Riders (35 page)

Rupert had been competing abroad for much of the last five months, and during the separations she’d been very lonely and spent many restless nights worrying she might miscarry or the baby might be deformed. She took her pregnancy very seriously, eating the right food, resting, going religiously to prenatal classes, and giving up drink completely. So those jolly reunions after Billy and Rupert came back from successful shows, when even Helen got mildly tight, were things of the past.

She steeled herself not to mind when Rupert was away. She missed him, but subconsciously she built up other resources. She spent a fortune on baby clothes and another fortune on a new nursery suite, decorating the baby’s room daffodil yellow and white and putting in an oven, a washing machine, a dryer, and a small fridge next door, with a room for the nanny, all done up in Laura Ashley, beyond that.

She also liked being able to watch all the egghead programs she wanted on television, to listen to classical music all the time, and not to have to cook huge meals when she was feeling sick.

Then Rupert would come home, bringing not tenderness but silver cups and suitcases of dirty washing. Invariably on his return he wanted a sexual marathon, and although her gynecologist had reassured her that sex couldn’t harm the baby, Rupert’s lovemaking was so vigorous that she was terrified she’d miscarry and found herself tensing up and going dry inside.

She also had the feeling Rupert wasn’t being supportive enough. He flatly refused to go to prenatal classes or be present at the birth.

“It’s too Islington for words,” he said, by way of excuse. “I’ve pulled calves, I’ve pulled foals, but I’ll be buggered if I’ll pull my own baby. I’ve found you the best gynecologist in the country, booked you into a private room at Gloucester Hospital. Let them get on with it.”

He also laughed his head off when he found her listening to Beethoven and Vivaldi in order to stimulate mentally the baby in the womb.

“D’you want to give birth to a string quartet?”

Throughout November and December he’d been away on a successful but punishing round trip to Geneva, Vienna, and Amsterdam, which left only a hectic twenty-four hours at home before setting out for Olympia. Even so Rupert found time for sex. He’d won a Polaroid camera as one of his extra prizes at Amsterdam and was determined to take photographs of Helen in the nude.

“Your boobs are so fantastic since you got pregnant.”

Helen, conscious of her swelling stomach, couldn’t get into the swing of things at all. Nor did she like being photographed first thing in the morning without any makeup on.

“It’s not your face I’m interested in,” said Rupert, laying each photograph on the dressing table so they gradually took on color and shape, until he got so turned on he had to make love to her.

Afterwards she came out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, to find a naked Rupert joyfully poring over the photographs.

“For goodness’ sake put them away. Mrs. Bodkin might see them,” she pleaded.

“This one’s much the best. Come and look.”

Helen approached cautiously; then embarrassment turned to rage as she realized he was admiring not her naked beauty but a photograph of Badger, lying grinning upside down in his basket, now banished to the landing.

“I must show Billy,” said Rupert.

“Why not take one of Mavis, too?” snapped Helen.

She was fed up with those wretched dogs and horses. It wasn’t a question of playing second fiddle; she wasn’t even in the orchestra.

Later Rupert and Billy had a session with their secretary, Miss Hawkins, catching up on the mail and checking that entry forms had been sent off for the next few months. When Helen came down with some washing she found the dark blue diary for the next year on the kitchen table. They must have been working out the first six months’ show dates. Fondly she turned to March 7, the most important entry of all, the expected date for the birth of the baby. But instead, to her fury, she found Antwerp, Dortmund, Milan scrawled across the first eighteen days in March, with red marker arrows stretching from page to page indicating they wouldn’t be returning to England between shows. Helen couldn’t believe it. Rupert intended to be away for the most momentous event of his life. She stormed into the drawing room, where Rupert was pouring himself and Billy prelunch drinks.

“Billy, will you please leave the room,” she said in a dangerously quiet voice. “I want to speak with Rupert.”

“Yes, sir, certainly sir,” said Billy, grinning and making himself scarce.

“What on earth’s the matter?” asked Rupert. “Not sulking about Badger’s picture, are you? D’you want a drink?”

“You know I haven’t touched liquor since I became pregnant. I’d like to know the meaning of this.” She flung the diary at Rupert. “Look at March.”

Rupert opened it. “Well? Oh, I’m sorry to be away three weeks on the trot, but they’re all good shows and I’ll be home a lot in January and February.”

“Haven’t you any idea what else is happening in March?”

Rupert look blank. “Can’t think.”

“Our baby is to be born.”

