by Jilly Cooper
‘You’re not going to like this,’ said Dizzy warily. ‘Bloody Beattie’s dumped again.’
RANNALDINI’S REVENGE, said the front-page headline.
‘Once again Rupert Campbell-Black’s past has come back to haunt him and perhaps rob him of a third victory in the Rutminster Cup tomorrow,’ ran the copy.
‘In 1980,’ it continued, ‘top show-jumper Jake Lovell shocked the world by running off with the charismatic trainer’s beautiful first wife, Helen, in the middle of the Olympics. Eleven years later, Rupert’s neighbour, jet-setting conductor, Roberto Rannaldini, has brought Jake Lovell’s twenty-year-old son, Isaac, over from Ireland to ride the brilliant but vicious Prince of Darkness in tomorrow’s race.
‘“I was impressed by Isaac when I saw him winning a race recently in Ireland,” enthused the Machiavellian Maestro from Valhalla, his Rutshire mansion. “He and The Prince of Darkness will annihilate Penscombe Pride.” ’
Without a word Rupert turned to page three.
‘In a Mafiaesque move worthy of his Latin ancestors, Rannaldini could be paying back Rupert for taking Lysander Hawkley under his wing. Fun-loving Lysander (son of Hatchet Hawkley, headmaster of posh Fleetley – fees £16,000 a year), nicknamed the Man Who Made Husbands Jealous because of a string of relationships with married women, was caught cuddling and kissing Rannaldini’s much younger wife, Kitty, in Monthaut in December.’
Rupert was deceptively calm and, as the stable cat, who loved newspapers, padded across the page, he gently removed her so he could read on. But as Tab wandered in, putting her arm round his shoulder to see what he was reading, she caught a glimpse of Isaac Lovell’s thick, dark, sombre, gypsy’s face and gave a moan of wonder: ‘Wow-wee, he is gorgeous.’
Turning on her like a cobra, Rupert grabbed her shoulders, shaking her until her bones rattled like castanets.
‘If you ever have anything to do with that little shit,’ he hissed, ‘you’re disinherited, out of here, never coming back, see?’
‘I don’t see at all,’ said Tabitha, flaring up. ‘You never approve of the men I like.’ Then, as Rupert stormed out, ‘Is he worse than Ashley?’
‘Much worse,’ sighed Dizzy. ‘I’ll tell you about it.’
‘Bastard, bastard, bastard.’ Eyes narrowed to slits, Rupert paced up and down the bedroom, neat whisky in one hand, cigar in the other.
Helpless in the face of such volcanic fury, Taggie lay on the faded patchwork counterpane of the huge Jacobean four-poster in which Rupert had made love for so many years to his beautiful first wife.
‘Pridie’ll win it with two legs tied together,’ she stammered. ‘A new jockey won’t make any difference. You’re the best trainer in the world. No-one’s heard of Isaac Lovell over here.’
Rupert got hopelessly uptight on the eve of big races. It affected the whole yard. He had hardly ever been nervous when he was show-jumping because he was so confident of his own riding, but now he could only mount the best jockeys on the best horses and pray. It was the one time when he had to be kept really calm.
‘It all happened such a long time ago,’ muttered Taggie. ‘You’re the most utterly g-gorgeous, glamorous, faint-making m-m-man in the world. Jake Lovell’s a little squit, so’s Rannaldini. I’ll probably trip over both of them in the paddock.’
Taggie never bitched about anyone. Rupert looked down at her in amazement, as she stood up, and putting her hands on both sides of his rigidly clenched face, pulled his mouth down to meet hers.
‘Kiss me. I love you so, so much.’
‘Oh, Tag,’ groaned Rupert, burying his face in her thick dark hair. ‘Thank God for you. You’re absolutely right. It’s all in the past. Jake did me such a good turn. I’m such a boring old reactionary, and I’m so against divorce, I’d probably still be miserably unhappy with Helen if he hadn’t walked off with her, and never married you and been so divinely happy. It just destroys me because he beat me in the Olympics and sex, if you know what I mean. But if I lost the war, I won the peace.’ Pulling her down on the bed beside him, he reached inside his jacket pocket.
‘I’ve got something for you.’ He handed her two open-ended first-class tickets to Bogotá. ‘We’re going baby-hunting.’ Then, when Taggie looked up in incredulous hope, ‘The nuns have accepted our application. If we fly out to Colombia and stay there for six weeks, really convincing them we’re serious about wanting a baby, they’ll find us one.’
