Riders (59 page)

Billy took refuge in the bottle, selling off his novices and pieces of furniture to quiet his creditors, and to buy more whisky, refusing to see anyone. He also sacked Tracey, because he couldn’t afford to pay her anymore. She refused to go. No one else could be permitted to look after The Bull. She’d live on her dole money, she said, and wait until Billy got his form back.

Rupert was shattered, when he got home, to find Billy in such a state. Typically, whenever he’d spoken to Rupert on the telephone from America, Billy had pretended things were all right and he and Janey were ticking along. Now, sitting in a virtually empty cottage, surrounded by empty bottles, he had gone gray and aged ten years. Immediately, Rupert set about a process of, as he called it, re-hab-Billy-tation, ordering Helen to get Billy’s old room ready at Penscombe, packing Billy off to an alcoholics’ home to dry out, and searching for a new sponsor.

Helen, while sorry for Billy, could not help being secretly delighted. She had never really approved of Janey. Now with Billy back in the house, they would have fun together like the old days.

But it was not the same. It was like sending your son off to the wars all youthful, glorious, and confident in his plumed uniform, and having him come home in the royal blue suit and red tie of the wounded, hobbling around on a stick. Billy talked incessantly about Janey, Mandryka, and his failures. He didn’t drink anymore. He was quiet, sad, and pathetically grateful. Helen once again marveled at Rupert’s kindness and gentleness.

One evening in early December, when she’d been talking to Higgins the gardener, Helen heard shouting from the indoor school. Peering around the door, she found Billy walking around the willful eight-year-old bay thoroughbred named Bugle, which Rupert had picked up in America. Unable to get a tune out of him, Rupert had handed him over to Billy. Now he was haranguing Billy because of his reluctance to take Bugle over a line of jumps, all well over five foot.

Billy was shivering like a whippet on a cold day. “I simply can’t do it yet, Rupe,” he groaned. “Give me a few more weeks.”

“Get moving and get over those bloody jumps,” yelled Rupert. “This is not a holiday camp.”

“Oh, Rupert, don’t force him,” Helen began.

“And you can bugger off,” said Rupert, turning on her furiously.

Helen retreated to the drawing room and tried to read the
Times Literary Supplement.
Twenty minutes later, Rupert walked into the room, ashen and trembling even more than Billy had been.

“What’s the matter?” asked Helen, in horror.

Rupert poured himself three fingers of neat whisky which he drained in one gulp.

“He jumped them,” he said. “He jumped them beautifully and all clear, half a dozen times. I’m sorry I shouted at you, but I just can’t afford to let him see how scared I am for him.”

The problem was to find Billy a sponsor. Janey’s departure, the failure of the horses, and the heavy drinking had been so widely publicized that Billy would have to show himself in the ring, sober and successful, before anyone would come forward.

“You can ride for me for the rest of the year,” said Rupert.

“I have my pride,” said Billy, “and I’ve bummed quite enough off you and Helen.”

Billy made his comeback at the Olympia Christmas show, not the best occasion to return, with the merrymaking and hell-raising, and the memories it evoked of both Lavinia Greenslade and Janey. All the other riders and grooms were very friendly and welcomed him. But he knew that, behind his back, they were saying how much he’d aged, that he’d lost his nerve and would never make the big time again.

Never had he been more desperate for a drink than half an hour before the first big class. Rupert, who’d been watching him like a warder, frog-marching him away from the bars, had just been called away to do a quick television interview. Tracey was walking Bugle around the collecting ring. Inside the ringside bar, Billy could see Christmas drinkers knocking back doubles, slapping each other on the back, guffawing with laughter. Surely one drink wouldn’t hurt, one quick double to steady his nerves. If he was this strung up, he’d transmit his fears to young Bugle. Rupert gave him pocket money now. Easing his last fiver out of his breeches pocket, he was just going into the bar when a voice said, “Hello, Billy. How lovely to see you back.”

For a second he didn’t recognize the plumpish but ravishingly pretty girl, with the long, light brown hair tied back with a black velvet ribbon, like the young Mozart.

“It’s Fen, Fenella Maxwell. How are you?” Stepping forward, she kissed him on both cheeks. “Are you in the next class?”

