Riders

51

The winter seemed to go on and on, but at last the snow melted; aconites and snowdrops appeared and Helen watched Rupert’s dogs trampling over her crocuses, snapping off their fragile heads, and found she minded less than on other years.

As she went for long solitary walks in the woods, her thoughts strayed far too often to Jake Lovell. Over and over again she got out the road atlas and realized how far he’d driven through the snow to give Marcus the circus. She remembered how unembarrassed he’d been by her tears and how cold he’d got sitting in the car, just patting her shoulder.

As she watched the spring emerge with aching slowness she wondered how she could thank him for lunch and for the circus. She didn’t want to write in case some secretary opened the letter. He might have told Tory about lunch, but if he hadn’t, it might make things awkward. Personal letters were so obvious when they arrived at a private house. She remembered so many arriving for Rupert over the years, usually in gaudily colored envelopes, sometimes with SWAK on the back, and how she’d longed to steam them open. Janey, she knew, would have had no such scruples.

Chatting to Janey in the kitchen one day, and leafing through the latest issue of Horse and Hound, with a shock of recognition she came across a picture of Jake. The caption underneath said he would be making his comeback at the Crittleden Easter meeting, and how glad readers would be to see this brilliant but very private rider back on the circuit. He had evidently recovered from one of the worst accidents in show-jumping history and had learned to walk by sheer guts and determination. The story went on to praise his staunch, close-knit family and to explain that Jake had not achieved the international fame of other British riders because, before the World Championship, he preferred to jump in this country and get home to his family in the evening. Malise Gordon was quoted as being absolutely delighted. If all went as planned, he hoped Jake would be offering himself for selection for Los Angeles.

“Good that Jake Lovell’s back, isn’t it?” she said to Janey.

“I shouldn’t imagine Rupert thinks so.” Janey took the magazine from Helen. “I’ve always thought he was very attractive. All that Heathcliff gypsy passion kept under such perfect control. He’s much more self-confident too. I saw him interviewed on the box last night about his comeback and he actually managed to string a sentence together. And, instead of looking sulky and defensive, he was rather cool and detached.”

Helen found her voice thickening, as it did when she asked if she could cash a check at the village shop. “Have you ever heard any gossip about other women?”

“No, he’s squeaky-clean reputation-wise. You only have to look at Tory to see he hasn’t got very high standards.”

“I guess he’s only interested in getting to the top,” said Helen.

“Perhaps,” said Janey thoughtfully, “but there’s something irresistible about men who are impossibly hard to get, which is not something one can say about your dear husband.”

It was strange, reflected Helen, that, after that unspeakably dreadful last night in Kenya, she and Janey could still be friends. Janey had an amazing ability to swan in, not attempting to justify or apologize for appalling behavior, which made it possible. Rupert, however, she could not forgive. They both moved around the house not communicating, like goldfish in a bowl.

The week before Easter brought the first sunshine for days. Helen went around the house turning off lights that weren’t on, because the rooms were suddenly so unexpectedly bright. Out in the fields she noticed little red buds on the wild roses and larks singing in the hazy drained blue sky, thrashing their bodies like moths against nonexistent windows. Perhaps I could escape, thought Helen, listening to the larks’ strange whistle; perhaps I too am thrashing against a window that isn’t really there.

Next day the vicar came to tea, to talk about raising money for the church spire. Afterwards Rupert walked in from the stables, to find Helen and he praying together in the drawing room.

“Christ,” he said in horror, and walked out again.

The vicar, who had a white beard and stank like a polecat, scrambled creaking to his feet.

“I wish we could make some progress with your husband,” he said with a sigh. “I feel he is very troubled.”

“I don’t think he’d see it that way,” said Helen hastily, “but thank you very much.”

Carrying the tea things into the kitchen, she found Rupert and Tab eating an Easter egg and reading Dandy together.

“Flappy Oyster,” said Tab.

She shouldn’t be eating Easter eggs before Easter Sunday, thought Helen, appalled, but she didn’t say anything.

Rupert looked up. “Has your friend from Hollywood gone?”

Burying her face in the dishwasher, as she stacked the cups and saucers, Helen said, “I thought I might come to Crittleden on Saturday.”

