Rupert’s eyes narrowed, but he just stared back at Declan, saying nothing.
‘Look at this picture,’ said Declan, showing a still of a horse so thin it was almost a skeleton.
‘This was one of your horses, Macaulay. You beat him up so badly he wouldn’t jump for you, so you sold him to the Middle East, where he ended up in the stone quarries.’
‘That was bad luck,’ said Rupert. ‘I sold half-a-dozen horses to the same Sheik. One of them’s at stud in America now. Two of them are still with him. The horse didn’t click with him so he sold it on.’
‘And your deadly enemy Jake Lovell nursed the horse back to health, and then entered it in the World Championship, and in the finals, when you all had to ride each other’s horses, Macaulay wasn’t very keen on having you on his back. Remember this?’
On the screen came a clip of Rupert being finally bucked off, then being chased round the ring by the maddened horse, before taking refuge in the centre of a vast jump.
‘Coming to 2, take 2,’ screamed Cameron, frantic once again to get the reaction on Rupert’s face. But once again it was completely blank. Only his long fingers clenched round the glass of water on the table betrayed any emotion.
‘He’s going to walk out,’ said Tony happily.
‘You’d beaten up that horse so badly,’ said Declan, almost in a whisper, ‘that it remembered and went for you. What d’you feel seeing that clip today?’
There was another long pause.
‘That I was in the wrong sport,’ said Rupert slowly. ‘With me running that fast, neither Seb Coe nor Ovett would have had a chance against me in the 1500 metres.’
For a second the two men glared at each other. Then Rupert grinned and Declan started to laugh.
‘Have you got any regrets you treated your horses so badly?’
‘I didn’t treat them all badly or they wouldn’t have jumped so well. Of course I regret it, but it helped me understand the football hooligans; poor sods out of work, their fathers out of work, often their grandfathers too. Out of sheer frustration at not winning, they resort to violence.’
‘You were in work.’
‘I know. There was really no excuse.’
‘You treated women very badly in the past.’
Rupert shrugged helplessly. ‘I liked winning there too.’
‘Jake Lovell,’ went on Declan remorselessly, ‘was your arch rival because you bullied him at school.’
‘Are we having oranges at half-time?’ protested Rupert, shaking his head.
Declan smiled slightly. ‘Jake Lovell finally got his revenge by running off with your wife, Helen, in the middle of the 1980 Olympics. How did you feel at the time?’
Rupert’ll kill Declan in a minute, thought Gerald in panic. No one’s ever dared ask him these questions.
‘I was principally outraged that she should distract me and Jake, when we should have been concentrating on a team gold,’ said Rupert.
‘But you still got your medal, despite dislocating your shoulder, and riding with one arm.’
‘That was just to show them that, even riding one man short and one man injured, we could beat the whole world.’
Prompted by Declan, Rupert went on to talk about the Olympics and Rocky, the horse he’d won a gold medal on, who still lived at Penscombe.
‘I’m so cruel to Rocky,’ drawled Rupert, ‘that he has the entire run of my garden, and spends his time trampling over the flower beds and peering in at the drawing-room window.’
I like this man. Why I am trying to crucify him? thought Declan.
I like this man, even though he’s trying to crucify me, thought Rupert.
Tony went into the next-door office to ring Cameron, so the advertisers wouldn’t hear him.
‘Declan’s gone soft, for Christ’s sake. Tell him to fucking nail him.’
‘What did you feel,’ Declan was asking now, ‘when Helen split up with Jake and married your old team manager?’
‘Well, I didn’t let off fireworks. It was like one’s childhood sweetheart marrying one’s headmaster.’
‘Do you mind her being happy now?’
‘Not at all,’ said Rupert in surprise. ‘It’s better for the children. Anyway she deserved it; she had a rough time with me.’
‘In what way?’
‘Show-jumping and marriage don’t mix. I was never there when she needed me. When she was having Marcus I was stuck on an alpine pass. She was an intellectual and I hardly know Oscar Wilde from Kim Wilde. Then the dogs were always getting in the bed.’
‘Yes,’ said Declan. ‘People say you were fonder of your black labrador, Badger, than of Helen.’
‘I had him first,’ said Rupert flatly. ‘He lived with me six years after she left me. He never criticized or tried to improve me.’
‘Is that what you want from women, uncritical adulation?’
Rupert grinned. ‘Probably.’
The questions were still barbed, but the animosity had gone.
‘Your name’s been linked since your divorce with some dazzling women. Have you ever thought of marrying again?’
‘Just because I enjoy flying on Concorde doesn’t mean I want to buy the plane. These questions are giving me earache,’ grumbled Rupert.
Out of the corner of his eye, Declan could see the Floor Manager holding up his hand for three minutes.
‘When you get any free time, what’s the thing you like doing best?’
Rupert put his head on one side: ‘I thought this was supposed to be a family programme.’
‘You must have some hobbies,’ said Declan hastily.
‘Hunting, shooting, fishing,’ said Rupert.
‘All the blood sports.’ Declan’s lip was curling.
‘Not all. I didn’t include being interviewed by you on television.’
For a second Rupert seemed to have difficulty in speaking: ‘I’d like to see Badger again,’ he muttered.
‘Oh, how sweet,’ said Daysee, who was now revving up for her most important moment: pressing the cue switch. The Floor Manager was making wind-up signals to Declan.
‘Looking back on your sixteen years in show-jumping, can you remember the hardest thing you had to do? Was it getting the first bronze, winning the King’s Cup three years running, clinching the team gold in 1980, or finally winning the World Championship?’
There was another long pause.
‘What was the hardest thing?’ Declan urged him.
Just for a second the despair showed through on Rupert’s face.
‘The thing that nearly killed me,’ he said bleakly, ‘was giving it up.’
As Schubert’s Fifth Symphony pounded out and the credits came up, Declan most uncharacteristically could be seen getting out of his chair and shaking Rupert by the hand. As soon as they were off air, Cameron came down onto the studio floor. Maybe it was because she was blinking in the unaccustomed light after the darkness of the control room, but for once her yellow eyes seemed to have lost all their aggression.
‘Great programme, Declan. Best you’ve done for us — and you were marvellous.’ Flushing slightly she turned to Rupert. ‘Declan threw you some really tough questions and you handled them so well.’
‘I hope my boss thinks so,’ said Rupert. ‘Coming on your programme’s rather like being interrogated by the IRA. I was expecting electrodes any minute.’
Cameron had amazing legs, he noticed, as she walked upstairs in front of them.
Up in Hospitality, Tony Baddingham was feeling far from hospitable, but had to restrain himself in front of his two big advertisers, who were terrific fans both of Declan and Rupert, and who felt they had just witnessed a great gladiatorial contest. With a shaking hand, the normally teetotal Gerald helped himself to a triple whisky.
‘Wasn’t it wonderful?’ said Sarah, busily powdering her nose and undoing another pearl button of her little