He nodded.

“So am I. Malise has persuaded Jake to let me jump. I’m absolutely terrified.”

“Makes two of us,” said Billy, still staring at her.

“Rupert says you’re riding a super new horse.”

“Yup, he’s super, all right. Whether I’ll be able to get him around is another matter.”

Suddenly they were surrounded by a group of ecstatic teenagers. “It’s Fen,” they screamed, pushing Billy out of the way. “Can we have your autograph? How’s Desdemona?”

As she signed their books, with a new and rather flashy signature which she’d been practicing during the long journeys in the lorry, she saw Billy sliding away.

“Here,” she said to the teenagers, “don’t you want his as well?”

The teenagers looked inquiringly at Billy, then politely handed him their books.

“Who’s he?” muttered one of the teenagers, as they wandered off, examining Billy’s signature more closely.

“Billy someone,” said her friend, also examining the autograph. “Didn’t he used to ride The Bull?”

“He’s the best rider in England,” Fen shouted after them.

Billy shook his head ruefully. Fen tucked her arm through his. “I told you it was high time you came back,” she said. “Let’s go and walk the course.”

The course seemed enormous. Billy sat in the riders’ stand clutching a Coke and wondered how the hell the riders could coax their horses over such enormous fences. To Rupert’s intense irritation, Jake Lovell jumped a beautiful clear on Macaulay, as did Fen on Desdemona.

“That yard simply can’t put a foot wrong at the moment,” said Malise. “High time you were back to redress the balance, Billy.”

Despite the heat and stuffiness of the arena, Billy began to shiver. He could feel his white shirt drenched beneath his red coat. In the old days, there had been excitement and nerves, not this cold, sickening sensation of leaden nausea. Could everyone see? As he mounted Bugle, he noticed two young riders with Jake Lovell haircuts, swapping stories. Once they had looked up to Billy and would certainly have watched him jumping on a new horse. Now they nodded briefly, carrying on with their conversation.

He jumped one practice fence and, nearly falling off, left it at that. Oh God, they were calling his number. Rupert’s face swam in front of him.

“I think I’ve got a sponsor interested. A Victor Block from the Midlands. He’s the Cutie Cup Millionaire; makes bras and corsets. You may have to change Bugle’s name to Cutie B-Cup, but he’s worth a lot of bread and he’s up in the stands, so don’t have three stops at the first fence.”

“If I ever get to the first fence,” said Billy in a hollow voice.

“For Christ’s sake, hurry up, Billy,” snapped the collecting ring steward. “Don’t spend so long in the bar next time.”

As he rode into the ring, panic assailed him. He should never have agreed to ride. The saddle was hard and unfamiliar, his legs felt cramped and powerless, refusing to meet the leather and blend into it, his hands on the reins were numb and heavy, without any flexibility. In the old days he’d fallen into the rhythm of any horse’s stride. Now he humped along like a sack of cement.

“And here comes Billy Lloyd-Foxe on Dougall. Se-uper, absolutely se-uper, to see you back, Billy. Let’s all give Billy a big hand.”

The applause, albeit tentative, unnerved the inexperienced Bugle. The first fence loomed up higher and higher. Desperately Billy tried to balance himself, hands rigid on the reins, interfering with the horse, pulling him off his stride. Bugle rapped the pole; it swayed but didn’t fall.

“Oh, God,” groaned Tracey, her nails digging into her palms. “Oh, don’t let him be over the hill.”

“Is this the bloke you want me to sponsor?” asked Victor Block. “Doesn’t look much cop to me.”

“You wait,” said Rupert, trying not to show his desperate anxiety.

Bugle approached the second fence, battling for his head. Billy felt the horse steady himself, judge the height, rise into the air and, making a mighty effort, twist over the fence.

“Forgive me,” said Billy in wonder, sending up a prayer of thankfulness.

Now his hold on Bugle’s neck was relaxed, the bay’s pace increased, covering the churned-up tan with long lolloping strides. Suddenly, Billy felt the blessed sustaining confidence start to come back. Fence after fence swept by. He was riding now, helping rather than hindering. Bugle was jumping beautifully. Billy’s heart swelled in gratitude. He was oblivious of the cheering gathering momentum. He took off too far away from the wall, but it flashed, oxblood red, beneath him and Bugle cleared it by a foot.

