Riders

17

Jake never knew if it was a result of meeting Rupert again, or because he drank too much tap water, but in the early hours of the morning he was laid low with a vicious attack of gyppy tummy. For the first few days of the show, it was all he could do to struggle up and crawl down to the stables to look after Africa and Sailor. Later in the day, he was either eliminated or knocked up a cricket score of faults in every class he entered. The jumps were huge and solid, with the poles fitting deeply into the cups, and the competition was fierce. Both Africa and Sailor were out of sorts after the long journey. Jake was so strung-up, he transmitted his nerves to the horses, who jumped worse and worse as the week went on.

To make matters worse, none of the classes started before three o’clock in the afternoon, with an evening performance beginning at 11 P.M. By the time the final National Anthem had been played it was 3 A.M. and usually four o’clock before Jake fell into bed, to wake like a stone at six in the morning, his usual time for getting up, after which he couldn’t get back to sleep again.

A doctor was summoned and gave him pills and advised forty-eight hours’ rest. But for a workaholic like Jake, this was impossible. He couldn’t bear to be parted from his horses, his one link with home. He had no desire to sightsee with Malise or Helen, or lounge round the pool sunbathing with the others and be confronted with the contemptuous bronzed beauty of Rupert Campbell-Black.

So while the others relaxed and enjoyed themselves, Jake didn’t miss a round jumped by another rider, or a workout in the warm-up area. He was learning all the time, but not to his advantage. There were too many of his heroes around to influence him, and he got increasingly muddled as first he tried to ride like the Italians, then like the dashing Spaniards, then like the mighty Germans.

The rest of the team, except Rupert, tried to be friendly and helpful. They were all relieved he was not the white-hot savior predicted by Malise, but as one catastrophic round followed another and he became more monosyllabic and withdrawn, they gave up.

Rupert, on the other hand, was openly hostile. On the morning after they arrived in Madrid, he was riding round the practice ring when Billy said, “You know that new chap?”

“The great gourmet and conversationalist?” said Rupert scornfully.

“Don’t you recognize him. He’s the same Gyppo Lovell who was at St. Augustine’s with us.”

“Can’t be.”

“Bloody is. Don’t you remember his mother was the cook. Mrs. Lovell? She did herself in.”

“Hardly surprising after producing an undersized little runt like that. Didn’t he become a boarder?”

“Yes,” said Billy bleakly. “He was in our dormitory. We gave him such hell he ran away.”

“Perhaps we should repeat the experiment. With any luck he might do it again.”

“You didn’t help much last night,” snapped Billy. “Making him order octopus. Poor sod, he’s never been abroad before.”

“Certainly doesn’t know how to behave in a hotel,” said Rupert. “I caught him making his bed this morning.”

For a few minutes they rode on in silence, then Billy said, “I feel I ought to make it up to him somehow for being such a shit at St. Augustine’s.”

Rupert started to play on an imaginary violin. “Don’t be so bloody wet. Little creeps like that deserve to be hammered. How the hell did he get started anyway?”

“Well that’s the interesting part. D’you remember a hugely fat deb named Tory Maxwell?”

Rupert shuddered. “Only too vividly. Maxwell big as a house — unable to turn round without the use of tugs.” He glanced sideways at Billy, relieved to see he had made him laugh. “And quite rich.”

“That’s the one. Well, Jake Lovell married her and evidently used all her cash to get started.”

“No wonder he’s undersized; squashed flat in the sack. Must be like going to bed with a steamroller. Who told you all this?”

“Malise. Last night. He thinks Lovell’s brilliant.”

“Well, he’s wrong. Lovell’s just about as insipid as the mince his mother used to cook. And, what’s more, he kept Helen and me awake all night throwing up.”

To rub salt into Jake’s wounds, all the other members of the team were jumping well and in the money, particularly Rupert, who won a Vespa on the third day and insisted on roaring round the showground on it, to everyone’s amusement and irritation. Jake’s was the only part of the British tackroom without its share of rosettes.

Rupert never lost an opportunity to put the boot in. On the third day, just before the competition, he persuaded Marion to hide all Jake’s breeches and his red coat and fill up his trunk with frilly underwear.

