Rivals

back, and give it a regional identity. We want to make friends with the viewers, to make them feel part of one great Venturer family.

‘But our approach would be the same if we were pitching for any area in the British Isles. Great television comes from telling people the truth, from entertaining them so well they don’t realize they’re being educated. We want to make documentaries and dramas that tackle the problems we all face, coping with unemployment, loneliness, adolescence, being in love. Even —’ she smiled, testing the age group of the panel — ‘with the traumas of having one’s grandchildren to stay over Christmas.’ The panel smiled warmly back.

‘Cameron can hardly say this for herself,’ chipped in Charles, ‘but I’d just like to add that with her and Declan, we have the most exciting team to hit the screen since Ivory and Merchant. They’ve both been in Ireland making a film on Yeats for Channel Four. I saw the uncut version last week. It is utter magic and will bring Yeats’s poetry and the beauty of the Irish countryside to millions of new viewers. It would be nice to think they could do the same for the Cotswold area.’

Lady Gosling nodded sagely, noticing, however, that Declan was gazing blankly into space and taking no part in the proceedings.

Everyone drank a great deal of Highland Spring water. Dame Enid and Charles were superb on the arts; Billy charmed all the panel on sport; Janey had some wonderful ideas for women’s interests; Seb made them laugh on news coverage, saying that the Corinium Head of News was so idle, he consulted his opposite number at the BBC every morning, so they could both cover the same local events, and there would be absolutely no danger of either of them being bawled out for scooping the other.

Henry started off brilliantly when Judge Davey asked him about his involvement in the consortium. He was just waxing lyrical on capturing the wild life of the area on film, and appearing to scratch his plaster for the third time, when Janey suddenly realized he was pulling up the flare of his trousers and reading the whole thing off his plaster and got the most frightful giggles. Terrified that the Prebendary, who was sitting next to Henry, would take his eyes off her bosom for one second and see what Henry was up to, Janey nudged Henry sharply in the ribs.

‘Ouch! — shrews, voles, badgers,’ ended Henry lamely, dropping his trouser-leg and thus losing his impromptu autocue.

‘I love badgers,’ said Lady Barnsley, looking very excited. ‘We’ve got some in our wood. ‘

‘Have you really?’ said Henry. ‘So have we, and so has Declan actually. I passed two big chaps having a fight in my drive the other night. They were so preoccupied, I managed to get really close up.’

‘Did you really?’ said Lady Barnsley.

Lady Gosling, however, had had enough about badgers. She looked straight at Declan, who was still slumped in his chair totally unrecognizable from the dazzlingly charismatic, self-confident demagogue who’d laid into Tony Baddingham at the public meeting.

‘Who is going to run the company?’ she asked him.

‘I’m chairman,’ said Freddie, when Declan didn’t answer. ‘I intend to devote at least one day a week to Venturer if not more. ’Enry’s non-executive deputy chairman, Rupert’ll handle finance and admin with Harold. Declan and Cameron will oversee programmes. Georgie will be in charge of sales. Charles, Janey, Sally, Billy and Seb will all be Heads of various departments. Marti, Bas, Lord Smiff, Dame Enid an’ Wesley will be non-executive directors. But they’ll all act on a consultancy basis, and add to the smooth running of the company.’

‘But who is really going to run the company?’ persisted Lady Gosling.

No contribution was clearly forthcoming from Declan, so Rupert looked at Lady Gosling squarely. ‘I am,’ he said.

‘I would have thought,’ said Lady Gosling icily, ‘that your very limited business experience doesn’t include the creation of new companies. It’s a tough skill to acquire.’

‘When I was twenty-one,’ snapped Rupert, ‘I started my own show-jumping business, which has now developed into a yard, which turns over ten million a year. I’m also an MP, and on top of all this I ran an extremely successful sports ministry for four years. I shall also have the constant and incredibly able advice of all my directors, particularly Harold, who’s been in charge of LWT’s programmes for the last few years.’

‘The entire Board would support Rupert as Chief Executive,’ said Bas.

All of Venturer murmured their assent except Wesley who was sleeping peacefully.