“What a horse, what a horse.” He had to steady him for the last double and nerves got to him for a second, but he left it to Bugle to find his stride. Over and clear. A huge roar went up.

Billy concentrated very hard on Bugle’s perfect black plaits to stop himself breaking down, as he circled the horse before riding him out of the ring. On the way he passed Guy de la Tour, who was smiling broadly.

“Well done, mon ami, well done,” and riding up to Billy he shook him by the hand, and then, leaning over, kissed him on both cheeks. The crowd broke into a great roar of approval. Billy the prodigal had returned.

Mr. Block turned to a jubilant Rupert. “Happens you’re right. I’ll sponsor him. But I’ll have to organize the money side, so he can get on with the riding.”

In the jump-off, Jake went fastest, with Rupert second, Guy third, and Fen fourth. Billy, anxious not to hurry a young horse, was fifth. As Jake rode back into the ring to collect his rosette and cup, followed by the rest of the riders, Rupert turned to Billy.

“I had to get you back on the circuit,” he said. “One of us has got to break the run of luck of that murdering gypsy bastard.”

A
ll runs of luck come to an end. After a brilliant March, in which he swept the board in Antwerp, Dortmund, and Milan, Jake rolled up for the Easter meeting at Crittleden, a course which had never really been lucky for him since Sailor’s death. It had rained solidly for a fortnight beforehand and the ground was again like the Somme.

In the first big class, Macaulay, who was probably a bit tired and didn’t like jumping in a rainstorm, slipped on takeoff at the third element of the combination. Hitting the poles chest on, he somersaulted right over. Jake’s good leg was the padding between the ground and half a ton of horse. Spectators swear to this day that they could hear the sickening splinter of bones. Without treading on Jake, Macaulay managed to scramble to his feet immediately and shake himself free of the debris of wings and colored poles. Most horses would have galloped off, but Macaulay, sensing something was seriously wrong, gently nudged his master, alternately looking down at him with guilt and anguish, and then glancing over his shoulder with an indignant “Can’t you see we need help?” expression on his mud-spattered white face.

Humpty Hamilton reached Jake first.

“Come on, Gyppo, up you get,” he said jokingly. “There’s a horse show going on here.”

“My fucking leg,” hissed Jake through gritted teeth, then fainted.

He came around as the ambulance men arrived. Normally a loose horse is a nuisance at such times, but Macaulay was a comfort, standing stock-still, while Jake gripped onto his huge fetlock to stop himself screaming, looking down with the most touching concern. He also insisted on staying as close as possible, as Jake, putty-colored and biting through his lip in anguish, was bundled into an ambulance.

Fen took one look at the casualty department at Crittleden Hospital and rang Malise, who was in London.

“Jake’s done in his good leg,” she sobbed. “I don’t think a local hospital should be allowed to deal with it.”

Malise agreed and moved in, pulling strings, getting Jake instantly transferred to the Motcliffe in Oxford, where the X-rays showed the kneecap was shattered and the leg broken in five places. The best bone specialist in the country was abroad. But, realizing the fate of a national hero rested in his hands, he flew straight home and operated for six hours. Afterwards, he told the crowd of waiting journalists that he was reasonably satisfied with the result, but there might be a need for further surgery.

Tory managed to park the children, and arrived at the hospital, out of her mind with worry, just as Jake came out of the theater. For the first forty-eight hours they kept him heavily sedated. Raving and delirious, his temperature rose as he babbled on and on.

“Were any of his family in the navy?” said the ward sister, looking faintly embarrassed. “He keeps talking about a sailor.”

Tory shook her head. “Sailor was a horse,” she said.

“When can I ride again?” was his first question when he came around. Malise was a great strength to Tory. It was he and the specialist, Johnnie Buchannan, who told Jake what the future would be, when Tory couldn’t summon up the courage.

Johnnie Buchannan sat cautiously down on Jake’s bed, anxious not in any way to jolt the damaged leg, which was strapped up in the air.

