Riders (40 page)

Feeling utterly deflated, he went back to the stable where an ecstatic Podge was chattering to Revenge as she settled him for the night.

“Didn’t you do well, darling? It’s Colombia here we come. We’ll have to make you a sun hat to keep off the flies.”

“Don’t count your chickens,” said Rupert, checking Revenge’s bandages.

“You look really tired,” said Podge, then, blushing, added, “I bet you didn’t eat last night, nor this morning. I made you a shepherd’s pie for tonight. It’s not very good and I’m sure you’d rather go out with Billy.”

Rupert pulled the half-door behind him: “I’d much rather stay in, right in,” he said softly, drawing her towards him, “and I absolutely adore shepherd’s pie.”

“Oh, we can’t,” squawked Podge, “not here, not in front of Rev.”

“Want to bet?” said Rupert, pushing her against the wall.

Jake Lovell heard the news on the tackroom wireless as he was filling in the diet sheets. Fen, who was cleaning tack, didn’t dare look at him.

“After a successful trial in Aachen, Germany,” said the announcer, “the following riders and horses have been picked for the Olympics in Colombia: Charles Hamilton and Porky Boy, Billy Lloyd-Foxe and The Bull, Rupert Campbell-Black on Revenge.” Fen gave a gasp of horror. “Brian Driffield on Temperance with Ivor Braine as reserve.”

Fen went over and put her arms round Jake. “I’m so, so sorry,” she said. “It was you who made him a great horse. Rupert just had to get on his back.”

Molly Carter, delighted that Revenge had been selected, felt a trip to Colombia would be in order.

“We must give a celebration party for Rupert and Helen before he leaves. ’Phone him up, Bernard, and fix an evening he’s free, and then we can invite everyone else. And do ask him about hotels in Bogota, and say to make sure we get tickets to watch Rev.”

Colonel Carter came off the telephone, magenta in the face. “Most peculiar. Rupe says Revenge belongs to him now, and there is no possible way he’s coming to any party.”

“Oh, Bernard,” snapped Molly. “You know what a tease Rupert is. He must have been joking. I’ll ring him up.”

“Rupert,” she said archly, two minutes later, “Bernard must have got the wrong end of the stick. We want to give a little celebration party for you.”

“Well, you can count me out,” said Rupert curtly. “I never mix business with pleasure and you and the colonel were strictly business, believe me.”

“You can say that?” spluttered Molly. “After all we’ve done for you?”

“Yes,” said Rupert. “Go and spend your forty-five grand on buying a few friends. It’s the only way you’ll get them,” and hung up.

Billy couldn’t believe he’d been selected for the Olympics. For days he floated on a cloud of bliss. He felt sorry for Lavinia—not being picked. But it would make things much easier in Colombia if she wasn’t there to upset him.

All the team had been much too superstitious to fill in their clothes measurement forms, so there was a last-minute panic to get the uniform in time. Rupert made a terrible fuss about the clothes.

“I am
not
going to wear a boating jacket with a badge on,” he said disdainfully, throwing the royal blue Olympic blazer across the room. “And these trousers make us look like Wombles.”

Billy didn’t care. He was so enchanted to be in the team, he’d have worn a grass skirt, if necessary.

The only blot on the horizon was the tension in Rupert’s marriage. Billy didn’t like Hilary one bit. He thought she was bossy, strident, and disruptive, and having a very bad effect on Helen. She was always around the house these days, breast-feeding her baby in the drawing room, or shoveling brown rice down little Germaine. Despite disapproving of Rupert’s stinking capitalist habits, she had no compunction about drinking his drink or using his washing machine all day. You couldn’t get a pair of breeches washed these days for revolving nappies.

The excuse for Hilary’s presence was that she was doing a painting of Helen. Like the sketch she had done before, she made Helen look the picture of victimized misery—Belsen thin, her face all eyes, tears streaking her wasted cheeks. Rupert, who, like most rich people, detested freeloaders, grew so irritated that, after half a bottle of whisky one night, he crept in and painted a large black mustache and a beard on the picture, with a balloon coming out of Helen’s mouth saying: “Monica Carlton had me first.”

Billy fell about laughing, Helen was absolutely livid. Hilary merely looked pained, assumed a They-know-not-what-they-do attitude and started another painting. So Rupert achieved nothing.

