Riders (95 page)

Everyone was very kind. They recognized poor Mrs. Lovell. A man offered her a lift to the vet, but Wolf died on the way. He licked Tory’s hand and gave a last thump of his shepherd’s crook tail, as if to apologize for deserting her, too, and his head fell back.

The vet drove Tory home, and dug a grave for Wolf beside Sailor and various of the children’s guinea pigs and hamsters, and buried him in his blanket with his old shoe. He didn’t like what he saw. Tory was shivering uncontrollably; there was no color in her cheeks; her clothes hung off her. She insisted on making him a cup of tea, but forgot to put any tea in the pot and didn’t even notice that she’d handed him just hot water and milk.

“It was Jake’s dog,” she kept saying. “I should have had him on a lead.”

“Now, you’re not going to be by yourself?” asked the vet.

“No, no, the others’ll be back soon.”

Hannah, going off at dusk, her thoughts full of her boyfriend and the Rolling Stones, wondered if she ought to ring Dino and Fen in London. Tory was just sitting at the kitchen table, twisting a drying-up cloth, gazing unseeingly at a mountain of chopped onions.

“Honestly, I’m perfectly okay,” she said. “Sarah’ll be back first thing and I’ve got an awful lot of chutney to make.”

At nine o’clock, Tory checked the horses. They were all dozing or lying down. She gave Macaulay an apple and a cuddle and then shut all the top doors. Then she took a flashlight and looked at Wolf’s grave.

“You’re lucky,” she said. “You won’t miss him anymore.”

Life without Jake, she reflected, wasn’t worth a farthing. A far thing. Nothing could be further away now than he was. She was useless as a mother, no good as a human being. If she wasn’t there, Jake could come home with Helen when Dino and Fen went to America and take over the yard.

The note took her hours to write, her mind was working so slowly. She screwed up several drafts and chucked them in the bin. In the top of Jake’s chest of drawers in the bedroom, under the lining paper, she found the key to the poison cupboard. Back in the tackroom, she had to stand on a chair to open it. What a choice awaited her. Like Jake asking her what she wanted to drink the first time he’d taken her to a pub. There was henbane, used by Dr. Crippen, and hemlock water dropwort, which Jake often used as a poultice for horses with sore backs. Deadly poison it was, but it also paralyzed you, leaving your mind clear to the end. She couldn’t cope with that. Then there was deadly nightshade, or belladonna as it was called. A more appropriate name for Helen than herself. Jake had once told her that there was enough poison in that bottle to kill off a dozen Campbell-Blacks, with all their phenomenal strength. It should be enough for her. She took down the bottle.

Next morning Jake walked towards the social security office to have another crack at getting some dole. It was totally against his nature, hustling or wheedling for money—but things were getting desperate. A conker fell at his feet. Automatically he picked it up and was about to put it in his pocket for Isa. Then he realized there was no point and savagely hurled it across the car park.

“Hello, Jake,” said a voice.

Wary of rejection, he turned, frowning. But it was Tanya, his old groom, now married and wheeling a baby in a carriage. Jake knelt down to admire the child, picking up his little hands, tickling his ribs to make him laugh. He’d always been sweet with kids, thought Tanya. He must miss his own terribly, his swarthy face gray, his eyes deeply shadowed. The cotton jacket and jeans were far too thin for a bitter cold morning.

“He’s beautiful,” he said, reluctantly getting to his feet.

“I’m sorry about Wolf,” she said.

“What about him?” said Jake, suddenly tense.

“Oh, God, perhaps I shouldn’t have told you. Hannah rang me. He was run over yesterday afternoon.”

An hour later Jake got back to the bedsit to find Helen painting her nails and not in a good mood. She had just read in the
Daily Mail
that her husband had joined the Tory Party and was expecting to be given a safe seat at any minute. Tory, Helen reflected bitterly, was not her favorite word at the moment. She thought so even less when she saw Jake’s face.

“What’s the matter?” she asked in alarm.

“I’ve got to go home.” She winced at the word. “There’s been an accident.”

