by Fiona Walker
‘What are you doing there, Fangs?’ demanded the bossy but kind voice of her older sister Sophia. ‘You should be in hospital.’
‘They let us out early for good behaviour.’
‘I hope you’re in bed with your feet up.’
‘I’m not allowed upstairs till Hugo gets home,’ she sighed. She also wasn’t allowed to drive, to lift weights – not even Cora – nor to make sudden moves or wear pants smaller than a galleon sail. She was exhausted and overwrought with sudden crying fits from ever-changing hormones. The house was filthy and a bombsite. The stable staff, a merry but ever-changing gaggle of freelancers and part-timers borrowed from friends’ yards, kept appearing at the door asking questions. The phone rang non-stop. She missed the orderliness of hospital, the regular meals, the lack of responsibility, the regime.
But she was still delighted to be back. If it weren’t for the stitches, discomfort and wrinkling surgical stockings, she’d have danced around Haydown with her children in her arms.
‘Where is Hugo?’ Sophia was demanding
‘Oh – he just popped out,’ she lied.
He would be away until late afternoon. Tash would never have been discharged had the maternity ward staff known what awaited her, but such was the force of her desire to be at Haydown – and the practical need – she’d convinced them to let her go. So when Hugo had collected her first thing that morning, sending the maternity ward hearts fluttering, neither he nor Tash let on that he would be driving off in the horsebox as soon as he posted his family home. On the way home, worried by her obvious discomfort, he’d offered to forfeit the Ampney trials and stay with her, but Tash wouldn’t hear of it, knowing that horses entered there needed to be sold. She had Beccy around to help, and she deliberately ignored Hugo’s aside that this was like having a well-meaning but very senile relative in situ.
‘How are you feeling?’ Sophia was asking. ‘Still agony?’
‘Not bad,’ Tash assured her. ‘They’ve given me lots of painkillers and I can get about pretty well.’
‘You shouldn’t be home at all, Fangs!’ The older the sisters got, the more Tash saw their father in Sophia, with his sharp temper, perfectionism, superhuman organisational skills and reluctant yet assured social charm.
As children the sisters had adopted the nicknames Enid and Fanny because of their habit of chattering away like two little old ladies, and Sophia still called her sibling ‘Fangs’ now. She’d always been the leader. Three years older, exquisitely pretty and precociously charming, Sophia’s path through life had always seemed gilded, whereas Tash’s was boggy and random. Yet both had ended up at a very similar point – country mothers married to two old school friends, although their routes there couldn’t have been more different, Sophia starting out as a model in an era when rich and powerful rock stars, aristocrats and media moguls chose their wives from the pages of Vogue, calling up the modelling agency to arrange a date. Matched up with the dashing, highly eligible Ben Meredith, Viscount Guarlford, Sophia had gone on to excel as a society hostess, charity fundraiser and country set power player, turning around the fortunes of Holdham Hall in an era when many similar family estates were being sold off as corporate headquarters or boutique spas. A decade later, with three stunning children and an address book that was the envy of all, Sophia had been promoted. Last year Ben had inherited the title upon the death of his father and she’d become the Countess of Malvern, wife of the twelfth Earl. The dowager countess, Beatrice, had then graciously vacated the family rooms in the east wing to make way for her successors. In moving from Home Farm to the main house it seemed that Sophia had also taken on her mother-in-law’s legendary fierce manner. Combined with their father’s short fuse, it made for an irascible mix.
Sophia regularly checked for fault lines in Tash’s marriage, much as she customarily checked her own reflection for any tiny wrinkles or crow’s feet indicating that she needed to get her Botox topped up.
‘Who’s there to look after you?’ she demanded now, with steely insight.
‘Oh, just the staff.’ Tash was deliberately vague.
‘What about Mummy?’
‘She can’t come.’
‘What do you mean “can’t come”? Is there a complete travel embargo across the English Channel that I haven’t heard about? Or is she being tied to a chair?’
‘Something to do with Polly, I think.’
‘Typical!’
