Riders

20

Fen never dreamt she’d have to work so hard. Jake’s indoor school was finished by the autumn, which meant, even as the days drew in, that she was able to get up at five in the morning and work the horses for two hours before school. Then she would come home, grab a quick bite to eat, dash off her homework, then back to the indoor school until late in the evening. Often she fell asleep at her desk. Her form mistress rang up Tory and complained. Fen was not stupid, just exhausted and totally unmotivated. It was the twentieth century; people didn’t send children down the mines anymore. Her complaints fell on deaf ears. Tory remonstrated gently with Jake and tried to get Fen into bed by ten, but it was often midnight before they finished.

Jake was a very hard taskmaster. As Fen was tall for her age, it was pointless to waste time learning to ride ponies. She must go straight on to horses, and as she’d be competing initially against children who’d been riding the circuit since they were seven, there was a lot of ground to catch up.

Fen found it hard to be patient. She only wanted to jump and jump, but Jake insisted she do the groundwork first, hardly letting her ride across the yard without coming to see if she were doing it properly. To straighten her back and deepen her seat, he gave her daily lessons on the lunge, without reins and stirrups, with her arms behind her back, and a stick through them to keep her shoulders straight. Cold weather didn’t deter him. Sometimes they worked outside, with everything frozen, and the snow hardening to a sheet of ice. With the wind up their tails, the horses would give a series of bucks and, stirrupless and reinless, Fen would fly through the air and emerge from the shrubbery like a snowman.

Day after day she came in with raw bleeding knees and elbows, every bone in her body aching. Seldom did she complain, she was so frightened of being sent back.

On the whole she was happy, because she felt she was getting somewhere. Like Jake, she loved the cozy family atmosphere created by Tory. She adored the children, Wolf and the cats and the horses, and hero-worshiped Jake. Revenge, however, was her special pet. She spent any free moments in his box, talking to him, calming him. In a way they were learning the ropes together. Like her, when he arrived, he was miserably displaced, suspicious of everyone. Gradually they got their confidence back.

Revenge was never worked in the same field twice. Horrendously high-strung, he was a picky eater, hated any box but his own, and was liable to kick any strange stable to pieces. He also fell madly in love with Africa, following her everywhere, to Sailor’s irritation, and yelling his head off if she went to shows without him. Jake brought him on with infinite slowness, never overfacing him, retiring him over and over again, going for slow clears to give him confidence, never exciting him by jumping him against the clock.

Revenge still put in the odd huge buck and had a piece out of Fen if he’d got out of bed the wrong side. But she defended him to the death.

“He’s really a kind horse,” she would explain, “he always waits when he’s bucked you off.”

Tory and Fen got on well, but there were undeniable tensions. Although she helped out in the stables, Fen made a lot of extra work at home. She was extremely untidy, dropping her clothes as she stepped out of them, forgetting to bring her washing down, spending hours in the bathroom washing her hair, gazing at her face in the steaming mirror, and leaving the bath filthy and the plughole blocked with hair. She was also terribly dreamy and, when she wasn’t with the horses, her nose was always buried in some technical horse book or riding magazine, and if there was washing-up she always managed to find something to do in the stable. Tory tried not to resent Fen nor to mind her teenage moods, nor to feel jealous that Jake and she spent so much time together.

Fen adored Jake, but, unlike Tory, she saw his faults. Tory spent hours making quiches and chicken pies for Jake when he was away at shows, which he seldom touched because he got so nervous, and which Tanya, the groom, usually finished up so Tory wouldn’t be hurt. Jake never laughed at Tory’s jokes, seldom reacted, often didn’t answer. She noticed how Tory ended so many sentences with “Isn’t it,” to evoke some sort of response, how she never answered Jake back. Jake and Fen on the other hand had blazing rows.

One gray day towards the end of November, Fen was particularly tired. Her form mistress had sent her out of the class and the headmistress had come past and shouted at her. Her period was due any minute, her spots were worse than ever, and she felt fat and edgy. Jake was in a picky mood. Tomorrow he and Tanya were off to Vienna and Amsterdam for two big shows. Everything had to be packed up and ready. It was so mild that Tanya had tied Revenge up in the yard to wash his tail. The dead dry leaves were swirling around his feet.

She had just finished, and Fen, who had fed all the other horses, had Revenge’s feed ready, when she suddenly remembered she hadn’t added any vitamins or chopped carrot to encourage him to eat. Putting the bucket down beside Sailor’s door, she rushed back to the tackroom and here got sidetracked by the latest copy of Riding which had a piece on her hero, Billy Lloyd-Foxe. Alas, Sailor who was on a diet and incurably greedy, seeing the bucket, promptly unbolted his door. Having wolfed all Revenge’s feed, he was discovered by Jake smugly licking his lips.

