Riders (87 page)

“Talk about the Rocky Horror Show!” said Fen under her breath. Then, horrified by her own lack of patriotism, she shot a sidelong glance at Helen and Mrs. Macaulay and was shattered to see neither of them was looking remotely upset.

“Must go and find Jake,” she said, getting to her feet.

“Wish him good luck,” said Helen. “Don’t forget to tell him,” she called after Fen.

Wishbone was just about to go into the ring. Nearly forty, he’d had a grueling career, and everyone was taking bets on whether the drink or
anno domini
would get to him first. Today, despite three large whiskys, the heat didn’t seem to affect him or his big bay gelding, Christy Mahon. They too got eight faults.

“Well done,” shouted Fen, as he came out of the ring. “Bloody good round.”

She found Ivor, his face tearstained, in the deepest of glooms. “Where’s Jake?” she asked.

“In the Gents, throwing up.”

“He’s got to jump in twenty minutes. For God’s sake, go and get him.”

Jake crouched over the lavatory, gazing miserably at the white bowl. Having had no breakfast and virtually no supper he was throwing up only bile now. He felt dreadful, shaking from head to foot. Oh God, he wished Tory was here.

Someone was rattling the door. It was Ivor.

“You okay, Jake?”

Jake groaned.

“Fen thought this might help.” Ivor passed a brandy under the door.

“Take it easy,” said Malise’s voice. “In a few hours this’ll be all over.”

“How soon have I got to jump?”

“About four to go.”

“Any clears?”

“No—Rupe knocked up a cricket score,” said Malise bleakly.

So it all depends on me, thought Jake.

He drained the brandy. Amazingly, it seemed to calm his nerves and take the edge off his fears. Outside, he found Fen.

“Now listen, they’ve all come unstuck at the hot dog. I think you ought to come off the corner earlier, giving Hardy a bit more time to size it up and take it in five strides.”

“He seems to have got out of bed on the right side. He’s only given me one nip today,” said Sarah.

Hardy was not a handsome horse, but his chubby dappled quarters and shoulders shone like polished pewter, his tail was whiter than the snow on the mountains, and his plaits, threaded with red cotton, were the neatest in the contest.

For a second, Jake smiled at Sarah as she plugged both the horse’s ears with cotton wool. “You’ve done a good job on him,” he said. “He looks great.”

“Good luck,” said Fen.

“I don’t need to tell you this,” said Malise, “but all our hopes rest on you now.”

Giving Hardy a clap on the rump, Jake went off into the tunnel. Fen just managed to make her seat beside Helen as Jake rode into the ring.

“This is Jake, whom I was telling you about,” Helen said to her mother. “He nearly quit because he had such a frightful smash last year.”

The crowd was tired. They had already sat through nearly three hours of jumping. They had seen all the Americans go and were already drifting away for their lunch.

It’s actually happening, thought Jake, as he cantered towards the first huge fence. Feeling Hardy’s irritation at having his natural ebullience curbed, he let him have his head. Hardy bounded over, he cleared the next and the next, and with a whisk of his hind legs flicked over the water with inches to spare. He’s in top form, thought Jake joyfully. The sailboat caused him no problems. Following Fen’s advice, he then took a very sharp turn off the corner, and taking five strides, rather than everyone’s four, gathered sufficient momentum and bounded over the hot dog with ease.

He was the first horse to clear this fence, which caused such screams of delight, excitement, and hysteria from the crowd that they pierced straight through the cotton wool in Hardy’s ears, temporarily unhinging him. Breaking into a gallop he crashed through the huge oxer and sent every brick of the wall flying.

“Shit,” said Helen.

“Helen Macaulay,” said her mother, appalled.

“I’ve been Campbell-Black for six years, Mother.”

“More’s the pity.”

Fen decided she rather liked Mrs. Macaulay.

Jake, meanwhile, had pulled Hardy almost to a standstill, stroking him and balancing him, the same way he had calmed Macaulay in the World Championship.

“Silly bugger’s going to get time faults,” said Rupert.

“He knows what he’s doing,” snapped Malise.

