Riders (72 page)

“More than a hundred and twenty.”

“At night, that takes me one hour and ten minutes, no more. We leave London at three. That gives us four hours if we leave now. Not long, but quite long enough for the first time, which should be brief, passionate, exquisite, and leave one hungry for the next.”

Fortunately there was a roll of drums and it was announced the awards would begin in two minutes. Fen staggered off to the loo. She looked pretty abandoned; her hair was all over the place. Overwhelmed by frantic excitement, she tipped half a bottle of Diorissimo over her body and wandered back to the table, to find Garry having a frightful row with Enrico for stealing his seat. Fen collapsed into hers as the lights dimmed. Garry, who was even more drunk than Fen, was removed, complaining bitterly, to a chorus of shushes. Enrico poured Fen another glass of wine.

“What does hedonistic mean?” she asked the shotputter.

“Haven’t a clue.”

“Nor have I, but I think I’m about to be it.”

She hardly heard a word of the speeches as, in the dim twilight of their corner, she felt Enrico’s hand running all over her back, firm, warm, powerful hands with splayed flat fingers and pudgy balls to the thumbs. Now they were inching round underneath the front of her dress.

“You mustn’t.”

“I must,” he said, leaning across her to stub out his cigar.

“Ouch,” squealed Fen as he bit her shoulder.

Now his free hand was moving downwards, slipping into the cleavage of her buttocks. She leapt away as the lights blazed on. The Princess, to thunderous applause, was presenting the award for the Male Personality of the Year to yet another famous footballer, who was saying he was “absolutely over the moon, definitely” and holding up his prize like a football cup.

When the Princess started reading out the female nominations Enrico started kissing Fen. Enjoying the frantic swordplay of tongue and saliva, she could feel the stubble of his cheeks. He had a zoolike, unwashed smell. He was just like a stallion. Unheeding, she kissed him back. His hand was between her legs now. If the lights hadn’t blazed on again she had a feeling he would have taken her there and then in that dark corner.

The huge cheers seemed to be getting louder. Someone was tapping her on the shoulder.

“You’ve been nominated,” whispered the shotputter.

“Fuck off,” growled Enrico.

Fen wriggled away from him just as the spotlight found her.

“Come here,” said Enrico.

Next moment there was a burst of cheering and Dudley Diplock was crying, “Well done, Fen. Go on. You’ve won.”

Everyone seemed to be helping her through the tables as she frantically straightened and pulled down her dress and wiped away the mascara, smudged under her eyes.

“Oh, she’s crying, bless her,” said a fat woman. “She’s only eighteen and so unspoilt.”

Fen fell up the stairs and was picked up by Dudley.

“Hello again. Congratulations,” said the Princess, laughing.

Fen clutched the trophy, which was a model of a silver pen writing on a silver page. Finally the deafening cheers were silenced. Fen took the microphone, grinning fatuously.

“Honestly, I had no idea. I can’t tell you how knocked out I am. Thank you, sports writers, for this stunning award. It was all due to the horses. I’ve just got good ones and my brilliant brother-in-law, Lake Jovell,” no, that wasn’t right, “I mean Luke Jovell,” she opened her hands despairingly, “I’m sorry, I’m a bit over the top. It’s excitement and all your wonderful hospitality.”

Everyone laughed and cheered.

Dudley collared her for an interview, but all she could think about was being in bed with Enrico. She could see him at the table, fingers drumming impatiently. He was not a man who would be kept waiting very long.

As she left she tapped one of the BBC minions on the shoulder.

“Could you tell the car that’s supposed to be taking me back to Warwickshire that I won’t be needing it.”

“Right ho, dearie.”

“Should I ring home? They’re expecting me back by one o’clock.”

“No,” said Enrico.

His flat was all white, with shagpile carpet as thick as a hayfield, huge white sofas, and walls lined with mirrors. Everywhere there were photographs of Enrico, winning races or being photographed with presidents and kings.

“This is small place,” he said, adjusting the dimmer switches. “In Rome I haf really nice apartment.”