Taggie couldn’t speak. Like the moon’s reflection in a lake ruffled by a wakeful carp, her pale face suddenly disintegrated. Rupert could feel her tears as she covered his face with kisses.
‘Oh, I love you. A real baby. I can’t believe it. Oh, d’you think they’ll like us enough?’
‘They’ll like you. I’ll have to behave myself.’ And give them a fat cheque, thought Rupert.
‘I wonder if it’ll be a he or a she, blond or black hair, oh, Rupert.’
‘It’ll certainly be black market,’ said Rupert, ‘Our little black-market baby.’
‘And six weeks together, what bliss! But I hope you won’t be too bored,’ she added anxiously. ‘What’ll you do?’
‘I can think of one thing.’ Rupert slowly unbuttoned her harebell-blue cardigan and unhooked her bra, so, like cream boiling over, her wonderful breasts spilled out. Putting his lips to one nipple he sucked gently. Just as desperate for her attention and love as any baby, he thought wryly.
‘I’m terribly sweaty and unwashed,’ mumbled Taggie, as he pushed up her scarlet skirt, and burrowed under the dark purple tights and skimpy knickers.
Rejoicing that he could get her that wet so quickly after five years of marriage, finding it always as exciting as pulling a groom in the back of a loose box for the first time, Rupert moved his fingers upwards as Taggie’s hands fumbled with his zip.
Naked, white-skinned, utterly gorgeous, her dark hair tickling his belly, she kissed him everywhere, her tongue as delicate and subtle as a lurcher’s.
‘Oh, my angel.’ Wriggling down, he slid inside her, hearing her gasp of joy, as he warmed her with his body and constantly moving hands.
‘Oh, Rupert, Rupert, Rupert.’
‘Rupert, Rupert, Rupert!’ Taggie’s voice had suddenly got deeper, and was accompanied, he realized, by someone hammering on the door, and then – good God – opening it.
‘Rupert, I’m really sorry to bother you. Oh, Christ!’ Lysander clapped his hands over his eyes. ‘I mean really sorry, but I think Arthur’s been nobbled. He keeps yawning and he hasn’t eaten his last feed.’
‘I’ll nobble you, you little fucker,’ howled Rupert, scooping up a shoe from the carpet and hurling it in Lysander’s direction. ‘Get out, get out. Arthur’s exhausted because you keep waking him up to see if he’s OK, and he’s not hungry because the entire Press have been stuffing him with Polos.’
In the end, chivvied by Taggie, Rupert tugged on a pair of jeans and ran barefoot across the parched lawn to the yard. In his box, he found Arthur lying flat out, waving a huge foot in the air, snoring loudly, one eye open. Seeing his tormentor, however, he lumbered up and hid behind Tiny shivering with terror in the corner, his newly washed coat, and particularly his mane, once more stained with green.
‘Oh dear,’ Lysander blushed. ‘He’s made a lightning recovery. I do think,’ he went on hastily, ‘Arthur ought to have a security guard tomorrow. Pridie’s got a guard and closed-circuit television in his box, and The Prince of Darkness’ll have all Rannaldini’s hoods around him.’
‘He’s got Tiny,’ said Rupert, avoiding the Shetland’s darting teeth and deciding not to blow his top. ‘Now will you please stop wasting my time.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Lysander hung his head. ‘I gather all this Isaac Lovell business has upset you. Bloody unfair. Can’t make head nor tail of it myself. Who is Isaac Lovell anyway?’
‘His father ran off with my first wife.’
‘Bastard!’
‘Like you want to run off with Kitty Rannaldini,’ said
Rupert, bolting the half-door.
‘Not at all,’ said Lysander indignantly. ‘Rannaldini’s an utter shit, and a bully who beats up horses and women and never stops humiliating poor darling Kitty by screwing around. You were never like that.’
‘Hum, your faith in me is touching. You didn’t know me in the old days.’
‘Old days is old days.’ Lysander blushed again. ‘I used to be a bit of a stud myself in the past. But I want you to know you and Taggie have really restored my faith in marriage as an institution.’
‘Ta very much,’ said Rupert. ‘I had better go back and – er – institute it. What are you going to do with yourself this evening?’
‘Watch the video of last year’s Rutminster again, and then play poker with Danny and Dizzy. We’re teaching Tab.’
‘She’ll beat you all,’ said Rupert. ‘But I want you in bed early.’
