by Jilly Cooper
Georgie, Seb and Charles (who was wearing a tin hat and brandishing a riot shield borrowed from Wardrobe) all turned up giggling hysterically in James Vereker’s very distinctive pale-blue Porsche.
‘The silly bugger left it in the Corinium car park and a second set of keys in his office,’ said Georgie. ‘We’re going to abandon it outside your house later this afternoon, Enid, then ring up Tony and tip him off.’
‘How’s it going?’ said Freddie.
‘Tony’s in a vilely twitchy mood,’ said Charles, ‘bugging everyone’s telephones. You’d better watch out, Declan. If our chief engineer rolls up in a yellow van heavily disguised as a British Telecom mechanic, don’t let him in.’
It was such a mild day they all sat outside. Apple blossom and lilac were both out and wafting their sweet fragrance. Cow parsley frothed up to meet the trailing young green leaves and white candles of the horse chestnuts round the lawn. The rushing stream was clogged with forget-me-nots and marsh marigolds, and, although the bluebells were fading, the wood was now lit up by the white flowers of the wild garlic. It was definitely a day to be in love. Rupert turned up with Cameron, who was safe because Tony had gone to Rugborough to watch Archie play cricket. She and Rupert had obviously just got out of bed. Their hair was still wet from the shower. She sat on the lawn propped against him, her hand on his thigh. They looked lean, glamorous and intensely separate.
Great excitement was caused by the arrival of the rest of the Venturer publicity material: badges, car stickers, bookmarks, peaked caps with adjustable straps at the back, which had to be taken in to fit Henry Hampshire’s narrow stoat’s head but let out for Dame Enid and Declan. The pièce de résistance was the poster. It was a blow-up from the group photograph of Taggie with Gertrude on her knee, both wearing Venturer T-shirts.
‘It’s fuckin’ gorgeous,’ said Freddie. ‘Every garage mechanic will put it up in the service bay.’
‘I’ll have some for the bar,’ said Bas.
‘And I for the Close,’ said the Bishop.
Both Dame Enid and Professor Graystock wanted several for the common room.
‘Dirty old letch,’ muttered Rupert, glaring at the Professor.
‘I’ll keep mine under my pillow,’ said Seb, ‘in case Tony drops in for coffee one evening.’
Only Cameron had been scornful when Rupert had showed the poster to her earlier.
‘It’s too fucking kitsch for words,’ she snapped.
‘I thought you might like to have a look at Corinium’s rival offering,’ said Georgie, unrolling a poster of Sarah Stratton cuddling a baby calf with a caption ‘Corinium Cares’ underneath. Her T-shirt had rather too many buttons undone.
‘“Corinium Bares”, more likely,’ said Rupert dismissively. ‘Venturer have definitely won the battle of the Crumpet. Here, let me carry that, angel,’ he went on, leaping to his feet as Taggie came out with a huge chocolate cake and a plate of cucumber sandwiches on a tray.
Taggie couldn’t meet his eyes, nor did she say anything when she saw the poster. It reminded her too poignantly of when she’d still been happy, when Rupert had not yet rolled up with Cameron.
After tea Declan came to the serious bit.
‘For the next two months,’ he told them, ‘while the IBA are sifting through the applications before the public meetings begin in July, our job is to get Venturer across to the area. We got off to an excellent start. With such a dazzlingly flamboyant panel —’ he grinned round at them – ‘publicity has been no problem. Now we’ve got to get out and meet the people who matter – in the Town Halls, the Chambers of Commerce, the Rotary Clubs all round the area – and show them we’re not just a bunch of dilettantes.
‘We’ve also got to cast our net wide to cover schools, colleges, churches, young farmers, job centres, the police, sports clubs, political groups, race relations officers, etc., etc. We must let them know what we intend to do, find out how we can help them, and then sign them up as friends of Venturer. We’ll collect a huge petition of names and organizations to send the IBA. But it’ll have far more effect if they can also be persuaded to write a private letter to Lady Gosling giving their support.
‘We must try to cover the entire area,’ he went on. ‘I know you’re all busy and it’s going to be a long hard slog, and obviously none of the Corinium moles or Billy or Harold can be seen to be doing anything.’
