Rivals

52

Over in California Rupert was slowly going out of his mind with misery. Leaving England had made everything far, far worse. He couldn’t eat or sleep. He must be dying if he didn’t even want to drink. All he could do was long for Taggie. He’d never dreamed anything could hurt so much.

‘Rupert,’ said Suzy Erikson, his beautiful hostess, as they breakfasted by the pool, having just come in after an all-night party, ‘I’ve been talking to you for twenty minutes, and you haven’t heard a single word.’

‘I know. I’m sorry.’

‘I’ve also trailed all the most glamorous women in Hollywood in front of you for the past fortnight and you’ve paid no attention to any of them.’

‘I know. I’m sorry about that too.’

‘Still brooding about your Irish teenager?’ said Suzy, plunging a spoon into her melon. ‘Go home and screw her. It’s the only way you’ll get her out of your system. ‘

Rupert looked at his cooling cup of coffee. ‘I can’t, I mustn’t fuck her up,’ he repeated dully. ‘Apart from Billy, she’s the only genuinely good person I’ve ever met.’

‘That seems rather a good omen,’ said Suzy. ‘Billy’s the only person you’ve ever been faithful to, and the only one you haven’t fucked up either.’

As Rupert got up to prowl up and down the terrace, Suzy thought how much weight he’d lost and how really ill he looked. Having some years ago been desperately in love with him, she’d always longed to see him brought to his knees. But now, so abject was his despair, she could only feel sorry for him.

‘I want to look after her,’ he was saying. ‘She’s the only person who’s ever made me want to find a dragon and slay it for her sake, although,’ he added with a half-smile, ‘she wouldn’t appreciate it. She doesn’t like cruelty to animals at all.’

‘Good thing she didn’t know you in the old days,’ said Suzy. ‘Have you got a picture?’

Rupert walked back to his chair and extracted a creased snapshot from the inside pocket of his boating jacket, which was hanging over the back of the chair. It was one he’d taken in the woods. Taggie was pink-faced from catching leaves with the children.

‘Not a great beauty, is she?’ said Suzy with a certain satisfaction. Rupert snatched back the photograph.

‘She is,’ he said icily. ‘She’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.’

‘Hum,’ said Suzy. ‘Well, if you think that, you have got her badly.’

An extremely tense silence was broken by the telephone.

‘Someone called Declan O’Hara for you,’ said Suzy. ‘He seems kinda drunk.’

Rupert steeled himself for abuse.

‘We’ve got it, we’ve focking got it,’ yelled Declan.

‘You what?’

‘Not just us — you as well. We’ve focking got the franchise.’

Judging from the shrieks and whoops, there was the most terrific party going on in the background. Rupert wished, after the initial passionate relief, he could feel more excited and respond appropriately to Declan’s almost incoherent ecstasy. Then he talked to Freddie, who was calmer but equally euphoric, and briefly to Cameron who sounded pretty overexcited as well. Then Declan snatched back the telephone.

‘Isn’t it focking marvellous? You’d better come back soon, and we can find out if we know how to run a television company — what’s that? Oh Taggie says to wish you a Happy Christmas.’

Switching off the telephone, Rupert walked to the edge of the shimmering pale-blue pool and looked up at the snowy peaks of the Santa Monica mountains that rose like one of Taggie’s puddings. He wondered if the snow had thawed at Penscombe.

‘I’m going home,’ he said.

‘To propose to your pink-faced Amazon?’

Rupert shook his head violently. ‘No, no. I just think if I was in the same country as her, it might hurt less.’

The journey home was hell. All the air hostesses fluttered round him, plying him with champagne and delicious things to eat, which he left untouched. By some ghastly irony, the film was the Woody Allen which he’d seen with the children and Taggie. He took in as little of it as he had the first time. He tried to sleep, but it was as though he was destined to watch eternal television with Taggie’s face on all four channels. He dropped off for a few minutes as the plane flew over Ireland, but dreamed of her and woke in utter desolation to find she wasn’t there.

Heathrow at seven-thirty on a raw December morning was still dark.

‘Good morning, Mr Campbell-Black,’ said the passport man, who didn’t even get a nod.

