Riders (78 page)

“You think so.”

“I know.”

“Is he going to remain there?”

“That’s up to you.” He ran his finger lightly along the heart line. “Whatever you may think to the contrary, you’re extremely passionate.”

Neither of them made much headway with their second course, but finding so much to talk about now, they drank their way through a second bottle of wine.

“Were you really intending to ask me out at Crittleden?”

“No, I was far too preoccupied about riding again.”

“What changed your mind?”

“I suddenly wanted you like crazy.”

Helen blushed. “Ever since you bought me lunch at the pub, I’ve kept thinking about you. I thought it was gratitude, now I’m not sure.”

Jake undid one of the zips on her flying suit: “Pretty. Does this lead anywhere?”

“Only a pocket.”

“Nice. I’d like to live in your pocket.”

Looking down at his hand at her collarbone, involuntarily Helen bent her head and kissed it, then went crimson.

“I didn’t mean to do that,” she said, appalled.

“I know you didn’t. I willed you to.”

Still they lingered, oblivious of the yawning waiters looking at their watches, ostentatiously re-laying tables on either side of them. Seeing her slowly relax, and those huge eyes losing their sadness, Jake couldn’t tear himself away. He’d always thought her very overrated as a beauty. Now she seemed to blossom in front of him—lovelier every second.

In the loo, Helen was amazed to see her own face. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t turned into someone else. It took hours to get her flying suit half off and have a pee. She kept undoing the wrong zips. She realized she must be very tight. She was appalled, looking at her watch, to see it was a quarter to four.

She was glad that, in her flat boots, she was at least an inch shorter than Jake. As they walked to her car, he put a hand on the back of her bare neck under her hair, warm and reassuring. It was nice walking beside someone the same size. Rupert always dwarfed her.

“I must go back,” she said wistfully. “I’m dreadfully late.”

As he opened her door he said, “Drive a couple of miles down the road towards Penscombe. There’s a little wood on the left. Wait for me there.”

The wood was full of primroses and violets. For a dreadful moment she’d thought she’d found the wrong copse or that he wasn’t coming. Then at last he appeared over the hill, stuck behind a trundling farm tractor carrying bales of hay. Taking both hands off the wheel, he raised them in a gesture of despair.

He was out of the car in a second, leading her into the wood, beech husks crunching beneath their feet. Then, as Helen tripped over a bramble cable, Jake caught her, drawing her behind a huge beech tree, laying her against the trunk, taking her face between his hands, examining every freckle and eyelash and yellow fleck in her eyes.

“Even Helen of Troy couldn’t have been as beautiful as you,” he whispered, and kissed her very gently on the lips. Helen was very glad the beech tree was holding her up. No one had ever melted her in this way. She had no desire to fight him off, just a longing that he would go on holding her forever. But as they broke for breath, some death wish prompted her to ask, “It’s not because I’m Rupert’s wife?”

For a second his face was black with rage, just like the time he’d pulled a knife on Rupert.

“I don’t want anything of Rupert’s,” he said through gritted teeth, his hands biting into her arms until she winced. “Get this absolutely straight. Rupert poisons everything he touches. It’s a measure of what I feel for you, that I still want you
despite
the fact you’re his wife.”

This time he kissed her really hard and she kissed him back, half-longing that he’d push her down and take her on the beech husks. But he led her back to her car, his face shuttered.

“You’re not cross?” she stammered. “I’ve had such a good time today. Living with Rupert makes you skeptical, I guess, so you question everyone’s motives.”

“Well, don’t question mine. Where you’re concerned they’re quite straightforward. I just can’t stand that shit having anything to do with you.”

He opened the door and, as she got in, leaned over to slot in her safety belt, kissing her briefly on the forehead.

“You know this is only the beginning?”

“Is it?” Helen was overwhelmed by a great happiness.

He nodded. “But we can’t afford to rush things. I’ve got too much to lose.”

“You mean Tory and the children.”

“No,” he said slowly, “I mean you. I don’t want to panic you. Drive carefully. I’ll ring you tomorrow afternoon.”

It was a good thing there weren’t any traffic cops lurking as Helen floated home. She got lost twice and bought peace offerings of freesias for Charlene and sweets for the children. Really, she was going to the dogs in grand style. She came through the door singing with happiness at five past five.

