Riders

by Jilly Cooper

  “I’m surprised you can tell for the spots,” said Janey.

  “Meow,” said Kevin.

  “Oh, go eat your own product,” snapped Janey.

  She went downstairs to the loo. She really must stop being a cow. Glancing at her reflection under the fluorescent lighting, she thought how awful she looked, piggy-eyed and shadowed. She did hope she wasn’t going to be one of those women who felt sick for nine months. As she sat on the loo, she felt the sudden cold on her shaven bush. Just to convince herself, she slipped her finger between her legs, then pressed it against the white gloss lavatory wall. She couldn’t believe it. She reached further into her vagina, pushing against the neck of the womb. She pressed the white wall again. It was unmistakable: a second dark red fingerprint. She gave a groan, tears spilling out of her eyes. She was wracked with despair. Oh, God, the red badge of discouragement. It was so ironic. Before she was married, the red fingerprint was all she craved; she’d been so terrified all the time of getting pregnant. Now she knew why it was called the curse, the curse of not having babies. She leant against the wall and cried and cried.

  Twenty minutes later she came out of the loo, huddled behind her dark glasses. Kevin was waiting outside. “Where the hell have you been? Billy was looking for you. He’s just about to jump Moggie Meal Dick. He told me to tell you. What’s the matter?” He lifted off her dark glasses. “Why are you crying?”

  “Nothing, it’s nothing.”

  “Worried about money?”

  Her lip trembled. “I thought I was pregnant. I was ten days late, you see. I’ve just discovered I’m not.”

  “Been trying long?”

  “About eighteen months. Since we married, really.”

  “May not be your fault.”

  Janey gave a bitter laugh. “Billy’s mother thinks it is.”

  Kevin looked at her thoughtfully.

  “Enid’s got a first-rate gynecologist. I’ll tell her to give you a ring.”

  Mandryka got four faults and was out of the running. Rupert was first, Jake Lovell second. It was noticed that both men stared stonily ahead, not exchanging a single word, as they lined up for their rosettes.

  Helen drove home with Rupert. “I really do think Janey should look after Billy better. All his boots need heeling. He was wearing a filthy shirt and Kevin said she made him really late today.”

  Rupert shook his head. “There’s no doubt that William has made a marriage of inconvenience.”

  31

  Billy went abroad again. He was very loath to leave Janey when she was so depressed, and also miss the opportunity of sleeping with her in the middle of the month when she was at her most fertile. He was tempted to fly back for the night, but he simply couldn’t afford it. Janey promised him she’d try not to worry and would concentrate on her book.

  Concentration was not easy. The tax man dropped in, so did the builders and the VAT bully boys, all wanting money. Janey explained that Billy was away and that she wasn’t entitled to sign checks unless he was here, but fear came in great waves. She hadn’t liked the way the VAT-man looked at her furniture. The days were so long, too. She got up early, which meant she was starving by midday, and started misery-eating. Having worked until six in the evening, she was shattered and ready to dive into a quadruple vodka. Evenings yawned ahead.

  She went to see Helen and grumbled how bored she was. Helen suggested she did something for charity. Why didn’t she join the local Distressed Gentlefolk’s Committee? Janey went sharply into reverse, saying that that would be carrying coals to Newcastle, and she was bored only because she had so much work to do.

  The third day after Billy left, Janey tried and failed to write a chapter on schoolboys. She didn’t know any schoolboys; all her brothers were older. She ought to go to Eton or Harrow or the local comprehensive and talk to some, but research took time and was invariably expensive.

  She wrote down all the men she’d been to bed with, rather too many of them, hoping this might give her inspiration. It didn’t. Then she tore the list up in case Billy found it and was upset. The house looked awful. She went from room to room trying to find some free table space. She’d written in the bedroom and the kitchen and the drawing room and even the dining room, and left them all in a mess—everywhere except the future nursery. She was not going in there; it made her cry.

  The garden looked so pretty, full of hollyhocks and roses, and honeysuckle hanging heavy on the warm June air. The lime trees were in yellow flower, filling the air with sweet heady scent. The lime tree bower my prison, she thought to herself. She looked again at her contract and trembled: 70,000 words, it said. She hadn’t really produced any of them, and her publisher kept ringing and saying he’d be only too happy to come down and discuss what she’d already done.