Jake hit the roof. “Fen!” he bellowed.

“Yes,” she said nervously, coming out of the tackroom with a carrot in one hand and the magazine in the other.

“Can’t you fucking concentrate for one minute?” said Jake furiously. “Filling your stupid head with dreams of Wembley, and lining up above Rupert Campbell-Black, with the Queen telling you what a star you are. Well, you’ll bloody well never get there unless you pull your head out of the clouds.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What’s the use of saying sorry? Sailor’s just eaten Revenge’s food. You’re bloody useless.”

Fen lost her temper. “I hate you; you’re a slave driver.”

Dropping Riding and the carrot, she raced across the yard, untying Revenge’s head collar. Leaping onto his back, she clattered across the yard, clearing the gate out to the fields, thundering across them, clearing fence after fence, making for the hills.

“Come back,” howled Jake. “That horse is valuable.”

“I don’t care,” screamed Fen, picking up Revenge as he stumbled over a rocky piece of ground, galloping on and on until she’d put four or five miles between herself and the Mill House.

As she passed a cairn of rocks, she realized how dark it had got. Then, suddenly, like a blanket, the mist came down. Tugging Revenge around, she retraced her steps. She came to a fork in the pathway. There was boggy ground to the right. She turned left, the path turned upwards and upwards. It must lead somewhere. Then she went rigid with horror as she realized they were on the edge of a ravine and had nearly tumbled over. She gave a sob of terror as she realized she was totally lost. Gradually the enormity of her crime hit her. Revenge didn’t even belong to Jake; he was Colonel Carter’s and potentially the best horse in the yard, clipped and out in the cold in the middle of winter.

“I don’t know what to do,” she cried, flinging her arms round the horse’s neck, shuddering uncontrollably in her thin, mist-soaked jersey. “Oh, God and Rev, please help me.”

For a few seconds Revenge snatched at the short grass. Then he sniffed the wind and set off purposefully. Fen tried to check him, terrified of more ravines, but he was quite determined. They came to marshy ground. Fen, petrified of getting bogged down, could feel his hoofs sinking in, and hear the sucking sound as he pulled them out. She jumped as tall rushes brushed against her legs. Now he was splashing through a little stream. On he plodded, avoiding rocks and boulders, checking carefully for holes. Fen tucked her frozen hands in his blond mane, clinging to him for warmth, letting him carry her. He couldn’t know the way; he’d never been that far from home. They’d never find it.

The mist seemed to be clearing. She could see trees below, and, oh God, surely that was the same cairn of rocks? They were going round in a circle.

She gave a sob of despair as Revenge turned and started picking his way delicately down a steep hill. It seemed to go on forever; any minute she’d fall off him and tumble crashing to the bottom. Then suddenly the mist seemed to slide away and dimly she could see lights ahead.

Jake, back at the Mill House, was frantic. He’d been out on one of the novices, scouring the countryside for Fen, shouting, calling, finding nothing. No sound had come back through the thick blanket of fog. Every time he saw a car snaking along the road, he waited for a squeal of brakes and terrible screams.

He came home again. There was no news.

“Bloody stupid girl. Christ, why did she do it?”

Tory took a deep breath. “You’re too tough with her, Jakey. She’s only thirteen.”

“No time to be superstitious,” snarled Jake, and rode off into the night.

Tory sighed and went back into the house. It was nearly nine o’clock. Darklis was crying, woken up no doubt by Isa, who was worried about Fen. She had just settled them, when from the yard she heard Africa give her deep whinny. All the other horses immediately rushed to their half-doors, peering out at the clouds rolling back on a beautiful starlit night. The dry leaves circled and rustled, whipped by the wind. The horses turned to prowl around in the straw, then came back to the door and listened again, each knuckering more excitedly.

Suddenly Tory heard hoofbeats. Africa sent out a joyful neigh into the darkness. The other horses whinnied, snorting and pawing at their doors. Revenge didn’t whinny back; his task wasn’t over yet. Five minutes later he walked into the yard.

Tory ran out. “Oh, thank God you’re home.”

Fen burst into tears. “Rev did it. He bought me back. I’m so sorry, so terribly terribly sorry.”

Rushing out of the tackroom, Tanya caught her as she fell off the horse. “You’re frozen, pet. There, don’t cry. You’re safe.”

“Rev did it,” mumbled Fen.

Revenge didn’t want a hero’s welcome. He stumped past the other horses without a glance, making disapproving noises about stupid teenagers who got lost and made him late for supper. He smelt of mist, sweat, and exhaustion, and went straight to his box and, with a long groan, folded up and began to roll, his feet shadowboxing the air.

