha runs her own business”. . get you. . “cooking for the great and famous, but sadly she can no longer undertake dinner parties for her favourite client, Tony Baddingham’s wife, Monica, in case state secrets slip out over the soufflé.”’

‘Gosh,’ said Taggie in amazement. ‘Where did they get all that from? I hope Lady B isn’t cross. How are you anyway?’

‘All right. Fed up with revising. Can you send me some money? And tell bloody Mummy and Daddy to write.’

‘They’ve been really busy with the franchise and things,’ said Taggie.

‘Mummy’s never busy with anything,’ said Caitlin bitterly.

The long, hard grind of getting Venturer’s message across to the people who mattered continued throughout the long, hot summer. But things were much easier now for Taggie. Several other papers reproduced the poster and, as she toured the area, people began to know all about Venturer, recognize her, welcome her and even ask her to autograph the poster.

More important, she spent much of May and June driving around with Rupert on his campaign trail. Leaving him to canvass or to rally support for other South-West Tory MPs. Taggie nipped off to visit vicars, youth clubs and Chambers of Commerce.

Rather too often for Tony Baddingham or Central Office’s liking, the two campaigns merged. Rupert was not above urging people to support Venturer on the Tory loudspeaker, or sticking Venturer posters up on the van alongside those urging the public to vote Conservative. Everywhere he and Taggie went, they handed out Venturer publicity material and had great fun after dark, driving round plastering the gateposts of Corinium directors, and even the Corinium building itself, with ‘Support Venturer’ stickers.

To add to Tony’s apoplexy, Rupert conducted the entire campaign in a blue Venturer T-shirt and twice appeared similarly clad on ‘Cotswold Round-Up’, and, even worse, with huge ‘Support Venturer’ posters on the Tory party van behind him.

Tony was quoted as saying the Venturer T-shirts had been chosen entirely by Rupert to match his blue eyes, and that no doubt the boy shading his forehead on the front symbolized all those Gloucestershire husbands trying to see where Rupert had hidden their wives. Rupert cracked back that everyone knew who the Corinium Ram was supposed to symbolize.

And so the mudslinging went on, with the local press and radio stations uniformly backing Corinium, but the National and Trade press, having scrutinized the applications and the candidates, universally agreeing that Venturer had the more exciting programme plans. Dame Enid wrote a battle song, sung by Maud, called ‘Everything Venture’, which to Venturer’s relief didn’t get into the charts.

On 24th June Labour won the election by twenty seats, with the SDP holding the balance of power. Paul Stratton lost his seat. Rupert kept his. He had, in fact, fought a brilliant campaign. Taggie’s presence seemed to soothe him, so he was far less acerbic with bores and hecklers, and, as he was one of the only Tories returned with a much increased majority, Central Office had to stop grumbling about him using Tory funds and equipment to promote Venturer.

In an unprecedented move, Owen Davies, the new Labour Prime Minister, asked Rupert whether he would like to stay on as Minister for Sport if the post was made non-political. Rupert was deeply touched, but refused. He was fed up with swimming galas and ping-pong matches, and there was a big row brewing about players taking drugs at Wimbledon, which he was only too happy to hand on to his successor. He was also immediately offered a job by the International Olympics Committee, but refused that too for the moment, knowing it would mean more buzzing round the world.

He wanted a breathing space, to spend the rest of the summer at home concentrating on the yard, seeing something of his children and putting in a lot of spade work with Cameron, who was getting increasingly uptight. Falling more and more in love with Rupert, she found it almost impossible to pander to Tony’s sexual needs and cope with the demanding job of Programme Controller at Corinium. While Rupert was fighting the election, he’d been constantly hounded by the press, baying for franchise gossip and trying to catch him out in some new affair, so he and Cameron had had to be doubly careful.

‘All this secrecy’s just like adultery, darling,’ said Rupert on one of their few meetings. ‘Very good training for when you’re married.’

‘That is the most cynical remark I’ve ever heard,’ stormed Cameron.

‘Not at all. The secret of a happy marriage is not getting found out.’

‘How d’you know? You didn’t have a happy marriage.’ ‘That’s because I was always getting found out.’

