Rivals

know it sounds p-p-priggish, but I don’t app-p-prove of shooting. I think it’s very cruel; all those poor pheasants, and I’d rather not cook for those kind of lunches any more. You probably won’t want me to do any more cooking now. I’m so sorry, as I like working for you so much.’

Monica’s face softened. ‘Don’t give it a thought. It was very brave of you to stick up for your principles. The shooting season’s virtually over now, anyway. I quite understand, as long as you go on doing other lunches and dinner parties for me and filling up the freezer.’

When Tony came out of a meeting on Monday morning, Miss Madden greeted him with the news that Freddie had rung.

‘Get him for me, would you?’ said Tony.

He smiled expansively as he was put through.

‘Freddie, hullo. You shot bloody well. Everyone was most impressed.’

‘Thank you very much for asking us,’ said Freddie.

‘We must make it a regular thing next season.’ Tony made a thumbs-up sign to Cameron.

‘I don’t fink so,’ said Freddie coldly. ‘I’m not joining your board.’

‘Why ever not?’ said Tony, astounded.

‘I don’t like people patronizing Valerie. I know you was all laughing at her.’

‘It was a joke,’ protested Tony. ‘We’re all devoted to Mousie.’

‘I don’t mind anyone laughing at me, but no one puts ‘er down.’ And Freddie put down the receiver.

The tragedy was that Valerie was absolutely livid with Freddie, who was not prepared to hurt her by telling her why he’d backed off. Valerie — over whose head the cracks about the Belvoir and the boutique had gone completely — ranted on and on about how Monica had become such a good friend and Tony had promised to film the boutique and put her on ‘Behind Every Famous Man’, and what amusing people the Duke, the Lord-Lieutenant, the Strattons, Bas and even the O’Haras were, and now she supposed all they’d do was mix with boring businessmen.

Even when Tony dispatched Sarah to the boutique to buy the cloak, the knickerbocker suit and the deer stalker, Freddie didn’t relent.

21

Tony couldn’t directly blame Declan for Freddie Jones’s defection, but he blamed him for everything else: for inciting rebellion in the newsroom with his subversive lefty attitudes, for egging Charles Fairburn on to put in larger and larger expenses, for Cameron’s bad temper which was no doubt caused by Declan’s handsome son Patrick, for Declan’s trouncing of Maurice Wooton, which had made Tony so anxious to get Freddie on the Board and waste so much time and money wooing him, only to be rejected.

It was generally agreed at Corinium that Tony had never sustained a mood of utter bloody-mindedness for quite so long, and the only way Declan could redeem himself would be to crucify Rupert Campbell-Black when he interviewed him on St Valentine’s Day — a massacre Declan looked forward to with grim relish.

As he researched the programme, Declan found himself increasingly fascinated by the complexities of Rupert’s character. He was obviously very good at his job. The Ministry for Sport, when Rupert was offered it, had been merely a PR post, answerable to the Ministry of the Environment, with the Home Office dealing with any major disasters like football riots.

Rupert, however, had refused to take on the job unless he was given sole responsibility for all sport in the country and any trouble that ensued. The gamble paid off. He had had spectacular success in curbing football hooliganism, he had raised a vast amount of money for sport, particularly the next Olympics. He had had rows with the Teachers’ Unions over the decline of competitive sport in schools, with the Football Association, rows with fellow ministers, even rows with the PM. But he got things done and he cut through waffle. Utterly sure of his own judgement, he was sometimes too arrogant, and, having been a great athlete himself, he tended to side with the players rather than the management, but when he went against officials it was always because he’d discovered a weakness in their argument. He was extremely lucky in Gerald Middleton, his private secretary.

Declan also noted Rupert’s appallingly deprived childhood, not of material things, but of love and stability. His beautiful mother was on her fifth marriage. His father’s fourth marriage had just come unstuck. Then there was his taking over of the family home at Penscombe, with its four hundred acres, when he was only twenty-one and just making the big time in show-jumping, and soon having it running at a thumping profit. There were the frequent rumblings in the press about his cruelty to his horses, or at least ruthlessly overjumping them. There was the compulsive womanizing that hardly stopped with marriage or divorce. Even today, when he should be setting a good example, far too many women appeared only too anxious to say ‘Yes Minister’.

Declan had spoken to Rupert’s best friend, Billy Lloyd-Foxe, now Head of Sport at the BBC, who had nothing but praise for the way Rupert had helped him in the past, curing him of alcoholism and virtually saving his marriage. He also talked to Malise Gordon, Rupert’s old chef d’equipe, now married to Rupert’s ex-wife Helen, who said Rupert’s urge to win was the strongest motivating force in his character. ‘Whatever he does, he’ll get to the top.’ He talked to numerous exes, who all described Rupert as impossible but irresistible, not least because he made them laugh, and to several cabinet ministers, who spoke of him with respect rather than affection.

Everyone cited Rupert’s phenomenal energy. After the punishing hours of show-jumping he took the gruelling work load of Sports Minister in his stride. Accustomed to adulation and easy conquest on the show-jumping circuit, he had been unaffected both by the reverence and sycophancy which surrounds MPs and the brickbats thrown at them by the press and in the House. Because he was fearless and not short of money, he made a surprisingly good MP, happy to kick up a fuss on behalf of his constituency whenever necessary. Chalford and Bisley were proud. Once again Rupert had put them on the map.

This, therefore, was the man that Declan read every word written about and became obsessed with as he strode through the frozen Gloucestershire valleys, or tossed and turned in his bed at night. This was the man, he thought, as he worked out his questions, with a black, churning, sickening hatred, who could at any moment take Maud or Taggie or even Caitlin off him. On the surface Maud seemed to have got over her passion for Rupert. She had discovered Anthony Powell’s novels, and was steadily reading her way through the twelve volumes of A Dance to the Music of Time, aided by rather too much whisky of an evening. She was very listless, but this could be attributed to the length and severity of the winter. She showed no interest in his interview with Rupert.

St Valentine’s Day dawned, causing the usual flutter of excitement at Corinium Television, and giving hernias to the postmen staggering up Cotchester High Street under sackfuls of coloured envelopes.

None of these envelopes, however, were addressed to Cameron. Not that she really noticed. Since she’d taken over Simon Harris’s job, she was working herself into the ground.

Not only was she still producing Declan and overseeing the production of a new series of ‘Four Men went to Mow’, but she was now in sole charge of Corinium Programmes, and seemed to spend her time scheduling, commissioning, arguing about budgets, or going to meetings with other Programme Controllers in London.

Patrick bombarded her with increasingly anguished letters to which she didn’t reply. Only that morning he’d sent her a huge Valentine bunch of lilies of the valley at home.

Darling Cameron [said the accompanying letter],

I am going into a decline. Decline O’Hara. I’ve lost so much weight my friends are convinced I’ve got AIDS. Having been told by you to make something of my life, you will be pleased that I have given up drink (almost) and am writing my play and working hard. The play is no longer about British intimidation in Ireland, but about a young boy in love with an older woman, who can’t tear herself away from an absolute bastard. Don’t worry about libel, I’ve given Lord Bad Hat red hair. I suppose I ought to thank you for making me experience unhappiness in love. Did you know James Joyce actually encouraged his wife to have affairs, so he could find out what it was like to be a cuckold?