Mount!

by Jilly Cooper

  At the very same moment, Repay roared past with an astonishing burst of speed.

  ‘This is how to do it, little tosser,’ yelled Tarqui insolently, looking back through his heavily sponsored thighs for non-existent rivals as he went six lengths clear to thunderous cheers, scarlet and magenta colours vanishing like a setting sun.

  ‘Wait, Quickers, wait,’ begged Eddie, reluctant to commit too soon. There were nearly two furlongs to go. The other jockeys were going crazy with their whips; the bookies were slitting their throats.

  ‘Get your ass into gear,’ howled Rupert, his race glasses misting over.

  ‘Too late for wictory,’ moaned Marketa as she and Gala inconsolably watched Repay streaking up the near side.

  Then Eddie squeezed Quickly: ‘Go for it, Buddy.’

  And swifter than an arrow from an Amazon’s bow, or a cheetah after an eland, faster than light, Quickly took off from the back. Dark legs a blur, with Eddie’s jubilation growing, body thrusting suicidally forwards, hands touching Quickly’s Purrpuss cleaned ears, belting up the far side, passing runner after runner, joyously yelling: ‘I’ve got you, I’ve got you,’ wiping the smug victory smile off Tarqui’s face.

  Immediately Repay rallied and fought back, but Quickly, having none of that, found another gear and hurled himself past the post a half-length in front.

  Total silence, a bewildered moment of disbelief – and the crowd erupted. Even if they hadn’t backed Quickly, the punters recognized class and were overjoyed Rupert had won. They liked the way he had stood up for Gav and been saddened by his poor season. The King was back. Overwhelming their love of money was their love of racing.

  Instantly the camera tracked the euphoria stealing across Rupert’s aloof, deadpan face, as he turned to kiss Taggie. ‘Sorry I’ve been a bastard.’

  Jockeys were gathering round Eddie shaking his hand. Gala, on the rail, was screaming her head off, crying unashamedly, being hugged by Marketa and even Harmony, picked up and swung around by Bobby and Cathal. All around her, people were thumping her on the back and shaking her hand. She couldn’t speak as, panting and gasping for breath, she ran down the course.

  Thank God there was a long pull-up area and Eddie was able to swing round Quickly now, as brown with mud as I Will Repay, cantering him back to hug a sobbing, ecstatic Gala. ‘Don’t forget we’re going to bed later,’ he said. His wide white smile, splitting his beautiful mud-spattered face, reminded everyone of Rupert.

  Emma Spencer, of Channel 4, in short white mac and high-heeled boots, had to run to catch up with him.

  ‘Well done, well done, Eddie. What a victory – he’d already run halfway before the race began.’

  ‘Quickly’s only small but he’s got the heart of a lion,’ said Eddie, remembering to pat him, ‘and he’s been brilliantly trained by my grandfather Rupert Campbell-Black and looked after by Gala Milburn.’

  ‘You’ve just won your first Classic; tell us, what is going through your head, Eddie?’

  ‘Well, I’ll probably be able to pay my tax bill and,’ Eddie grinned down at her pretty face, ‘I’d love to shag the ass off you, but Mick Fitzgerald was right – winning’s better than sex.’

  ‘Eddie,’ gasped Gala, appalled.

  Did he really say that? The Channel 4 talking heads looked at each other in amazement. ‘He’s as outrageous as Rupert was. Terrific ride though.’

  The wildly cheering crowds roared even louder; there was a flourish of trumpets, as Gala and a tearful but thrilled Etta, flanked by a beaming Valent, led Quickly into the winners enclosure.

  ‘We’ve had vintage years with Sea the Stars and Frankel,’ called out Clare Balding on the loudspeaker, ‘but please show your appreciation of an extraordinary racehorse. Master Quickly is up with the greatest, particularly as he’s just smashed the course record created by Mister Baileys, trained by Mark Johnston way back in 1994, winning the race in one minute thirty-five seconds.’

  ‘Three cheers for Rupert Campbell-Black,’ bellowed a voice, and the applause rang out.

  Quickly, hardly blowing and now wearing a joke rug thrown over his winner’s rug, saying, Ha, ha, I won, was suddenly enjoying himself, pricking his ears, arching his neck, posing for the photographers.

  Nothing meant more to Eddie than the smile on Rupert’s face.

  ‘Fucking marvellous, well done, timed it perfectly, quickened twice, mugged them on the line.’

  Then Taggie was hugging him. ‘Your parents and Gav have just rung, and they are so, so excited. Darling, clever Quickly.’

