Rivals

‘Tomato chutney,’ said Taggie, through gritted teeth.

‘What a disgusting smell to welcome home your poor father, and there are cows in the garden doing great splattering cowpats all over the lawn and the paths, which is even worse. They must be Rupert’s. Ring him up and tell him to take them away.’

‘You ring him,’ screamed Taggie. ‘I can’t do everything.’

‘Temper temper,’ said Maud, exchanging surprised glances with Caitlin. ‘Well, I certainly haven’t got time to ring. Someone’s got to be ready to welcome him.’

‘Scrubbing off other men’s fingerprints,’ said Caitlin scornfully, as Maud flounced off upstairs.

She put a hand on Taggie’s shoulder.

‘You OK?’

‘N-not really.’

‘Is it Rupert? Did you have a lovely day?’

Taggie nodded. ‘But Sarah Stratton was waiting for him when we got back, so I came home. He said he’d ring, but. .’ Her voice trailed off. She stared at the great congealing brown mass of onions, brown sugar and tomatoes. Her mother was right. It was a repulsive smell.

‘I’ll ring him about the cows,’ said Caitlin. ‘That’ll remind him.’

But when she got through, Rupert was on the other line and the secretary said she’d send the farm manager over at once to remove the cows.

‘Rupert’s probably terribly busy,’ said Caitlin consolingly. Then, as the telephone rang, ‘There, that’ll be him now.’

‘You answer it,’ gasped Taggie. Please God make it be Rupert, she whispered over and over again into the vat of chutney.

‘Hullo, Upland House Bakery. Which tart would you like to fill?’ said Caitlin. ‘Oh Archie, darling, I won’t survive either.’

She was interrupted by frantic barking. Gertrude and Claudius shot off the window-seat, taking the cushions with them, and rushed into the hall as a car crunched on the gravel.

‘My father’s just got back. He’d lynch me if he knew I was talking to you,’ said Caitlin hastily. ‘I’ll write tonight. Love you madly. Ciao.’

Fighting back the tears, Taggie went out to welcome Declan. He looked wonderful, incredibly suntanned from filming outside and much less tired. He was about to hug her when she was sent flying by Maud, a tornado of Arpege and desire, wearing Taggie’s new grey cashmere jersey. Throwing herself on Declan, she buried her face in his chest so that he shouldn’t see the guilt flickering in her eyes.

‘Darling, you’re so brown and handsome,’ she murmured. ‘I’ve missed you every single minute.’

Caitlin, lounging in the doorway, whistled, then she quoted sardonically:

When my love swears that she is made of truth,

I do believe her, though I know she lies.

Declan was too delighted to find Maud in such good spirits to take in what Caitlin was saying. ‘Cameron’s outside,’ he said. ‘Come and say hullo while I unload the car.’

Taggie’s heart sank as Cameron came through the door. Like Declan, she looked wonderful. Her face seemed even softer, her hair less severe. She was wearing a cream silk shirt tucked into brown suede jodhpurs above tight, shiny brown boots. Either it had been a highly successful shoot or she was obviously over the moon about seeing Rupert again.

Ignoring Taggie and Caitlin, she went straight up to Maud and hugged her. ‘Ireland was terrific, but we sure missed you. If you’d been playing Maud Gonne, we’d get an Emmy. Esther McDermott was just awful. But Declan was such an inspiration. His sarcasm can bruise, but, wow, it makes you grow.’

‘Really,’ said Maud, not altogether enthusiastically.

Taggie, unable to take any more, went out to the car, where she had no difficulty in picking out her father’s battered roped-together leather case from Cameron’s Louis Vuitton. On the second journey she picked up a couple of carrier bags.

‘No,’ said Cameron sharply, appearing in the doorway. ‘Those are gifts for Rupert and the kids. I must show you what I got Tabitha, Maud.’

She produced a little leather pony, with a girl rider, and bridles and saddles that came off.

‘Isn’t it neat?’

‘Lovely,’ said Maud without interest.

Cameron had bought a beautifully illustrated book of Irish legends for Marcus, and a pair of gold cuff links for Rupert, which she insisted on showing to Taggie.

‘I’ll get his crest put on later,’ she said. Taggie stared at her dumbly.

‘Very nice, I’m sure,’ said Caitlin tartly. Then, looking at Cameron’s jodhpurs, ‘Are you going for a ride?’

‘I sure am,’ said Cameron with a sudden lascivious smile. ‘After three weeks away I need one, and not on the back of a horse. I’m off, Declan,’ she yelled into the house, ‘I’ll call you as soon as I know when we can see the rushes.’

‘Bitch,’ screamed Caitlin at the departing Lotus. Taggie shook her head. Cameron was the one who Rupert belonged to.

Taking a bottle of duty-free whisky, Declan and Maud went up to bed. Taggie also went up to her room, and, with trembling hands, tried to hold Caitlin’s binoculars still as she looked across the valley to Penscombe Court. Enough leaves had come off the trees now for her to see lights on downstairs in the kitchen and the drawing-room. Then, like a firefly lighting up the almost leafless chestnut avenue, she saw Cameron’s Lotus storming up Rupert’s drive. In an unbearably short time another light went on, which Taggie knew from Tabitha’s guided tour of the house yesterday was Rupert’s bedroom. No one bothered to draw the curtains.

Taggie collapsed on the bed. What was that expression her father was always quoting? ‘The heart transfixed upon the huddled spears.’ She knew what it meant now. Two minutes later there was a bang on her door.

‘Go away,’ she groaned.

Caitlin walked in with the dogs, who leapt on to the bed, frantically trying to lick away Taggie’s tears.

‘You got over Ralphie; you’ll get over Rupert,’ said Caitlin. ‘Anyway you may not have to. He’s got to keep that bitch sweet until after the franchise.’

‘Bugger the franchise,’ sobbed Taggie. ‘What would you do if you saw Archie and some woman in bed?’

‘I’d light a cigarette, have a drink and go and stuff my face,’ said Caitlin. ‘Look, I hate intruding on your grief, but the tomato chutney smells even more disgusting burning, and as those carnal beasts won’t emerge from their bedroom before morning, I’m afraid you’ll have to take me back to Uplift House.’

‘There’s a pauper just behind me and he’s treading on my tail,’ groaned Declan the following morning as, reeling from hangover and too much sex, he went through the pile of final reminders and endless requests from charity organizations for his time, his money or ‘one of his very personal things’.

‘Why don’t you send them all a lock of your hair?’ suggested Ursula.

‘I’d be bald in a week.’

‘It’s only because you’re a household name that people mistakenly assume you’re rolling,’ said Ursula soothingly.

‘I’ll be a poorhouse-hold name at this rate.’ Declan winced as he bent down to retrieve an unopened letter that had fallen under the table among the debris of biros and pencils chewed up by Claudius. ‘This looks more interesting.’

The letter was from the IBA telling Venturer that their interview would be at ten o’clock on 29th November at the IBA headquarters at 80 Brompton Road.

Declan immediately swung into action and called a Venturer meeting the following week. The room over the nightclub in Cheltenham was considered too risky, so a suite was booked in an obscure Bloomsbury Hotel. For security’s sake, a large board in the lobby announced in white plastic letters that the O’Hara, Black & Jones Drainage Co. Sales Conference was being held in the Virginia Woolf Suite on the fourth floor. The whole of Venturer turned up except Dame Enid, who had a concert in New York, Janey Lloyd-Foxe, whose baby had gastric flu, and Bas who had ostensibly been caught up in some crisis at the Bar Sinister.