Mount!

by Jilly Cooper

  ‘My children,’ explained Rupert, interested in how Jan would react, ‘both adopted from Colombia. They always fought like cat and dog, so you would have been useful in the old days, stopping black killing black. The boy with Bianca is a footballer called Feral Jackson, bloody good, plays for a top team in Perth. You like football?’

  ‘I prefer rugby, sir.’

  Gazing round Rupert’s office, and seeing so many paintings and photographs of great horses, Jan commented bitterly that 326,073 gallant horses had died in the Boer War.

  ‘I know,’ said Rupert.

  Jan, who had a loud voice with a strong Afrikaans accent, then told Rupert that he came from Port Elizabeth which, because of the number of horse casualties, boasted the first great memorial to animals in war.

  ‘A kneeling soldier,’ he explained, ‘holds up a bucket of water to a horse, with the inscription: “The greatness of a nation consists not so much in the number of its people or the extent of its territory as in the extent and justice of its compassion”.’

  ‘Right,’ said Rupert, suppressing a yawn and irritated by a picture in the Racing Post of the great mare, Darkness Visible, arriving at Valhalla. He was desperate to get on with his day.

  ‘You married?’ he asked.

  ‘Divorced, but amicably, sir. I’ve two kids in South Africa, Boetie and Beulah. I Skype them every day.’

  Rupert was just wondering how wise it would be to let a stud like this loose in Penscombe, when as if reading his thoughts, Jan said: ‘I’m gay, sir. But not broadcasting the fact. Not a great idea to come out in South Africa. Afrikaners are particularly homophobic, and my parents couldn’t cope.’

  ‘How many caring jobs have you had?’

  ‘About eight, sir.’

  ‘Think you’ll be able to cope with my father? He’s pretty eccentric.’

  ‘I like feisty old people. Looked after a splendid old lady who cut her head after a fall. When she had to go to hospital she refused to let them give her any blood, insisting: “I’ve got my own blood and it’s blue”.’

  ‘You should get on with my father, who’s mad about the Army.’ And with that voice, reflected Rupert, at least an increasingly deaf Eddie would be able to hear what Jan was saying.

  ‘When can you start?’

  ‘Straight away, sir.’

  ‘You’d better come and meet my wife and my father and our present carer.’

  ‘She won’t be upset?’

  ‘Not at all. She wants to work in the yard. Loves horses. All hers were butchered in Zimbabwe, farm burned to the ground. Husband and dogs all slaughtered at the same time.’

  ‘Omigod, poor lady. Lots of that going on in South Africa.’

  Gala had returned to the kitchen, unable to resist telling Taggie she’d had a Valentine from Gav.

  ‘How lovely.’ Taggie was delighted. ‘I hope he’s OK there, he’s so shy. Young Eddie’s coming back next week, I’ve missed him so much. Oh hell.’ She took a plate out of the washing up machine and examined it. ‘It hasn’t washed it at all.’

  ‘I never had a dishwasher in Zim,’ said Gala sanctimoniously.

  ‘Oh gosh, we’re so spoilt in England.’

  Gala laughed. ‘I had a maid instead. What am I going to give Eddie for lunch?’

  ‘There’s plenty of smoked salmon and the remains of a fish pie. I wonder what that incredibly good-looking man was coming to see Rupert about? I know a tan helps, but he was gorgeous.’ Taggie peered out of the window. ‘Look at the stable girls sweeping a perfectly clean yard to catch a glimpse of him. Oh gosh, Rupert’s bringing him over here. Am I very shiny?’ She peered in the kitchen mirror.

  Gala proceeded to peel off all her layers, to reveal a clinging orange T-shirt bearing the words: I know I’m perfect, I’m also Zimbabwean.

  ‘I must look like nothing on earth after riding out,’ she wailed, fluffing up curls, flattened by her hat.

  ‘This is Jan Van Deventer,’ announced Rupert, leading Jan into the kitchen.

  Jan, who Taggie now noticed was wearing a thick grey gilet over a brown and white check shirt, brown cords and a seriously large Cartier watch on his big tanned wrist, smiled in amusement at Taggie and Gala, admiring them both as he said: ‘What a terrific kitchen.’

  ‘Great news,’ said Rupert briskly. ‘Jan’s starting tomorrow as Eddie’s full-time carer.’

  ‘He what?’ cried Taggie and Gala in horror.