Marion was only too happy to oblige. Wandering round, heavily curvaceous in pink hot pants and a sleeveless pink T-shirt, she was the toast of the showground, always followed by a swarm of admiring tongue-clicking Spaniards, and the recipient of endless bonhomie from the other male international riders.

Jake, resentful that Rupert not only had an exquisite wife but a spectacular groom, ignored Marion, a reaction to which she was unused.

“He went bananas when he found his clothes missing,” she told Rupert gleefully. “He’s not as cool as he makes out.”

Although Marion soon returned his clothes, what upset Jake more was that the yellow tansy flower he always wore in the heel of his left boot to bring him luck had somehow vanished. Without his talisman, his luck was bound to plummet and as a result he lost even more confidence.

Most of all he was upset by Rupert’s constant cracks about Sailor — that he must be a mule or a camel, and no wonder he’d frightened them at customs; they must have thought they were letting a dinosaur into the country. Jake felt very protective towards Sailor, whom he loved very deeply, and his heart blackened against Rupert.

On the fifth day Malise announced the British team: Rupert, Billy, Humpty Hamilton, and Lavinia, with Jake as reserve. In the evening he took Jake out for a drink and explained there was nothing else he could do on Jake’s current form.

“Don’t worry,” he said, spearing an olive out of his very dry martini. “This often happens to new caps.”

“Not as badly as this,” said Jake, gazing gloomily into a glass of soda water. He still felt too sick even to smoke. His eyes seemed three inches deep in his face. His face was gray and seamed with exhaustion; he must have lost half a stone.

“It’s a vicious circle,” said Malise gently. “Everyone talks about the killer instinct and being hungry enough to go out and win, but you’re so snarled up inside you’re frightening the hell out of your horses. I know the fences seem huge and you’re worried about overfacing them, but you must be more aggressive. The only way to tackle those fences is to attack. Be accurate, but ride on all the time. Those big heavy poles are so firm you can afford to clout them. Africa should be able to sail over them anyway.”

Jake’s face registered no emotion. A fly was buzzing round their heads. Malise flicked it away with a copy of The Times.

“Spanish fly,” said Jake suddenly, with the ghost of a smile. “S’pposed to be good for sex, isn’t it?”

Malise laughed. “Never tried it myself, more Rupert’s province. Expect you’re feeling homesick, too, missing Tory and the baby, and you’re pulled down looking after the horses by yourself. It’s amazing how your first win will buck you up.”

“If I ever do win.”

“My dear boy, I’ve seen you on form. I know you’re good. You’ve just got to calm down.”

Jake suddenly felt an emotion close to adulation. He could imagine following Malise into battle without a qualm. If only he’d had a father like that, or even a father like Mr. Greenslade, who bossed you around all the time because he minded about you. There he was buying himself a drink at the bar, and about to come and join them.

“I’m going to be very unorthodox,” said Malise. He handed Jake a bottle with some red pills in. “Those’ll make you sleep; put you out like a light. Don’t tell the rest of the team I’ve given them to you. They’ll play havoc with your reflexes, but you’re not jumping tomorrow or in the Nations’ Cup, and a couple of good nights’ sleep’ll put you right for the Grand Prix on Saturday. And don’t tell me you don’t approve of sleeping pills. Nor do I, except in an emergency. Tomorrow you’re not going anywhere near the stables. Marion and Tracey will look after Africa and Sailor. You can go on the sightseeing jaunt with the rest of the team.”

After fourteen hours’ sleep, Jake woke feeling much better. He didn’t know whether Malise had had a word with them, but all the team were particularly nice to him as they set off out of Madrid in an old bus, across dusty plains, like the hide of a great slaughtered bull, then through rolling hills dotted with olive trees and orange groves. The road was full of potholes, sending sledgehammer blows up Jake’s spine as the back wheels went over them. Rupert sat next to Helen with his arm along the back of the seat, but not touching her because it was too hot. Billy sat in front, talking constantly to them, refereeing any squabbles, sticking up for Helen. Lavinia Greenslade sat with her father. Humpty sat with Jake and talked nonstop about Porky Boy.

Only Rupert didn’t let up in his needling. Every donkey or mule or depressed-looking horse they passed reminded him of Sailor or “Jake’s Joke,” as he now called him.

They lunched at a very good restaurant, sitting outside under the plane trees, eating cochinella or roast suckling pig. It was the first square meal Jake had been able to keep down since he arrived. While they were having coffee, a particularly revolting old gypsy woman came up and tried to read their fortunes.