Jake kicked Hardy into a canter, and proceeded to bounce over the rest of the course, riding out to deafening applause.

“Well done. Marvelous,” said Malise, looking considerably more cheerful than he had ten minutes before. “You’ve saved the day. You’re on eleven.”

Only three rounds followed, two of them hopeless, but the British hopes were slightly dashed when a Nigerian on a huge black gelding went round at a gallop, a broad grin on his face. Despite shooting out of the saddle at every fence, and reducing the crowd to fits of laughter, he managed to clear everything except the water and the hot dog.

Malise got out his score sheet. “That’s Mary Jo on four, Carol, Ludwig, Wishbone, and the Nigerian on eight, and you on eleven, Jake,” he said.

Then there was a grueling, three-hour interval before the second round. Twenty riders went through. Ivor was out, Rupert had just scraped in, Jake was fifth. There would be fewer jumps, but they would be harder.

“Let’s go and have some lunch,” said Malise.

“I’m going to stay behind and sort out Rocky,” said Rupert grimly.

“Must try and keep Wishbone out of the whisky tint,” said Paddy, his groom. Ivor couldn’t speak for despair.

“Rupert was overconfident. You were underconfident. It happens to the best people,” Malise told him.

On the way to lunch Jake suddenly swayed, overcome by heat, lack of sleep and food, and a large brandy.

“You won’t be jumping for at least three hours,” said Malise firmly. “Go and have a sleep on Sarah’s bed.”

“Don’t be bloody silly,” said Jake, mopping his dripping forehead. “I couldn’t possibly sleep.”

“Well, lie down then.”

Within seconds of stretching out on the tiny bed in the attic room over the stables, Jake was asleep.

The second round was much tougher. The temperature was up in the nineties, turning the Olympic stadium into a furnace. The horses having been warmed up, and jumped, and put back in the stables, thought that work was over for the day and couldn’t understand why they were being pulled out again. Most of them were already tired.

Even the vast crowd seemed depleted, as spectators, escaping from the punishing heat, watched the competition on the closed-circuit televisions scattered round the halls.

Biting her nails, Fen watched rider after rider fighting their way through a forest of obstacles. Ludwig had worked Clara too hard in the interval and the great mare knocked up a cricket score.

Jake, having been woken up, was warming up Hardy as Mary Jo entered the ring. From the arena he could see the stands heaving as the spectators stampeded to get back to their seats and cheer on their heroine. Mary Jo was on four faults. Jake listened to the roars of applause growing to a crescendo, which must have been heard all the way to New York. Then there was a silence, and a terrible groan. Four faults, that meant she was on eight, then the cheers started again, rising and rising once more. He must concentrate on Hardy. Then suddenly there was a deafening bellow, which sent Hardy into a frenzy, despite the cotton wool in his ears.

Looking up at the stadium, Jake could see hats being thrown in the air, rising up above the back of the stand like popped corn. Unless Carol or Wishbone or the Nigerian went clear, Mary Jo had got her gold. There was no way Jake could catch her. The cheering went on and on, until finally Mary Jo came out of the tunnel, wiping away the tears, then disappearing into a shrieking crowd of well-wishers.

Carol Kennedy, on eight, went next and again was unlucky. He was jumping cleanly and steadily when the shadow of a helicopter above fell across the first element of the double, making it difficult to judge the distance. The gallant Scarlett O’Hara knocked down both elements, but otherwise went clear. The crowd were in ecstasy, stamping their feet, crying: “Yoo-hoo-hoo.” Carol was now on sixteen faults, with an excellent chance of the silver.

In rode Rupert. It was only a miracle that he could even get the bronze. He was still in a white-hot rage, determined to go clear and show everyone how the course should be jumped. Obviously terrified out of his wits, eyes rolling, frothing blood at the mouth, Rocky went clear until he came to the triple going away from the collecting ring, when he began to slow down. Rupert lifted his whip. Rocky took off too soon, and sent triple, horse, and rider flying. Rupert hung on to the reins and appeared unhurt, but it was several seconds before he could mount the panic-stricken Rocky, who, thoroughly unsettled, proceeded to notch up a further eight faults.