In the drawing room he took off her dress, then her tights and her panties. Then he turned the spotlights on her, so that she was reflected a hundred times in the mirrored walls, as though taking part in some vast orgy. She wished her face wasn’t so pink and weathered rather like a toffee apple compared with her slender, white body. At first she covered her breasts and her bush with her hands, but she was too drunk really to mind.

“I’m awfully rusty,” she mumbled. “Can we have a long warm-up first?”

Enrico shook up a bottle of Moët Chandon, then opened it, spraying it all over Fen’s body and into every crevice. Then he picked her up and carried her into the bedroom where, on a huge oval bed, he proceeded very slowly and thoroughly to lick every drop off until Fen was a squirming, ecstatic bundle of desire. God, she thought, he had a cock like a salami. A lot of junk is talked about the size of the male member having no importance in sex. And when a man is as magnificently endowed as Enrico, as skillful in manipulation, and of such unquestionable sex appeal, and the girl in question is as well lubricated as one of Enrico’s engines, the result is bound to be ecstatic. For Fen it was the most glorious hour of her life. “Talk about a one night stunned,” she muttered afterwards.

Hazily she looked at the clock beside the bed, red eyes flickering like hers. “My God, it’s a quarter to three. We must go,” she said, leaping to her feet.

Enrico put out a hand. “Stay with me. Give Amsterdam a miss.”

“I can’t. The lorry’s loaded. The tickets booked. I must go.”

Enrico leaned over, kissing her and running his hand down her body.

“You are like little schoolboy, no? Next time I bugger you.”

“Not sure,” muttered Fen, wriggling away. “I
must
be home by four.”

The motorways were deserted. She was almost more turned on by his handling of his Ferrari and the subdued dragon roar of its engine. He didn’t seem to be driving fast at all and it was only as he overtook other night flyers that she looked at the speedometer and realized they were traveling at more than 120 mph. They hardly spoke. One big hand rested between her thighs.

How long would she be in Amsterdam, he asked, and where was she staying? He would be in New York when she got back, but he would be back in London for the last day of the Olympia show, when he would come and watch her. She was to leave some tickets at the box office.

He had her home by five past four; it would have been four o’clock if he hadn’t spent five minutes parked on the bridge, with the engine growling, leisurely kissing her good night, his tongue tickling her epiglottis.

“ ’appy treep, my darling,” he said as he dropped her off at the front gate. Thank God Jake’s still away, thought Fen. As she walked up the path, high heels crunching on the frozen grass, the owls were hooting and the dog star was just sinking into his kennel behind Pott’s meadow.

All was activity in the yard. She could see Sarah and Louise putting on bandages and tail guards, changing rugs. In the lorry Tory was making a last-minute check.

She crept unnoticed into the kitchen and went slap into Dino, still wearing the same check shirt, jeans, and sweater he’d had on when she left. He plainly hadn’t been to bed and was absolutely white with anger.

“Where the hell have you been?”

“I haven’t been to hell at all; rather the reverse.” She realized she was still tight. “I’ve just been finding out what hedonism is and I do agree it’s much better than celibacy.”

For a second, she thought he was going to hit her.

“Why the fuck didn’t you call? All the kids, Tory, and the grooms saw you winning the award. They were so excited they had a bottle of champagne ready to welcome you when you got back. Not that you looked as though you needed it from the way you fell up the stairs. Then you just disappear. Don’t even bother to cancel the car.”

“I did. I told a BBC man.”

“Probably pissed, like you. Anyway he never passed on the message. No one got any sleep or knew whether to load up the horses. We were all worried stiff.”

Enrico, thought Fen dreamily, was stiff but not worried.

The grandfather clock in the hall struck the quarter hour.

“We’re leaving in fifteen minutes,” said Dino.

“I’ll be ready. Don’t worry.”

At that moment Tory came in. “Oh Fen, where have you been?”

“I got diverted,” said Fen, weaving joyfully towards the door, “highly diverted. I’m sorry to have caused so much trouble.”

Never had her bed looked so inviting. She’d only had time for a lightning shower and a change when she heard the lorry revving up. Bloody hell! Dino was just doing that to wind her up. Sweeping everything on top of her dressing table and the contents of her washbasin into a holdall and throwing Lester on top, she fled downstairs.