‘I’ll help,’ pleaded Taggie. ‘Please let me. I can drive round the area delivering handouts and telling people how good you are.’
‘How can she possibly explain to anyone why they should support Venturer,’ said Cameron too loudly to Rupert, ‘if she can’t read the fucking application?’
Seeing Taggie go crimson with mortification, Seb leapt to her defence. ‘Put it on tape,’ he said. ‘I’ll do it for you, Taggie. If I can’t go round the area canvassing, it’s the least I can do.’
Seb was as good as his word. Over the next two days he not only put the most important points of the application on tape for her, but also the answers she should give to any questions.
‘If they’re a Leftie organization,’ he explained, ‘say we’ve got Professor Graystock, Lord Smith and your Dad in the consortium. If they’re Tory, plug Freddie, Henry, Rupert and Marti Gluckstein. If they’re SDP, bandy Dame Enid’s name around.
‘If anyone starts grumbling about sex and violence,’ he went on, ‘say we’ve got the Bishop of Cotchester and he’s going to oversee all our programmes. On the other hand, if anyone says we haven’t got enough sex and violence, say we’ve got Rupert, Bas and Wesley Emerson in the consortium.’
He coached her over and over again until her spiel was word-perfect. Taggie found him incredibly kind and patient.
‘I wish I’d been taught by people like you at school,’ she said wistfully.
And so the hard grind started. But as Rupert was chronically busy, and Freddie was tied up with his electronics empire, and Declan was locked into his biography of Yeats, and both professors were frantically coaching their students for finals, in the end most of the work fell to Taggie. With a car full of stickers, badges and posters, she drove round the vast area visiting everyone from trade unionists to youth leaders, from mothers’ unions to arts councils, taking in every imaginable pressure group, begging them to sign her petition, to write to the IBA and best of all to come along and cheer Venturer at the public meeting in July. Because of her beauty, sweetness and passionate belief in her father’s and Venturer’s cause, she had surprising success.
Sometimes she was joined by the Bishop, sometimes by Dame Enid, which was great fun. Dame Enid had a convertible and they drove through the glorious Spring together with the roof down, getting brown, sucking lemon sherbets and calling an awful lot of people ‘boring little farts’ after they’d safely got them signed up. Driving round with Professor Graystock was less fun. He had a horrible habit of squeezing Taggie’s bare legs when he made a point, so she took to wearing trousers.
The third Saturday in May, however, was a very bad day for Taggie. She was tired because she’d been up very late doing a dinner party for Valerie Jones the night before. As she was scheduled to tour the Winchester area, which she didn’t know, she’d put directions to all the places she had to visit on tape, but even so she got terribly lost and flustered.
On one of her calls she’d got the SDP muddled up with the Labour Party and started plugging Dame Enid when she should have been pushing Lord Smith and Professor Graystock. Then she’d called on a vile headmaster who’d made her tremble because he reminded her of school. ‘How can Venturer help your school personally?’ she asked.
‘Well, get a pencil, write it down,’ he said bossily.
‘I’ll remember it,’ stammered Taggie.
‘Write it down,’ snapped the headmaster.
‘I can’t.’ Taggie hung her head. ‘I’m dyslexic.’
He was incredibly nice after that, giving her a glass of sherry. His eldest son who’d been killed in Northern Ire
land had been dyslexic and he got out a lot of photographs to show her.
It was half past nine and getting dark when Taggie left and after ten before she managed to find her way to the gates of the local cricket club.
Perhaps they’d all gone home. But she could hear great whoops and catcalls coming from the pavilion, and, as she drew up outside, moths were bashing against the lighted windows.
Cricket – Taggie took a deep breath – that meant she had to plug Wesley Emerson’s involvement and Venturer’s entirely fresh approach to cricket coverage. Going through the door, she quailed. They were obviously having some all-male dinner. She couldn’t see the white table-cloth for glasses. Scores of huge-shouldered men with brick-red faces and beer guts seemed to be grinning at her with unfocused lechery. A tawny giant up at the top table, fiddling with the microphone, looked vaguely familiar.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she stammered, clutching her stickers, posters and her petition, ‘I’ll come back some other time.’