Rupert grinned in dismay. “Oh, Christ, angel, I’m frightfully sorry. It completely slipped my mind. Don’t worry, I can hop on a plane the minute you go into labor, or if you really think it’ll arrive on the seventh,” he glanced at the diary, “I could fly out late to Antwerp. They don’t have the big prize money there till the third day.”

Helen, for the first time since they were married, went berserk, screaming abuse at Rupert, her red hair flying like a maenad, her face scarlet.

Rupert looked at her in amazement. “Are you sure you haven’t been drinking?”

The next minute she was hurling ornaments at him. The altered Augustus John went flying through the air and hit the wall with a splintering crash. Then she started on the bookshelf.
Burke’s Landed Gentry
nearly landed on target, followed by
Ruff’s Guide to the Turf,
followed by bound volumes of
Paradise Lost
and Dante’s
Inferno.
Gibbon’s
Decline and Fall
fell at Rupert’s feet. Rupert, laughing and dodging out of the way like a boxer, annoyed her even more. As the top shelf was emptied, there was a knock on the door. It was Mrs. Bodkin in her hat and coat, quivering with curiosity.

“Was there anything else?”

“Yes,” said Helen. “Bring me a jug of orange juice, please.”

Two minutes later Mrs. Bodkin puffed in with the jug and two glasses on a tray.

“Thank you. That’ll be all, Mrs. B. See you tomorrow,” said Helen, firmly shutting the door on her. Then, picking up the jug of orange juice, she hurled it in Rupert’s face and collapsed sobbing on the sofa.

Nothing Rupert could say would placate her. If he wasn’t going to be with her when the baby was born, she wasn’t coming to his bloody show. She still refused to speak to him when he and Billy set off to London that afternoon. Rupert, who’d always believed that a room full of roses and a gold bracelet could placate any woman, was slightly surprised.

O
lympia, the last show before Christmas, always has an end-of-term atmosphere. Most of the riders have a break afterwards until the middle of January. All the glamour of the sport is concentrated and enhanced by an indoor show. The collecting ring stewards and the stable manager in charge of the one hundred and fifty loose boxes have increasing difficulty keeping high-spirited riders in order as the excitement mounts. Practical jokes and parties go on all week.

Neither Billy nor Rupert, however, were in a particularly festive mood as their lorry rolled into the horse-box park on the eve of the first day. Billy was fretting because he suspected Lavinia Greenslade had transferred her affections to a handsome French count named Guy de la Tour. Rupert was still smarting over Helen’s intransigence. Christmas shopping traffic jams were driving him wild.

“Fuck the plebs, fuck the plebs,” he screamed, leaning on his horn.

Billy was further depressed to see a huge lorry carelessly parked like an acute accent, with Guy de la Tour, Republique Française in huge letters across one side.

“Let’s go and get drunk,” said Billy.

Rupert’s temper was not improved the following day when they walked past the exercise ring and saw Fen lunging Revenge.

“Nice horse,” said Billy.

Although Revenge had been transformed into a picture of hard muscle, health, and well-being over the past six months, he was still unmistakable with his strange zigzagging blaze and his two long white socks. For a second they paused to watch him.

“Don’t recognize the groom,” said Billy.

“I say, darling,” shouted Rupert.

Fen swung round, turning crimson. She couldn’t believe they were talking to her.

“What’s the name of that horse?”

“Revenge.”

“Who does he belong to?”

“Jake Lovell.”

“Shit, that’s where he’s ended up,” said Rupert. “The little bastard pulled a fast one on me. I wonder who tipped him off.”

Dear God, prayed Fen fervently, make my spots go, give me some decent boobs, and don’t let me fancy Rupert Campbell-Black.

At the beginning of the week the collecting ring gossip was all of the two Italian horses who had escaped and had a lovely time galloping up and down the main road. Now it had switched to Guy de la Tour’s romance with Lavinia and to Jake Lovell’s new horse. Every time Revenge came into the arena, afternoon or evening, people rushed to the ringside to have a look. At the beginning of the show, the lights and the crowds had upset him and he went around star-gazing and leaping two foot above the jumps like a ginger, hairy-legged spider. After forty-eight hours, he settled down.

There had been a bad moment, however, on the second day. Jake put his foot in the stirrup and Revenge put in a hell of a buck, landing Jake on top of a steaming pile of dung.

“Found your own level, Lovell,” jeered Rupert as he rode past. Jake’s reply was suitably obscene. It took all Fen’s tact to calm him down.

“I’ll soak your breeches in bleach,” she said soothingly. “All the stains’ll come out.”

Nor were the fates being kind to Billy. Just when he was trying to woo Lavinia back, a local barber gave him a hideous, far-too-short haircut.

