Riders

24

Kings, they came home. After a grueling thirty-hour journey from Colombia to Stansted Airport, The Bull and Revenge, accompanied by Tracey and Podge, had a good night’s sleep at Colonel Roxborough’s yard. Next day they drove the horses in the lorry to Heathrow to meet Rupert and Billy. They had quite a wait, because of scenes of hysterical excitement at the airport. Press and television cameras were everywhere; police had to keep back the huge crowd. Britain hadn’t notched up that many medals at Colombia not to be very proud of her show-jumping bronze and silver.

At last, they all set off for Penscombe, at around four o’clock in the afternoon, in tearing spirits, sharing several bottles of champagne on the way. Tracey was soon laughing like a hyena. Only Podge was sad. In a couple of hours she would have to give most of Rupert back to Helen, but there’d be other shows, she tried to tell herself. Outside Cirencester, Rupert was stopped by a policeman for speeding, who solemnly got out his notebook, then asked for their autographs. Every time people saw their lorry with the lettering “Rupert Campbell-Black and Billy Lloyd-Foxe, Great Britain” they started cheering. Even Rupert was thrown by the welcome as they neared home. As they entered Chalford there were crowds all along the route, cheering, waving British flags, and holding up placards saying “Well done, Billy and Rupert.” “Three cheers for The Bull and Revenge.”

Rupert looked at Billy. “Shall we ride home?”

Billy nodded, too moved to speak.

The horses were still tired, but delighted to be out of the lorry and in familiar territory. The Bull proceeded to stall and stall in the middle of Chalford High Street to the delighted screams of the crowd and the photographers.

And they were cheered all the three miles home, Rupert and Billy riding in front, followed by Tracey and Podge in the lorry, hooting victory salutes on the horn. Two miles out, Henrietta, one of the junior grooms, arrived with an ecstatic Badger and Mavis, red, white, and blue bows attached to their collars. Billy scooped up Mavis onto the saddle in front of him, where she ecstatically licked his salty face. After that, The Bull had to guide himself home because Billy needed one hand to clutch Mavis and the other to wipe his eyes. The Bull didn’t care. With garlands of flowers round his massive neck, he must have put on a stone between Chalford and Penscombe with all the sweets, carrots, and sugar that were fed him along the route.

To Rupert, Penscombe had never looked so lovely as on that golden September afternoon, with the valley softened and blurred by a slight blue mist, and great pale cream swathes of traveler’s joy. There was the weather cock glinting on Penscombe church. And suddenly towards them came the village band, sweating in their red tunics, playing “Land of Hope and Glory” somewhat out of tune.

“This is really too much,” said Billy, half laughing and half crying, as the band shuddered to a straggly halt in front of them, then turned round, striking up “Rule Britannia” to lead them in. The village was decked out like a Royal wedding: every house had put out the flags, a huge streamer stretched across the village street saying “Welcome Home Our Four Heroes.” Photographers ran along the pavement, snapping as they went. By the War Memorial the mayor was waiting for them. Shaking them both by the hand, he read a speech of welcome that Revenge tried to eat. Rupert was looking everywhere for Helen. Can’t even bother to come and meet me, he thought, savagely.

And suddenly, there she was on the pavement, in a yellow sleeveless dress, holding Marcus in her arms, looking apprehensive and not at all sure of her reception. In an instant, Rupert was off Revenge and kissing her passionately, but not too hard in case he squashed Marcus, and the photographers went crazy.

“Show us your medals, Rupe,” they yelled.

So Rupert, ultracasual, got them out of his hip pocket and hung them round Marcus’s neck. But when he tried to pick up the baby and cuddle him, Marcus arched his back rigidly and started to yell, so Rupert handed him back to Helen. Helen looked up at Rupert incredulously. Hilary had spent so much time putting the boot in that she had imagined some devil would roll up. She’d forgotten how beautiful he was, even after a long drive and an even longer flight. As he came through those hysterically cheering crowds, laughing and joking, he seemed like a god again. It was only just coming home to her, the magnitude of his achievement.