Tash had unwittingly trodden on her first Sophia landmine, their mother’s reluctance to travel from France to see any of her ever-expanding clutch of grandchildren in Great Britain. Alexandra lived between a trio of bases in Paris, Marseilles and the Loire Valley; older age had lent her an increasing excuse for eccentricity, and yet conversely a desire to stay young that infuriated Sophia as Alexandra took up yoga, visited salt spas, hiked up mountains and went clubbing with her youngest daughter, while doggedly refusing to have the Botox her eldest swore by.
‘I spoke to her from Hugo’s mobile when I was in hospital,’ Tash said placatingly. ‘She’s terribly excited about Amery.’
‘But I thought she volunteered to stay at Haydown throughout?’ Sophia raged. ‘And now that you’ve had another C-section you’ll need somebody there to help with the baby and Cora and the house. Believe me, you won’t cope alone. It’s much harder second time around.’ She’d had all three of her children by Caesarean – elective rather than emergency – in an exclusive private London unit. Sophia had also employed a small army of nursery staff to see her through those first few weeks each time.
‘I wasn’t due to come out of hospital until the end of the week,’ she reminded her, ‘but Marlbury General said we were doing so well that they’ve let me go early.’
‘Needed the bed, more likely. I told you that you should have gone private. Even Sally forsook the NHS to have hers in a paddling pool in the kitchen.’ Sophia took a quick snipe at their sister-in-law, whose hands-on approach to parenting always made her feel inadequate. ‘You should hire in a maternity nanny. Norland’s are very good …’
Tash was only half listening. Behind her, Cora had tired of her plastic blocks and was starting to roam from shelves to cupboards in search of entertainment, wreaking havoc.
‘I have Beccy.’ She distractedly searched the desktop for the DVD that she’d brought in with her earlier.
‘Beccy is with you?’ Sophia shrieked, making Tash jump so much she knocked over several teetering piles of paperwork.
Sophia thoroughly disapproved of their younger stepsister. As children, she and Tash had often been presented with almost identical gifts: two teddy bears, one brown and one cream; one dark-haired doll and one blonde doll, a pair of kittens with slightly different markings. Pulling rank as older sibling, Sophia had always taken first pick and Tash soon developed a way of coping, which was to feel sorry for the ‘unwanted’ bear, doll or kitten and to adopt it gratefully and lovingly as her own.
In a curious way, a similar thing had happened when, after the ghastliness of their parents’ divorce, James had finally married his long-time secretary and sometime mistress Henrietta, a blonde widow with two young daughters. Prone to favouritism, Sophia had immediately chosen the older, prettier and more glamorous step-sister to be her special pet. Appalled by both Sophia’s and their father’s obvious preference for Em, Tash had briefly tried to befriend the strange, introverted and very ungrateful Beccy – an unsuccessful adoption that had just come back to haunt her. She was no closer to understanding what made Beccy tick now than she had been as a teenager. Even today, when she really needed some help and had trusted Beccy to be there, she’d wandered off without a word.
‘What on earth are you doing giving her houseroom?’ Sophia was barracking.
Tash had just edged her way to the antique drinks cabinet housing the old combi television that Hugo used to play back footage of lessons and competitions. Hearing her sister’s furious tone she dropped the Maisy Mouse DVD in among the bottles of malt whisky.
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‘Sorry?’
‘She is totally unstable and, from what I hear, on drugs.’
‘She’s fine.’ Tash fished around for the disc and knocked over a bottle of rare old Mortlach, which cannoned into the others with a series of wine-bar chinks.
‘Are you pouring a drink?’ Sophia had a keen ear.
‘No.’ She located Maisy and slotted her in, just as Cora rolled up to get involved. A moment later, Neil Morrissey was loudly hailing Charlie and Tallulah.
‘Who’s that? Not one of Beccy’s awful friends? He sounds terribly Black Country.’
Tash moved away from the television, leaving Cora standing entranced, watching Maisy set out with her friends to feed the farm animals.
‘Beccy doesn’t have awful friends,’ Tash told her sister. ‘She doesn’t have many friends at all any more, I think.’
There was a step outside the room.
Tash looked up as a very pink face appeared around the door, dreadlocks swinging, big pale eyes blinking. Realising that Beccy must have overheard her last comment, she felt herself turn a matching shade of pink. They looked like the cartoon piglets Maisy was feeding on screen.
Waving a silent greeting, Beccy mouthed ‘Everything okay?’
Tash nodded. ‘Just talking to Sophia. She sends her love.’
