Rivals

51

The next two weeks were terrible for Venturer. Deeply guilty that his utter failure to pull himself together at the meeting had finally cost them the franchise, Declan went home to Penscombe. Taggie and Patrick made sure he was never alone, as he seemed to sink deeper and deeper into depression, constantly vacillating between loathing Maud for betraying him and longing to have her back. There was no word from her; she seemed to have totally vanished.

Patrick, displaying patience and understanding way beyond his years, spent hours talking to his father: ‘Taggie said Mum was absolutely gibbering with terror before The Merry Widow. It was such a colossal distance from obscurity back to the limelight. A little amateur production perhaps to you, but to her it wasn’t just an extra step to cross the Frogsmore, but a vast leap over a five-hundred-foot-deep ravine. She needed you so desperately to witness her triumph or catch her if she fell.’

‘I know,’ groaned Declan. ‘Because I always had to fight so hard to keep her, I never realized how much she needed me.’

‘And you know she lives any part she plays. In her head she’s now become poor bullied Nora in A Doll’s House, marching out with a slammed door on an insensitive tyrannical husband. She wanted to hit back, to slam the door on your figures.

‘And finally you mustn’t underestimate the influence of Tony Baddingham. I know the effect he had on Cameron. He is pure Iago. He only had to point out how brilliant, beautiful and sexually voracious Cameron was; how you were spending more and more time with her; how could the two of you not be having an affair? You know what an imagination Mum has. This was even more immediate than P. D. James. Imagine, too, the appalling things he must have said about you, and finally the escape from poverty he offered her: new dresses, new jewels, furs, no more brown envelopes, or creditors at the gate, even warmth.’ Patrick shivered. After the Australian summer The Priory central heating left a great deal to be desired. ‘And he was around all the time, and you were away, or preoccupied with the franchise or Yeats, and Mum was probably turned on because the whole thing was so utterly verboten. All he had to do was to switch on his electric carving knife, dip it in washing-up machine powder and turn it in the wound.’

Declan winced: ‘I can understand all that, but deliberately to hand over all our secrets.’

‘She may not have done,’ said Patrick. ‘Taggie was out a lot cooking. Tony probably came to the house. The plans were on your desk. Your writing isn’t that indecipherable.’

‘D’you think I should go round to The Falconry and kill him?’

Patrick gave a wintry smile. ‘I wouldn’t. You know how Lady Gosling abhors violence.’

Taggie, who was kept enormously busy cooking for parties and filling up people’s deep freezes for Christmas, made heroic attempts to be cheerful, but she worried Patrick far more than Declan. Never one to grumble, she refused to discuss Rupert, but Patrick knew she was bleeding to death inside.

Outside, the weather was frantically warmer, the snow thawed in patches, leaving fantastic shapes, a sea horse there, a camel here. All down the valley the streams that tumbled into the Frogsmore were still frozen into dirty grey glaciers. Wandering numbly through the fields with the dogs, Taggie only noticed the flattened tufts of thick tawny grass sticking up through the snow, like the heads of a thousand Ruperts slain in battle.

‘Too long a sacrifice,’ quoted Patrick bitterly, thinking too of his own situation, ‘can make a stone of the heart.’

Cameron, mercifully, was still very busy editing Yeats (Declan had lost all interest in the project), and setting up the programme on stepmothers which Channel Four had commissioned. She popped over on several occasions to cheer Declan up, but managed to avoid times when Patrick was at home. Patrick didn’t know if she’d gone back to Tony, or whether Tony was looking after his mother. He and Taggie decided it would be better to do nothing until after the franchise results were announced.

Sunday, 15th December was D-Day. The form was that from nine o’clock onwards, in an atmosphere of high drama and secrecy, the existing managing directors of all the commercial television companies would roll up at the IBA in their limos at quarter of an hour intervals. Driving past the battalions of reporters, photographers and camera crews, they would be ushered once again into the building from the underground car park and be whizzed up in the lift to yet another empty office. Here, not unlike the suitors in The Merchant of Venice, they would be handed a sealed envelope from Lady Gosling and then be left alone to open it and learn if they had held onto their franchise, or whether, as in some instances, they had to merge with their rivals. Allowed a few minutes to digest this information, they would then be summoned to Lady Gosling’s office for a brief word of congratulation or commiseration. Afterwards they would leave the building by the back door or by the front, having sworn not to reveal a word of the results to the press. After all the existing contractors had been seen, the contenders, who hoped to depose them, would come in one by one after lunch and endure the same procedure.