“Do tell your ghastly relation to go away, Jake,” said Rupert.

Helen, beautiful, radiant, and clinging, was surprised Rupert was being so poisonous to this taciturn newcomer. She tried to talk to Jake and ask him about his horses, but, aware that he was being patronized, he answered abruptly and left her in midsentence.

Afterwards they went to a bull farm and tried playing with the young bulls and heifers with padded horns and a cape. Rupert and Billy, who’d both had a fair amount to drink at lunchtime, were only too anxious to have a go. Humpty, who’d eaten too much suckling pig (“You might pop if a horn grazed you,” said Rupert), refused to try, and so did Jake.

Side by side, but both feeling very different emotions, Jake and Helen watched Rupert, tall and lean, a natural at any sport, swinging away as the little bull hurtled towards him. Determined to excel, he was already getting competitive. Billy, fooling around, couldn’t stop laughing, and was finally sent flying and only pulled out of danger just in time by Rupert. In the end Rupert only allowed himself to be dragged away because they had to be in Madrid to watch a bullfight at six. Before the fight, they were shown the chapel where the matadors pray before the fight.

“Do with a session in there before tomorrow afternoon,” said Billy. “Dear God, make us beat the Germans.”

The bullfight nauseated Jake, particularly when the picadors came on, riding their pathetic, broken-down, insufficiently padded horses. If they were gored, according to Humpty, they were patched up and sent down into the ring to face the ordeal again. They were so thin they were in no condition to run away. The way, too, that the picadors were tossing their goads into the bull’s neck to break his muscles reminded Jake of Rupert’s method of bullying.

The cochinella was already churning inside him.

“I say, Jake,” Rupert’s voice carried down the row, “doesn’t that picador’s horse remind you of Sailor. If you popped down to the Plaza de Toros later this evening, I’m sure they’d give you a few pesetas for him.”

Jake gritted his teeth and said nothing.

“That’s wight,” whispered Lavinia, who was sitting next to him. “Don’t wise. It’s the only way to tweat Wupert.”

Jake felt more cheerful, particularly when, the next moment, Lavinia plucked at his sleeve, saying, “Can I wush past you quickly? I’m going to be sick.”

“I’ll come with you,” said Jake.

Neither of them was sick but on the way home enjoyed a good bitch about Rupert. The rest of the team went out to a party at the Embassy. Jake followed Malise’s advice and went to bed early again.

On the morning of the Nations’ Cup, Jake woke feeling better in body but not in mind. The sight of fan mail and invitations so overcrowding Rupert’s pigeonhole that they spilled over into Humpty’s and Lavinia’s on either side gave him a frightful stab of jealousy.

Then in his own pigeonhole he found a letter from Tory, which filled him equally with remorse and homesickness. “Darling Jake,” she wrote in her round, childish hand, “Isa and Wolf and all the horses and Tanya and most of all me (or should it be I) are missing you dreadfully. But I keep telling myself that it’s all in a good cause, and that by the time you get this letter, you’ll have really made all the other riders sit up, particularly Rupert. Is he still as horrible or has marriage mellowed him? I know you’re going to do really well.”

Jake couldn’t bear to read any more. He scrumpled up the letter and put it in his hip pocket. Skipping breakfast, he went straight down to the stables. He wanted to work the horses before it got too punishingly hot.

Walking into the British tackroom, he steeled himself for whatever grisly practical joke was on the menu today, but he found everything in place. Because it was Nations’ Cup Day, everyone was far too preoccupied. The grooms were tense and distracted, the horses edgy. They knew something was up. Jake worked both the horses and was pleased to find Sailor had recovered from the bout of colic he’d had earlier in the week, and Africa’s leg was better.

Back in the yard he cooled down Sailor’s legs with a hose, amused by the besotted expression on the horse’s long speckled face. Nearby, Tracey was washing The Bull’s tail. Beyond her, Rupert’s groom, Marion, was standing on a hay bale to plait the mighty Macaulay’s mane, showing off her long brown legs in the shortest pale blue hot pants and grumbling about the amount of work she had to get through. Macaulay was so over the top that, rather than risk hotting him up, Rupert had decided to ride Belgravia in the parade beforehand and bring out Macaulay only for the actual class. This meant Marion had two horses to get ready.

