about electric shock treatment. Poor Tag’s the only breadwinner. She’s over at Monica’s at the moment, filling up her deep freeze.’
‘Can’t she shove Tony in as well?’ said Rupert, fishing a piece of cucumber out of his mug. ‘I expect he’ll force the poor darling to taste everything first in case she’s poisoning them.’
Declan wasn’t listening. His Mini, which was a 1976 model welded together by dog hair, rust and mud, which had only passed its MOT for the last few years as a result of prayer and huge sums of money changing hands, had finally given up the ghost, he told Rupert.
‘You can borrow one of my cars for the moment,’ said Rupert. ‘In actual fact, what you need is a massive cash injection. D’you want an advance from the Venturer kitty?’
‘We’ll need all of that. I’ve got to earn it. I’ve spent the last week writing a script for a fifty-minute dramatized documentary on Yeats.’
‘Who?’
‘The Irish poet. The man I’m writing the book about,’ said Declan impatiently.
‘Ah,’ said Rupert. Then, regaining the ascendancy, ‘Doesn’t sound like a money-spinner to me.’
‘Will be — if it’s good enough. I’ve sold the idea to Channel Four. And the IBA will be in raptures. Lady Gosling’s half-Irish.’
Lying on his back, listening to the hum of insects and the idle cooing of the wood pigeons, gazing up at Taggie’s bedroom window, Rupert suddenly had a brainwave. ‘If Freddie and I put up some more money, you can afford to have Cameron produce and direct it, so we can keep it in the family.’
‘Indeed you will not,’ said Declan mutinously. ‘Cameron and I don’t get on.’
Rupert turned towards Declan, eyes squinting against the sun: ‘Time you bloody learned. She really thinks you’re great. She just has a communication problem. And it’ll give her something to do. She’s like a sheep dog, she needs work.’
‘To stop her getting in your hair?’ snapped Declan.
Rupert, who hadn’t had any lunch, had now finished all the fruit in his Pimms and was reduced to eating the mint. ‘I’m thinking of Venturer, not myself,’ he said sanctimoniously, as Declan filled up both their mugs. ‘We just don’t want her getting restless and running back to Tony.’
‘It’d mean several weeks in Ireland,’ said Declan. ‘We’ll have to go on a recce fairly soon, and once we’ve cast it and fixed up the people to interview, I want to start shooting in early September. Then we’ll need another week at the end of November to do the Coole woods in Autumn.’
‘Perfect,’ said Rupert. ‘I’ll be popping over to Ireland all the time from now on for the Autumn sales, so Cameron won’t suffer too badly from withdrawal symptoms.’
‘It’s a terrible gamble,’ said Declan broodingly. ‘She and I never got on at Corinium; why should we get on now?’
‘Because Tony won’t be there putting the boot in. I promise you, Cameron really, really admires your work.’
Declan blushed slightly. ‘Well, she’s got to read the script before committing herself. I’m not having her working on something she doesn’t like one hundred per cent.’
Cameron rang Declan later that evening, trying to keep the excitement out of her voice. ‘I’ve just got back from London and read your script. I just love it. The characters are terrific and all the ideas for interviews are just great. The text reads so beautifully; it’s superb.’
Declan was utterly disarmed by such uncharacteristic enthusiasm. For any writer, waiting for the first reaction is a nail-biting experience. Ursula, who’d typed the script out, had said she’d loved it, but then she was paid to.
‘I’d just adore to do it,’ went on Cameron, ‘if you really figure I’m the right person?’
‘Sure you are,’ said Declan. ‘I’ve just been talking to Jeremy at Channel Four and told him you might be interested. He’s mad about the idea.’
‘You look as though you’re floating on Eire,’ said Rupert as Cameron put down the telephone.
‘You won’t mind my being away so much?’
‘Yes,’ said Rupert, taking her in his arms, ‘of course I will, but you’ve got to have your freedom. I did when I was show jumping. It was the one thing that fuelled me.’
Cameron blushed. ‘Do you swear it was Declan’s idea I should direct it?’
‘Would I lie to you?’ said Rupert blandly. ‘He asked me to ask you. He really admires your work. He just has a communication problem.’
‘Oh, wow!’ sighed Cameron. ‘I feel like the first woman on the moon.’
38
Deliriously happy to be working again, Cameron threw herself into producing Declan’s programme. Much of her time was spent in London or over at The Priory and she turned one of Rupert’s upstairs bedrooms into a study so she could work there as well. Rupert, who’d been neglecting the yard and his business interests, and still had a full diary as an MP despite the summer recess, was also kept very busy. This suited them both; they continued to argue a lot, but sex at least was miraculous when they met. Even the children’s visits seemed less of a hassle. Mrs Bodkin did all the work, and when Tabitha became unbearable, which was most of the time, instead of rowing with her, Cameron retreated upstairs to work.
On the franchise front, the IBA had now sifted through everyone’s lengthy applications with a toothcomb and fired off letters to all the consortiums containing supplementary questions about programme plans, management structure, studios and general finance.
‘We promised them a cross between Camelot and Utopia,’ said Declan, ‘and now we’ve got to justify it.’
The long written answer to this letter was almost as crucial in winning the franchise as the original application. Once again, therefore, the Venturer team had to get together to thrash out policy. Meetings at anyone’s house were now considered too risky, as Tony had stepped up his espionage since Cameron had defected.
‘I was followed down Cotchester High Street by the most ravishing piece of rough trade this morning,’ said Charles Fairburn petulantly, ‘but I couldn’t work out if it was my lucky day or he was a member of the Baddingham KGB.’
Rupert, being such a practised adulterer, was therefore deputed to find a meeting-place where they wouldn’t be found out. He chose a seedy room over a nightclub in a back street in Cheltenham.
‘If this is where you bring your mistresses,’ grumbled Georgie Baines when he arrived for the first meeting, ‘I can see why they get fed up.’
Night after night, therefore, through the end of July and a long hot August, Declan, Freddie, Bas, Rupert, Cameron, Lord Smith, Harold White, and the Corinium Moles — when they could get away — met up to hammer out the answers. Charles Fairburn still turned up every time in a different disguise, which made everyone giggle. They needed to. Declan, deadly serious now, insisted everyone drank only Perrier until the meeting was over. They were nearly halfway through their long ordeal in the franchise fight and nervous tension was mounting.
At least they were spared the Bishop, who was spending a month in the Holy Land, and Professor Graystock, who was in Greece researching a book. But they missed Dame Enid, who’d gone on a walking tour in Wales with a woman friend, and, after 12th August, when he pushed off to Scotland to shoot, they missed the inanities of the Lord-Lieutenant. They’d all grown very fond of Henry. Janey Lloyd-Foxe, hampered by two children and a book to finish, seldom showed up. Billy was in Australia making a film about rugger for the BBC.
For Wesley Emerson, August was a wicket month. He took 8 for 42 against the Australians in the Leeds Test. Venturer basked in his reflected glory.
The letter with the answers to the supplementary questions was dispatched to the IBA at the beginning of September, by which time the franchise wives were getting very fed up. The long summer holidays were slowly grinding to a halt. The smell of moulding leaves and bonfires, the sight of huge red suns and dewy cobwebs hanging on the fences, reminded them with a pang that summer had already had its run.