One evening when she was giving Marcus his late bottle, Billy tackled Helen.

“Angel, I don’t want to interfere, but I think you ought to come to Colombia.”

“I can’t leave Marcus.”

“Well, bring him.”

“He’s too little. He’d never cope with the climate.”

Billy tried another tack. “I know Rupe seems very tough on the outside, but he needs the applause, most of all from you. He’s too proud to plead, but I know he’s desperate for you to go. Hilary could look after Marcus.”

Helen cuddled Marcus tighter, a look of terror on her face. “When Marcus had croup the other day and I thought he was dying, I made a pact I’d never leave him.”

“You do have a husband as well.”

But Helen wouldn’t be persuaded.

The last show before the Olympics was the Royal International. Rupert and Billy left The Bull and Revenge to enjoy a well-earned rest in Gloucestershire, and drove up to London with Kitchener and Belgravia and a handful of novices. On the Wednesday, Billy and Kitchener won the King George V Cup, an all-male contest and one of the most prestigious in the world.

The following evening, while the women riders were competing for the Queen Elizabeth Cup, all the British Olympic team, except Rupert, who had other unspecified plans, went out on the tiles together. They started in a West End pub called the Golden Lion. Ivor, Billy, and Humpty had all bought rounds of drinks and were deliberately hanging back to see if they could make Driffield put his hand in his pocket.

“That’s mine,” said Billy, as the barman tried to gather up the second half of Billy’s tonic. “I’m hoping someone is going to buy me the other half.”

Looking pointedly at Driffield, he put the tonic bottle into his breast pocket. He was still coming down to earth after his win. Everyone was hailing and congratulating him on that and on getting picked to go to Colombia. Looking around the bar, he was aware of some wonderful girls in summer dresses eyeing him with considerable enthusiasm. He wished he could ask one of them out. It was a glorious July evening. The setting sun was lighting up the dusty plane trees in the square, the door of the bar was fixed open, and people were drinking in the streets.

“I’m thirsty, Driff,” he said.

“I’m thirsty, too,” said Humpty.

“I didn’t know you were thirty-two,” said Ivor, surprised. “I thought you were only thirty, Humpty.”

“I was saying I was thirsty, Driff,” said Billy, winking at the others.

He flicked his still-lit cigarette end in the direction of the open door, but it missed and landed in the lap of a girl in a cyclamen pink dress who was sitting on a bench nearby.

“Oh, Christ!” Billy bounded towards her. “I’m frightfully sorry,” but as he leaned forward to remove the cigarette end, the tonic from the bottle in his pocket cascaded forward, all over her dress.

“For God’s sake, look what you’re doing,” said her companion.

“Oh, hell,” said Billy, “I’m dreadfully sorry.”

The girl burst out laughing. “It really doesn’t matter; it’ll dry in a sec. It’s so hot, it’s nice to have an impromptu shower.”

Billy looked into her face and his heart skipped several beats. She was certainly one of the prettiest girls he’d ever seen. She had a smooth brown skin with a touch of pink on each high cheekbone, slanting dark brown eyes, a turned-up nose, a mane of streaky tortoiseshell hair, and a big mouth as smooth and as crimson as a fuchsia bud. Her pink dress showed at least three inches of slim brown thigh and a marvelous Rift valley of cleavage.

Billy couldn’t tear his eyes away. “I’m most awfully sorry,” he repeated in a daze.

“It couldn’t matter less,” said the girl, highly delighted at the effect she was having on him.

Billy pulled himself together. Getting out one of Rupert’s blue silk handkerchiefs, he started to wipe away the ash, but it all smeared into the tonic.

“Oh, dear, that’s much worse. Look, let me buy you another dress.”

“There’s no need for that,” snapped her companion. He was about thirty-five, with a pale sweating face that was even more rumpled than his gray suit.

“Then let me buy you a drink—both of you. What would you like?”

“You’ve caused quite enough trouble already,” the man said. “Why don’t you buzz off?”

“Don’t be beastly, Victor,” said the girl, in her soft husky voice. “We’d
love
a drink.”

The man looked at his watch. “We’ll be late. The table’s booked for nine and they don’t like to be kept waiting.”

“They’ll wait for me,” said the girl blandly.

“Anyone would,” said Billy. “Have a quick one.”

