Riders

by Jilly Cooper

  “Who’s that with her?” asked the man from the Express. “Face is familiar.”

  “Think he’s an actor,” said the girl from the Mirror.

  By some miracle they had time to watch a couple of rounds.

  “Watch the wall,” warned Sarah. “There’s been a lot of mistakes there, and the combination’s on a funny stride. People have been taking three strides, then changing their minds and asking the horses off too early, then hitting the third element.”

  “I suppose you know all about it,” snapped Fen at Sarah.

  “I’m awfully sorry, Fen,” said Sarah in an undertone. “I’m so glad you made it.”

  “I wouldn’t have,” said Fen, casting a venomous glance at Dino, “if Mussolini here hadn’t come jackbooting round. Why can’t I go into a decline in peace?”

  Mary Jo Wilson, the number one American girl rider, auburn-haired and extremely attractive, was in the ring. She took a brick out of the wall and had a pole down at the second element, then crashed through the third. The crowd gave a groan of sympathy.

  “What did I tell you?” said Dino. “Hi, Mary Jo,” he shouted as she came out of the ring.

  “Dino!” Her face lit up. “I didn’t know you were in Europe.”

  “How many clears?” Fen asked Sarah.

  “Only four.”

  Dino removed his dark glasses from a protesting Fen.

  “But my eyes are still red.”

  “Just fantasize you’re a white rat.”

  She rode through the cherry red curtains into the brilliantly lit arena.

  “And here comes Fenella Maxwell,” said Dudley Diplock, in ecstasy. “Hot from her brilliant second in the Crittleden Gold Cup, on Hardy.”

  The crowd, who’d been bitterly disappointed when Fen hadn’t appeared at her appointed place in the class and had assumed she’d scratched, gave a cheer of delighted surprise.

  “Bloody unfair,” grumbled Griselda. “Why should they waive the rules for her?”

  “Because she’s a star,” said Billy. “She’s the one they’ve come to see.”

  It is the mark of a great athlete that the mind can transcend adversity, and somehow heighten the performance. After two shaky jumps, which had her fans gasping and nearly stripped the paint off the poles, Fen clicked into automatic pilot. Hardy, given his head and showing his true quality, went clear. The crowd went berserk. Their idol hadn’t failed them. Crittleden wasn’t just a flash in the pan.

  “Thank God I didn’t walk the course,” said Fen as she came out. “I’d have been so terrified I’d never have crossed the starting line.”

  “You made a cock-up at the first two fences,” said Dino.

  “Don’t come on like Jake,” said Fen icily. “I’m going back to the lorry.”

  “No, you’re not,” said Dino, catching her by the scruff of her neck. “You’ve got to jump off.”

  He took her up into the riders’ stand to watch the first rounds. From all sides people hailed him.

  “Where are zee horses?” asked Hans Schmidt.

  “Arriving the day after tomorrow. I might jump Manny in the Victor Ludorum.”

  At that moment Billy’s number was called. Behind Fen and Dino, Janey Lloyd-Foxe was holding court, looking ravishing in a red wool Laura Ashley smock.

  “You’d think she was eight months pregnant,” muttered Fen savagely. Janey was talking to Doreen Hamilton, speaking more slowly than usual so that Fen could hear every word.

  “Yes, Billy is absolutely over the moon. The night I told him, he couldn’t sleep for excitement. It’s going to be a terrific incentive to his career. He says he’s jumping for two now. He’s treating me like glass. Won’t even let me pick up a duster.”

  Never been her forte anyway, said Fen to herself, her knuckles white where she clutched her whip.

  “When’s it due?” asked Doreen.

  “June. Billy’ll be at the Royal and the International, but he says he’ll probably cancel both.”

  The jump-off course was a blur before Fen’s eyes.

  “Oh, here comes my darling,” said Janey as Billy, the first to jump off, cantered into the arena, a huge grin spread across his face. “Don’t you think prospective fatherhood suits him?”

  Dino put a hand on Fen’s knee. “Ignore her,” he said. “She’s only trying to wind you up.”

  Bugle put in an incredibly fast time. Janey went into noisy ecstasy.

  “Never seen him ride before,” said Dino. “He’s bloody good. No one’s going to be able to cruise after that.”

