Rivals

‘When did you get those bruises?’ she said sharply, as he took off his shirt.

‘This morning. The focking mowing machine kept stopping and I didn’t.’

12

Gertrude, the mongrel, was walked off her feet in the next three days. When Maud wasn’t drifting up and down the valley in a new lilac T-shirt and matching flowing skirt, hoping to bump into Rupert, Declan was striding through the woods, trying to work out what questions he would ask Johnny Friedlander and driving Cameron Cook crackers because he was never in when she wanted to talk to him.

Cameron’s patience was further taxed by her PA getting chicken-pox, and having to be replaced by Daysee Butler, easily the prettiest girl working at Corinium but also the stupidest.

‘Why d’you spell Daisy that ludicrous way?’ snarled Cameron.

‘Because it shows up more on credits,’ said Daysee simply.

Like all PAs that autumn, Daysee wandered round clutching a clipboard and a stopwatch, wearing loose trousers tucked into sawn-off suede boots, and jerseys with pictures knitted on the front.

‘It’s just like the Tit Gallery with all these pictures floating past,’ grumbled Charles Fairburn.

Programme day dawned at The Priory with Declan roaring round the house.

‘Whatever’s the matter?’ asked Taggie in alarm.

‘I have absolutely no socks. No, don’t tell me. I’ve looked behind the tank in the hot cupboard, and in all my drawers, and in the dirty clothes basket. Utterly bloody Patrick and utterly bloody Caitlin swiped all my socks when they went back, so I have none to wear.’

‘I’ll drive into Cotchester and get you some,’ said Taggie soothingly.

‘Indeed you will not,’ said Declan. ‘I’m driving into Cotchester, and I’m buying thirty pairs of socks in such a disgossting colour that none of you will ever wish to pinch them again.’

He was very tired. He hadn’t slept, panicking Johnny might roll up stoned or not at all. And yesterday he and Cameron had been closeted together for twelve hours in the edit suite, putting together the introductory package, rowing constantly over what clips and stills they should use. Daysee Butler’s inanities hadn’t helped either. Nor had Declan’s dismissing as pretentious crap an alternative script Cameron pretended one of the researchers had written, but which she in fact had toiled over all weekend. She couldn’t run to Tony, who was in an all-day meeting in London, but got her revenge while Declan was recording his own beautifully lyrical script, by making him do bits over and over again because of imagined mispronunciations or technical faults or hangings outside. They parted at the end of the day not friends.

Having bought his socks, Declan arrived at the studios around five. A game show was underway in Studio 2; the Floor Manager was flapping his hands above his head like a demented seal as a sign to the audience to applaud. Midsummer Night’s Dream had ground to a halt in Studio 1, because Cameron, dissatisfied with the rushes, had tried to impose an ‘out-of-house lighting cameraperson’ on the crew, who had promptly downed tools. The Rude Mechanicals, with no prospect of a line all day, were getting pissed in the bar.

Deferential, glad-to-be-of-use, Deirdre Kilpatrick, the researcher on ‘Cotswold Round-Up’, as dingy as Daysee Butler was radiant, was taking a famous romantic novelist to tea before being interviewed by James Vereker.

‘James will ask you your idea of the perfect romantic hero, Ashley,’ Deirdre was saying earnestly. ‘And it’d be very nice if you could say: “You are, James”, which would bring James in.’

‘I only go on TV because my agent says it sells books,’ said the romantic novelist. ‘Oooh, isn’t that Declan O’Hara? Now, he is the perfect romantic hero.’

Declan slid into his dressing-room and locked the door. A pile of good luck cards and telexes awaited him. He was particularly touched by one from his old department at the BBC saying, ‘Sock it to them.’

‘Da-glo yellow sock it to them,’ said Declan, chucking thirty pairs of socks in luminous cat-sick yellow on the bed.

There was a knock on the door. It was Wardrobe.

‘D’you want anything ironed?’

Declan peered gloomily in the mirror: ‘Only my face.’

He gave her his suit, light grey and very lightweight, as he was going to be under the hot lights for an hour. She hung up his shirt and tie, then squealed with horror at the yellow socks.

‘You can’t wear those.’

‘They won’t show,’ said Declan.

In Studio 3 two technicians were sitting in Declan’s and Johnny’s chairs, while the crew sorted out lighting and camera angles. Crispin, the set designer, whisked about in a lavender flying-suit. The set was exactly as Declan had wanted, except the Charles Rennie Mackintosh chairs had been replaced by wooden Celtic ones, with the conic back of Declan’s rising a foot above his head like a wizard’s chair: a symbol of authority and magic.

As a gesture of defiance, on the steel-blue tables which rose like mushrooms at the side of each rostrum, Crispin, the designer, had placed blue-and-red-striped glasses and carafes.

‘I want plain glasses,’ snapped Declan.

‘Oh, they’re so dreary.’ Crispin pouted.

‘I want them — and get rid of those focking flowers.’

‘Cameron ordered them specially.’

Declan picked up the bouquet threateningly.

‘Are you trying to bury me?’

‘All right, no flowers,’ said Crispin sulkily.

At six-thirty there was a very scratchy run-through.

‘Can’t you ad lib us through your line of questioning?’ asked Cameron.

‘No.’

‘You must know your first question.’

‘Depends on his mood.’

‘May be looped, you mean. Your bloody fault, asking a junkie on the first programme.’

Declan went off and shook in the men’s lavatory for half an hour. When he returned to the studio the crew were lining up their four cameras before the meal break.

‘Have you heard the latest Irish joke?’ the Senior Cameraman was saying. ‘There was this Paddy who went into a chemist for his heroin fix.’

The crew gathered round, grinning at the prospect of more Hibernian idiocy. Halfway though the story the Senior Cameraman realized he’d lost his audience. Next moment, he was grabbed by the scruff of the neck.

‘You may be the best focking cameraman in ITV,’ roared Declan, ‘but you’ll not work on my programme if you’re going to tell Irish jokes. You don’t dare tell jokes about Jews and blacks or cripples any more; why pick on the poor bloody Irish?’

With a final shake, which threw the Senior Cameraman half-way across the studio, he stalked out.

‘I’ll report you to my shop steward,’ screamed the Senior Cameraman rubbing his neck.

In the bar they were gathering to catch a glimpse of Johnny Friedlander and to support Declan by watching his programme. There was still a latent esprit de corps at Corinium. Someone had deliberately changed the colour on the bar television, so James Vereker’s face looked like a Jaffa orange.

‘What’s your idea of a romantic hero, Ashley?’ he was saying.

‘You are, James.’

‘That’s very sweet of you, Ashley.’ James smoothed his streaks. ‘What’s romantic about me?’

‘Well, you’re so caring, James, and you’ve got an inner strength like Leslie Howard.’

‘Turn the sound down,’ screamed a Rude Mechanical, hurling a handful of peanuts at the screen.

‘Anyone seen Declan?’ asked Daysee Butler, putting her top half, which had Goofy appropriately knitted on the bosom, round the door to a chorus of wolf-whistles. It was getting perilously close to transmission time.