I
t was not an ’appy treep. Fen’s hangover descended like a million thunderbolts just as they reached Southampton. The crossing was frightful and she spent the entire time commuting between the hold, where she comforted a terrified Hardy until the petrol fumes overcame her, and the ladies’ loo. Her face, as a result of Enrico’s stubble, was blotched like salami.

Dino, Louise, and Sarah, blisteringly unsympathetic, went off to a huge lunch and didn’t even buy her a brandy to steady her stomach. As the lorry, which seemed so pedestrian after Enrico’s Ferrari, steadily ate up the miles, she was overcome by the depression that goes with extreme tiredness. It had all been a dream. She should never have let Enrico take her to bed on the first night. She would never see him again. It was eleven o’clock when they reached Amsterdam; midnight before the horses were stabled and fed and they reached the hotel. Louise was sleeping in the lorry, Sarah, Fen, and Dino in the hotel. Dino pointedly carried Sarah’s suitcase but not Fen’s. The manager came out to welcome them in perfect English. “Miss Maxwell, Mr. Ferranti, you must be very tired. Would you like something to eat? We can make some sandwiches.”

“I’d sure appreciate a drink,” said Dino, stretching after the long drive. “We’ll be down in a minute.”

The porter took them upstairs. He reached Fen’s room first and threw open the door. Fen was knocked sideways by the most heavenly scent. She could hardly get inside for the flowers—roses, gardenias, stephanotis, banks and banks of freesias and hyacinths. It was like suddenly coming out of a freezing cold night into a heated conservatory.

“How gorgeous,” she gasped.

“My God,” said Sarah. “Someone must have denuded every flower shop in the low countries. Not Interflora, but Entireflora, ha-ha. Who on earth are they from?”

Fen took a card out of the tiny envelope lying on the bed.

“Adorable Fen, you were magnificent, I die till Monday week, all my love, E.”

“I say,” said Sarah, snatching the card.

“Don’t,” screamed Fen, trying to snatch it back and keep the silly grin off her face.

“Who the hell’s E?” asked Sarah. “Prince Edward, Edgar Lust-garten, Ethelred the Unready, Edward Fox, ’Enry Higgins, Eamonn Andrews? Go on, who is he? Who is E?”

“I’m not going to tell you,” said Fen. “My trap is shut.”

Dino appeared at the door, “If we’re going to catch the restaurant before it closes…Christ.”

“Fen has a new boyfriend,” giggled Sarah. “His name begins with E.”

“Stands for excessive, extravagant, and extremely silly,” snapped Dino.

“No, it doesn’t,” said Fen, putting a freesia behind her ear and waltzing round the room. “It stands for ’edonism.”

Throughout the show, Fen jumped atrociously. Her mind was simply not on the horses. She couldn’t eat, she couldn’t sleep at night, as she inhaled the heavy scent of the flowers, which brought back the powerful disturbing image of Enrico. No man had any right to be that attractive. He had discovered erogenous zones she didn’t know existed. She kept looking at her watch, surprised that only a minute had passed.

On Saturday night he telephoned her from New York. The manager brought the telephone to the table where she and Dino and Louise were having a very scratchy dinner, attempting to celebrate Dino’s win in a big class that evening. The line was awful.

“I cannot wait to have you in my arms, cara,” said Enrico and, proceeding to tell her all the unmentionable things he was going to do to her when they met again, Fen was surprised the telephone didn’t turn blue. Fen in turn went redder and redder, acutely aware of Dino listening in stony silence.

Fen got an earful from Jake when she got home. Even though they arrived back after midnight, he had her up at the crack of dawn the next morning, insisting she jump a new and extremely difficult novice round the indoor school, with her arms folded, stirrups crossed, and reins knotted. She fell off four times and ended up on the floor screaming at Jake.

“You’re not going to make a bloody fool of yourself at Olympia,” he said.

“I suppose Tory and Dino have been sneaking.”

“They didn’t need to. One of the Olympic scouts was in Amsterdam. He said if Jesus Christ had ridden that donkey into Jerusalem the way you were riding Laurel and Hardy all week, he deserved to be crucified.”

