Rivals (33 page)

Never taking his eyes off her face, he started to unbutton his shirt.

‘It’s too soon,’ she whispered.

‘I’m not going to fuck you,’ said Patrick. ‘I’m just going to hold you close. You’ve got to learn that someone loves you for other things besides your heavenly body, and your skills as a career bitch.’

Patrick was as good as his word. Gradually the shuddering stopped and he soothed all the tension out of her. Exhausted by so much revelation, she even slept again. At midnight she insisted on going back to her house. He was very loath to let her go.

‘Let me get dressed. I’ll run you home.’

‘I’ve got my car.’

‘I want to see your house.’

‘That’s Tony’s patch.’

‘Not any more. Tony’s past history.’

Cameron sighed. ‘I guess it’s a bit more problematical than that.’

‘I feel like Demeter letting Persephone go back to the underworld,’ said Patrick as he fastened her seat belt. ‘For Christ’s sake, drive carefully. The roads are like glass. I’ll ring you tomorrow. I love you.’

Hell, thought Cameron, as she drove up to the house, I must have left the living-room light on. She glanced in the hall mirror. Not a scrap of make-up. Despite the sleep, the circles under her eyes were darker than her eyebrows. Patrick had really seen her in the raw, yet she felt strangely cleansed and at peace at having told him everything. Tomorrow they’d make love. She knew it would be wonderful. The slow lazy smile of anticipation was wiped off her face when she went into the living-room and found Tony.

The videos of her programmes lay scattered over the floor. The ashtray was filled with cigar butts. The whisky bottle, which had been half-full, was empty now. Tony was a slow drinker; he must have been there hours. Cameron shut the door and leant against it, her heart crashing. With a particularly unpleasant smile on his face, Tony picked up some papers lying on the table.

‘I’ve been looking at your contract,’ he said amiably. ‘D’you want to leave now or work out your notice?’

It was as though the last twenty-four hours had never existed. Here was reality. Her whole career, her only security, was crashing round her ears in ruins.

‘I haven’t done anything. You can’t fire me,’ she whispered in terror.

‘I don’t have to. Your contract runs out in six weeks. Such a pity you blew it.’ He examined his square, beautifully manicured fingernails. ‘I came round to tell you that Simon Harris gave in to his nervous breakdown and was carted off to a loony bin this afternoon on extended leave. But you know what I feel about unpunctuality and twenty-four hours is a little late to come home from the ball.’

‘But I never normally see you on a Sunday,’ said Cameron illogically. She seemed too stunned to take anything in.

‘That doesn’t mean I don’t expect you to be here.’

Smiling, he picked up his glass of whisky.

‘You bloody little whore,’ he said softly. The next moment he’d hurled it in her face.

For a second she was speechless, as the liquid dripped down on to the suede dress.

‘How odd,’ she said in a strained, high voice. ‘Every time I buy something new and expensive some jerk spills something all over it.’ Then she lost her temper.

‘You bastard,’ she screamed. ‘I haven’t taken a weekend off in three years. I’m always at your fucking beck and call.’

‘That’s what I pay you for,’ said Tony. His eyes were sparkling with pleasure now.

‘You bloody don’t. If you paid me golden time for the hours I put in for you, I’d be Howard Hughes by now. You frig around doing exactly what you like, expecting me to behave like a fucking nun, except when you require my services. Well, it’s not bloody good enough.’

She sprang at him, trying to claw his face, but he grabbed her wrists. He was not bull-necked and thick-armed for nothing. As his grip tightened, Cameron gasped with pain.

‘I’d put up with it,’ she said through clenched teeth, ‘if the relationship was remotely even. You raise hell if I date anyone else, but you’re quite free to take darling Sarah Stratton out to lunch and make passes at her and offer her a job.’

Tony’s eyes gleamed. ‘So that’s it. Who told you that?’

‘She did,’ yelled Cameron, desperately struggling to get away. ‘And she said you still sleep with Monica.’

Tony grinned. ‘She must have an excellent spy system.’

‘The Old Bag system. Monica told Winifred, who told Paul, who told Sarah that, as you were always pestering her, Monica restricts you to once a week. And you told me you hadn’t laid a finger on her for years. You bloody liar.’

‘It’s rather exciting sleeping with Monica,’ mused Tony. ‘There’s a rarity element about it.’

‘So that’s why you sent Madden tripping out to James Garrett on Christmas Eve to buy us both diamond bracelets. Jesus Christ!’