“The anniversary of your first show,” said Rupert. “That’s rather touching.”

“I’m having lunch with the Godbolds,” said Helen, putting all the knives in the wrong way up, “so I can come on afterwards. I also thought I might fly out to Rome for a couple of days.”

Rupert looked slightly startled. “Whatever you like,” he said.

For the first time in years Helen felt excited and took ages planning what she was going to wear to Crittleden. Despite the lack of sun April had been very dry, so she wouldn’t have to wear gum boots. She settled for a pinstriped suit, a white silk shirt, and a charcoal gray tie and a gray trilby.

After a lightning lunch at the Godbolds, where she ate nothing, she arrived at Crittleden just as the riders were walking the course for the big class. There was Rupert fooling around with Wishbone and Billy, and there was Jake, still limping quite badly, walking beside Fen. He looked small and preoccupied and very pale. Neither of them were speaking. Fen was only an inch or two smaller than he was.

Jake felt nausea creeping through his stomach as he made his way towards the collecting ring. People nodded and waved and clapped him on the back, but he hardly noticed them. Why the hell hadn’t he chosen a smaller show to make his comeback?

A little girl rushed forward for his autograph. “Later,” he snapped.

Lack of sleep and food had made him dizzy. Everything seemed unreal. For the past week he’d hardly slept, dozing off, then waking up with the sensation of falling, then lying awake, jumping fences in his head, seeing them growing higher and impossibly higher, as the long hours crept towards dawn and cigarettes piled up in the ashtray.

The sky was getting grayer. He began to shake.

“Are you all right?” said Sarah. “Don’t worry. You’ve been jumping super at home. Mac’ll take care of you.”

Macaulay tried to knock Jake’s hat off to cheer him up and was sworn at for his pains. When Jake was mounted, Macaulay tried again, just a little buck that in the old days would have made Jake laugh — but which today nearly put him on the floor and produced another torrent of abuse. To further shatter Jake’s confidence, Rupert was crashing Rock Star over the practice fences, putting him wrong, so he hit his forelegs hard and would be certain to pick them up when he went into the ring. God, he was a beautiful horse in the flesh, thought Jake; a chestnut stallion showing all the compressed power of his American breeding, with curving muscles like coiled steel cables.

Jake jumped a couple of fences, then, having been nearly sent flying by Rupert, retreated to the outer field, desperately trying to get his nerves under control. Suddenly he passed Helen Campbell-Black, looking like a city gent, ludicrously out of place in a pinstriped suit.

“Hi,” she said, smiling and coming towards him.

Jake nodded curtly and, circling, rode back to the arena.

Fen was waiting for him: “You’re on,” she said. “Good luck.”

“Good luck,” called voices on all sides.

In the old days he had usually been all right once he got into the ring, the nervous tension a necessary preliminary to the class itself, heightening awareness, but that was when his body was fit and flexible, not frozen with fear. Now he was like a child at his first gymkhana. What if he really was jinxed? Sailor had died here. Last year he had smashed up his leg. These things went in threes. What had the fates in store for him today?

Macaulay, aware of his master’s terror, heard the bell and suddenly decided to take matters into his own big hoofs. Bucketing towards the first fence, he cleared it easily. Somehow, clinging onto his mane, Jake stayed in the saddle. It was a very hit and miss business. The crowd had their hearts in their mouths all the way round. No one cheered, for they didn’t want in any way to distract Macaulay, but as he cleared the last triple with a flourish they broke into a roar that seemed to part the gray clouds and bring out the sun, putting a sparkle on everything.

Fen found herself hugging Malise in the collecting ring. “He did it,” she gulped, “he really did it. It’s going to be all right.”

As Jake rode towards the exit, deadpan as ever, the cheers mounted and all the people in the boxes came out onto the balconies to bellow their approval. Helen joined in the applause politely. She felt absurdly deflated. Jake had hardly noticed her and then cut her dead.

“Great round,” said Malise.

Jake shook his head. “It was bloody terrible and you know it, but at least I, or rather Macaulay, got around.”

Everyone was congratulating him. It amazed him. They were so thrilled to see him back. But he couldn’t take the hero worship and the enthusiasm just yet. He wanted to be alone with Macaulay to thank him. Riding quietly out of the collecting ring he saw Helen Campbell-Black. Aware that he’d snubbed her earlier, he rode towards her.