The end of term jollities of the Olympia Christmas show were lost on Fen this year. Parties were held every night in lorries and on trade stands. Dino went to all of them, each with a different girl, and deliberately got drunk. Fen went to none, because she wanted to look beautiful for Enrico, which was difficult, with the long hours and the airlessness of Olympia and because sleep, when she finally got to bed, again evaded her because of the din outside.

Gossip circulated as usual. Rupert Campbell-Black had acquired a new wonder horse from America called Rock Star, which was reputed to have cost him $200,000. His marriage, on the other hand, was in trouble. Helen had managed to do her Christmas shopping without visiting Olympia once. The Lloyd-Foxes, by contrast, were blissfully happy. Janey had embarked on a book on postnatal depression called
The Blues of the Birth.
Jake’s leg was mending, but no one thought he would make Los Angeles. Fen was showing a dramatic loss of form, and so was Dino Ferranti. Wishbone, despite being in the whisky “tint” every day, had been placed in every class.

The days crawled by. Not eating properly, Fen was appalled to see that she was getting spots again. Not knowing where she was staying, Enrico sent flowers to her care of the BSJA tent and lots of giggling ex-debs carried them down to Fen’s lorry, which now, according to Dino, looked like a hearse.

At long last it was the final day of the show and Enrico was due that evening.

“What d’you think?” said Fen, teetering on one of the bunks in the lorry so she could see her bottom half in the mirror opposite. She was trying on a new pair of white sharkskin breeches, specially made for her.

“Brilliant,” said Sarah, who was cleaning Hardy’s bridle. “I’ve never seen anything so sexy. They make your legs go on forever, but you
must
wear panties underneath.”

“No. It’ll ruin the line.”

“It’ll ruin your reputation if they split.”

Fen bent down, straining the breeches to the limit, and extracted a riding coat from the tissue paper in the cardboard box.

“Now what d’you think of these together?” she said triumphantly, when she’d shrugged her way into it. The coat was dark purple instead of the regulation black or midnight blue, lined with rose-pink silk, tightly fitting, and only just skirting the top of her hip bones. It made the perfect foil for the white breeches.

Sarah whistled. “You’ll never get away with that. It’s a bum freezer. Colonel Roxborough will have another stroke.”

“You wait,” said Fen, “I bet it starts a trend. Everyone’ll be wearing them in a few months.”

“Not if you’ve got a bum Griselda’s size,” said Sarah.

“But it does look sexy!”

“Incredibly. But you look more like a page in
Figaro
than a show jumper, and I don’t think the BSJA will like it.”

As long as Enrico does, that’s all that matters, thought Fen. “I still think you ought to wear panties,” said Sarah, “What else did you get?”

Faintly embarrassed by such extravagance, Fen produced a pale blue flying suit with zips everywhere and a pair of matching pale blue leather boots.

“Gorgeous,” sighed Sarah enviously. “You must have spent your entire year’s winnings. Goodness, I must go and get Hardy ready.”

“Where’s Dino?” said Fen idly, suddenly wanting confirmation that her new riding clothes weren’t over the top.

“Playing poker with Ludwig, Rupert, and Billy. I don’t think he went to bed at all last night.”

Fen needn’t have worried. Her new clothes caused an instant sensation, setting every photographer snapping and all the riders wolf whistling; except Dino and Grisel, who both looked extremely disapproving.

“Playing Buttons in the Christmas pantomime?” was Dino’s only comment.

Just as she was walking the course for the last class of the show, in despair that he wasn’t going to turn up, Enrico arrived and caused an even bigger sensation. Wearing a red shirt, a black coat with a huge astrakhan collar, and half an inch of stubble on his chin, he was accompanied by a girl and a man. The girl, deeply tanned with her streaked blond hair scraped back into a bun, was wearing huge gold hoop earrings and the sort of long squashy fur coat destined to put her straight onto the hit list of the Animal Rights Movement. The man, also blond, was wearing dark glasses, a pale blue flying suit identical to Fen’s, and carrying a pale blue handbag.