  Rupert had turned to Gala, holding out his arms, which tightened round her protecting her as the crowds shoved them together. For a second their eyes met, for a second he was about to kiss her, she melted … then in one panicky moment of self-preservation, the road not taken, lost for ever, she ducked her head away, so his lips landed on her cheek. Still he held her, murmuring into her drenched hair, ‘Well done, we did it,’ until Valent tapped him on the shoulder.

  ‘Channel Four want a word.’

  Rupert, with his arm round Quickly, then faced an army of press.

  ‘This is the greatest comeback since Lazarus,’ he told them. ‘My grandson Eddie knows how to ride horses. Look at his pedigree, look at Quickly’s. Love Rat, his sire, is the most exciting stallion in the world. His dam, Mrs Wilkinson, won the Grand National; his damsire Peppy Koala the Derby. Gala Milburn,’ he drew her forward, ‘has been working on him for months. She’s a total star – she and Eddie have made the horse together. Frankly, he can be a little bugger, but he came good today.’

  ‘Derby next?’ asked Marcus Townsend of the Mail.

  ‘Have to see how he comes out of today.’

  ‘He’s happy,’ murmured Cathal to Marketa. ‘He had twenty grand on Quickly at 35–1.’

  Tarqui was not faring so well.

  ‘What happened to the greatest finisher in racing?’ hissed Cosmo. ‘You’re finished. You blew it, started your run too bloody early. You got mugged.’

  Sauvignon, still attracting the photographers, was walking I Will Repay round.

  ‘Well done, Eddie,’ she called out, as she passed.

  ‘Thanks. How about a drink later?’

  ‘Don’t treat with the enemy,’ snarled Rupert.

  ‘Well done, Rupert,’ called out Sauvignon.

  Rupert glanced round, then laughed. ‘You’re right, she is pretty.’

  Taggie was ringing home to see if everyone was all right. Jan had found her boot, said Geraldine. ‘Forester had taken it into the flowerbed, and evidently Sapphire had wandered off with Rupert’s lucky shirt.’

  ‘I don’t expect he’ll take off the green gingham one he wore today,’ laughed Taggie. ‘Wasn’t Quickly wonderful?’ In the background, she could hear the lads cheering.

  It had started raining again, and I Will Repay had had enough. On his way back to the stables, he caught sight of his beloved Harmony. Giving a whicker of joy, he charged towards her, pulling Sauvignon in her high-heeled boots flat on her face in a puddle.

  ‘You did that deliberately,’ screamed Sauvignon, as two lads leapt forward to pick her up. ‘I’ve twisted my ankle.’

  ‘Repay did it,’ said Harmony happily.

  ‘Such a well-mannered horse,’ mocked a passing Gala.

  Her Robin ringtones were chirping like a summer morning, with messages from people she hardly knew – Walter, Dennis the landlord of the Dog and Trumpet, Pat, Gee Gee, Geraldine. Jan texted: ‘Always knew you could do it.’

  Gav also texted her: ‘Marvellous, well done.’ He’d watched it with Eddie’s parents, Perdita and Luke, who sent equally overjoyed messages. They’d be coming over for the Derby.

  Back in his box, the mud washed off, Quickly, who’d been hollering for his tea, was snatching mouthfuls of feed and then hay as Gala dried him down. Purrpuss was looking for a dry spot on which to curl up.

  ‘Wonder where Sauvignon’s staying,’ said Cathal.

  ‘Cosmo can’t be slee
ping with both her and Mrs Walton,’ said Eddie.

  ‘Wanna bet?’ said Cathal. ‘Let’s go out and get legless.’

  ‘Not too legless,’ said Rupert. ‘You’ve got the One Thousand Guineas tomorrow.’ He drew a wad of notes from his wallet. ‘Go and get yourselves a decent dinner – see you all when I get back from Hong Kong.’

  Gala felt really low. Why had she jerked her head away, sure in that moment that he wanted to kiss her? But she loved Taggie too. Depression is supposed to be 80 per cent tiredness, she recalled, and she hadn’t had much sleep recently.

  She was woken next morning with her clothes still on, and Marketa chucking the Racing Post on her bed.

  MASTERLY QUICKLY, shouted the cover. ‘The King is back and a cat can look at him,’ was the caption beneath an adorable picture of Purrpuss on Quickly’s back, gazing up at a jubilant Rupert.

  47

  ‘I know it’s a bit OTT,’ confessed Valent as his private jet took off from Heathrow, ‘but, chasing deals, I never saw enuff of my first wife Pauline. I’m determined not to make the same mistake this time.’ Proudly he patted the butterscotch-coloured upholstery. ‘Means I can spend as little time in the air and get back to Etta as quick as possible.’

