Riders

by Jilly Cooper

  “I feel like Helen,” said Rupert. “I spent all last night trying to ring her up. I got hold of the London directory, but I couldn’t find Vagina House anywhere.”

  “Probably looked it up under ‘cunt,’ ” said Billy.

  Rupert laughed. Then a look of determination came over his face. “I’ll show her. I’ll write her a really intellectual letter.” He got Helen’s last letter, all ten pages of it, out of his wallet. “I can hardly understand hers—it’s so full of long words.” He smoothed out the first page. “She hopes we take in the Comédie Française and the Louvre, and then says that just looking at me elevates her temperature. Christ, what have I landed myself with?”

  “Don’t forget to put ‘Ms.’ on the envelope,” said Billy.

  “Marion even got me a book of quotations,” said Rupert, extracting a couple of sheets of hotel writing paper from the leather folder in the chest of drawers. “Now, ought I to address her as Dear or Dearest?”

  “You ‘darling’ her all the time when you’re with her.”

  “Don’t want to compromise myself on paper.” Rupert picked up the quote book. “I’ll bloody outquote her. Let’s look up Helen.” He ran his fingers down the Index. “Helen, here we are, ‘I wish I knew where Helen lies,’ not with me, unfortunately. ‘Sweet Helen make me immortal with a kiss.’ That’s not going nearly far enough.”

  “Are you going to buy Con O’Hara’s chestnut?” asked Billy, who was trying to cut the nails on his right hand.

  “Not for the price he’s asking. It’s got a terrible stop. ‘Helen thy beauty is to me.’ That sounds more promising.” He flipped over the pages to find the reference. “ ‘Helen thy beauty is to me…Hyacinth hair.’ Hyacinths are pink and blue, not hair-colored. Christ, these poets get away with murder.”

  “Why don’t you just say you’re missing her?” asked Billy reasonably.

  “That’s what she wants to hear. If I could only bed her, I could forget about her.”

  “Sensible girl,” said Billy, “Knows if she gives in she’ll lose you. Hardly blame her. You haven’t exactly got a reputation for fidelity.”

  “I have,” said Rupert, outraged. “I was faithful to Bianca for at least two months.”

  “While having Marion on the side.”

  “Grooms don’t count. They simply exist for the recreation of the rider. Helen’s not even my type if you analyze her feature by feature. Her clothes are terrible. Like all American women, she always wears trousers, or pants, as she so delightfully calls them, two sizes too big.”

  “Methinks the laddy does protest too much. Why don’t you pack her in?”

  “I’m buggered if I’ll give up so easily. I’ve never not got anyone I really wanted.”

  “What about that nun in Rome?” said Billy, who was lighting a cigarette.

  “Nuns don’t count.”

  “Like grooms, I suppose.”

  “ ‘Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss,’ ” read Rupert. “ ‘Her lips suck forth my soul. Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again.’ ”

  “That’s a bit strong,” said Billy. “Who wrote that?”

  “Chap called Marlowe. Anyway it’s not my soul I want her to suck.”

  Billy started to laugh and choked on his cigarette.

  Rupert looked at him beadily. “Honestly, William, I don’t know why you don’t empty the entire packet of cigarettes onto a plate and eat them with a knife and fork. You ought to cut down.” He returned to the quote book. “This bit’s better: ‘Thou art fairer than the evening air, clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.’ That’s very pretty. Reminds me of Penscombe on a clear night.” He wrote it down in his flamboyant royal blue scrawl, practically taking up half the page.

  “That’ll wow her. Anyway, I should be able to pull her in Lucerne. She’s coming out for a whole week.”

  “D’you know what I think?” said Billy.

  “Not until you tell me.”

  “Unlike most of the girls you’ve run around with, Helen’s serious. She’s absolutely crazy about you, genuinely in love, and she won’t sleep with you not because she wants to trap you, but because she believes it’s wrong. She’s a middle-class American girl and they’re very, very respectable.”

  “You reckon she’s crazy about me?”

  “I reckon. Christ, Rupe, you’re actually blushing.”

  Rupert soon recovered.

  “What are we going to do this evening?” he asked.

