by Jilly Cooper
Determined to create some sense of union, however, Malise insisted the entire team and their wives, including Fen, went out to dinner that night to celebrate having two British riders in the final. Tomorrow was a compulsory rest day, so it didn’t matter if they suffered a few hangovers.
Jake promptly refused, on the grounds they couldn’t get a babysitter. Alas, they got back to their hotel to find the patron’s wife, who had given them frightful rooms overlooking a noisy main road, had suddenly discovered from the evening paper that she had as a guest a potential World Champion. Nothing, she insisted, was too much for Monsieur Lovell. She and her husband would immediately move out of their quiet bedroom overlooking the courtyard, so Jake and Tory could have the double bed and ensure two good nights’ sleep before the great ordeal.
All this was overheard by Malise, who was staying at the same hotel. Perhaps, he asked, Madame would be prepared to babysit that evening.
To Jake’s fury, Madame was only too ’appy. Darklis and Isa would have dinner in the kitchen and watch The Sound of Music on television. It is arguable whether Monsieur or Jake felt more like strangling Madame at that moment.
By the time their rooms had been sorted out, Fen, Jake, and Tory were the last to arrive for dinner. The restaurant at the end of the town took up the entire ground floor of an eighteenth-century château on the edge of an estuary. Gleaming Virginia creeper jacketed the walls and threatened to close the shutters. Pale crimson geraniums cascaded into the khaki water.
“Smell that wine and garlic,” sighed Fen ecstatically. “Oh, cheer up, Jake. At least it’ll be a change from hamburgers and Mars bars.”
Malise, suntanned and elegant in a cream linen suit and dark blue spotted tie, and Colonel Roxborough, sweating in gray flannel, rose to welcome them. But not before Rupert had turned to Humpty, saying, “Here comes Prince Charmless and the two ugly sisters.”
“Rupert,” implored Helen, blushing scarlet. “Hi, Jake. Congratulations. I was so excited when I heard you were in.”
“As the actress said to the bishop,” said Rupert, “you’re privileged, Jake. You must be the only person who’s excited my dear wife in years. I certainly don’t.”
Helen had arrived at Les Rivaux after a long, long detour to visit some cathedral, so she had missed seeing Rupert go through to the final. They’d had a row because she refused to sleep with him, insisting she must wash her hair before dinner.
“That’s not true. I’m over the moon about you making the final. It’s just marvelous to have two British riders there.”
“Must be difficult for you, Helen. Do you support us or the Yanks?” asked Humpty.
“Particularly when you see Dino Ferranti,” said Humpty’s wife, Doreen. “He’s out of this world.”
“Come on, sit down,” said Malise. “You go next to Doreen, Jake, and Fen can go between me and Rupert, and Tory on Rupert’s other side.”
“Tory’s going to need a long spoon,” said Fen, glaring at Rupert.
“Touché,” he said, and laughed.
“What’s everyone going to have to drink?” said Colonel Roxborough. “Still on the wagon, Rupert?”
“Only till Saturday. Then I’m going to get legless. Christ, I’m starving.”
He looked across at a side table where a waiter was slicing up a long French loaf with a bread knife. “Just imagine that that was one’s cock,” he said with a shudder.
Thinking she must make some attempt at conversation, but feeling eighteen and a fat deb again, Tory asked Rupert how Tabitha was.
“Fine,” said Rupert, and proceeded to ignore her totally, talking across to Colonel Roxborough about Count Guy’s débâcle and staring at a luscious brunette at a table nearby.
Jake longed to rescue Tory but he was trapped by Doreen Hamilton. Insulated by successive waves of exultation and apprehension at making the final, he looked at the slice of lemon in his gin and Schweppes, counting the pips: I will win, I won’t, I will. Must have the best of three. There were two pips in Mrs. Hamilton’s lemon: I will, I won’t. Despondency struck. Then he looked across at Colonel Roxborough’s glass, two slices, two pips on the top: he bent his head; three on the bottom, which added up to an uneven number. Relief overwhelmed him; he would win.
Doreen Hamilton looked at him oddly. “What are you doing?”
Jake grinned. “Counting lemon pips. Odd numbers I win, evens I don’t.”