At four-thirty Lady Gosling would call a press conference to announce the results, which would simultaneously be rushed to the Stock Exchange and the Home Secretary, who would inform the Prime Minister.

Tony Baddingham was so certain he had retained the Corinium franchise that he’d taken a suite overnight at the Hyde Park Hotel.

Expectation had been boosted by front-page forecasts in most of the Sunday papers of a definite Corinium victory. The Krug was therefore flowing at a reception for the press and for all Tony’s Corinium supporters, as he left for his twelve o’clock appointment with the IBA.

Tony was relieved the contenders weren’t being seen until the afternoon. He would need police protection if he met Declan in the lift. He preferred to gloat over Venturer’s utter humiliation at a distance.

It was a bitterly cold grey day, with an icy wind, which razor-cut the face far more effectively than any East End villain. Rather than walk the two hundred yards from the Hyde Park Hotel to the IBA, Tony made Percy drive round the park and approach 80 Brompton Road from South Kensington. Innumerable cameramen and journalists were mingling on the pavement with the Christmas shoppers as his Rolls drew up.

Never one to resist publicity, Tony decided to go in through the front door and let Percy take the Rolls round to the car park. There was a frenzy of activity and popping of flashbulbs as he got out. Tony had always kept a high profile; most of the press recognized him. Posing for thirty seconds in his Garrick tie and new £900 suit, he told the grey forest of microphones that he didn’t believe in jumping the gun, but he was confident, quietly confident, that he’d still be in business that afternoon, before scurrying through the revolving doors of the IBA.

‘Arrogant focker,’ snarled Declan who was watching ITN at Freddie’s house. ‘Don’t talk about guns in my presence, you bastard.’

‘Don’t watch it,’ said Patrick, switching off the television. ‘It’ll only upset you. You ought to change soon, and have a shave.’

‘What’s the point of looking pretty for a firing squad?’

The door bell rang. Declan started. Why did he pray each time it might be Maud?

‘I’ll answer it,’ said Freddie.

Freddie’s heart was heavy. He knew there was no hope of Venturer getting the franchise, but he’d tried to keep everyone’s spirits up for the last two weeks and tried even harder to be a good husband to Valerie. In return Valerie hadn’t even bothered to come up to London today, she so detested failure. But as Freddie peered through the spyhole, he felt his heart expand in joy and gratitude, for there, her face as red and purple with cold as a mandrill’s bottom, stood Lizzie. Never was a door opened so fast. As he drew her into the house out of the sight of any lurking press, she fell into his arms.

‘You shouldn’t be here,’ he mumbled incoherently.

‘I know I shouldn’t,’ said Lizzie, ‘but James is being so smug, and I couldn’t sit around drinking Tony’s champagne. I thought it would poison me.’

At Tony’s house in Rutland Gate, totally oblivious of the franchise affair, with only thought for one another, Caitlin O’Hara and Archie Baddingham met up on the first day of the school holidays.

‘Are you sure it’s safe,’ asked Caitlin as they went into Monica’s bedroom, ‘and your father won’t descend down the chimney like Father Christmas?’

‘No, they’ll be whooping it up all day at the Hyde Park,’ said Archie. ‘And poor Mum will spend her time fending off kisses from ghastly drunken hangers-on like James Vereker. I’m sorry your father hasn’t got it.’

‘It’s a shame,’ said Caitlin. ‘He worked jolly hard. So did Tag.’

‘I’ll support you,’ said Archie, putting a bottle of Sancerre and two glasses on his mother’s bedside table. ‘Look, are you sure you want to go through with this, and wouldn’t rather wait until after we’re married?’

Caitlin, who, despite her habitual air of unconcern, was trembling like an earthquake, shook her head. ‘Most people sleep together first these days, just to find out whether they’re sexually compatible. Anyway, I reached the age of consent last week. It’s awfully tidy in here.’ She looked round in amazement. ‘You ought to see my parents’ bedroom. D’you think we ought to put a red towel underneath us? It’d be so awful if I bled all over your mother’s sheets.’

