Declan seemed hardly to notice, but Rupert’s jaw quilted with muscles when he saw Billy. ‘You’re fucking insane,’ he said roughly.
‘I like “lorst” causes, as Henry would say,’ said Billy cheerfully. ‘Anyway, I brought you luck at the LA Olympics. And you brought me luck, too. If I hadn’t done the commentary for the BBC, they’d never have given me a job.’
‘Which you’re about to lose.’
As the hands of the clock inched past nine-thirty, they decided that there was no point waiting any longer. Cameron wasn’t coming.
‘Pity,’ sighed Hardy Bissett, going round straightening ties. ‘Now, don’t forget, no sniping — solidarity is all. Sit up straight. Burst with enthusiasm. You’re bursting a little too much, Janey darling.’ He did up two buttons of her shirt. ‘Although, on reflection, if you’re sitting anywhere near the Prebendary, undo them again and press your elbows together.’
It was still bitterly cold when they set out for the IBA in their cars. The snow in the park was the colour of dirty seagulls. In High Street, Ken. the shop windows with their jolly snowmen, spangled Christmas trees and mufflered bright-eyed tots hurling snowballs were at variance with the sullen sky outside, and the shoppers shuffling blue-lipped and bad-tempered along the slushy pavements.
Janey’s scent was making Rupert feel sick. In a greengrocer’s shop, he noticed, they were already selling mistletoe, the one thing he wouldn’t need this Christmas.
‘Oh look, there’s Father Christmas,’ said Janey, pressing a button to lower the window, as the car swung round The Scotch House into Brompton Road.
‘Please Santa,’ she called out to him, as he marched alongside the car, ‘will you put a franchise in my stocking?’
‘Ho, ho, ho,’ said Father Christmas, hoisting his sack onto his back and batting his long black eyelashes at Janey. ‘For a pretty little girl like you, I just might.’
‘My Christ,’ said Janey, with a scream of laughter, as he turned right in front of the car and strode purposefully across the road through the revolving doors of the IBA. ‘It’s Georgie Baines.’
‘I wish I’d thought of that,’ said Charles petulantly. ‘I wanted to come as Gwendolyn Gosling again, but I thought I’d better play it straight.’
To avoid the press, and preserve the utmost security, the convoy of cars turned right down Lancelot Place, entering the IBA from the back by the underground car park. From here their passengers were whisked up to the eighth floor and, although the moles nervously looked for reporters in every dark corner, they were all safely led along the corridor and installed in an empty office.
‘I feel like a courtier waiting for an audience with Louis XIV: “Please don’t banish me to my estate in the Loire, Sire”,’ said Charles, as he peered out of the window on to another IBA block of offices, where every secretary seemed to be clutching paper cups of coffee and reading Rupert’s memoirs.
‘God, I’m nervous,’ said Henry, mouthing the answers to possible questions. ‘D’you think I should say brilliant wild life “photographer” or “cameraman”?’
‘Cameraman,’ said Billy. ‘Photographer is press, and we don’t like them very much at the moment.’
‘I wish I could take in a calculator,’ said Marti in a hollow voice.
‘D’you think they’ll shine lights in our faces?’ asked Janey.
‘They didn’t yesterday, but then Corinium has a better track record,’ said a voice. It was Georgie Baines, who’d shed his Father Christmas disguise and was now wearing a dark suit and fluffing up his dark curls.
Everyone crowded round him in delight.
‘Of course! You went in yesterday afternoon with Corinium,’ said Freddie.
‘Wearing a different tie,’ said Georgie.
‘How long were you in there?’ asked Seb.
‘Exactly an hour,’ said Georgie.
‘What was it like?’
‘Falling off a log. Not one difficult question. Tony’s star is definitely in the ascendant, that’s why I’m here. I’ve always believed rats should desert a rising shit.’
‘How did you manage to get away?’ asked Janey, removing a last bit of white beard from Georgie’s chin.
‘Tony thinks I’m at Saatchi’s.’
A female IBA official was going spare trying to organize everyone’s entrance into the board room in a pre-ordained order, so the Authority would know who they were.
‘I expected eleven people,’ she said in bewilderment. ‘There seem a great many more. I know who you are,’ she said to Janey, ‘and you,’ she said to Rupert, keeping her distance, ‘and you,’ she turned to Declan, looking perplexed as though she hardly recognized him.
‘Are you the Bishop of Cotchester?’ she asked Marti as she consulted her notes. Everyone giggled. ‘And I wasn’t expecting you, Mr White, or you, Billy, or you, Miss Maples, and certainly not you again, Mr Baines.’
‘Well we’re all here,’ said Harold White. ‘We belong to Venturer.’
‘Have you all got your two photographs?’
Everyone duly produced them.
‘Had to go into Woolworths to get it taken,’ announced Henry. ‘Never been there before. Rather a lark.’
The female official scratched her head in despair: ‘And where’s Cameron Cook?’
‘Not coming, nor the Bishop, nor Professor Graystock. They’ve dropped out,’ said Freddie helpfully. ‘Nor Wesley Emerson. He’s still wiv us, but he’s playing in a test match abroad.’
‘No, I’m not,’ said a voice deeper than the Caribbean Sea.
It was Wesley in a Support Venturer T-shirt and an England blazer. He was greeted with screams of delight. Dame Enid thumped him on the back till he pleaded for mercy.
‘How did you manage to get away?’
‘Pulled a muscle, man,’ said Wesley, grinning from ear to ear. ‘But I haven’t slept all night, so I hope there’s no tricky questions about ethnic minorities.’
Rupert took him aside. ‘You really are fantastic,’ he said.
Wesley grinned. ‘I read all that shit about you, man. Same thing happened to me; thought we ought to show a united front.’
‘I really think I’ve got you all sorted out,’ said the IBA lady. ‘I’ll just check that Lady Gosling’s ready.’
After that there was a dreadful quarter of an hour wait.
‘It’s just like standing outside the headmaster’s study,’ said Seb. ‘Are we going to have to run round the pitch fifty times or get six of the best?’
‘Amanda Hamilton’d like that,’ said Charles. Then, seeing the bleak expression on Rupert’s face, ‘Oh come on, Rupert, one’s got to laugh.’
Rupert, who’d been thinking of Taggie, didn’t really think one did have to.
‘Must go to the lavatory,’ said Henry.
‘Will you all come in, please?’ said the IBA lady.
‘Good luck, everyone,’ said Freddie.
‘Remember the old bat who isn’t Lady Gosling is Mrs Menzies-Scott, ex-chairman of the WI,’ hissed Georgie.
The twelve members of the authority, flanked by six senior staff from the IBA, were already seated along one side of the beautifully polished oval table, as Venturer filed in and took up their places opposite them.
In the centre sat Lady Gosling in a thick brown tweed suit and a bottle-green cardigan. Despite the warmth of the room, a thermal vest could be seen peeping above her brown check shirt. Mrs Scott-Menzies of the WI, who’d been foolish enough to wear a rust angora jersey, had already turned puce in the heat. Other members of the panel included such worthies as the ex-Labour Minister for Education, who gave Lord Smith the ghost of a wink, a Welsh Judge Davey, a Catholic bishop, the Prebendary, who had an expression of extreme distaste on his face, several dons, two ex-chairmen from public companies, and Lady Barnsley, late of the White Fish Authority, who was alleged to have an orgasm every time she saw a celebrity. Handbag rammed protectively against her groin, she was now gazing at Rupert with a mixture of terror and excitement. Three other Authority members, who’d been avidly reading the memoirs, hastily shoved them away as Venturer came in.