But the man had got to his feet. “No, thank you
very
much,” he said huffily.

“I must have a pee,” said the girl. “You go and get a taxi, Vic.”

There was a great deal of ally-ooping and badinage from the rest of the riders, as Billy waited for her to come out. What would Rupert do in the circumstances? he wondered. Probably accost her and get her telephone number, but he couldn’t do that with the frightful Victor hovering.

As she came out he caught a heady new waft of scent. She’d teased her tortoiseshell hair more wildly and applied more crimson lipstick. He wanted to kiss it all off. Perhaps that luscious mouth would pop like a fuchsia bud. He took a deep breath. “I don’t mean to be presumptuous, but you’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.”

“That’s nice,” she said.

“My name’s Billy Lloyd-Foxe.”

“The great show jumper,” she said mockingly. “I know. You won the King’s Cup yesterday.”

He blushed scarlet. “I’d adore to see you again.”

As she smiled, he noticed the gap in the white, slightly uneven teeth, the raspberry pink tongue of the good digestion.

“You will.” She patted his cheek with her hand. “I promise you. Oh, look, Victor’s managed to get a taxi. How extraordinary.” She ran out into the street and he hadn’t even asked her name. Nil out of ten for initiative. If Rupert had been here he would have lynched him. On the other hand, if Rupert had been here, the girl would have gone off with Rupert instead.

Billy spent the rest of the week at the International, feeling horribly restless, praying the girl from the Golden Lion might turn up. After Lavinia, he’d vowed he’d never let another girl get under his skin, and here he was, moping around again. Even in the excitement of setting out for Colombia, he was unable to get her out of his mind.

In the weeks leading to the Olympics, Jake Lovell sank into deep depression. Then, unable to face the razzmatazz and hysterical chauvinism of the actual event, he flew off to the Middle East to try and find Macaulay. He had located the sheik, but when he got there, after a lot of prevarication, he discovered that Macaulay had indeed blotted his copy book by savaging the sheik himself, and had been sold on less than six weeks before to a dealer who kept no records and couldn’t or probably didn’t want to remember where Macaulay had gone.

Jake went to the British Embassy, who were very unhelpful. With a big oil deal going through, they didn’t want to rock the boat. After repeated nagging, they sent Jake to Miss Blenkinsop, who ran a horse rescue center in the capital, and, as far as Jake could see, was a constant thorn in the authorities’ flesh, as she waged a one-woman battle against appalling Middle Eastern cruelty and insensitivity towards animals.

Miss Blenkinsop was a gaunt, sinewy woman in her late fifties, totally without sentimentality, and with the brusque, rather de-sexed manner of someone who has always cared for animals more than people.

She gave Jake a list of sixty-odd addresses where he might find the horse.

“Hope your nerves are strong. You’ll see some harrowing sights. Arabs think it’s unlucky to put down a horse, so they work them till they drop dead, and they don’t believe in feeding and watering them much either. Horse has probably been sold upcountry. You’ve as much chance of finding him as a needle in a haystack, but here are all the riding schools and the quarries, the most likely spots within five miles of the city. I’ll lend you one of my boys as interpreter. He’s a shifty little beast, but he speaks good English, and you can borrow my car, if you like.”

For Jake it was utter crucifixion. He was in a bad way emotionally anyway, and he had never seen such cruelty. Like some hideous travesty of Brook Farm Riding School, he watched skeletons, lame, often blind, frantic with thirst, shuffling around riding school rings, or tugging impossibly heavy loads in the street or in the quarries, being beaten until they collapsed, and then being beaten until they got up again.

For five days he went to every address Miss Blenkinsop had given him, bribing, wheedling, cajoling for information about a huge black horse with a white face, and one long white sock. No one had seen him. Sickened and shattered, he returned every night to his cheap hotel where there was no air-conditioning, the floors crawled with cockroaches, and drink was totally prohibited. As the coup-de-grâce, on the fifth night, he couldn’t resist watching the Olympic individual competition on the useless black and white hotel television. As Billy rode in, the picture went around and around, but sadistically, it held still for Rupert and Revenge, who produced two heroic rounds to win the Bronze. Ludwig got the gold on his great Hanoverian mare, Clara; Carol Kennedy, the American number one male rider, got the silver.