Jilly Cooper - Rivals

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 compèring 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 row.’

As Declan and Rupert rushed out to have a pee in the commercial break, Rupert grabbed a bottle of champagne from one of the tables, shoving it under his coat. Cameron, waiting in the corridor as they came out of the lavatory, shoved them into an empty dressing-room. ‘Big Lil’s going to sing his new single while the last seven change and you two can bloody well stay in here and behave yourselves.’

Rupert put on Bottom’s head, which was hanging on a hook, and read out a notice on the wall: ‘We apologize to all artistes for any inconvenience caused by accommodating them in a temporary dressing-room.’

‘I am a Pees Arteeste,’ said Declan, taking a swig from Rupert’s bottle. Totally forgetting they were miked up, they starting discussing the contest.

‘Why’s James Vereker wearing red shoes?’ asked Rupert.

‘Must be the blood running down from all the people sticking knives in his back,’ said Declan.

‘What d’you think of Miss Bisley’s bottom?’ said Rupert from the furry depths of his ass’s head.

‘Terrific,’ said Declan. ‘What d’you think of Miss Chipping Sodbury’s tits?’

‘Wonderful, but not as good as Miss Wotton-under-Edge’s crotch.’

‘Which one d’you think Tony Baddingham’s fucking?’ said Declan.

‘The whole lot,’ said Rupert, collapsing on the bed with laughter.

Declan leant against the wall, shaking. ‘And Daysee Butler will get it out to the second.’

Next minute a chalk-white sound man erupted through the door to tell them they were being overheard by everyone in the control room, including Cameron and Tony. After that Declan found events became slightly hazy. Miss Bisley was crowned Miss Corinium Television and even wept a few tears, but not enough to streak her waterproof mascara.

‘I’ll see you in my office in half an hour,’ hissed Tony to Declan, as he ushered the Mayor and a lot of visiting VIPs upstairs.

‘I won’t be long,’ Declan told Rupert. ‘Wait in the car.’

He got his contract out of the filing cabinet in his office and took the lift to the fifth floor. He felt curiously elated.

As he stood in the doorway of the board room he heard Miss Bisley saying to Miss Painswick that Miss Cotchester’s trouble was that she had an unphotogenic crotch.

Tony was talking to his VIPs, who included the Prebendary and who were all ogling the girls. Declan went up and tapped Tony on the shoulder.

‘I’d like a word now.’

‘Piss off.’

‘Now — in your office,’ said Declan, ‘unless you want me to tell these creeps exactly what I think of you.’

‘Do be careful,’ said Miss Madden, who was sitting at her typewriter in a mauve satin dress.

Sauntering after Tony, Declan blew her a kiss.

‘You look beautiful,’ he told her.

‘How dare you?’ thundered Tony, as Declan slammed the door behind them.

‘Because you’re rotten,’ said Declan. ‘So rotten, even maggots throw you up.’

Tony went purple. ‘You’ve flouted my authority at every opportunity,’ he spluttered.

Slowly Declan walked towards him, huge, cavernous-eyed and menacing. ‘Violence isn’t the answer,’ he said softly, ‘but it’s a bloody good start.’

Tony backed up against the wall, licking his lips, eyes darting, hand edging towards the intercom button.

‘Don’t touch me,’ he croaked. ‘I’ll get you for GBH.’

‘The H would be so fucking G,’ said Declan, ‘that you’d never open your big mouth again, you bastard.’

As he raised his hand, Tony cringed away until his head crashed against the framed photograph of himself and the Queen. Then he realized that Declan was holding a folded-up piece of paper.

‘This is my contract,’ said Declan grimly. Slowly and with great relish he tore it into tiny pieces and sprinkled it over Tony’s head. Then he turned towards the door.

For a second Tony was struck dumb, but, as Declan’s hand touched the door handle, he said, ‘Can I take it you’ve resigned?’

‘Indeed you can,’ said Declan. ‘I’ve prostituted myself for —’ he counted up on his fingers — ‘seven months too long, and tonight I’m going to have the first night’s sleep since I started working for you.’

‘Has it occurred to you that you’re breaking your contract?’

‘I don’t give a fuck,’ said Declan, opening the door. ‘I’m not staying here till you break me, like you broke Cyril, and Simon and half the poor mentally crippled sods in this building.’

The moment he’d gone Tony pressed the re-wind button on the tape recorder and poured himself a huge glass of brandy.

‘Miss Madden,’ he shouted, extracting the tape from the cassette, ‘can you transcribe this at once? Make a dozen copies. Then sweep up these bits of paper and put them in an envelope marked Declan O’Hara’s contract. What the fuck are you crying for?’

‘He was a nice man,’ sobbed Miss Madden. ‘He always asked me about my life as though it mattered to him.’

Outside in the car park the wind had dropped and the moon was shining dimly through the clouds like a ten-watt bulb.

Rupert, still wearing Bottom’s head, had finished the bottle of champagne.

‘Sorry to keep you,’ said Declan, getting into the car.

‘How did it go?’

‘I’m out.’

‘Christ!’ Rupert pulled off the ass’s head. ‘I thought you had a water-tight contract?’

‘Unfortunately it wasn’t whisky-tight,’ said Declan. ‘Let’s go and get seriously drunk.’

Taggie slept fitfully, worried about her father, disturbed by a restless Gertrude, who imagined every creak and rattle of creeper blown against the turret windows was Declan returning. Waking at five, Taggie glanced out across the valley, as she always seemed to be doing these days, and saw that Rupert’s lights were on. She tried not to envy her father spending a whole day with him; he’d had such a ghastly time at work lately, he deserved a break. Going downstairs to check if the car was back she froze with horror to see it once more parked across a flowerbed with all the lights on. Rushing outside, she found it empty and stealthily started to search the house. Declan was not in the bedroom — her mother sprawled diagonally across the bed as though denying him access — nor in the spare room. He wasn’t in Patrick’s room, or the kitchen, or either of the drawing-rooms or the dining-room.