Lysander slept fitfully and woke at a quarter-past three. In twelve hours exactly, if by some miracle he got to ride, they’d be lining up at the start. In twelve hours, ten minutes, it would all be over. And after tomorrow, would Rupert kick him out? Despite his misery over Kitty, he’d been happier living at Penscombe than anywhere else. Desperate for some sign of rain, he opened the window, and was mocked by a million stars. The lawn was lit by daffodils and a clump of white cherry trees already in bloom, it had been so mild.
The constellation of Leo the Lion was romping off to his lair in the west. But any moment Lysander expected his great shaggy face to appear back over the top of Rupert’s beechwood to bite the Great Bear in the bum. Longing as never before for Kitty’s arms, he collapsed into an armchair.
He must have drifted off again, for the next minute he was galloping up Rupert’s track, and Arthur was going gloriously, and he could hear, far more menacing than Rannaldini’s tympani, the thunder of hoofs behind him. But no-one was going to catch Arthur. The stands were rising to cheer him.
‘Go on, go on, go on,’ yelled Lysander.
‘Lysander, Lysander, wake up! It’s tipping down.’ It was a few seconds before he realized Tabitha was shaking him, and the thunder of hoofs was torrential rain, machine-gunning the roof.
Leaning out of the window into Niagara, he could see the downpour flattening the daffodils, stripping the white cherries, flooding the gutters, sluicing the valley.
‘Yippee, yippee, Arthur’s in with a chance.’ Lysander let out a great Tarzan howl, hugging Tab until she screamed for mercy and Jack began yapping with excitement.
‘When you come back to earth,’ announced Tab, ‘the tooth fairy’s been.’
Under Lysander’s pillow, still in its polythene wrapping, lay a vast blue rug, braided with emerald green and with the initials RC-B which always brought bookmakers out in a cold sweat, embroidered in the corner.
‘Daddy had it made up specially. Any of the normal rugs look like saddle blankets on Arthur.’ Then, as Lysander buried the balls of his thumbs in his eyes, ‘It’s OK, Daddy really likes you, Lysander.’
Few would have thought it later in the morning, as Rupert shouted at everyone in the yard. Danny was throwing up in the 100. Even Bluey was silent and preoccupied during the gallops, on which Rupert had insisted, to give an air of normality to the day. Only Arthur was unmoved, as he breakfasted on carrots, oats and a handful of dandelions newly picked by Taggie.
‘Have you got Arthur’s passport and your medical card?’ nagged Tabitha.
Lysander was packing his bag, putting in pain killers because his shoulder was still giving him hell, and his own beautiful colours, which he’d chosen himself: white sleeves, black-and-white body and brown cap, because they were the same colours as Jack. He was wearing his Donald Duck jersey, which Taggie had finally dragged off his back yesterday and hand washed.
The morning seemed endless, but at last the lorry containing Penscombe Pride, Arthur, Tiny and three younger horses splashed down the drive, splitting the pack of Press outside the gates with their Barbours over their cameras.
‘Charlie’s going to do a runner,’ said Tabitha, as they passed Penscombe’s betting shop. ‘Everyone’s put so much money on Pridie, and on Arthur for a place, his odds have shortened from 200 to 100-1, and you should see the champagne they’ve got on ice for a mega piss-up this evening at The Goat and Boots.’
‘I’m going to be sick again.’ Hanging out of the window, Danny came back inside absolutely drenched. ‘If it rains any more it’s going to be too wet for Pridie.’
Water was pouring in a tidal wave down the High Street.
‘Ouch,’ grumbled Lysander, as he bit his cheek instead of his chewing gum. ‘I’m injured before I get to the course.’
He felt even worse as he read the horoscopes in the Sun.
‘Arthur’s going to have a good day for shopping.’
‘I hope that isn’t a misprint for stopping,’ said Tab.
61
The ancient town of Rutminster, with its splendid cathedral and russet Queen Anne close, lay in a bowl of hills covered in thick, rain-drenched woodland. In a sensible marriage of secular and ecclesiastical, the racecourse was only divided from the cathedral water meadows by the River Fleet, which was rising steadily as Rupert and Lysander walked the course.
Despite the relentless downpour and the lurking fog, it was very mild and the ground was already filling up. Helicopters were constantly landing and the bookies were doing excellent business under their coloured umbrellas. Lysander never dreamt the fences would be so huge. Not for nothing was the Rutminster called the Grand National of the South.