As he waited for his luggage, Rupert watched the carousel going round. It was the last circle of hell, he reflected, for people who never got the person they wanted in life. His heart was so heavy, he’d have to pay excess baggage on it. As he went through the green door at Customs, he thought of all the times in the old days when he’d sauntered through carrying dope or illegal currency in the bottom of his boots. Now he had nothing forbidden to declare but his hopeless love for Taggie.

Once through the barrier, he looked wearily round for his driver, but no one came forward. Christ, that was all he needed. He set off towards the telephones, passing a fleet of people brandishing cards with names on. Suddenly a particularly large placard caught his eye. On it was painted in huge letters: Roopurt Cambel-Blak. Only one person could spell that badly! He must be going mad. Then, below the placard, he saw a pair of very long, very slim legs in familiar faded jeans. The legs were shaking frantically, so was the placard. Rupert, finding too that his legs would hardly hold him up, walked towards it. Very gently he pushed it down, seeing first the mane of black hair, then two silver-grey eyes, then the deathly white face, and the desperately trembling mouth he’d dreamed of kissing for months now.

‘Oh Tag,’ he said despairingly.

‘I can’t help it,’ she sobbed. ‘I’ll do anything. I’ll drive you around. I’ll look after your children. I’ll cook, clean your house, muck out your horses, weed your garden. I just want to be near you. I can’t bear it any longer.’

The next moment the placard crashed to the ground and Rupert had taken her face in his hands, feeling the contrast between the softness of her cheeks and the frantic tension of her jaw. And just to prove to himself she was real, he wonderingly kissed her lips, and her wet salty eyes, and then her forehead.

‘I’m such a selfish bastard,’ he muttered into her hair.

‘I’m used to selfish people,’ sobbed Taggie. ‘I’d be lost without them.’

‘And what about the memoirs?’ There was so much uncertainty and despair in his voice that Taggie drew slightly away from him. Then she laughed despite her tears. ‘I couldn’t read them. That’s one advantage of being dyslexic.’

Rupert started to laugh too, and then, taking her in his arms, gave her a kiss that, everyone gathered round said afterwards, should for length and passion have gone straight into the Guinness Book of Records.

‘I love you,’ he gasped as he came up for air. ‘I’ve never loved anyone like I love you.’ Then, aware that she was still trembling, added, ‘It’s all right, darling,’ and suddenly he knew that it was and he’d never let her go again.

‘Mr Minister,’ said a voice, ‘I mean, Mr Shadow Minister.’ Glancing round, Rupert saw they were surrounded by press. Holding Taggie close, he whispered, ‘Where’s the car?’

‘Outside, just through the door.’

‘We’ll make a dash for it.’

On the motorway he managed to shake off the reporters, took an exit into some Royal Berkshire countryside and pulled up with a jerk in a lay-by. Then, removing both their seat belts, he turned to face her, taking her hands.

‘I want you to know. .’ it was he who was stammering now. . ‘that I only joined the fucking consortium because of you. In fact, I only came back from Gstaad for your rotten brother’s twenty-first because I wanted to have a crack at you. I only let myself be interviewed by your father because I thought he’d think me a wimp if I didn’t, and I might be able to ingratiate myself with him. I only bought his bloody wood for that ludicrously inflated price because I love you. The only reason I didn’t move in months ago was because in the one unselfish gesture of my life (and Christ, it was the most difficult), I thought it was unfair to foist my sodding bloody-minded nature on you. No one could have had a more appalling past.’

Taggie put up a hand to his lips to halt him. ‘I don’t care about your past,’ she said shakily. ‘All I want to be is your future.’

It was not long before the car had misted up completely, and Rupert stopped kissing her and wrote, ‘I adore you. Will you marry me?’ on the windscreen.

And underneath Taggie wrote, ‘Yes pleese.’

Back on the motorway it was light now, and Taggie could see how grey and thin Rupert looked, and how blackly shadowed he was under the eyes.

‘I just can’t wait to feed you up,’ she wailed.