  He was right. Both Ludwig and Wishbone clocked up slower times. In came Rupert to the usual ecstatic, schoolgirl screams. The whole of the pony club stand, hopeful of losing their virginity in such a glorious cause, rose to their feet to cheer.

  “Extraordinary that someone so good-looking should be such a bastard,” said Dino. “Like a blackbird singing the most exquisite song and dumping on you at the same time. Jesus, look at that acceleration. He ought to have starting gates.”

  As Snakepit stampeded the course, the jumps hardly seemed to exist. He skimmed them effortlessly like a pebble flicked in ducks and drakes.

  “He’s improved a whole lot since the World Championships,” said Dino, as Rupert thundered home two seconds faster than Billy. “Pow, you can’t help admiring him.”

  “I can, only too easily,” said Fen.

  Joyously raking his hand down Snakepit’s steel gray plaits, Rupert shot out through the red curtains, sending Hardy flying.

  “Why don’t you look where you’re going, clumsy oaf?” snarled Fen.

  “Because I don’t like what’s in my way,” snapped Rupert, “and if Svengali Lovell can tell you how to beat that time, I’m a Dutchman.”

  “Unfair to Dutchmen,” Fen shouted back over her shoulder. “Some of them are rather nice.”

  “Remember, if you’re going too fast, accelerate,” Dino called after her.

  Suddenly, Fen remembered Rupert in Rome sneering at her disastrous performances in the Nations’ Cup, saying that women always crack under pressure.

  To hell with Rupert, she said to herself, to hell with Janey Lloyd-Foxe and her beastly baby. If I’m going to commit suicide this is as good a way as any.

  Having bowed briefly to the Princess in the Royal box, she turned Hardy round and thundered through the start at a gallop. Hardy, who was used to being checked all the time and fighting for his head, was puzzled for a minute, then rose to the challenge. Over the first fence she was up on Rupert’s time, throwing herself over, her hands nearly touching Hardy’s noseband. Over the parallel bars and, with an amazing flying change, she jumped the gate almost sideways.

  God, thought Dino, suddenly terrified, she’s taking me literally. Scorching over the upright, bucketing over the walls, Fen was already looking ahead to the combination. She was coming in too fast; she was going to crash. She knew a terrifying moment of fear, then Hardy took over and executed a trio of perfect jumps and hurtled Fen through the finish. From the earsptitting cheers of the crowd, who had risen to their feet, she knew she had beaten Rupert’s time. The problem now was stopping. At the side of the arena a bank of blue hydrangeas came to meet them. Hardy skidded to the right, sliding along on his back legs for five seconds before coming to a halt.

  Fen sauntered out of the ring, pleased that for once even Dino seemed shaken out of his customary cool.

  The next moment Ludwig clapped his hand on her back.

  “Brilliant. I haf never seen a round like zat.”

  Count Guy followed suit, and suddenly all the British riders, except Rupert and Griselda, were shaking her hand and hugging her. She was home from Coventry at last.

  Was it all worth it? wondered Fen, as she accepted her red rosette from the Princess, with the huge, silver cup sparkling even more dazzlingly as it reflected the lights. Was it worth the lack of sleep, the setbacks, the heartbreaks, for this moment of glory? She admired the Princess’s perfect ankles in flesh-colored tights
as she walked back to the Royal box. Then there was a terrific roll of drums which nearly sent Snakepit and Rupert into orbit, leaving a gap between Fen and Billy, who was third. Turning, Fen looked him straight in the eye. With a supreme effort, far greater than winning the cup, she managed to smile. “I’m so pleased about your baby,” she said.

  Then, before he had time to answer, the arena was plunged in darkness and Fen and the dappled gray Hardy were illuminated by the spotlight. She was aware that no one was leaving, there was no crashing of seats or banging of exit doors, or feet running down the concrete steps, just a long silence followed by the most almighty cheering, and, as the band struck up “I want some red roses for a blue lady,” everyone started singing and clapping in time. Then the other riders filed out and she was alone and spotlit in the ring, sending Hardy into his wonderful, effortless, long striding gallop, and the crowd cheered so loudly that she went round again. Billy may not love me, she thought, but they do. Why can’t I go on riding around this ring for the rest of my life?