As the election was over, and Tony was tied up all day in meetings in London, she and Rupert had arranged to meet at a hotel outside Henley. As they settled down to Bloody Marys and a splendid view of the Thames, a barge came chugging up stream. Two young girls in bikinis were sunbathing on deck. Cameron watched Rupert run an expert eye over them. Now he had free time on his hands, would she find it increasingly difficult to hold him? All the same, she was still not prepared to burn her boats with Corinium until Venturer had safely won the franchise, and, she had to confess, all the secret meetings with Rupert did give the affair a certain edge.

‘Come on,’ he said, draining his Bloody Mary and picking up the keys of their hotel bedroom. ‘I want to indulge in some mole-molesting.’

But she who lives more lives than one, more deaths than one, must die. Next day, in the Corinium canteen, Daysee Butler and Deirdre Kilpatrick took their cottage cheese and kiwi-fruit salads to a corner table and didn’t notice Cameron sitting next door.

At first there were the usual grumbles about bosses and crews, but just as Cameron had abandoned her shepherd’s pie half-eaten and started on her yoghurt, Deirdre said, ‘I don’t usually read the Scorpion but did you see that story that Rupert Campbell-Black’s having an affair with a cook?’

‘Cameron Cook?’ said Daysee in amazement. ‘Lord B won’t like that.’

‘Not Cameron Cook — a cook. Declan O’Hara’s daughter. She does directors’ lunches and things. She’s seriously pretty. Well, according to the Scorpion, she’s been canvassing with Rupert and now they’re absolutely inseparable.’

Looking down, Cameron saw she had squeezed her yoghurt so hard that it had spurted all over the table. Without attempting to clear up the mess, she walked out of the canteen into Cotchester High Street and the nearest telephone box.

Rupert was trying out one of his new, very young horses over a row of fences in the field beyond the stables. When the telephone suddenly rang in his pocket, the horse nearly took off back to Ireland. Even when he’d pressed the answer button to silence the ringing, it took all his strength to pull up the terrified animal. All Cameron could hear was a muffled thunder of hooves and expletives.

‘Hullo,’ Rupert said finally.

‘Have you seen the Scorpion?’

‘Yes. So what?’

‘All about you and Ms O’Hara.’

‘That was yesterday’s Scorpion. They’ve linked me with Mary Whitehouse this morning.’

‘Can’t you be fucking serious?’ screamed Cameron. ‘Everyone’s talking about it.’

‘Good,’ said Rupert. ‘At least it keeps the heat off us.’ Then, as Cameron showed no signs of calming down, he added, ‘Darling, there’s nothing in it, I promise you. As Taggie said in today’s Star, “Rupert’s old enough to be my father. In fact he’s a friend of my father’s”.’

‘Doesn’t mean a thing — Augustus John was old enough to be a lot of girls’ great-grandfather — that didn’t stop him. Oh Christ. .’ she screamed as her money ran out. ‘I’ll call you back in a minute.’

‘Please don’t until you’ve cooled down,’ said Rupert. ‘I don’t want both you and the horse having hysterics at the same time.’

Next time they met, it took a great deal of sweet-talking to win her round.

The next big event in the franchise battle was the public meeting held in Cotchester Town Hall at the beginning of July. Chaired by members of the IBA board, it was supposed to give the general public the chance to air their grievances about existing programme content and quiz the rival applicants about their plans. It also gave the IBA the opportunity to observe the applicants in action and gauge the degree of local support.

In fact, the audience consisted mostly of Corinium, Venturer and Mid-West staff and their local supporters, members of consortiums from other franchise areas who would soon go through the same ordeal, picking up tips, local councillors whose sole object was to persuade Venturer or Mid-West that their borough was the perfect site for the new studios, members of Gay Lib, the Women’s Movement and other pressure groups, and a handful of the public, only interested in gazing at Declan, Rupert and Wesley Emerson.

Much-needed rain had been bucketing down all day, but it stopped just before the meeting was due to start. Venturer arrived first. As Rupert had given them all a pep talk about being properly dressed, Declan had sulkily put on a suit and a tie.

‘And you can get out of jeans,’ he had snapped in turn at Taggie. ‘I’ve hardly seen your legs since you were born.’

