Well Groomed (2 page)

‘Sorry, Giblets, my son.’ He looked across to the cat-flap from which a grubby beak still protruded. ‘Your number’s up. Twenty-five pounds, twenty-five days into December, twenty-five minutes now until Tash’s mother’s due to arrive.’

‘Twenty-five minutes!’ Tash gaped at her watch in horror. ‘I must get dressed.’

‘Stay as you are.’ Niall wrapped her in a hug. ‘I like to see you in the just-got-out-of-bed look. I find the idea of ripping off three jumpers, two t-shirts, two pairs of leggings, two pairs of socks and an old school scarf deeply exciting.’

‘Do you think they’ll mind that the heating’s packed in?’ Tash hugged him back for warmth.

‘I’ll light a fire.’

By the time she came back out of the bedroom dressed in a very warm trouser suit over her very warm thermals, with her hair sodden and her nose blue from an icy shower, Niall was immersed in some old newspapers that he had extracted from the coal cupboard as kindling for the fire, and had become so engrossed in reading that the fire was still unlit. The vast, black-stained forge hearth was still filled with soot, ashes, cigarette stubs and sweet wrappers.

Tash’s eyes softened as she gazed at him. His curling black hair, in desperate need of a cut, was flopping all over his stubbled face, milk-chocolate eyes crinkling as he laughed at an A. A. Gill column dating back to September.

He’d had so little time to read the papers in the last few months, she realised; particularly the English ones that he adored, having spent so long filming in America, where his super-luxury trailer had been stuffed with scripts to be rejected. Here he was, dressed in nothing but a ratty striped dressing gown and bedsocks, hair on end, knees supporting a Sunday supplement as he stooped over an old television crit, guffawing as though he had watched the programme yesterday and agreed with every word. To Niall, everything was as fresh as he was, however jaded it – and he – appeared. He was the only man she knew who still laughed uproariously at old Marx Brothers jokes, and she loved him for it.

‘Merry Christmas.’ She held out a slightly damp package which she had just wrapped in the bathroom. She had forgotten to buy wrapping paper again this year, but doubted that he would recognise one of their drawer liners.

Niall looked up, his eyes uncrinkling for a moment.

‘You look beautiful,’ he sighed, taking in the red velvet suit, the long, long legs and wet, snaky brown hair curling over her huge, odd, blinking eyes and framing her lovely cleft chin.

She smiled shyly. ‘Open it then.’

As he ripped at the package, Tash wandered across to the paint-stained portable radio that had been her only company when splashing white Dulux on the brick walls of the Old Forge six months ago, and surfed the dial until she found some carols.

‘This is bloody wonderful!’ Niall laughed as a flutter of poppy-strewn, damp paper finally landed on the floor and he held up a tiny miniature painting of them both together, framed in a fat, peeling antique gilt square.

Tash, puce with embarrassment, listened to a couple of bars of ‘Good King Wenceslas’.

‘You don’t think it’s a bit naff?’ she asked nervously.

She had spent agonising hours the week before deciding whether or not to give it to him, and had only finally been persuaded when Gus and Penny, her dearest friends, had frog-marched her into the antique shop in neighbouring Fosbourne Dean and forced her to buy a frame – far more expensive than she could afford – insisting that if she didn’t give it to him, they would sack her from her post as their working pupil.

‘It’s simply wonderful,’ Niall sighed, echoing their words of a week earlier. ‘And so small that I can take it with me wherever I work. Christ, I love you, Tash French.’

When she finally surfaced from a kiss far too long and raucous for one of Niall’s standard celluloid love-scenes, she noticed a pair of red eyes peering at her critically through the cat-flap.

‘Do you think we should let him in and give him something to eat?’ she asked worriedly as Giblets let out an outraged gobble.

‘Sure.’ Niall shrugged, still staring at the painting in awe. ‘God, this is great.’

‘What the hell are we going to do for lunch?’ Tash peered into the open-plan kitchen where three pounds of Brussels sprouts were still sagging from a hanging vegetable rack, confined in their plastic string supermarket bag with the lurid discount voucher on full show. ‘Brussels sprout quiche?’ She let in Giblets, who headed straight for the fireplace in disorientated excitement.

‘We could.’ Niall shrugged again. ‘Or you could dash along to Penny and Gus’s place and see if they can spare any extras, while I stay here and light a fire.’ He propped the painting against a photograph of Tash and her event horse, Foxy Snob, taking a huge stone wall at last year’s Highclere Horse Trials. Coaxing Giblets from the fireplace, he lit a cigarette in anticipation of the task ahead.

