Rivals (28 page)

‘Has Grace made up the beds for all Patrick’s friends?’

‘Someone insulted her in the pub at lunchtime,’ said Taggie. ‘Introduced her as Declan O’Hara’s scrubber, so she’s gone to bed in a huff.’

‘Well, get her up,’ snapped Maud. ‘At least you’ve got Valerie Jones’s char and her two children and that butler Reg and his friends coming to help, but you better make up some more beds.’

‘They can all sleep in armchairs,’ said Patrick soothingly as he gathered up his new car keys. ‘I’ll go and borrow those plates from Rupert.’

‘I’ve made up a bed for Ralphie in the spare room,’ said Taggie, blushing.

At six-thirty Declan returned home having recorded an interview with the Bishop of Cotchester, which he was aware was totally lacking in sparkle. He had been wracked with increasing foreboding during the day, as one person after another – Charles Fairburn, James Vereker, Simon Harris, Daysee Butler and then, horrors, Cameron Cook and Tony Baddingham – said they’d see him this evening. Maud had obviously got tighter than he’d realized at the Corinium Christmas party. But he never expected the frantically billowing pink and white tent on the lawn or the tables laid for two hundred people, or the disco boys checking acoustics, or the three hundred bottles of Moët on ice in various baths round the house.

Roaring upstairs, he found Maud lying on the bed naked except for a face pack and an Optrex eyepad.

‘What the fuck is going on? Do you want to ruin me?’ He slammed the door behind him.

In the drawing-room below, a group of Patrick’s glamorous friends, who’d just arrived and were having a drink, could see the mistletoe hanging from the chandelier trembling beneath Declan’s demented pacing. Then they heard Maud screaming.

‘Oh dear,’ sighed Caitlin, ‘Daddy doesn’t seem in a party mood.’

Upstairs, Taggie was frantically making up beds for Patrick’s friends. Perfectly happy to sleep together in the narrowest of beds all term at Trinity Dublin, now they were sleeping in the house of one of their friend’s parents, all the girls, overcome by a fit of morality, said they wanted separate rooms.

The din was increasing in her parents’ room.

Maud was careful not to be too provocative. She didn’t want her eye blacked. Eye-shadow and mascara were more becoming.

‘Peace on earth, and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled
,’ sang Caitlin outside the door. ‘Shut up you two, you’re upsetting Gertrude.’

Taggie could hear another lot of Patrick’s friends arriving downstairs, crying:
‘Happy Birthday.’
Running to the banisters, she could see Patrick’s exquisite girlfriend, Lavinia, giving him a present. She was followed by a beautiful dark girl and behind her – Taggie caught her breath – just under the mistletoe in the hall, stood Ralphie. He seemed to have got even more beautiful with his big blue eyes and blond curls.

In a panic she rushed back into the spare room, put another log on the fire, and re-arranged the Christmas roses in the blue jug beside the bed. At least they had curtains in this room, and a really comfortable bed for Ralphie – and perhaps her. Taggie clutched herself; she must not be presumptuous. There was a knock on the door.

‘Come in,’ croaked Taggie, hanging on to the mantelpiece for support.

The beautiful dark girl she’d seen in the hall came through the door. She was very slim and tiny, not more than five foot one.

‘Oh what a lovely room,’ she said, dumping a squashy bag and a black ruched dress on the bed, ‘and a fire too. You are kind. Will I be able to have a bath?’

‘Of course,’ stammered Taggie, ‘but it may not be a hot one.’

‘You must be Taggie,’ said the girl. ‘You look just like Patrick. Oh, look at the lovely Christmas roses! You shouldn’t have bothered.’

Taggie, blushing so hard she felt she could fry an egg on her face, said, ‘Actually this is Ralphie’s room.’

‘And mine,’ said the girl happily. ‘I’m Georgina Harrison, Ralphie’s girlfriend.’

Patrick had never seen such grief. Taggie seemed almost deranged, her whole body shuddering and shuddering with sobs.

‘I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it, I love him so much.’ ‘Angel, I know you do. But really it’s not on. He’s frightfully shallow, and you’re simply not his type. It’s not anything you’ve done, you’re just too large for him. It’s like expecting a chihuahua to mate with a wolfhound. Well, not quite, but, being small, he feels daunted by tall girls. He said to me last summer, “Your sister’d be absolutely heartbreaking, if only she were tiny.”’

‘I can’t shrink.’

‘Go off and nibble a mushroom.’

‘Don’t make jokes,’ sobbed Taggie.