“Bad luck,” said Wishbone, who was waiting to go in. But Rupert ignored him, riding straight past him with a pale, dangerous face. Wishbone had had enough whisky in the interval to give him courage, but rather too many for perfect judgment. He knew it was his last chance at a medal. The Irish didn’t have enough riders here to make up a team, but he loved his old horse, and would dearly have loved to go home with a medal, so he crossed himself and prayed fervently to the Virgin Mary as he rode into the ring. The Virgin Mary was listening. Gently she guided horse and rider around the ring. Wishbone jumped like a man inspired, with only one fence down, putting him into second place.

The crowd erupted. Wishbone had entertained them with his antics for many years now. He was a very popular rider. They cheered and cheered. Ireland had got the silver, but America had the gold and bronze.

“They seem to have completely forgotten that there’s still Jake and that Nigerian to jump,” said Fen furiously.

“Are you all right?” she said to Jake. “It must be much worse when there’s so much at stake.”

He nodded, not trusting himself to speak. If he got four faults he got the bronze; if he went clear, the silver. That was the message bleakly spelled out. With the crowd making such a din, there was no way he could get Hardy to concentrate.

“Take his cotton wool out,” he said to Sarah.

“Are you sure?” she said, horrified. “He’ll freak out.”

Malise came up and gave Hardy a last pat. “They’re obviously not going to shut up,” he said. “I’d go in. Just trust to your instincts.”

If I get a medal, thought Jake as he waited, watching the mouthing ecstatic faces, I’ll get £75,000 a year from Boyson. He thought of Tory and the children watching at home. He thought of Helen, whom he’d been so foul to earlier.

“Go in, please,” said the ring steward in his coral blazer.

From then on Jake thought about nothing but Hardy. Riding slowly to the center of the arena, he turned to the President’s Box, where the president, who loved horses, sat with Prince Philip and Princess Anne, and he removed his hat to the judges, showing the sudden pallor on his suntanned face. Then he spoke to Hardy and Hardy put one foot forward and bowed low to the Prince and the Princess and the president and the crowd burst into ecstatic, charmed applause. They’d got their gold; they could afford to be generous. There was no way this gypsy and his tricks could beat their Mary Jo.

“Isn’t that darling?” said Helen to Mrs. Macaulay.

Jake looked up at the cool, snow-tipped mountains beyond the stadium and the great blocks of faces watching him, and calmly he replaced his hat and waited for the crowd to settle.

Gradually the cheering decreased to a sizzle of excitement, like fat in a chip pan. Jake touched the Union Jack on his saddle cloth, then the tansy in his breast pocket. Hardy stood as still as a rock for once. He had heard the crowd in all its noise and glory, and it hadn’t harmed him.

“Stupid exhibitionist,” said Rupert to Ludwig.

“Pity not to have any clears,” said Dudley Diplock.

Finally, when there was no sound at all except the clicking of cameras and the insect hum of a 100,000-strong crowd trying to be quiet, Jake kicked Hardy into a canter. Neither of them looked a bit tired. It was almost as though they were jumping an exhibition round. As they cleared the first two fences, then the third, then bounded joyously over the water, the crowd realized Hardy was enjoying himself and started to cheer and stamp and clap him on.

“They really like me,” Hardy seemed to be saying, as he picked his feet up and really bucketed over the hot dog with a jaunty whisk of his tail.

“This is the fence I hated last time,” he seemed to say, slowing up at the oxer. “You like it this time, listen to the applause,” said Jake, as Hardy flew over like a swallow.

“He’s a bit slow,” said Fen, sitting beside Malise on the edge of the riders’ stand.

“Yes,” said Malise, “but what a round; sheer poetry. Come on, Jake.”

As if Jake heard them, he stepped up Hardy’s pace, and came storming over the combination. Now it was the last double.

“I can’t look,” said Fen. She waited, head in her hands for the sickening thud of poles. She heard a gasp, a long pause, an ecstatic scream from Helen on her right, and then a mighty roar of applause.