‘I’ll ring for a taxi as soon as I can and take you home. We’ll just have to try and bluff it out.’

The next minute James Vereker’s new pilot on ‘Keeping Fit for the Elderly’ burst on to the screen.

Tony, fortunately, had been hosting a very successful dinner for the IBA and, after several belts of brandy on the way home, was in a mellow mood. It soon became even mellower when he found his favourite son in the drawing-room with an enchantingly pretty little brunette. She looked vaguely familiar, but Tony was too vain to put on his spectacles, and by no stretch of the imagination could she be called Tracey Makepiece.

‘This is Caitie,’ said Archie heartily. ‘I was just going to ring for a taxi to take her home.’

‘Where does she live?’ said Tony.

‘Chalford,’ lied Archie.

‘I’ll take her,’ said Tony expansively. ‘No distance at all.

Let’s all have a drink.’

‘Caitie’s tired,’ said Archie desperately.

‘She doesn’t look it,’ said Tony, admiring Caitlin’s flushed cheeks and glittering green eyes. ‘There’s a bottle of Moët in the fridge.’

Shoving Caitlin’s corset belt under a pink-and-white-striped cushion, Archie reluctantly left the room.

‘Why are you watching this tape?’ asked Tony as a lot of geriatrics with purple faces started doing press-ups.

‘I love Corinium’s programmes,’ said Caitlin dreamily. ‘I adore “Master Dog”. We’ve got two dogs, one’s very thick, one’s brilliant. I’m sure she’d win.’

‘You’d better give me a ring in the office next week,’ said Tony. ‘We’re always looking for bright dogs.’

‘I’m going back to school.’

‘Where d’you go?’

‘Upland House.’

Better and better, thought Tony in delight; the girl was a lady.

‘D’you know my niece, Tonia Martin?’

‘Frightful slag,’ said Caitlin. ‘She nearly got sacked last term for having boys in her room. She’s got a terrible reputation at Stowe, too.’

Tony was enchanted. His sister’s daughter was always being held up as a paragon of virtue.

‘And d’you by any chance know Caro McKay? Teaches Biology, I think.’

‘Of course. She teaches me.’ Caitlin beamed. ‘Ghastly old dyke. She and Miss Reading live in a two-bedroom house with a spare room.’ She screamed with laughter. Tony joined in.

Once Caitlin got an audience, there was no stopping her. Archie was torn between hysterical laughter and total panic as she regaled Tony with one scurrilous story after another about the daughters of his friends and colleagues.

After the bottle was finished, Tony insisted on driving her home. The only way Tracey would have got out of the house, reflected Archie, would have been in a hearse. Bitterly ashamed of himself, he funked going with them; he couldn’t face the return journey.

It was a lovely night. A butter-coloured moon was gliding in and out of threatening blue-black clouds, gilding their edges. Mist was rising. There was a smell of dying bonfires and wet leaves.

‘What a heavenly car,’ said Caitlin, playing with the electric windows.

‘How long have you known Archie?’ asked Tony.

‘About nine months. I don’t mean to suck up, but I do think you’ve brought him up well. He’s so considerate.’

Tony purred. ‘He is a nice boy. Wish he’d work a bit harder. Have you taken your O-levels yet?’

‘Last term.’

‘Get a few?’

‘Eleven,’ said Caitlin simply. ‘You seem more pleased than my mother,’ she added bitterly a minute later.

Archie’s father, she decided, was really, really nice. Extraordinary how her father and Tag got everything wrong. He was soon saying she might like to come to the Hunt Ball if she could get off school, and even suggested skiing in the Christmas holidays.

‘Oh, I’d love to,’ said Caitlin.

As they neared Penscombe, she noticed the car telephone. ‘Oh, how lovely, you are lucky. Can I use it?’

‘Of course,’ said Tony.

The length of Caitlin’s slender white thighs on the black leather seat reminded him almost unbearably of Cameron. He’d been hoping he’d bump into her at Edinburgh, but she hadn’t shown up. Without thinking, Caitlin rang The Priory. It was two o’clock in the morning and no one answered for ages.

‘Hullo,’ murmured a sleepy voice.

‘Taggie, darling,’ said Caitlin, ‘did I wake you?’

Tony nearly ran into a wild rose bush. Suddenly the temperature in the car dropped below zero.

‘What did you say your surname was?’ said Tony as Caitlin put back the receiver.

‘O’Hara,’ said Caitlin in a small voice.

‘Declan’s daughter?’

‘Yes.’

