Rivals

attractive girl. She could read for the Bar if ever she got fed up with television.

‘ITV audience figures are plummeting,’ went on Cameron accusingly, ‘because so many of the programmes are so awful, and because most of the companies are run by accountants who aren’t prepared to take risks any more. Why spend ten million on a serial which may fail, when for peanuts you can buy a quiz from another company?

‘Venturer’s going to change all that. We’re going to revitalize ITV and not only make really good programmes right across the board, but also change the scheduling of the whole network so it’s based on an exact analysis of what the public wants. At the moment it is simply a ragbag of whatever happens to be lying around, or fits in with the resources of the contributing company. We know what difficulties lie ahead. We know we can’t produce profitable results if we have to make continually uplifting programmes. We’ll need your help, understanding and guidance all along the way. But I promise you, unlike Corinium, we are not April when we woo, and December when we wed. I’m sorry, I’ve gone on too long.’ She collapsed back into her chair, embarrassed.

It was some comfort that Rupert put his hand over hers with real pride.

‘Normally your chairman would sum up at this stage, but I think we’ve all heard quite enough about Venturer’s policy from Miss Cook,’ said Lady Gosling. ‘Thank you all for coming.’

After all the effort it was a very curt dismissal. Feeling utterly despondent, Venturer filed out of the room. Even worse, as they were smuggled out of the underground car park they went slap into the press, who were out in force clamouring to get a quote from Rupert about the memoirs. Fortunately they concentrated on getting pictures of him and didn’t notice the rest of the moles cringing inside the convoy of cars.

For want of anything better to do, they all went back to Freddie’s for a wake. On the way there, Janey, Billy and Freddie told Cameron about Declan and Maud.

‘But the IBA ought to be told,’ stormed Cameron. ‘Someone’s got to wise them up what an absolute bastard Tony is.’

‘You made a pretty good job of it just now,’ said Freddie. ‘And Declan won’t hear of it.’

As soon as he got to Freddie’s, Rupert took Cameron aside.

‘Thank you for turning up, sweetheart. You were absolutely marvellous.’

Cameron shrugged. ‘If you can get a gold with a dislocated shoulder, I can talk too much with a broken heart.’

‘Christ, I admire you.’

‘I’d so much rather you’d loved me,’ said Cameron sadly.

For a second Rupert lowered her dark glasses, and winced to see how red and swollen from crying her eyes were.

‘I’m so sorry, angel. You know you can stay on at Penscombe as long as you like. I won’t be there for the next few weeks.’

‘Where are you going?’ asked Cameron, suddenly frantic.

‘America, this afternoon. The only hope is to get the hell out of England until the dust settles.’

‘So you won’t be back for Christmas?’

Rupert shook his head wearily. ‘What Christmas?’

‘Or for the IBA verdict on the 15th?’

‘The result’s a foregone conclusion. Couldn’t you feel the tidal waves of disapproval and distaste emanating from those tweed bosoms throughout the interview? We haven’t a hope.’

‘Probably not,’ said Cameron, glancing at Declan who was now slumped in a chair, shivering uncontrollably with an untouched glass of whisky in his hand. ‘But Declan’s going to need a lot of support in the next few days.’

‘Not from me,’ said Rupert bitterly. ‘The best thing for all the O’Haras would be to have me out of their hair.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I’d better be off.’

‘Can I ask you just one favour?’ said Cameron. ‘Could I possibly keep Blue?’

The doorbell rang and they both jumped thinking it might be Taggie. Freddie’s secretary answered it and the next moment a man marched into the room. For a second Cameron thought she was hallucinating, for it seemed as if the old Declan, the forceful, confident, aggressive, clear-eyed, suntanned Declan, whom she remembered so clearly that first day he arrived at Corinium, had just walked through the door. Then she realized it was Patrick, thickened out, weathered and bronzed from five months working on a sheep farm. He’d obviously come straight from the airport, and being Patrick, even in a family crisis, had bothered to buy duty free whisky and cigarettes. He’d need them both over the next few days.

Near to tears, Declan rose to his feet. Ignoring everyone else in the room, Patrick went over and put his arms round him.

‘It’s all right, Pa,’ he said gently, ‘I rang home first. Taggie told me about Mum. It was a terrible thing for her to do, but she had reasons. It’ll be all right. It’s you she loves. She’ll come back.’

He was like the father comforting the child.

‘She sabotaged the franchise,’ groaned Declan, ‘and it was all my fault.’

‘Rubbish,’ said Patrick. ‘The responsibility for that lies elsewhere.’

He let go of Declan and turned towards Rupert, his face hardening. ‘You deliberately set out to seduce Cameron because you wanted her on Venturer’s side, didn’t you? Well that’s for fucking her up.’ The next moment he’d smashed his fist into Rupert’s right jaw and, as Rupert reeled sideways, caught totally by surprise, Patrick hit him again on the right eye with his other fist. ‘And that’s for fucking up Taggie,’ he added, as Rupert crashed to the ground.

In the press over the weekend there was endless speculation as to which of the wronged husbands named in Rupert’s bonk-statement (as the memoirs were now known), had given Rupert the black eye.

51

The next two weeks were terrible for Venturer. Deeply guilty that his utter failure to pull himself together at the meeting had finally cost them the franchise, Declan went home to Penscombe. Taggie and Patrick made sure he was never alone, as he seemed to sink deeper and deeper into depression, constantly vacillating between loathing Maud for betraying him and longing to have her back. There was no word from her; she seemed to have totally vanished.

Patrick, displaying patience and understanding way beyond his years, spent hours talking to his father: ‘Taggie said Mum was absolutely gibbering with terror before The Merry Widow. It was such a colossal distance from obscurity back to the limelight. A little amateur production perhaps to you, but to her it wasn’t just an extra step to cross the Frogsmore, but a vast leap over a five-hundred-foot-deep ravine. She needed you so desperately to witness her triumph or catch her if she fell.’

‘I know,’ groaned Declan. ‘Because I always had to fight so hard to keep her, I never realized how much she needed me.’

‘And you know she lives any part she plays. In her head she’s now become poor bullied Nora in A Doll’s House, marching out with a slammed door on an insensitive tyrannical husband. She wanted to hit back, to slam the door on your figures.

‘And finally you mustn’t underestimate the influence of Tony Baddingham. I know the effect he had on Cameron. He is pure Iago. He only had to point out how brilliant, beautiful and sexually voracious Cameron was; how you were spending more and more time with her; how could the two of you not be having an affair? You know what an imagination Mum has. This was even more immediate than P. D. James. Imagine, too, the appalling things he must have said about you, and finally the escape from poverty he offered her: new dresses, new jewels, furs, no more brown envelopes, or creditors at the gate, even warmth.’ Patrick shivered. After the Australian summer The Priory central heating left a great deal to be desired. ‘And he was around all the time, and you were away, or preoccupied with the franchise or Yeats, and Mum was probably turned on because the whole thing was so utterly verboten. All he had to do was to switch on his electric