  “Go to bed early and no booze, according to Malise. We’ve got a Nations’ Cup tomorrow.”

  “Sod that,” said Rupert, putting his letter into an envelope. “There’s a stunning girl who’s come out from The Tatler to cover the—er—social side of show jumping. I would not mind covering her. I thought we could show her Paris.”

  “Sure,” sighed Billy, “and she’s brought a dog of a female photographer with her, and guess who’ll end up with her? I wish to Christ Malise would pick Lavinia for Lucerne.”

  “Not while he’s imposing all this Kraut discipline and trying to keep his squad pure, he won’t,” said Rupert. He looked at his watch. “We’ve got three hours.”

  “I’m going to give The Bull a workout.”

  “Tracey can do that. Let’s go and spend an hour at the Louvre.”

  After a couple of good classes in which they were both placed, Rupert and Billy felt like celebrating. Pretending to go to bed dutifully at eleven o’clock, they waited half an hour, then crept out down the back stairs, aided by a chambermaid. It was unfortunate that Malise, getting up very early to explore Paris, caught Rupert coming out of the Tatler girl’s bedroom.

  In the Nations’ Cup later in the day Rupert jumped appallingly and had over twenty faults in each round. In the evening Malise called him to his room and gave him the worst dressing-down of his life. Rupert was irresponsible, insubordinate, undisciplined, a disruptive influence on the team, and a disgrace to his country.

  “And what’s more,” thundered Malise, “I’m not having you back in the team until you’ve learnt to behave yourself.”

  Helen sat in the London Library checking the quotations in a manuscript on Disraeli before sending it to press. Goodness, authors are inaccurate! This one got everything wrong: changing words, leaving out huge chunks, paraphrasing long paragraphs to suit his argument. All the same, she was glad to be out of the office. Nigel, having recently discovered she was going out with Rupert, made her life a misery, saying awful things about him all the time. In the middle of a heatwave, the London Library was one of the coolest places in the West End. Helen was always inspired, too, by the air of cloistered quiet and erudition. Those rows and rows of wonderful books, and the photographs of famous writers on the stairs: T. S. Eliot, Harold Nicolson, Rudyard Kipling. One day, if she persevered with her novel, she might join them.

  Being a great writer, however, didn’t seem nearly as important at the moment as seeing Rupert again. She hadn’t heard from him for a fortnight, not a telephone call nor a letter. Next Monday she was supposed to be flying out to Lucerne to spend a week with him, and it was already Wednesday. She’d asked for the week off and she knew how Nigel would sneer if she suddenly announced she wouldn’t be going after all. And if he did ring, and she did go, wasn’t she compromising herself? Would she be able to hold him off in all that heady Swiss air? God, life was difficult. A bluebottle was bashing abortively against the windowpane. At a nearby desk a horrible old man, sweating in a check wool suit, with eyebrows as big as mustaches, was leering at her. Suddenly she hated academics, beastly goaty things with inflated ideas of their own sex appeal, like Nigel and Paul, and even Harold Mountjoy. She wanted to get out and live her life; she was trapped like that bluebottle.

  “Have you any books on copulation?” said a voice.

  “I’m afraid I don’t work here,” said Helen. Then she started violently, for there, tanned and gloriously unacademic, stood Rupert.

  Her next thought was how unfair it was that he should h
ave caught her with two-day-old hair, a shiny face, and no makeup. The next moment she was in his arms.

  “Angel,” he said, kissing her, “did you get my letter?”

  “No, I left before the post this morning.”

  “Sssh,” said the man with mustache eyebrows disapprovingly. “People are trying to work.”

  “Are you coming out for a drink?” said Rupert, only slightly lowering his voice.

  “I’d just love it. I’ve got one more quote to check. I’ll be with you in ten minutes.”

  “I’ll wander round,” said Rupert.

  Helen found the quotation, and was surreptitiously combing her hair and powdering her nose behind a pillar when she heard a loud and unmistakable voice saying: “Hello, is that Ladbroke’s’? My account number’s 8KY85982. I want a tenner each way on Brass Monkey in the two o’clock at Kempton, and twenty each way on Bob Martin in the two-thirty. He’s been scratched, has he? Change it to Sam the Spy then, but only a tenner each way.”