  ‘Gala wants to work full-time in the yard,’ continued Rupert. ‘Jan is free and Eddie could do with a slightly firmer hand, having spent the morning in Love Rat’s box.’

  Taggie looked from Gala to Jan in dismay.

  ‘But it’s so sudden! I’m sure you’ll be marvellous,’ she added, blushing, to Jan, ‘but do you really want to go, Gala?’

  ‘Not just like that. I thought I could do both jobs.’

  ‘Well, you can’t. Taggie’s exhausting herself looking after Dad. I got a bollocking from your father yesterday.’

  ‘I’m not,’ stammered Taggie, ‘and what will poor Eddie say? He’s devoted to Gala.’

  ‘Well, he’ll still see her about the place. Gotta go.’ Rupert turned to a mutinous Gala. ‘Perhaps you’d show Jan where he’ll be sleeping, introduce him to Dad and give him a run-down on routine. The good thing, Jan, is that Gala’ll be close by, so any questions you need to ask …’

  ‘And where am I going to sleep?’ demanded a furious Gala.

  ‘You must move into one of the other spare rooms,’ said Taggie quickly.

  ‘That’ll confuse Dad,’ said Rupert. ‘She could take Lark’s place in The Shaggery, but as it’s warm and comfortable and unoccupied, I suggest she starts off in Gav’s rooms over the tack room, until he gets back.’

  Gala was suddenly terrified of losing her safe haven in the house. As Rupert set off for the yard, she raced after him.

  ‘It’s a disgrace, I’ve been railroaded.’

  ‘You have not. You said it would be a dream come true sorting out Quickly, now you can do Touchy Filly as well.’

  Fascinated to find out what was going on, Geraldine came through the door, brandishing a huge scented bunch of spring flowers. Grabbing them, Rupert returned to the kitchen where he found Jan smiling down at a distraught Taggie.

  ‘Don’t worry, mam, Mr Campbell-Black knows what he’s doing. We’ll sort it out together. I’ll take care of things.’

  ‘Ahem,’ interrupted Rupert, handing the flowers to Taggie. ‘For my daughter,’ he said acidly to Jan.

  41

  Nothing was too difficult for Jan. He was a huge success from the start. Old people love jaunts and Jan was wonderful with Old Eddie, taking him to see Love Rat between shags every day, and to watch other stallions covering, taking him fishing, and to cricket as soon as summer began, and frequently to the races at Rutminster. Almost more importantly, Jan proceeded to transform Taggie’s life. Hating badly-behaved children, he kept the visiting hordes in order, organizing barbecues and wild South African games all over the garden and the beechwoods.

  Nothing was too much trouble, carrying the Dyson upstairs for besotted daily women, watering the plants, protecting Taggie from Helen and Janey, whose calls Geraldine always let through, keeping the dog-pack in order so that even naughty Forester followed in his footsteps.

  Taggie had always felt guilty that Eddie’s carers, even Gala, got exhausted from such long hours, but Jan never seemed too tired. When she asked him how he was, he’d just reply: ‘I’m just fine, mam,’ and she found it a comfort that he stayed up much later than her, watching sport or the US X-Factor. In addition, he had such wonderful manners, always opening car doors, pulling out and slotting in her seat belt, just gliding his hand across her breasts in a comforting, not threatening way, or legging her up into four-wheel-drives.

  ‘I do hope the worst of the winter is over for you,’ Taggie told him.

  ‘I’d love to take you to South Africa, mam,’ replied Jan. ‘You’d love the beaches and the spe
cial African smell of diesel, woodsmoke and ripe fruit.’

  All this was watched with grudging fascination by staff at both the stud and the yard. As Dora, who whizzed over to case the joint, observed: ‘Rupert must be obsessed with nailing Leading Sire, if he’s prepared to leave Taggie in the house with such a drop-dead gorgeous hunk without Gala to chaperone them. Hasn’t even put an electric fence around her.’

  Both loved cooking, and without any loss of masculinity, Jan was happy to discuss and try out recipes with Taggie all day.

  ‘Watch this spice,’ giggled Dora.

  Gala meanwhile felt hopelessly unsettled. She’d never dreamt stable staff worked so hard. Twelve hours a day with only one weekend off in two.

  Before, when she’d ridden out on Rupert’s horses, someone else had done them first; similarly if she’d got on horses in Zimbabwe her stable staff had done all the donkey work. She was now expected to feed, groom and skip out Quickly and Touchy Filly and ride them out on dark, freezing mornings, when the rest of the world was asleep.