“You’re certainly popular,” he said, admiring the mass of flowers and get-well cards that covered every surface of the room and were waiting outside in sackfuls still to be opened. “I haven’t seen so many cards since we had James Hunt in here.”

Jake, his face gray and shrunken from pain and stress, didn’t smile. “When can I ride again?”

“Look, I don’t want to depress you, but you certainly can’t ride for a year.”

“What?” whispered Jake through bloodless lips. “That’ll ruin me. I don’t believe it,” he went on, suddenly hysterical. “I could get up and discharge myself now.” He tried to rise off the bed and remove his leg from the hook, gave a smothered shriek, and collapsed, tears of pain and frustration filling his eyes.

“Christ, you can’t mean it,” he mumbled. “I’ve got to keep going.”

Malise got a cigarette from the packet by the bed, put it in Jake’s mouth, and lit it.

“You nearly lost the leg,” he said gently. “If it hadn’t been for Johnnie, you would never have walked again, let alone ridden. Your other leg, weakened by polio, would never have been able to support you on its own. You’ve got to get your good leg sound again.”

Jake shook his head. “I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful. It’s just that it’s my living. This’ll ruin me.”

“It won’t,” said Johnnie Buchannan. “If it knits properly, you’ll be out of here in five or six months and can conduct operations from a wheelchair at home. If you don’t play silly buggers, and take the physio side of it seriously, you could be riding again this time next year.”

Jake glared at them, determined not to betray the despair inside him. Then he shrugged his shoulders. “All right, there’s not much I can do. You’d better tell Fen to turn all the horses out. They could use the rest.”

“Isn’t that a bit extreme?” said Malise.

“No,” said Jake bleakly. “Who else can ride them?”

For a workaholic like Jake, worse almost than the pain was the inactivity. Lying in bed hour after hour, he watched the leaves slowly breaking through the pointed green buds of the sycamores and the ranks of daffodils tossing in the icy wind, and fretted. He had no resources. He was frantically homesick, missing Tory, the children, Fen and the horses, and Wolf the lurcher. The anonymity of the hospital sickeningly reminded him of the time when he had had polio as a child and his mother seldom came and visited him, perhaps feeling too guilty for never bothering to have him inoculated.

For a fastidious, reserved, and highly private person, he couldn’t bear to be totally dependent on the nurses. He was revolted by the whole ritual of blanket baths and bedpans. Lying in the same position, his leg strapped up in the air, he found it impossible to sleep. He had no appetite. He longed to see the children, but with the hospital eighty miles from home, it was difficult for Tory to bring them often; and when she did Jake was so ill and tired and weak he couldn’t cope with their exuberance for more than a few minutes, and was soon biting their heads off. He longed to ask Tory to come and look after him, but he was too proud, and anyway she had her work cut out with the children and the yard.

The Friday morning after the accident, Fen had been to see him. Such was his despair, he had been perfectly foul to her and sent her away in tears. Wracked with guilt, he was therefore not in the best of moods when Malise dropped in during the afternoon, bringing three Dick Francis novels, a biography of Red Rum, a bottle of brandy, and the latest
Horse and Hound.

“You’ve made the cover,” he told Jake. “There’s an account of your accident inside. They say some awfully nice things about you.”

“Must think I’m finished,” said Jake broodingly. “Thanks, anyway.”

“I’ve got a proposal to make to you.”

“I’m married,” snapped Jake.

“It’s about Fen. If you’re grounded, why don’t you let her jump the horses?”

“Don’t be bloody ridiculous. She’s too young.”

“She’s seventeen,” said Malise. “Remember Pat Smythe and Marion Coakes? She’s good enough. What she needs is international experience.”

“I don’t want her overfaced. Anyway she’s daffy. She’d forget her own head if I wasn’t there to tell her what to do.”

“It’s not as though your horses were difficult,” said Malise. “Macaulay dotes on her. She’s ridden Laurel and Hardy, and Desdemona’s been going like a dream.”

“No,” said Jake, reaching for a cigarette.

“What is the point? You’ve brought all those horses up to peak fitness and you’ve got two grooms who need wages. Why throw the whole thing up and just lie here worrying yourself sick about money? Let her have a go. She’s your pupil. You taught her. Haven’t you got any faith in her?”