At the other end of the line Sophia let out a sarcastic little ‘pah!’ From the Moses basket, Amery concurred with a strangely sarcastic-sounding yowl.
‘Do you want me to take him for a bit while you carry on talking?’ Beccy offered.
Tash nodded again, telling Sophia firmly, ‘Beccy’s proving a great help.’
‘Don’t tell me you’re letting her anywhere near the children?’
‘Why shouldn’t I?’
‘You know she dropped Linus once? He was only six months old. Sally was hysterical.’
‘Most of us make awful blunders like that.’ Tash watched Beccy gather up the waking Amery, so tiny and vulnerable, and carry him out to look at the heraldic tapestries in the galleried hall, which intrigued the little newborn’s semi-focused eyes with their geometric shapes. ‘I accidentally let Cora roll off the sofa at twelve weeks.’
‘Yes, but you weren’t holding her over a stone-flagged floor at the time, shouting that nobody loved you.’
Tash felt a chill scuttle up her back like a huge, frosty insect. ‘What?’
‘Surely you remember? It was very dramatic – at my Boxing Day lunch. Or weren’t you there? Of course, that was the year you and Niall went to Ireland for Christmas. Beccy got blootered on sherry and started screaming that our family had never accepted or loved her and Em like siblings. Then she dropped Linus, threw him down really. Thankfully he landed on one of Bea’s gundogs, which cushioned the blow. Little chap was fine.’
Tash said nothing, too shocked to speak. Her eyes automatically sought out her newborn child, cradled in a warm bosom, listening to soft whispers, enchanted by his aunt’s little tour of ancient arms and pennants.
Was Beccy about to hold Amery up over the antique fire irons and threaten to drop him because Tash had accused her of being ‘selfish and unprofessional’ earlier?
She hardly took in a word as Sophia rattled on. ‘Before you go, we must discuss Hugo’s fortieth. My spring diary really is filling up and I need to know whether you want me to help organise this surprise party or not. I know you were all for it when Ben mooted the idea, but that was a long time ago.’
Tash was still watching Beccy carry Amery around; now quiet and swaddled deeply in her arms, he seemed thoroughly content. She was suddenly groggy with tiredness.
‘Can we talk about this another time? I haven’t got my spring diary to hand.’ It was an attempt at a joke, but it came across rather more sarcastically than she’d intended.
Her sister immediately became defensive, uncannily like their father once again. ‘Very well, I’ll leave it with you to let me know whether you want me to do it, but I can’t promise I’ll be able to spare the time if you wait much longer. Now get off the phone and get some rest, Fangs. You’ve just had a baby, for goodness’s sake.’
As soon as she hung up, the phone began ringing again.
Beyond the door, Beccy and Amery had drifted out of sight. Already bored of Maisy, Cora had started to pull bottles of whisky from the cabinet. Tash picked up the call absent-mindedly as she lumbered across the room to stop the toddler attack.
‘No! Stop it! Cora!’
‘Hello? Is that Tash Beauchamp?’
Tash was barely listening. The line was terrible and there were far too many distractions at hand.
‘This is—’
‘Cora, no!’
Denied her game, the little girl started screaming furiously.
‘This is Di—’
In the hallway, Amery suddenly burst into equally desperate mewls.
‘This is Dillon Rafferty,’ the caller repeated for the third time.
Tash let out a startled squeak and sat down in shock, just as Beccy reappeared with Amery, now bellowing for his feed, and plopped him on her lap.
‘Can you hear me okay?’ Dillon’s voice crackled.
‘Yes! Loud and clear!’ Now acutely aware that she had the nation’s favourite popstar on the phone, Tash hurriedly unhooked her nursing bra and let Amery latch on.
‘Good.’ He sounded as though he was in a tumble drier. ‘You have a horse called The Fox?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I want to buy him.’
Despite the background din, the flippancy in his voice was unmistakeable; as though their once-in-a-lifetime Olympic horse was a copy of GQ he wanted to pick up on the way home from work.
Tash balked, totally nonplussed. It wasn’t every day a rock star phoned up wanting to buy your prize possession and greatest lifetime achievement, a horse just welcomed back from glory with such laurels he had even received a bundle of organic carrots sent by courier from Highgrove. She wondered what Hugo would say.