“So sorry I’m late. Lunch went on and on and on. Everyone was rabbiting on about sponsored swims and bring-and-buys. What are you having for supper, darlings? Beefburgers and french fries. How yummy.”

Normally Helen would have freaked out at junk food, thought Charlene, putting the freesias in water, and she certainly didn’t get like that over a thimbleful of sherry and one glass of hock.

In the evening Charlene went to a wine bar with Dizzy, who this time hadn’t gone to Rome.

“Promise, promise, promise, you won’t tell anyone?”

“I promise.”

“Goodness,” said Dizzy in awe, a quarter of an hour later. “I wouldn’t have thought the old thing had it in her. Are you sure?”

“Well, she certainly wasn’t preventing cruelty to children. Mrs. Paignton-Lacey dropped off the minutes for the last meeting on the way home, two hours before Mrs. C-B got back.”

“Christ,” said Dizzy. “Well done, her. About time someone gave Super Bastard the run around. I wonder who he is.”

“Must be pretty special. She came back floating above ground like the hovercraft. She was never like that after lunching with Dino Ferranti.”

H
elen sent Charlene and the children out for a picnic the following afternoon so she could talk to Jake without being overheard. But gradually as the minutes ticked by, she felt her happiness subsiding like a tire with a slow puncture. Three, four, five, six, struck the grandfather clock in the hall. It was no longer afternoon. The children came home, tired and fractious and, sensing her sadness and inattention, played up even more. Helen looked at the chaos of toys lying around the nursery, counting “he loves me, he loves me not” as she put them away. The last piece of Lego was back in its box, and came to “he loves me not.” Jake must have gone off her. Perhaps Tory had kicked up a fuss when he got home and he’d decided the whole thing wasn’t worth the hassle.

The evening passed with agonizing slowness. She couldn’t settle to anything. She was appalled how suicidal she felt. She couldn’t have got that hooked that quickly. This is only the beginning, he’d told her. A small dark stranger has entered your life. How could he hurt her like this? How could he reduce her to such ridiculous uncertainty and despair?

At midnight she took the dogs out for a last walk. As if to mock her, it was the most perfect evening, with a gold, almost full moon, with a hazy halo of apricot pink. Along the edge of the wood the huge Lawson cypresses rose like cathedral spires, taking on an almost sculptured quality. As she walked across gray, shaven lawns, past silent statues, the last of the daffodils gave a flicker of light. The reflection of the moon in the lake was rippled first by a wakeful carp, now by Badger drinking. Her shadow was tall and very black on the lawn. It was so light she could see the blue and green stones in her engagement ring. Was there after all to be no small escape, no respite from her marriage?

Despairing, she turned back. Glancing up at the golden, lit-up windows of her bedroom she could see the rose and yellow silk curtains of the huge four-poster in which she would soon lie alone. As she came into the house the telephone was ringing. After midnight, so it must be Rupert. He never had any sense of time. Steeling herself, she picked up the receiver.

“Helen! Can you talk? It’s Jake.”

She burst into tears. It was a minute before he could get a word in. “Hush. I’m sorry, pet. Please don’t cry; it breaks me up. I couldn’t ring before. Hardy cast himself this afternoon. Had the most frightful colic. The vet’s been here since two o’clock. He’s just finished operating. He’d swallowed a nail and we thought we’d lost him.”

“Oh God, that’s awful. Is he going to be okay?”

“He’s still out like a light; but the vet reckons he’ll pull through.”

“I’m so sorry. You must have been frantic.”

“I couldn’t get to a telephone. It’s in the tackroom and the vet and Fen were in Hardy’s box next door the whole time. Look, I can’t talk long; the vet’s still here, but I must see you tomorrow, if only for five minutes.”

“It’ll be hard for you to get away if he’s still sick. I’ll come over your way.”

“That would help and, pet, please don’t cry anymore.”

They met the next day, literally for a quarter of an hour.

Jake looked desperately tired; he hadn’t been to bed. Hardy was very shaky on his legs, he said, but well enough to bite the vet that morning, so it looked as if he would pull through. Watching his face as he talked about the horse, Helen felt deeply ashamed. He really loves him, she thought, as Rupert was incapable of loving a horse; in fact, anything. Last night he must have suffered just as much as she had waiting for him to ring, and she’d greeted him with hysterics.

