by Fiona Walker
‘Ohmygod – thank you!’ Tash raced over to him.
But Hugo hurriedly held out his arm to stop her hugging him. ‘I’m not saying I’m handing over a twenty-grand horse just like that,’ he went on. ‘I’m technically still his owner, but you can train and compete him for me. I’m hoping the Mogo team will take on the cost if they sign you up, but that’s still up in the air. I mentioned him to them, though – playing down his stupidity, of course – and they certainly sounded interested.’
‘Oh, thank you so much!’ Tash bounded forward and succeeded in giving him a clumsy hug.
Clearing his throat and backing away, he wandered towards the tack-room door. ‘Jenny can take him back to his box while I phone the trials secretary for tomorrow’s start times.’
‘Shit, I forgot!’ Stefan looked at his watch in horror.
‘I know.’ Hugo gave him a withering look. ‘I just hope to God she’s still around. Then we’d better all push off to the pub for a drink – it’s far too dark for Tash to hack home now. Snob can stay here tonight – I’ll let Gus know. Could you do him after Mickey, Jen?’
Nodding and donning her banana cap once more, Jenny shot Tash another dreamy, disbelieving look of envy and persuaded Mickey to part with his bucket.
Once they had clattered out, Hugo headed into the tack room to make the calls, Plod still at his heels.
Lounging against an open box door-frame, having taken in all the proceedings with a passive thoughtful smile, Stefan handed Snob’s reins back to her. ‘Happy birthday, darling.’
‘Thanks.’ She tickled the chestnut’s twitching ears to cheer him up, goofy grin now impossible to lose.
‘Why d’you think he did that?’ He slouched back against the frame again and watched her closely.
Tash totally failed to notice how loaded the question was.
‘He said why.’ She was still reeling happily from the idea of having darling, ebullient Mickey back to ride. ‘He says he can’t get a tune out of him.’
‘Sure.’ Stefan let out a dismissive breath, the smile fading from his face. ‘And you know Hugo – he’s always handing over rides from the goodness of his heart.’
Not quite certain what he was driving at, Tash squinted across the yard and watched as Jenny led Mickey back to his stable, a plastic bucket handle still poking from his mouth like a belligerent teenager being hauled out of a raucous party by a concerned parent.
‘Jenny’s great with the horses, isn’t she?’ she mused. ‘She has a lot more heart that Franny. I know that’s mean to Franny, but she was sometimes—’
‘I asked you why he’s letting you have Mickey back, Tash?’ Stefan straightened up. ‘He’s only had the horse a month. It’s madness quitting so soon. Please think about it. For me.’ He walked towards the house.
Tash buried her face in her hands for a moment, trying very hard to do just that. She felt as though she had been held upside down today and shaken until all her silly, preconceived ideas about Hugo had dropped out of the top of her head. Yet with the tragedy of only the best of badly timed ironies, this had coincided with her exploding hormones and dreadful, aching yearning of old. How could she hope finally to befriend the man she had coveted all those wasted years, she reasoned, when the coveting itself was making her blind again?
Hugo seemed not to notice her agitated state as he wandered back into the yard.
‘We’ll set off in a minute,’ he told her, taking Snob and leading him into the empty box to await Jenny’s attentions. ‘You going to Lockington Down this year?’
Unable to look at him at all, Tash shook her head. ‘I was balloted out. Niall and I are going to France that weekend instead.’
He paused for a beat, and when he spoke his voice was as smooth as black ice and tinged with the old arrogance. ‘Visiting the lovely Alexandra?’
‘That’s it.’ She watched as he tied Snob’s reins out of harm’s way and undid his nose band.
‘Sophia and Ben are going too, aren’t they?’ He closed the box’s half door behind him.
‘First I’ve heard of it.’ She was hardly concentrating on what he was saying at all. She felt hopelessly wound up and fretful, her attitude to him in complete tatters. She wanted to race up and down some stairs like a bush-tailed cat, clawing at the carpet to defuse her fraught nerves.
