Rivals

by Jilly Cooper

  Cameron laughed.

  James, who was not going to be egged on to bitching about Tony in front of Cameron, said, ‘I always feel Tony is much maligned.’

  ‘I entirely agree,’ said Rupert, draining his whisky, ‘but not nearly enough.’

  Sitting next to Rupert at dinner, Sarah found herself talking gibberish. The awful thing about adultery, she thought, was that one had to remember in public that one hadn’t heard things that one’s lover had told one in private.

  ‘I saw your “Behind Every Famous Man” interview with James,’ said Rupert, as he unfolded his napkin. ‘Very good. Were you nervous?’

  ‘Desperately,’ said Sarah, blushing.

  As they had discussed the whole thing and how ghastly James had been at length in bed yesterday afternoon, and because, under the table, Rupert’s hand was already creeping up between the slit in her skirt, Sarah found it impossible not to giggle.

  ‘I think I’ve found you a horse,’ went on Rupert, giving her his blank, blue-eyed stare. Then he solemnly proceeded to describe it down to its last fetlock. As he’d also given her the same details yesterday, she found it even more difficult to keep a straight face, particularly as Paul, pretending to listen to Valerie, had ears on elastic trying to hear what they were saying.

  Fortunately, distraction was provided by Taggie bringing round the fish mousse. Not remembering her left from her right, having served Monica, she moved backwards to serve James.

  ‘Clockwise,’ screeched Valerie.

  There was another awful moment for Taggie when she saw Rupert and Lizzie having hysterics over the menu.

  ‘Gingered French peasant, cravat sauce and desert château,’ translated Rupert.

  ‘Our hostess’s French is slightly Stratford atte Bowe,’ whispered Lizzie.

  ‘What’s that?’ said Valerie sharply from the other end of the table.

  For a second Lizzie caught Taggie’s anguished eye, and instantly identified the author of the menu: ‘Just saying how good your French is,’ she said to Valerie.

  Valerie nodded smugly: ‘Crusty bread anyone?’ she cried waving the basket. ‘I will not have white bread in this house.’

  ‘I love it,’ said Freddie wistfully.

  ‘So do I,’ said Rupert. ‘I’ll send you a loaf for Christmas.’

  Sitting opposite Tony, trying desperately not to catch his eye, Cameron longed to be able to sparkle and scintillate, but how could she with Paul Stratton on one side, watching his wife like a warder and James on the other talking about himself?

  ‘How’s your series on “Caring for the Elderly” getting on?’ she asked.

  James brightened. ‘We think we’ve found a presenter at last – a Mrs Didbody. She’s a seventy-five-year-old coloured lady, a widow with a daughter of fifty. Which makes her a single parent,’ added James triumphantly.

  ‘A real franchise grabber,’ said Cameron, who was watching Rupert. He was easily the most attractive man she’d seen since she came to England, probably ever. It was a combination of elegance, deadpan arrogance, and a total inability to resist stirring things up. He was plainly having it off with Sarah Stratton.

  ‘What exactly are electronics?’ Monica was saying to Freddie in her piercing voice. ‘What exactly d’you do?’

  Cameron saw a look of fury on Tony’s face, but Freddie seemed delighted by her interest.

  ‘I make everythink really: videos, televisions, synthesizers, compact disks, floppy disks, silicon chips.’

  ‘I always muddle up silicon with cellulite,’ said Monica.

  ‘With my computers,’ went on Freddie proudly, ‘scientists on the ground can place satellites in orbit. All satellites now carry my computers on board.’

  ‘Good heavens,’ said Monica. She could see now how useful Freddie’d be to Tony.

  Tony was not enjoying himself. It was one of life’s ironies, he thought, that at dinners like this Monica always sat next to all the brilliant achieving men, who usually didn’t interest her at all (although she did seem to be having fun with Freddie), and he got stuck with their unachieving wives. Lizzie Vereker on his left looked a complete mess.

  ‘That was delicious,’ she said taking another piece of bread to wipe up the last vestiges of prawn sauce. ‘Did you make it?’ she asked Valerie slyly.

  ‘Yes,’ said Valerie, as Taggie was out of the room.

  ‘How’s Archie?’ Lizzie asked Tony.

  ‘Doing Business Studies for A-levels,’ said Tony with a grin, ‘which he thinks allows him to tell me exactly where I’m going wrong in running Corinium.’

  The only time he’s nice, thought Lizzie, is when he talks about his children.