‘What time is it?’ whispered Archie.

‘One forty-five,’ said Caitlin, looking at the flickering red figures of the digital clock. ‘Why?’

‘I want to remember what time the most important thing in my life took place,’ said Archie, as he unbuttoned her black cardigan.

He looks terrible, thought Taggie, as she brushed Declan’s dark-blue suit and straightened his tie. The new Harvie and Hudson green-and-blue-striped shirt Cameron had bought him last week in honour of the occasion was already too big. In the last fortnight the thick black hair had become almost entirely silver, and despair and grief had dug even deeper trenches on his forehead and on either side of his mouth.

The clock struck two.

‘Car’s here, Declan,’ called Freddie from the hall.

‘Good luck,’ said Taggie, hugging him. ‘It’ll be over in half an hour.’

One by one the members of Venturer shook Declan’s hand and wished him well. Billy gave him the faded four-leaf clover he’d worn in his boot when he’d won the show-jumping silver in Colombia. Henry Hampshire gave him a piece of white heather, foisted on him by a gypsy outside Harrods that morning. Rupert had sent a telex from LA. Professor Graystock and the Bishop of Cotchester were no doubt at this moment enjoying their second helpings of roast beef in Gloucestershire. Everyone waved to Declan as he set off.

‘Majestic though in ruin,’ said Patrick ruefully.

‘Not yet,’ boomed Dame Enid. ‘Don’t be so defeatist, boy.’

The media went berserk as Declan’s car drew up. It had been a long, cold, somewhat boring day. Not admitted inside the IBA for reasons of security, they had spent their time belting the hundred yards between the front of the building and the back, desperate to get a story. Managing Directors of television companies are enormously powerful but not always very well-known men. One camera crew had had the embarrassment of asking their own Chief Executive what television company he worked for. Another crew wasted a lot of film on their own press officer.

But everyone knew Declan. Many of the crews had worked with him, and loved him, and wished he could have won. The Christmas shoppers, battered by the cold and each other, knew him too, and cheered and mobbed him. It took him several minutes to fight his way across Brompton Road and, as he went in through the revolving doors, a fat woman gave him a piece of holly for good luck. Coming the other way was Johnny Abrahams, his old boss at the BBC who’d put in a bid to oust Granada.

‘How did you do?’ asked Declan.

‘They told us to go home,’ said Johnny despondently.

Declan was taken up in the grey steel lift to the eighth floor and ushered into a large office which said ‘Members’ Viewing Room’ on the door. Inside, a lot of maroon chairs were lined up in front of a large screen. The grey telephone in the corner was dead. A smell of turkey drifted down the passage, the aftermath of Lady Gosling’s festive lunch. Out of the window he could see Knightsbridge and the north-east corner of Harrods, strawberry roan against a sullen grey sky with its coloured flags fretted by the icy wind.

He looked down at the piece of holly which still had two red berries. It was nice that all those people had been pleased to see him. Perhaps one day, when he’d got this mockery of a franchise behind him, he might work again. He wondered what Maud was doing; probably celebrating at the Hyde Park Hotel with Tony by now. Directly below him was Lancelot Place. It was ironic that he was the Arthur who’d promised the IBA Camelot, and Tony was the Lancelot who’d stolen his Guinevere. Oh Christ, he groaned, how could he possibly ever do anything in life without her?

‘Mr O’Hara.’

Declan started violently, looking round stupidly. A kind-faced woman in spectacles had walked through the door with a tray full of envelopes and handed a white one and a larger brown one to him.

‘Your envelopes. Best of luck.’

‘Thank you,’ muttered Declan.

He waited politely until she’d gone, then shoved them in his coat pocket. Like bills, he never believed in opening unpleasant things. Out of the window he saw a group of horses and riders jingling back to the stables at Hyde Park, back to oats and a warm straw bed. Christ, how peaceful in life to be a horse. And how beautiful they were. He’d have to put The Priory on the market immediately, but he might get a day or two’s hunting before he left.

‘Mr O’Hara.’

‘I’m sorry. I was just leaving.’

‘Would you come upstairs and have a word with Lady Gosling?’