‘Ben mentioned it on the phone, along with the astronomical cost of the dress Sophia has bought for the wedding.’ He moved away to search for his car keys in the tack room. ‘He reckons it’s costing more than the bride’s.’
‘Knowing Mummy, I doubt that.’ She closed her eyes at the thought of all those faxes of designs she had received last month, finally picking one at random just to shut her mother up and clear the fax in case Niall got in contact.
‘Going for broke, huh?’ Hugo had re-emerged and was watching her intently from the doorway. ‘Christ, Tash, you’re monumentally spoiled, aren’t you?’
She glared back at him until they resembled top-seeded tennis enemies limbering up on the Queen’s centre court.
‘I mean, you can’t even really be bothered with your own wedding, can you?’ he breathed icily. ‘Just let Mummy get things perfect for her little sweetheart. Talk about being joined in holy mater money!’ He headed back into the tack room to fetch his coat.
‘Shut up!’ Tash marched after him.
‘You should float your fucking wedding on the Dowry Jones index. You really do get life on a plate, don’t you?’ He glared at her over his shoulder.
‘An L-plate maybe,’ she croaked, close to tears.
‘Don’t be fucking flippant. You were born with a s’il vous plaît spoon in your mouth, Tash. All you ever say is please, please, please. And you’ve even been given a horse for your birthday to win you lots more pots. Talk about trophy wife.’
She took a deep, galvanising breath that seemed to pull air from the entire room. Jenny was clattering around in the box next-door with Snob now, cursing as he tried to nip her. But Tash didn’t take her eyes from Hugo.
‘If you think I’m so spoiled,’ she whispered, ‘then why do you spoil me too? Last year you sold me Hunk – he was one of your best horses – for peanuts. You’ve ferried me to events, found me a sponsor, lent me equipment, schooled me for free. Now you’ve lent me Mickey Rourke back again. And I’ve even heard that you—’ She shut abruptly up as his face contracted with wariness.
‘Heard what?’ he breathed.
Tash gnawed her lip uncertainly.
‘I’ve been hearing this rumour around the farm,’ she started falteringly, in case she was wrong. ‘About my being “subsidised”. By you of all people, Hugo. I simply don’t understand what’s going on. I can’t figure it out.’
‘Well, if you can’t,’ he murmured, ‘then I’m sure as hell not giving you the satisfaction of telling you.’ But there was a nervous tic in his cheek and, despite his flippant tone, his eyes were almost eating her up.
She felt weak with fragile, terrified expectation now, blinking towards that cool, chiselled face.
‘I want to think you’re doing it because you might – just perhaps – quite like me?’ She cringed at her inability to risk honesty.
‘Gus is an old friend in a continual financial crisis,’ he said levelly. ‘This is one way of helping without his pride getting in the way.’
Horrified by her complete misjudgement, Tash turned to run, but Hugo was as agile as a cat. Grabbing her arm at the elbow, he stopped her in her tracks and pulled her back towards him, pinning her still in mid-swing like a stuck revolving door.
‘Get one thing straight, Tash,’ he said, his voice a hoarse, cracking breath. ‘I’m not here for you to rebound off when Niall neglects you for a couple of weeks. I swear to you on Bod’s life that I will never try to kiss you, never ask you how you feel about me, never make a move on you again.’
Wrenching her arm from his grip, Tash bolted from the tack room, crashing straight into Stefan who was coming the other way. Diving to on
e side like Rory Underwood on a long try, she fled past him.
‘Where’s the fire?’ he asked with a nervous laugh.
‘Burning boats,’ Hugo said bitterly. ‘Best tinder in the world.’
Tash escaped home as soon as she could to find that Giblets, accidentally locked inside all day, had crapped extensively over the latest dialogue script of Four Poster Bed. There were several long messages on the phone from her family wishing her a happy birthday and telling her how excited they were about the wedding. As a special birthday treat, Polly had faxed her a charming drawing of Tash and Niall getting married – both looking scruffy, stick-legged and, Tash personally thought, spaced out on heroin.
