by Jilly Cooper
‘“Come, my coach,”’ said Trixie sarcastically, but as they walked on, jumping to avoid the puddles, the fingers of his left hand somehow plaited with the fingers of her right.
‘“Had he come all the way for this?”’ he spoke melodramatically, ‘“To part at last without a kiss.”’
‘Who said that?’ asked Trixie sulkily.
‘William Morris in a poem appropriately called “The Haystack in the Floods”. Although he wrote it about a girl, I know I’m too old for you. I’ve tried to back off but I can’t stop wanting you.’
As he dropped her hand and laid his, warm and caressing, on the back of her neck, she couldn’t resist putting her head back to trap it. She noticed, in the setting sun, meadow browns and peacock butterflies going berserk in the nettles. Like me, she thought, giddy with relief, now he’s beside me again.
‘Where’s Bonny?’ she asked even more sulkily.
‘Rushed back to minister to gallant Valent. She does love him in her way.’
‘Poor sod, how can you put up with her?’
‘I have to act I’m in love with her on stage. Like that silly old joke. “Did Ophelia sleep with Hamlet?” “Always on tour, but never in the West End.”’
Trixie laughed. She could hear Marius’s horses calling to each other. Above Throstledown, Jupiter had risen dazzling gold. The breeze ruffling the drenched trees sounded like rushing water.
The raging stream pouring across the footpath was filling up her gumboots, so Seth picked her up. Reaching the other side, wondering complacently if he was the reason she’d lost so much weight, he found her trembling mouth on a level with his, and kissed it very gently.
‘Please forgive me. Can’t we start seeing each other again?’
‘Not if you’re going to cool off. I’m not Priceless, to be dumped when you’ve got better things or women to do.’
‘I promise.’
As Seth put her down, Priceless took off again, dispersing a party of rabbits taking refuge from flooded holes on a grassy hillock. As Trixie waded on, trying to stay in control, she caught sight of a blue plastic bag full of yellow daisies lying in the long grass.
‘What’s that?’ asked Seth.
‘Ragwort. Poisonous for horses if it’s not pulled up. Gives them ulcers, kills them eventually. Just as loving you destroys me,’ she said bitterly before she could stop herself.
‘Darling, you mustn’t say that.’
‘I ought to get back.’ Turning round she could see windows dimly lit by candles because most of Willowwood’s houses still had no power.
‘Don’t go. Your dad was in the pub, but he was going straight home to look after Etta,’ lied Seth. ‘“I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is not that strange?”’ he murmured. The words always worked.
Next moment, he had taken her in his arms, warming her with the heat of his body, drawing her behind a hedge where they collapsed on a sodden bed of willow herb.
‘Oh Trixie, Trixie, Trixie, my lovely water baby.’ His practised hand unhooked her bra and unzipped her jeans and she was lost and a second later naked against the shocking-pink flowers. ‘You are so beautiful,’ Seth said truthfully.
There was no time or need for foreplay, such was their longing. But at the moment of bliss, as he drove deeply into her, she was distracted by a terrible screaming.
‘What’s that?’
‘Hush, it’s only Priceless, got some baby rabbit.’
‘We must save it.’ Trixie tried to leap up but Seth pushed her back.
‘Not a hope, he’ll rip it to shreds in an instant.’ But as his lips stopped any further protest, Trixie realized that in his arms she was as helpless as that poor baby rabbit.
110
Etta was in despair. She had visited her bungalow. Everything was wrecked: the red buttonback chair, Sampson’s king-sized bed, the sea-blue sofa off which Priceless had kicked everyone, the television, the ancient gramophone, all her books impossibly crinkled as though she’d dropped them in the bath, the Munnings of the mare and foal, which she’d known she could sell off if all else failed.
Suddenly ‘Blot’ and the tiny shady garden where she, Gwenny and Priceless had been happy and so many people, especially Valent, had dropped in, seemed immeasurably dear. So did her Polo, which she’d been forced to abandon in the road. Even if dried off it was most unlikely to pass its MOT.
Etta wished someone would butter her paws. Her mobile had vanished in the flood and no one knew she was now at Alan and Carrie’s. Carrie, who’d whizzed down to assess the damage, was predictably unsympathetic.