Down by the start Rupert turned up the collar of his Barbour: ‘You must push Arthur on. No-one misses the beat. You’ve got a very short run up to the first fence. If you’re not at the front at this stage, you can get boxed in or squeezed out.
‘From then on your best bet is to hunt Arthur round in the middle, letting the leaders exhaust themselves trying to pass Pridie. This is a sod,’ he went on, as they stopped at five foot of closely stacked birch and gorse with a huge ditch on the other side. ‘If you hit it below six inches, Arthur’ll turn over. If he drops his legs in the water, it’ll slow him up. Meet it right, and you won’t know he’s jumped it.’
‘I wish Arthur were walking the course,’ sighed Lysander. ‘He’s got a better memory than me.’
‘Give him a breather here,’ said Rupert as they climbed a steep hill to a fence Lysander could hardly see over, ‘and you must stand back at this one. It’s known as The Ambush because there’s a terrific drop on the other side. Yummy Yuppy unshipped his jockey here last year. He tried to pop over on a short stride and bellied into it. Piss off,’ he snapped as two men approached with a camera.
‘Could you take a picture of us beside this fence?’ said the first in a strong Irish accent.
‘No, we can’t.’ As Lysander reached out for the camera, Rupert hustled him on. ‘Concentrate, for Christ’s sake.’
They had reached the top of the course now and three-quarters of a mile away could see the stands and the cathedral spire soaring above its scaffolding.
‘If a favourite moves up here, you can hear a great cheer from the crowd. It’s quite eerie.’
‘And I’ve got to go round twice,’ said Lysander in a hollow voice as they squelched down to the bottom of the hill.
‘This is where you fork right for the final run in,’ explained Rupert. ‘And the horse sees the crowd in all its yelling glory for the first time. Paddywack lost the race here last year. His head came up, he saw the crowd and Jimmy Jardine felt him coming back. Pridie passed him and it cost Jimmy the race, so keep a hold of Arthur.’
‘Arthur loves crowds. He’ll accelerate if he gets this far.’
‘This is a tricky fence,’ said Rupert as they rounded the bend into the home straight. ‘If you go flat out, you’ll turn over; take a pull and you lose momentum; jump it wide and you’ll lose a few vital yards that could cost you the race. Bluey’ll be taking the paint off the rails. From now on, if Arthur’s
still on his big feet, it’s a chance of surviving home.
‘Bluey’s so experienced, he’ll be on automatic pilot now, but you’re likely to tense up with nerves and miss a vital gap. If Bluey comes to a bottleneck, he just pushes his way through, freeze for a second and you’ve had it, and if you come up on the inside, even Bluey’ll squeeze you out.’
Glancing at Lysander’s vacant stare, the shadows under his eyes, the pale translucent skin not even tinged with pink by the lashing rain, Rupert was worried he’d pushed him too hard.
‘What have I just said?’
‘That even a mate like Bluey will try and squeeze Arthur out.’
‘Good boy. For eleven thousand pounds in his pocket, any jockey will kill his mother. All that matters from here is to get your whip out and your head down and go like hell. You’ll hear a roar like you’ve never heard, you’ll ride into a tunnel of yelling faces, and you’ll think the post will never come, but don’t let up till you’re past the post. When you hear Tab screaming with relief in the stable-lads’ stand, you’ll know you’re OK.’
‘Thank you, Rupert.’ Lysander felt overwhelmed with gratitude that Rupert should take the whole thing so seriously. ‘We won’t let you down.’ Then, as an ambulance screeched by, ‘When I was at the dentist’s the other day, I popped into a solicitor’s and made a will. It’s in my bedroom drawer. If I don’t come back, I’d like Tab to have Arthur, and you to have Jack. He’s had such a ball since he’s been at Penscombe.’
‘As long as you leave Tiny to Rannaldini,’ said Rupert.
Rannaldini had a household staying for the Rutminster, including the chairman of the board of the New World Phil, a squat, jolly businessman called Graydon Gluckstein, whom he was determined to impress. As a result Kitty had hardly had a moment to think. Having bought a Donald Duck good-luck card for Lysander, she had torn it up. It was immoral to send it if she were trying to save her marriage. Having not been allowed to see The Scorpion, she hadn’t realized the connection between Rupert and the pale, watchful jockey, Isaac Lovell, whom Rannaldini had singled out to wrestle with The Prince of Darkness. He had dropped in for a drink last night.