“Oh, God, not one of the kids?”

“No, Wolf.”

“Wolf? Is that a horse?”

“No, the dog. He was run over yesterday.”

“A dog?” said Helen incredulously. “A dog! You’re going back just for that? I could appreciate it if it was a child.”

“Wolf was like a child to Tory.” And to me, he wanted to add.

Helen looked at him in bewilderment. It was all part of this hideous conspiracy between the English and their animals.

“I simply don’t get it,” she said. “You refuse to go back when Malise appeals to you over and over again to jump for your country, then you scuttle home because some goddam dog’s been run over. I just don’t understand you.”

There was a pause.

“How long will you be?” she asked. “I suppose you’ll want the car.”

Jake looked at his watch. “I’ll be back in time for you to go to the hairdresser’s. If I get delayed, take a taxi.”

“We can’t afford it, and I’ve got to pay the hairdresser’s.”

Jake pulled a huge wad of tenners out of his pocket.

“Did you rob a bank?” asked Helen in amazement.

Jake shook his head. “I flogged my silver.”

“Oh Jake,” she wailed. “How could you? It was the one thing we had to cling on to, your one link with immortality. We’ve scrimped and saved so much so that you could keep it.”

He gave her eight hundred and fifty pounds—“Now you can buy some winter clothes”—and kept a hundred and fifty for himself.

With it, he went to his friend Harry, who bred lurchers, and bought a puppy: a tiny replica of Wolf, with a brindle, fluffy coat, a nose like an anteater and huge, anxious eyes. By the time he drove over the bridge at Withrington the puppy had been sick five times. As he gently lifted the little creature out of the car, she was sick again all over Jake’s coat. Jake hardly noticed. Unsure of his reception, his heart was thumping, his throat dry.

The yard seemed curiously deserted, except for the stable cat, who arched his back at the puppy, and the horses, particularly Macaulay, who nearly broke down their half-doors with delight at seeing their master again. The back door was open but there was no one in the house. As Jake washed the vomit off, he was tempted to go upstairs and get a sweater. But Helen would do her nut if he came back wearing something different. His heart was still thumping when the telephone rang and he automatically picked it up. He had great difficulty in even saying “Hello.”

“Dino,” said a voice, “this is Malise. I’m desperately sorry. Just wondered if there was any more news of Tory.”

“What about Tory?” snapped Jake.

“Who’s that?”

“Jake.”

“What the hell are you doing there?”

“What about Tory?” said Jake, on a rising note of fear.

“She tried to commit suicide last night.”

“Must have been a mistake.”

“I’m afraid not,” said Malise, losing his temper. “She took a massive overdose of one of your bloody poisons. She wasn’t expecting anyone back till this morning. Dino and Fen got worried, came back and found her last night.”

“Oh, my God,” whispered Jake. “Is she, is she…?”

Malise realized he’d been too harsh. “I’m afraid she’s dying, Jake.”

“Where is she?”

“The Great Warwickshire.”

Jake took Fen’s car because it was faster. It had never been driven so fast in its life. The poor puppy rattled back and forth in the back like a shuttle. The hospital steps were swarming with press.

“Hello, Gyppo. Shown up at last, have you?” shouted the
Daily Mail.

“About bloody time. You come to pay for the funeral?” asked
The Sun.

“Fuck off,” snarled Jake.

Mrs. Lovell was in intensive care on the second floor, said the receptionist, giving Jake a strange look. “You can’t bring that puppy in here.”

But Jake was off, limping across the polished floor, pulling the heavy gates of the lift with one hand, holding the puppy with the other. On the way up, it licked Jake’s face. Oh, please God, he prayed frantically, don’t let her die.

As he walked down the passage, a voice said, “What the hell are you doing here?”

It was Dino towering over him, barring his way, like the Archangel Michael with the flaming sword. For a second Jake thought Dino was going to smash his face in, knocking him flying back into a trolley of instruments. Jake stood his ground.

“I want to see Tory.”

