Rivals

He glanced across at Taggie who, with a fixed smile on her face, was gathering up glasses like a zombie.

‘I’m not sure my sister is.’

‘What’s she got to complain about?’ said Cameron bitterly. ‘Rupert loves her.’

‘She hasn’t got a clue he does,’ said Patrick, ‘and he’s not going to do anything about it. He’s probably out on the tiles at some Hollywood orgy at this moment, busy forgetting her. Freddie and Pa have been trying to get through to him all evening, but there’s no answer.’

Cameron looked at her watch.

‘It must be breakfast time in LA,’ she said.

52

Over in California Rupert was slowly going out of his mind with misery. Leaving England had made everything far, far worse. He couldn’t eat or sleep. He must be dying if he didn’t even want to drink. All he could do was long for Taggie. He’d never dreamed anything could hurt so much.

‘Rupert,’ said Suzy Erikson, his beautiful hostess, as they breakfasted by the pool, having just come in after an all-night party, ‘I’ve been talking to you for twenty minutes, and you haven’t heard a single word.’

‘I know. I’m sorry.’

‘I’ve also trailed all the most glamorous women in Hollywood in front of you for the past fortnight and you’ve paid no attention to any of them.’

‘I know. I’m sorry about that too.’

‘Still brooding about your Irish teenager?’ said Suzy, plunging a spoon into her melon. ‘Go home and screw her. It’s the only way you’ll get her out of your system. ‘

Rupert looked at his cooling cup of coffee. ‘I can’t, I mustn’t fuck her up,’ he repeated dully. ‘Apart from Billy, she’s the only genuinely good person I’ve ever met.’

‘That seems rather a good omen,’ said Suzy. ‘Billy’s the only person you’ve ever been faithful to, and the only one you haven’t fucked up either.’

As Rupert got up to prowl up and down the terrace, Suzy thought how much weight he’d lost and how really ill he looked. Having some years ago been desperately in love with him, she’d always longed to see him brought to his knees. But now, so abject was his despair, she could only feel sorry for him.

‘I want to look after her,’ he was saying. ‘She’s the only person who’s ever made me want to find a dragon and slay it for her sake, although,’ he added with a half-smile, ‘she wouldn’t appreciate it. She doesn’t like cruelty to animals at all.’

‘Good thing she didn’t know you in the old days,’ said Suzy. ‘Have you got a picture?’

Rupert walked back to his chair and extracted a creased snapshot from the inside pocket of his boating jacket, which was hanging over the back of the chair. It was one he’d taken in the woods. Taggie was pink-faced from catching leaves with the children.

‘Not a great beauty, is she?’ said Suzy with a certain satisfaction. Rupert snatched back the photograph.

‘She is,’ he said icily. ‘She’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.’

‘Hum,’ said Suzy. ‘Well, if you think that, you have got her badly.’

An extremely tense silence was broken by the telephone.

‘Someone called Declan O’Hara for you,’ said Suzy. ‘He seems kinda drunk.’

Rupert steeled himself for abuse.

‘We’ve got it, we’ve focking got it,’ yelled Declan.

‘You what?’

‘Not just us — you as well. We’ve focking got the franchise.’

Judging from the shrieks and whoops, there was the most terrific party going on in the background. Rupert wished, after the initial passionate relief, he could feel more excited and respond appropriately to Declan’s almost incoherent ecstasy. Then he talked to Freddie, who was calmer but equally euphoric, and briefly to Cameron who sounded pretty overexcited as well. Then Declan snatched back the telephone.

‘Isn’t it focking marvellous? You’d better come back soon, and we can find out if we know how to run a television company — what’s that? Oh Taggie says to wish you a Happy Christmas.’

Switching off the telephone, Rupert walked to the edge of the shimmering pale-blue pool and looked up at the snowy peaks of the Santa Monica mountains that rose like one of Taggie’s puddings. He wondered if the snow had thawed at Penscombe.

‘I’m going home,’ he said.

‘To propose to your pink-faced Amazon?’

Rupert shook his head violently. ‘No, no. I just think if I was in the same country as her, it might hurt less.’

The journey home was hell. All the air hostesses fluttered round him, plying him with champagne and delicious things to eat, which he left untouched. By some ghastly irony, the film was the Woody Allen which he’d seen with the children and Taggie. He took in as little of it as he had the first time. He tried to sleep, but it was as though he was destined to watch eternal television with Taggie’s face on all four channels. He dropped off for a few minutes as the plane flew over Ireland, but dreamed of her and woke in utter desolation to find she wasn’t there.

Heathrow at seven-thirty on a raw December morning was still dark.

‘Good morning, Mr Campbell-Black,’ said the passport man, who didn’t even get a nod.

As he waited for his luggage, Rupert watched the carousel going round. It was the last circle of hell, he reflected, for people who never got the person they wanted in life. His heart was so heavy, he’d have to pay excess baggage on it. As he went through the green door at Customs, he thought of all the times in the old days when he’d sauntered through carrying dope or illegal currency in the bottom of his boots. Now he had nothing forbidden to declare but his hopeless love for Taggie.

Once through the barrier, he looked wearily round for his driver, but no one came forward. Christ, that was all he needed. He set off towards the telephones, passing a fleet of people brandishing cards with names on. Suddenly a particularly large placard caught his eye. On it was painted in huge letters: Roopurt Cambel-Blak. Only one person could spell that badly! He must be going mad. Then, below the placard, he saw a pair of very long, very slim legs in familiar faded jeans. The legs were shaking frantically, so was the placard. Rupert, finding too that his legs would hardly hold him up, walked towards it. Very gently he pushed it down, seeing first the mane of black hair, then two silver-grey eyes, then the deathly white face, and the desperately trembling mouth he’d dreamed of kissing for months now.

‘Oh Tag,’ he said despairingly.

‘I can’t help it,’ she sobbed. ‘I’ll do anything. I’ll drive you around. I’ll look after your children. I’ll cook, clean your house, muck out your horses, weed your garden. I just want to be near you. I can’t bear it any longer.’

The next moment the placard crashed to the ground and Rupert had taken her face in his hands, feeling the contrast between the softness of her cheeks and the frantic tension of her jaw. And just to prove to himself she was real, he wonderingly kissed her lips, and her wet salty eyes, and then her forehead.

‘I’m such a selfish bastard,’ he muttered into her hair.

‘I’m used to selfish people,’ sobbed Taggie. ‘I’d be lost without them.’

‘And what about the memoirs?’ There was so much uncertainty and despair in his voice that Taggie drew slightly away from him. Then she laughed despite her tears. ‘I couldn’t read them. That’s one advantage of being dyslexic.’

Rupert started to laugh too, and then, taking her in his arms, gave her a kiss that, everyone gathered round said afterwards, should for length and passion have gone straight into the Guinness Book of Records.

‘I love you,’ he gasped as he came up for air. ‘I’ve never loved anyone like I love you.’ Then, aware that she