Riders (68 page)

There were two classes that evening—a fancy dress pair relay and then the
Sunday Times
Cup, worth £10,000. She hadn’t entered the relay because she was scared no one would want to be her partner. Outside, she heard shrieks of laughter. Standing up, she peered through the crack in the box and saw Billy and Rupert teetering past wearing fishnet stockings, three-inch heels, and coats and skirts with coconuts heaving in their twin-sets. Rupert, immaculate in a blond wig, was Mrs. Thatcher; Billy, wearing a mop on his head, was Shirley Williams. Then they were gone, and next door she could hear Sarah getting Hardy ready for the
Sunday Times
Cup. Fen sighed and sat down beside Macaulay again. She was just nodding off when she heard hoofs clattering outside, and an excited voice saying: “Guess what? Gossip, gossip, gossip.” It was Dizzy.

“What?” said Sarah, coming to the door.

“Where’s Fen?” asked Dizzy.

“In the lorry, I think. I haven’t seen her for some time. Come on, out with it.”

“Janey Lloyd-Foxe is pregnant.”

Fen’s hand tightened convulsively on Macaulay’s mane.

“Jesus,” said Sarah. “When did you find out?”

“Well Count Guy, Billy, Rupert, and Driff were all declaring. And Count Guy was ribbing Billy, saying he’d heard some
très interessant
rumors, and Billy went all scarlet and pleased and admitted Janey was having a baby. Count Guy was tickled pink, of course. He didn’t like Billy being separated from Janey, in case he started running after Lavinia again. Anyway, they were busy congratulating each other when bloody Driffield said, “Who’s the father? Kevin Coley?” The next minute Billy let him have one on the jaw—wham—sending Driff flying across the tent. Then Billy jumped on Driff with his hands round Driff’s neck, howling, ‘Take it back, you effing bastard,’ and other pleasantries.”

“Golly,” said Sarah.

“Rupert and Count Guy dragged Billy off and Driffield said he’d get Billy suspended. ‘No, you won’t,’ said Rupert. ‘There’s nothing in the BSJA rules about eliminating a competitor before an event, only during.’ ”

Both grooms started to giggle.

“Anyway,” Dizzy went on, “Malise made Driffield apologize. Driff said it was only a joke and Billy, Rupert, and Guy turned on their booted heels and stalked out undeclared, and had to come back five minutes later when Driffield had gone. So it looks as though Driff, not your poor boss, is going to be the next candidate for Coventry.”

“Christ,” said Sarah, “Fen’ll go bananas when she hears. He must be mad about Janey to punch Driff. I’m glad someone has at last; he’s such a poisonous little toad.”

“I thought Billy couldn’t have kids,” said Dizzy. “Do you think it
is
Kev’s?”

Like a sleepwalker, Fen came out of Macaulay’s box.

“Fen,” gasped Dizzy, backing into the patiently waiting Arcturus. “We didn’t realize you were there.”

“Obviously not,” said Fen, “or you wouldn’t keep Rupert’s horse hanging round in the cold. All you bloody well do all day is gossip.”

Not even bothering to close Macaulay’s door, she walked unsteadily away from them. “Billy’s going to have a baby,” she muttered over and over again through trembling lips. She had no idea where she went, but she ended up in the lorry, locking the door behind her.

A few minutes later she heard pounding on the door.

“Fen, it’s Sarah. They’re walking the course.”

“I don’t care,” sobbed Fen. “Leave me alone.”

“Please—I’m sorry about your overhearing everything, but Hardy’s all ready and I know you wanted to jump him in this class.”

“Go away, for Christ’s sake.”

“Let me in. I want to look after you.”

Fen didn’t answer. She lay on her bed, sobbing convulsively, shuddering like a palsied dog. She couldn’t cope anymore. There was no future, nothing, nothing. The light had gone out at the end of the tunnel; both ends were blocked up; there was no hope. “Oh, Billy, oh, Billy,” she groaned.

Then she heard someone fiddling with the door handle, then voices, then more fiddling and the door was forced open and the inside of the living area was flooded with light.