  ‘Sharon is doing The Dream for her O-levels,’ said Valerie, ringing a bell.

  Taggie, who was chopping parsley for the courgettes, threw down the knife and ran into the dining-room, tugging down her horribly short dress.

  ‘Can you clear away the appetizer, Agatha,’ said Valerie.

  Returning to the kitchen with the plates, Taggie found Reg the butler, very drunk now, carving the pheasants. She wished he wouldn’t cut quite such huge slices, there might not be enough to go round.

  ‘Tender as a woman’s kiss,’ said Reg, helping himself to a slice. ‘You’re another Mrs Beeton, Agatha.’

  ‘Oh, it does look yummy. Can I have a bit?’ said fat Sharon.

  ‘Have some later,’ said Taggie, as she poured the sauce over, and scattered parsley over the courgettes. ‘I must take it in.’

  ‘I’ll take round the courgettes,’ said Sharon, who wanted to gaze at Rupert.

  Taggie took the pheasant round the right way this time. She noticed Rupert still had his hand inside Sarah’s slit skirt, the revolting man, but had to remove it to help himself to pheasant. Was she imagining it or was he deliberately rubbing his black elbow against her breast as he did so? When she took round the potatoes, she stood as far away as possible, arching over him like a street light. As she moved down the other side of the table, his wicked dissipated blue eyes seemed to follow her, making her even more hot and bothered. Reg was taking round the Mouton Cadet now, and had reached Valerie.

  ‘We had Sharon in 1972,’ she was telling Paul, ‘and we were married in, er . . .’

  ‘Watch it,’ said Reg, giving her a great nudge.

  Rupert grinned broadly. Sarah and Lizzie giggled.

  Valerie, knowing one must behave with dignity at all times, ignored the innuendo. ‘That will be all, Reginald and Agatha. I’ll ring if anyone wants second helpings.’

  ‘We’re televising Midnight Mass at Cotchester Cathedral this year,’ said Tony as he put his knife and fork together. ‘I’m reading the first lesson. Are you reading the second?’ he asked Paul, knowing he wasn’t.

  ‘No,’ said Paul, looking very put out. ‘We’ll be away.’

  ‘I wonder who is reading it then,’ said Tony.

  ‘I am,’ said Rupert.

  ‘You said you were going skiing,’ said an unguarded Sarah. ‘I mean,’ she added, looking thoroughly flustered, ‘you said you’d be away at Christmas.’

  There was an awkward pause.

  ‘This pheasant is wonderful,’ said Lizzie.

  ‘I’ll give you the recipe if you like,’ said Valerie. ‘Don’t pick your bones, Fred-Fred,’ she snapped, then stopped hastily as she saw that Rupert was picking his.

  All the same, it was going wonderfully well, reflected Valerie later, as Taggie cleared away the cheese board. Everyone was talking like mad and seemed to enjoy the novelty of the men moving two places on. It was a good thing Rupert was sitting next to Cameron now, who’d seemed rather out of it earlier. In five minutes, Taggie would bring on the moated castle.

  Turning to Cameron, Rupert thought how different she was to Sarah, as lean and hungry as Sarah was replete and voluptuous.

  ‘I’m dying to have a pee,’ he murmured, ‘just for an excuse to prowl round and see what a ghastly cock-up our hostess has made of a once-ravishing house. I
used to come to children’s parties here.’

  ‘I can’t imagine you as a kid.’

  ‘I always cheated at doctors and nurses.’

  Across the table, he noticed Sarah deliberately flirting with James, to make him jealous perhaps or to put Paul off the scent.

  To Valerie’s disapproval Cameron got out a cigarette. Picking up a pink candle, Rupert lit it for her.

  ‘You hunt with the same pack as Tony?’ she asked.

  ‘Sometimes,’ said Rupert softly. ‘Sometimes after the same quarry.’

  Looking round at his suddenly predatory, unsmiling face, she felt a quivering between her legs. Christ, she wanted him.

  ‘D’you want a lift home?’ he said.

  ‘No.’ She could have wept. ‘I brought my own car.’

  ‘The Lotus?’ said Rupert.

  She nodded.

  ‘Nice Corinium perk,’ said Rupert, instantly returning to his former flippant mood. ‘I see James has finally got himself a Porsche. I’ll have to get rid of mine.’

  ‘I don’t know much about horses,’ murmured Cameron, frantic to hold his attention, ‘except my boss’s wife looks like one.’