‘I can’t impose on them on Christmas morning,’ Tash said worriedly. ‘And they can hardly cut their turkey in half.’

‘Afternoon.’ Niall checked his watch. ‘And why not? You can wish Snob and Hunk a Merry Christmas, and give the Moncrieffs their presents.’ He nodded towards a large Selfridge’s bag propped up by the door. ‘We forgot to take them to midnight mass last night.’

‘We went to midnight mass?’ Tash looked confused.

‘Mmm.’ Niall nodded, heading back to the fireplace and throwing in his half-smoked cigarette. ‘At least I think we did. Why in hell didn’t you just take that cigarette off me, Tash? You know I’ve given up.’

‘You’re supposed to tell me to take them off you first, remember?’ Tash, feeling slightly baited, headed for the door and stepped into her wellies as she reached for her ancient Puffa, which was oozing its lining through the tears like a clawed cushion. ‘I’m not acting as fag cop without instruction since you locked yourself in Tom’s bedroom with a packet of Rothmans at Sally’s thirtieth.’

‘You looked so sweet when you were soaked through – like a mermaid.’

‘The terrapins weren’t so chuffed to find themselves on dry land once their home had been deposited on me, though.’ Tash pulled on her gloves sulkily.

Niall looked sheepish. ‘Sorry.’

She grinned, able to forgive him anything when he looked at her like that. ‘I’ll see you in half an hour or so.’

An hour later, Alexandra and Pascal arrived to find Niall smoking a furtive Camel Light and reading an old copy of the
Marlbury Weekly Gazette
in the freezing cold. Tash was nowhere to be seen. A large white turkey was standing in the empty, black fireplace, its head cocked, listening to a droning Christmas sermon on the radio. A second turkey – smaller, plucked and frozen – was sitting on a polystyrene tray on the Rayburn, dripping on to the plate lids, from which a low hiss was burbling as the water ran down to meet the heat.

‘
Allo, Niall, mon brave
.’ Pascal picked his way into the tiny cottage, stepping over a tide of mess in his hand-made Italian shoes. ‘Eet is cold,
non
?’

But before Niall could look up and answer, Pascal was overtaken by his wife, wafting Arpège and flurried excitement.

‘I’ve left Mother in the car with Polly – they’re engaged in a frantic game of I Spy and won’t come out until one is declared overall victor. Hi, Niall darling – Merry Christmas. Gosh, you’re still in your dressing gown. I’m so sorry. Are we early? Is Tash still in bed?’

‘No, you’re late, Alexandra angel.’ Niall rose from his knees and kissed her on both cheeks, admiring the butterscotch skin which was still as smooth as her daughter’s. ‘And I’m afraid you’ve caught me about my prayers, as it’s the day of the birth of our Sacred Mary’s only child, so it is.’ He glanced guiltily down at the newspaper he had been reading and then beamed up at her.

‘Gosh, how gloriously devout.’ Alexandra looked at him in wonder and slight disbelief.

‘And Tash is just at the Moncrieffs’ farm saying hello to her horses now – giving them a Christmas carrot.’

‘How lovely – she always did that for her ponies as a child.’ Alexandra flicked back her short, glossy brown bob and caught sight of Giblets, who was pecking hungrily at the
West Berks Advertiser.

‘Good grief, is that lunch?’

‘No, no.’ Niall flipped a casual hand towards the turkey in the fireplace. ‘He’s a pet.’ He headed towards the stairs, adding over his shoulder, ‘That’s lunch.’ And he pointed out the dripping, goose-bumped pink lump on the Rayburn.

‘The lunch, he ees frozen solid,’ Pascal announced with a shudder as, still wearing his leather driving gloves, he prodded the wet, icy bird.

‘Oh, dear!’ Alexandra gazed around forlornly as she listened to Niall creaking about in the bathroom overhead. ‘I mean, it’s terribly romantic but it’s a bit of a hovel, isn’t it?’

‘It’s a bloody dump,
ma chérie
,’ announced a warbling baritone from the door as Etty Buckingham tottered in, swamped by her squishy grey fox fur, bearskin hat worn at a rakish angle. She was an amazingly glamorous octogenarian, false eyelashes batting up a gale as she calmly took in the mess, hollow cheeks sucked in so that her cheekbones seemed higher and more angled than ever, like two wing mirrors. ‘I weel take you all out to lunch in a local ’otel.’

‘Rubbish, Mother,’ Alexandra said kindly. ‘You’re far too poor, and everywhere will be booked up by now anyway. Pascal will cook.’