They walked through the beech woods, breathing in the wild garlic, Wolf bounding ahead and Jake picking up the bluebells the dog had knocked over so Helen could take them home for a few more days of life.

They sat on a fallen log. Helen hung her head, clutching the bluebells. She’d put her hair up today. Jake slowly took out every hairpin so it cascaded down her back in a shining red mass.

“Don’t put it up anymore. It reminds me of what you were like before I started to”—he paused—“to know you.”

Then he said more briskly, “Look, we’ve got to get one thing straight. You’ve been married to a show jumper for quite long enough to know that things happen with horses, that it’s impossible even to say I’ll turn up or telephone at a particular time with a hundred percent certainty.”

“I know,” she said in a trembling voice, “but I’ve got so little self-confidence.”

“I know that,” he said, putting his hand under her chin and forcing it upwards. “And I want to give some back to you, but only if you give me a chance and realize from the start that if I ever don’t ring you, or don’t turn up, it’s because I can’t. Even though I was demented with worry over Hardy last night, a hundred times I nearly risked it and picked up the phone, which would have been madness, because any minute Tory could have picked it up in the kitchen. It’s difficult enough for us to find time to see each other without complicating things. All right, end of lecture, I’m not going to kiss you because I must have smoked a hundred cigarettes in the last twenty-four hours and I don’t want to put you off even before we’ve got started.”

“You couldn’t, truly you couldn’t.” She threw herself into his arms, half crying, half laughing.

He held her for a long time, not speaking, just stroking her hair. Then he said, “I’m off to the Bath and Wells tomorrow for three days. Why don’t you drive over? We could have dinner.”

“That would be just lovely.”

“Or I could book a room in one of the nearby hotels.”

He felt her stiffen.

“I don’t know.”

How could she explain that he was so desperately important to her that she couldn’t bear him to go off her so soon? She knew he would, once he realized how hopeless she was in bed.

“Why not?”

“I don’t know you well enough.”

He laughed. “There’s no more satisfying way of getting to know someone better.”

He rang the next day to tell her the name of the hotel and what time he thought he’d get there. He didn’t mean to bully her, but he felt privately it was vital to bed her as soon as possible. Not just because he wanted her like hell, but because he felt he’d never make any real progress in restoring her self-confidence until he got to grips with her particular hang-ups. On several occasions he’d heard gossip that she was frigid. He didn’t believe it. Frigid was a gross oversimplification, a term often used scornfully by men about women who no longer loved them physically. He believed Helen had been very badly frightened, but was not frigid.

He wished he could spend hours in her box, talking to her, soothing her, making her feel secure. But he had so little time. If he was going to be picked for Los Angeles he couldn’t let up for a second. And so he insisted on her meeting him that night at the hotel.

Helen sat alone in her bedroom at dusk. There was no wind. Outside, sheep were calling to lambs, baby house martins under the eaves were squeaking peremptorily for their parents to catch insects more quickly. The white cherries shone luminous in the half-light. The rank, peasant smell of wild garlic in the wood threatened to extinguish the sweet, delicate scent of the pink clematis, which swarmed round the bedroom window. Her pink track shoes were yellow with buttercup pollen, from wandering aimlessly through the fields all afternoon blowing dandelion clocks. This time tomorrow, she thought, I’ll be in bed with Jake.

She had never been so frightened in her life. She wished she could pray, but how could she ask God to help her be better in bed with someone who wasn’t her husband. She still hadn’t planned her alibi for tomorrow night. Charlene was already going out, so she’d have to ask one of the grooms to babysit. Always before, she’d left a telephone number where she could be reached, but she could hardly give them the number of the Nirvana Motel. And how was she going to smuggle her suitcase out to the car? She’d have to send the children out for yet another picnic.

Even worse, she’d been sitting on her bed, trimming her bush with nail scissors, when Charlene had walked in with some ironed clothes and Helen had hastily to pretend she was cutting her toenails. Anyway, what was the point of trimming her bush when the thing it covered was the trouble? Over and over again, Rupert’s words came back to haunt her: “You’re just like a bloody frozen chicken. Every time I put my hand in there I expect to pull out the giblets.”

