Rivals

Afterwards they all conga-ed down Cotchester High Street back to the office, where Declan found Charles Fairburn, who was meant to be organizing the live transmission of Midnight Mass from Cotchester Cathedral that evening, drinking Cointreau and doing his expenses.

Russian hat ?100, wrote Charles, dinner with Dean and Chapter ?80. Dinner with Chapter ?100. ‘The trouble with you, Declan,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘is that you’re not creative enough in your expenses.’

In the newsroom the Corinium weather man leant out of the window at sunset, just to check that the forecast he was about to give on air of a very fine evening was correct. Next moment he received a bucket of cold water over his newly washed hair.

‘It’s raining, you berk,’ shouted a voice from above.

Declan took a box of chocolates up to Miss Madden, who’d always been nice to him. After she’d thanked him profusely, she confided that her nephew, who was a chorister, had been chosen to sing a solo at Midnight Mass.

‘My heart felt like bursting with pride, and I wanted to cry at the same time,’ she said.

Cotchester by midnight, with the golden houses and the great cathedral floodlit, was at its most beautiful. The huge blue spruce just inside the cathedral gates, which was normally a glorious sight festooned with fairy lights at Christmas, was sadly bare this year, because the conservationists, headed by Simon Harris, had claimed the lights were harmful to it.

The church which was lit by candles, white fairy lights on the Christmas tree and television lights, was absolutely packed, with people hoping both to appear on television and to catch a glimpse of Declan O’Hara.

Tony read the first lesson and stumbled twice, to his entire staffs delight. Rupert read the second in his flat drawl, and hardly a girl in the congregation, except Taggie, didn’t long to have him in her stocking the following morning.

‘Please God, if you think it’s right, give me Ralphie,’ prayed Taggie.

Caitlin, taking communion, couldn’t stop thinking about AIDS. But she knew one had to swallow three pints of saliva before one caught it. As she clumped down the aisle in her new black suede brothel-creepers and her wildly fashionable da-glo cat-sick yellow socks, she could have sworn Rupert was looking at her. In the long wait while everyone else took communion, Patrick, also wearing wildly fashionable da-glo cat-sick yellow socks, held out a cracker and Caitlin pulled it with a loud bang.

‘I wonder if Aengus and Gertrude knelt down at midnight to honour the birth of Christ,’ said Patrick, as they drove home. Far from honouring anyone’s birth, sulking at being left behind, Aengus had knocked off and smashed several balls from the Christmas tree and Gertrude had opened three presents from underneath and also chewed the label off a small parcel for Taggie. Inside was the most beautiful silver pendant inlaid with amethysts on a silver chain. She gasped as she slowly read the note:

‘Darling Taggie, I’m sorry I’ve been such a sod. Have a lovely Christmas. See you on New Year’s Eve. All Love R.’

‘Oh it’s beautiful,’ she said with a sob, and fled upstairs, clutching herself in ecstasy.

Outside, the stars and the new moon seemed to be shining just for her. Ralphie had remembered after all, and in seven days she’d see him again.

17

By New Year’s Eve the Christmas decorations at The Priory were sagging, the evergreens had brewer’s droop, and Wandering Aengus, having smashed every coloured ball on the Christmas tree, had taken up crash- landing in the Christmas cards.

Outside, a force five gale, Hurricane Fiona, as Patrick had called her, was rampaging up the valley, rattling the windows, and howling down the chimneys. On the lawn a huge pink-and-white-striped marquee, heated by gas burners, wrestled with its moorings.

‘Perhaps we could enter it for the Americas Cup,’ said Caitlin.

‘We can line all the drunks round the bottom to hold it down,’ said Patrick, taking another slug of Moet.

‘You’ll be one of them if you don’t stop knocking back that stuff,’ said Caitlin reprovingly.

‘It’s my birthday. Everyone is entitled to behave appallingly on their birthday. Oh, I’ve got the key-hee-hee of the door, never been twenty-one before.’ He was extremely happy because, unknown to his father, his mother had given him a new Golf for his birthday.

As Maud had gone off to the hairdressers and to pick up a new dress that was being altered, Patrick and Caitlin carried on doing the seating plan she had started. Taggie had tried to write names on some of the cards, but was in such a state of excitement about Ralphie’s arrival that her spelling had gone totally to pot. Worried about the marquee coming down, she had gone off to ring the firm who’d put it up. Her arms ached from mashing the potato for a dozen enormous shepherds’ pies. She seemed to have put crosses in a million sprouts and peeled a billion grapes for the fruit salad. The garlic bread lay like a pile of silver slugs in its aluminium foil. The turkey soup only needed heating up. The kedgeree for breakfast was in four huge dishes on top of the deep freeze, with cucumber, prawns and hard-boiled eggs, ready chopped to add at the last moment. Patrick’s birthday cake, in the shape of a shamrock, rested in the fridge.

An extension lead still had to be found for the disco, a bulb was needed for the outside light, and Caitlin still hadn’t written out large cards to show people where the loos were and where to hang their coats.

But things were gradually getting under control. Taggie had never felt so tired in her life. She had cooked herself into the ground, but she kept telling herself that if she got through everything and didn’t grumble, God would reward her with Ralphie.

Back in the marquee, Caitlin was hastily rewriting new name cards for people Taggie had seriously misspelt.

‘Monknicker Baddingham,’ she giggled. ‘Do let’s leave that one. Put Monknicker on Daddy’s right.’

‘I’ll put Joanna Lumley on his left. He needs some fun,’ said Patrick, ‘although, as it’s my birthday, I ought to have her next to me.’

‘Look,’ screeched Caitlin. ‘Utterly bloody Mummy’s put Rupert Campbell-Black next to her. I’m bloody sitting next to him.’

Removing the card from Maud’s right, she bore it off and placed it reverently beside hers, three tables away and behind a huge flower arrangement, so her mother couldn’t spy.

‘In fact —’ she scribbled Rupert’s name on to a second card — ‘I’m going to put him on both sides of me so there’s no slip up.’

Looking at his place, Patrick noted that he was sitting next to Lavinia, his current girlfriend, and someone called Sarah Stratton.

‘Oh, I’ll swap her,’ said Caitlin, seizing Sarah’s card. ‘She’s ancient — at least twenty-six.’

‘I was rather excited by the sound of her,’ said Patrick. ‘Mum said she was very beautiful and voluptuous, with a rich crumbling husband. My only answer is to marry a rich wife. I wish Pa would cut me out of his will. If I inherit all his debts, I’m finished.’

‘Oh well, I’ll swap Sarah back again,’ said Caitlin. ‘I’ve put Tag next to Ralphie.’

Patrick shook his head: ‘I wouldn’t. He and Georgina Harrison have been inseparable all term. He’s bringing her tonight.’

‘Well, why did he send Tag that amethyst pendant then, and apologize for being such a sod?’

‘Sounds most unlikely. Last week he couldn’t afford to buy his mother a box of handkerchiefs for Christmas, and he still owes me fifty pounds. Are you sure it was Ralphie?’

‘Quite sure, the two-timing shit.’

‘Shut up, she’s coming.’

‘I got through to the tent man; he’s coming over. He says they’re going all round Gloucester double-checking their erections,’ said Taggie with a giggle, then turned pale as the doorbell rang.

But it was only two young pink and white Old Etonians who were doing the disco, and Maud back from the