She picked up the bronze and the silver medals and examined them wonderingly.

“You made it, you honestly made it. Oh, Rupert, I missed you so much,” and suddenly she knew she was speaking the truth as she realized she’d kept him at a distance since she got pregnant, and maybe it was her fault.

“Did you?” said Rupert, his face suddenly serious.

“Horribly. Can we really try and spend some time together, and make a go of it?”

Rupert kissed her again. He felt ridiculously happy.

“As long as you give Thrillary the bullet.”

Helen looked disapproving, then giggled. “We’re not quite so close. She is rather overly directive.”

“She’s more of a male bloody chauvinist pig than I am,” said Rupert.

Next day, after all the excitement, Billy was ashamed to find himself overwhelmed with a feeling of restlessness and anticlimax. After checking the horses, he decided to give himself a day off and spent most of the morning opening mail. As a result of his silver medal, there were countless offers of free stud nuts, tack, rugs, breeches. A lorry manufacturer was offering him a large sum of money to do a press campaign. Several television companies were waving fat fees to make films of his life.

“I shall have to turn professional,” he told Miss Hawkins, their secretary, half-jokingly.

Perhaps the depression was caused by the fact that everyone in the world seemed to have written to congratulate him — except that wonderful girl he’d seen at the Golden Lion. He hoped each letter might be from her, but as he didn’t know her name he couldn’t identify her anyway. For the thousandth time, he kicked himself for not being more forceful at the time.

“Some man from the press named Jamie Henderson’s written to ask if he can come down and interview you,” said Miss Hawkins. “I penciled in next Sunday. I thought you could take him up to the pub for lunch, as he’s coming all the way down from London. It’s the only day you’ve got really. You’ll be off to Athens, Portugal, and Germany the next day.”

She was highly delighted that Billy was for once getting as much attention as Rupert. “His lordship still in bed?” she went on in surprise. “Are those two having a second honeymoon?”

When his depression didn’t lift in the days that followed, Billy thought it might well be due to the fact that Rupert and Helen suddenly seemed to be madly in love again. Helen had agreed to get a nanny; Rupert had agreed to come home more often, and for them to do more things together. Billy was happy that they were happier, but it only emphasized his own isolation. What was the point of being a conquering hero if you didn’t make any conquests?

The Sunday Jamie Henderson was due, Billy rose early because it was so hot, worked all the horses that needed it, then hacked The Bull out because it was such a beautiful day. The stream at the bottom of the valley was choked with meadowsweet, and as he rode home he could hear Badger howling at the church bells.

As part of their new togetherness campaign, Helen and Rupert were just leaving to go out to lunch with Marcus as Billy walked in through the front door.

“We’ll be at the Paignton-Lacey’s,” said Helen, “so you and this press man will have the house to yourselves. There’s no need to lunch out. There’s cold chicken and potato salad in the larder, and I’ve washed a lettuce. All you’ve got to do is pour French dressing over it. And don’t leave the butter in the sun,” she added.

“This baby needs more luggage than a horse,” said Rupert, tramping out to the car with a blue plastic chamber pot in one hand, a packet of disposable nappies in the other, and several bottles under his arm. “One never gets enough to drink at the Paignton-Laceys’.”

Billy took the carrycot from Helen and put it in the back. As he waved them off to the accompaniment of Marcus yelling and Vivaldi on the car radio, Rupert looked at him and raised his eyes to heaven.

Billy had a bath and put on a clean shirt and a pair of jeans. He was nervous, for he never knew what to say to reporters. Sitting outside with a jug of Pimm’s, he read the Sunday papers, which were still full of Olympic news. There was a nice picture of him in the Sunday Express, and a piece in the Telegraph with a headline about Rupert’s shadow coming out of the shadows. He was pleased about that, too. He took off his shirt; might as well try to top up his Olympic tan.