  Crimson with embarrassment, Helen longed to disappear into one of the card index drawers. How dare Rupert disturb such a hallowed seat of learning?

  “Funny places you work in,” he said, as they went out into the sunshine. “I bet Nige feels at home in there. Come on, let’s go to the Ritz.”

  They sat in the downstairs bar, Helen drinking Buck’s Fizz, Rupert drinking whisky.

  “Don’t go and get tarted up,” he said, as she was about to rush off to the powder room. “I like you without makeup sometimes. Reminds me of what you might look like in the mornings.” He ran the back of his fingers down her cheek. “I’ve missed you.”

  “And I’ve missed you. How was Paris?”

  “Not brilliant.”

  “I read the papers. Belgravia was off form.”

  “Something like that. I bought you a present. They’re all the rage in Paris.”

  It was an ivory silk shirt that tied under the bust, leaving a bare midriff.

  “Oh, it’s just gorgeous,” said Helen. “I’ll just never take it off.”

  “Hm, we’ll see about that.”

  “Such beautiful workmanship,” said Helen, examining it in ecstasy. “It’ll be marvelous for Lucerne. I’ve bought so many clothes. I do hope the weather’s nice.”

  Rupert’s fingers drummed on the bar. He beckoned for the barman to fill up his glass.

  “There isn’t going to be any Lucerne.”

  “Why ever not?” Helen was quite unable to hide her disappointment.

  “I’ve been dropped,” said Rupert bleakly.

  “For a couple of bad rounds in a Nations’ Cup? That’s insane. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Well, it was actually. Malise told us to go to bed early. I never sleep before a Nations’ Cup, so I took Billy out on the tiles. We got more smashed than we meant to. Next day, every double was a quadruple.”

  “Oh, Rupert,” wailed Helen, “how could you when you were jumping for Great Britain? Surely you could have gone to bed early one night? And to involve Billy. Malise must have been so disappointed.”

  Rupert had expected sympathy, not reproach bordering on disapproval.

  “Poor Malise, who’s he going to put in your place?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Helen could see he was mad, but could not stop herself saying, “I’m just so disappointed. I so wanted to go to Lucerne.”

  “We’ll go some other time. Look, I’m off to the Royal Plymouth tomorrow morning. It’s an agricultural and flower show with only a couple of big show-jumping classes a day, so I shan’t be overoccupied. Why don’t you take the rest of the week off and come too?”

  Helen was sorely tempted.

  “When were you thinking of leaving?”

  “Now. I want to avoid the rush hour and I’ve got a lot to catch up on tonight after three weeks away.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’ve got an editorial meeting at three o’clock, and I’ve got to get this manuscript off to the press by Friday. I was planning to have everything clear before Lucerne.”

  “And I’ve screwed up your little jaunt. Well, I’m sorry.” He certainly didn’t sound it. Helen warmed to her subject.

  “And I do have some sort of responsibility towards my colleagues, unlike you. To go and get drunk before a Nations’ Cup is just infantile. And Malise said you could be the finest rider in Britain if you took it a bit more seriously.”

  “Did he indeed?” said Rupert, dangerously quiet. Draining his glass and getting a tenner out of his notecase, he handed it to the barman. “Well, it’s no bloody business of yours or his to discuss me.”

  He got to his feet. Helen realized she’d gone too far.

  “Malise and I only want what’s best for you,” she stammered.

  “Sweet of you both,” said Rupert. “Have a nice meeting. It’s high time you took up with Nige again. You two really suit each other.”

  And he was gone.

  Rupert returned to Penscombe at eight o’clock the following morning, just as Marion and Tracey were loading up the lorry for the four-hour drive down to Plymouth. He looked terrible and proceeded to complain bitterly about everything in the yard; then went inside to have a bath and emerged twenty minutes later looking very pale but quite under control.

  “What’s up with him?” said Tracey.

  “Had a tiff with the flame-haired virgin, I should think,” said Marion.

  Her suspicions were confirmed when Rupert started to quibble about the order in which the horses were being loaded.

  “Who are you putting next to The Bull?”

