by Jilly Cooper
‘I fancy Male Nurse,’ said Meredith, taking his eyes off Rupert for a second to study his racecard.
‘That figures,’ said Guy. ‘I fancy Busty Beauty.’
That figures, too, thought Georgie.
Georgie didn’t care, because she’d had glorious sex with Guy that morning, because people had shoved Hermione aside to mob her and get her autograph when she’d arrived at the course, and because she’d been asked to present the turn-out prize, and because down below on the grass, watching his son go round the paddock, looking aloof and Byronic, stood David Hawkley. They had just managed to avoid the Press and snatch a blissful two minutes together behind the hot dog stand.
Why, therefore, was she so upset when she caught Guy giving Julia’s friend, Daisy France-Lynch, a discreet wave? Had Ricky and Daisy had cosy foursomes with Julia and Guy?
‘Oh, look,’ Meredith broke into her reverie. ‘Rannaldini and divine Rupert have both come into the paddock. Very dirty of Rannaldini to have raked up Isa Lovell. Perhaps Rupert will challenge him to a duel.’
Weighed out, dressed in his black, white and brown colours, Lysander huddled in the jockeys’ changing room, trying to keep down half a cup of sweet tea. His knees were knocking, his mind a blank. He couldn’t remember any of Rupert’s instructions. Around him jockeys hid their nerves in hectic skylarking. Rushing to the lavatory when he arrived, he had found a note pinned to the door in Bluey’s handwriting: ‘This bog is reserved for Lysander Hawkley for the next two hours,’ and smiled feebly, but he couldn’t join in. All he could think was that he might see Kitty again in a minute, but she was probably too frightened of horses to venture into the paddock, and he mustn’t let Rupert, Tab and Arthur down. At least this morning’s shaving cuts had stopped bleeding.
As tense as a sprung trap in the woods, Rupert didn’t hear a word Freddie Jones was saying as he waited for Isaac Lovell to come out with the other jockeys. He was trying to be rational, but in his head he was back in 1980, with Isa’s father, Jake, winning his silver, and Rupert coming nowhere on the most expensive show-jumper in the world.
There was that shit Rannaldini in his black astrakhan coat and poor little Kitty looking as bombed as a stuffed fox in a glass case. And there, Rupert gave a hiss, was Isa Lovell, a couple of inches taller than Rannaldini, but with the same dark gypsy stillness as his father — which always captivated women and horses. For a second Rupert’s eyes met Isa’s, then slid away, as he felt all the old black murderous churning.
‘He is a little squit,’ whispered Taggie.
Squeezing her hand until she winced, Rupert was relieved when the other jockeys spilled out as if from a conjurer’s coloured handkerchief into the paddock. The safety pin holding Lysander’s high black collar had come undone. Taggie refastened it. Like Arthur, he towered over his rivals, but he was thinner than any of them. Even his brown-topped boots were loose.
Like Scarlett O’Hara being laced into her stays, Arthur groaned as his girths were tightened.
‘It’s all right, darling,’ Tabitha kissed him on his whiskery nose. ‘Tomorrow you’ll be turned out to get fat and eat as much grass as you like.’
Having seen Bluey safely mounted on Pridie, Rupert came over to give Lysander a leg up. Indignant at being ignored by his master, who was desperately scanning the private boxes for a glimpse of Kitty, Arthur deliberately stood on Lysander’s toe.
‘Fucking hell, Arthur, after all I’ve done for you!’ Lysander gathered up the reins.
‘Stop looking for Mrs Rannaldini, or I’ll put you in blinkers,’ chided Rupert, checking Arthur’s girths. ‘Now take it slowly, although you haven’t got much option on Arthur, and remember no black power salutes until you’re ten yards past the post, and don’t forget—’
But Lysander never heard what he was going to say because Arthur, who never forgot a hand that fed him, had given his great Vesuvius whicker and carted his master and Tab, hauling helplessly on his lead rope, across the paddock to lay his great hairy face against Kitty’s and start eating her racecard.
‘Oh, Arfur!’ Kitty hugged the only horse in the world of whom she wasn’t terrified.