“Hello.”

She looked up: “Oh, hi,” she said, ultracasually.

There was a long pause.

“He jumped well,” she stammered. “I’m so happy for you.”

“How’s Marcus?” said Jake to the top of her trilby.

“He’s real fine, so much better. Look, I’ve been meaning to thank you for ages for lunch and for Marcus’s circus. You were so kind driving all that way.” She was really gibbering now.

“That’s all right,” said Jake.

After another long pause she looked up and they gazed at each other.

“I’ve got your handkerchief, too,” she said, color mounting in her face, “and Marcus plays with his circus the whole time. He just adored you.”

Jake said nothing, but went on staring down at her.

As Macaulay sidled beneath him, Helen put up a trembling hand to stroke the horse’s black neck.

“Are you going to Rome?” she asked, desperate for something to say.

“No. Are you?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t go.”

“W-what?” She looked at him in amazement.

“I said, don’t go. Make some excuse. When’s Rupert leaving?”

“Lunchtime on Monday week. He’s flying out.”

“Right. You’ll be home in the afternoon?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll ring you there.” And he was gone.

Helen was thrown into complete panic. Had she dreamed it? Could Jake really have said that? From that Saturday at Crittleden to the Monday nine days later, when Rupert left for Rome, she went through every fluctuation of excitement, worry, terror, and disbelief.

She was completely inattentive at committee meetings and at parties. When the parties were boring she could think of nothing but Jake. Yet when Amanda Hamilton invited them to dinner on the Saturday and Helen, radiant in russet taffeta, was chatted up by two rather glamorous Tory MPs, she hardly missed him at all. Amanda had been particularly nice to her, soliciting her aid to persuade Rupert to go into politics.

Perhaps if he did, thought Helen, things would be different. He’d be in England most of the time and there wouldn’t be any of those punishing three-o’clock-in-the-morning departures, and by using his brain he might have less of a chip about her apparent intellectual superiority.

Rupert was highly relieved that Helen wasn’t coming to Rome. Amanda Hamilton was going to be out there for the Rome tennis tournament, staying with friends. He was making no progress with Amanda. Like a do-it-yourself cupboard, he told Billy, she was taking far longer to make than one would expect. Pathological about adverse press, she even refused to lunch with him. But she fascinated him more than any woman he’d met for ages, and he was determined to get her into bed before long.

When Rupert’s car refused to start on Monday, Helen drove him to the airport. As she drove slowly back to Penscombe, admiring the wild cherry blossom and the pale green spring leaves, she reflected that it was a good thing she’d be out when Jake rang, just to show she wasn’t that keen.

Walking into the house she buried her face in a huge bunch of white lilac which filled the entire hall with its scent. Marcus rushed out to meet her and show her the pictures of the fair he’d painted at play school.

“Any messages?” she called out casually to Charlene, who was in the kitchen.

“No. Oh, I tell a lie, Mrs. Bacon rang about jumble.”

“No one else? Are you sure you didn’t go out or into the garden?”

“I’ve been here all afternoon.”

Helen was totally thrown. She’d been so certain Jake was going to crowd her, that she had a tiger by the tail. Why the hell couldn’t Mrs. Bodkin throw away dead flowers, she thought, as she wandered restlessly round the drawing room, moving ornaments, even snapping at Marcus. She tried to read. Half an hour passed. Then Malise rang, hoping to catch Rupert before he left. Janey rang for a gossip and the headmistress of Marcus’s play group rang about their summer bring-and-buy. Helen was uncharacteristically terse with all of them. Then Charlene’s mother rang and gossiped to Charlene for twenty minutes. Helen couldn’t even accuse her of wasting money as it was an incoming call. Perhaps Jake was in a call box trying to get through; perhaps he’d lost the number. Oh, the nightmare of being ex-directory. Unsupervised by Charlene, the children swarmed into the drawing room. The next moment Tab had put jammy fingerprints all over the apricot silk curtains.

“Charlene,” screamed Helen, “for God’s sake, get off the telephone.”

Charlene flounced in, looking martyred. “It’s Gran. She’s got cancer of the bowel.”