“Go away,” Fen screamed. “I can’t take it. I simply can’t take it.”

Then she saw a man’s figure framed in the doorway.

“Billy,” she croaked, in an insane moment of hope. “Oh, Billy.”

“Afraid not, sweetheart,” drawled a voice. “You’ll just have to put up with second best.”

It was Dino Ferranti.

Fen slumped back on the bed. “Leave me fucking alone.”

“You can’t fuck alone. It’s a physical impossibility,” said Dino, sitting down on the bed and drawing her close to him. “There, honey, hush, hush.” He stroked her hair, damp with tears, feeling her drenched shirt and jersey against him, horrified by the fragility of her body.

“I love him so much I don’t know what to do.”

“Hush, don’t try to talk.” Gradually he managed to calm her.

“What am I to do?” she repeated shakily.

Dino pulled off a piece of paper towel, dried her eyes, and held out another piece for her to blow her nose with.

“There are still twelve riders to jump before you. You’re gonna get dressed and jump that course.”

“I am bloody not.”

“Sure you are. Just figure if this had happened in L.A. You couldn’t just not jump. Every round’s a dress rehearsal for that day, right?”

“Los Angeles is ten months away,” snapped Fen. “I’m having difficulty getting through the next five minutes.”

She was shivering violently now.

Dino poured her a glass of brandy.

“Have a slug of this.”

“I don’t want it.”

“Yes, you do. Open your mouth.” He almost forced it down her throat.

“Bastard,” said Fen, but she drank it.

“Now get out of those clothes.” Like a father, he removed her shirt and tie, which were streaked with lipstick and mascara.

“That’s my lucky shirt and tie,” moaned Fen, covering her breasts with her arms.

“Haven’t brought you much luck today,” said Dino. “Try another combination.” He held out a clean shirt for her.

“I am
not
going to jump,” said Fen mutinously. “Not on Hardy. He’s a nightmare and I haven’t walked the course.”

“You’ve got time to watch the last three rounds,” said Dino. “Come on, put your jacket on and borrow my shades.”

“I hate you,” said Fen. “I truly, truly hate you.”

For a moment, as he stood behind her while she checked her appearance in the mirror, she was struck by the contrast between her waiflike figure, white face, and swollen eyes, and Dino, brown as peanut butter, ridiculously elegant in a black silk shirt and pale gray suit. He’d streaked his hair pale gray since she’d last seen him.

“Talk about Beauty and the Beast,” she said.

News of Janey’s pregnancy and Billy punching Driffield had spread rapidly around the showground.

Fen came out of the lorry to find the place swarming with reporters. Dino dispatched them ruthlessly. No, Fen couldn’t speak to anyone, nor could she sign autographs. With his arms round her, he forced a gangway through the crowd.

“Who’s that with her?” asked the man from the
Express
. “Face is familiar.”

“Think he’s an actor,” said the girl from the
Mirror.

By some miracle they had time to watch a couple of rounds.

“Watch the wall,” warned Sarah. “There’s been a lot of mistakes there, and the combination’s on a funny stride. People have been taking three strides, then changing their minds and asking the horses off too early, then hitting the third element.”

“I suppose you know
all
about it,” snapped Fen at Sarah.

“I’m awfully sorry, Fen,” said Sarah in an undertone. “I’m so glad you made it.”

“I wouldn’t have,” said Fen, casting a venomous glance at Dino, “if Mussolini here hadn’t come jackbooting round. Why can’t I go into a decline in peace?”

Mary Jo Wilson, the number one American girl rider, auburn-haired and extremely attractive, was in the ring. She took a brick out of the wall and had a pole down at the second element, then crashed through the third. The crowd gave a groan of sympathy.

“What did I tell you?” said Dino. “Hi, Mary Jo,” he shouted as she came out of the ring.

“Dino!” Her face lit up. “I didn’t know you were in Europe.”

“How many clears?” Fen asked Sarah.

“Only four.”

Dino removed his dark glasses from a protesting Fen.

“But my eyes are still red.”

“Just fantasize you’re a white rat.”