‘What the fuck are you playing at? Did your father put you up to this?’

‘Oh, please don’t tell him,’ gasped Caitlin. ‘He’d be furious.’

‘Not any more furious than I bloody am,’ roared Tony. ‘The little snake! I’ll murder Archie when I get home.’

‘Oh, please don’t!’ Caitlin, who’d had a great deal too much to drink, burst into tears.

‘For Christ’s sake,’ exploded Tony.

‘I like you so much,’ sobbed Caitlin, ‘and I thought you liked me.’

‘I do,’ said Tony in exasperation, handing her his blue spotted handkerchief, reeking of the inevitable Paco Rabanne. ‘I just can’t stand your father.’

‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes,’ sniffed Caitlin dolefully, ‘and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’

‘And you’re not going to tell Declan that you’re going out with Archie?’

‘Christ, no,’ said Caitlin. ‘I don’t want to get butchered in my prime.’

Tony did a lot of thinking as he drove home. When he turned on the light in Archie’s room, he found him huddled under the duvet, with his pyjamas buttoned up to the neck, desperately pretending to be asleep. Not for the first time, however, Tony astounded his son.

‘You can go on seeing that girl as long as you try and find out as much as you can about Venturer.’

‘That’s immoral,’ said Archie, shocked.

‘Don’t be bloody wet,’ said Tony brutally. ‘D’you want Corinium to lose the franchise?’

‘No.’

‘Or for me to forfeit four hundred thousand minimum a year?’

‘No,’ said Archie.

If he was rich, he reflected, he wouldn’t have to scrub mussels for three days every time he wanted to take Caitlin out to dinner. One day she would live in The Falconry with him. His father was right, he decided, blood was thicker than water. If Declan didn’t get the franchise, he, Archie, would look after Caitlin.


40


Taggie had a very wearing September. Getting a besotted and reelingly untogether Caitlin packed up and back to Upland House was bad enough, but dispatching Declan to Ireland was even worse.

As the departure date drew nearer, he grew increasingly reluctant to leave Maud or his precious franchise, which was just coming up to the boil.

Maud was plainly revelling in The Merry Widow. Declan was glad, but was her euphoria slightly over the top? And was it really necessary for her to have a bath, wash her hair and pinch yet more of Taggie’s clothes before every rehearsal? And when she carolled the words ‘All the world’s in love with love, and I love you,’ over and over again from the Southern Turret, who were they really aimed at? As the yellow woods turned gold and the swallows seemed to postpone their departure, and even the huge red suns sunk more slowly into Rupert’s woods in order to hear Maud’s exquisite notes floating down the valley, Declan prayed she wasn’t leading her leading man on too much.

Maud herself was much happier after Caitlin had gone back to school. No one was quicker on the draw than a teenager in love, which ruled out any illicit incoming telephone calls for Maud. But now it seemed Cameron Cook was always in the house, monopolizing the telephone and Declan, and not being deferential enough to Maud, the arrogant bitch. Anyone would think they were going off on a six months’ polar expedition rather than three silly weeks on location.

Maud also bitterly resented Cameron treating Taggie like a slave. Only this morning, on the eve of departure, Perry O’Donovan, who’d been cast as Yeats, wanted Cameron to call him back, and Taggie had taken the number down wrong.

‘Don’t keep apologizing,’ screamed Cameron, running out of breath after five minutes of invective. ‘Just get it right in future.’

The only person allowed to exploit and scream at Taggie, reflected Maud, should be Maud herself.

The eve of departure, in fact, was full of spats, and now at dusk Declan was in the library firing off last-minute instructions to Freddie, who was just back from Portugal again, and Rupert, who was just off to Virginia for a few days. Between them they would probably run things far more smoothly than Declan. The appalling Professor Graystock had also dropped in, returned from his working holiday in Greece to get ready for the new university year, and was, as usual, swilling Declan’s whisky. Dame Enid had just come down from upstairs, after going through Maud’s Merry Widow score with her and making some extremely helpful suggestions.

‘She’ll be totally irresistible,’ Dame Enid told Declan as she accepted a large pink gin. ‘Wish I were playing her leading man.’

Cameron sat in the corner going through her lists for tomorrow with half an ear on the meeting. She’d checked that everyone — actors, wardrobe, make-up, and crew — knew where to meet her and Declan at Birmingham Airport; she’d double-checked that the air-conditioned coach would be waiting to take them to Sligo by early evening, and that the hotel overlooking the bay would be expecting them for dinner.