‘Don’t know why you’re upset, Mother, Martin and I made sure you were well insured. So you can replace everything with some nice stuff from IKEA and have a few bob left to spoil yourself.’
Etta was frantic to ring Valent, to hear his voice, to thank him, but when she finally screwed up enough courage, Bonny answered.
‘He’s busy,’ she said icily. ‘Hasn’t he helped you enough, Etta? He doesn’t need lascivious old “ladies”,’ deliberately Bonny put quotes round the word, ‘invading his personal space.’
As the rain stopped and the River Fleet slowly retreated, Willowwood started the massive task of clearing up. After Bonny’s cruelty, Etta was overwhelmed with gratitude when a task force of Woody, Joey, Mop Idol, Tresa, Josh, Rafiq and Tommy descended on the bungalow like seven maids with seven mops, armed with buckets and steamers to clean the carpets and try to remove the foul-smelling mud and silt which coated everything.
She must pull herself together and think of other people. No one in Willowwood was untouched. Joey, she knew, had disastrous gambling debts, and Mop Idol wouldn’t get her new kitchen because the council didn’t cough up for people who owned their own houses.
Chris and Chrissie had been badly flooded and with more and more people economizing and drinking at home, the takings were right down. Even though the council had agreed to repair the Salix Estate, the stress of water swirling round her knees had driven Woody’s mother finally off her head, and Woody was facing the prospect of an expensive nursing home.
The Government, trumpeting the necessity for cuts in the health service, had cancelled Alban’s latest quango. Ione meanwhile had invested so much in solar panelling, wind turbines, heat pumps and court battles to install them, it would be years before she recouped in saved energy. The tiny interest on their shared capital was dwindling. Rather than jeopardize the house, an always frugal Ione’s first move had been to cut both Pocock and Mop Idol down to two days a week.
More dramatically, Toby, supposedly on paternity leave, was seen on television at the Lords Test and promptly fired by Carrie. Phoebe as a result was milking it. She knew everyone in Willowwood would help Toby look after Bump while she got a job. Painswick must be due for retirement any minute and Phoebe felt sure she could handle Marius better.
Carrie, with the collapse of the hedge fund market, was in real trouble, about to lose £500 million. Alan felt the sandbag of a rich wife was suddenly emptying. Without half of Carrie’s income, his dreams of running off with Tilda were in tatters.
Tilda was having an even worse time, with her classroom flooded, her library and computer wrecked. The money she’d saved to get her teeth fixed would have to go on repairing School Cottage, which Shagger had insufficiently insured for her. Shagger had also been foul to her because he felt she should have abandoned her school during the flood to shift his furniture upstairs.
Shagger admittedly was not in an enviable position. His company was facing £150 million worth of claims for flood damage. Mrs Malmesbury was one of his clients and although her geese had been saved, her house had been trashed. The flood had overturned furniture and ripped plaster and pictures off the walls. Her ancient dachshund, after sailing round and round her flooded kitchen in his basket like a little boat on a rough sea, had happily been rescued by Mr Pocock.
Gales had blown numerous slates off her roof, but when she came to claim the insurance set up by
Shagger, a blonde with a laptop had rolled up and announced that the gale had been measured at 48 mph and they only paid out for gales above 48 mph.
‘The only way to get anything these days is to be an unmarried mother with ten children and foreign,’ grumbled Mrs Malmesbury.
Miss Painswick had not been badly flooded, thanks to Mr Pocock’s help, but she was now incensed that Ione had laid him off. He’d been so loyal, never taking holidays in the growing season.
Corinna had been so delighted by her notices in New York that she agreed to herself and Seth putting on an evening of Wilde and Shakespeare in the village hall to swell the flood victims’ fund, to which Valent had already anonymously given half a million.
Trouble was in store, however, because Bonny, whose tour was ending and who wanted to raise her caring profile, was determined to join Seth and Corinna and wanted the evening to take place at Badger’s Court. Seth, in a weak moment, because he wanted to sleep with her, had agreed to this.