“I got so engrossed in
Playboy,
I forgot to watch him,” moaned Billy afterwards.

Even worse, Billy turned The Bull too fast into the combination on the second night, forcing him to put in a stop. Billy sailed over his head, landing on a pole and knocking out his two front teeth, which further damaged his beauty. There wasn’t time to have them capped. He’d have to wait until after Christmas.

With no sign of Helen, Rupert’s eye started to rove. Every day there were novelty events—the Army did a display of tent-pegging, lady clowns did dressage. The pony club put on a demonstration of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” First amused by the fact that Snow White’s horse had diarrhea, Rupert’s eye then fell on a ravishing girl playing Grumpy named Tiffany Bathgate. During the week he’d bought her drinks and chatted her up. He even bought her a £150 gold watch from the Garrard’s stand as a Christmas present, which she permanently showed off on her wrist like a dog holding out a sore paw.

By the final night Fen was absolutely knackered. She hardly had the energy to wash her hair for the party that night. Living on junk food all week, her spots were worse than ever. She longed and longed to be a rider or at least one of the elite bunch of grooms who all knew each other, swapped endless gossip, and who had found time to go shopping and come back with pretty clothes from Biba and Bus Stop. She admired from afar the handsome Guy de la Tour, he who had so captivated Lavinia. Love had made Lavinia prettier than ever. She had cut off her long bubble curls and now, with her hair as short as a boy’s, looked the epitome of French chic. Already half the show-jumping groupies, who hung around the place in breeches hoping someone might mistake them for a competitor, had followed suit and lopped off their long rippling manes as well. Fen also noticed Billy looking absolutely miserable. She felt so sorry for him, although he had cheered up a bit earlier that evening when he and Rupert won the fancy dress relay. Billy with a pipe in his mouth and a Gannex mac had dressed up as Harold Wilson, while Rupert cavorted around in high heels, a red dress, and a blond wig, with orange peel in his teeth, as Marcia Falkender. It had brought the house down.

Now all the grooms were getting their charges ready for the last event, the Radio Rentals Grand Prix. Fen, with both Sailor and Revenge to do, had her work cut out. Cries of “Give me the body brush,” “Anyone seen my sponge?” “Christ, they’re calling us already,” were coming from all sides.

“In the bleak midwinter frosty wind made moan,” sang the loudspeaker. Now the band was playing “Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho” for the pony club demo. Rupert and Billy sat side by side in the riders’ stand, their long legs up on the backs of the seats in front, watching Grumpy.

“Isn’t she gorgeous?” said Rupert smugly. “She’s coming out with me tonight.”

“How old is she?” asked Billy.

“Sixteen, or so she claims.”

“Shouldn’t be playing Grumpy, she’s grinning like a Cheshire cat,” said Billy, as Tiffany Bathgate cantered by, ponytail swinging. “I’ll report her to the district commissioner.”

“She’s bringing Dopey with her,” said Rupert. “Meeting me at the flat. Just imagine having the two of them.”

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” snapped Billy.

“Why don’t you come too?”

“I’m going to the party afterwards. I must talk to Lavinia. She’s been avoiding me all week. Her parents are wild about Guy because he’s a count.”

“A cunt,” said Rupert.

“That too,” said Billy.

“I wonder if Greenslade père realizes Guy hasn’t a bean,” said Rupert. “He needs the Greenslade cash to keep his place going in France. ‘I cannot afford to ’eat the underrooms,’ he told me last night. Do you think I should give Helen an English setter puppy for Christmas?”

“No,” said Billy.

Snow White and her entourage cantered out of the ring, with Grumpy blatantly grinning at Rupert, as the arena party put the finishing touches to the jumps for the Grand Prix. Now the rose red curtains which parted theatrically to admit each competitor were clashing with the scarlet coats of the riders, as they walked the course to a jazzed-up version of “Oh Come All Ye Faithful.”

The collecting ring was very hazardous. Belgians crashed their horses over the jumps crying “Numero Huit, Numero Sept” to their grooms and discussing where they were going for dinner. Rupert was having a row with an Irish rider (nicknamed Wishbone, because of his long bow legs) because they had both tried to jump the upright at the same time.

Fen walked her two horses around the outside, keeping out of trouble, Sailor calming Revenge, who looked as beautiful as Sailor looked ugly. Fen was still shaking from her first encounter with her mother and Colonel Carter since she left home. As owners, they’d come to the show to watch Revenge. Molly had been “absolutely livid” with Bernard when she discovered he’d spent £5,000 on a horse for Jake, behind her back. She’d denied him her bed for more than a month. But gradually she was beginning to appreciate the kudos of being a winning owner. Everyone was tipping Revenge as an Olympic probable. Molly was already planning her wardrobe for the next games in Colombia the following August. She enjoyed sitting in the riders’ stand and talking about “My horse” in a loud voice. Molly was also very relieved that Fen appeared to have totally lost her looks.