Looking ahead, she saw the pallid full moon, which like a sympathetic friend had peered in at different windows of her turret bedroom throughout the night as she paced the floor boards wondering whether or not she should go and meet Rupert. Now, clearly dying to go to bed, the moon kept on bobbing round clumps of trees or above the frozen white downs, as if just managing to keep awake to see how the story ended. Silently, thankfully, Taggie made a joyful thumbs-up sign as the moon finally disappeared from view.

‘How did you screw up the courage to come and meet me?’ asked Rupert, putting his hand on her thigh as they turned off the motorway.

‘I went to see the children and gave them your presents yesterday afternoon. I was so desperate, it was the nearest I could get to you. They were so sweet, and Malise and Helen were really nice. They asked me to stay to supper, and after the children went to bed, I talked to Malise. He said he and Helen had over-reacted about the memoirs, and he was sorry, and how happy Helen had made him, and he was thirty years older than her, and he told me to go for it.’

‘Really?’ said Rupert in amazement. ‘Good for Malise.’

‘Where are we going?’ asked Taggie, snuggling up to him.

‘To ask your father’s permission. If he won’t give it, we’ll have to elope, but I don’t want it hanging over us.’

‘You’ll have to see Mummy as well.’

‘She’s back!’ said Rupert in outrage. ‘When, for Christ’s sake?’

‘The day before yesterday, the evening we got the franchise.’

‘That figures,’ said Rupert dismissively. ‘Realized she’d backed the wrong horse.’

‘No,’ said Taggie. ‘She saw Daddy crying on television when he came out of the IBA. You know how emotional he is, and she thought it was from unhappiness because he’d lost it, and felt so sorry for him that she rushed back and turned up at Freddie’s house in the middle of the celebrations, just after Daddy’d rung you in fact. It was so odd. I’m not boring you?’ she added quickly.

‘You never, never bore me,’ said Rupert, touching her cheek.

‘Well, d’you know what Mummy said when she first saw him? Such a strange remark that I remembered it. She said: “My Oberon! what visions have I seen! Me thought I was enamoured of an ass.” Patrick says it comes from Midsummer’s Night Dream. Anyway, they were both crying and fell into each other’s arms, and disappeared into Freddie and Valerie’s bedroom.’

‘Pa and Ma for the course,’ said Rupert, shaking his head.

Taggie giggled. ‘It was a bit embarrassing. Hordes of press and television people turned up to interview Daddy and photograph him about getting the franchise, and he’d locked himself in with Mummy. So Freddie and Cameron had to field all the questions.

‘And then, even worse, Valerie arrived. She’d beetled up from London the moment she’d heard Venturer had won to get in on the act, and she found everyone plastered, and Freddie kissing Lizzie Vereker on the sofa. So she stormed off to bed, and she couldn’t get in because Mummy and Daddy were in there already.’

‘Christ, we’ll never behave like that, will we?’ said Rupert putting his hand over hers. ‘Still, I’m glad they’re back together again.’

All the same Rupert was surprisingly nervous about confronting his future father-in-law. He needn’t have bothered. When he went into the library Declan was poring over all sorts of leaflets for electronic equipment, spread out on the table.

‘Rupert. Great to see you, good of you to come back so quickly. Come and look at this stuff. We’re going to bid for satellite next.’

Rupert took a deep breath. ‘I actually came back to ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage, Declan.’

‘Have you? Declan peered over his spectacles at Taggie. ‘I thought you might. Well, she certainly looks happier than she’s done for the past nineteen years, so I’d better say yes. We’ve got a hell of a lot to do here. Can you start work before Christmas?’

‘No, I bloody can’t. I’m going to be on my honeymoon over Christmas.’

‘So soon. Can’t you wait till the Spring and go to Paris? Maud and I went to Paris. I’d better call her and we’ll have a drink. Good thing you didn’t turn up yesterday, we were all so hungover, you might not have had such a genial reception. Maud!’ he yelled up the stairs.

Maud wandered down, looking pretty wretched after her prolonged disappearance, but with plenty of her old insouciance, and embraced them both.

‘She’s obviously so glad to be home, she wouldn’t have minded you marrying the cat,’ Rupert said to Taggie afterwards.

A bottle of champagne had been opened, when Patrick marched in, looking like a thundercloud.

