Rivals

‘Bloody stupid question,’ said Dame Enid. ‘I didn’t ask them all. There are about two-hundred million, you know.’

Bitch, thought James furiously, I’ll fix her.

‘Many critics,’ he read from Deirdre’s notes, ‘say this latest opera of yours isn’t up to standard.’

Crash came Dame Enid’s hands down on her wide-apart pinstriped thighs. ‘Name four,’ she thundered.

‘Pardon?’ stammered James.

‘Name four of those critics,’ persisted Dame Enid.

James couldn’t. Dame Enid stalked off the set.

James mopped his brow, thanking Christ the programme wasn’t live. He was lucky that it was not until ten minutes later that Cameron put in an appearance and therefore entirely missed the encounter.

Now it was Sarah’s turn. Her task was to interview some female rugger players and a group of lady buyers in suits with pussy-cat bows on whether it was still a man’s world, followed by a studio discussion in which James would whizz round the audience with a roving mike.

Although there was already an extremely competent director, Cameron, in her role as Programme Controller, couldn’t resist sticking her oar in, making an already nervous Sarah fluff her introductory patter over and over again. Now Cameron had come down on the studio floor.

‘Thank you so much for spending March with us,’ she told the tittering audience after the tenth take.

Sarah fluffed her patter again.

‘This is really an elaborate way of handing in your notice, Sarah,’ taunted Cameron to more titters. Sarah looked imploringly at James, who, sitting on the yellow sofa, suddenly seemed very interested in his cuticles. Sarah fluffed the patter again.

‘If you don’t pull your finger out,’ Cameron told her, ‘we’ll be going out live.’

Declan had seen enough. ‘Stop being a fucking bitch,’ he yelled, marching up to Cameron.

The crew, grinning broadly, gave him a round of applause. The audience, wildly excited to see such a megastar and thinking it was part of the show, started to clap and cheer too.

‘How dare you lay that number on me?’ screamed Cameron over the din. ‘I’m going home.’

‘Put the kettle on,’ the Floor Manager shouted after her. ‘We’ll all be round for tea in half an hour.’

Down the steps swarmed the audience, crowding round Declan, clamouring for his autograph.

‘You’re very like yourself,’ said one lady.

‘Thank you so much, Declan,’ said Sarah tearfully.

‘Now you can get on with the programme,’ said Declan, beating a hasty retreat.

Utterly dispirited after his outburst, Declan returned to his office and, getting out the whisky bottle, settled down to read Patrick’s play. As he finished it, he was equally consumed with pleasure and despair, because the play was quite simply marvellous: incredibly original, funny, very moving, slightly over the top, but possessing all the vigour and fearlessness of youth. Reading it made Declan realize once again what an utter cock-up he’d made of his own career.

Emptying the bottle, very drunk now, he wandered into the corridor, ending up in the big studio where they were shooting the last re-take of Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Even the cardboard trees seemed to pulsate with midsummer heat and enchantment. Declan stood in the shadows, tears pouring down his face, impossibly moved by the poetry. Would he ever write anything good again?

Feeling a tap on his shoulder, he jumped violently. It was Cameron. Rubbing his eyes frantically, he followed her out into the corridor.

‘I’m sorry I came on strong this afternoon,’ she said. ‘“Four Men went to Mow” starts again next month. I guess I’m uptight.’

‘I guess you are,’ said Declan ungraciously. ‘Pick someone your own weight next time. Sarah could be very good if you don’t frighten her off too soon.’

He stalked into his office, rather laboriously gathered up the pages of Patrick’s play, and chucked the whisky bottle into the wastepaper basket with a clang.

‘As Tony’s opening people’s post, I suppose he’s frisking wastepaper baskets as well,’ he snarled at Cameron. ‘That should really convince him I’m drinking too much. I imagine it was you who told him I was drunk on the programme yesterday.’

Cameron blushed. ‘No way.’

‘Well, I wasn’t.’ He went on gathering papers together.

‘What’s that?’ said Cameron, anxious to change the subject.

‘Patrick’s play.’

‘Any good?’

‘Exceptional. You’ll be sorry one day you passed him up.’

‘I’m sure you won’t be,’ snapped Cameron.

‘No.’ Declan’s brooding eyes looked at her contemptuously. ‘I can’t imagine anything that would have filled me with more horror. He sent his love by the way.’

Cameron tried again: ‘Look, I know it’s screwing you up working here.’

‘I’m surprised you talk in the present tense,’ growled Declan, going towards the door.

‘Don’t forget you’re judging “Miss Corinium Television” tomorrow. We want you and Rupert here by seven,’ said Cameron.

‘About all I’m fit for,’ said Declan wearily, and walked out.

Declan was not a vain man, but if anything could have boosted his self-confidence it was that day at Cheltenham. Whenever he put his nose out of Freddie’s tent to have a bet, he was mobbed, and the combination of him and Rupert together among that horse-loving, strongly Irish crowd, caused almost as much excitement as the returning winner of the Gold Cup. To add to everyone’s high spirits, Freddie’s horse danced home an effortless winner in the second race. Nor was it anyone’s fault that, as a result of a freak snowstorm, the Gold Cup was postponed for an hour, or that Rupert had a monkey each way on the winner. Consequently Rupert and Declan got unbelievably drunk and didn’t reach Cotchester until seven forty-five.

‘Is this the Forest of Hard-On?’ said Rupert, as he tripped over a lot of stacked-up cardboard trees outside Studio 1.

‘Wrong play,’ said Declan. ‘They were supposed to represent Greece.’

Cameron, Tony and James, who was compering the programme in a midnight-blue dinner jacket with a dinky rose-pink bow-tie, were all absolutely livid they were so late.

‘It’s a bloody disgrace,’ stormed Cameron. ‘There’s no time to brief you. Go into my office and you’ll have a chance to meet the other judges and the fifteen finalists before transmission.’

The other judges were a male pop star called Big Lil, the Mayor of Cotchester, the head of the local tourist board and a naval officer called Ron, who’d just returned from sailing round the world single-handed.

‘After a girl-less ten months,’ whispered Rupert, ‘he’ll have to be lashed to his chair.’

‘We’re now selecting the last seven,’ Cameron told the judges. ‘You should look for the kind of girl you can take anywhere.’

‘In the broom cupboard, under the mulberry tree,’ said Rupert.

As each girl sidled in, Tony and Cameron fired questions at them. Miss Bisley came from Cotchester. Miss Painswick from Bisley. Miss Chipping Sodbury was so well stacked she could have won a National Front award.

When Miss Wotton-under-Edge said her ambition was to run a home for homeless pussies, Rupert and Declan got serious giggles. Fortunately the room was ill-lit.

‘They all talk like Valerie Jones,’ said Rupert.

Having selected the last seven, they all adjourned to Studio 1, which was now organized with tables, at which sat the so-called invited audience, and the contest was on air.

The fifteen contestants then teetered on in bathing dresses and four-inch heels. Although the judges had already preselected their last seven, as far as the audience, the contestants and the viewers were concerned they were picking them now. Seeing the girls in bathing dresses for the first time, however, Declan and Rupert realized some of the ones they hadn’t chosen had much better figures and legs and noisily tried to change their minds.

‘You’re supposed to be picking the first three now,’ hissed Cameron. ‘And stop making that bloody awful