‘Sweetheart, you’ve got to pull yourself together and get dressed. Mum and Dad have stopped rowing, but there’s no way they can organize the grub. Mrs Makepiece has arrived with two frightful teenage children, and Grace and Reg the butler and his friends are all getting stuck into the Moët. You must go down and supervise them. Now be a good girl and dry your eyes. I’m not twenty-one every day.’

Maud had the ability to make houses look beautiful. There were no curtains on the windows, but huge fires crackled in all the downstairs rooms, which were lit by hundreds of red candles and decorated by huge banks of holly, yew and laurel. She was also totally unfazed by being a hostess, or by the frightful row she’d just had with Declan. She had certainly never looked more beautiful. The Medusa curls had dropped a little after her bath, and framed her pale face to which the heat from the fires had given a touch of colour. She was wearing a very low-cut ivy-green taffeta dress with a bustle, which brought out the witchy green of her eyes and clung to her figure. She’d lost seven pounds, hardly eating a thing over Christmas. Pearls gleamed at her wrists, her ears and her throat. If she couldn’t ensnare Rupert tonight, she never would.

‘New dress,’ snarled Declan, tying his black tie in the drawing-room mirror.

‘Oh, this old thing,’ said Maud mockingly.

‘The old thing’s in the dress,’ said Caitlin sourly.

Pinching some of her mother’s scent, she had seen the bill for the dress, and really thought her mother had overdone it this time. Why did she need to spend that much money on clothes when she’d already got a man? Caitlin was worried that her father was deliberately setting out to get drunk, and even more worried about poor old Taggie. But at least at a ball with hundreds of people, Taggie might meet someone new.

‘Pretend it’s a job, pretend it’s a job,’ Taggie told herself through gritted teeth, as she stirred the great vats of turkey soup.

‘Could you possibly ask Caitlin to make sure Aengus is locked in one of the bedrooms? I’m afraid he might get under a car,’ she said to Mrs Makepiece’s daughter, Tracey, who, dressed in the tightest of black skirts and a white tricel shirt and pearls, was upwardly mobilizing her spiky hair in the kitchen mirror. Tracey was plainly avid to have a crack at one of Patrick’s friends.

Outside, Mrs Makepiece’s punk son Kevin was directing cars into a nearby field, and coming in frequently to fortify himself against the cold with slugs of wine. Reg and his two friends were doing sterling work drinking and circulating drink. Grace was already pissed. ‘Goodness you look tired,’ she said to Taggie. ‘What ’ave you been up to?’

Gertrude grew hoarse with barking as more and more people poured in. The party was plainly a success. Maud had produced a splendid mix: lots of London friends, who were knocked out by the beauty of the house and how good Maud was looking. Many of them had brought teenage children who were borne off upstairs for Malibu and coke in Caitlin’s bedroom. Then there were Patrick’s glamorous friends from Trinity, a large contingent from Corinium Television, and all Maud and Declan’s new friends from Gloucestershire, who were thoroughly over-excited to see so many London celebs. With two hours’ hard drinking before dinner, most people were soon absolutely plastered.

Bas Baddingham stunned everyone by turning up with a most beautiful wife – somebody else’s.

‘She left Alistair on December 12th, and was out hunting the very next day,’ said Valerie Jones in a shocked voice.

Valerie could also be heard saying repeatedly that she was simply exhausted after so many parties. ‘Fred-Fred and Ay simply longed for a poached egg in front of TV tonight, but we felt we couldn’t let the O’Haras down,’ she said to Lizzie Vereker. ‘What a crush, I hope we daine soon.’

‘Did you have a good Christmas?’ Lizzie asked Freddie.

‘Amizing,’ said Freddie. ‘Got some triffic presents. The staff gave me a fireman’s helmet, cos I’m always rushin’ about, and Rupert sent me a loaf of Mother’s Pride.’

Lizzie giggled.

‘Typical,’ said Valerie, her lips tightening.

‘And those bantams’ eggs you gave us were triffic, too. You can taste the difference. I ’ad one for my breakfast this morning.’ Freddie beamed at Lizzie.

‘Nonsense, Fred-Fred,’ said Valerie with a little laugh, ‘that egg came from Tesco’s.’

James, who’d skipped lunch because he was having his roots touched up, was drinking more than usual and thinking what a lot of amazingly beautiful women there were around: Joanna Lumley over there, and Patricia Hodge, and Pamela Armstrong, and Selina Scott and Ann Diamond.

Maud was looking sensational too, and there was Sarah Stratton,
not
looking as good as usual. There were black rings under her eyes, but she still exuded wantonness.