Hell, thought Fen, that means I can’t wear my flying suit tonight—we’d look like hers and hers. Enrico, who had found the tickets Fen had left for him at the box office, was making a lot of noise settling in. All the fresh-faced pony club girls, the horsey ladies, and the fathers in their Barbours with three whiskys under their belts, were looking at him in amazement.

“Look, there’s Enrico Mancini,” said Rupert. “Who’s that bird with him?”

“Anna-Fabiola Caraccio,” said Dino. “She’s a friend of Mary Jo’s; and with them is that fag designer, Ralphie Walcott.”

E for Enrico, thought Dino. That was it. That explained the booming exhaust on the bridge. He watched Fen go crimson, giving Enrico a fleeting wave and mouthing that she’d be over to see him as soon as she’d jumped the first round.

Damn, damn, damn, damn, thought Dino, his heart twisting with misery.

For once, Fen was glad she was drawn first. Even though she’d hardly taken in the course when she walked it, she managed to transmit her elation to a rather jaded Hardy, who went around without touching a fence, to the noisy delight of the crowd. Hardly bothering to pat him, Fen threw her reins to the waiting Sarah and ran off. Dino, watching from the riders’ stand, saw Fen mounting the steps, her spiky blond hair gleaming, turning every head with those shiny tight white breeches. He saw Enrico get up and kiss both her hands and her lips and then, because the people behind were complaining they couldn’t see Driffield jumping, watched him sit down and pull Fen onto his knee.

“I though you weren’t coming,” said Fen.

“Carissima,” purred Enrico, sounding rather like one of his own engines, “the traffic was terrible; all those stupid peoples looking at the lights. Then we have to queue at the entrance. Ralphie ’ere ’ad his ’andbag searched. ’Ave we missed a lot? That was a beautiful round; you look so sexy in those trousers.” He ran his hand up her inner thighs till it came to rest on her crotch.

Noticing disapproving glances from all around, particularly from the Royal box, Fen wriggled away.

“We’re going to a party,” said Enrico. “Don’t change. Just come like that. Can you leave now?”

“Not really,” said Fen, feeling flustered, “I’ve got another round to jump and I might be in the jump-off.”

“Give it the miss,” said Enrico, putting his hand back onto her groin.

“I can’t, really,” said Fen, thinking of the money she’d spent that morning. “Too much at stake.”

“Don’t be seely, Enrico,” said the beautiful girl. “Haff some self-control. You wouldn’t stop in the middle of a Grand Prix.”

“Those trousers—they turn me on so much,” complained Enrico.

Wishbone had just come in, but no one sitting near Fen and Enrico was watching him at all. Crimson with embarrassment, Fen escaped back to the riders’ stand.

“Vroom, vroom,” teased Rupert. “You are flying high. Enrico’s got an even worse reputation than I have. Watch out he doesn’t give you the big E.”

Dino, having kicked Manny with unaccustomed viciousness as they went into the ring, jumped appallingly and knocked up such a cricket score that he didn’t even qualify for the second round. Only sixteen riders went through. Fen, going first, went clear again. Instantly she went off to placate Enrico. She was appalled to find him creating yet another disturbance, infuriating everyone by coming out in the middle of Billy’s round.

“You have finished, no,” he demanded.

“No, I’m terribly sorry, not yet. I should be through in about three-quarters of an hour, but I’ve got to jump off and then change.”

“Don’t change a theeng. I want you like that,” said Enrico, stopping to give her a lingering kiss.

“For Christ’s sake, get a move on, Rico,” snapped Ralphie, who was still trapped in the row and being told from all sides to sit down.

“You go on to the party,” said Fen. “I’ll meet you there.”

“Ees better,” said Enrico. “Give her the address, Ralphie.”

“Are you sure it’s not smart and I can wear this?” asked Fen.

“Si,”
said Enrico, his hand on her crotch again. “Come and come and come as you are.”

In a turmoil, Fen went back to the collecting ring. The second round over, the arena party rushed on with brushes to smooth the tan. The band played carols.

“Oh, come all ye unfaithful,” sang Rupert.

“Where’s Dino?” said Fen. Looking at the jump-off course, she suddenly felt nervous and uncertain, needing his advice.