Certainly it had been Jake’s show. Africa, Sailor, and Revenge had all won big classes. You couldn’t get into the lorry for silver cups. Sailor grew in popularity, the crowd were wild about the “Old Mule,” with his mangy tail and his drooping head, who caught fire in the ring. Whenever he left the lorry now Jake was mobbed by autograph hunters. And Fen told him someone had written “I love Jake Lovell” on the wall of the Ladies’, and underneath lots of people had written “Me, too.” Joanna Battie had interviewed Jake for the
Chronicle,
gushing over his romantic gypsy looks. Jake pretended to disapprove, but secretly he was delighted and had reread the piece several times. He had even been interviewed by Dudley Diplock as he came out of the ring. The fact that he hardly got a word out didn’t seem to matter. He smiled, and when Jake smiled publicly, which was about once every five years, the world melted.

The bell rang, the riders left the arena. In the distance you could still hear the mournful cry of the men on the gate trying to flog programs to last-minute arrivals. The arena was flooded with light for the television cameras. As Rupert mounted Belgravia, he spat out his chewing gum.

“I want it,” said a besotted teenager, rushing forward. A deafening cheer lifted the roof off as Rupert rode into the ring.

I can’t help it, thought Fen. He’s vile, but he is attractive. Rupert jumped an untroubled clear and rode out as Ivor Braine rode in. The collecting ring steward, who had a headache from drinking too much at lunchtime, was shouting at late arrivals.

“I’m going to report Rupert Campbell-Black to the BSJA for calling me a fart,” he grumbled. “And you’re late, too,” he said to Humpty, who was supposed to be jumping next.

“Get out of my way then, you little fart,” said Humpty. “You’re a worse nagger than my wife.”

Humpty also went clear.

Billy, waiting to jump, felt near to suicide. Lavinia was still avoiding him. Now Count Guy was in the collecting ring, crashing over the practice fence, pretending not to understand the collecting ring steward, who was now castigating
him
for being late.

“That man is a preek,” he drawled to Lavinia, as he rode towards the rose red curtains.

“
Bonne chance,
my angel,” said Lavinia, blowing him a kiss.

Count Guy’s dark brown stallion, however, took a dislike to the curtains and shied into a group of officials in pinstripe suits, dislodging for a moment the complacency of their smooth flushed faces, as they scuttled for cover. Then with a flurry of Gallic expletives, Guy rode into the arena and proceeded to lay waste the course.

“Oh, bad luck, darling,” said Lavinia as he came out, shrugging dramatically, reins dropped, palms of both hands turned to heaven.

“Fucking frog,” muttered Billy as he passed him on the way in. But he was so upset, he jumped badly and notched up twelve faults.

“I’ve got a splinter,” grumbled Marion.

Ignoring her, Rupert went back to the riders’ stand to watch the rest of the rounds. As he listened to a group of German riders chattering behind him, his thoughts contentedly drifted towards Tiffany Bathgate who, with her dumpy friend, would at this moment be washing themselves (as well as they could in the Olympia showers) for him. There were two bottles of champagne in the flat fridge. Perhaps he should offer them a proper bath when they arrived. Goodness knows where that might lead.

The next moment the two girls were forgotten, as Jake and Revenge came in, jumping unevenly but very impressively. Revenge was fooling around between fences, but when he jumped he really tucked his legs up.

I want that horse, thought Rupert grimly. He’s got everything I like: brains, temperament, good looks.

He was suddenly aware that the woman on his right was making a lot of noise.

“Do you remember me?” she said, turning to Rupert.

“I never forget a face like yours, but I’m terrible at names,” said Rupert. It was his standard reply.

“I’m Molly Carter, Maxwell that was. Tory, my daughter, was doing the season in 1970. You were
such
a deb’s delight. All the mums were in love with you, too.”

“Tory. Of course I remember. Very shy, treated every man as if he was going to chuck snowballs with stones in at her.”

“She married Jake Lovell, you know. It was a bit of a shock at the time, but he’s done awfully well.”

“Helped by Tory’s money, of course,” said Rupert.

“Oh, of course. He’d never have made the grade without her.” She gave a little laugh. “And my husband’s been helping him out recently.”

“Really,” said Rupert, his brain beginning to tick.

“Revenge is our horse.”