  Dudley captured her in the collecting ring, brandishing his microphone like a furry, black iced lolly: “Se-uper, absolutely seuper. You sorted out the girls from the boys today.” He roared with laughter. He’d had too many in the whisky tent. “And Harvey went se-uperly. You must be pleased.”

  “He did, and I am.”

  “Must be a cert for L.A. now.”

  “You can’t look beyond tomorrow with horses,” said Fen.

  “Must be difficult to choose between him and Esmeralda.”

  Fen looked broodingly at Dudley for a second.

  “She’s called Desdemona, and he’s called Hardy, and why don’t you remove your silly hat when you’re talking to a lady, Dudley. Although, knowing you, you probably think I’m a gentleman.”

  Oh, Christ, she thought, I shouldn’t have said that.

  Out of the corner of her eye, beyond the Shetland ponies and the famous ex-racehorses who were lining up for the personality parade, she could see a pack of reporters hovering.

  “Well done, Fen, wizard round. Let’s have a jar later in the week,” bellowed a voice, and there, leering above her, almost sending Dudley flying, was Monica Carlton bowling past with her Welsh cobs.

  “One door shuts, another door opens,” said Fen, giving Monica a weak smile. Dudley was flapping around saying good night to the viewers and reminding them to switch on tomorrow for the puissance. Fen tried to dive behind a coster’s van, but the reporters were old hands. Next moment they’d ringed her like a lasso, blocking her escape on all sides.

  “What d’you think about Billy Lloyd-Foxe’s wife having a baby?”

  “I’m very pleased for him.”

  “Nothing else to say?”

  “If it grows up like Billy, it’ll be a wonderful child.”

  “But not like Janey?”

  “I didn’t say that.” Fen looked desperately round for help. “I hardly know Janey.”

  “You were very fond of Billy, weren’t you?”

  “It’s difficult not to be,” said Fen, bursting into tears. “He hasn’t an enemy in the world.”

  All she could see was their avid searching eyes and their frantically scribbling pens.

  “Why can’t you leave me alone?” she sobbed.

  A shadow fell across the notebooks.

  “Pack it in,” said Dino coldly and, taking the couple nearest Fen by their coat collars, he yanked them out of the way. “Bugger off and fuse your own typewriters with your lousy copy. You heard what the lady said—leave her alone.”

  44

  Back in the lorry, Dino peered unenthusiastically into the fridge. “One black avocado, half a can of beans, a pork pie that ought to be on superannuation. You have two choices,” he said to Fen. “You can cry yourself to sleep, right, or come out to dinner with me. I’m starving.”

  “I’m not hungry and I ought to ring Jake.”

  “Sarah called him. He said, what the hell were you doing risking Hardy’s neck, then exhausting him, showing off in that double lap of honor.”

  Fen pulled a face. “And that’s all the bloody praise I get.”

  Dino took her to an Italian restaurant off High Street, Kensington, which stayed open late. Outside, Fen could see dusty, yellowing plane trees fretted by raindrops, and lovers under pulled-down umbrellas hurrying to catch the last tube. Imprisoned in Wembley, with its heat, airlessness, and tensions, she’d forgotten an outside world existed. At the next-door table a couple were holding hands. Taking in the merry din, the bottles of chianti, the photographs of the Colosseum on the wall, the solicitous waiters, Fen was reminded of the night in Rome with Billy, when her face was all bruised and he’d fed her risotto with a spoon. She wanted him so badly it took her breath away.

  “What are you thinking about?” demanded Dino.

  “That I ought to be in the intensive care unit, not wasting your money.”

  “It is my money,” said Dino, grabbing the menus. “I’ll order for you.”

  “Grapefruit bolognese’ll do me fine,” said Fen, emptying half a glass of wine in one gulp.

  “How come you speak Italian so well?” she said when he’d finished ordering.

  “Because I am Italian, I guess.”

  “You’re American.”

  “Only by adoption. I’m just a simple, lousy, Latin lover at heart.”

  “Why have you streaked your hair gray?”

  “Well, hearing you were heavily into older guys, like Billy, I figured I stood more of a chance if I looked more mature. Besides,” he grinned, “I thought it suited me.”