For a second she and Lysander gazed at each other. Her little pug face was flushed from the hospitality tent. There were raindrops in her hair which crinkled unbecomingly. Her eyes were red, but, to Lysander, she had never looked more adorable. Kitty only noticed how the weight Lysander had lost showed off his beautiful bone structure, his huge eyes and his long, brown curly eyelashes, and how his hips had gone to nothing but his shoulders were still wide.
Stunned by the intensity of their passion, neither of them could speak.
Tab, meanwhile, was gazing at Isa Lovell, who was as dark and slender as a Tuscany cypress in the moonlight, and who was about to mount a plunging Prince of Darkness. Swinging round, Rannaldini was temporarily distracted by her disdainful beauty. The little Campbell-Black child would be an amusing conquest.
He was about to introduce her to Isa Lovell, which would be an even more amusing one, when suddenly he caught sight of Lysander and heard him mutter: ‘Me and Arthur are trying to win this race for you, Kitty.’
‘That’s very unlikely,’ interrupted Rannaldini. ‘With your track record you’ll be lucky to get off at the start. And this must be Arthur. I didn’t know Rupert was reduced to training carthorses.’
Lysander would have ridden Arthur into him, if Rupert hadn’t called him back.
‘Good luck, Lysander. Come ’ome safe and Arfur, too,’ cried Kitty defiantly.
Arthur gazed back at her most reproachfully for not producing any bread-and-butter pudding.
Lysander looked so thin and pale on the great white horse that, for a second, David Hawkley was reminded of the skeleton Death in Durer’s etching of ‘The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’.
‘Good luck, God bless you,’ he called, as his son clattered past, but the wind and rain swept his words away.
Tabitha gave Arthur a last hug as she released him on to the course. ‘Please come back safely,’ she said shakily, then smiling exactly like her father, ‘and in front. I’m off to put all my turn-out money on Arthur.’
Leaving the paddock, Rupert nearly collided with Isa Lovell. Pale and expressionless and now astride the fearsome, leaping Prince of Darkness, he could have been the Jake Rupert had first battled with on the show-jumping circuit twenty years ago.
‘Hallo, Isa,’ he drawled. ‘I owe your father actually.’ Then, turning to Taggie, stunning in her slim blue suit, ‘Don’t you think I got the better bargain? I gather Jake’s still lumbered with the same clapped-out model.’
‘Rupert!’ said Taggie in horror.
Isa would have had no scruples about riding The Prince into Rupert, but he had a race to win. Instead, hissing a gypsy curse, he spat neatly at Rupert’s feet, before thundering after the others.
The Press were going berserk.
The jockeys, as was traditional, showed their horses the first fence. A rampantly impatient Penscombe Pride nearly jumped it. As it was a long time since breakfast, Arthur started to eat it. A prat-in-a-hat then brayed through the downpour for the jockeys to line up. The Prince of Darkness, lashing his tail like an angry cat, flattened his ears and tried to take a chunk out of Arthur.
‘I wouldn’t.’ Lysander lifted his whip.
‘You shouldn’t take up so much room,’ mocked Isa Lovell in his flat Birmingham accent.
A summer meadowful of butterflies was fluttering in Lysander’s belly. His black, brown and white colours were drenched with rain and sweat. The reins slipped through his stiff, trembling fingers. The rain drummed impatient fingers on his helmet. What the hell had Rupert said about the first fence? Gigantic gelding of little account, white elephant, no-hoper, carthorse, he thought furiously. We’ll show them, Arthur.
No-one could see anything beyond the second fence. Several over-eager runners, including Pridie and The Prince of Darkness, were pushing their noses over the tape.
&nb
sp; ‘Turn round, jockeys, get back,’ brayed the prat-in-a-hat. ‘I can’t get it up.’
‘That’s nothing new, you asshole,’ muttered Bluey as they all swung round and realigned.
Starting to giggle, Lysander was petrified he wouldn’t be able to stop. They were all bunched together. Snap went the tape and the 1991 Rutminster Cup was under way.
62
Lysander never dreamt it would be so fast. The Light Brigade hurtling into the Valley of Death didn’t have to stop and jump huge fences. His face and colours were instantly caked with mud kicked back from horses in front, but, heeding Rupert’s words, he managed to keep up with the hurtling, barging leaders over the first fence, and then, as they fanned out and rattled over the Rutminster — Cheltenham Road, he and Arthur settled into an easy stride, bowling along in the middle of the field.