Taggie, having rifled through her wardrobe in despair, had rushed into Cheltenham and bought a beautiful violet dress with a scooped neckline, a nipped-in waist and flounced gypsy skirt. Newly washed, her dark hair fluffed down to her shoulder blades as though she’d beaten it with an egg whisk.

Declan, in somewhat unflattering amazement, told her she looked absolutely gorgeous. She was glad she did, when she later found that Sarah Stratton, Cameron, Daysee and Janey had all pulled out the stops. To Taggie’s delight she also found the audience packed with people whose support she had sought in her drives round the area. Local councillors, race relations officers, social workers, ladies from the WI, from as far afield as Southampton, Oxford and Stratford, had turned up and now surged forward to shake her hand.

‘We’ve still got your lovely poster up; we’ve written to the IBA; we’ve been following Venturer’s programme with such interest,’ they all said. ‘We thought we’d come and cheer you on.’

‘Remember me?’ said a gaunt-looking man in a crumpled lightweight suit, which had obviously just been unearthed from a trunk in the attic.

‘Of course,’ said Taggie, quite overwhelmed. ‘How wonderful of you to turn up.’

It was the headmaster with the dyslexic son.

A diversion was caused when Marti Gluckstein, who’d never been to the country before, tried to enter the hall wearing gumboots, a waterproof deerstalker, a riding mac and holding an umbrella over his head.

‘Don’t bring that thing in here. It’s unlucky!’ boomed Dame Edith.

‘Come on, Marti, I’ll buy you a stiff drink before we kick off,’ said Bas, guiding Marti back through the puddles over the road to the Cotchester Arms for a quick de-robing.

Sprinting after them, Rupert handed Bas his hip flask. ‘Can you fill this up with weak rum for Wes? His attention span will never last the course unlaced.’

Wesley, having taken another five wickets that afternoon, and having just been picked for the third test, had been celebrating and was now busy signing autographs.

The next arrivals were three shiny red-faced stocky young men, who’d obviously been in the Cotchester Arms since opening time, who strode up to Taggie waving their tickets. The shortest one, who had hard blue eyes and crinkly hair, thrust a melting box of chocolates into Taggie’s hand.

‘Hullo, Agatha,’ he said. ‘Bet you didn’t expect us.’

‘Sorry we were a bit rowdy when you dropped in,’ said the second.

‘Thought we’d come and give you a bit of support,’ said the third.

It was the Captain and two props from Winchley Rugger Club. Tears filled Taggie’s eyes as she hugged them all. ‘How sweet of you. Come and meet my father. He adores rugger.’

Declan shook them all by the hand several times. ‘Treat Corinium like the Welsh at Twickenham,’ he said. ‘And here they come.’

A great theatrical hiss went up from the Venturer camp as the Corinium mafia trooped in. They were led by Tony, very brown from Ascot. Wearing a new dark-pink and blue silk shirt, a pink tie, and a pink carnation in his buttonhole, he managed to flash his teeth at everyone in the room except Venturer. He was followed by Ginger Johnson, Georgie Baines, who’d obviously had a few to steady his nerves, Mike Meadows, Head of Sport, Charles Fairburn, Seb Burrows, Simon Harris, who’d been allowed back in a consultancy capacity to impress the IBA, and whose straggly beard had turned quite white, Cyril Peacock, false teeth rattling, sweating through his suit, and Cameron, truculent in an elongated black T-shirt which came five inches above her knees. Sarah Stratton, wearing a dress in Virgin Mary-blue, with a white Puritan collar also to impress the IBA, brought up the rear with James Vereker, whose head was held high so more people could recognize him.

‘I fear the Greeks when they come bearing Presenters,’ muttered Declan.

‘Who’s chair?’ James asked Charles Fairburn as the Corinium contingent sat down in the front row.

‘Dunno. Belongs to the Town Hall, I should think,’ said Charles.

‘No,’ said James impatiently, ‘who’s Chair?’

‘I’ve just told you.’

‘I’m asking you, who is chairing the meeting?’

‘Oh.’ Comprehension dawned on Charles’s round red face. ‘Might be Old Mother Goose —’ which was everyone’s nickname for Lady Gosling — ‘but I wouldn’t have thought she’d have bothered to come this far.’