The Major, terrified of being rumbled for taking bribes from Bolton, was boring everyone with his action group on preventable flooding. Direct Debbie was heartbroken because they were now a no-carp family and because a still incarcerated Chisolm had escaped and stripped her garden of any splash of colour.
The fête was cancelled, to everyone’s relief except Bonny’s, who had been going to open it and Greycoats and the church, who in a normal year would receive £3,000 each from the takings.
The only person to profit spiritually from the floods was Niall. Away on his month’s locum in Suffolk, he had been replaced by a lady vicar, a windbag called Susan Burrows, who was immediately nicknamed Mrs Locum.
Because it was the only warm and dry place, the church was packed to hear her first service on the Sunday after the floods. Alas, she not only forgot to thank God for saving the Village Horse and Mrs Bancroft, but her sermon was still in full flow after forty-five minutes, whereupon little Drummond Bancroft spoke for all when he loudly complained, ‘This has gone on far too long.’ He was firmly ticked off by his father, at which point an exasperated Ione bellowed, ‘Don’t reprove that sensible child. This has gone on too long. Over to you, Craig.’
So Craig Green had launched into ‘O Worship the King’, but as the congregation shuffled to their feet, Mrs Locum shouted from the pulpit that she hadn’t finished yet.
So the congregation sat down again, whereupon Ione bellowed, ‘For God’s sake get up or she’ll start again.’
So Craig launched back into ‘O Worship the King’ and Mrs Locum stormed out, refusing to hover in the porch and offer words of consolation to her flooded flock.
Having slagged off Niall for so long, Willowwood was now gagging for his return, particularly after he popped back in the middle of the month to commiserate with the villagers, many of whom were living in caravans, still with no water.
Finally, Amber was in despair. The doctors had pronounced her fit once more. Riding out on Mrs Wilkinson towards the end of July, she noticed meadow browns crowding an amethyst sweep of thistles, enduring the prickles in order to suck out the honeyed sweetness. Who would put up with her prickly crosspatch nature and love her, when she was so unlovable? Amber knew she’d been vile to Tommy and bitchy to Rafiq, of whom she was now so jealous. He had become so much less sulky and unforthcoming, even managing a win on Family Dog, that lots of owners were asking for him personally to ride their horses when the yard threw off the shackles of foot and mouth and became operative again.
Amber had also written a hundred letters to Rogue thanking him for the freesias and torn them all up.
111
It was a red-letter day for Throstledown when, on 9 August, the restrictions on animal movements were finally relaxed, which meant Marius could shift his horses and Chisolm was allowed home from her priest’s hole, to the ecstasy of Mrs Wilkinson. Chisolm’s little tail didn’t stop waggling as she rushed round the yard greeting her human, canine and equine friends, disappearing into the bushes with Horace the Shetland before rushing back to Mrs Wilkinson.
A mad scramble ensued to get the horses match-fit for the next season. Valent’s rescue of Mrs Wilkinson had attracted a huge amount of publicity for Mrs Wilkinson’s trainer, and three new owners had decided to send him a total of ten horses. One, a beautiful chestnut mare called Miller’s Daughter, arrived ahead of the others.
Miss Painswick had just sent out the invitations for an owners’ lunch and a parade of the horses in early September, when it was discovered Miller’s Daughter had a cough, a running nose and scoped dirty, indicating an illness.
Summoned, Charlie Radcliffe shook his head.
‘Sorry, Marius. You’ll be off for two months at least.’
Within a couple of days, every horse in the yard was coughing. The new owners had to be warned to keep their horses away, and because they wanted to run them, they took them to other trainers. Except for Miller’s Daughter, who had to remain at Throstledown until she was no longer infectious. Her owner, a comely blonde called Alex Winters, wasn’t nearly apologetic enough that she had grounded Marius’s yard. Judging by the speed with which she’d taken her other horses to Harvey-Holden, Marius wondered if Miller’s Daughter had been fed in deliberately.
He was on the verge of suicide. He couldn’t pay his staff and had little to feed his horses, except for the forage he’d got in early. That morning he’d had a foul letter from his bank manager, who was threatening to seize the yard. Marius couldn’t ask Valent for any more money. He was acutely aware that Amber and Rafiq were in despair at having no rides. At least Rogue was getting plenty from Rupert Campbell-Black.