‘Not much point really. Nice of her to bother, though.’

‘She asked me to collect you,’ said the bespectacled woman firmly.

Lady Gosling sat in her office, behind a huge desk. The Director General and his deputy sat on the sofa. The room was full of smoke. They’d obviously all had a good lunch.

‘Good afternoon, Mr O’Hara.’ Lady Gosling rose slightly, holding out her thin freckled hand.

Declan held out his, realized he was still holding the bit of holly, and blushed.

‘Rather premature to celebrate,’ said Lady Gosling dryly. ‘I should sit down if I were you.’

Declan mumbled he would prefer to stand.

‘Well,’ she began sternly. ‘There were certainly some patchy moments in your bid. Freddie Jones obviously has an exceptional grasp of finance, and Cameron Cook was first class. What a very bright, courageous girl. And, of course, some of your programme plans are extremely interesting.’

What’s she going on about? thought Declan wearily. It was like a condemned man being told that he’s got a really sympathetic hangman.

‘Some of the publicity, on the other hand, has been perfectly frightful,’ went on Lady Gosling fiercely. ‘And your security left a lot to be desired. However, we were impressed by this.’ She handed Declan some sheets of paper.

At the top of the first were three typewritten lines. It was a little time before Declan’s tired eyes could make out what they said.

‘We, the undersigned, wish to state we would like to support Declan O’Hara’s bid for the Corinium franchise. He makes the kind of television we believe in, and in the brief time he was at Corinium we were all impressed by his utter integrity and kindness to staff at all levels. If his consortium were awarded the franchise we would all like to work for him.’

Slowly, slowly, Declan’s eyes travelled down the list of names: Georgie Baines, Cyril Peacock, Daysee Butler, Deirdre Kilpatrick, Mike Meadows, then on to PAs, tea girls, secretaries, production buyers, designers, security men, receptionists, best boys, gaffers, producers, sparks, riggers, researchers, make-up girls, engineers, floor managers, directors, commissionaires, canteen ladies, sound men, vision mixers. He turned the page. The list went on in three columns down to the bottom of the next page, and then down to the bottom of the next and swam before his eyes.

Declan turned towards the window. The horses had all gone in. He pressed his hands to his eyes, his great shoulders shaking.

‘That’s a most impressive document,’ said Lady Gosling gently. ‘I should frame it and look at it if ever you feel low.’

Declan turned to her, frantically rubbing his eyes.

‘I’m sorry to let them down,’ he said in a choked voice. ‘It was good of you to show it to me.’

‘On the contrary,’ said Lady Gosling. ‘You haven’t let them down at all. Why don’t you open those envelopes.’

Still clutching his piece of holly, Declan’s hands were trembling so much, he tore the white envelope and had to piece the letter together.

‘Dear Mr O’Hara,’ he read incredulously, ‘We have great pleasure in telling you that the Venturer Consortium has been awarded the Corinium franchise.’

Declan read the letter three times in silence. Then he opened the brown envelope, which contained contractual details.

‘I wouldn’t bother to try and absorb those at the moment,’ chipped in the Director General, also in a slightly unsteady voice, ‘but it’s all good news. Well done.’

In silence Declan shook hands with them, then presented the piece of holly to Lady Gosling and walked out of the room. Totally forgetting Freddie’s driver waiting in the underground car park, he took a lift to the ground floor. Outside the building the press surged forward.

‘How d’yer do, Declan?’

Then, seeing he was fighting back the tears, they divided and let him through as he walked unsteadily off in the general direction of Holland Park.

Gathered round the radio, because there was no television news till six o’clock, the Venturer consortium pounced on every bit of news. A great cheer went up when the reporter said that Tony Baddingham had been seen driving away from the building looking stony-faced.

‘Perhaps we haven’t come to another wake, after all,’ said Freddie, in amazement. ‘Let’s have a drink anyway.’

‘Maybe the IBA want us to merge in some way with Corinium,’ suggested Cameron.

‘Count me out then,’ said Charles. ‘I’d rather stay on the dole.’

They all jumped as the wireless crackled.

‘The latest news on the franchise front,’ said the commentator, ‘is that Declan O’Hara has just come out of the IBA building in tears, so I’m afraid things look bleak for Venturer. He’s just walked through the crowds and was last seen heading towards South Kensington tube station like a man in deep shock.’