Cameron grabbed a seat at the end of the row by the window, as far away from Tony as possible. All she could see was one of his beautifully polished black shoes, rotating as if he were doing an ankle-slimming exercise — a sign that he was nervous. The company in situ always got more flak at public meetings than those seeking to oust it. Tony, frightened of ridicule, knew he was in for a bumpy evening. The entire Corinium contingent studiously ignored Venturer — the committed from distaste, the moles from embarrassment. Henry Hampshire, however, who’d been to a drinks party, had no such reservations.

‘Hello everyone,’ he beamed as he came through the door. ‘Hullo, Taggie darling, you’re looking beautiful. Hullo, Rupert.’ Then, turning to the cringing Corinium contingent, boomed, ‘Oh look, there’s Charles, Georgie and Cameron. Must go and say hello.’

‘Hen-ree,’ hissed Rupert, grabbing his arm and whispering in his ear. ‘You’re not supposed to know they’re on our side.’

‘What?’ said Henry loudly. ‘What’s that? How d’yer mean, not on our side? ’Course they are.’

Fortunately Tony was talking to the Archdeacon and didn’t hear. As Rupert tried to explain, Henry looked as deflated as an English setter who’s been told he’s not going on a walk, then cheered up when he saw Daysee Butler.

‘Who’s she? She on our side?’

‘No, she’s with Corinium.’

‘Damn shame, pretty girl like that, and that’s Sarah Stratton next to her, isn’t it? She’s a damn pretty girl too. Why isn’t she on our side? Met her shooting at Tony’s.’

And next moment Henry had broken away from Rupert’s restraining hand and marched across the room to talk to Sarah, who introduced him to Daysee.

‘Just saying to Rupert, pretty girls like you should be on our side.’

Sarah giggled: ‘I don’t think Tony’d like that very much. How’s your Springer spaniel?’

‘How incredible you remembering that,’ said Henry, now beaming down on the two girls like an English setter waving his plumy tail at two bitches. ‘What are you both doing afterwards?’

‘Bugger off, Henry,’ snarled Tony.

‘Hen-ree,’ Rupert dragged him off.

Fortunately at that moment a diversion was provided by Basil returning with Marti, quite soberly dressed now, and Janey Lloyd-Foxe in a pink flying-suit.

‘Hullo, Rupert darling.’ Janey kissed him full on the mouth. ‘Sorry I’m late.’

Rupert tugged up her zip to the bounds of decency, saying, ‘For Christ’s sake go and distract Henry.’

Basil took Rupert aside. ‘I’ve filled up the hip flask for Wesley.’ Then, dropping his voice, he whispered, ‘Those lovely lips just puckered up to meet yours were round my dick at eight o’clock this morning.’

‘What?’ exploded Rupert. ‘What did you say?’

‘You heard,’ said Basil, grinning.

‘How dare you,’ thundered Rupert. ‘She’s married to my best friend.’

‘’Course she is, and very happily. I’m just making sure she doesn’t suffer from post-natal depression when Billy’s away.’

Rupert might well have hit Bas across the room if the IBA — three members of the Board and various members of their staff — hadn’t trooped in and taken up their places on the platform.

‘We are honoured,’ Charles whispered to James. ‘Old Mother Goose is in the chair. The IBA must regard the outcome as by no means certain then, if she’s come all this way to have a look.’

‘I can’t think why you’re looking so cheerful,’ said James fretfully. ‘Venturer’s bound to offer me a job if they get the franchise. I mean I am “Cotswold Round-Up”, but, as they’ve got the Bishop to handle religious programmes, I can’t see them wanting you.’

‘Who are those deadbeats over there?’ Janey asked Bas.

‘The Mid-West consortium,’ said Bas. ‘Can’t think they’ll bother us much.’

Rupert, having at last persuaded Henry to stop chatting up Daysee and sit down, collapsed into a seat between Taggie and Declan.

‘How the hell am I going to keep this lot under control until December?’ he said.

Taggie giggled: ‘Henry’s certainly fallen for Daysee.’

‘Let me not to the marriage of true mindlessness admit impediments,’ said Declan.

The audience were now occupying every seat in the body of the hall, with Corinium spread out along the front row and Cameron at the far end by the window. Next to her, at right-angles, on a single row of chairs, sat the Mid-West consortium, who looked a pretty moth-eaten bunch. Facing them, also on a single row of chairs, forming a square with the platform, sat Venturer.