In no time at all he seemed to have finished the jug. The valley looked even more beautiful now. The apples were reddening in the orchard, the dogs panted on the lawn, insects hummed in the Michaelmas daisies. September was such a lovely month; why wasn’t there someone here to share it with him?

He watched an emerald green Volkswagen pause on the road running along the top of the valley towards Penscombe. He looked at his watch; Jamie Henderson was late.

The doorbell rang, followed by a frenzy of barking. Then a voice said, “All right, down. I’m a friend, not a foe.”

Billy went down into the hall. After the dazzling sunshine it took a few seconds before he could distinguish the figure in the doorway. Dressed in white hot pants and a red shirt, her hair streaked by the sun, her long, long legs and body rising up to the wonderful breasts, like a trumpet, stood the girl from the Golden Lion.

“I’ve brought you some freesias,” she said. “They should have been sweet Williams.”

Billy opened his mouth and shut it again.

“I must be dreaming,” he said slowly. “Please don’t let me wake up.”

She came towards him and gave him the gentlest pinch on his bare arm. “You’re awake all right. Didn’t I promise we’d meet again?”

“I know, but I never believe in good fortune. Come through to the kitchen and I’ll get you a drink. I made a jug of Pimm’s, but I drank it all waiting for some boring reporter who’s supposed to be interviewing me.”

“That’s me.”

“I don’t expect he’ll take long. What did you say?”

“That’s me — Janey Henderson.”

“Oh, my God, our secretary put down Jamie. I was expecting a fella. Are you really a journalist?”

She nodded and turned her palms towards him. “Look, I’ve got pen marks on my hands.”

He got an apple, some cucumber, and an orange, and started chopping them up. Janey admired the broad mahogany-colored back.

“You’re very brown. I suppose that was Colombia. Congratulations by the way, I watched you on telly.”

“Wasn’t me, it was The Bull. I was so shit-scared, my mind went a complete blank. He just trundled me around. Just getting some mint.” He stepped out of the kitchen windows, raided the herb bed, and came back.

“Look, I can’t believe this. Are you really a journalist?”

Janey grinned. “Rather a good one.” She took the mint from him and started to strip off the leaves and put them in the jug.

“Oh dear,” said Billy. “Should I have heard of you?”

“Not really, if you’ve never seen my paper. They want me to do a big piece on you.”

“I don’t read enough,” said Billy apologetically. “Helen, Rupert’s wife, is always accusing us of being intellectual dolts.”

“You can read the instructions on a Pimm’s bottle and that’s enough for me.”

“Shall we go outside?”

Janey considered. She didn’t want to get flushed and shiny.

“We can pull the bench into the shade,” said Billy.

“They wanted me to bring a photographer but I said it would cramp my style.” The way her eyes wandered over his face and body when she said it made him feel hot and excited.

She sat in the shade, Billy in the sun. They talked about The Bull.

“Honestly, I worship the ground he trots on,” said Billy. “He’s such a trier and he’s got such a beautiful mouth.”

“So have you,” said Janey.

Billy didn’t know what to do with his mouth now.

“Is it true that you’re thinking of turning professional?”

Billy nodded. “I’ve had my shot at the Olympics, so there’s no excuse really not to. I can’t go on living with Rupert forever. I’m twenty-seven now.”

“Don’t you find it difficult, the three of you?”

“Easy for me; must be hard for them sometimes.”

“They don’t mind you coming in late, bringing back girls?”

“Haven’t been many of them lately.”

Janey looked at him until he dropped his eyes.

“What about Lavinia Greenslade?”

Billy filled up her glass before answering.

“I was very cut up when she married Guy. But at least I had something to get stuck into with the horses. Since we split up, I’ve had my best season.”

“Are you getting over her?”

Billy ate a piece of apple out of his Pimm’s. “Yup. I got over her in the Golden Lion about six weeks ago.”

“It was six weeks, three days to be exact.”

Billy sidled down the bench and took her hands. “I didn’t know how to find you. Every time anyone interviewed me in Colombia, all I wanted to say was that I’d got a message for the girl in the Golden Lion (you look a bit like a lion), and would she please come back. I spent more time thinking about you than worrying about the next day’s rounds.” Then an awful thought struck him. “You’re not married or engaged, are you?”

