Rivals

but he seemed far from happy.

Over in County Galway Cameron and Declan were at the end of their last day’s filming. Declan, in a dark-blue fisherman’s jersey and jeans, his thick black hair lifting in the gentle west wind, was speaking to camera.

‘Hallow this spot,’ he began softly. ‘Here once stood the proud white Georgian house which belonged to Lady Gregory. Here for the last thirty years of his life, Yeats spent every summer and most of his winters. That’s a long time to put up with not the easiest of house guests —’ Declan smiled briefly — ‘even bearing in mind the number of servants large houses employed in those days. Here in this tranquil, ordered household, Yeats’s genius was able to blossom on and on like a rose right into the winter of his days. “I doubt,” said Yeats, “if I’d have done much with my life, but for Lady Gregory’s firmness and care.”’

‘Cut!’ shouted Cameron. ‘That was excellent. We’ll now do close-ups of the copper beech on which he carved his initials, and then straight down to the lake for the last shot. We’d better hurry. The sun’ll set in three-quarters of an hour.’

Twenty minutes later Declan was standing on the shore of the lake with a huge blood-red sun sinking gradually behind the coloured trees and casting a warm glow on his face.

‘While Yeats stayed at Coole Park,’ said Declan, bending down and picking up a pebble and sending it spinning across the still water, ‘he wrote his poetry in a room looking towards this lake, a time lovingly remembered in his poem “The Wild Swans at Coole”.’ He began to quote softly:

The trees are in their autumn beauty,

The woodland paths are dry,

Under the October twilight the water

Mirrors a still sky. .

Oh, that husky, heartbreakingly sexy voice, thought Cameron, feeling the hairs lifting yet again on the back of her neck. She could go to the stake for Declan at times like this. They’d been so lucky with the weather too. Enough leaves still hung from the trees to pretend it was October, but one hard frost would have stripped them in a day.

The crew, going out to get plastered at an end-of-shoot party, tried to persuade Declan and Cameron to join them, but because they were both tired and faced a late night at The Merry Widow tomorrow, they opted for a quiet dinner at the hotel. Afterwards they sat alone in the bar. Apple logs cracked merrily in the grate, giving off a sweet cider smell. Occasionally the flames flared, lighting up Declan’s face, as he sat immersed in the Galway Post, his whisky hardly touched.

Cameron was happy to watch him, memorizing every tiny black bristle of stubble, every deeply trenched line on the battered, craggy Western hero face. Without seeing the rushes, she knew they had made a great programme. Schemes were afoot for other programmes, but this first would always be the most exciting. Exploring and luxuriating in each other’s talent, she had learnt so much from him already. Despite the fact that all the crew were at times victims of his almost feudal caprice, he certainly inspired devotion. He allowed no insubordination. Only that morning he’d roared at the sound man for giving the hung-over PA a Bloody Mary for breakfast. He was irascible, with an extremely short fuse, and got so wrapped up in the work that he frequently upset people, but he was so mortified afterwards and so ready to apologize, that they always forgave him, not least because he had more charm than anyone Cameron had ever met.

Tomorrow, she thought, putting another log on the fire, she’d return to Rupert and reality, or was it unreality, with both of them following their separate careers in that huge house with nothing in common except the franchise, only coming together literally for sex in that huge pink and yellow silk-curtained four-poster.

She wanted to marry Rupert more than anything in the world, to tame and hold such a beautiful man, and have access to all that wealth and privilege. Rupert was her fix, but she was frightened how increasingly she was drawn to Declan. Together they could make an amazing team. He would understand her far better than Rupert, and she would look after him, and sort out his money problems far more efficiently than that parasitic, feckless, hopeless Maud. And what would happen to her and Rupert if they lost the franchise?

Declan looked up and smiled: ‘I’m neglecting you. How’s your drink?’

The barman had wandered off to talk to Mrs Rafferty about some cows, or it might be cars (Cameron had difficulty with the Irish pronunciation), and had left the whisky bottle and a jug of water on the table for them.

Cameron was even learning to like whisky without ice; she’d be saying dustbin and petrol soon.

As Declan filled her glass she said, ‘This time in a month, we’ll know if we’ve won. I was just wondering if there was life after franchise for me and Rupert.’

The dark brooding eyes bored into her. ‘I’d like to think there was. I’ve grown very fond of you both.’

‘Honest?’ stammered Cameron.

‘Honest. Under all that bitching and stridency, you’re as soft as thistledown. The only problem is that you may be too good at your job for Rupert. He needs a wife to come home to, not one to come home with.’

‘A little stately home maker,’ said Cameron bitterly.

‘Partly. He must be the dominant Tom. You’d compete with him, and I’m not sure he could handle you becoming a big star.’

Then, suddenly, out of the blue, never having mentioned it before, he asked: ‘Why were you so focking awful to Patrick?’

Cameron gasped. ‘I guess I liked him too much. I was scared. He was so attractive, so elitist, so certain, yet so magnificently unprepared for the knocks that life was bound one day to give him. And Tony was pathological about any competition. All I cared about then was getting to the top, so I could have the space and freedom I needed. There was no way a penniless student could be part of my future goals. I didn’t figure he had sufficient weight.’

‘Patrick has more weight than anyone,’ said Declan, ‘and he’s more together. I wish you’d read that play.’

‘And I knew how violently you disapproved of me and Patrick,’ said Cameron slyly.

‘Indeed I did,’ Declan grinned. ‘But I know you better now. He’d suit you better than Rupert. And he wouldn’t mess you about.’

But it’s you I want, thought Cameron, resisting a terrible urge to reach out and touch Declan’s hand, and then drag him up the black polished winding stairs to her hard narrow bed.

Wondering if she was crazy to jeopardize what had certainly been their most intimate conversation yet, she said: ‘Maud messes you about enough.’

‘Maud,’ said Declan, topping up his glass, ‘is a dramaholic. That’s why she devours novels, soap operas and newspapers like a junkie. Occasionally her heroine-addiction spreads to real life, and she has to live out one of these romantic plots. It never lasts very long.’

‘Has she got something going at the moment?’

Declan looked out of the window at the moon, peering through the bars of an elder tree like a prisoner. Then he drained half his whisky in one gulp.

‘Yes,’ he said harshly, ‘Bas.’

‘Doesn’t it crucify you?’

Declan shrugged. ‘Adultery isn’t the only kind of infidelity. I’m unfaithful to her each time I get locked into work. I can’t help myself any more than she can. And if you marry someone like Maud you accept the conditions that beautiful people are the blood royal of humanity and not governed by the same rules as ordinary mortals.’

‘She’s not that beautiful,’ protested Cameron, glancing at her own extremely satisfactory reflection in the mirror above the fireplace.

‘She is to me,’ said Declan simply.

Cameron wanted to shake him. ‘How can you be sure one of these men won’t come along one day and walk off with her altogether?’

‘She doesn’t go after other men for sex,’ said Declan arrogantly. ‘She knows she’ll never better what she has with me. She does it for excitement, flattery and the relief from the loneliness anyone who lives with a writer has to endure.’

Cameron got up to examine a horse brass, pulling her big black leather belt forward with her thumbs so he