He puffed out his tanned cheeks, watery grey eyes widening under his chaotic mane of greying hair. Turning up the collar of his beautifully cut cashmere coat and shivering against the chill, he stalked into the tiny kitchen.

‘I brought in ze wine,
Maman
,’ chirruped Polly from the door as she came staggering in under the weight of two magnums of champagne. The raven-haired little girl, as delicate and ravishing as her mother, was wearing an elf’s costume which was rather marred by the latest high-fashion trainers and the personal stereo attached to her leather elfin belt.

‘Ah – what a lovely Christmas! I can tell it’s going to be quite my favourite so far,’ Alexandra sighed happily, reaching out for her daughter’s load.

‘You were the funniest thing at midnight mass!’ Penny told Tash as they stuffed Snob with Polos, trying to keep hold of their wine glasses which he was keen to examine with his snapping pink muzzle. ‘Lolling around in the back pew singing a solo rendition of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” while the hip vic was giving yet another camp sermon about loving thy neighbour of either sex. Godfrey Pelham got such giggles he was eating his hassock.’

‘Glad I was so entertaining,’ Tash said weakly, ducking as Snob gnashed his teeth towards her hair, keen on the waft of apple shampoo. His startling zig-zag blaze bobbed like a stabbing sword.

The big chestnut stallion, as headstrong and temperamental as his stable companion, the Drunken Hunk, was mild and polite, rolled his purple-brown eyes and backed off sulkily, presenting Tash with a stained chestnut rump, flaxen tail twitching angrily, white hoof stamping almost silently into his thickly banked shavings.

Tash’s two horses were the only ones not turned out for the day – Snob because he fought so much with all the others, and the yard comic, Hunk, because he was confined to stable rest with an injured tendon. Out in the Moncrieffs’ hilly, frosted fields the rest of the yard’s occupants were huddling together for warmth or nosing through piles of hay, swathed in heavy New Zealand rugs, some with protective hoods so that they resembled medieval chargers in low-budget armour. Tash noticed that the bottom field’s trough, which Penny had smashed into with a hammer just minutes earlier, was already developing a thin crystal film of ice again.

‘Come back in for another drink,’ she urged, hooking her arm through Tash’s. ‘Zoe was still goose-stuffing half an hour ago, so lunch is yonks away. God, I wish you still lived here. Christmas was such fun last year.’

‘I loved it,’ Tash confessed, remembering a meal that had lasted from the Queen’s Speech to Close Down, with no more domestic responsibilities than peeling the odd sprout and helping to wash up. Penny’s sister, Zoe Goldsmith, was the farm’s odd-ball cook and had produced a vast turkey stuffed with whole apples, garlic cloves, and, most controversially, green chillies. Last year, Zoe’s kids had orchestrated a hysterically blue amateur Nativity play with Niall and Gus as the donkey, collapsing under the weight of a very tight Penny. Tash, as the Virgin Mary, had giggled so much that she’d burst out of the slinky underwear Niall had given her that morning – as ever two sizes too small; he had a flatteringly minimalist image of how slim she was every time he hit Rigby and Peller.

Penny and Gus Moncrieff ran their eventing and training yard on a thread of a shoestring. They were both immensely dedicated and professional, but long hours and talent only went so far in a profession that really required sponsors who did not mind pouring money into a sometimes bottomless pit as horses costing ten thousand pounds to buy and several thousand a year to keep, failed to make the grade, or got injured, or simply went stale. Very few horses became international, and Snob was one of the very few; Tash knew that she owed her job in part to her boisterous chestnut horse and his rapid rise to success, his stud fees and his popularity with spectators. She would be forever in his debt for enabling her to work for the tall fair-haired duo who kept laughing and joking throughout the season, whether they won or lost.

Tash adored Gus and Penny, who were always tired, always thin and too stressed, yet inevitably welcoming and willing to put themselves out for others. They were two of the best-liked people in the sport, and attracted friends and acquaintances like tourists to a sunny cove. Penny had once represented England in the World Equestrian Games, but she no longer rode at the top level, preferring to breed and train youngsters. Her sister Zoe lived with them, doubling as cook, groom and secretary and adding to the glamour of the yard with her London connections and minor celebrity as an erstwhile columnist and feature writer. They always attracted a huge crowd at Christmas, and this year was no exception. They had eighteen for lunch and Zoe was frantically cooking two geese and a twenty-pound turkey in the farm’s unpredictable coke-fuelled range. Tash simply didn’t have the heart to ask if she could borrow a couple of wings and the parson’s nose.