Janey shook her head. “The ash came out of the dress, by the way.”

Reluctantly, Billy let go of her hands. “Do you interview lots of people?”

“Robert Redford last week, Cassius Clay the week before that.” Billy felt quite faint with horror.

“You didn’t meet them first in a pub?” he asked.

They finished the Pimm’s and they talked and talked. Billy had never felt such a strong sexual attraction to anyone. She was so glowing and she had a special way of swiveling her eyes and gazing up at him from under her eyelashes that made him quite dizzy with longing.

It was so hot, they had lunch in the kitchen. At first he sat opposite her, then he came and sat beside her.

“Do you have hundreds of brothers and sisters?”

“Yes. I’m the youngest. They’re all married. My mother despairs of getting me off the shelf.”

“That’s ridiculous. How old are you?”

Janey paused for a second. “Twenty-four.”

Neither of them ate much lunch, but they finished one bottle of Muscadet and started on a second.

“I hope this piece is going to be okay,” sighed Janey. “My shorthand keeps misting over. How long have you lived here?” she asked.

“Since I was twenty-one, although before that I used to come here sometimes in the school holidays. I adored the place even then. If Rupert and I had fights, I used to wander off down the valley. There’s a secret glade with a pond where I used to look for a kingfisher.”

“What’s he like?”

“Rupert? Oh marvelous. I know him so well, it’s like a marriage.”

Janey put the top on her pen and, putting her notebook away, then said in a deceptively casual voice, “What’s his own marriage like, off the record?”

“Very happy,” said Billy firmly. He knew that journalists were always trying to catch him out over Rupert.

“Must be under terrible pressure, now she’s got a baby and can’t go everywhere with him, with girls mobbing him wherever he goes.”

“They’ve got it worked out, and if you met Helen, she’s so stunning, no one would want to wander from her. Anyway, it’s always a honeymoon whenever he comes home.”

Oh, dear, he hoped he hadn’t landed Rupert in it, but somehow he wanted to convince Janey that marriage to a show jumper wasn’t impossible.

“Can we go and see The Bull?”

“Can you ride?” said Billy, gathering up the fruit from the Pimm’s jug.

“I’ve tried, but I can’t stay on when they start running.”

Billy grinned. “I’ll teach you.”

They seemed to have spent an awfully long time over lunch. The sun was already dropping, shining into their eyes. The Bull was delighted with the Pimm’s fruit.

“Why don’t we go and look at your secret glade?” said Janey.

“All right,” said Billy. “Let’s leave your notebook in the tackroom. You’re not going to need it.”

There wasn’t a breath of wind, but the great heat of the day was beginning to subside; smoky gray ash trees seemed to shiver in the stillness. The cows were lying down and the young horses in the big field were trying to crowd into the shed to get away from the flies.

As they walked up the fields their hands occasionally brushed. Janey felt the corn stubble bristling against her sandals. As the path narrowed she moved in front. Billy admired the length of her smooth and tanned legs. The softness of her upper thighs, beneath the white shorts, made his throat go dry.

“I always come up here when I am very happy or when I am very sad — when I was dropped from the British team, when I was picked for the Olympics.”

Janey gave him another sidelong glance and picked a blackberry.

“Which do you feel now?”

“Not sure. That’s up to you.”

She didn’t answer. They had dropped down now to a little spring, crowded with forget-me-nots and pink campion, which had almost dried up, she noticed.

Unlike me, thought Janey, who could feel herself bubbling between her legs.

They came to a gate. On the right was a mossy old wall, skirting a poplar grove.

“Hell,” said Billy, looking down the path. “It’s overgrown with nettles. You’ll get stung,” he added, as Janey clambered over the gate. “I’ll carry you.”

“No,” squeaked Janey, pulling away from him.