‘No, come in, sweetheart,’ they all yelled.
A chunky dark youth rose to his feet and swayed unsteadily towards her.
‘If you’re from the Shalvation Army, I’m beyond shaving,’ he said.
‘Come back, darling,’ roared the rest, as Taggie backed out through the door.
A slightly older man, who came up to Taggie’s shoulders, and who seemed less inebriated than the rest, said he was the club secretary and asked if he could help.
‘I just wanted to tell you about Venturer,’ mumbled Taggie, ‘and hoped you might sign our petition and put our stickers in your cars.’
‘I’d much rather put you in my car,’ said the chunky dark youth to roars of applause.
The club secretary then led her to the microphone and introduced her to the Captain, who had hard, rather unpleasant blue eyes. ‘Lady wants to tell us about television,’ he said.
‘Well, go on then,’ said the Captain nastily.
The tawny giant smiled at Taggie and sat down.
‘I just wanted to tell you about Venturer television,’ Taggie began in her soft growling teddy-bear voice. ‘You probably know we’re p-pitching for the Corinium franchise. We need your help in our campaign. We want to know how we can help you.’
‘Give us a blow job, Lofty,’ said a wag down the table to howls of laughter.
A bread roll sailed through the air, just missing her. Taggie blushed even deeper but ploughed on.
‘Strip, strip, strip, strip,’ intoned the Captain, banging on the table.
Soon the entire room took up the cry.
‘Shut up, you meatheads,’ yelled the tawny giant. ‘Let her finish.’
Amazingly, after that they did shut up and, except for the occasional Tarzan howl, heard her out in silence.
‘I want you to know finally,’ said Taggie, ‘that Venturer will be providing an entirely new approach to cricket coverage. We’re very interested in cricket at all levels, and er —’ she froze for a second trying to remember – ‘and Wesley Emerson —’ she brought out the name in triumph – ‘is a key member of our consortium and is specially interested in promoting cricket in schools, so you’ll have some really good colts coming on in the future. Please support Venturer. Thank you very much.’
‘I suppose we can now get on with the speeches,’ said the Captain over the thunder of applause.
‘I’m so sorry.’ Taggie picked up the petition. ‘Could you possibly sign this?’ she asked the tawny giant who’d been so kind to her.
‘Of course.’ He took the petition from her. ‘D’you want it signed to anyone?’
‘No, no, just your name and the name of the cricket club.’
‘That’s a bit difficult, Lofty,’ said the Captain bitchily. ‘We don’t play cricket, you see.’
‘But this is a cricket club,’ said Taggie, aghast.
‘Maybe it is, darling, but this is the Winchley Rugby Club dinner and Bill Beaumont here —’ he indicated the tawny giant – ‘is our guest of honour and is waiting to speak to us, if you’d be so kind as to bugger off.’
Grabbing the petition, leaving the posters and the car stickers, Taggie fled sobbing into the night. How could she have been so stupid? She was absolutely no help to Venturer at all.
Her dyslexia always got worse when she was upset. As a result she got desperately lost on the way home. She couldn’t read any of the unfamiliar names on the signposts, and once it got really dark she was frightened to stop the car and ask strangers the way. There were no stars, or moonlight or street lamps to guide her along the country lanes. She seemed to have been going round for hours and hours, until at last she saw a sign she could recognize: Penscombe 2m.
Gertrude was noisily delighted to see her, but the trail of clothes in the hall and up the stairs told her that her parents had gone up somewhat precipitately to bed. The débris of their dinner was still on the kitchen table, one of the lids of the Aga was up and Aengus had knocked over a half-full bottle of whisky which was still dripping on to the flagstones.
‘Oh God,’ sighed Taggie. ‘Can’t they ever do anything for themselves?’
The cow parsley she’d picked that morning was already shedding petals like scurf all over the Welsh dresser.
Nothing lasts, she thought in despair.
Across the valley, Rupert’s house was almost blotted out by the trees. There were no lights on. He was probably tucked up in bed with Cameron. It was always when she was really tired that the longing became unbearable.
Rupert, in fact, had spent the day at the Cup Final, making the main speech at the official dinner afterwards. Despite horrific setbacks, he was the first Minister for Sport who’d tackled hooliganism head on, and when he sat down they cheered him to the rooftops.