Meanwhile little Penscombe Pride, who loathed being overtaken, had set off at a cracking pace, but as he took the lead over the first fence, Fräulein Mahler, The Prince’s stable-mate, who never lasted more than a mile and a half, revved up beside him, forcing Pridie to go even faster, unsettling and muddling him, so he hit the second fence hard.
‘Fucking hell,’ muttered Rupert.
He stood apart from the others in the box, tense as a waiting leopard, cigar between his long first and second fingers, binoculars flattening his dark blond eyelashes. Taggie knew better than to talk until the race was over.
Penscombe Pride was still out in front, but having seen off Fräulein Mahler who had dropped back, the gutsy little bay was now being challenged by The Prince of Darkness, which denied him a breather as he climbed the hill, forcing him to gallop on. Isa Lovell sat absolutely still and let his horse have its head, just the same technique as his father, thought Rupert savagely. The Prince was going really well. Rupert chewed on his cigar. All this would rattle Pridie and wear him out. He winced as that most careful of jumpers hit The Ambush hard; that would shake his confidence even more, and now The Prince was dropping back for a rest, and Fräulein was storming down with the last of her strength to challenge and rattle again. Shit, thought Rupert in outrage, these were just the sort of spoiling tactics with which he’d won races himself.
Lysander hoped Arthur wasn’t going too fast. He seemed to be enjoying himself. It was like a jigsaw. You saw a gap and slotted in when you could. Now the big ditch was racing towards him. He searched his brains. What had Rupert said? Take off about eight feet away. He steadied Arthur, who flew over like a huge white swan. Beside him Blarney Stone only realized there was a ditch when he was on top of the fence, dropping his legs in it and knocking the stuffing out of himself. Rupert was right. Arthur had nearly reached the next fence by the time Blarney Stone had recovered.
‘You’re doing brilliantly, Arthur,’ said Lysander.
Arthur flapped his ears, relishing the cheers of the drenched crowds at each fence.
Coming up to The Ambush, five solid feet of birch and gorse, with a drop on the other side, which had caught out Yummy Yuppy last year and so shaken Pridie first time round, Lysander stood back again, but Camomile Lawn, half a length behind, was encouraged to take off at the same time, hit the fence smack on the way down and slipped on landing, rolling over and over.
‘Bad luck. You OK?’ shouted Lysander.
He was able to give Arthur a breather, as instructed, as they climbed the now hopelessly churned-up hill, so he was able to gallop down like a three year old. They must be lying about fifteenth now, over the road and into the second circuit. But alas, the fog, reluctant to miss such an exciting race, had come down. Lysander couldn’t see more than a fence in front.
‘Better put your fog lamps on, Arthur.’
‘No sign of Lysander,’ said Hermione with her horrid laugh.
She was bored by racing. For seven minutes all the attention was focused on someone else.
Peering through the fog at the riders’ colours bobbing along the rail like a long-tailed Chinese New Year dragon, Kitty strained her eyes to identify Lysander and strained her ears, which were full of water from washing her hair, to hear the commentary. Every so often she glanced fearfully back at the monitor, which was now showing Penscombe Pride and The Prince of Darkness slogging it out about ten fences from home.
‘Oh, Guy, I know he’s fallen,’ she whispered. ‘Oh God, look!’ She froze with terror as a loose horse appeared out of the mist and, circumnavigating helicopters and ambulances, hurtled across the centre of the course.
‘There’s Lysander, lying about thirteenth,’ said Guy. ‘Look, he’s going really well. Come on, Lysander.’
‘You wouldn’t recognize him, nor Arthur,’ said Georgie. ‘They’re both covered in mud.’
‘Arthur was always a mudlark,’ said Kitty in a shaky voice. Then, aware of her husband glaring at her, she added meekly, ‘The Prince is going very well, too.’
Isa Lovell had been brought up to detest Rupert Campbell-Black. He couldn’t overtake Penscombe Pride, but he knew the horse was tiring. Bluey had shifted him on to a different leg to wake him up and he wasn’t running totally straight now. They were coming up for the second time to The Ambush, only six fences from home.