Starting to laugh, Tony let go of her wrists. ‘You discovered that too, did you? Poor little Cameron, you must have been festering over Christmas. Jealousy is the most destructive of emotions, you know. It hurts only oneself.’

‘I hate you,’ screamed Cameron, wrenching off the bracelet and hurling it at him. Missing him, it hit the window, slithering scratchily down the glass like a fingernail on a blackboard.

‘Get out! I’ll move out tomorrow, but leave me alone now.’ She collapsed, sobbing, on the sofa. Regurgitating her past with Patrick earlier had only underlined how terrifying it was to have no security. She was a panic-stricken sixteen-year-old again, racing through the night away from Mike with nowhere to go.

Tony poured two fingers of brandy into a glass, then moved towards her, until she could feel the solidness of his thigh against hers. She resisted the temptation to cling on to it, as a child might fling its arms around a tree for comfort.

‘You were jealous, really jealous,’ purred Tony. ‘Was that why you led that boy on?’

‘Sure.’

He caught her hair, yanking her head back. ‘Did you sleep with him?’

‘Yes,’ she muttered. Then, terrified he was going to hit her or throw the brandy into her face, ‘But not the way you think, I was so goddam tired. I hadn’t slept for nights worrying about everything. I crashed out on his bed.’

‘And nothing happened?’

‘Nothing, nothing! He’s just a kid.’ Oh please make him believe her.

‘Did Declan know you spent the night there?’

‘No, I never saw him. He never came out of the bedroom.’

With the franchise coming up this year, Tony decided, he didn’t really want to lose her, but he was going to enjoy torturing her a bit more.

‘And you promise never to see the boy again?’

‘I promise,’ said Cameron wearily. ‘But he may try to see me.’

‘We’ll have to put pressure on Declan to stop him then, won’t we?’ said Tony silkily, as he took off Cameron’s jacket.

‘That is a very disturbing dress. I’d rather you didn’t wear it in public again.’

Putting his hand under the skirt, he jabbed two fingers up inside her.

Cameron winced. ‘I can’t, Tony, not tonight. I’m really pooped.’

‘You can,’ said Tony softly, ‘if you want to be Controller of Programmes.’

Three days after Patrick’s party Taggie was gingerly testing her heart and finding that the ache for Ralphie was much less acute than she’d expected it to be when the doorbell rang.

In the doorway stood Rupert. His suntan was already beginning to fade.

‘Hullo,’ he said, soulfully gazing into her eyes. ‘Since your wonderful party, I haven’t been able to eat a thing.’

‘Oh my goodness,’ stammered Taggie, her heart beginning to thump.

Rupert grinned. ‘Could I possibly have my knives and forks and plates back?’

Taggie was used to unrequited love. Patrick, however, was not. Hopelessly spoilt by his mother, accustomed to attracting girls effortlessly, he couldn’t believe Cameron didn’t want to see him any more.

Despite Declan’s tirades and Taggie’s pleading, he continued to pester her with letters and telephone calls. Then, when these were not answered, he hung round the Corinium studios and outside her house.

Cameron, in fact, had hardly had time to think. As well as producing Declan’s programme and coping with her new job as Acting Controller of Programmes, she had to face a virtual palace revolution from a staff outraged by her appointment.

The afternoon before he was due to go back to Trinity, Patrick rang Cameron at the office. Expecting a call from Rupert about coming on Declan’s programme, Cameron unthinkingly picked up the telephone instead of leaving it to her secretary.

‘Can I speak to Cameron?’ said Patrick.

Cameron froze. Putting on a cockney accent, she said, ‘I’m afraid she’s not at her desk at the moment.’

‘Where is she?’ snapped Patrick. ‘Lying with the Managing Director under
his
desk.’

Cameron hung up.

The telephone was ringing again as she got home that evening. Running into the hall, she snatched up the receiver. It was Rupert answering her call.

‘We were talking about a date for you to come on Declan’s programme,’ she said with a confidence she didn’t feel. ‘I was just hoping to firm you up.’

Rupert laughed. ‘Extraordinary terminology you use in television.’

His diary was ridiculously full, but to her amazement he said he could make a Wednesday in February, which turned out to be St Valentine’s Day. He’d been so adamant he wouldn’t do the programme.

‘And in case I don’t bump into Declan beforehand, can you ask him if he’s free for dinner afterwards?’

Cameron didn’t say that after Declan had taken Rupert to the cleaners she thought it most unlikely.

‘That was a good party on New Year’s Eve,’ said Rupert. ‘I saw you bopping in your suede dress. I hoped you’d jump out of your skin.’

