Riders

by Jilly Cooper

  Dino cleared up the mess, then sat her down.

  “Angel, you’re very very tired. Fen and I have got to go up to London for this program.” (They were doing Billy Lloyd-Foxe on This Is Your Life that evening.) “We’re going to take the kids to get them out of your hair for twenty-four hours. They’ll enjoy seeing the inside of a studio. Hannah will be here to keep an eye on you. Sarah’ll be back first thing tomorrow morning, so you don’t have to worry about the horses. Tomorrow, when we get back, I am taking you to the doctor.”

  “I’m all right,” protested Tory.

  But the children’s wild delight at the prospect of a jaunt only depressed her more. They’re bored by me, she thought miserably. I’m no fun anymore.

  “You do promise to look after her, don’t you?” said Fen to Hannah as they left.

  After they’d gone, Tory tried to pull herself together and get down to making green tomato chutney. But as she was chopping the onions, she remembered it had been Jake’s favorite, and how he used to eat it neat out of the jar with a spoon, which made her cry again.

  She started as the doorbell rang. Why did she still harbor some inside hope that it might be Jake? But it was her mother, in a new burgundy suit, looking very chic despite a burgundy face from the car heater.

  “I’m not crying,” lied Tory, wiping her hands on her skirt.

  “No, I can smell you’re not,” said Molly, backing off slightly. “We’re on our way to stay with some of Bernard’s dreary relations. I left him in the car.” As though he was a smelly old Labrador behind a grille, thought Tory.

  “Doesn’t he want to come in?”

  “No, we won’t be able to gossip.”

  “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

  Molly looked pointedly at her watch.

  “I would have thought it was more like sherry time.”

  As Tory poured her a glass, Molly said how pleased she was about Fen and Dino. Tory returned to chopping onions.

  “Seems a nice chap,” Molly went on. “Very good-looking and very rich. You should have married someone like that in the first place. Now I want to have a serious talk with you.”

  Tory gritted her teeth.

  “What are you going to do about your future?” said Molly. “Fen and Dino won’t want to stay here forever with you and the children. They’ll need a place of their own—perhaps they’ll go back to America.”

  Tory looked up in horror. “D’you think so?”

  “I know so. Of course, they’re too nice to say anything, but you can’t hold them back forever.”

  Tory said nothing, but chopped one piece of onion to pulp.

  “And when are you going to divorce Jake? I mean, he’s deserted you, so you shouldn’t have any difficulty. His father did the same thing to his mother. Like father like son, I suppose.”

  “Please, Mummy, don’t.” Tory’s voice broke. “I can’t bear it.”

  “Can’t think why you mind so much,” said Molly. “You always knew he never loved you. Only married you for your money. What d’you expect?”

  Tory looked down at the sink tidy. It was a disgusting mess of bacon rinds, spaghetti hoops, rusty Brillo pads, and old tea bags. Like me, she thought, I’m as useless as an old tea bag.

  “Let’s be positive,” Molly was going on. “I’m pleased to see you’ve lost a lot of weight. You may be looking quite frightful, but at least you’ve got a waist, and even ankles now. But you really shouldn’t have let yourself go like that. Can’t blame Jake pushing off, really. You never tried to hold him.

  “However, Bernard and I have a plan. We’re going to send you to a health farm for a week. There’s a special offer for one in Harper’s this month. No, I won’t take no for an answer. We’ve filled in the form and sent it off. You can have it as an early Christmas present.”

  Tory was obviously not going to offer her another glass of sherry, so Molly helped herself. She wondered if the child was quite right in the head at the moment.

  “Cheer up,” she said. “You’re only twenty-eight. If you smarten yourself up, you might easily get another man. One of your own class this time.”

  After her mother had gone, Tory sat down and cried and cried. Wolf sat at her feet, raking her knee with his paw, licking her face, desperately trying to comfort her.

  Eventually she responded to his sympathy. She had to go up to the village to buy brown sugar for the chutney, and afterwards she’d take him for a walk. She couldn’t be bothered with lunch. As she got her coat and purse, the telephone rang. But it was for Hannah, who took it in the tackroom.