  Opening another can of beer, he waved at a hovering steward to pour Rupert more whisky. A wonderful smell of beef, wine and garlic wafted from the kitchen.

  Their euphoria at Quickly’s victory doubled with the news that Valent’s son Ryan’s football team had triumphed at Wigan.

  ‘Etta’s such a sweet woman,’ sighed Valent. ‘All my kids love her. Ryan even sent her a Mother’s Day card. Etta burst into tears, bless her.’

  ‘Nice,’ said Rupert, who was looking at his iPhone. ‘Tag’s a marvellous stepmother too. Bloody hell, Ladbrokes have got Quickly evens for the Derby, and 5–1 for the Triple Crown. Nothing could have beaten him today.’

  ‘That Gala’s done a good job.’ Valent glanced out of the window as London gave way to fields, emerald green from summer rain. ‘Attractive woman.’

  ‘Very,’ agreed Rupert.

  ‘She got anyone else?’

  ‘Not that I know of,’ said Rupert, surprised how little he liked the idea. ‘She obviously thought it was sexist of us to bugger off to Hong Kong and miss Touchy Filly in the Guineas.’

  But the possibility of Fleance notching up £600,000, if he won the Hong Kong Queen Elizabeth Cup, and meeting up with Genghis Tong had seemed more important.

  ‘I’ve got a couple of cracking bottles of red to go with the beef,’ said Valent, ‘but we mustn’t get too hammered. Genghis Tong, despite his foony ways, is shit-hot businesswise.’

  Mr Tong was a very powerful aeroplane billionaire who had capitalized on the ever-increasing disposable income of the Chinese middle classes. As wealth increases, so does travel.

  In the hope racing would finally take off in China, Mr Tong wanted to get in at the start and was planning a yard and a stud farm with a hundred racehorses, fifty brood mares and a couple of stallions. One of Mr Tong’s latest inventions was a little green plane with a powerful engine called the Green Galloper, into which you could load one horse and three or four humans, and which Rupert and Gav, who had pilot’s licences, could fly.

  ‘Tong wants to sell it worldwide. We can help with the publicity,’ said Valent.

  This, Rupert believed, might be the answer for taking Quickly overseas.

  ‘Christ, I’m hungry,’ he went on, as two plates of chips and large steaks swimming in dark-red sauce arrived.

  ‘You taste the wine,’ said Valent. ‘I’m no good at that sort of thing.’

  ‘Bloody marvellous,’ said Rupert. ‘We are going to get hammered, we’re going to be hongover with Genghis Tong in Hong Kong. Wasn’t Quickly marvellous?’

  ‘I’ve never seen the poison dwarf more outraged,’ said Valent, smothering his chips in tomato ketchup. ‘Tong is very status conscious. He’s got eyewatering sums of money, but he wants to strut his stuff at Royal Ascot and meet the Queen and Prince William.’

  ‘Better stop butchering white rhino then,’ said Rupert.

  ‘Don’t think he does,’ said Valent. ‘I had dinner at his place in Beijing. To impress guests, you pass the white Ferrari, the blue Rolls-Royce and the Galloper in its hangar on the way to the house.’

  At the Races had just established a link screening online into China. Rupert was planning to flog Mr Tong a horse in Hong Kong tomorrow which would enable him to wow his guests even more. By switching on the television in Beijing, he could then watch his horse racing in his own colours in England.

  ‘It would blow him away,’ said Valent.

  ‘I can’t sell him a complete goat,’ said Rupert. ‘He might come over and expect it to win at Royal Ascot.’

  Valent had been doing business with Genghis Tong for several years. To ease negotiations, Rupert had invited Tong’s twenty-one-year-old son Bao over to Penscombe to work in the stud and the yard this summer.

  The following morning, which was Queen Elizabeth Cup day, Rupert and Valent went down to the racecourse stables at Sha Tin to meet up with Roving Mike, Louise and sweet Fleance who had travelled, eaten up well, and was looking sleek and ready to race.

  They were soon joined by Genghis Tong, looking small, rotund, and rather incongruously dressed in a loud check suit and a large flat tweed cap. Exuding amiability, he liked dealing with congenial star signs and was delighted Rupert, like him, had been born in the Year of the Snake, that most energetic, ambitious of signs and Valent in the Year of the Strong Willed Dragon.