“Where’s Jake?” muttered Fen, through frantically chattering teeth.

“Out looking for you. Go in and have a bath.”

Even after a bath she was still cold. She put on her nightgown and three jerseys over it, looking around her little room. The green-sprigged Laura Ashley wallpaper, put up especially by Tory, was already covered in posters of Billy Lloyd-Foxe and Ludwig von Schellenberg. The shelves brimmed over with every horse book imaginable, and her collapsing Pullein-Thompson novels. Every shelf was crowded with china horses which took Tory so long to dust. On her dressing table was the hedgehog which Jake had made her from teasels for her last birthday. They had been so good to her and she’d kicked them in the teeth.

Jake would be quite right to pack her back to her mother and the colonel. She picked up Lester, her battered teddy bear, named after Lester Piggott, cuddling him for comfort. Her heart sank even further at the sound of horse’s hoofs on the bridge, muffled by the willows — Jake coming home.

He’d be insane with rage. He had a five o’clock start in the morning. His best horse had been sabotaged. Looking through a crack in the curtain she saw him slide off the big black gelding, hand him to Tanya, and go into Revenge’s box. Leading him out, he examined his legs, making Tory walk him up and down.

Fen trembled, terrified he’d find something wrong. But he merely nodded curtly and turned towards the house. Fen crept away from the curtain. Next moment she heard him coming up the stairs, and the boards creaking outside her room. I’m not going to cry, she thought desperately, he’s bored by tears.

“I’m so sorry,” she stammered.

“I should think so,” he said bleakly. “Of all the bloody irresponsible things to do. You could have killed yourself and the horse.”

“I didn’t think.” She hung her head.

“Time you started. Can’t afford passengers.”

“Please don’t send me back.” A tear splashed onto her hands. If she had looked up she would have seen his face soften.

It would make her swollen-headed if he told her that the only reason he was so harsh with her was because he knew how good she could be. He put a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s all right, no harm done. Rev’s okay Must like it here. After all, he came home.”

Fen looked up, eyes streaming. “He did; he was so clever. I was completely lost. He brought me home like Lassie.” There was a pause.

“When d’you break up?”

“The eighteenth.”

“Well, you can leave two days early and come to Olympia with me.”

She gazed at him unbelievingly.

For a minute she couldn’t speak, then she flung her arms round Jake’s neck. “Oh, Jakey, thank you,” she sobbed, “I love you so much.”

Helen had honestly intended to go to the Olympia show. She still had some Christmas shopping to do. She’d catch up on a few matinees in the afternoons and spend the evenings watching Rupert. Friends who’d gone skiing had lent them a penthouse flat, overlooking Holland Park, just a few minutes from Olympia. She was touched and a little ashamed by Rupert’s delight that she would be with him. It was the first show she’d been to for ages. She’d been so sick with the baby and felt so tired, and after a tidal wave of Rupert’s female fans sent her flying and nearly trampled her to death at the Royal International back in July, she’d decided to give shows a miss.

Rupert had been competing abroad for much of the last five months, and during the separations she’d been very lonely and spent many restless nights worrying she might miscarry or the baby might be deformed. She took her pregnancy very seriously, eating the right food, resting, going religiously to prenatal classes, and giving up drink completely. So those jolly reunions after Billy and Rupert came back from successful shows, when even Helen got mildly tight, were things of the past.

She steeled herself not to mind when Rupert was away. She missed him, but subconsciously she built up other resources. She spent a fortune on baby clothes and another fortune on a new nursery suite, decorating the baby’s room daffodil yellow and white and putting in an oven, a washing machine, a dryer, and a small fridge next door, with a room for the nanny, all done up in Laura Ashley, beyond that.

She also liked being able to watch all the egghead programs she wanted on television, to listen to classical music all the time, and not to have to cook huge meals when she was feeling sick.

Then Rupert would come home, bringing not tenderness but silver cups and suitcases of dirty washing. Invariably on his return he wanted a sexual marathon, and although her gynecologist had reassured her that sex couldn’t harm the baby, Rupert’s lovemaking was so vigorous that she was terrified she’d miscarry and found herself tensing up and going dry inside.

She also had the feeling Rupert wasn’t being supportive enough. He flatly refused to go to prenatal classes or be present at the birth.

“It’s too Islington for words,” he said, by way of excuse. “I’ve pulled calves, I’ve pulled foals, but I’ll be buggered if I’ll pull my own baby. I’ve found you the best gynecologist in the country, booked you into a private room at Gloucester Hospital. Let them get on with it.”