  ‘You won’t oust her by bitching,’ said Rupert. Then, aware that Tony had suddenly stopped talking to Sarah and they were both listening, he said, ‘There are three things you need in a horse: balance, quality and courage. Same as a woman, really.’

  ‘I’d add intelligence,’ said Cameron.

  ‘I wouldn’t.’

  ‘Don’t you like achieving women?’

  ‘I don’t like ballbreakers.’

  There was a chorus of oohs and aahs as Taggie came in with the moated ice cream castle. It was the last lap. Once she’d served this, and cleared away, she could relax.

  ‘What d’you do at Corinium?’ Rupert asked Cameron, as he idly watched Taggie moving round the table. She was bright pink in the face, her tongue clenched between her teeth in her efforts to hold the pudding steady. Any make-up had sweated off. Her dark hair was fighting the pins that held it up. But nothing could disguise the length of leg, or the long dark eyelashes, or the voluptuous swell of her breasts. She was going anti-clockwise again, but most people were too plastered to notice.

  ‘I produce Declan,’ said Cameron. ‘Why don’t you come on the programme?’

  ‘What?’ said Rupert, dragging his thoughts back from Taggie.

  ‘Come on the programme. I’m sure you and Declan would strike sparks off each other.’

  ‘I don’t want to,’ said Rupert flatly. ‘I don’t need that kind of wank, and you’d never hear any chat above the rattle of skeletons tumbling out of cupboards.’

  Having just served Valerie, Taggie was moving slowly round towards him.

  ‘How d’you get on with Declan?’ he asked Cameron wickedly.

  ‘Utterly obnoxious,’ said Cameron. ‘He really pisses me off.’

  Rupert watched Taggie to see if she’d rise.

  ‘Very pretty,’ he said, examining the pudding. ‘Feel I ought to get planning permission before I dig into this. Thanks, angel,’ he added, helping himself to a piece of battlement and a dollop of cream.

  Ignoring him, Taggie moved round to his other side to serve Cameron.

  ‘How on earth does Declan’s wife put up with him?’ asked Cameron.

  ‘You’d better ask Taggie,’ said Rupert. ‘Maud’s her mother.’

  Cameron paled visibly. Noticing Taggie for the first time, she tried to remember what ghastly things she’d said about Declan.

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realize.’

  In embarrassment she helped herself to too much pudding. The whole thing swayed. Rupert could smell Taggie’s body, could feel how hot, and nervous and trembling she was. Her skirt was so short. Almost without thinking, he put a leisurely hand between her thighs.

  The next moment Taggie gave a shriek and dropped the very considerable remains of the pudding all over Cameron’s seven-hundred-pound smoking jacket and black satin trousers.

  ‘You stupid bitch,’ screamed Cameron, forgetting herself. ‘What the fuck d’you think you’re doing?’

  In tears Taggie fled to the kitchen.

  Remembering one must behave with dignity at all times, Valerie swept an almost hysterical Cameron upstairs.

  Lizzie turned on Rupert: ‘You bastard,’ she yelled. ‘Don’t you realize this was her first job? She’s been trying to break into catering for months. She cooked like an angel and you had to fuck it up.’

  ‘With looks like that,’ said Rupert, retrieving pieces of broken plate from the floor, ‘I wouldn’t have thought a career was that important.’

  ‘Don’t be so fucking insensitive. Didn’t you know poor darling Taggie’s dyslexic? Can’t you imagine how ghastly it is being the only unbright one in such a brilliant family?’

  ‘Oh Christ,’ said Rupert, truly appalled. ‘I simply didn’t know. It was entirely my fault, Freddie. I couldn’t resist goosing your cook, but really you shouldn’t have dressed her in such sexy clothes. I’d better go and apologize.’

  ‘Leave her bloody alone,’ said Lizzie, rushing out to the kitchen to comfort a sobbing Taggie, who was being ineffectually patted by a swaying Reg.

  ‘Go and get a cloth and a dustpan and brush, and clear up the mess,’ Lizzie told him, ‘and give everyone another drink.’

  ‘There there, duck.’ She hugged Taggie.

  ‘I’m so sorry. I wanted everything to be perfect for Mrs Jones,’ sobbed Taggie.

  ‘You mustn’t worry. It was the most marvellous food anyone’s had in years.’ Lizzie pulled off a piece of kitchen roll to dry Taggie’s eyes. ‘Rupert’s a bastard. He just can’t resist a beautiful girl.’

