Oxford Blood Page 12

  'Useful to your Moses? Or useful to society?' asked Professor Ho.

  'Both,' said Jemima firmly.

  Not so much later Jemima, back in her flat, was pouring a placatory coup of champagne for a slightly sulky Cherry.

  'Yes I know, I know darling, whatever will I think of next!'

  'Are we really going to make this six-part series called "The National Blood"?' enquired Cherry, in which case I'm applying for a transfer.' But she drank all the same.

  'Why not?' asked Jemima with spirit, repeating to Cherry as to Professor Ho: 'At least it's useful.'

  'You promised me a good time among the Golden Kids,' Cherry grumbled, 'and now you're talking about a lot of blood. Which reminds me that Cy is back, and according to Miss Lewis, after yours. Blood that is. Wants to know why shooting hasn't started on the aforesaid Golden Kids. That's because he's sold the programme in the States and another couple similar about the Golden Kids of France and Germany - I guess that has to be West Germany, but as Miss Lewis said, you never know with Cy, he could pre-sell a programme about the Golden Kids of East Germany when he's in the mood.'

  'Does he know about Tiggie Jones' engagement to Saffron? Now there's a piece of news for you. 'Jemima waited smugly to see the effect of her little surprise on Cherry. 'You could even call it a Megalith romance since Tiggie was allegedly the researcher on the Golden Kids programme. As to shooting, even Cy Fredericks can hardly expect us to shoot our hero in hospital having been beaten up with a boat hook. Not very golden.'

  'Saffron and Miss Tiggie! Engaged!' Cherry sounded even more startled than Jemima had expected. She really looked quite astonished, her eyes round as saucers. 'Now that really does take my breath away.'

  'You mean - because of Cy?'

  'That and other things.'

  Cherry looked at Jemima, began to say something more, stopped herself and then said with perhaps rather more vigour than the occasion warranted: 'I never liked that girl.' She went on: 'Now tell me the questions you want me to ask about individual blood groups for this so-called programme.' Cherry sounded quite kind.

  A couple of evenings later Jemima found she also surprised Cass Brinsley with the news of Saffron's engagement. But then Cass was in the middle of a case and in that slightly captious mood she had come to associate with such situations. No doubt she herself was similarly abstracted - not to say irritable - when in the midst of shooting. All the same Jemima had to confess that his captiousness came as a slight disappointment when she herself had been looking forward quite eagerly, no really very eagerly, to seeing him following her return from Oxford.

  'I always knew that girl would come to a bad end. Her lashes were far too long for perfect honesty,' said Cass crossly.

  'Is it a bad end to marry a very rich young man?' Jemima thought of Proffy and Eugenia Jones' rather similar objections to her daughter's match.

  'It depends what you want.'

  'And what do you want, Cass?' It was quite a light-hearted remark but since it was already late, and they were sitting on the deep sofa in Jemima's flat, listening to Don Giovanni (Losey film version) Jemima half expected some romantic rejoinder. It was almost the end of the opera: with one ear cocked, Jemima heard the Commendatore dragging Don Giovanni down to hell, as the pious sextet rejoiced over his damnation. She rather thought her Don Giovanni might drag her down to bed . . . Instead of which Cass answered quite seriously:

  'What do I want, darling? Oh God, I wish I knew. Look it's late. Don G. has gone to hell and this case is getting to me. I'll call you tomorrow. OK?'

  He gave her a quick firm kiss on the mouth, touched her lightly on the breast and got up.

  A few minutes later Cass was gone. A few minutes after that Midnight came complacently through the cat flap and flumped himself down on Jemima's lap, purring loudly and stretching his black paws to her face. Midnight did not care to share Jemima's favours with other admirers.

  Jemima once again felt oddly disconcerted, that Emma-at-Box-Hill feeling which had overcome her in the High Street at Oxford. Whatever the nature of their relationship - so carefully undefined - she had been looking forward to going to bed with Cass that night.

  The presence of Midnight, large, furry and sensual nibbling at her cheek with his delicate tongue, only emphasized the absence of Cass.