If only she’d stuck to her diet last week and been down to her target nine stone, she’d have let him. But nine stone seven was too heavy; he’d rupture himself.

“We’ll go back,” said Billy reluctantly.

“No,” said Janey. “I need to see this enchanted glade where you seduced all those pony club groupies and Lavinia Greenslade.”

Billy, construing this as rejection, was suddenly cast down. She was coming here so she could get some good quotes. Janey ran down the path. Thirty yards down on the left she found a willow-fringed pool with its green banks completely secluded in the green gloom. She’d forgotten how much nettles hurt. “Ow, ow, ow,” she moaned, collapsing onto a bank, tears stinging her eyelids, white spots jumping up on her brown legs.

“Oh, angel,” said Billy, “you should have let me carry you. Your poor beautiful legs. Let me get some dock leaves.”

He picked a handful, green and smooth, dipping them in the pool.

“Christ it hurts,” said Janey through clenched teeth.

He lay down on the bank beside her.

“There,” she said, pointing to the outside calf of her right leg and the inside of her ankles.

“That’s better, a bit higher.”

Billy, crooning with contrition, moved the dock leaves up to her knees.

“I shouldn’t have let you come down here.”

“Oh, yes, you should,” said Janey softly. “A bit higher.”

His hand had reached the inside of her left thigh now. His fingers were so gentle, she could feel the damp cool of the dock leaves against her burning red legs.

“Higher,” she whispered.

As though acting on their own, Billy’s fingers crept up, and dropped the dock leaves as he met a fuzz of damp pubic hair dividing around the skimpiest of pants. He looked up, and found her smiling at him through her tears.

“Enter these enchanted woods, you who dare,” she said mockingly. “Go on, that’s the only way you can cure the hurt.”

“Oh, Christ, Janey,” he muttered, feeling the moisture between her legs. The next minute he had moved up the bank beside her, putting his arms around her, and kissing her almost reverently, and she was kissing him back, her tongue expertly caressing his tongue and the inside of his lips. His hand found the wonderful generous breasts, with the nipples hard as hazelnuts, and he felt her draw in her stomach as his hand crept downwards. She had exactly the right amount of flesh on her. Her hands were caressing his bare back, her fingers burrowing in his hair.

Jesus, he said to himself incredulously, this amazingly beautiful girl really wants me. Oh, please God, don’t let me botch it up by coming too quickly.

He undid the buttons of her shirt with trembling hands and buried his face in the billowy cleavage, breathing in her scent.

“My nettle stings at the top need a bit more attention,” Janey said, with a gasp of laughter, so he slid his hand underneath her pants, finding her clitoris, which was as hard as her nipples.

“Oh, please go on, please, please,” she moaned, then shuddered and gave a long contented sigh, and he felt her throbbing to stillness.

“Come inside me, I want you,” she said a moment later.

“Not yet.” His experience of outdoor screwing was that one always got worried about keepers crashing through the bracken and came too quickly. But she wouldn’t listen to him, sitting up with her breasts tumbling, undoing his belt with practiced skill. Jeans were really hell to get out of, he thought, like getting a woman out of a roll-on, and his cock stuck out through the hole in his pants, so he had difficulty getting them off too.

After all her London lovers, Janey suddenly realized what a marvelous body Billy had, with the broad shoulders, flat stomach, and the incredibly muscular buttocks and thighs, from riding so much.

“God, you’re strong,” she said.

Billy laughed. “You should try Rupert. When he squeezes a horse with his legs you can hear it groan.”

“I’ll never last a second,” he warned, as he was sucked into the warm spongy whirlpool, feeling her vaginal muscles gripping him, feeling her hands caressing his buttocks, moving with him.

“I’m sorry. I can’t help it. I’ve got to come.”

For a few seconds he lay on top of her, feeling the delicious warmth. Then he rolled off, pulling up a handful of grass to wipe her dry.

Janey grinned. “I hope there aren’t any nettles in it.”

“Are they still murder?”

“Much better. I’m beginning to understand about the pleasure-pain principle. Maybe de Sade had a point.”