Marius was just waiting for Painswick to go home so he could get stuck into a bottle of whisky, but she was hanging around shuffling papers. He pretended to be glued to At the Races, which was showing a race in Saratoga, in which Rupert’s grandson Eddie Alderton, on a black horse in a white bridle, was being ponied down to the start.
‘Boy’s alleged to be as good a rider as Rupert,’ said Marius, turning up the sound. ‘Go home, for God’s sake.’
Miss Painswick walked over and turned off the television.
‘I’d like to say something. But first I’d like you to pour me a large glass of whisky.’
‘I need the whole bottle myself, just bugger off.’
‘Don’t swear, it doesn’t help. I know how bad things are, I do the books.’
‘I’m fucked,’ said Marius, getting out the whisky bottle.
‘I may appear disapproving and frosty but I’ve enjoyed working for you, and I’d like to go on doing so.’
‘I said I’m fucked, so you can’t.’
Any good trainer always looks tired. Marius looked near death, black hair nearly all grey now, hollow cheeks, sunken, bloodshot eyes, teeth savaging his lower lip.
‘You poor boy,’ said Painswick, ‘I know how hard you’ve tried. Things will pick up. I’m prepared to work for nothing until you get straight.’
Marius’s hand trembled as he handed her a glass of neat whisky.
‘That’s amazingly kind.’
‘I also have a few savings. You’re welcome to those if you’d like them. I’d like to help out. With the floods I’m not sure how many of Mrs Wilkinson’s syndicate are going to be able to pay her training fees.’
Marius slumped on to the sofa, narrowly missing Mistletoe, who jumped up and tried to lick his face, which was now in his hands.
‘That is so incredibly kind, Miss P. I can’t believe it when I’ve been so persistently bloody to you. If I could not pay you until the bloody cough’s gone, and perhaps borrow a few grand?’
*
How could she have said these things, handing over her savings, wondered Painswick as she walked slowly home. Awaiting her on the doormat was a letter from her insurance company saying they couldn’t pay her for any flood damage because they’d gone into receivership.
Miss Painswick was always depressed at the beginning of September. The turning trees, reddening ap
ples and traveller’s joy foaming like sherbet along the hedgerows reminded her of returning to Bagley Hall to work for her beloved Hengist Brett-Taylor.
Pocock was also depressed to have only two days’ work a week. Men with spare time on their hands, however, become bossy. Pocock consequently started nagging Miss Painswick to rid Ivy Cottage of the ivy which encased it, darkening its rooms by growing over its lattice windows and even creeping inside bathrooms and landing windows.
‘It’ll pull out the brickwork, like chewing gum pulls out your stoppings,’ he nagged yet again when he paused to pass the time of day as Miss Painswick dead-headed the roses in her front garden.
‘But it’s called Ivy Cottage.’
‘I’ve lived in Willowwood since the war, place didn’t always have that weight of ivy. Pretty cottage underneath.’
‘I’m perfectly satisfied,’ said a nettled Painswick.
‘If you ever wanted to sell it, or raise a mortgage on it, it’d be much easier with the ivy off. If you don’t like it bare you could always grow up a honeysuckle or a nice red rose.’
The smothering dark ivy, Pocock reflected, was rather like Miss Painswick’s clothes: dark tent dresses, loosely cut coats and skirts, only occasionally brightened by a bright hat or Hengist’s green and blue scarf, clothes which so concealed her body that no one had any idea what her figure was like at all.
‘I could take it off for you,’ he offered. ‘I’m free Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays now.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ said Painswick.
Later she accosted Etta, weighed down from shopping in Larkminster, who since the Polo was grounded was walking back from the bus stop.
‘Pocock wants to take off the ivy.’
‘He’s probably right about it not doing the house any good,’ pondered Etta.
‘It might have gone too far and he might pull the whole thing down,’ said Painswick.
Next moment, Ione, on a one-woman mission to save the planet, came by on her bike, trailing jute bags of organic goods.