  Better to think about blood. Saffron's blood. Jemima found Mourant, the book presented to her by Professor Ho, the title: Blood Relations and the sub-title Blood Groups and Anthropology. Perhaps Mourant would send her to sleep. She began, rather firmly, to read the preliminary remarks about visible characteristics such as the shape of eye or colour of skin fixed solely or partly by heredity and came to the passage:

  'In contrast to these visible characteristics, research during the present century shows that there is a class of invisible ones, fixed by heredity in a known way at the moment of conception, immutable during the life of the individual, and observable by relatively simple scientific tests. These are the blood groups

  Curiously enough, someone else was at that very moment also thinking dark thoughts about Saffron's blood. In a way these thoughts might have benefited from the absolute clarity brought by Mourant; as it was, they consisted of a great swilling wash of anger brought about by the knowledge that Saffron was not what he seemed, seething like a tide in the basin of an uneasy brain without any possibility of escape. Relief would only come through the spilling of that same blood, the interloper's blood.

  Bim Marcus had already paid the penalty for a mistake. The boat-hook incident had been a sudden impulse and as such had not really deserved to succeed. Planning was the essence of success. As Jemima restlessly put aside Mourant, and took up a P.D. James she had already read twice (its title ironically enough was Innocent Blood), the other person thinking about Saffron that night decided on what might turn out in the end to be the best plan of all.

  12

  Love and Hate

  Jemima Shore woke up about five o'clock. Neither Mourant nor P.D. James had ensured heavy slumbers. At first she was surprised to find herself alone and murmured rather sleepily: 'Cass.' Midnight too was absent: some dawn prowl had claimed him.

  An hour later, sleep being impossible, Jemima feeling remarkably discontented decided on a dawn prowl herself. The thought of Richmond Park in the early morning, green, quiet and empty, was suddenly extremely tempting. She pulled on a white track suit and filled a thermos full of coffee. She thought of a private breakfast picnic among the bracken; perhaps there would be deer; she could not remember which season it was which brought the deer to join the solitary picnickers.

  Jemima driving fast - too fast - in her Mercedes, had forgotten the early morning string of horses and riders which usually filed into the park at that hour. She came to a rapid halt. Then at the traffic lights she found herself drawn up beside one especially magnificent glossy horse, a chestnut, which took its rider way above the height of the low sports car.

  Jemima looked up. The rider was male, and like the horse, quite young and very glossy with thick hair not unlike the colour of his horse's coat.

  She smiled.

  'I like your horse.'

  'I like your car.'

  'Swap?'

  'Horses are worth more than cars, even Mercedes. What will you give me to make up the balance?'

  Jemima considered. The lights were changing.

  'I could give you a cup of coffee, but then what would you do with your horse?'

  'You know,' began the rider, 'you look rather like—'

  The light was green and Jemima shot forward. What with Cass and Mourant and Midnight, none of whom had proved themselves to be particularly rewarding companions during the night hours, she began to wish that she had rather a different nature. Why not, for example, take off into the bracken with a handsome and unknown young cavalier and forget the cares of the world, or at least the cares represented by the foregoing three names for the length of one morning's idyll? Why not?

  'Because I wouldn't ha
ve enjoyed it at all,' said Jemima sternly to herself as she laid out her solitary picnic in the bracken, car abandoned, some time later. 'That's why. What a perfectly ridiculous idea anyway. As it is, I'm already covered in bracken, so think what it would have been like ...' Jemima drank her coffee and did think, just for a moment, what it would have been like.

  Whether she was right or wrong about the anonymous cavalier would never be known, but she was still brushing fronds off her track suit when she entered Megalithic House. What was more, she was by now rather late, having encountered heavy traffic on her way from Richmond Park. The various traffic blocks gave Jemima plenty of time to ponder on a number of things, including whether there was a special God who deliberately sent down heavy traffic when you were late already and not for a reason that everyone in the world would consider a good one.

  Cherry, looking remarkably appealing in a pink cotton boiler-suit, many top buttons left untouched and a tight belt to clinch her figure at the waist, gazed speculatively at Jemima as she entered.