  ‘Cameron is changing into one of my ge-owns,’ said Valerie, sweeping in.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Jones,’ said Taggie in a choked voice.

  ‘I was just telling her how brilliantly she cooked,’ said Lizzie.

  Valerie was livid. She’d been shown up as not doing the cooking at all.

  ‘Pull yourself together, Agatha,’ she said sharply. ‘Go and collect the rest of the plates, and see if Lord Baddingham and Miss Cook would like some fresh fruit, as they didn’t get any dessert.’

  ‘Cameron got her just dessert,’ giggled Lizzie.

  ‘I can’t go back in there,’ said Taggie aghast.

  ‘You will,’ said Valerie, ‘if you want to work for me again.’

  In the dining-room James was furious with Lizzie for making such a fuss over Declan’s idiot daughter, and Sarah was furious with Rupert for so openly groping Taggie. She’d tried to be laid back about her affair with him, but now all she could feel was a red-hot lava of jealousy pouring over her.

  Tony, on the other hand, was delighted by the turn of events. ‘Child’s clearly over-emotional and unbalanced like her father,’ he kept saying.

  ‘Bloody good cook,’ said Freddie.

  And when Taggie, very tear-stained and head hanging, brought in a bowl of peaches and grapes, Monica leaned out and squeezed her hand.

  ‘Delicious dinner, my dear. I’ve got a girl’s lunch next week. Perhaps you’d like to help me out with that? Nothing elaborate, very cosy. I’ll ring you tomorrow.’

  Gulping gratefully, Taggie said she’d love to.

  Attention was then taken off her by the return of Cameron, wearing one of Valerie’s black ge-owns. It was perfectly frightful with a bow on the bum, and much too tight.

  ‘I prefer you as a bloke,’ said Rupert, wiping a blob of cream off her chair.

  ‘I’m desperately sorry,’ mumbled Taggie, as she passed Cameron, ‘I’ll pay for it.’

  ‘You couldn’t begin to,’ hissed Cameron.

  ‘Don’t be a bitch,’ said Rupert sharply. Putting a hand on Taggie’s arm, he said, ‘I’m really sorry, angel, it was all my fault.’

  Taggie didn’t say anything, but seemed to shrink away.

  James sidled up to Valerie.

  ‘One of my programme
s is on in a minute. Would anyone mind if I slipped upstairs and watched it?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Valerie. ‘In fact I think, ladies, we’ll all go upstairs.’

  Cameron got her own back by flatly refusing to go and staying to drink port with the men. Little good it did her. Tony got Freddie in a corner and persuaded him to have lunch immediately after Christmas to discuss his joining the Corinium Board, and, leaving Cameron with the frightful Paul, Rupert went off to the kitchen. Here he found Taggie loading the washing-up machine and making coffee.

  ‘Go away!’ she sobbed. ‘You’re the most m-m-m-malefic man I’ve ever met.’

  ‘’ere, ’ere,’ groaned Reg from underneath the kitchen table.

  RIVALS

  16

  The following Monday Declan stormed into Cameron’s office without knocking. ‘You were at Valerie Jones’s dinner party.’

  ‘Right,’ said Cameron coolly. Inside she quailed, wondering if Taggie had told Declan how she’d screamed and sworn at her, and how earlier she’d bitched about Declan to Rupert.

  ‘I gather Taggie tipped the pudding over you. I’m sorry,’ said Declan. ‘If you can’t get the marks out, I’ll be happy to refund you.’

  ‘It was no big deal,’ said Cameron, absolutely weak with relief. ‘I took them along to the cleaners on Saturday, they’ll be just fine.’

  ‘Then we’ll pick up your cleaning bill.’

  ‘Rupert can bloody well do that.’

  Declan’s face hardened. ‘The bastard – poor little Tag. She was distraught.’

  ‘She did really well,’ protested Cameron, feeling she could afford to be generous. ‘The food was terrific, and Monica asked her to do a lunch for her.’

  ‘I know. Monica rang on Saturday. That cheered Taggie up.’

  ‘It was all Rupert’s fault,’ said Cameron, deciding to put the boot in.

  ‘Wait till I get my hands on the bastard.’

  ‘Why don’t I ask him on to your programme?’ said Cameron idly. ‘That’d be a much more subtle way of burying him.’

  Declan paused in his prowling and thought for a minute. It was violently against all his principles to ask someone deliberately on to the programme in order to do a hatchet job.