  Going out into the yard Tory met Hannah, standing on one leg. Her boyfriend, she explained, had got tickets for the Rolling Stones concert that night. Of course she must go, said Tory. If Hannah gave the horses their final feed Tory would check them last thing to see everything was all right.

  “Are you sure you’ll be okay?” said Hannah.

  “I’ll be fine,” Tory reassured her. “It’ll be rather peaceful to have the house to myself.”

  She didn’t need a lead for Wolf anymore. Since Jake had gone he never left her heels, waiting outside the village shop for her, with an anxious expression on his pointed brindle face. As she came out of the baker’s, the low afternoon sun shone directly into her eyes. Suddenly she gave a gasp of excitement. Across the road a black-haired man was watching them. Then she felt a desperate thud of disappointment. It was very like him—but it was not Jake. Wolf, however, gave a bark of joyful recognition and shot across the road into the path of an oncoming lorry. The passers-by, watching in horror, couldn’t be sure if it was the dog or the girl crouched over him who was screaming.

  Everyone was very kind. They recognized poor Mrs. Lovell. A man offered her a lift to the vet, but Wolf died on the way. He licked Tory’s hand and gave a last thump of his shepherd’s crook tail, as if to apologize for deserting her, too, and his head fell back.

  The vet drove Tory home, and dug a grave for Wolf beside Sailor and various of the children’s guinea pigs and hamsters, and buried him in his blanket with his old shoe. He didn’t like what he saw. Tory was shivering uncontrollably; there was no color in her cheeks; her clothes hung off her. She insisted on making him a cup of tea, but forgot to put any tea in the pot and didn’t even notice that she’d handed him just hot water and milk.

  “It was Jake’s dog,” she kept saying. “I should have had him on a lead.”

  “Now, you’re not going to be by yourself?” asked the vet.

  “No, no, the others’ll be back soon.”

  Hannah, going off at dusk, her thoughts full of her boyfriend and the Rolling Stones, wondered if she ought to ring Dino and Fen in London. Tory was just sitting at the kitchen table, twisting a drying-up cloth, gazing unseeingly at a mountain of chopped onions.

  “Honestly, I’m perfectly okay,” she said. “Sarah’ll be back first thing and I’ve got an awful lot of chutney to make.”

  At nine o’clock, Tory checked the horses. They were all dozing or lying down. She gave Macaulay an apple and a cuddle and then shut all the top doors. Then she took a flashlight and looked at Wolf’s grave.

  “You’re lucky,” she said. “You won’t miss him anymore.”

  Life without Jake, she reflected, wasn’t worth a farthing. A far thing. Nothing could be further away now than he was. She was useless as a mother, no good as a human being. If she wasn’t there, Jake could come home with Helen when Dino and Fen went to America and take over the yard.

  The note took her hours to write, her mind was working so slowly. She screwed up several drafts and chucked them in the bin. In the top of Jake’s chest of drawers in the bedroom, under the lining paper, she found the key to the poison cupboard. Back in the tackroom, she had to stand on a chair to open it. What a choice awaited her. Like Jake asking her what she wanted to drink the first time he’d taken her to a pub. There was henbane, used by Dr. Crippen, and hemlock water dropwort, which Jake often used as a poultice for horses with sore backs.
Deadly poison it was, but it also paralyzed you, leaving your mind clear to the end. She couldn’t cope with that. Then there was deadly nightshade, or belladonna as it was called. A more appropriate name for Helen than herself. Jake had once told her that there was enough poison in that bottle to kill off a dozen Campbell-Blacks, with all their phenomenal strength. It should be enough for her. She took down the bottle.

  Next morning Jake walked towards the social security office to have another crack at getting some dole. It was totally against his nature, hustling or wheedling for money—but things were getting desperate. A conker fell at his feet. Automatically he picked it up and was about to put it in his pocket for Isa. Then he realized there was no point and savagely hurled it across the car park.

  “Hello, Jake,” said a voice.

  Wary of rejection, he turned, frowning. But it was Tanya, his old groom, now married and wheeling a baby in a carriage. Jake knelt down to admire the child, picking up his little hands, tickling his ribs to make him laugh. He’d always been sweet with kids, thought Tanya. He must miss his own terribly, his swarthy face gray, his eyes deeply shadowed. The cotton jacket and jeans were far too thin for a bitter cold morning.

