Rivals by Jilly Cooper Page B

Don't open it now. It's a bit shaken up. Put it in the fridge.'
        'Oh, how really kind of you,' said the dark girl. She had a soft deep slightly gruff voice, like a teddy bear's growl. She looked very tired.
        Maud, having finished reading her piece of newspaper, glanced up and gave Lizzie the benefit of her amazing eyes which were almond-shaped, sleepy, fringed with very thick dark red lashes, and as brilliantly green as Bristol glass. Deciding Lizzie was worthy of interest, she introduced her daughters Taggie, short for Agatha, the tall dark one, and Caitlin, the little redhead.
        The sink was crammed with flowers still in cellophane. Sidling over, Lizzie noticed one lot was from Tony and Monica Baddingham, wishing the O'Haras good luck in their new house and a long and happy association with Corinium. 'All the nation's press tramped through here yesterday in the mud trying to interview Declan,' grumbled Maud. 'TV Times has been here all morning photographing us moving in. Two local papers are due this afternoon, and a man from the Electricity Board has been rabbiting on like Mr Darcy about the inferiority of our connections and says the whole place will have to be rewired. Have a drink.'
        She extracted a mug wrapped in a page of New Statesman, splashed some whisky into it for Lizzie and filled up her own tea cup.
        'It's a glorious house,' said Lizzie, raising her mug to them. 'Welcome. We're all wildly excited you've come to live here.'
        'After yesterday's deluge, we've discovered it leaks in half a dozen places,' said Maud, 'so we shall probably have to have a new roof as well.'
        'We're thinking of letting our grounds to some cows,' said Caitlin, putting down her binoculars and helping herself to a chocolate biscuit, which she proceeded to share with the black and white mongrel who was drooling on the window seat beside her.
        'Moving's very disorientating,' she went on. 'Daddy's trying to work upstairs, and he's frantic because he's lost his telephone book. Taggie's lost her bra.'
        'Caitlin!' The tall girl blushed.
        'And I've lost my heart,' continued Caitlin, training her binoculars back on Rupert Campbell-Black's house. 'Will you introduce me?'
        'He's not here that much,' said Lizzie. 'But when he is, I'm sure he'll introduce himself.'
        'It's not fair,' moaned Caitlin. 'I'm going to bloody boarding school next week, and I won't get first crack at him. He's bound to fall for Taggie - or even Mummy,' she said dismissively.
        There was a knock on the door and a removal man came in with a yellowing dress in a polythene bag: where did Mrs O'Hara want this put?
        'My wedding dress,' said Maud theatrically, rising to her feet and holding it against her. 'Just to think, twenty-one years ago.'
        'Ugh,' said Caitlin. 'It's gross. How did you get Daddy in that? But I suppose he didn't see you till he came up the aisle, and then it was too late.'
        'Caitlin, hush,' chided Taggie, as Maud's face tightened with anger. 'Mummy looked beautiful; you've seen the photos.'
        'Oh, put it in my bedroom,' snapped Maud, going back to the New Statesman.
        'I'm not sure I'm going to like living in the country,' said Caitlin, fiddling with the wireless. 'No Capital Radio, no Standard, no second post.' 'No second post!' Taggie's gasp of dismay was interrupted by a knock on the door. Another removal man wanted to know where the piano was to go. 'On the right of the front door,' said Maud.
        'Not there,' shrieked Caitlin. 'Wandering Aengus is shut in there, and that stupid bugger Daddy's let him out twice already.'
        And there's Daddy, the nation's biggest megastar, thought
        Lizzie.
        'Aengus is our cat. He's a bit unsettled,' said Taggie, smiling apologetically at Lizzie.
        'Oh look,' sighed Maud, unwrapping a baby's bottle. 'That was Patrick's when he was a baby.'
        Caitlin