“That’s cheating. You start with an odd, so there’s more chance of ending on an odd. Tell me,” she lowered her voice, “how is Macaulay going to behave when Rupert gets on his back.”
“Very badly, I hope.”
Rupert was making no secret of the fact that he found the company boring.
Doreen’s incessant chatter gave Jake plenty of opportunity to look around. Helen, with her sadness and red hair, reminded him of autumn. He noticed the rapt expression on Malise’s face as he talked to her. So that was the way the wind blew. She’d be much happier with Malise, thought Jake. He’d look after her, but he was far too upright and old-school-tie to make a play for her.
“Soupe de Bonne Femme.” Driffield was looking at the menu. “What’s Bonne Femme?”
“Good woman,” said Rupert. “Of absolutely no interest to anyone.”
At last the food, and several bottles of wine, arrived.
“I’m sure this octopus comes out of a tin,” grumbled Driffield.
“I wish I’d chosen hors d’oeuvres like you, Fen,” said Humpty, looking disconsolately at his piece of pâté the size of a matchbox.
“I must say I’m terribly hungry,” said Fen, spearing an anchovy.
Rupert was eating cepes. He glanced up and caught Fen looking at him. “A franc for your thoughts.”
“I was hoping one was poisonous.”
“Even if it were I’d be okay for the final, have no fear. Do you honestly think Hopalong Chastity stands a chance against me?”
“He’ll beat the pants off you,” snapped Fen, “and don’t call him that.”
“Hasn’t got the big-match temperament. He’ll go to pieces.”
“He beat you at Olympia.”
“This is the big time.”
For a second he stared straight into her eyes, and suddenly it was as though he was putting a spell on her.
“You’re going to be a knockout in a couple of years,” he said, lowering his voice.
“Big deal for an ugly sister.”
“You heard, did you? I’m sorry.”
Almost matter-of-factly, as if he were examining a horse, he ran an appraising finger down her cheek. She winced away, aware of the bumpiness of her complexion.
“Those spots would go with regular sex, and you’d soon lose that puppy fat,” he said. “You ought to come and work for me. I’d let you ride in all the senior classes. You’re ready for it. That was a stunning win at the beginning of the week. Jake’s holding you back.”
“Like Revenge, I suppose. I don’t forget so quickly,” she said, her color mounting.
“Revenge won two medals,” he said. “I’m quite serious. You and I’d make a great team, in bed and out.”
He was speaking almost into his buttonhole, so none of the table except she could hear.
“What about Helen?” hissed Fen. “I suppose she doesn’t understand you.”
For a minute the candlelight flickered on the predatory, cold, unsmiling face. Then he laughed, making him human again.
“On the contrary, I don’t understand her. She uses much too long words.”
Fen gave a shriek of laughter. Then, as the smile faded and he went on staring at her, she was appalled to feel her stomach curl, overwhelmed with a squirming, helpless longing for him.
Her plate of hors d’oeuvres was taken away, hardly touched.
Humpty looked reproachful. “What a waste!”
Nor could she eat her chicken Kiev.
Jake, deep in conversation with Doreen and Colonel Roxborough about other people’s horses, had also
drunk a great deal more than he’d eaten. Suddenly, he glanced down the table and saw little Fen staring at Rupert. She was curiously still. He’d seen that look in frightened mares confronted by stallions, terrified yet sexually excited. He’d felt the same terror, without the excitement, when Revenge was taken away from him. Rupert was not going to take Fen.
He stopped eating his steak, fingering his knife. Helen had noticed it too. Suddenly she stopped talking to Malise about Proust.
“It’s like asking me to go over to the Russians,” Fen was saying furiously, “and furthermore, I don’t like the way you treat your horses.”
“You’ve absolutely no idea how I treat my horses. You just listen to gossip.”
“You’re only sucking up to me because you think I’ll be so overwhelmed by your glamour, I’ll give you a lot of tips about how Jake rides his horses.”
But it was the helpless snapping of courtship.
Desperately, Helen turned to Tory. “What’s the name of the horse Jake’s riding in the final?” she asked.
Christ, she ought to know, thought Fen. She’s married to a finalist.
“He’s called Nightshade,” mumbled Tory nervously.