Lady Gosling, decided Cameron, looked more like a hedgehog than a goose, a Mrs Tiggywinkle, with small twinkling intelligent eyes, a long thin nose, a pointed chin and rather wild grey hair, held down on either side by tortoise-shell slides. She wore no make-up and, despite the warmth of the evening, was smothered in several shawls over her olive-green wool dress. The cosy exterior, however, was deceptive and hid a rapier mind. As Head of an Oxford college, Gwendolyn Gosling had taught Russian. Her fellow dons were not altogether joking when they nicknamed her ‘Khruschev’. There was shrewdness beneath the amiability, and the twinkling eyes, like the stars, gave off little warmth.

For a hideous moment at the beginning of the meeting it looked as though no one was going to ask any questions. Then a man in spectacles got up and grumbled about the reception in Gloucester. Corinium’s Chief Engineer got up to answer him, and the stupor produced by engineers at public meetings allowed everyone time to collect their thoughts.

More straightforward complaints then followed from local councillors who had not yet been interviewed by James on ‘Cotswold Round-Up’ that coverage in their area was pitiful.

Mrs Makepiece, James’s daily, then rose to her feet, and, disclaiming any connection with Corinium, said ‘Cotswold Round-Up’ was the best programme on telly, and why couldn’t it be on seven days a week. This was greeted by bellows of ‘Rubbish’ and ‘Offside’ from Taggie’s rugger players.

One of the Corinium shop stewards, who’d just screwed a two-thousand-pound rise out of Tony for all his members, as well as a fat bribe for himself, shouted from the back that he wouldn’t trust Declan O’Hara’s mob further than he could throw them. His claim that industrial relations at Corinium were second to none, however, were greeted by cries of ‘si-down’ from all over the hall.

‘As Corinium fork out immediately whatever the unions demand and most of the technicians earn more than the Prime Minister, I should think industrial relations are second to none,’ yelled Bas, to loud cheers from the Venturer supporters.

The Chairman of Chipping Sodbury’s WI then rose to her feet and said in a ringing voice that her institute was sick to the teeth of news about Cotchester and nothing about Chipping Sodbury.

Remembering ‘Miss Corinium Television’, Rupert caught Declan’s eye. ‘She’s forgotten Miss Chipping Sodbury’s tits,’ he whispered across Taggie.

Both men started to shake with laughter, until quelled by a cold look from Lady Gosling.

Tony rose to reply. ‘I can assure you, madam,’ he said smoothly, ‘that, by an extraordinary coincidence, “Cotswold Round-Up” is due to visit Chipping Sodbury later this week.’

‘Are we?’ said James to Sarah, looking startled.

‘In fact,’ Tony went on warmly, ‘we have super plans for the entire Cotswold area.’

‘You’ve been here eight years. Why haven’t we seen any of them?’ bellowed Taggie’s headmaster.

More cheers all round were counterpointed by snores from Mrs Makepiece.

‘I’ve studied both Venturer’s and Corinium’s applications at the public library,’ went on Taggie’s headmaster, ‘and Venturer’s programme plans seem infinitely more imaginative. What I would like to ask Lord Baddingham is how much have his grandiose new plans for a multi-million-pound studio, for slots for every possible minority group, for cultural improvement and for spectacular entertainment been spawned by editorial inspiration or desire to hang on to his very lucrative franchise?’

Tony was about to rise and shout back over the deafening cheers, but James was too quick for him. ‘James Vereker, “Cotswold Round-Up”,’ he announced, getting to his feet and turning sideways so he could be recognized both by the platform and the floor.

‘Who’s a pretty boy then?’ catcalled Taggie’s rugger captain.

‘As anchorman of “Cotswold Round-Up,” said James, ‘I know I speak for each and everyone of us at Corinium from Tony Baddingham downward when I say that Corinium’s ethos can be summed up in two words.’

‘Bloody terrible,’ said Taggie’s rugger captain, to screams of laughter.

‘Two little words —’ James ploughed on — ‘Corinium cares.’

‘The only fing Tony Baddingham cares abart is making a fast buck,’ shouted Freddie, to more deafening cheers.

Mrs Makepiece snored so loudly that she woke herself up. ‘Let’s get up a partition,’ she said loudly.