Sarah was, in fact, in a foul mood. She hadn’t had any lunch either, because she’d been hunting for a dress to wear this evening. She had missed Rupert horribly over Christmas. He obviously couldn’t ring her, as Paul had been home all the time, but she hadn’t even had a postcard, and then in Nigel Dempster’s column that morning there’d been a picture of Rupert skiing, with his arm round an incredibly glamorous French actress called Nathalie Perrault. She’d kill him when she saw him.

Where the hell was he, anyway? Who could she flirt with to irritate him? The most attractive men in the room, Sarah decided, were Declan, who was already drunk, and Declan’s son, a raving beauty, who was going to be very formidable in a few years’ time when he filled out. Sarah shimmied out to the marquee and, finding Rupert’s place card, moved it next to hers. How dare the bastard dally with Nathalie Perrault? Bloody Paul had read Dempster too, and made sly little digs about it all day.

Tony, to his amazement, was thoroughly enjoying the party. Shrewd enough to appreciate his vanity, Maud was treating him as the guest of honour, keeping him constantly plied with celebrities, mostly beautiful women, and introducing him to them as: ‘Declan’s gorgeous boss. You must get him to ask you down to Corinium, darling.’ Tony was soon purring like a great leopard let loose in a goat farm.

Archie, Tony’s beloved son, was getting plastered upstairs with Caitlin’s friends. Poor fat Sharon Jones was desperately shy. Caitlin had introduced her to boy after boy, ordering them to look after her, but within seconds Sharon had waddled back to her increasingly irritated mother.

‘I told you, go and make some friends of your own age,’ hissed Valerie furiously.

Mrs Makepiece sidled up to Maud. ‘Miss Taggie says we ought to eat; everything’s ready.’

‘We can’t till Rupert arrives,’ said Maud firmly. ‘Tell her to wait ten minutes.’

The doorbell rang. Perhaps this was him. She went into the hall, but Declan got there first, and it was only Simon Harris barging in with the two hyperactive monsters, and the baby in a carrycot.

‘Hullo, Declan,’ panted Simon. ‘Sorry we’re late. Nice of you to invite the whole brood.’ Then, seeing Declan’s look of horror, he explained, ‘I talked to someone called Grace, who said it’d be quite all right.’

Looking around, deciding that this was the sort of nice messy house that wouldn’t mind children, Simon let go of the two little monsters. ‘Where shall I put the baby?’

At that moment, Rupert sauntered through the open door with snow on his dinner jacket and in his hair, the dingy grey pallor of Simon Harris throwing his Gstaad suntan into even greater relief.

‘Rupert,’ said Maud joyfully, ‘you made it.’

She looked so beautiful, glowing under the hall mistletoe, that Rupert kissed her on the mouth. ‘You look sensational,’ he said.

‘Not nearly as sensational as you,’ whispered Maud. ‘You must have had wonderful weather.’

‘I can feel the temperature dropping here,’ said Rupert, as Declan turned on his heel and stalked off towards the kitchen. ‘What’s up with him?’

‘Oh he’s just in a bait.’ Maud turned to the passing Reg. ‘Bring Mr Campbell-Black a bucket of whisky.’

Going back to the kitchen via the marquee, Caitlin put her place card back on Rupert’s right and removed Wandering Aengus who was sitting on Valerie’s plate.

‘Wonderful party,’ she said to Taggie who was grimly pouring turkey soup into bowls on trays. ‘Rupert’s arrived looking like a red Indian, so Mummy says we can eat now, and Daddy’s terribly drunk.’

‘Daddy’s not the only one,’ said Taggie. ‘You should see Reg and his friends. Both Tracey and Kev have already buggered off upstairs, and good old Grace is singing “This Joyful Eastertide”.’

RIVALS

Tony Baddingham was even happier at dinner sitting between Joanna Lumley and Sarah Stratton.

‘I know by rights you should be on
my
right,’ Maud had whispered in his ear, ‘but I thought you deserved a treat.’

‘Freddie and Ay’ll be leaving early,’ said Valerie as she went into dinner. ‘The West Cotchester are meeting at Green Lawns tomorrow.’

‘They’re not meeting anywhere,’ said Rupert. ‘It’s frozen solid outside, so we can all get frightfully drunk.’

He wondered what had happened to Taggie. He couldn’t find her name on the seating plan.

‘You’re over here, next to me,’ Maud called to Rupert, patting the seat beside her.

‘And next to me,’ beamed Caitlin, bolting up to the table and whipping away Cameron Cook’s place card which was on his other side.