  ‘Although I’ll be breathing drink fumes, rather than fire, over him this morning,’ groaned Valent, his face glowing redder than a Dutch cheese. ‘Christ, I feel rough.’ Irritating that Rupert, who had put away even more than him, still looked marvellous, towering above the gathering crowd, who all took pictures of him. Valent only gained the ascendancy by being able to converse with Tong in Chinese, albeit in a broad Yorkshire accent.

  If Mr Tong was anxious to buy a flashy horse to race in England, the limiting factor was that he only liked large horses who talked back to him, and who were born in the Year of the Ox, who got on with Snakes.

  Other dealers were also anxious to sell to Mr Tong. Louise and Roving Mike were wetting themselves as one hopeful horse after another was led up to him, only replying to his cries of ‘Hello, Horsey,’ with the odd snort.

  Mr Tong looked wistfully at Fleance the trier, only to be told he was taken. Happily out of the next-door box hung a white-faced bay called Beijing Bertie, who had been found for Rupert by his friend and ex-jockey Teddy Matthews. As Mr Tong moved down the row, Louise, primed by Rupert, appeared behind him brandishing a bowl of nuts, whereupon Beijing Bertie launched into a concerto of joyful whickering, nearly nudging off Mr Tong’s cap.

  ‘Hello, hello, Horsey’ – and the deal was sealed. Vocal Beijing Bertie would fly back to Penscombe with Fleance, and Quickly could jet around the world in the Green Galloper.

  The cake was then iced by Meerkat and Fleance resisting all challenges in order to take the £663,000 Cup: only to be topped by the 1000 Guineas back at Newmarket. The favourite, Cosmo’s Violetta’s Vengeance, was coming into season and played up at the start. Tarqui, who had had enough tongue-lashing from Cosmo, clouted her with his whip. Whereupon Violetta’s Vengeance sulked and refused to get out of a canter for her bully of a rider. The equally moody Touchy Filly, given a dream ride by Eddie, won by a length. This meant three Group One wins for Love Rat’s progeny, pushing his earnings so early in the year past the three-million mark for the first time.

  ‘Can it get any better?’ whooped Rupert. ‘You and I are going to have another hangover tomorrow morning.’

  They dined with Mr Tong in his beautiful apartment looking over skyscrapers and a rippling green ocean of trees. Here they met his pretty, much younger second wife, Aiguo, who didn’t seem very interested in her stepson Bao coming to spend the summer at Penscombe.

  Mr T
ong, clad in a salmon-pink smock, took Rupert on to the balcony to discuss logistics.

  ‘You must make Bao work very hard, Rupert. When I start my racing yard here I want him to run it. He is good boy. He miss his mother, who has married again. New, very powerful husband doesn’t make things easy. He will enjoy family perhaps with you. He is very good pilot and will fly your planes for you. You take Beijing Bertie back to England to run at Loyal Ascot, and fly him there in Green Galloper.’

  ‘Of course,’ agreed Rupert, reflecting he’d probably have to carry Bertie over the line.

  Back in the drawing room, Aiguo Tong was reading Valent’s palm, and Valent, with his wrecked goalkeeper’s knees, was wondering how he’d ever get up from the very low yellow sofa.

  ‘Is that Bao?’ he asked, pointing to a photograph on the red carved desk. ‘Good-looking boy.’

  ‘No, it’s my brother,’ snapped Aiguo, who later preferred holding Rupert’s hand and foretelling the future of those born in the Year of the Snake.

  ‘Expect an exciting year, not necessarily for the faint of heart. You must have the courage to face emotional truths and still be true to what your heart tells you.’

  ‘The snake’s fate is mine and your husband’s,’ said Rupert. Looking at her cold, beautiful face, he found his thoughts drifting to Gala and how nearly he’d lost it and kissed her after the Guineas.

  CAMPBELL-BACK trumpeted the Racing Post next day, above pictures of Quickly, Touchy Filly and Fleance all winning.

  While Rupert’s and Valent’s fortunes were being told by Aiguo, Taggie and Etta were flown back to Penscombe in Rupert’s helicopter. The moment they landed, the dogs came racing down the grass to meet them: Forester flashing his teeth in a silly grin, whining with delight and batting his head against Taggie’s thighs. Little Gropius, the slowest and last to arrive, slunk back in disappointment to find no Gala.

  ‘She’ll be back in a few hours, darling,’ Taggie comforted him.

  They found the yard en fête, as they awaited the return of Gala, Marketa and Cathal with the horses. Balloons and streamers adorned the stables, particularly the boxes of Quickly and Touchy Filly. They had just seen Fleance’s triumph in Sha Tin and a great party was in train, as Pat and Gee Gee tearfully recalled a sleepless night waiting for Fleance to be born.