  She wished she were in Athens with Billy. It was no good trying to work. She’d go out and weed the front garden and think about married men. But after she’d weeded up two snapdragons she decided she’d better just think about weeding. Perhaps her subconscious would start working overtime.

  Mavis sat, aggrieved and shivering ostentatiously, behind her. Going outside meant walks, not weeding. Harold Evans came out and rolled in the catmint. Mavis gave halfhearted chase, and Harold shot up a tree, tail flushed out like a lavatory brush.

  After half an hour, Janey peered in at the kitchen clock. Two minutes past six. Hooray, it was drinks time. She went in and poured herself some vodka. An inch up the glass, two inches? Oh well, it was mostly ice. She couldn’t be bothered with lemon, but splashed in some tonic.

  God, what a wasted day. She tried to think about men in a two-career family. Not easy, really. She and Billy could do with a wife each to look after them. She looked round the kitchen and shuddered at the mess. She’d really clear up before Billy came home. She picked up the paper. There was a brilliant piece by one of her rivals, which depressed her even more. At least there was a Carry On film on television to cheer her up.

  She heard the sound of voices, but it was only two farm laborers going past the gate, tired and red from the sun, returning home to supper and a pint of beer, perhaps, because they’d earned it. How lucky they were. The despair of another wasted day overwhelmed her.

  After three vodkas, she was starving. She made a herb omelette with six eggs, throwing the eggshells into the cardboard box which she still hadn’t emptied. She meant to share the omelette, which turned into scrambled eggs, with Mavis, but Mavis didn’t like herbs, so Janey ended up eating the lot. The boring pan had stuck; she’d clean it late. She ran her hands through her hair. A snow of dandruff drifted down. She hadn’t washed it since Westerngate. God, she was going to seed. She bolted all the doors and, having poured herself another vodka, was just about to turn on the television when the doorbell rang. Who the hell would call at this hour of the night? It was bound to be some rapist out in the woods or, even worse, the bailiffs. She’d ignore it. Mavis was barking her head off and and the bell rang again. Terrified, she unbolted the door and opened it an inch on the chain.

  “Who’s that?” she said, peering through the gap. Next moment she was assailed by Paco Rabanne.

  “It’s me, Kevin.”

  She could see his medallion catching the light.

  “Come in,’ she said weakly. “I thought you were the VAT-man or a rapist. Probably both, knowing my luck.”

  Relief that he was neither gave way to panic. Which was the least sordid room to take him into?

  “I’m working,’ she said, plumping for the drawing room. “I’m afraid I only tidy up before Billy comes home.”

  “So I see,’ said Kevin.

  The drawing room faced north and was cold. There were dead flowers, the skeleton of a three-month-old fire, coffee cups, and dog and cat plates. Janey shivered.

  “Let’s try the kitchen.”

  Kevin followed her, wrinkling his nose. He looked quite amazing in a black velvet suit, a white silk shirt slashed to the navel, three medallions, and his blond hair new
ly washed.

  “You look different,” she said.

  “I’ve shaved off my mustache.”

  “That’s right,” muttered Janey fuzzily. “It’s right that a goalpost mustache should come down in the summer.”

  “I’ve just left your husband in Athens this morning. I had to attend a function in this area. Thought I’d look in.”

  “How is he?” said Janey, her face brightening.

  “Bit choked. Moggie Meal Al seems to have lost his confidence since he hit the wing at Westerngate. Moggie Meal Dick keeps four-faulting.”

  “Which one’s he?”

  Kevin frowned. The frown deepened as he saw the mess of cups and dirty milk bottles, the sink full of dishes.

  “I’ve been working so hard,” Janey explained again.

  Kevin looked pointedly at the half-full glass, still with unmelted ice cubes.

  “What would you like to drink?” she said.

  “A dry white wine, please.”

  “Well, be a duck and get it from the cellar. I must go to the loo.”