  “Macaulay. I thought it would settle him.”

  “Don’t call him that. I’m not having him named after that bitch anymore. He can go back to being Satan. Suits him much better.”

  With Billy driving, Rupert slept most of the way down to Plymouth. The showground was half a mile outside the town. It was a glorious day. Dazzling white little clouds scampered as gaily across a butcher blue sky as boats with colored sails danced on the sparkling aquamarine ocean. The horses, clattering down the ramp, sniffed the salty air appreciatively. Once in the caravan which Marion had driven down, Rupert poured himself a large measure of whisky.

  “Tears before sunset,” said Marion to Tracey.

  On their way to the secretary’s tent to declare, Billy was telling Rupert about Ivor Braine’s latest ineptitude.

  “He was popping out to the shops, and I asked him to get me a packet of Rothman’s. I said, ‘If you can’t get Rothman’s, get me anything,’ and he comes back with a bloody pork pie.”

  Billy suddenly realized he had lost his audience. Glancing round, he noticed that very still, watchful, predatory expression on Rupert’s face, like a leopard who’s just sighted a plump impala. Following Rupert’s gaze, he saw a suntanned blonde in a pale pink sleeveless dress. Probably in her midthirties, she was laying out green baize on a table.

  “Gorgeous,” murmured Rupert.

  “Married,” said Billy.

  “Good,” said Rupert. “I’m fed up with born-again virgins.”

  The blonde looked up. She was really very pretty, Billy decided.

  Rupert smiled at her. She smiled back, half-puzzled, assuming, because his face was so familiar, that they’d met before. On the way back from declaring, they found her lugging a huge challenge cup out from the car. Other cups were already lined up on the table.

  “Let me,” said Rupert, sprinting forward and seizing the cup.

  “Oh,” she jumped, “how very kind. Oh, it’s you.” Suddenly, as she realized who Rupert was, she blushed crimson. “I expect you’ll win it later.”

  “Hope so,” said Rupert, setting it on the green baize. Then he looked at the inscription. “This one’s actually for lightweight hunters. I’m certainly a hunter,” he shot her an appraising glance, “when the prey’s attractive enough. But not that lightweight.”

  She seemed to
think this was very funny. It was nice to have someone who laughed at his jokes.

  “Shouldn’t your husband be helping you unload this stuff?” He handed her another cup.

  “He’s away in Madrid. Some trouble over an order. He had to fly out this morning.”

  Better and better, thought Rupert, running his eye over the outline of her round, tight buttocks, as she peered into the back of the car.

  “Blast,” she said. “I picked a big bunch of sweetpeas for the table. I must have left them in the porch.”

  “They might have slipped under the front seat,” said Rupert, affording himself another good view.

  “No.” She emerged, flushed and ruffled. “Oh, dear, and I was going to tie them up with ribbon, as a bouquet for the mayoress.”

  “I’ll drive back and pick them up for you.”

  “You can’t. It’s awfully sweet of you, but it’s twenty miles.”

  Rupert patted her arm. “Leave it with me. I’ll find you a bouquet.”

  He went back to the caravan and had another couple of stiff whiskies and then went on the prowl. He peered into the horticultural tent; it was dark and cool, and smelled like a greenhouse, the huge flower arrangements making a rainbow blaze of color. Up at the far end he could see a group of judges poring over some marrows, handling them like vast Indian clubs.

  It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for: a deeply scented bunch of huge, dark crimson roses, with a red first-prize card, and a championship card beside them. Without anyone noticing, he seized the roses and slid out of the tent. No one was about except a large woman in a porkpie hat giving her two Rotweillers a run.

  Back at the caravan he put the roses in a pint mug.

  “Where did you get those?” demanded Billy, who was pulling on his breeches.

  “Never you mind.”

  “Inconstant Spry,” said Billy, as Rupert arranged them, then poured himself another whisky.

  “You better lay off that stuff,” warned Billy. “And don’t get carried away. We’ve got a class in three-quarters of an hour.”

  “Here you are,” Rupert said to the pretty blonde.

  “Oh, they’re lovely,” she said. “Ena Harkness, I think, and they smell out of this world. You didn’t go and buy them?”