“Oh, God,” said Helen, mortified. “I’m so sorry.”

The telephone rang. Helen sprang to it.

“Hello.”

“Helen?”

“Yes.”

“It’s Jake. Sorry I couldn’t ring before. The class went on and on.”

There was a pause. Mindlessly she watched Tab stumping towards the table with the long pale blue cloth, on which stood all Helen’s favorite ornaments.

“Look, I know it’s short notice, but I’m coming your way tomorrow. Can we lunch?”

“I don’t know. Tab, leave that tablecloth alone. Alone, I said.”

“Shall I pick you up?”

“No.” It was almost a scream. “Tab — I said, put it down!”

“You know the Red Elephant at Willacombe?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll see you there at one o’clock.”

“Okay — hey wait.”

But he had replaced the receiver.

Leaping forward, Helen retrieved a Rockingham dalmation from Tab’s predatory fingers.

“I said, ‘Don’t touch.’ ”

Picking up the child, she was suddenly overwhelmed with happiness, swinging her around and around, covering her with kisses until she screamed with delight.

“Weeties,” said Tabitha, sensing weakness.

“Oh, okay” said Helen, “if you really want all your teeth to fall out.”

Looking in the diary after a sleepless night, Helen saw to her horror that she was supposed to go to a fund-raising lunch for the NSPCC. As vice-president for the local area, she was expected to play a leading part and make a rousing put-your-hand-in-

your pocket speech after lunch.

The president was very put out when Helen rang and said she couldn’t make it. Charlene had to go to an unexpected funeral, she explained, so she had to stay home and look after Marcus and Tab.

“Surely one of the grooms can do that? I mean, we are expecting you. You’re on the poster and you’re such a draw. They’re all looking forward to meeting you.”

“I’m sorry, Davina, but I really can’t leave them.”

“What about Janey Lloyd-Foxe?”

“She’s away.” Horrifying how easy she found it to lie. “Honestly, I’d never forgive myself if Marcus had an asthma attack.”

The president was not so easily defeated. She rang back at half-past eleven, just as Helen was having a bath.

Charlene answered the telephone before Helen could reach it.

“Hello, Mrs. Paignton-Lacey, Mrs. C-B’s in the bath.”

“Give it to me.” Dripping, Helen snatched the telephone.

“D’you always have a bath in the middle of the morning? Who was that answering the telephone?”

“Charlene.”

“I’d thought she’d gone to a funeral.”

“She’s just leaving.”

“Hmm, well I’ve sorted out your problems. Angela Pitt’s nanny’s a state-registered nurse and she’s quite happy to bring Angela’s smalls over to you and look after your smalls.”

“That’s very kind,” said Helen, realizing the bedroom door was still open and Charlene was probably hovering, “but I’m afraid the answer’s no.” She kicked the door shut.

“But that’s absurd. Surely a state-registered nurse is better…”

“At looking after Marcus rather than his own mother?” snapped Helen. “Since we’re talking about cruelty to children, I figure my first duty is towards my own kids. I appreciate your help, Davina, but please don’t try and run my life,” and she hung up.

Looking at herself in the bedroom mirror, she was suddenly elated and amazed by her own defiance. Suddenly, however, panic assailed her. What if Davina rang again and got Charlene after she’d left, or if Marcus really had an asthma attack? Whimpering with terror, she rang the Red Elephant. Could she leave a message for Mr. Lovell? After a long pause, the manager said there was no one booked in the name of Lovell, although they had four Mr. Smiths and five Mr. Browns who’d booked tables for lunch. Helen rang off. Perhaps he wasn’t going to show up at all.

Mrs. Campbell-Black, reflected Charlene, as she listened to Helen singing ‘I’m in the Mood for Love’ in the bath, was behaving in a very odd way. Yesterday she’d unloaded all Badger’s tins of dog food from the supermarket into the dishwasher and put a packet of Tampax in the fridge. Even when she came out of the bath and found Tabitha trying on lipsticks and dropping one on the pale gold carpet, she didn’t fly off the handle as she normally would.

And now she was walking into the kitchen in a new silver flying suit and shiny black boots, with her hair trailing down her back in one long red plait.