  Upstairs she looked at herself in despair. Her hair looked like a mop, her face was red, her eyes tiny from drinking and lack of makeup. Old trousers and a shrunk T-shirt made her bum and boobs look huge. Scraping a flannel under her armpits, spraying her crotch with scent, she slapped on some liquid foundation and failed to pull a comb through her tangled mane. She went to the typewriter and wrote: “Men shouldn’t drop in,” with one finger.

  Downstairs, Kevin, up from the cellar, was holding a bottle and looking bootfaced. “I gather you don’t like our wedding gift.”

  Janey went white. “Oh, no, no, no! We just put it there because, er, Billy’s mother came to dinner and she had a poodle which, er, died, and we thought she’d be upset.” She shrugged helplessly. It had been worth a try.

  Then there was the hassle of finding a corkscrew and a clean glass, and then a basin that wasn’t full of dirty dishes to wash it in.

  “There’s a basin in the downstairs loo,” said Janey. Then, worried she might have forgotten to pull the chain, she seized the glass and rushed off. But it was all right. She had.

  “Why d’you buy Whiskas instead of Moggie Meal?” said Kevin, looking at another of Harold’s plates, which was gathering flies.

  “I’m sorry, Kev. I know I’m a lousy wife, but I’d just learnt the names of Billy’s horses when you changed them all, and the village shop’s run out of Moggie Meal. I get so bombed when I’m writing and I haven’t eaten all day.”

  Kev raised an eyebrow at the remains of scrambled egg in the pan.

  “How’s the book going?”

  “All right. I’m up to ‘Married Men.’ ”

  “Based on Billy?”

  “Billy’s too nice. Most married men I know are like babies—into everyone.”

  She wondered if he used hot tongs as well as a blow dryer, and had got that butterscotch smooth tan out of a bottle. He was in good shape though, his flat stomach emphasized by the big Gucci belt.

  She was dying to get herself another drink, but he was only a quarter way down his. Kevin didn’t drink much; it made his accent slip. She felt mesmerized by his flashing gold cuff links and medallions.

  “Don’t you get frightened when you’re here alone?” he asked.

  “I’ve got a panic button wired up to Rupert’s house, and a burglar alarm, but since Harold kept setting it off I gave up using it.”

  “You were pretty scared when I arrived.”

  “I thought you were the bailiffs. Please don’t come home, Bill Bailiff,” she giggled lamely.

  Kevin got up and walked round the kitchen. “This place is a tip and you look frightful. I’d never allow Enid to let herself and our place go like this.”

  Janey felt livid.

  She got up and poured another drink, but nothing came out. “It helps if you unscrew the top of the bottle,” said Kevin.

  “Do you honestly think,” Janey went on furiously, “that if you walked into Solzhenitsyn’s house, he’d be dusting or putting cups in dishwashers or making chutney? You bet there’s a Mrs. Solzhenitsyn playing the Volga boatman to calm his nerves and bringing in the samovar and caviar butties every ten minutes, and typing his manuscript, as well as keeping his house clean. Christ!”

  “Enid looks after me.”

  “You bet she does! Because you’re so jolly rich she doesn’t have to work. She doesn’t have a money problem in the world, any more than Helen does. So they can spend all day washing their hair and waxing their legs and thinking about paintwork and getting your underpants whiter than ever.”

  “My mother went out to work, and she cleaned the kitchen floor every day.”

  “So what?” snapped Janey. “She wasn’t a writer. Writers think about writing all the time, not cleaning tickets, and if they’re worried about money all the time, they can’t write.”

  “It’d be better,” said Kevin, “if, instead of writing rubbish about the opposite sex which makes you restless, you scrapped that book and spent more time looking after Billy. He looked like a tramp in Athens, breeches held together with safety pins, pink shirts, dinner suit covered in stains, holes in his shoes.” He picked up a pile of envelopes, flipping through them. “These envelopes should have been posted weeks ago. You’re a slut,” he went on, turning to face her, “and you’re overweight. If you were my wife, I’d send you straight off to a health farm.”

  “Ridiculously bloody expensive,” said Janey, blushing scarlet. “I’d rather buy a padlock for the fridge. I am trying to write a book.”