The only person from whom there was no fax or message or card was Niall. Tash tried to kid herself that, as there was no post that day, she would get a card the next, but she didn’t really believe it. She had no contact number for him in the States besides the Los Angeles film publicist’s office number which, she had learned to her peril, was attached to an endless computerised phone system. Whenever she called, she was told by a simulated voice to dial ‘0’ for the switchboard or to key in the extension number of her choice. Each time, she had tried both to no effect; the system required a touch-tone phone and the one in the forge was an antiquated Bakelite one which Niall himself had bought, thinking it another unrivalled design classic.
Hoping in vain that he would call her, she waited up by the phone and munched Just Brazils – the influx was down to one box a week now. Eventually she fell asleep on top of it, knocking the receiver off.
She woke at three in the morning to hear a strange woman’s voice telling her to replace the hand-set. It was only then that she remembered Beetroot was still at the farm. A headache was already crunching at her temples.
The next day brought numerous cards, but none from Niall.
Jogging to the farm in the early-morning light, Tash arrived to find that Hugo had already dropped off both Snob and Mickey on his way to a Bank Holiday Monday event, and that she was as popular as a molehill on a bowling green.
‘How are we going to afford to feed that bugger?’ Gus whinged, already sour-faced from his turn at early-morning mucking out.
‘Hugo said he’d cover it.’ She winced at the thought.
‘Sure,’ he snarled. ‘That man covers just about everything here – including his tracks.’
Tash froze. ‘He what?’
But Gus was already heading into the next stable with his wheelbarrow.
In the kitchen, Zoe was still in her dressing gown and spitting with anger.
‘Where the hell were you last night? We had a big birthday meal waiting for you for hours and you didn’t even call to say you weren’t coming. India is devastated – she cooked most of it.’
Tash covered her mouth in horror. ‘But Hugo called to explain where I was – it got too late to hack back.’
‘Don’t lie, Tash.’ Zoe pushed past her towards the stairs which were stacked with piles of washing to take up. ‘And Niall called twice to wish you a happy birthday too. You’ll be pleased to know that I lied and said you were out with some girlfriends rather than telling him the truth.’
‘Why?’ Tash wailed, but Zoe had already reached the landing.
Later that day India returned from school and, spotting Tash’s wiped-out face, forgave her, sharing a Mars bar whilst perched on a railed fence waiting for her friend, Sadie, to come around for a pooled make-up session.
‘You can join in too if you want,’ India offered. ‘I’ll show you how to cover that spot on your chin.’
‘That’s really kind, but I’m a bit busy, thanks.’ Tash smiled, her spot suddenly throbbing self-consciously.
India passed across her can of Coke.
‘Niall didn’t really phone,’ she confessed, thinking she was cheering Tash up. ‘Mummy made that up.’
‘Why?’ Tash was amazed.
‘She feels protective towards him, I think.’ India looked guarded. ‘She thinks you might neglect him a little bit.’
‘We neglect each other,’ Tash sighed sadly.
Later, she cornered Gus in the tack room, spot glowing angrily.
‘Why didn’t you say Hugo had called last night?’
‘Because he asked me what I’d say if he gave you Mickey to ride again.’
‘And what did you say?’
His blond brows creased angrily. ‘That you didn’t deserve it.’
The atmosphere towards her at the farm remained frosty up until her meeting with the Mogo men on Wednesday. No one wished her luck or even noticed her and the design classic leaving the yard and heading towards Marlbury just before midday.
The lunch, in an exclusive ivy-clad restaurant that Tash had been to several times with Niall in happier days, went well. Whether they agreed to take her on for the rest of the season because they genuinely thought she’d be good for business or just because her dress split at the front halfway through dessert, Tash couldn’t be sure, but she raced back to the farm afterwards dizzy with delight, not even caring that the design classic was hopping along as though driving over corrugated steel the entire way. She thought about popping in at the forge to change en route, but was too eager to tell her news to bother.
Her reception was far from enthusiastic. Only Ted seemed pleased for her, cracking open a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale in her honour and admiring her bra.
‘I can see what I’ve been doing wrong all these years,’ Gus said nastily. ‘I’ve been wooing potential sponsors with all my clothes on. Now I know what getting abreast of the competition means.’