He also laughed his head off when he found her listening to Beethoven and Vivaldi in order to stimulate mentally the baby in the womb.

“D’you want to give birth to a string quartet?”

Throughout November and December he’d been away on a successful but punishing round trip to Geneva, Vienna, and Amsterdam, which left only a hectic twenty-four hours at home before setting out for Olympia. Even so Rupert found time for sex. He’d won a Polaroid camera as one of his extra prizes at Amsterdam and was determined to take photographs of Helen in the nude.

“Your boobs are so fantastic since you got pregnant.”

Helen, conscious of her swelling stomach, couldn’t get into the swing of things at all. Nor did she like being photographed first thing in the morning without any makeup on.

“It’s not your face I’m interested in,” said Rupert, laying each photograph on the dressing table so they gradually took on color and shape, until he got so turned on he had to make love to her.

Afterwards she came out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, to find a naked Rupert joyfully poring over the photographs.

“For goodness’ sake put them away. Mrs. Bodkin might see them,” she pleaded.

“This one’s much the best. Come and look.”

Helen approached cautiously; then embarrassment turned to rage as she realized he was admiring not her naked beauty but a photograph of Badger, lying grinning upside down in his basket, now banished to the landing.

“I must show Billy,” said Rupert.

“Why not take one of Mavis, too?” snapped Helen.

She was fed up with those wretched dogs and horses. It wasn’t a question of playing second fiddle; she wasn’t even in the orchestra.

Later Rupert and Billy had a session with their secretary, Miss Hawkins, catching up on the mail and checking that entry forms had been sent off for the next few months. When Helen came down with some washing she found the dark blue diary for the next year on the kitchen table. They must have been working out the first six months’ show dates. Fondly she turned to March 7, the most important entry of all, the expected date for the birth of the baby. But instead, to her fury, she found Antwerp, Dortmund, Milan scrawled across the first eighteen days in March, with red marker arrows stretching from page to page indicating they wouldn’t be returning to England between shows. Helen couldn’t believe it. Rupert intended to be away for the most momentous event of his life. She stormed into the drawing room, where Rupert was pouring himself and Billy prelunch drinks.

“Billy, will you please leave the room,” she said in a dangerously quiet voice. “I want to speak with Rupert.”

“Yes, sir, certainly sir,” said Billy, grinning and making himself scarce.

“What on earth’s the matter?” asked Rupert. “Not sulking about Badger’s picture, are you? D’you want a drink?”

“You know I haven’t touched liquor since I became pregnant. I’d like to know the meaning of this.” She flung the diary at Rupert. “Look at March.”

Rupert opened it. “Well? Oh, I’m sorry to be away three weeks on the trot, but they’re all good shows and I’ll be home a lot in January and February.”

“Haven’t you any idea what else is happening in March?”

Rupert look blank. “Can’t think.”

“Our baby is to be born.”

Rupert grinned in dismay. “Oh, Christ, angel, I’m frightfully sorry. It completely slipped my mind. Don’t worry, I can hop on a plane the minute you go into labor, or if you really think it’ll arrive on the seventh,” he glanced at the diary, “I could fly out late to Antwerp. They don’t have the big prize money there till the third day.”

Helen, for the first time since they were married, went berserk, screaming abuse at Rupert, her red hair flying like a maenad, her face scarlet.

Rupert looked at her in amazement. “Are you sure you haven’t been drinking?”

The next minute she was hurling ornaments at him. The altered Augustus John went flying through the air and hit the wall with a splintering crash. Then she started on the bookshelf. Burke’s Landed Gentry nearly landed on target, followed by Ruff’s Guide to the Turf, followed by bound volumes of Paradise Lost and Dante’s Inferno. Gibbon’s Decline and Fall fell at Rupert’s feet. Rupert, laughing and dodging out of the way like a boxer, annoyed her even more. As the top shelf was emptied, there was a knock on the door. It was Mrs. Bodkin in her hat and coat, quivering with curiosity.

“Was there anything else?”

“Yes,” said Helen. “Bring me a jug of orange juice, please.”

Two minutes later Mrs. Bodkin puffed in with the jug and two glasses on a tray.

“Thank you. That’ll be all, Mrs. B. See you tomorrow,” said Helen, firmly shutting the door on her. Then, picking up the jug of orange juice, she hurled it in Rupert’s face and collapsed sobbing on the sofa.

Nothing Rupert could say would placate her. If he wasn’t going to be with her when the baby was born, she wasn’t coming to his bloody show. She still refused to speak to him when he and Billy set off to London that afternoon. Rupert, who’d always believed that a room full of roses and a gold bracelet could placate any woman, was slightly surprised.