and Tony accompanied the PM down the steps. Settled in her car, ready to depart to a late dinner with the Cotchester Regiment, the PM wound down her window.
‘I hope Mr O’Hara feels better soon,’ she said earnestly. ‘This flu virus can be very pulling down.’
‘About time the mighty Mr O’Hara was pulled down from his seat,’ said Cameron, as soon as she had driven off.
‘What a caring lady,’ sighed James.
He woke next morning to find himself temporarily famous. Both the BBC and ITN picked up the interview, which was fulsomely praised the next day by the Tory press. Only the
By Friday the story had got out that Declan hadn’t been ill at all, but had simply refused to do the interview with the Prime Minister.
‘
At the BBC and around the network, people smirked knowingly. They’d known the honeymoon wouldn’t last.
15
Declan was having a row about money with Maud in the kitchen when the telephone rang.
‘Yes,’ he snapped.
‘This is Valerie Jones,’ said an ultra-refined, vaguely familiar voice.
‘Yes,’ said Declan, who was no wiser.
‘We met at Lady Monica’s buffet luncheon. I was wearing a cricket jumper.’
‘Oh yes,’ Declan twigged — the extremely silly mid-on.
‘Fred-Fred and I were wondering if you could come and dayne on December 7th, that’s tomorrow week, just a few close friends. Tony and Monica Baddingham. . ’
Declan had heard enough. He was sorry, he said, but they had a previous engagement.
Maud was absolutely furious. ‘We never go out,’ she stormed. ‘How dare you refuse for me? I might have wanted to go.’
‘It was that horrendous dwarf we met at the Baddinghams; bound to have been hell.’
‘There might have been other amusing people there. How can we ever meet anyone, if you turn down everything?’
Maud’s sulk lasted all day. Declan was trying to get to grips with the volatile, volcanic personality of John McEnroe, who was coming on the programme on Wednesday. Maud’s black mood permeated the whole house and totally sabotaged his concentration. At dusk, unable to bear it any longer, he went downstairs and apologized.
‘I’m sorry; it was selfish of me. I must work, but you go on your own. I hate it, but I’ve got to get used to it. Are you lonely?’ he went on as Maud clung to him. ‘D’you want to go back to London?’
She shook her head violently. ‘I just miss my friends. I was wondering if we could give a tiny party for Patrick’s birthday on New Year’s Eve.’
Declan’s heart sank. ‘Not really, not this Christmas. We simply can’t afford it.’
‘It’s his twenty-first,’ pleaded Maud. ‘He’s always had such lousy birthdays, having them so near Christmas. Just the tiniest party, half a dozen couples. Taggie can do the food; it’ll be good training for her. She’s not getting any response from those cards.’
Declan was about to say they still hadn’t paid for the Fulham Farewell when the telephone rang again. Taggie picked it up in the kitchen. Five minutes later she rushed, pink-faced with excitement, into the drawing-room.
‘The most p-p-prodigious —’ her word for the day — ‘thing has happened. Valerie Jones got one of my cards and she’s asked me to do her dinner party next Friday. Isn’t it prodigious?’
‘It is, indeed,’ said Declan, disentangling himself from Maud and hugging her.
‘She asked us,’ said Maud fretfully. ‘What are you going to cook for her that we won’t get?’
‘I’ve got to go over tomorrow and discuss menus,’ said Taggie.
Maud seized her chance. ‘Daddy’s agreed we can have a little party for Patrick on New Year’s Eve,’ said Maud, ignoring Declan’s look of horror, ‘so you can start thinking up some nice food for that.’
Taggie’s already euphoric face lit up even further: ‘What a prodigious idea.’
Upstairs in her turret bedroom, she clutched herself, pressing her boiling face against one of the thin, cool ecclesiastical windows. If Patrick was having a party, how could Patrick’s best friend not be there? She was going to see Ralphie again.
Cooking for Valerie’s dinner party was Taggie’s first big job, but her nerves were nothing to Valerie’s. Valerie was livid with Freddie for asking Rupert, who was coming down to Gloucestershire for a constituency meeting and to present the cup at the Cotchester — Bristol football Derby. Originally he was supposed to be bringing some French actress, but she’d got stuck on location in Scotland. So Valerie’d had to find a spare woman at the last moment. She settled for Cameron Cook who had just won an American award for a documentary about arranged marriages which she’d produced last Spring. Having talked to her briefly at Declan’s first programme, Valerie had no idea she was Tony’s mistress.
And now Valerie wouldn’t stop flapping round the kitchen tasting and criticizing everything Taggie was making — ‘A soupcon more cayenne in the cucumber sauce, Agatha —’ or fretting whether they should have cheese before pudding, or who should sit next to whom.
‘It says,’ she announced, poring over the etiquette book, ‘that the most important man should sit on my right.’
‘That’s me,’ said Freddie, roaring with laughter.
‘Don’t be silly, Fred-Fred,’ snapped Valerie, ‘and don’t pick.’
‘That fish pate’s champion,’ said Freddie, who’d only been allowed a small salad at lunch.
‘Are you going to be all day with that dessert, Agatha?’ said Valerie, beadily looking at the huge ice cream and meringue castle, around which Taggie was curling whipped cream to simulate pounding waves. ‘The place is a fraightful mess.’
‘I promise I’ll clear up in time. Everything’s done but this.’
People were due at eight to eight-thirty to dine at nine. The pheasants, simmered with cranberries and ginger, had to go in at six forty-five.
‘You’ve still got the menus to write out, one for each end of the table,’ said Valerie. ‘It would be naice to have them in French.’
Taggie went pale. She couldn’t even spell them properly in English; she’d always had trouble with pheasant. She started to shake.
‘I’m going to check the rest of the house,’ said Valerie.
The lounge looked beautiful. She’d got florists in to provide two beautiful pink arrangements. The dining-room was also a symphony in pink, with a centrepiece of roses. Valerie adored pink; it was so feminine and went so well with her mauve velvet evening gown with the flowing skirt and the trumpet sleeves. She was glad they weren’t having soup — Freddie drank it so noisily. She’d worked out where everyone was going to sit. Now, standing at the end of the table, Valerie practised her commands:
‘Bring in the appetizer, please, Agatha. Take away the entree, Agatha. Bring in the dessert.’
Then there was the tricky bit, catching all the women’s eyes. She glanced at alternate chairs. ‘Shall we go upstairs?’
What happened if that awful Rupert read the message wrong and followed her upstairs too? He was quite capable. For safety, she’d better say: ‘Shall we
‘We’ve got a right one ’ere,’ said Reg, the hired butler, who was already well stuck into the Mouton Cadet. ‘Yakking away to herself in the dining-room.’
‘What am I to do about this menu?’ said Taggie helplessly.