Cameron looked at Patrick. ‘That’s that, then.’

‘That bugger Baddingham’s beaten us after all,’ said Dame Enid furiously. ‘I’m bloody well going to tell Gwendolyn Gosling how he enticed Maud away and bribed Beattie Johnson. I don’t give a damn what Declan says, we must be able to appeal.’

‘I don’t fink we can,’ said Freddie wearily. ‘The decision’s final.’

‘Nothing’s final,’ said Dame Enid briskly.

Taggie went white. ‘You don’t think Daddy will do something silly?’

‘Of course not,’ snapped Cameron, because she had thought the same thing and was frightened too.

Lizzie took Freddie’s hand. ‘I’m so sorry, darling.’

Freddie shook his head, near to tears too, unable to speak.

Next minute Freddie’s chauffeur rang from the car: ‘I ’eard the bad news on the radio, Mr J. I’ve picked up Mr O’Hara at South Ken.’

‘Is he OK?’ said Freddie.

‘Well, he’s not making much sense, but I’ll bring him back to Holland Park.’

Ten minutes later Declan walked into the drawing-room. For a second he looked like a thundercloud, so they all knew finally there was absolutely no hope. Then for the first time in weeks, he gave his wicked schoolboy grin: ‘It’s all right, my darlings. We got it.’

There was a stunned silence, followed by an explosion of cheering; everyone was hugging each other. Janey burst into tears, so did Charles. Dame Enid and Billy were wiping their eyes.

‘Fuckin’ ’ell,’ yelled Freddie, jumping up and down.

‘Good Lord,’ said Henry.

Taggie suddenly found herself hugging Cameron. ‘We got it,’ they both screamed simultaneously.

‘Are you quite, quite sure?’ said Bas incredulously. ‘Can we see the proof?’

Grinning broadly, Declan got the torn white letter out of his pocket. Everyone crowded round to have a look.

‘Bloody hell, it’s true,’ said Janey, giving a whoop of joy and hugging Billy. ‘We can move back to Penscombe.’

‘I’m going to be the next Trevor MacDonald,’ shouted Wesley.

‘I might even keep my cottage after all,’ said Marti.

‘What decided them finally to give it to us?’ Cameron asked Declan over the Tarzan howls and the deafening fusillade of champagne corks.

‘Mostly you,’ said Declan, putting an arm round her shoulders. ‘They thought you were marvellous, and they adored Freddie, but it was everyone,’ he went on, raising his hand for silence. ‘It was all of you turning up at the IBA that finally swung it. A case of everyone ventured, everything won. In the end, none but the brave deserved the franchise.’ He wiped his eyes. ‘I’m so proud and happy for us all.’

‘So am I,’ said Henry, who’d been laboriously doing sums on the back of an envelope, ‘I had one thousand pounds on us at 2–1.’

‘Christ,’ said Bas. ‘You can almost buy Joanna Lumley for that.’

Everyone screamed with laughter and started hugging everyone else all over again.

Over at Rutland Gate, Caitlin lay in Archie’s arms.

‘Are you sure that was all right,’ he asked her for the hundredth time, as he stroked her flat white belly.

‘Of course it was.’

‘I thought guys were supposed to go off girls the moment they’d had them, but I love you more than ever. You’re so beautiful. Did it hurt very much?’

Caitlin giggled: ‘One has to suffer to be beautiful. And we’ve got the whole holidays ahead of us. Have you got masses of work to do?’

‘Yes,’ said Archie.

‘So have I. We can do it together.’

‘Are you hungry? I am. I’ll see if there’s anything in the larder.’ Archie got up. Naked, still slightly plump, but to Caitlin entirely beautiful, he peered through the curtains. At three-thirty, it was getting dark.

‘Holy shit,’ said Archie. ‘My mother’s just getting out of a taxi.’

Frantically Caitlin kicked the bottle under the bed, put the two glasses in the bedside cupboard, dragged on her jeans, her black cardigan and her boots, and shoved her shirt, bra, pants and socks into her carrier bag. Archie turned off the bedroom lights.