  'Messages first or a cup of coffee? You've just been having coffee? In Richmond Park? I knew it had to be something perfectly ordinary like that. Ah well, here goes. Cy of course. Three times, and I dare say Miss Lewis fended off some other of his reckless enquiries after your whereabouts before they reached me. Cass telephoned. Twice. Sounded agitated, if not as agitated as our Chairman. Says he missed you at home. And Saffron. Last but not least. First, he's out of hospital, back in his college. Second, the engagement weekend at Saffron Ivy has been fixed: bank holiday weekend at the end of May.'

  'Anything else?'

  'Oh yes. A man telephoned. Nice voice. Wondered if you drove a white Mercedes sports car. He thought he might have seen you in Richmond Park this morning.'

  'What a weird enquiry!' said Jemima in her most innocent tone.

  'That's what I thought. So I told him you drove an old black Ford and were anyway away filming in Manchester.'

  Cy Fredericks accepted with surprising equanimity Jemima's proffered explanation of a game of squash, and then a traffic delay driving from the squash club. It was the word club which seemed to soothe him.

  'The Squash Club!' he cried. 'Most exciting! Jemima, you must take me there sometime. Can one eat there late as well as early?' Luckily Miss Lewis entered before Jemima had time to sort out a suitable reply.

  As to Cy's keen enquiries about the progress of the Golden Kids programme, Jemima was able to stop them at source by her double revelation of Tiggie Jones' engagement and her own invitation to Saffron Ivy.

  'We'll be shooting there?' asked Cy in a specially reverent tone which he reserved for any conjunction of Megalith cameras and the more gracious aspects of English life.

  'No, no, all shooting in Oxford.' Jemima knew it was the moment to stand firm. 'I've got the whole thing lined up.' She took a chance. 'You didn't read my memo. We centre round the Commem Balls at the end of June. St Lucy's is having a big Commem this year - it's their turn - and Rochester is having an ordinary Ball, which I'm assured won't really be ordinary at all. We feature Saffron with Tiggie Jones, the future Lady Saffron, on his arm or anyway somewhere respectable like an arm, then the whole lot of them: the Golden Kids at play. Just what you wanted. Then we move to St Lucy's which is on the river: plenty of punting. Remember how keen you were on punting.'

  Cy Fredericks looked uneasy but Jemima thought it was more in reference to the unread (and as a matter of fact as yet unwritten) memo than at the prospect of Megalith cameras going punting. Which should actually have worried him more.

  'Tiggie Jones to wed,' he said at last. 'I shall never understand you English girls. Never.' Jemima thought it diplomatic not to probe further into that statement. Nor did Cy Fredericks seem in any mood to amplify it. It was his kind of obituary on the future Lady Saffron.

  The ten days or so before the Saffron Ivy weekend were spent by Jemima both at Megalith and Oxford in a frenzy of official activity as the Golden Kids programme suddenly became a reality - a hideous reality said Guthrie Carlyle in one of his daring sotto voce remarks at a planning meeting, and 'that bloody programme' was heard on more lips than just Jemima's. All sorts of questions had to be answered rather quickly, ranging from the practical to the theoretical.

  For example, was Spike Thompson (Jemima's favourite cameraman and many other people's favourite man) available? It was generally agreed that Spike would display an unrivalled mastery over the shadows on the long grass and Laura Ashley dresses and doomed youth and fingers trailing out of punts and ancient stone walls and all that sort of thing. He would also deal expertly with pop music, heavy metal, rock music, and sundry other concomitants of the modern world which Jemima, if not Cy, was well aware went with a successful Commem Ball. Spike could also be relied upon not to raise his camera - nor for that matter his eyebrows - at some of the more lethal habits of doomed youth, the exotic cigarettes to be puffed, the exotic white substances to be sniffed. In short Spike Thompson was, so far as Megalith was concerned, Thoroughly Modern Cameraman.

  'Champagne yes, if it's around, the rest of it no,' observed Guthrie Carlyle wisely. 'You can't drink and drug. At any rate not on a Megalith programme.'

  As for Spike's expenses: 'Even Spike can't do much with a lot of students' snack bars,' suggested some optimist. For Spike Thompson's expenses while on location were legendary; so that people sometimes swapped anecdotes about such trips at eventide in the Blue Flag, as Henry V predicted that the men who outlived Agincourt would recall St Crispin's Day.

