essay about Cardinal Newman and Cardinal Manning, who had both lived in Oxford, which was, after all, within the franchise area.
After lunch Maud, Taggie and Caitlin discreetly withdrew, and Declan produced Rupert’s venerable port.
‘Not drinking?’ asked the Bishop, as Rupert passed the decanter on.
‘No, My Lord,’ said Rupert gravely. ‘I’ve given it up for Lent.’
The Bishop, who was very hot on sex and violence, had always thoroughly disapproved of Rupert, but perhaps at long last, after such a turbulent past, he was trying to shed his jetset playboy image and forge a more satisfying way of life.
Declan and Freddie steered the conversation round to Corinium Television and the appalling poverty of their religious programmes, and then raised the subject of their rival bid. They very much hoped the Bishop would join Venturer and become their Deputy Chairman.
‘Television today,’ said the Bishop warmly, ‘is a key factor for the quality of life and for establishing values.’
For the past ten years, he went on, he had had special responsibilities for communication in the diocese and he saw joining Venturer as a way of extending a work that interested him greatly.
‘We know busy people don’t do fings for nuffink,’ said Freddie, cosily. ‘If we win the franchise, there’ll be a very small director’s fee, say ten thousand a year, which could always go to your favourite charity.’
Signing up Henry Hampshire, the Lord-Lieutenant, was even easier. Freddie and Rupert wooed him over a very expensive lunch in London. Henry, as it turned out, was absolutely furious with Tony for flogging a field ten miles from The Falconry, but only a quarter of a mile from and in full view of Henry’s house, to some property developers. He was also a very old friend of Rupert’s, having a wife too plain for even Rupert to have had a crack at, and had liked Freddie when they’d met shooting at Tony’s.
‘Any money in it?’ he asked, having flogged two stone lions last week to pay a tax bill.
‘Fucking fortune,’ said Rupert. ‘We’d need a bit up front.’
‘Don’t mind that,’ said Henry. ‘As long as you arrange for me to meet Joanna Lumley. Suppose I could always sell a Stubbs.’
‘You needn’t go that far,’ said Rupert, shocked. ‘We only want about ten grand. What about that minor Pre- Raphaelite, the one over the chimney-piece in the sitting-room?’
‘Good idea,’ said Henry. ‘Never liked it. Silly girl lying in the water, covered in flowers. Someone should have taught her the backstroke.’
At the end of lunch, Henry tried to pay.
‘No, no,’ said Freddie. ‘Honest, it’s on Venturer.’
‘Oh well, if you can get it on corsts,’ said Henry.
Strong on his homework, Declan investigated the likes and dislikes of Lady Gosling, Chairman of the IBA. He also discovered that her best friend, Dame Enid Spink, was the composer interviewed so disastrously by James Vereker. Declan called on Dame Enid in her rooms at Cotchester University, where she was director of music, and found her ferociously conducting to a gramophone record of her latest opera,
‘Worst programme I’ve ever been on,’ boomed Dame Enid, as she and Declan dipped pieces of stale seed cake into tea the colour of mahogany. ‘In fact Corinium’s whole attitude to music is utterly philistine. Last time the franchises came up for grabs, that treacherous little fart, Tony Baddingham, promised to finance a Cotchester Youth Orchestra. Not a penny have we seen.’
Declan said truthfully that Venturer wouldn’t be prepared to finance anything except television programmes until they broke even, but he hoped Dame Enid would advise them on their music programmes.
‘If you get the franchise,’ asked Dame Enid, ‘would you get rid of that little squirt James Vereker?’
‘Indeed we would,’ said Declan.
Once Dame Enid agreed, it was a piece of cake to recruit Professor Crispin Graystock, a rich left-wing English Literature don who had dry, unmanageable hair like Worzel Gummidge’s dipped in soot, wild eyes and a wet formless face, and who longed to be a television star because he thought it would help sell his slim and unutterably dreary volumes of poetry.
Although he was still smarting over not being included in the new
Freddie Jones took Lord Smith, the even more left-wing ex-secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union, out to yet another very expensive lunch, where, with his mouth crammed simultaneously with lobster and Pouilly Fuisse, Lord Smith agreed to join Venturer, and provide a substantial cash investment from Union funds.
‘Doesn’t he feel guilty about getting involved with such a capitalist organ as Venturer?’ said Rupert disapprovingly.
‘Not at all. Once I told him the money to be made,’ said Freddie. ‘He feels television is for the people.’
Rupert, seeking a shit-hot money man, rang up Marti Gluckstein, arguably the most brilliant accountant just this side of the law.
‘How’d you like to join our bid for the Corinium franchise?’
‘I’ve already turned down four other groups,’ said Marti in his nasal Cockney twang. ‘I loathe television.’
‘You’d have to buy a house in the area,’ said Rupert. He could feel Marti shudder all the way down the telephone wires.
‘I loathe the country,’ said Marti.
‘Don’t have to live here,’ said Rupert. ‘Just buy a place and sell it the moment we clinch the franchise. Prices are going up so fast in the Royal triangle, you’ll double your money by the time you sell it. I’ll find you one.’
The prospect of making such a fast buck clinched it.
‘Marti Gluckstein’s a crook,’ said Declan in outrage, when Freddie and Rupert jubilantly told him the good news.
‘Don’t be anti-semitic,’ said Rupert primly.
‘And he doesn’t live in the area.’
‘He’s just bought a cottage in Penscombe,’ said Rupert blithely. He was quickly learning he had to box very carefully round Declan’s integrity.
Bearing in mind the IBA’s obsession with minority groups, particularly ethnic ones, Declan, who knew nothing about cricket, recruited Wesley Emerson, a six-foot-five West Indian bowler and the hero of Cotchester Cricket Club, whom he’d met at a Sports Aid drinks party.
Rupert was as outraged as Declan had been about Marti Gluckstein. ‘You’re crazy,’ he yelled. ‘It was only me and the Government stepping in with some very fast talking that stopped Wesley getting busted in New Zealand this winter. He was snorting coke on the pitch, and he’s the biggest letch since Casanova.’
‘I thought that was your prerogative,’ said Declan coldly. ‘Talk about the kettle calling the pot Campbell- Black.’
‘I didn’t realize we were talking about minority gropes,’ snarled back Rupert.
It took all of Freddie’s diplomacy to calm them down.
Basil Baddingham was the easiest of all to recruit. Rupert signed him up as they checked on the edge of a beech covert during the last meet of the season.
‘D’you really want to infuriate Tony?’ asked Rupert.
‘How much?’ said Bas, after Rupert had explained.
‘Ten grand.’
‘Cheap at the price. You’re on,’ said Bas.
Having assembled their Board of the great and the good, Venturer now needed some heavyweight production people. This had to be handled with great delicacy. Anyone worth their salt had already been approached by other consortiums. Two department heads at Yorkshire had just been sacked when it was discovered they’d joined a consortium in the Midlands. Most ITV companies, and the BBC as well, had threatened to boot out anyone found having dealings with any new franchise applicants, even in another area. As Declan was only too aware, Tony was already going through all incoming mail, monitoring telephone calls and checking through desk drawers and wastepaper baskets after dark.
Declan therefore proceeded with extreme caution, winkling out home telephone numbers and promising total