‘He did come on an overnight flight,’ explained Janey, giving him a nudge.

‘Howzat,’ said Wesley, waking up.

Lady Gosling looked with infinite disapproval from Wesley to Declan, to Rupert to Billy, then up the table to Janey. ‘Don’t you feel there are too many celebrities, too many prima donnas in your consortium? Can you honestly convince us that Venturer will be able to stick effectively together as a team?’

‘Yes,’ said Rupert evenly, once more looking her straight in the eye. ‘It hasn’t been an easy week with my so-called “memoirs” coming out, but except for the Bishop and the Professor, we’re all here, aren’t we?’

Lady Gosling dropped her eyes first.

Glancing at the clock on the wall, Cameron could see they’d been in there an hour and a half. Was that a good sign, or did the IBA merely want to prove Venturer’s inferiority beyond doubt? Knowing nothing about Maud’s affair with Tony, she had also realized there was something seriously wrong with Declan. He hadn’t contributed to the discussion at all. By now he ought to be revving up for his final peroration, tearing Corinium limb from limousine, but he was saying nothing.

She looked down the row, at Janey and Billy radiating panache and glamour and high spirits when she knew how desperately broke they were, at Charles who had no future if Venturer went down, at Georgie, Sally and Harold, who’d certainly jeopardized their careers, at Henry dreaming of bosoms and badgers, at Wesley who’d flown thousands of miles to support them and probably jeopardized his test career as well, at Rupert who, despite the devastating blows that had been dealt him that week, had performed so incredibly bravely, and back to Declan, who had taught her humanity. They were her friends, the people she most wanted to work with.

Lady Gosling looked at her watch, and poured herself a glass of Highland Spring. ‘Well, we’ve listened to you all, and studied your bulky application. Has anyone anything else to say?’

There was a long agonizing pause:

‘I have,’ said Cameron, getting to her feet, as slim and brave in her red suit as the young Portia.

‘Ladies and Gentlemen, last week at one of the northern television stations a young Head of News hanged himself.’ She glanced along the row of shocked reproving faces. ‘Sure, we’ve all been fed the official story that he had domestic and financial problems. The truth was he couldn’t handle all the pressures in the run-up to the franchise awards. He was being so bullied to get so many different lobbies, local worthies, friends of his Managing Director on to his programme to impress you, the IBA, so that his lousy bosses could keep their franchise and go on making a fortune. This is a tragedy and a disgrace,’ went on Cameron fiercely, ‘and an appalling indictment on the whole IBA and ITV system. We in production should not feel we’ve got to put on worthy uplifting boring programmes every eight years in order to impress you and retain the franchise. We should make good programmes all the time.’

She turned, pointing to the framed document on the wall, giving the IBA its own coat of arms and motto: ‘Your motto is Servire populo. But you’re not serving the people if you’re encouraging the companies to make programmes that please you, which you feel the people ought to watch, rather than what they want to watch. I worked for Tony Baddingham for four years,’ she went on bitterly.

‘And produced some very good uplifting programmes that weren’t boring,’ said Lady Gosling dryly.

Cameron grinned. ‘Touche.’ Then instantly she became serious again. ‘But that was because Tony Baddingham was inordinately fond of me and gave me carte blanche to ride roughshod over all the staff, and also gave me an unlimited budget, while cutting the budgets of all other programmes to nothing. Morale at Corinium was and is absolutely rock bottom.

‘Declan O’Hara —’ she looked at Declan, pleading with him to glance up or react in some way — ‘is one of the all-time greats of television. But when he was at Corinium, he was very nearly broken by Tony, who forced him to interview people of total insignificance, big businessmen, local dignitaries, people whose influence he believed he needed to win the franchise. Fortunately Declan escaped and formed Venturer. I’ve spent the last two months working with him and learnt that you don’t need to terrorize people, or reduce them to hanging themselves, to make good programmes. Once you’ve got the authority, if you’ll forgive the pun, you get far more out of people by kindness and interest in their welfare.’

The Welsh judge put on his spectacles for a better look at Cameron. Really she was a most astonishingly