Going into the drawing-room a minute later, Monica found Archie and Caitlin sitting on either side of an empty fireplace. Caitlin was reading Country Life upside-down.

‘Hullo, Mummy,’ said Archie heartily, getting up and kissing her. ‘I thought you’d be at Dad’s celebration piss-up. I was about to join you.’

‘It’s been cancelled,’ said Monica numbly. ‘We’ve lost the franchise.’

‘What!’ exploded Archie. ‘We couldn’t have. All the papers said it was in the bag.’

‘They were wrong. For security, the IBA leave MI5 standing.’

‘My God, I’m sorry.’

Caitlin couldn’t take it in. ‘D’you mean Daddy’s got it?’ she said slowly.

‘I don’t know.’ Monica looked at Caitlin dazedly. ‘I suppose so.’

Still in her fur coat and headscarf, she sat down very suddenly on the sofa, stared at her rough gardening hands, with their huge diamonds, and burst into tears. Archie, who’d only seen his mother cry once years ago when one of her labradors had to be put down, was utterly helpless. It was like watching the Titanic sink.

‘I just feel so sorry for him,’ sobbed Monica. ‘I know he’s done dreadful, dreadful things, left no stone unturned to try and win the franchise, but he wanted to beat Rupert and Declan so very badly.’

Rushing across the room, Caitlin put her arms round Monica.

‘I’m so sorry. I’m delighted for Daddy of course, but it’s like the Boat Race. Someone’s got to win, but it doesn’t stop it being horribly, desperately, publicly humiliating for the crew who don’t. There, please don’t cry. Get her some brandy,’ she ordered Archie. ‘Will you be terribly poor?’

‘No,’ gulped Monica, ‘I don’t think so. Tony’s got all his other companies. It’s just that he minded so much, and it’s such a shock. He was so certain.’

Struggling to her feet, desperately wiping her eyes, saying she must find a handkerchief, she stumbled off to her bedroom.

Thinking of the unmade bed, Archie and Caitlin looked at each other in horror.

‘I must be going senile,’ gulped Monica when she returned, wiping her eyes and blowing her nose. ‘I could have sworn I made my bed this morning.’

‘You’ve been under a terrific strain,’ said Caitlin sympathetically. ‘My father topped up a whisky and soda with milk the other day. ‘

‘But I never leave it unmade,’ whispered Monica. ‘I can’t afford to go to pieces. Tony’s going to need so much support.’

She made a face like a little girl drinking medicine as she took a gulp of the brandy.

‘I’ll go and make it for you,’ said Caitlin. ‘That’ll make you feel better. Then Archie and I are going to get you some lunch.’

In the middle of Venturer’s amazed and joyful celebrations, the telephone rang. Dame Enid picked it up. Not bothering to put her hand over the receiver, she yelled: ‘It’s the boring old fart for you, Declan.’

‘Congratulations, Declan,’ said the Bishop of Cotchester heartily. ‘Delighted you’ve finally got the franchise. With the festive season nearly upon us, I’ve been pondering much on the nature of forgiveness. I think, on balance, my flock will understand if I overlook Rupert Campbell-Black’s lamentable behaviour. I would like to reconsider my position vis-à-vis Venturer.’

A beatific smile spread over Declan’s face: ‘Flock off,’ he said, and hung up.

Cameron sat on the sofa cuddling Blue.

‘A penny for your thoughts,’ said Patrick, sitting down beside her. ‘Although, now you’ve won the franchise, I suppose they’re much more expensive than that.’

Cameron grinned: ‘I was thinking how odd it is to feel so wildly happy when one’s heart is breaking.’

‘It’s relief,’ said Patrick, filling up her glass, ‘to discover you’re going to survive after all.’

He glanced across at Taggie who, with a fixed smile on her face, was gathering up glasses like a zombie.

‘I’m not sure my sister is.’

‘What’s she got to complain about?’ said Cameron bitterly. ‘Rupert loves her.’

‘She hasn’t got a clue he does,’ said Patrick, ‘and he’s not going to do anything about it. He’s probably out on the tiles at some Hollywood orgy at this moment, busy forgetting her. Freddie and Pa have been trying to get through to him all evening, but there’s no answer.’

Cameron looked at her watch.

‘It must be breakfast time in LA,’ she said.