“You look fantastic,” said Charlene, in genuine amazement. “Like an astronaut. You ought to go to the moon.” (She’s over it already, she thought to herself.)

“Do you really like it?” asked Helen, shyly, desperate for reassurance.

“Gorgeous. Makes you look so slim. You’ll be wasted on the NSPCC,” Charlene added slyly. And asphyxiate them too with all that expensive perfume, she reflected. Mrs. C-B must have bathed in it.

Marcus wandered in. “Mummy pretty. Going out?” His face fell.

“Only to a lunch to make money to help kids who aren’t as lucky as you. I must go. I won’t be late.”

God will smite me down for such terrible lies, she thought.

Terror increased on the drive to the restaurant as she passed two NSPCC stalwarts driving like mad in the other direction — late for their one glass of sherry. She glanced in the driving mirror, hoping she wasn’t getting too flushed. She was so nervous, she’d been rushing to the loo all morning. It would be terribly difficult to pee wearing this flying suit; she’d have to take the whole thing off. There was the Red Elephant. She couldn’t see Jake’s Land Rover anywhere.

He was waiting in the bar, three-quarters the way through his second whisky. For a minute she thought he was going to kiss her on the cheek, then he settled for shaking hands.

“D’you want a drink here, or shall we go straight in?”

All along the bar sat businessmen, gawping, finding her face vaguely familiar, trying to identify her.

“Let’s go straight in.”

Rupert could never enter a restaurant without turning the whole place upside down so Helen was amazed that Jake slid in so quietly. They reached their table in a corner without anyone recognizing him. There was a bunch of dark purple irises in a royal blue vase.

“It’s not considered good form, but would you rather sit with your back to the room?” Jake asked.

Helen nodded.

At her request for a glass of white wine, Jake ordered a bottle and another whisky for himself. Helen found herself quite unable to meet his eyes. It had been so easy to talk before because it had been just a monologue, with her pouring out all her woes. Now, sitting opposite, conversation was incredibly heavy going, like chopping up raw swede with a blunt knife.

Marcus was much better. Darklis and Isa were well. Both of them felt it bad form to mention Tory or Rupert. Helen was reluctant to ask Jake about his horses in case she betrayed her total ignorance. Jake felt the same about films, plays, and books. The weather had been perfect, so that lasted them only thirty seconds. A kindly waiter arrived with the menus. Helen randomly chose whitebait, which she hated, and grilled lamb cutlets with zucchini.

She hadn’t actually looked him in the face yet. White wine didn’t seem to jolly her up at all. Desperate for something to say, she boasted she’d met half the Tory shadow cabinet at dinner on Saturday. Then thought what a fatuous thing to have done. Jake was bound to be wildly left wing. Conversation didn’t improve with the arrival of food. There were long silences. Jake, unsmiling, said very little. Helen was beginning to rattle. Gloom swept over her; she had no charm; she was boring him as she bored Rupert and obviously Dino. She looked down at the silver bodies of the whitebait in their coats of batter and could see their glassy little eyes staring at her.

Suddenly Jake leaned across, took her knife and fork, and put them together and beckoned the waiter: “Could you take the plates away, and bring our next course; but there’s no hurry.”

“Anything wrong, sir?”

“Nothing. We just weren’t as hungry as we thought.”

Helen gazed down at her hands, which were frantically pleating the white tablecloth.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “What a dreadful waste.”

Jake stretched out his hand and very gently began to stroke her cheek. For a second she shied away, then gradually relaxed under his touch.

“There,” he said softly, “there. It’s all right, pet. I’m just as scared as you are.”

“Are you?” she glanced up, startled.

“More so, I should think. I was so terrified you’d say no. I couldn’t work up the courage to ring you until six o’clock. I hung round the phone box, steeling myself.”

“And I figured you weren’t going to call.”

“And I thought you’d probably cry off this morning, so I booked in under the name of Smith, and went out first thing, so you couldn’t reach me.”

“And when I got cold feet and rang up to cancel and found you hadn’t booked, I got in a blind panic because I thought you weren’t coming.”

They both found they were laughing. Then she told him about the hassle with Davina and the NSPCC.

“What was your excuse?”

“I said I was going to look at a horse. Tory looked at me as though I was barking. We haven’t got enough cash for a three-legged donkey at the moment.”