“But in the stable we call him Macaulay,” said Fen.
“How weird,” said Helen. “Rupert had a horse called Macaulay once, named after me. Macaulay was my maiden name.”
Rupert’s face was a mask.
“It’s the same horse,” said Fen, slowly spitting out every word.
“It can’t be,” said Helen, bewildered. She turned to Rupert. “He died of a brain tumor. You said he did.”
“I did not,” said Rupert in a tone that made Fen shiver.
Everyone was listening now.
“I sold him to that Sheik Kalil, who bought half a dozen horses a couple of years ago.”
“And you bought him from Kalil?” Helen asked Jake.
“No,” said Jake flatly, “I found him in the stone quarries.”
“He was pulling a cart loaded with bricks,” said Fen, “and he was starving. They don’t feed horses out there, or water them, just drive them in the midday sun till they collapse. Then they whip them till they get up again.”
A muscle was flickering in Rupert’s cheek.
“You’ve been listening to fairy stories again,” he said to Fen.
“We’ve got photographs,” hissed Fen, her fury fueled by guilt and anger because she found him irresistible. “Jake saved his life. I know you all sneer at all the medical knowledge he picked up from the gypsies, but it bloody well works. And it worked on Macaulay. He was just skin and bone held together by weals. He could hardly walk. It’s taken Jake two years to get him right.”
Helen looked appalled. “Is this true, Rupert?”
Rupert shrugged his shoulders. “How should I know? If you’re prepared to accept any cock-and-bull story. I run a yard on a very tight budget and I can’t ensure every horse I sell on is going to be mollycoddled for the rest of its life.”
“You sold him to the Middle East,” said Fen, knocking over her wineglass as she jumped to her feet. “You must have known what would happen. You ought to be bloody well ashamed of yourself.”
Bursting into tears, she fled out of the restaurant.
There was a stunned silence. Rupert picked up his knife and fork and went on eating his steak.
“What’s up with her?” said Driffield, looking at the puddings on the menu.
“Perhaps she’s eaten something that doesn’t agree with her,” said Ivor.
“Adolescent girls,” said Colonel Roxborough. “Up one moment, down the next. Overemotional. My daughter was like that. It’s their age. How old is she?” he asked Tory.
“Sixteen,” muttered Tory, staring at her plate. She detested scenes and she felt desperately sorry for Fen, but need she have gone quite so over the top?
“Probably tired,” said Malise.
“Needs a good night’s sleep,” said Doreen Hamilton comfortably.
“Needs a good screw,” said Rupert.
He hadn’t noticed that Jake had got to his feet and had limped down the table until he was directly behind Rupert.
“What did you say?”
Rupert didn’t turn his head. “You heard.”
“Yes, I heard.” Jake’s eyes glittered like deadly nightshade berries, his face ashen against the tousled black hair.
“You leave her alone, you bastard.”
“You’re hardly in a position to call me that. At least my parents were married to one another, in church too, unlike yours.”
“Rupert,” exploded Malise.
“You leave my parents out of this,” hissed Jake. “I’m warning you—keep away from her.”
“Why?” drawled Rupert. “Have you got the hots for her? If you read your prayer book you’d realize that sort of thing’s very frowned on. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife’s sister and all that.”
The next moment, Jake had grabbed Rupert’s shirt collar with one hand and snatched up the bread knife from the side table with the other.
Jerking Rupert towards him, he held the knife against Rupert’s suntanned neck.
“Keep your foul mouth shut,” he gritted. “If I catch you putting one of your filthy fingers on her, I’ll run this through you, you fucking sadist,” and very slowly he drew the blade across Rupert’s throat. No one moved, no one spoke. Everyone’s eyes were mesmerized by the knife blade glinting in the candlelight.
Then Helen gave a strangled sob.
“Jake,” said Malise quietly, “give me that knife.”
“It’s all right, Colonel Gordon,” said Jake, without looking in his direction. “This time it’s a warning, Rupert, but you heard me: you stay away from her. Next time you won’t get off so lightly.”
He threw the knife down so it fell across Fen’s red wine stain, giving an illusion of spilt blood, then limped out of the restaurant.
“Are you all right?” gasped Helen.