And she was so thin now, it would be like going to bed with an Oxfam ad. She had a blinding headache so she took some of Jake’s medicine. Gradually the pain eased and she felt calmer. Maybe if he could cure her head, he could melt the ice of her frigidity as well.

But it was as if some malignant fate were at work. Just as she was leaving Penscombe the following day, she discovered she’d got her period. She’d been so preoccupied, she’d completely forgotten she was due.

She glanced at her watch. It was too late to ring Jake at the show. She could ring the Nirvana Motel and leave a message saying she couldn’t make it, but that left her with the appalling prospect of not seeing him. She’d have to go, perhaps have a quick drink—he wouldn’t want her in this state—and then come home.

It was so hot, she wore only a yellow sleeveless dress, yellow sandals, and a white silk scarf to keep her hair from tangling. As she drove very fast to meet him, she was so wracked with stomach cramps she hardly noticed the beautifully green bosky evening or the cow parsley frothing along the verges, or the smell of wild garlic, stronger than ever, like some rampant Dionysian presence pursuing her.

Waiting for Jake, she sat trembling in the hotel foyer, trying to make herself look as inconspicuous as possible. Pretending to read the evening paper, the hall porter watched her idly. You could always tell the first time they came here, he thought, they never stopped fiddling with their hair, squirting on perfume, glancing in their hand mirrors, then fearfully up at the door. Suppose he didn’t turn up; supposing someone they knew walked in. He’d even seen wives sitting here waiting for their lovers when their husbands walked in with someone else. He had another look at Helen. This one was a looker, all right, but she’d go through the ceiling with nerves in a minute. Oh, now she’d dropped her bag all over the floor. He moved forward to help as Helen fell on her knees, frantically scrabbling up banker’s cards, keys, loose change, lipsticks, and stray Lillets. At that moment, Jake sauntered through the door, his coat slung over his shoulder. He looked suntanned and happy and not remotely embarrassed.

“Hello, darling,” he said, pulling her to her feet, and kissing her on the cheek. “Did the babysitter arrive? I’ve had the most bloody day at the office. And I’m afraid my father rang to say he wants to come and stay next week.”

Just like any other married couple, thought Helen in admiration, and she had great difficulty not giggling when he signed them both in as Mr. and Mrs. Driffield.

“No, we’ll manage,” he said to the porter when he offered to carry their cases up to the fourth floor, adding in an undertone as they got into the lift, “I’m buggered if I’ll tip him for nothing.”

When he opened his case in the bedroom, all it contained was a toothbrush, toothpaste, a bottle of gin, and a large bottle of tonic.

“I think that covers all eventualities,” he said, as he fetched two glasses from the bathroom. Then, seeing the expression of misery on her face, he put them down on the dressing table and took her in his arms, trying to still the desperate trembling.

“Pet, please, you look as if you’re going to the electric chair.”

Helen burst into tears. It was some seconds before she could speak, and then he spoke for her. “You’ve got the curse.”

“How d’you know?” she said incredulously.

“I knew you had it coming. All week you were very edgy, and the day before yesterday your breasts were swollen and you had huge circles under your eyes. Fen always says just before the curse is the only time she has decent boobs.”

Helen was amazed that he should be so observant. Smoothing her hair very gently behind her ears, he removed her earrings. “Now, will you please stop crying. We don’t have to do a thing if you don’t want to.”

He poured half and half gin and tonic into the glasses and handed her one. “You got a pain?”

She nodded.

“Well gin’s the best for that. Take a big slug of it. Come on, lie down,” he said, removing her yellow high-heeled sandals. “Just relax. We’ve got hours.” He lay down beside her, draining half his drink.

“You don’t have to stay,” Helen stammered. “You might not want to—if there’s no sex.”

For a second his face blackened. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean? D’you honestly think I only want you for sex?”

“I don’t know. It’s all Rupert wants.” Somehow the words spilled out before she could stop them.

“How many times,” he said wearily, “do I have to remind you, I’m not Rupert?”

“I know you’re not,” she said in a trembling voice, “but it wouldn’t make any difference if you were, or if I didn’t have a period. I’m no good to you. I’m hopeless at sex. I’m frigid.”

“Who said so?”

“Rupert did. He says I’m simply not interested in it.”

“Not interested in him, you mean.”

Despite the heat he could feel the gooseflesh on her arms. She was still shuddering violently, her teeth chattering.