He brushed a green beetle out of her hair. “Sorry I came so quickly.”

“I should have been offended if you hadn’t. Wouldn’t have said much for my sex appeal. Anyway, I’d already come once when you were stroking me, so I could afford to be generous.”

Billy looked down at his flaccid cock. “A bad workman blames his tool,” he said.

He lit them both cigarettes to keep off the midges. Janey lay on her elbow, looking up at him through half-closed eyes.

“How come you sell yourself so short when you’re such a megastar?”

Billy shrugged: “I’ve always hunted in pairs with Rupe.”

“So?”

“No one’s likely to look at me when he’s around, so he usually gets the girls.”

“That’s not what I heard.” Janey combed her hand through his black chest hair. “I think you’re stunning.”

“And I don’t meet many girls like you. I didn’t want to rush my fences.”

He put out a hand to bracket one of the brown breasts. “You’re so beautiful.” He felt his cock rearing up like a kite. “I think I might hit better form this time, or are the midges eating you?”

“I’d much rather something else ate me.”

Billy looked at her lascivious face, mascara-smudged under her eyes, crimson lipstick kissed away. Slowly she edged up the bank, until her bush was level with his face.

“Oh” she murmured, as he rolled over and got to work, “Oh, sweet, sweet William, this is definitely the lap of honor.”

Billy laughed and carried on.

By the time they set off back to the house a huge red setting sun was spiked on the poplar copse like a balloon about to pop. Pigeons flapped towards the wood.

“Helen and Rupert are back,” said Billy. “Come and say hello.”

Janey shook her head. “I must get home.”

“But you can’t,” he said, appalled. “You’ve only just come.”

Janey giggled. “You can say that again. I’m not up to meeting anyone at the moment. Anyway, they’re virtually in-laws.”

“You can’t just go.” Billy looked like a small boy left behind by his parents after the first day out from prep school. “I’m going to Lisbon tomorrow,” he went on. “We haven’t talked about anything. Why don’t you come with me?”

“I’ve got to work.”

“Will you write to me? I’ll be back for the Horse of the Year show on the first of October.”

“I’ll be back from America about the third or fourth. You can leave a number with the Features desk.”

“Please don’t go. I can’t bear it.”

“It’s been so perfect,” she said. “I don’t want to come in and make polite conversation, I must get back to London and write it all down before I forget it.”

“Not all of it.”

“No, the glade’s our secret. See you at Wembley.”

And with that he had to be content.

He couldn’t go straight into the house. He walked round in a daze, watching the sun set and the stars come out. He couldn’t believe it, just as when he was a small boy he couldn’t believe anyone as dazzling as Rupert could choose him as a friend.

He walked into the kitchen to find Helen rather ostentatiously clearing away the remains of lunch and heating a bottle for Marcus.

“I’m sorry, Helen, lunch was marvelous.”

“Badger didn’t think so. He’s just thrown up most of the chicken and potato salad on our bedroom carpet. You left the larder open and the fridge and the freezer, and the butter in the sun. Are you in love or something?”

The next day they set off for Portugal, Greece, then Germany, then back without a break for the Horse of the Year show at Wembley. It was the longest four weeks of Billy’s life. When he couldn’t get Janey on the telephone he nearly flew back. He discussed her endlessly with Rupert.

“You know I’m hopeless at playing the field. I want to marry her.”

Rupert looked thunderstruck. “You can’t marry her. You don’t even know her.”

“I’ve spent a whole day with her.”

“You haven’t even screwed her yet?”

“I have, too,” said Billy sulkily, “and it was marvelous.”

Rupert looked even more disapproving. “Then she’s just a whore, going to bed with you on the first date. It wasn’t even a date. She came to interview you, wormed it all out of you. You wait until her piece appears. ‘Billy Lloyd-Foxe is not only a silver medalist, he also gets the gold in the sack.’ ”

“Oh, fuck off,” said Billy furiously. “Why d’you reduce everything to your own disgusting level?”