  She also detected less friendliness in the stable staff, no longer hanging on her every word, avid for gossip about Rupert and Taggie and goings-on in the house. Fit young girls and boys in their early twenties, they made her feel an outsider as they scanned their iPhones and discussed their sex lives in the crudest terms. Were they resentful because she’d been handed two-star horses, not that they seemed very starry when Quickly carted her or moody Touchy Filly lashed out with both hind legs.

  The weather was so cold, Gala couldn’t diet and lost her nerve rather than any weight.

  In the past, if she wanted to escape, she could whisk Old Eddie off on jaunts, but she could hardly take Touchy Filly shopping in Cheltenham or Quickly to the cinema. In the past too, it had been fun to flirt with the stable lads, even the yard letches, knowing she could retreat into the safety of Rupert’s house. But in Gav’s bedsit she was open to the world. Walter Walter, after getting tanked up at the Dog and Trumpet on her first Saturday, had tried it on so forcibly Gala had kneed him in the groin. Hell knows no fury like a Head Lad scorned. Next morning, Walter ordered her up on to the trickiest horse in the yard, the dark-brown delinquent Blank Chekov, known as Chuckoff, who had her on the floor three times. In future, said Walter, she would be doing Chekov as well as Quickly and Touchy Filly. He then ordered her to tidy up the muck-heap and brush the yard.

  There was also the problem of little Gropius, who missed Rupert’s dogs dreadfully and kept escaping back to the house, or howling if he were left in the bedsit over the tack room. Finally, there was the shock of her first pay-packet, dropping from £550 a week with all expenses paid, to a mere £300, so she wouldn’t be helping out her sister Nicola any more. Rupert was in Dubai, going on to China, so she couldn’t tackle him. Nor had she appreciated how shielded from the loneliness and sadness of widowhood she had been, living at home with Taggie.

  Gavin’s spartan bedsit had been furnished only with classical CDs and books. Sweet Taggie had done her best to feminize the place with a velvet patchwork quilt, a fluffy bedside rug, an electric blanket, half a dozen soft towels, a properly placed magnifying mirror, rose-scented shower gel and bowls of narcissi and pink hyacinths.

  ‘I’m so sorry you had to move out so fast,’ she had stammered on the day of eviction, ‘and so sorry we can’t have a farewell dinner tonight, but Valentine’s Day is Valent Edwards’ birthday and we’ve sort of committed to go out with him and Etta. Promise to drop in any time. I’m going to miss you so much.’

  42

  Gala had gone for supper a week later, and felt very de trop. Taggie, she noticed, was looking particularly pretty. Gala had taken Gropius with her who, pixillated to be among friends again, hurled himself round the ground floor, sending tables and ornaments flying.

  ‘Stop that,’ snapped Jan. Amazingly, Gropius did.

  Jan had insisted on cooking: poached salmon in white wine with asparagus, new potatoes tossed in butter and parsley and Hollandaise sauce. ‘Which he actually made,’ confided Taggie. Followed by a lovely pudding of passion fruit and cream.

  Taggie was too tactful to praise Jan’s cooking too much and kept saying what a marvellous cook Gala had been. ‘It must be an African thing,’ and adding, ‘you must go and see Old Eddie, Gala. I’m sure he’s missing you.’

  Eddie, who was watching a film called For Your Flies Only, kissed her in delight but couldn’t remember which of his five ex-wives she was. ‘Which year were we married, darling?’

  Noticing she looked crestfallen on her return, Jan patted the sofa and sat down beside her, expressing real sorrow that Ben had died, and all the animals, and how terrible it must have been when the house had burnt down. Gala, who’d been looking up at a group photograph of Rupert in the cricket team at Harrow, said the worst thing had been losing all the past.

  ‘The only photographs I’ve got of Ben are on my phone.’

  ‘Where did he go to school?’ asked Jan.

  ‘Prince Edward’s.’

  ‘Very posh.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about him any more.’

  And when Jan asked lots of questions about Quickly and the yard, she found herself answering in monosyllables. As Jan put more logs on the fire, she felt miserable because it was so cosy and familiar here; Gropius looked so happy lying on top of Forester and next to Cuthbert, Taggie and Jan getting on so comfortably.