  “It does,” admitted Fen. “You look too bloody glamorous for words, but it’s too early to make jokes about my broken heart.”

  Dino put a suntanned, beautifully manicured hand over hers. “How come you didn’t acknowledge my telegram?”

  “I wasn’t sure it was from you.”

  “It said it was, didn’t it?”

  “You don’t know the terrible thing Rupert did to me in Rome.”

  Just for a second his hand tightened painfully on hers.

  “No, not that,” said Fen. “I’d been packed off to bed ludicrously early and was sitting there, dying of boredom, when Rupert rang up, pretending to be you, and asked me out to dinner.”

  “Did you go?”

  “Did I? I’ve never got bathed, washed my hair, and dressed quicker in my life. Then I found Rupert and Driffield killing themselves at the bottom of the stairs.”

  Dino looked half-smug, half-sympathetic.

  “That was a lousy trick. Were you disappointed?”

  “Shattered. After that, I thought the telegram was probably one of Rupert’s vile little practical jokes too, so I never wrote and thanked you.”

  “If you had, I’d have been over much sooner.”

  “And I might never have got involved with Billy. D’you think I’ll ever get over him?” she added dolefully.

  “Sure you will. Just stick around.”

  The waiter arrived with their first course: half a dozen Mediterranean prawns each and a huge bowl of mayonnaise, strongly flavored with garlic.

  Dino ordered another bottle, and started stripping the prawns with incredible dexterity, then dipping them in the mayonnaise and passing them to Fen.

  “Mm, they actually are delicious. Do you undress women as expertly?”

  “Far more expertly, and I don’t pull their heads and legs off, either.”

  Fen paused for a minute, thinking how amazingly attractive he was; if you liked that sort of thing, she told herself hastily.

  “Did you ever get Helen Campbell-Black into bed?”

  Dino grinned. “We had lunch several times, but she never had more than one course and left half of that because she was always wanting to rush me off to some art gallery. I said, ‘Honey, I am not into culture, I’m only into sex.’ ”

  “You didn’t manage to divert her into some large double bed?”

  He shook his head. “She was running scare
d the whole time. Whenever I put my hand on her back to guide her across the road, she shot into the oncoming traffic. If you try anything further, a burglar alarm goes off.”

  “In Rupert’s lorry?”

  “No, in her head. She’s so beautiful you want to gaze and gaze, but I guess she’s like a Ming vase: beautiful but empty.”

  “Goodness, I’ve eaten all those prawns,” said Fen.

  “Good girl.” Dino ran his hand down the inside of her arm, caressing her gently, almost abstractedly as if she were a dog. “Funny, I fancy you. I always have.”

  Fen jumped away. “You mustn’t say things like that. I’m not ready for propositions.”

  “Wasn’t a proposition. Just a statement of fact.”

  “Even though I’m not as beautiful as Helen?”

  Dino looked at her meditatively. “You could gain some weight,” he said, “but you’ll do.”

  Fen noticed he was beginning to squint slightly. He must be desperately jet-lagged.

  “How’s Manny?”

  “Awesome; much better than me. He’s grown so much and filled out. He was winning a lot earlier in the year. Then my daddy had a cardiac arrest in July. He’s better now, but I was off the circuit for some weeks.”

  “Why have you suddenly come over here at the end of the season?”

  “To work with this guy whom I reckon is the best coach in the world. I’m going to stable the horses at his barn for a few months, take in a few shows in Europe, then have a stab at the World Cup in April. Then back to the States for the run up to the Olympics. I guess I want a gold as much as you do.”

  “Who is this coach? Do I know him?”

  “No one knows him very well. He’s kind of unapproachable.” Dino smiled confidingly. “Actually, I fancy one of his female jockeys. I figured if I was living there with permanent access, I might stand a better chance.”

  Fen slumped in her chair, utterly deflated. She looked down at the tiny lamb cutlets that had just arrived and removed the blackened sprig of rosemary that lay across them. She was utterly heartbroken over Billy, but no girl likes an attractive reboundee whipped from under her nose before she’s even had a moment to try and rebound onto him. It would have been useful to have Dino in England if anyone asked her to bring a man to a party or to some official dinner. Moodily she poured too much salt onto the side of her plate, watching it turn green in the mint sauce.