Jake, who’d been carefully studying Rupert’s horses, thought they were getting too many oats. No one could deny Rupert’s genius as a rider, but his horses were not happy. He had surreptitiously watched Rupert take Mayfair, Belgravia, and Macaulay off to a secluded corner of the huge practice ring and seen how he made Tracey and Marion each hold the end of the top pole of a fence, lifting it as the horses went over to give them a sharp rap on the shins, however high they jumped. This was meant to make them pick up their feet even higher the next time. The practice, known as rapping, was strictly illegal in England.

Jake, however, was most interested in Macaulay. He was a brilliant horse, but still young and inexperienced. Jake felt he was being brought on too fast.

In the yard the wireless was belching out Spanish pop music.

“I do miss Radio One,” said Tracey.

The Italian team came past, their beautifully streaked hair as well cut as their jeans, and stopped to exchange backchat with Marion and Tracey.

As Jake started to dry Sailor’s legs, the horse nudged at his pocket for Polos.

“How long have we got?” Tracey asked Marion.

“About an hour and a half before the parade.”

“Christ,” said Tracey, plaiting faster. “I’m never going to be ready in time. Give over Bull, keep still.” The Bull looked up with kind, shining eyes.

“You want a hand?” asked Jake. “I’ve nearly finished Sailor.”

“You haven’t,” said a voice behind him.

It was Malise Gordon, looking elegant, even in this heat, in a pale gray suit, but extremely grim.

“You’re going to have to jump after all,” he said. “That stupid idiot, Billy, sloped off this morning with Rupert to have another crack at bullfighting and got himself knocked out cold.”

Tracey gave a wail and dropped her comb. The Bull jerked up his head.

“It’s all right. He’ll live,” said Malise irritably. “The doctor doesn’t think it’s serious, but Billy certainly doesn’t know what day of the week it is and there’s no chance of him riding.”

Tracey burst into tears. Marion stopped plaiting and put her arms round Tracey, glaring at Jake as though it was his fault.

“He’s got a head like a bullet; don’t worry,” Marion said soothingly.

“Come on,” said Malise, not unkindly. “Pull yourself together; put The Bull back in his box and get moving on whoever Jake’s going to ride. Africa, I presume.”

Jake shook his head. “Her leg’s not right. I’m not risking it. I’ll ride Sailor.”

For a second Malise hesitated. “You don’t want to jump The Bull?”

Catching Tracey’s and Marion’s looks of horror, Jake shook his head. If by the remotest chance he didn’t let the side down, he was bloody well not having it attributed to the fact that he wasn’t riding his own horse.

“All right, you’d better get changed. You’re meant to be walking the course in an hour, but with the general coming and Spanish dilatoriness it’s impossible to be sure.”

Luckily Jake didn’t have time to panic. Tracey sewed the Union Jack onto his red coat. Normally he would have been fretting around, trying to find the socks, the breeches, the shirt and the white tie which he wore when he last won a class. But as it was so long since he had won anything, he’d forgotten which was the last set of clothes that worked. His face looked gray and contrasted with the whiteness of his shirt like a before-and-after laundry detergent ad. His hands were trembling so much he could hardly tie his tie, and his red coat, which fitted him before he left England, was now too loose. Then suddenly, when he dropped a peseta and was searching for it under the forage bin, he found his tansy flower, slightly battered but intact. Overjoyed, he slipped it into his left boot. Aware of it, a tiny bump under his heel, he felt perhaps his luck might be turning at last.

Rupert arrived at the showground in a foul temper. He’d just had a dressing-down from Malise for going bullfighting on the morning of a Nations’ Cup. He was worried about Billy and he realized, with Billy gone, that their chances of even being placed were negligible. Normally he didn’t need to distance himself before a big class, but Helen’s chatter about El Grecos and Goyas, and her trip to Toledo, “with the old houses silhouetted against the skyline,” got on his nerves and he’d snapped at her unnecessarily.

She’d hoped to win him over in a new dress — a Laura Ashley white smock dotted with yellow buttercups, worn with a huge yellow straw hat — but he had merely snapped, “What on earth are you wearing that for?”

“It’s the latest milkmaid look,” said Helen.