  'I'm not sure we'll be moving exclusively in the snack bar set. The programme is called Golden Kids.'

  'But not Golden Cameramen,' retorted the optimist wittily. Jemima exchanged glances with Cherry. It was in both their minds that introducing Spike to La Lycee - and how could it be avoided? - was rather like showing an Alsatian into a butcher's shop.

  As to the theoretical side, it became increasingly obvious that there were two programmes here. One was the programme beloved of Cy Fredericks - the Golden Kids mean Big Bucks programme which was undeniably the type of programme he had successfully pre-sold in those parts of the world - the more luxurious parts - which he had recently visited. The other was the kind of socially investigative programme beloved of Jemima Shore and Guthrie Carlyle in which the lifestyle of the Golden Kids would be contrasted with that of the vast majority of the undergraduates eating in Hall, living off grants or, rather, struggling with inadequate grants, finding even coffee an expensive luxury and never touching a drop of champagne from one end of term to the other.

  'This is where Kerry Barber is important,' explained Jemima. 'He's our link. For one thing, he's not only boycotting St Lucy's Commem Ball but leading a protest outside it, a protest against the price of the tickets, that is. He thinks the money should go to the Third World and is prepared to say so to camera. He's also going to provide us with some undergraduates of the same way of thinking. We've got permission to film at St Lucy's as well as Rochester, so the Barber protest should be quite an effective contrast.'

  'Jem, my gem,' began Cy Fredericks warmly, 'you're doing wonders here as you always do. Rounded, human and humanitarian: I can see already how this programme is shaping. All the same, our motto here at Megalith has always been hard-nosed not hard-grained reporting.' He paused, giving everyone at the meeting including himself just time to wonder exactly what the difference if any between these two terms might be, before he rushed on: 'What I'm saying, and I think - Miss Lewis, is this right? - I think I'm quoting from my address to NIFTA last fall - the essence of interesting controversy on the screen is equality of protest.'

  Miss Lewis' silence being taken as assent, Cy beamed even more warmly, particularly at this last statement gained a great deal of muttered encouragement from all those present, delighted to have such an unexceptional sentiment with which to agree.

  'So, my gem, please no uncouth types in blue jeans given our air time for their causes ...'

  'I'm afraid I can't guarantee th
e elimination of jeans from the programme altogether,' interrupted Jemima sweetly, allowing her gaze to roam the room before resting briefly on her own designer-jean-clad thigh. 'But I should tell you that the principal protestor at St Lucy's on the night of the Commem will be Jack Iverstone, who is of course Saffron's cousin. Is that what you meant by equality of protest?'

  Everyone agreed afterwards that it was a noted victory for the cause of the good in the perpetual - and not unenjoyable - war waged between Cy and Jemima on the content of her programmes. But as a matter of fact the victory, if it was such, had been engineered by Fanny Iverstone. In the course of her various expeditions to Oxford, Jemima had found no difficulty at all in securing the agreement of assorted undergraduates to appear on the programme promoting assorted views. But although the views were varied, the declared motive for agreeing to appear was generally the same:

  'I thought I might go into television after I've gone down,' confided the innocent. The more sophisticated eyed Jemima keenly and asked details of graduate training schemes at Megalith. It all came to the same thing: most people at Oxford, like Kerry Barber, were perfectly prepared to share what they imagined to be Jemima's forum of the air.

  Nevertheless Fanny's approach took Jemima by surprise.

  Perhaps it should not have done. After all Fanny was an indefatigable organizer. Saffron was really quite right to compare his cousin to Mrs Thatcher - except that the latter had actually been at Oxford as an undergraduate whereas Fanny, as she had cheerfully admitted on their first meeting, had had no education at all. The thought occurred to Jemima as they sat in the dark plate-glass window of Bunns, Oxford's most fashionable cafe. Fanny was drinking an extraordinarily expensive cappuccino while Jemima toyed with an orange juice (equally expensive). In view of Fanny's forceful character, it was tragic that foolish Daphne Iverstone had taken no interest in her education. With education, Fanny might have gone far. Correction: Fanny would - somehow - go far; of that Jemima felt sure. The question was, in what direction?