After the dinner was over, however, he beat a discreet retreat, taking a bottle of brandy over to that other Wembley stadium, home of the Horse of the Year Show, where he persuaded an obliging groundsman with a couple of tenners to put on the lights.
Sitting in the competitors’ stand, drinking out of his bottle, he proceeded hazily to relive his past glories as a show jumper. And suddenly the huge arena seemed to be filled with coloured jumps and with the ghosts of all his great horses: Revenge, Rocky, Belgravia, Mayfair, Arcturus, Snakepit and even the cussed Macaulay. He could hear the sound of the bell, the screams of the Pony Club, the roar of applause, even the voice of the commentator, Dudley Diplock, who always got the names wrong. Oh Christ, what was he to do?
Putting his head in his hands, he was overwhelmed with despair as he realized, despite his political triumphs and the buzz of pitching for the franchise and stealing Cameron from Tony, how hopelessly empty his life was now. He hadn’t got fat when he’d given up show jumping, or taken to drink, except tonight, or to boring other people with endless anecdotes about his sporting glories as so many other great athletes had. But something had died inside him.
It was nearly midnight. The government car was still waiting outside. The groundsman wanted to lock up.
‘Probably fallen asleep,’ said Sydney, Rupert’s driver. ‘He’s a devil for dropping off anywhere. I’ll go and wake him.’
But when Sydney tapped him on the shoulder, the face Rupert raised was so stricken and haggard, that Sydney was prompted to ask if there’d been a death in the family.
‘Only myself,’ muttered Rupert, chucking away the empty bottle and stumbling to his feet. ‘Only myself.’
Taggie had just finished clearing up and feeding Gertrude the corned beef hash which Declan normally loved but had left half-eaten this evening, when the doorbell rang. Gertrude ran out barking as loudly as she could with her mouth full. Taggie followed, hastily kicking her mother’s rather grubby bra and French knickers under the radiator. For a second she thought she must be dreaming, for there, swaying in a dinner jacket, clutching a red box, was Rupert.
‘Hullo, angel. Thought I’d catch up on the gossip. Is your father in?’
‘Yes, but he and Mummy have gone to b
ed.’
‘I’m sorry. I saw a light on. Thought he might be working late.’
‘Do you want a drink?’
Oh God! Suddenly she remembered. Aengus had knocked over the whisky.
‘I’ve had enough,’ said Rupert. ‘I’d love a cup of coffee.’
His normally sleeked-back blond hair had flopped over his forehead, his black tie was crooked, his blue eyes crossing. Taggie realized he was absolutely plastered.
‘You didn’t drive down?’ she said in horror.
‘No, no, Syd dropped me off, Now, whatever I do I mushn’t lose this.’ Carefully he put his red box down on the kitchen table. ‘My red box, my unread box. I sometimes wonder if anyone would notice if I threw the whole lot in the Thames.’
‘Where have you been?’ said Taggie, putting the kettle on, wondering if by some miracle he might have had a bust-up with Cameron.
‘To the Cup Final.’
‘Of course. You were making a speech. How did it go?’
‘All right, I suppose. The speech that the department had written was so ghastly I tore it up and told a lot of blue stories instead. I hope no one was there from Corinium with a tape recorder.’
‘And they liked it?’
‘They seemed to. They could afford to be kind. It’s probably the last one I’ll make.’
‘What d’you mean?’ Taggie put three spoonfuls of sugar into the blackest cup of coffee and put it down on the table in front of him.
‘Thanks, darling. The PM’s announcing the election date as Thursday 24th June. At least I won a bet on it.’
‘But you’ll win,’ said Taggie, sitting down at the table beside him.
Rupert shrugged. ‘I’m not sure we will. The awful thing is, I don’t give a bugger. I’m fed up with politics.’
‘You’ll feel differently tomorrow,’ said Taggie.
At that moment Gertrude strolled in, looked beadily at Rupert, then, to Taggie’s amazement, jumped on to his knee and gave his face a quick lick, before settling down, leaving white hairs all over his dinner jacket. Rupert stroked her and laughed.