Outside it was deliciously mild. The wind was shepherding parties of orange leaves across the lawn and sighing in the wood. The stream after the recent rain was hurtling down the garden. Above, russet clouds like stretched cotton wool didn’t quite cover the sky. Every so often through a chink glittered a brilliant star. Still shaking, Taggie tramped down the rose walk that so often in the past must have been paced by nuns, like her, praying for deliverance.
‘Oh, please God, get that horrible horrible man out of the house.’
She couldn’t stop thinking of Rupert’s lean oiled body, under the dark-blue jersey and mud-spattered white breeches. It was obvious her mother was wildly attracted to him; she’d seen the rapt expression, the flushed cheeks, the wild drinking so often before. And Rupert was leading her mother on, making those beastly salacious (there, at last she’d used her word for the day) remarks, and drinking all her father’s drink, and eating all his supper.
Despite the mildness of the night, she shivered as she contemplated the rows ahead if Maud started one of her things. She, Taggie, would get dragged in to provide alibis. Well, she wouldn’t cover up for her mother this time, she wouldn’t, she wouldn’t.
Her father didn’t want hassle at the moment; he needed keeping calm. Turning towards the house, its great battlements and turrets confronting the shadowy garden with a timeless strength, she felt slightly comforted. Surely the house would look after them.
After ‘Cotswold Round-Up’, James and Sarah, both feeling rather elated, were soon cut down to size.
‘What did you think of the interview, Cameron?’ asked James.
‘I’d rather watch slugs copulate,’ snapped Cameron.
Sarah in turn rang Paul. ‘Was I OK?’ she asked eagerly.
‘You were very clear,’ said Paul. ‘Have you seen Tony?’
‘Yes,’ said Sarah sulkily.
‘Did he say anything about putting me on the Board?’
‘No,’ said Sarah.
‘Come and have a drink,’ said James, as she slammed down the receiver.
‘Yes please,’ said Sarah.
Soon after Taggie took Gertrude out, Valerie went home. Maud, Basil and Rupert carried on carousing. Going into the kitchen much later, Taggie was relieved to find only Bas and Maud.
‘Daddy’s interviewing Lord Wooton in a few minutes,’ she said.
‘My husband,’ Maud told Basil, ‘always becomes the person he’s interviewing. When he did Margaret Thatcher he spent the week wearing power suits, talking about “circum-starnces”, and calling me Denis in bed.’
Noticing Taggie’s look of disapproval, Basil patted the chair beside him and said the interview should be interesting as Tony was pulling out every stop to get Maurice Wooton to join the Corinium Board.
Rupert returned from the downstairs loo, waving the New Statesman. ‘Don’t tell me Declan reads this,’ he said in outrage.
Maud nodded. ‘And actually believes it.’
‘But he can’t be a socialist when he earns such a vast salary.’
‘I know,’ sighed Maud. ‘He’s utterly inconsistent.’
‘I expect he’d like to give some of it away,’ protested Taggie angrily, ‘if everyone didn’t spend it all.’
‘If you can’t keep a civil tongue in your head,’ snapped Maud, ‘you’d better go to bed.’ She’d never known Taggie answer back like this.
Over in Studio 3 Declan always went into himself before a programme, but he nodded when Tony came on to the floor, reeking of brandy and waving a huge cigar. Tony was in an excellent mood; two of Corinium’s news stories had been used with a by-line by ITN; he’d just had an excellent dinner with Maurice Wooton, and now he’d got his way about Declan doing this interview, it was the thin end of the wedge. Declan couldn’t refuse to do other specials now — Freddie Jones next week, perhaps.
‘Maurice is just having a pee. He’s been made-up,’ he said to Declan. ‘Give him a nice easy ride. He may have a reputation as a hatchet man, but he runs a huge empire, he’s devoted to his grandchildren and does an enormous amount for charity. He’s also delightful if you get him on to opera or his cats.’
‘Just show his caring face, Declan,’ said Cameron from the control room. ‘And Camera 2, can you try to avoid Lord Wooton’s bald patch?’
Tonight’s vision mixer, sitting in front of her row of lit-up buttons, massaged her neck and opened a Kit Kat. It had been a long day. Daysee Butler fingered her stopwatch. In his earpiece Declan could hear her talking about her boyfriend: ‘He’s cooking supper for me tonight, cod in cheese sauce out of a packet. He’s got such charisma.’
Lord Wooton was now being ushered in by the floor manager. He had plainly had too much to drink with Tony, but Make-up had toned him down with green foundation, and blacked out his greying sideboards. His revoltingly sensual face with the big red pouting lower lip was just like one of Tony’s orchids, thought Declan, as he rose to his feet to welcome him.
‘Very warm night,’ said Lord Wooton.
‘Very,’ said Declan.
The introductory package, which Cameron had written, was full of nice stills and clips of Lord Wooton romping with cats, visiting children in hospital, playing cricket with grandsons, watching the first bricks of various buildings being laid, and collecting an OBE at the Palace. He was plainly delighted.
‘Don’t know where they dug up all those old photographs,’ he said untruthfully.
‘Ten seconds to end of opening package, Declan,’ said Daysee from the control room.
Surreptitiously Declan removed his earpiece and put it in his pocket. His first question was sycophancy itself.
‘As the leading property developer in Gloucestershire, probably the whole of the West Country, you must be proud of your achievement.’
Maurice Wooton put his hands together happily.
‘One is only as good as the people who work for one, Declan,’ he said smoothly. ‘You must know that. I have first-rate people, hand-picked of course.’
‘Pity you don’t take better care of them,’ said Declan amiably.
He then proceeded to carve Maurice Wooton up, starting with one of his managers who’d been sacked while he was in hospital recovering from open-heart surgery, then proceeding to another who’d been given no compensation when he broke his back falling off some scaffolding.
Tony rang Cameron in the control box.
‘What the fuck’s going on?’ he roared. ‘Tell him to ask Maurice about his fucking grandchildren.’
‘I can’t get through to him,’ yelled Cameron. ‘He’s taken out his earpiece.’
‘Well, tell the floor manager to tell him to put it fucking back in again.’
Ignoring all Maurice Wooton’s spluttering denials, Declan moved on to illegal takeovers, shady deals, and then produced a just-published secret Town Hall report, which claimed that, despite a huge grant from the Council, his firm had built a block of flats cheap to faulty specifications.
Temporarily speechless now, Maurice Wooton was mouthing like a great purple bull frog.
‘Another even more unattractive aspect of your business career,’ went on Declan relentlessly, ‘was the way you bribed three Labour councillors in the housing department at Cotchester Town Hall to give you the contract for the tower block development on Bankside.’
‘This is preposterous,’ exploded Maurice Wooton.
‘You deny it?’
‘Of course I do.’
Out of the corner of his eye, Declan could see the floor manager making frantic signals for him to replace his earpiece.
Ignoring them, he said: ‘Why, then, do Councillor Bridie, Councillor Yallop, and Councillor Rogers have five thousand pounds entered on their bank statements, paid in by you from a Swiss bank account? Here are the photostats of the bank statements, the cheques, and your letters to them.’ Declan brandished them under Maurice Wooton’s hairy expanding crimson nostrils, then threw them down on the table. ‘Thank God there are some Town Hall officials left with integrity.’