Rupert sprang to his feet, ready to give chase. But Malise was too quick. Leaping up, he blocked Rupert’s path.
“No,” he said sharply. He might have been speaking to a rabid dog about to pounce. “Stay—here. It was all your fault.”
Rupert looked at him incredulously.
“That man has just tried to kill me.”
“There’s a simple remedy to that,” said Malise. “Don’t wind him up.”
“Bloody bad form,” said Colonel Roxborough. “Fellow can’t hold his drink. Let’s have some brandy. Think we all need it.”
“I want some crêpes suzette,” said Driffield.
Rupert sat down, his face absolutely still.
Malise looked round. “None of this is to go any further than this table. We don’t want the press getting hold of it. Rupert was simply taking trouble to be nice to Fen; she overreacted because she’s protective about Macaulay. Jake overreacted because he’s protective about both her and the horse. Isn’t that true, Tory?”
Blushing scarlet, Tory mumbled that Jake was probably uptight about the final and she better see where’d he got to, and, thanking Malise for a lovely dinner, she stumbled out of the restaurant, knocking over a chair as she went.
“Tory the elephant packed her trunk and said good-bye to the circus,” said Rupert.
Fen didn’t stop running until she got to the stables. It was dark now, a huge full moon with a smudged apricot pink face gazed down at her reproachfully. How could she have let herself go like that?
She went straight to Macaulay’s box. He was enchanted to see her and nuzzled her pockets inquiringly as she sobbed into his solid black neck. “Oh, Mac, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t dump on you when you’ve got so many worries of your own, but I’m in such a muddle. I should never have said all those awful things. Malise’ll never pick me for the team now.”
Gradually her sobs subsided as Macaulay stood in silent, titanic sympathy.
“You’re such a duck,” she said in a choked voice. “Please bu
ck that pig off the day after tomorrow.”
She heard a step outside. Jake, Malise, Rupert? She couldn’t talk to anyone. She melted into the dark of the box behind Macaulay. The top half-door was stealthily opened. Behind Macaulay’s stalwart frame she couldn’t see who it was. Then she heard the sound of something hitting the water bucket. Then the door was shut and bolted.
“Hell.” She was locked in for the night.
Next minute the ever-greedy Macaulay had shot towards the door and she heard the sound of munching. Desperately she snatched the bucket from him.
“No, darling, you mustn’t eat it. We don’t know what it is.”
Snorting with exasperation, Macaulay pursued her around the box.
Suddenly the top half of the door was opened again.
“Who is it?” she said in terror.
“What the hell are you doing here?” said Jake.
“Talking to Mac.”
“Disturbing his beauty sleep more likely. You okay?” he added more gently.
“Yes, but look what someone’s put in his box.” She held up the bucket.
Jake lit a match and then whistled. “Jesus Christ!”
“What is it?”
“Beet, unsoaked,” he said grimly. “Someone’s trying to nobble him.”
“Rupert,” said Fen.
Jake shook his head. “He’s still in the restaurant. Might be one of his supporters, but I don’t think it’s Rupert’s form. Too easily traced, and he’s just longing for a chance to make me look silly in the final. More likely some Kraut fanatic or one of the Yanks. Brits don’t knobble Brits. All the same, we’ll have to take turns to sleep outside the box. I’ll stay here tonight. You go back and share our double bed with Tory.”
“You ought to get a decent night’s sleep.”
“I’m so bloody tired, I’d sleep on a bed of nails.”
Back in their hotel, still wearing a pale gray silk petticoat, Helen Campbell-Black removed her makeup with a shaking hand, turning her head to catch different reflections in the three-sided mirror. Rupert was already in bed, watching a tape of Clara jumping on the hired video machine. Every so often he froze the film so he could study the angle of Ludwig’s body or the position of his hands. Each fence was played over and over again. Then he got up and strolled naked across the room, changing the tape to one of Dino jumping President’s Man in Florida. The horse was young and inexperienced, giving each fence at least a foot, because he hadn’t yet learnt to tuck his legs under him. Manny, as Dino called him, would need much more riding in the final. Rupert could see Dino carefully positioning him at each fence. Pity there wasn’t any film of Hopalong jumping Macaulay.