“I don’t like milkmaids, only whisky maids; and you’re going to obscure about fifteen people’s view in that hat. No, there isn’t time to change; we’re late as it is.”

“God, it’s hot,” said Lavinia Greenslade, as they sweated in the unrelenting sun, waiting for the go-ahead to walk the course. Her eyes were swollen and pink from crying over Billy’s concussion. It had taken all Malise Gordon’s steely persuasion, coupled with her parents’ ranting, to make her agree to ride.

The rotund Humpty was sweating so profusely that great damp patches had seeped through his red coat under the arms and down the spine.

“Wish we could jump in our shirtsleeves,” he grumbled.

“Not in fwont of the genewal,” said Lavinia. “He’s weally hot on pwotocol.”

Jake clenched his teeth together, so the others couldn’t hear them chattering like castanets. Walking the course didn’t improve his nerves. The fourteen jumps were enormous — most of them bigger than he was — with a huge combination in the middle and a double at the end with an awkward distance. You could either take three small strides between the two jumps or two long ones. He tried to concentrate on what Malise was saying as they paced out the distances.

In a Nations’ Cup, four riders on four horses jump for each country, jumping two rounds each over the same course. There is a draw for the order in which the nations jump. Today it was France, Italy, Spain, Germany then Great Britain last, which meant that a French rider would jump first, followed by an Italian, then a Spaniard, a German, and finally a British rider. Then the second French rider would jump followed by the second Italian, and so on until all the riders had jumped. Each nation would then total the scores of its three best riders, discarding the worst score. The nation with the lowest number of faults would then be in the lead at half time. The whole process is then repeated, each rider jumping in the same order. Once again the three lowest scores are totted up and the nation with the lowest total over the two rounds wins the cup. If two countries tie there is a jump-off. Nations’ Cup matches are held all over Europe throughout the summer and autumn and the side that notches up the most points during the year is awarded the President’s Cup. For the last two years this had been won by Germany.

Malise gave the order for the British team to jump: Humpty, Lavinia, Rupert, Jake.

“If you get a double clear,” Humpty told Jake as they came out of the ring, “you get a free red coat.”

“Can’t see myself having much chance of wearing out this one,” said Jake.

He thought so even more a few seconds later as Lavinia gave a shriek of relieved joy, bounded towards Billy, as he stood swaying slightly at the entrance to the arena, and flung her arms round him.

“Lavinia,” thundered her mother and father simultaneously.

Lavinia ignored them. “Are you all wight? You shouldn’t have come out in this heat. Does your poor head hurt?”

Billy was deathly pale, but he steadied himself against Lavinia and grinned sheepishly at Malise. “I’m terribly sorry.”

“T’riffic,” said Rupert. “You can ride after all.”

“No, he can’t,” said Malise firmly. “Go and sit in the shade, Billy, and take my hat.” He removed his panama and handed it to Billy.

“For Christ’s sake,” snarled Rupert, hardly bothering to lower his voice, “even concussed, Billy’s more valuable than Lavinia or Jake. They simply haven’t the nerve when the chips are down.”

“Thank you, Wupert,” said Lavinia, disengaging herself from Billy. “If it weren’t against the intwests of my countwy, I’d hope you fall off.”

“Are you implying my Lavinia isn’t up to it?” said Mrs. Greenslade, turning even redder in the face.

“Yes,” said Rupert unrepentantly. “And Jake even less so.”

“Shut up, Rupert,” said Malise, losing his temper. “You’re behaving like a yobbo.”

“Well, if you want us to come bottom yet again, it’s up to you,” said Rupert.

“I’m honestly not up to it,” said Billy placatingly. “I can see at least six of all of you.”

Fortunately an ugly scene was averted by a loose horse pounding through the collecting ring, his lead rein trailing and flysheet slipping. Whickering with delight, he shoved the rest of the British team summarily out of the way and rushed straight up to Jake, burying his nose inside his coat and nudging him with delight. It was Sailor; his feet were oiled, his coat polished, his thin mane coaxed into plaits, his sparse tail fell jagged from a tube of royal blue tail bandage.

The next minute Tracey joined them, panting and laughing.

“The moment he saw you he broke away from me.”

“Amazing that someone finds you attractive,” said Rupert.

“That’s enough, Rupert,” said Malise icily. “You’d better warm up before the parade, Humpty.”