Cameron knew she ought to stand up and defend Corinium, but she didn’t relish getting ripped apart by Declan. She was saved by the Women-in-Broadcasting lobby, who all had moustaches and who complained that there weren’t enough women in any of the consortiums. Lady Gosling nodded in agreement, and made notes.

The meeting droned on. Wesley Emerson had had a hard day in the field. No one but Rupert and Bas realized that each time his noble head nodded onto his right buttonhole he was taking a long suck of rum from a straw to Rupert’s hip flask in his breast pocket.

Outside in Cotchester Park, the lime trees were in flower; their sweet delicate scent, stronger after the downpour, drifted in through the open window. Cameron watched the house martins swooping after insects, flashing their white bellies. The tennis courts were packed with people playing vigorous Wimbledon-inspired tennis. In a week or so they’d revert to their usual patball. She glanced surreptitiously across at Rupert, who was sitting next to that drip Taggie, who (whatever Rupert said to the contrary) had a thumping crush on him.

Nothing except for the occasional yawn, not even a glance in her direction, betrayed the fact that Rupert had left her bed at six o’clock that morning. Cameron wondered sometimes if she’d imagined the whole thing. She was so deep in thought, she had to be nudged in the ribs by Seb to answer a question from a pale girl from Gay Lib as to whether the lesbian shepherdess who’d appeared briefly in the last series of ‘Four Men went to Mow’ would appear in the next one.

As Cameron sat down, the Chairman from Chipping Sodbury’s WI returned to the attack. ‘Nothing that comes from Corinium TV,’ she said, ‘is truly regional. Even Dorothy Dove speaks with a London accent.’

Another rabble-rouser, again heavily bunged by Tony, then rose to his feet.

‘While we’re on the subject of accents,’ he sneered, ‘in the first week of July four people were brutally butchered by the IRA. Do we really want an Irishman, namely one Declan O’Hara, bearing in mind his left-wing attitudes and the subversive nature of many of his programmes, to be the Chief Executive of an English television company?’

‘Out of order,’ screamed the Venturer contingent.

‘Offside, put it in straight,’ roared the rugger players.

Declan, who’d gone white, was just about to answer.

‘Careful,’ whispered Rupert.

‘I’d like the speaker to withdraw that remark,’ said Lady Gosling frostily. ‘Next question, please.’

The Clean-Up Television Campaign, headed by the Archdeacon, then started slamming sex and violence, followed by the Bishop of Cotchester who said how concerned he was about his flock, and that he would be working with Venturer to reduce not only sex and violence, but the very widespread blasphemy on television. He was just getting into his stride when Henry Hampshire’s ancient gardener staggered to his feet.

‘I like to go to bed very early,’ he grumbled. ‘I do wish Corinium wouldn’t put all those sexy fil-lums on so late at night, because I and the missus can never stay awake to watch them.’

Everyone roared with laughter, including Lady Gosling, who then clapped her hands and said it was with great regret that she had to bring this very stimulating meeting to a close as they were running out of time. They would end, she added, with a seven-minute sales pitch from each of the three contenders.

Tony rose first, deliberately turning his back on Venturer and talking half to the platform and half to the audience.

‘Good evening,’ he began suavely. ‘I am the Chief Executive of — er —’ he glanced down at his notes and everyone laughed — ‘Corinium Television. We have noted,’ he went on, ‘the very perceptive and instructive points raised tonight, and, although we don’t agree with all of them, anyone who would like a further answer to his — or indeed, her —’ he smiled broadly — ‘question, please write to me personally.’

‘Wanker,’ muttered Rupert under his breath. He folded his arms belligerently and, with the hand that was hidden, fought a violent urge to caress the side of Taggie’s left breast which swelled so seductively beneath her violet dress. She looked so ravishing this evening, and she’d done so well to get all those strange but incredibly influential people to the meeting.

Firmly clenching his hand away from Taggie, he looked across at Cameron, who was gazing moodily into space with a kind of deadpan, terrorist truculence. She reminded him of the girl grooms he used to pull in the old days. He desperately wanted a fuck, but he wouldn’t get Cameron tonight. Tony, overexcited by the meeting, would no doubt take advantage of that release. Rupert was finding the enforced celibacy more and more trying, and, bloody hell, what was Bas doing pulling Janey? It seemed as though he was the only person in the world behaving himself.