The next moment Cameron nearly did jump out of her skin, as she felt a kiss on the back of her neck. Patrick had walked in through the unlocked door.

‘Get out,’ hissed Cameron, clapping her hand over the receiver.

Shaking his head, Patrick sauntered into the living-room. She caught a blast of whisky as he passed.

Talking gibberish, furious at having to wind up her conversation with Rupert so abruptly, she said goodbye and went into the living-room, where she found Patrick hurling darts at the dart board.

‘Nice place you’ve got here. I can see why you wouldn’t want to give it up in a hurry.’

‘Get out,’ screamed Cameron.

‘Not until you tell me why you didn’t ring back.’

He went up to the board, and pulled out the darts. His hands were shaking, his eyes were black hollows in a deathly pale face. He must have lost pounds; he looked terrible.

‘There was no reason to call back. We had a fun day.’

‘A fun day?’ he asked incredulously. ‘Was that all it meant to you, after the sunrise, and all you told me about your mother and Mike and you falling asleep in my arms?’

‘Shut up,’ hissed Cameron, looking round in terror, expecting Tony to pop up from under the piano.

Patrick picked up a huge bunch of anemones which he’d left on the dentist’s chair.

‘I bought you these. For Christ’s sake, I love you. Can’t you understand that?’

In answer Cameron snatched the flowers from him and hurled them into the fireplace. Patrick winced and turned back to the dart board. The first dart missed, crashing into the wall, the second hit the glass in the frame of one of Cameron’s awards, the third hit a plate.

‘Pack it in,’ said Cameron more calmly. ‘If Tony turns up, he’ll kill us both.’

‘He’s a fiend. I’ve been checking up on him,’ said Patrick, sitting down at the piano. ‘He’s so avaricious,’ he went on between crashing chords, ‘even the bags under his eyes have got gold in them, and he’s corrupting you too, turning you into his pet Rottweiler to savage any of his staff he wants to reduce to jelly. You’ll never get out of the Underworld if you stay with him.’

‘Tony suits me,’ said Cameron over the din. ‘We’ve been together for three years, OK? My career’s the only thing that matters.’

‘So you agreed to drop me if he made you Controller of Programmes?’

‘You flatter yourself. What can you offer me?’

Patrick’s hands came down in a jumble of discords. ‘
I, being poor
,’ he said bitterly,
‘can only offer you my dreams.’

‘Stop talking like a prime-time soap.’

‘You should know, you make enough of them. Can I have a drink?’

‘You’ve had enough,’ snarled Cameron. ‘Tony’ll be here in a minute.’

‘And he’ll settle you in that dentist’s chair,’ said Patrick scornfully, ‘and say “open wide”, and then it’s Wham, bam, thank you, Mammon. My Christ.’

He slammed the piano lid down and got to his feet.

‘Don’t be obnoxious,’ hissed Cameron.

On New Year’s Day, when she’d sobbed in his arms, he’d seemed so strong. Suddenly now he looked terribly young and frightened. Cameron was too insecure herself to be drawn to frailty.

‘I’m truly sorry,’ he muttered. ‘It hurts loving you, that’s all. Look, I’ll do anything. I’ll chuck Trinity, get a job. It’ll be easy with Pa’s connections.’

‘Always fall back on Daddy, don’t you?’ taunted Cameron. ‘You bitch about his philistine programme, but you’ll bleed him white when it suits you. Well I’m not having you bleeding
me
white. Can’t you get it into your Neanderthal skull that I don’t want you around?’

Guilt at the way she’d treated him made her even more brutal.

‘I can’t help myself,’ said Patrick, going towards the door. ‘La Belle Dame sans merci has me totally in thrall.’

He went to the nearest pub and drank until long after closing time. The landlady felt sorry for the beautiful, obviously desolate young man sitting there quietly gazing into space.

At midnight Patrick parked his car four houses down from Cameron’s and got out. It was a punishingly cold night. Cotchester slumbered beneath her eiderdown of snow. In a sky russet from the streetlamps huge stars flickered. Icicles glittered from Cameron’s gutters. In front of the house beside Cameron’s green Lotus was parked Tony’s bloody great dark-red Rolls Royce with the Corinium ram on the bonnet. There was a light on in the top of the house – Cameron’s bedroom, guessed Patrick. He imagined Tony brutally clambering over her lovely body. The Sunday before last she’d lain in his arms, pliant as a child. He wanted to plunge one of the icicles into Tony’s heart.