“Well, you bloody can’t. She’s in a coma and fading fast, and it’s all your bloody fault, you bastard, you and your lousy poisons. My God, you wouldn’t treat a horse, or even a dog, the way you treated her, leaving her without a fucking word, never getting in touch, letting her just pine away.”

For two minutes Dino carried on in the same vein, calling Jake every name under the sun. His eloquence was fueled by misery and guilt that he and Fen had left Tory on her own, not appreciating how desperate she was. Jake let him finish.

“Everything you say is true,” he said.

Hearing the din, a nurse came out of Tory’s room.

“If you’d like to come in, Mr. Ferranti.”

Jake stepped forward. “I’m her husband, I’ve got to see her.”

But at that moment Fen came out, fighting back the tears, and went straight into Dino’s arms.

“Look who’s just turned up,” said Dino bitterly.

Fen spun around. “Jake, where the hell have you been?” She gave a sob. “You’re too bloody late, that’s all; she’s dying. She was just conscious when we got to her, but she’s got no will to live.”

Not waiting to hear any more, Jake pushed past them and into the room. At first he thought he was hallucinating. For there on the bed was Fen. Then he realized it was Tory—she’d lost so much weight since he’d seen her. Her face, still flushed from the belladonna, gave an illusion of health. Long lashes swept her hollowed cheeks. All Jake could think was how beautiful she looked. He sat down beside the bed, taking her hand. It felt so small and bony now, almost like Helen’s. Oh, Christ, how could he have done this to her? It was he who’d killed her, not the poison.

The doctor came in, and decided to overlook the sleeping puppy curled up on Jake’s knee. This was really no time to worry about hygiene.

“Can’t you do anything?” asked Jake, in desperation.

The doctor shook his head. “We’ve done all we can. She took a massive overdose, enough to kill four people. Luckily we caught it very early, but I’m surprised she’s lasted this long. We washed out her stomach, of course, but she’s got no resistance. There was nothing in her stomach. She can’t have eaten for days. I’m afraid there’s very little hope she’ll ever regain consciousness. I’m so sorry.”

Jake was frantically wracking his brain. When he was living with the gypsies one of the girls had taken an overdose of belladonna after her lover had walked out. The old gypsy grandmother had produced some antidote or emetic and saved her. What the hell had she used? But it was such a long time ago. He must concentrate and try to remember.

“Did she leave a note?” he asked Fen.

Fen got it out of her jeans pocket. “It was addressed to you. She’s left you everything. She knew horses were the only thing that mattered to you, that you and Helen could only come back if she was out of the way.”

But Jake was reading the note.

“She loved you,” said Fen bitterly. “Isa, Darklis, me, the horses, Wolf, were only extensions of how much she loved you. She knew you didn’t love her, but she felt you needed her. That she made life easier, that was enough.”

“Oh, Christ,” Jake groaned, putting his head in his hands. “I only realized in L.A. how much I loved her. Then Helen spilled the beans to Rupert. I couldn’t let her down. I was frightened at what Rupert would do to her. I’d got myself into such a stupid fucking corner.”

“You could have got in touch,” said Fen bleakly. “Nothing, not a word to anyone since you walked out.”

“I didn’t know what to say. I’d treated her so horrendously. I felt so guilty, and besides I’d given Helen the handkerchief.”

Fen lost her temper. “What about the handkerchief you once gave Tory?” she hissed. “You conveniently forgot about that when it suited you, didn’t you? So much for your bloody gypsy integrity. Tory was clutching it when we found her.”

Jake was stunned. “She always seemed so strong that she could cope with anything. I didn’t realize I meant so much to her.” He looked down at Tory, touching her cheek. With a lurch of fear, he realized her breathing was even fainter. Both he and Fen jumped as Dino came in.

“You’ve been here long enough,” he said to Jake, making absolutely no attempt to conceal his contempt and loathing.

Suddenly Jake seemed roused out of his state of apathy.

“She’s my wife,” he snarled, “and I love her.”

“Funny way of showing it,” said Dino, holding the door open for him.