She rode through the cherry red curtains into the brilliantly lit arena.

“And here comes Fenella Maxwell,” said Dudley Diplock, in ecstasy. “Hot from her brilliant second in the Crittleden Gold Cup, on Hardy.”

The crowd, who’d been bitterly disappointed when Fen hadn’t appeared at her appointed place in the class and had assumed she’d scratched, gave a cheer of delighted surprise.

“Bloody unfair,” grumbled Griselda. “Why should they waive the rules for her?”

“Because she’s a star,” said Billy. “She’s the one they’ve come to see.”

It is the mark of a great athlete that the mind can transcend adversity, and somehow heighten the performance. After two shaky jumps, which had her fans gasping and nearly stripped the paint off the poles, Fen clicked into automatic pilot. Hardy, given his head and showing his true quality, went clear. The crowd went berserk. Their idol hadn’t failed them. Crittleden wasn’t just a flash in the pan.

“Thank God I didn’t walk the course,” said Fen as she came out. “I’d have been so terrified I’d never have crossed the starting line.”

“You made a cock-up at the first two fences,” said Dino.

“Don’t come on like Jake,” said Fen icily. “I’m going back to the lorry.”

“No, you’re not,” said Dino, catching her by the scruff of her neck. “You’ve got to jump off.”

He took her up into the riders’ stand to watch the first rounds. From all sides people hailed him.

“Where are zee horses?” asked Hans Schmidt.

“Arriving the day after tomorrow. I might jump Manny in the Victor Ludorum.”

At that moment Billy’s number was called. Behind Fen and Dino, Janey Lloyd-Foxe was holding court, looking ravishing in a red wool Laura Ashley smock.

“You’d think she was eight months pregnant,” muttered Fen savagely. Janey was talking to Doreen Hamilton, speaking more slowly than usual so that Fen could hear every word.

“Yes, Billy is absolutely over the moon. The night I told him, he couldn’t sleep for excitement. It’s going to be a terrific incentive to his career. He says he’s jumping for two now. He’s treating me like glass. Won’t even let me pick up a duster.”

Never been her forte anyway, said Fen to herself, her knuckles white where she clutched her whip.

“When’s it due?” asked Doreen.

“June. Billy’ll be at the Royal and the International, but he says he’ll probably cancel both.”

The jump-off course was a blur before Fen’s eyes.

“Oh, here comes my darling,” said Janey as Billy, the first to jump off, cantered into the arena, a huge grin spread across his face. “Don’t you think prospective fatherhood suits him?”

Dino put a hand on Fen’s knee. “Ignore her,” he said. “She’s only trying to wind you up.”

Bugle put in an incredibly fast time. Janey went into noisy ecstasy.

“Never seen him ride before,” said Dino. “He’s bloody good. No one’s going to be able to cruise after that.”

He was right. Both Ludwig and Wishbone clocked up slower times. In came Rupert to the usual ecstatic, schoolgirl screams. The whole of the pony club stand, hopeful of losing their virginity in such a glorious cause, rose to their feet to cheer.

“Extraordinary that someone so good-looking should be such a bastard,” said Dino. “Like a blackbird singing the most exquisite song and dumping on you at the same time. Jesus, look at that acceleration. He ought to have starting gates.”

As Snakepit stampeded the course, the jumps hardly seemed to exist. He skimmed them effortlessly like a pebble flicked in ducks and drakes.

“He’s improved a whole lot since the World Championships,” said Dino, as Rupert thundered home two seconds faster than Billy. “Pow, you can’t help admiring him.”

“I can, only too easily,” said Fen.

Joyously raking his hand down Snakepit’s steel gray plaits, Rupert shot out through the red curtains, sending Hardy flying.

“Why don’t you look where you’re going, clumsy oaf?” snarled Fen.

“Because I don’t like what’s in my way,” snapped Rupert, “and if Svengali Lovell can tell you how to beat that time, I’m a Dutchman.”

“Unfair to Dutchmen,” Fen shouted back over her shoulder. “Some of them are rather nice.”

“Remember, if you’re going too fast, accelerate,” Dino called after her.