Having finished a rousing spiel about Corinium’s long and honourable record, Tony was now paying tribute to ‘the thriving, creative community’ he had the privilege to lead. ‘We are aware, Ladies and Gentlemen, that there is life west of Harrods, our hearts are not in “Dallas”, nor is our HQ in London. Our company is run by people from the region, who have a special place in the Cotswolds and, indeed, in West Country life. Corinium is its own man here. We will be biased, we will fight for the West, we are pledged to serve the whole community. Above all we care.’

He sat down to moderate cheers. Then it was Mid-West’s turn.

A fat man with straggly white hair staggered to his feet and then took ages to find his notes. ‘That’s obviously the geography master who never found his way to London,’ whispered Rupert to Taggie.

‘I am deeply honoured,’ began the fat man.

‘Name, name,’ yelled the audience.

‘My name is Cedric Bonnington,’ he mumbled. ‘I hope to be Chairman of Mid-West Television.’

‘Well, don’t be bashful, speak up,’ shouted Tony’s rabble-rouser.

Sadly, Cedric didn’t. In a low mumble he laboriously read out that he was very interested in all the fascinating points that had been made by the floor.

‘I cannot reveal who our backers are,’ he droned on, ‘but very substantial funds will be available should the very talented group, whose names I also cannot divulge at this stage, win the franchise.’

‘He’ll probably get it,’ said Georgie Baines to Seb Burrows.

‘What about women?’ yelled the Women-in-Broadcasting lobby.

Cedric consulted his notes. The company’s Programme Controller, whose name he also couldn’t divulge, he said, would be a woman of the widest experience.

‘Madame Cyn,’ yelled Rupert.

‘Mary Whitehouse,’ said Tony’s shop steward.

The audience waited for more exciting revelations, and, when none materialized, egged on by the Corinium consortium, who’d all got to their feet, started to drift away. It was almost dark outside; the pubs beckoned.

‘No one’s going to stay and listen to Daddy,’ said Taggie in anguish, and, as Declan got up to speak, people were swarming out into the High Street.

‘I’d like first to answer the speaker who questioned the right of an Irishman to run an English television company,’ he began softly. ‘As much right perhaps as that great Irishman, the Duke of Wellington, to command a British army.’

He spoke without notes. As people poured back into the hall again, the deep soft husky voice carried easily round the hall.

‘I am proud to be Irish,’ he went on, ‘and, to echo the words of another great Irish patriot, Irwin Cobb, I too had an ancestor who was out with the pikes in ’98. He was captured by the English and tried for treason. They hanged him by the neck until he was dead, but his soul goes marching on, transmitting to his descendants, of whom I am proud to be one, the desire to fight against tyranny whenever I come across it. I also love and honour British television. It is the best in the world. That’s why I and so many of my countrymen — Eamonn Andrews, Terry Wogan, Robert Kee, Frank Delaney, Dave Allen, Henry Kelly, Patrick Dromgoole, Gloria Hunniford — are over here, learning from it and, I hope, contributing to it.

‘But we still go on fighting tyranny and oppression whenever we find it. I found it in the few months I worked for Corinium. That’s why I walked out, and why, with my English friends —’ he turned and smiled briefly at the Venturer consortium — ‘I have put in a bid to oust Lord Baddingham.’

He then proceeded to carve up Tony and tear Corinium’s boring sycophantic programmes to shreds. Only at the end did be briefly outline how Venturer would be different, how they would truly both represent the area and foster local talent. ‘I would like all great artists of the future to be able to say they had their first chance at Venturer.’

The audience stood up and cheered him for nearly three minutes. Stony-faced, Tony strode out of the hall. Cameron tried to follow him, but, trapped by the crowd, she watched Rupert, Declan, Taggie and the rest of Venturer, plus their supporters, jubilantly swanning off to the Bar Sinister for drinks on the house. Rupert never gave her a backward glance. Sick with desire, she wondered how much longer she could go on playing a double game.

Although the Cotchester News reported the meeting a rousing success for Corinium and published numerous rigged readers’ letters of support, it was generally agreed that Venturer had won that round.