Beside her, Beccy and Cora were loudly identifying Eddie the elephant and Cyril the squirrel on screen. Suckling greedily inside the folds of her top, Amery gazed up at her with limpid eyes, a tiny wrinkled hand reaching up to her face.
‘You still there?’ his voice warbled on the crackling line.
‘He’s not for sale,’ she said eventually, half wondering whether it was Hugo she was talking to, and that this was all some sort of elaborate wind-up to test her, but pranks like that weren’t really his style, especially given today’s already exhausting circumstances.
‘Forgive me,’ his words were accompanied by a crescendo like a long drumroll, ‘I was quoted a figure to buy him outright. One—’ The drumroll increased to drown out the voice.
‘How much?’
When he repeated the sum to her she suddenly found she couldn’t breathe.
On her lap, Amery slurped less frantically, his cheeks turning a contented pink.
‘You still there?’ Dillon shouted again above the background din.
‘Sort of.’
There was a loud thudding noise from outside as somebody flew past in a helicopter, very low overhead. A local landowner no doubt; it drove Hugo mad if they piloted themselves back from business meetings while he was trying to school a nervous young horse in the manège. Tash reached for the window to close it so that she could hear better.
‘Can I … and … him?’
‘What?’ With Amery still pressed to her chest she reached to turn down the volume on Maisy, but the helicopter was still close.
‘Can I come and see him?’
‘When did you have in mind?’
‘Now.’
Tash looked across at Beccy in alarm, wondering who they could call upon for extra help. Hugo wasn’t due back for hours and as far as she knew there was nobody at all on the yard right now.
‘Are you nearby then?’ she managed to croak.
‘Yes – I’m directly overhead. Your swimming pool needs cleaning.’
As soon as she hung up she burped Amery and gestured Beccy urgently towards the kitchen as she went in search of some boots that would cover her surgical stockings, so that she could go and greet the visitor. The phone immediately rang again. This time, it was Hugo.
‘At last!’ he barked breathlessly. ‘I was giving up bloody hope. You’ve been engaged for hours. Woah – steady! Have you lost your mobile again? Good lad!’
Tash realised he was riding. The competition must be still underway. ‘Ages ago.’
‘The number still works. I’ve left a stack of bloody voicemail messages. Hang on.’ Although the sound of the helicopter landing was still resonating outside, Tash could distinctly hear hooves thundering in the background of Hugo’s call. Then they stopped briefly, as though he was going over a fence, before thundering on again.
‘Are you warming up for the cross-country?’
‘I am riding across country. Can’t chat. Tricky combination coming up. Got a man coming to Haydown to see The Fox this afternoon.’
‘Dillon Raffer—’
‘That’s the chap. Can you handle it? Woah – steady up, lad. There’s nobody on the yard until four.’
‘Hugo, I’ve just—’
‘Thanks!’ The call ended with a clunk as he saw a stride and kicked for it.
‘—had a baby,’ Tash finished lamely, cradling the receiver to her chin and turning to Beccy, who had followed her through to the kitchen and was settling Amery into his basket by the clothes airer, Cora at her heels chewing on the ear of her fluffy Elmer elephant and asking to be picked up with a series of muffled ‘bup bup bup’ noises.
‘That was Hugo,’ Tash said in a frozen voice.
‘Oh yes?’ Beccy began swinging a giggling Cora around like an aeroplane, the little girl’s cheeks curving towards her sparkling eyes, her hair on end.
Tash felt another great tide of weariness wash over her as she headed towards the back lobby again. Hormones bubbling up and tears threatening, she cursed under her breath as she found one of the terriers’ balls in a boot. What did Dillon Rafferty want with a top event horse, she wondered, having been too preoccupied by multi-tasking months of pregnancy to register the pop star’s recent understated connection with the sport. Wasn’t organic cheese his pastime? She did vaguely recall reading that he was dating a classy Jemima Khan sort who was very horsy. Tash now wished she’d paid more attention to celebrity gossip while waiting for her pregnancy scans; she had worked her way through the antenatal department’s entire supply of six-month-old women’s magazines, but she had always leafed straight past the acres of paparazzi shots to get to the wordsearches, hoping nobody had got there before her.