  “He’s beautiful,” he said, reluctantly getting to his feet.

  “I’m sorry about Wolf,” she said.

  “What about him?” said Jake, suddenly tense.

  “Oh, God, perhaps I shouldn’t have told you. Hannah rang me. He was run over yesterday afternoon.”

  An hour later Jake got back to the bedsit to find Helen painting her nails and not in a good mood. She had just read in the Daily Mail that her husband had joined the Tory Party and was expecting to be given a safe seat at any minute. Tory, Helen reflected bitterly, was not her favorite word at the moment. She thought so even less when she saw Jake’s face.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked in alarm.

  “I’ve got to go home.” She winced at the word. “There’s been an accident.”

  “Oh, God, not one of the kids?”

  “No, Wolf.”

  “Wolf? Is that a horse?”

  “No, the dog. He was run over yesterday.”

  “A dog?” said Helen incredulously. “A dog! You’re going back just for that? I could appreciate it if it was a child.”

  “Wolf was like a child to Tory.” And to me, he wanted to add.

  Helen looked at him in bewilderment. It was all part of this hideous conspiracy between the English and their animals.

  “I simply don’t get it,” she said. “You refuse to go back when Malise appeals to you over and over again to jump for your country, then you scuttle home because some goddam dog’s been run over. I just don’t understand you.”

  There was a pause.

  “How long will you be?” she asked. “I suppose you’ll want the car.”

  Jake looked at his watch. “I’ll be back in time for you to go to the hairdresser’s. If I get delayed, take a taxi.”

  “We can’t afford it, and I’ve got to pay the hairdresser’s.”

  Jake pulled a huge wad of tenners out of his pocket.

  “Did you rob a bank?” asked Helen in amazement.

  Jake shook his head. “I flogged my silver.”

  “Oh Jake,” she wailed. “How could you? It was the one thing we had to cling on to, your one link with immortality. We’ve scrimped and saved so much so that you could keep it.”

  He gave her eight hundred and fifty pounds—“Now you can buy some winter clothes”—and kept a hundred and fifty for himself.

  With it, he went to his friend Harry, who bred lurchers, and bought a puppy: a tiny replica of Wolf, with a brindle, fluffy coat, a nose like an anteater and huge, anxious eyes. By the time he drove over the bridge at Withrington the puppy had been sick five times. As he gently lifted the little creature out of the car, she was sick again all over Jake’s coat. Jake hardly noticed. Unsure of his reception, his heart was thumping, his throat dry.

  The yard seemed curiously deserted, except for the stable cat, who arched his back at the puppy, and the horses, particularly Macaulay, who nearly broke down their half-doors with delight at seeing their master again. The back door was open but there was no one in the house. As Jake washed the vomit off, he was tempted to go upstairs and get a sweater. But Helen would do her nut if he came back wearing something different. His heart was still thumping when the telephone rang and he automatically picked it up. He had great difficulty in even saying “Hello.”

  “Dino,” said a voice, “this is Malise. I’m desperately sorry. Just wondered if there was any more news of Tory.”

  “What about Tory?” snapped Jake.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Jake.”

  “What the hell are you doing there?”

  “What about Tory?” said Jake, on a rising note of fear.

  “She tried to commit suicide last night.”

  “Must have been a mistake.”

  “I’m afraid not,” said Malise, losing his temper. “She took a massive overdose of one of your bloody poisons. She wasn’t expecting anyone back till this morning. Dino and Fen got worried, came back and found her last night.”

  “Oh, my God,” whispered Jake. “Is she, is she…?”

  Malise realized he’d been too harsh. “I’m afraid she’s dying, Jake.”

  “Where is she?”

  “The Great Warwickshire.”

  Jake took Fen’s car because it was faster. It had never been driven so fast in its life. The poor puppy rattled back and forth in the back like a shuttle. The hospital steps were swarming with press.

  “Hello, Gyppo. Shown up at last, have you?” shouted the Daily Mail.