  Jan wouldn’t let Taggie feed the badgers in case she slipped on the icy path and said he and Gala would have to organize special barbecues, known as ‘braais’, for her in the summer.

  ‘We work weekends in the yard,’ snapped Gala. What had got into her?

  ‘What do you miss most about Africa, Gala?’ asked Taggie.

  ‘I miss Ben.’ Gala’s voice broke. ‘I must go – have to be up at five. I’m fine,’ and gathering up Gropius, she fled home and cried herself to sleep.

  Ten days further into the job, she reached an all-time low.

  It was so cold, she found it impossible to diet; if she got any heavier, she wouldn’t be allowed to ride Quickly. She had just dined on a baked potato packed with Philadelphia, and was now trying to resist a chunk of cheddar and a packet of chocolate biscuits, misery-eating after a vile morning.

  Quickly had been gooder than gold, trotting round the covered ride, but the moment he put his foot on the grass of the gallops, a pheasant went up, and he was off, carting her all the way until he reached Penscombe High Street, narrowly missing an oncoming bus. On her return, leading Quickly, she was bawled out by Walter, particularly ratty because he’d given up drink for Lent, telling her she wasn’t up to the job.

  ‘You’re too fat and too weak and that horse needs a firm hand.’

  Gala was tempted to ask Taggie for her job back. But through the kitchen window she saw Taggie and Jan laughing together, and Geraldine wasted no opportunity to tell her what a huge success Jan was.

  ‘I don’t know why they never thought of getting a male carer before,’ she had remarked only that morning. Then, as Gropius crashed into her legs: ‘Go away, you dreadful beast. It’s not just the horses that have got sore shins round here. Why on earth don’t you take him to dog-training classes.’

  ‘You could start off by going to bitch-training classes,’ retorted Gala and stormed off.

  Now in her leopardskin pyjamas, she could hear the stamping and neighing of a horse, kicking his stable door, banging his feed bowl against the manger, pawing the ground, pacing his box. It was Quickly, outraged because Purrpuss had gone off on a mousing spree.

  Gav’s bedsit gave her claustrophobia. There was no lovely view of the valley, no sun rising and setting, no stars, even if they were out. There was nothing on television so she helped herself to a chunk of cheddar and took an anthology of poems down from the bookshelves. It fell open at Shelley, marked by a photograph of a beautiful dark woman, a tigress with devouring eyes and an amazing body.

  Gav had underlined the words: ‘Out of the day and
night, a joy has taken flight.’

  Oh poor Gav. Gala scooped up a couple of chocolates – no wonder he wasn’t drawn to overweight Zimbabweans. At least he’d sent her that Valentine from Palm Beach.

  She flipped the pages. ‘Two loves I have of comfort and despair,’ was also underlined. Sitting down on the bed, Gala stroked her own ‘love of comfort’, little Gropius. His tummy tight with a much larger supper than hers, he slept fitfully, whimpering and thumping his tail in dreams. Was he playing with Forester? She kissed his striped forehead. Rupert had given Gropius to her and had been utterly determined she should look after Quickly: Rupert, who could get her over anyone. ‘I must not think of thee,’ she read, ‘and tired yet strong, I shun the love that lurks in all delight.’ Summed it up really.

  Out of the window, she could see Purrpuss padding across the yard, leaping in through the half door, butting Quickly’s face, greeted by an arpeggio of whickering. Lucky them. Next moment, Gala jumped at a hammering on the door.

  ‘Go away!’ she screamed, triggering off furious barking from Gropius.

  ‘It’s me, Eddie, let me in.’

  As she opened the door, he smelt of drink and aftershave. His beauty was from a different world of sun and laughter. Shorter blond hair no longer flopped in his cornflower-blue eyes. A tan emphasized a smile disturbingly like Rupert’s. He was leaner, more honed, and, putting down two bottles, he folded her in a bear hug.

  ‘How yer doin’, babe?’

  ‘Bloody awful, but so pleased to see you.’

  ‘How come they imprisoned you in this badger sett?’ Eddie looked round in disapproval.

  ‘Your grandfather wanted me to integrate – with the yard. How was Palm Beach?’

  ‘OK. Beginning to fight with Mom. Glad to be back, sorry I missed your birthday.’ He handed her a bottle of Coco Chanel and proceeded to open the second, of Bollinger.

  ‘That’s heavenly,’ cried Gala in ecstasy. ‘Thank you, you are kind.’