  “You drink too much. So does Billy. It’s impairing his judgment. If he’s not careful, he won’t be selected for the World Championships.”

  “I expect he’s fed up with being hassled by you.”

  “That’s not the way you should talk to your husband’s sponsor,” said Kevin, getting to his feet and putting down his half-finished drink. “Well, I’m off.”

  Janey was shaken. She was so used to rows with Billy ending up in bed that she couldn’t cope with the progression of this one.

  “Aren’t you going to finish your drink?”

  “No, thanks. Get some sleep, and when you’re sober we’ll do some straight talking.”

  “It’s hardly been crooked talking this evening,” said Janey sulkily, following him unsteadily to the door. In the doorway he turned, shoving his fist against her stomach, just a second before she hastily pulled it in.

  “God, that zip’s taken some punishment! I’ll come back on Thursday and take you out to dinner,” he said.

  It was all Billy’s fault, thought Janey, as she shaved her legs three days later, for telling Kev to drop in on her. Beastly jumped-up creep. The bath looked as though a sheep had been sheared. Not a follicle of superfluous hair was left on her body. Her bush had started to grow again like a badly plucked chicken, so she’d even shaved that too. She hadn’t had anything except three grapefruit and two bottles of Perrier since she’d last seen Kevin. She’d cleaned the house and washed her hair and painted her nails and rubbed body lotion in all over, even into the back of her neck. She couldn’t tell Billy about Kev because he hadn’t rung, which boded ill too. He always rang if he won.

  Oh, well, she’d be a good wife, and nice to Billy’s sponsor and at least Kev would be useful for her chapter on arrivistes. Janey detested Kevin Coley, but she cleaned the bedroom most thoroughly of all, putting roses on one bedside table and the Moggie Meal Sponsored Book of Pedigree Cats beneath the Bible on the other. She felt much thinner but her nerves were jangling from so many slimming pills. Nothing was going to happen tonight, she kept telling herself, but she hadn’t felt so jumpy since she’d gone to Wembley for her first date with Billy. Kev hadn’t said what time he was coming. Probably he had high tea and would arrive at five.

  He turned up at eight. When she answered the door he said, “Sorry, must have come to the wrong house,” and turned back down the path.

  “Kevin, have you been drinkin
g?”

  He turned, grinning. “Is it really you? You look quite different from the lady I saw three days ago.” He stared at her for a minute. “Wow,” he said, sliding a hand round her waist. “You look delightful, quite the old Janey.”

  For a second he fingered the spare tires above her straining white trousers. “You could lose another stone and a half without missing it, but you’re on the way and the place smells fresher too.”

  No one, reflected Janey, would be able to smell anything except Paco Rabanne.

  “I’m only coming out with you to research my chapter on married men,” she said.

  He had a buff-colored Mercedes. Frank Sinatra’s “Songs for Swinging Lovers” was belting out of the tape deck. Christ, he must be old to like that kind of music, thought Janey. That brushed-forward hair must cover a multitude of lines. The village boys, idly chatting and guffawing in the evening sun, stared as they passed. That’ll reach Mrs. Bodkin and probably Helen, by tomorrow, thought Janey.

  “Lovely properties,” remarked Kev as they drove along, “lovely old Cotswold places.”

  He was wearing a white suit and a black shirt and a heavy jet medallion. You’d get a black eye if he kept it on in bed, Janey was appalled to find herself thinking. Interesting that he’d made such an effort for her. Beyond seeing that his suits were reasonably well cut in the first place, Billy didn’t think about clothes. He was without vanity; that was one of the things she loved about him.

  Kev took her to a very expensive restaurant in Cheltenham. The menus had no prices and, although he showed off and was very rude to waiters, snapping his fingers, complaining the wine wasn’t cold enough, and sending food back on principle, they treated him with undeniable deference.

  “How do you keep so fit?” she asked, looking at his waistline.

  “I exercise a lot. Enid and I have joined the country club. You have to be elected. I play a round of golf whenever feasible. I jog on weekends. I exercise with weights in the morning.”

  Janey giggled. “Do you swing Enid above your head?”

  “Don’t be silly,” said Kevin coldly.