Pridie was very tired, unsettled and encased in fog, with rain lashing his face, but he didn’t stop battling. Glancing round, Bluey saw Isa Lovell’s white and mud-spattered face blazing with hatred and almost crossed himself. Pridie was aware of a dark shape stealing up on the rails, sinister as a shadow on the lung. Concentration flickering, he took off too late. Half a ton of horse-flesh hit the massed panel of gorse and birch six inches too low. Penscombe Pride and the punters of Rutshire and Gloucester gave a grunt of pain as he went head over heels for the first time in his life. Next moment, as The Prince overtook them, Yummy Yuppy was in the air. He swivelled to the left to avoid Pridie, landing awkwardly and crashed with a sickening thud. Busty Beauty, Paddywack and the following horses, joined the pile-up a second later. The fog was thickened with swearing, horses’ legs thrashed the air, bits of gorse and birch lay everywhere. Fräulein, exhausted anyway, took one look at the pandemonium on the other side of the fence and decided enough was enough.
As the closed-circuit television picked up the disaster with not very good pictures, Rupert was absolutely stunned.
‘I do not believe this,’ he said, very slowly tearing up his betting slips. Then, turning to a distraught and tearful Freddie Jones, ‘We were fucking robbed. I’m going to object.’
‘Good old boy, clever old Arthur.’ Blithely unaware of this catastrophe, Lysander came trundling through the fog into what indeed looked like the remains of the Light Brigade, with mud-coated horses and riders picking themselves out of the quagmire with varying degrees of success. Holding Arthur steady, standing back once again, Lysander jumped to the right. Seeing a huddled jockey motionless beneath him, Arthur veered to the left in mid-air, like a Zeppelin changing course, and though pecking on landing, was brilliantly picked up by Lysander. As Arthur flatfooted carefully through the chaos, Lysander was aware of a grimy drenched figure running along beside him.
‘Bluey,’ Lysander shouted in horror. ‘Are you OK?’
‘Sure. Pridie’s buggered off home. Go get that fucker on The Prince of Darkness.’
We will, thought Lysander, as he cantered Arthur up the hill, waiting for the great roar from the crowd which would tell him that the leaders had emerged from the fog. But it never came. They couldn’t be too far ahead.
‘Sock it to them.’ It was Jimmy Jardine, cadging a cigarette from someone in the crowd as he walked an utterly knackered Blarney Stone back home.
‘Come on, Arthur,’ urged Lysander. ‘We’ve got a train to catch.’
The further the old horse galloped the better he seemed to go, like a Volvo that needed a long run. Dying with pride, Lysander was riding like a dream now, sitting very quietly, letting Arthur choose his own pace and the place to jump, his great stride devouring the ground.
Then Lysander gave a strangled whoop of
joy as, through the mist, he glimpsed Isa Lovell’s blood-red colours and the sleek black rump of The Prince of Darkness only a fence ahead. Male Nurse was beside him harrying him, giving him a taste of his own medicine.
Hitting the next fence, The Prince of Darkness veered to the right, went wide round the corner and lost a few yards, as Arthur pounded up on the inside, hugging the rails. Male Nurse was at last in the lead, but, just as Rupert had predicted, he was a young horse, and when he saw this huge yelling mass of faces, waving their arms and making more noise than he’d ever heard, his head came up and his jockey felt him coming back, and both Arthur and The Prince of Darkness passed him.
Arthur loved crowds. Now was the time for a bit of showing off, but The Prince was still three lengths ahead. They were into the home straight with two fences to go.
Lysander could see the hoof marks of earlier runners. He must keep his nerve. Ahead, The Prince, furious at being challenged, was looming over from the right determined to squeeze him out. If he froze for a second, it would cost him the race. For a second, Isa Lovell glanced round, his face torn with hatred.
‘Campbell-Black’s bumboy,’ he hissed.
That did it. Remembering the ride-offs in polo, Lysander asked Arthur to push through. White elephants don’t forget. Not wanting to be bitten again, Arthur put on an incredible burst of speed, just grazing The Prince as they drew alongside, thundering neck and neck to the last fence. Meeting it spot-on, Arthur took a great kangaroo leap.
That must put us two lengths ahead, thought Lysander, but soon The Prince’ll rally and catch up.