  “About bloody time. You come to pay for the funeral?” asked The Sun.

  “Fuck off,” snarled Jake.

  Mrs. Lovell was in intensive care on the second floor, said the receptionist, giving Jake a strange look. “You can’t bring that puppy in here.”

  But Jake was off, limping across the polished floor, pulling the heavy gates of the lift with one hand, holding the puppy with the other. On the way up, it licked Jake’s face. Oh, please God, he prayed frantically, don’t let her die.

  As he walked down the passage, a voice said, “What the hell are you doing here?”

  It was Dino towering over him, barring his way, like the Archangel Michael with the flaming sword. For a second Jake thought Dino was going to smash his face in, knocking him flying back into a trolley of instruments. Jake stood his ground.

  “I want to see Tory.”

  “Well, you bloody can’t. She’s in a coma and fading fast, and it’s all your bloody fault, you bastard, you and your lousy poisons. My God, you wouldn’t treat a horse, or even a dog, the way you treated her, leaving her without a fucking word, never getting in touch, letting her just pine away.”

  For two minutes Dino carried on in the same vein, calling Jake every name under the sun. His eloquence was fueled by misery and guilt that he and Fen had left Tory on her own, not appreciating how desperate she was. Jake let him finish.

  “Everything you say is true,” he said.

  Hearing the din, a nurse came out of Tory’s room.

  “If you’d like to come in, Mr. Ferranti.”

  Jake stepped forward. “I’m her husband, I’ve got to see her.”

  But at that moment Fen came out, fighting back the tears, and went straight into Dino’s arms.

  “Look who’s just turned up,” said Dino bitterly.

  Fen spun around. “Jake, where the hell have you been?” She gave a sob. “You’re too bloody late, that’s all; she’s dying. She was just conscious when we got to her, but she’s got no will to live.”

  Not waiting to hear any more, Jake pushed past them and into the room. At first he thought he was hallucinating. For there on the bed was Fen. Then he realized it was Tory—she’d lost so much weight since he’d seen her. Her face, still flushed from the belladonna, gave an illusion of health. Long lashes swept
her hollowed cheeks. All Jake could think was how beautiful she looked. He sat down beside the bed, taking her hand. It felt so small and bony now, almost like Helen’s. Oh, Christ, how could he have done this to her? It was he who’d killed her, not the poison.

  The doctor came in, and decided to overlook the sleeping puppy curled up on Jake’s knee. This was really no time to worry about hygiene.

  “Can’t you do anything?” asked Jake, in desperation.

  The doctor shook his head. “We’ve done all we can. She took a massive overdose, enough to kill four people. Luckily we caught it very early, but I’m surprised she’s lasted this long. We washed out her stomach, of course, but she’s got no resistance. There was nothing in her stomach. She can’t have eaten for days. I’m afraid there’s very little hope she’ll ever regain consciousness. I’m so sorry.”

  Jake was frantically wracking his brain. When he was living with the gypsies one of the girls had taken an overdose of belladonna after her lover had walked out. The old gypsy grandmother had produced some antidote or emetic and saved her. What the hell had she used? But it was such a long time ago. He must concentrate and try to remember.

  “Did she leave a note?” he asked Fen.

  Fen got it out of her jeans pocket. “It was addressed to you. She’s left you everything. She knew horses were the only thing that mattered to you, that you and Helen could only come back if she was out of the way.”

  But Jake was reading the note.

  “She loved you,” said Fen bitterly. “Isa, Darklis, me, the horses, Wolf, were only extensions of how much she loved you. She knew you didn’t love her, but she felt you needed her. That she made life easier, that was enough.”

  “Oh, Christ,” Jake groaned, putting his head in his hands. “I only realized in L.A. how much I loved her. Then Helen spilled the beans to Rupert. I couldn’t let her down. I was frightened at what Rupert would do to her. I’d got myself into such a stupid fucking corner.”

  “You could have got in touch,” said Fen bleakly. “Nothing, not a word to anyone since you walked out.”

  “I didn’t know what to say. I’d treated her so horrendously. I felt so guilty, and besides I’d given Helen the handkerchief.”