‘Oh Christ, here comes Frank Bruno,’ said Rupert, ducking behind Taggie.

‘I’ve just heard the news on Radio One,’ said Patrick coldly. ‘I suppose none of you has had the decency to tell Cameron.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Declan. ‘I’ll ring her.’

‘It’s my responsibility. I’ll do it,’ said Rupert.

‘I’ll do it,’ said Patrick heavily.

He took the telephone into the drawing-room next door and dialled the number of Cameron’s house in Hamilton Terrace. She took a long time to answer.

‘I’ve just heard,’ she said in a flat voice.

‘It must hurt, I’m very sorry.’

‘You needn’t be,’ snapped Cameron. ‘Why should I care if your sister’s finally got him, when it’s all over between him and me?’

‘Still hurts,’ said Patrick reasonably. ‘Not much fun seeing someone get a clear round on a horse you were bucked off by. I’ll be over later.’

‘Whatever for?’ Cameron’s voice was shrill with hostility. ‘I’m going out.’

‘You stay where you are.’

Cameron collapsed on her bed. She had nowhere to go anyway. She supposed her house belonged to Venturer now. Outside, the shoppers were trailing argumentatively home in the rain, weighed down by Christmas presents. Then, like a frozen pipe that suddenly bursts with a thaw, Cameron, for the first time since Rupert left for America, gave way to tears.

Around five-thirty, when there seemed nothing left to weep out of her system, she tried to pull herself together, took Blue for a quick desolate walk across the water meadows and had a bath. At half-past-six and seven she was interrupted by carol singers. At a quarter-past-seven she was disturbed by two men with a van, who said they had some stuff to deliver.

‘What stuff?’ snapped Cameron.

‘Six tea chests full of books, records and some clothes.’

‘Don’t be fucking stupid! You’ve got the wrong house! Take it away!’ she screamed.

At that moment Patrick walked purposefully through the door, carrying two squash rackets and a portable typewriter under one arm and a large ginger cat under the other.

‘I don’t like cats, nor does Blue,’ snarled Cameron.

‘You will,’ said Patrick soothingly. ‘Just give me five minutes,’ he added to the van driver, as he pushed Cameron into the sitting-room and shut the door behind him.

‘What the bloody hell are you playing at, and what’s all that shit they’re delivering?’

‘I’m moving in,’ said Patrick, putting the ginger cat down. Immediately Blue bounced up to the cat, dropping gracefully down on his front paws, head on one side. The cat hissed, tail like a Christmas tree, and took a fierce swipe at Blue’s nose. Blue gave a yelp and retreated between Cameron’s legs.

‘They’ll get used to each other,’ said Patrick, ‘just like we will.’

‘We bloody won’t.’

‘Yes, we will. I love you.’

‘You can’t any more. I’ve been such a bitch, ’ said Cameron, going very pale. ‘Anyway, I love Rupert.’

‘No you don’t, or you wouldn’t have gone to bed with my father in Ireland.’

‘I didn’t,’ stammered Cameron.

‘Yes, you did on the last night, and he felt so guilty about it afterwards, that’s why he didn’t get back for Mum’s play.’

‘Don’t you mind?’ said Cameron, appalled. ‘It’s practically incest.’

‘It is not. It’s you I’m interested in, and, anyway,’ said Patrick with more than a touch of Declan’s arrogance, ‘as I’m a much younger, more beautiful, more together, about to be much more successful version of my father, it’s perfectly logical that you should fall in love with me.’

‘You’re a toy boy,’ said Cameron as his hands tightened round her waist.

‘I’m not. I’m a man of substance. The BBC have just bought my first play and commissioned another. I’m going to write a kid’s play called “Noddy in Toyboyland”.’

Cameron grinned. ‘You’d better cancel the contract, and I’ll produce them both.’

‘Nope,’ said Patrick firmly. ‘I never mix business with pleasure, and you, my dear, dear love are only pleasure.’

‘I love Rupert,’ wailed Cameron.

‘Don’t be silly,’ said Patrick, drawing her close to him.

‘Well, perhaps I don’t,’ said Cameron bewildered, as a few minutes later they were interrupted by a loud knock on the door.