Tash’s face flamed with humiliation.
‘Does this mean I might get paid now?’ Franny asked hopefully. ‘Only Hugo asked for his money back when he dropped Tash’s horse off this morning.’
A week later and Niall still hadn’t called. Realising that she had shared her bed more often with Beetroot than with Niall of late, Tash knew something had to be done. She was now absolutely certain that she no longer wanted to marry him. She couldn’t last a weekend in his company without longing for someone stronger, less paranoid, less emotional. Not that she got the chance to spend a weekend in his company very often, she realised. She loved him with a furious, proud devotion and she missed him desperately, but she no longer spent sleepless nights squirming with desire for him, conducting imaginary conversations and staring tearfully at the phone as though it personally was to blame for his not calling. She yearned for someone with whom she could share common interests, common friends, time. More than anything she longed for Hugo, but he had made it patently obvious that he was out of bounds, that he despised her shallow, drooling crush and had only ever helped her as an indirect way of bailing out his old friend Gus from the debt-swamp. He’d made it as patently obvious as a pimp’s loafers that he still saw her as a childish, lusting push-over and played on that for his own entertainment. The memory of her awful, clumsy attempts to draw him out haunted her night after night.
Ten days after her birthday, a huge, tacky, fake-fur Vegas card arrived by Data-post along with half a dozen bottles of Chanel nail varnish in colours unavailable in the UK. The card read:
Darling Tash.
Happy Birthday.
Back in UK next week, so muzzle Turnip. (This had been scribbled out and ‘Beetroot’ written over it.) The nail varnishes are an absolute die-for-it necessity amongst women according to my publicity girl. These things are a mystery to me but I’m sure you’ll know all about them.
Hopelessly in love with you, as always.
Give my love to Zoe.
Niall.
His handwriting was all over the place, showing how much he’d had to drink when scribbling it.
As she had practically no nails at all, Tash used the most garish pink among the bottles to stem the ladders in all her tights and then painted Beetroot’s claws, which looked wonderfully jaunty. Even that failed to cheer Tash up.
She was as wrung out with guilt as a chamois leat
her in a desert. Niall had written that he was hopelessly in love with her. That sentence bored holes the size of meteor craters into her soul, and Tash picked up the card again and again to scour the words and torture herself.
Zoe was right. She did neglect him. She was totally incapable of looking after him, simply didn’t possess the confidence to chase him through international time zones and telephone systems, gutlessly wimping out at the first dropped call. Yet he still invested so much of his huge, boundless faith in her. It terrified her that he loved her so much when her own enthusiasm for the relationship – and for the wedding – had drained away like sand through splayed fingers. If he’d held her hand over the past few months, the grains might have stayed put, but he continually shifted like the sand itself. He was the chameleon and she the faithful old stick of a reliable hue he habitually returned to in order to ground himself. Tash felt utterly wretched that her feelings towards him had changed so irrevocably. He was the one who reinvented himself with every role, turned from all-conquering hero to faithless bounder at the drop of a script. And yet he still loved her ‘hopelessly’. She wanted to die of shame and self-hatred. The one comfort, she thought forlornly, was that she was in an ideal position to wear a horse-hair shirt.
Zoe seemed incredibly touched that Niall had remembered her in his card, asking if he was truly okay.
‘I think he was pissed when he wrote it,’ Tash confessed. She kept remembering Hugo saying at his party that Niall was an alcoholic. He had said it with the same total conviction as if asserting Niall was Irish.
‘Oh, Tash,’ Zoe sighed in despair. ‘Only you could possibly say that at this stage.’ She sounded genuinely furious, curtailing the confession Tash had been working up to about her current emotional turmoil. She found Zoe increasingly difficult to approach these days.
Her mother called the weekend before they were due to fly to France.
‘Are you both terribly excited?’
‘Well, I haven’t spoken to Niall recently, but I think he’s looking forward to having a rest and seeing you and Pascal, yes,’ Tash hedged. She had been dreading the trip all week.