Jake shifted sideways, giving a gasp of pain.

“Pretty grim, huh?”

Jake nodded. “Can you get me a drink?”

Malise poured some brandy into a paper cup.

“It’ll give you an interest. She can ring you every night from wherever she is.”

“And where’s that going to be?”

Malise poured himself a drink, to give himself the courage to answer. “Rome. Then she can fly back for the Royal Windsor, then Paris, Barcelona, Lucerne, and Crittleden.”

“No,” said Jake emphatically.

“Why not?”

“Too young. I’m not letting a girl her age abroad by herself, with wolves like Ludwig, Guy, and Rupert around.”

“I’ll keep an eye on her. I’ll personally see she’s in bed, alone, by eleven o’clock every night. She needs a long stint abroad to give her confidence.”

“How’s she getting to Rome? In Rupert’s private jet, I suppose.”

“Griselda Hubbard’s got a lorry which takes six horses. She can easily take two or three of yours.”

“Griselda Hubbard,” said Jake, outraged. “That’s scraping the barrel.”

“Mr. Punch has turned into rather a good horse,” said Malise.

“But not with Grisel on him. Fen’s far better than her.”

“Exactly,” said Malise. “That’s why I want to take her.”

Back at the Mill House, Fen was battling with blackest gloom and trying to cheer up Macaulay. It was nearly a week since Jake’s fall, but the horse still wouldn’t settle. He wouldn’t eat and at night he walked his box. Every time a car came over the bridge, or there was a footstep in the yard, he’d rush to the half-door, calling hopefully, then turn away in childlike disappointment. Since Jake had rescued Macaulay from the Middle East they hadn’t been separated for a day. Fen had tried to turn him out with the rest of the horses, but he’d just stood shivering by the gate in his New Zealand rug, yelling to be brought in again. Poor Mac, thought Fen, and poor me too. She’d thought about Dino Ferranti so often since the World Championship, hoping so much that she’d bump into him on the circuit this summer. And now Jake had ordered the horses to be turned out, and there’d be no going abroad, and she’d be stuck with taking Desdemona to a few piffling little local shows that Jake considered within her capabilities.

A rather attractive journalist whom she’d met at Olympia had rung up that afternoon and asked her if she’d like to sail over to Cherbourg for a party on the Saturday night. She’d had to refuse, just as she kept having to refuse dates and parties because there was always some crisis cropping up with the horses. And now Jake was in hospital, she had ten times as much responsibility. She’d been up all last night with Hardy, who, having gorged himself on the spring grass, suddenly developed a violent attack of colic. Brought into the stable, he had promptly cast himself and been so badly frightened when he couldn’t get up that Fen had had to call out the vet. It was some compensation that morning that a recovered Hardy, instead of taking his usual piece out of her, had butted her gently with his head and then licked her hand in gratitude.

Added to this, Jake had been perfectly bloody when she’d visited him in hospital. She knew he was depressed or he wouldn’t have been so awful, but sometimes it was difficult to make allowances. And, finally, it was Sarah, the new groom’s third night off that week. She was very good at her job, Sarah, and extremely attractive, with long black hair which never got greasy and a flawless creamy skin which never got spots. She was also quite tough. She had turned down a job with Guy de la Tour because it was underpaid. At his stable you were expected to work twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, the only compensation was being screwed by Count Guy when he felt like it. Instead she had taken a job with Jake.

“Your brother-in-law,” said Sarah, “may be moody, and prefer four-legged creatures to anything on two legs, but at least he pays properly and gives you plenty of evenings off.”

Not if you’re family, he doesn’t, thought Fen gloomily, as she watched Sarah, tarted up to the nines, drive off to a party in her pale blue sports car.

Once again, Fen repeated Dino’s words, “There is more to life than the inside of a tack-cleaning bucket!” She was fed up with bloody horses. She wanted some fun.

A delectable smell of chicken casserole drifted out from the kitchen. Looking at her watch, she was surprised to see it was half-past nine. Inside, she found Tory stacking up a pile of envelopes. She had spent the evening canceling shows and wondering which bills to pay first.