‘Can we unload the stuff now, sir?’ said the driver.

Patrick looked at Cameron questioningly.

‘Oh well, I guess you bloody well can.’

As the men stumped out to the van, Patrick smiled down at her: ‘I just want to check out on your availability for the next thousand years.’

‘I’ve never seen such a change in Taggie,’ said Caitlin to Archie next morning. ‘She keeps giggling all the time, and grinning from ear to ear, and she’s suddenly got terribly protective. Rupert’s been asleep for twenty-four hours in the spare room, and the most amazingly important people have rung up, and she hasn’t let any of them talk to him.’

‘That’s nice,’ said Archie, kissing her. ‘They say love hits you with even more of a thunderbolt when you’re old.’

Rupert woke to blue skies and birds singing outside, a fire in the grate and total panic inside. He had no idea where he or Taggie was. Then suddenly he became aware of something warm and furry, and realized Gertrude was lying in the small of his back. Slowly the events of yesterday reasserted themselves and he felt so happy he nearly went back to sleep again. Next minute the door opened very cautiously.

‘I’m awake,’ said Rupert.

‘You did sleep well,’ said Taggie in delight as she put down the breakfast tray piled with orange juice, coffee, croissants and home-made apple jelly.

‘Because I felt safe for the first time in my life. Come here.’ Rupert patted the bed, and when he kissed her, she smelt equally of toothpaste and her mother’s scent.

Afterwards he stroked her face incredulously. ‘I still can’t believe I’m going to spend the rest of my life with you.’

‘Nor I you,’ sighed Taggie.

‘I was going to bring you bacon and eggs,’ said Taggie, spooning a pip out of the orange juice, ‘but I thought if you hadn’t been eating, it might be too rich for you.’

Then she giggled. ‘A girl from the Daily Mail rang up just now.’

‘What did she want?’ asked Rupert, thinking how wonderfully it suited her to be so happy.

‘She said, “How did you first meet your fiance and what was he doing?” I couldn’t say you were playing nude tennis with Sarah Stratton, so I said Basil brought you round for a drink. And the Leader of the Opposition rang twice. Evidently the Government’s fallen and there’s going to be an election. She wants you to ring her urgently. I said you were asleep.’

Rupert’s eyes gleamed. ‘I’ve got a feeling you’re going to be far, far more use to me than I ever dreamed. We’d better get married at once. I’m allergic to the word fiancée; even you can’t glorify it.’

‘I certainly can’t spell it,’ said Taggie.

Later, downstairs, they discussed marriage plans.

‘I suppose it’ll have to be Cotchester Registry office,’ said Maud, who was thinking about her wardrobe.

‘I got married in a registry office the first time round,’ said Rupert. ‘As it’s the real thing this time —’ he raised Taggie’s hand to his lips and kissed it — ‘we thought we might get married in church. I’m sure we can find some trendy parson in London who won’t mind my being divorced.’

‘I’ve got a better idea,’ said Declan, reaching for his telephone book.

‘Tabitha’s going to be a bridesmaid,’ said Taggie to Caitlin. ‘Would you like to be one too?’

‘Only if I can wear jeans,’ said Caitlin.

Declan, having for once dialled the right number, was put straight through to the Bishop of Cotchester. He immediately apologized for being so shirty on the telephone the other day and wondered whether the Bishop would reconsider coming on to the Venturer Board after all.

After some huffing and puffing about having to take a stand over Rupert Campbell-Black’s disgusting memoirs, the Bishop said he would be delighted, and wrote down the date of the first board meeting.

‘There’s just one other thing,’ said Declan. ‘My daughter, Taggie, is getting married and her one wish is to be married by you in Cotchester Cathedral.’

Taggie turned crimson. ‘It isn’t true!’ she squeaked, looking at Rupert who had started to laugh.

The Bishop once again told Declan that he’d be delighted. He’d become extremely fond of Taggie in the past year.

‘Just the simplest service,’ said Declan. ‘Only family and very close friends and, of course, all our Venturer supporters.’

‘Splendid, splendid,’ said the Bishop. ‘And who is the very, very lucky young man?’

‘Well, I’m just coming to that,’ said Declan.

THE END