“And I left all that whitebait.”

“Doesn’t matter. Nice treat for the restaurant cats. D’you mind if I smoke?”

As the match flared, she noticed the beautiful, passionate mouth, with the full lower lip and for the first time realized his eyes were not black but a very dark sludge green matching his shirt.

“Have you really got gypsy blood?”

“Sure. My father was pure Romany. I ran away back to the gypsies when I was six. After my mother died, I tried to find him, and lived with the gypsies for three years before the social security people caught up with me and slapped me in the children’s home.”

“So you’ve really had no family life to speak of?”

“I’ve got one now, and when I see what Tory’s mother did to her, I reckon I was well off.”

“What was it like living with the gypsies?”

“Cold, sometimes, and always with the feeling of being moved on by the cops. But I enjoyed it, I learnt a lot. They taught me to recognize a good horse, and treat all nature as a medicine cupboard. Which reminds me.” He put his hand in his pocket and produced a bottle of gray-green liquid.

“For you. For neuralgia.”

Helen took it wonderingly. “You remembered. What is it?”

“Extract of henbane. Deadly poisonous, neat. Crippen used it to murder his wife.”

Helen looked slightly alarmed.

“But that’s very diluted. It’s a marvelous sedative and a painkiller. Try it, but keep it in a safe place.”

Helen was so moved and touched, she had to make a joke out of it.

“D’you eat hedgehogs as well?”

“No,” he said coldly, “nor do I tie them on top of poles, like your husband.”

Oh dear, thought Helen, I’ve upset him.

Then he said, “Did you know hedgehogs’ prickles go all soft when they’re with kind people?” and suddenly smiled.

God, he’s attractive, thought Helen. She felt as if she were on top of a snowy mountain, perched on a sled, with her hands and feet tied, hurtling into the unknown with no way of stopping or steering.

“Do you tell fortunes?”

He shrugged. “A little. It’s really a con trick. The hand betrays the calling: if it’s rough, or pampered, or the nails are bitten. You look more for the face behind the eyes, the droop of the mouth.”

Helen held out her hand. Her engagement ring, far too loose, had fallen underside down. For a second the huge sapphires and emeralds on her third finger caught the light, then fell back into place. Jake examined the palm for a second.

“It tells me a small, dark stranger has entered your life.”

“You think so.”

“I know.”

“Is he going to remain there?”

“That’s up to you.” He ran his finger lightly along the heart line. “Whatever you may think to the contrary, you’re extremely passionate.”

Neither of them made much headway with their second course, but finding so much to talk about now, they drank their way through a second bottle of wine.

“Were you really intending to ask me out at Crittleden?”

“No, I was far too preoccupied about riding again.”

“What changed your mind?”

“I suddenly wanted you like crazy.”

Helen blushed. “Ever since you bought me lunch at the pub, I’ve kept thinking about you. I thought it was gratitude, now I’m not sure.”

Jake undid one of the zips on her flying suit: “Pretty. Does this lead anywhere?”

“Only a pocket.”

“Nice. I’d like to live in your pocket.”

Looking down at his hand at her collarbone, involuntarily Helen bent her head and kissed it, then went crimson.

“I didn’t mean to do that,” she said, appalled.

“I know you didn’t. I willed you to.”

Still they lingered, oblivious of the yawning waiters looking at their watches, ostentatiously re-laying tables on either side of them. Seeing her slowly relax, and those huge eyes losing their sadness, Jake couldn’t tear himself away. He’d always thought her very overrated as a beauty. Now she seemed to blossom in front of him — lovelier every second.

In the loo, Helen was amazed to see her own face. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t turned into someone else. It took hours to get her flying suit half off and have a pee. She kept undoing the wrong zips. She realized she must be very tight. She was appalled, looking at her watch, to see it was a quarter to four.

She was glad that, in her flat boots, she was at least an inch shorter than Jake. As they walked to her car, he put a hand on the back of her bare neck under her hair, warm and reassuring. It was nice walking beside someone the same size. Rupert always dwarfed her.

“I must go back,” she said wistfully. “I’m dreadfully late.”

As he opened her door he said, “Drive a couple of miles down the road towards Penscombe. There’s a little wood on the left. Wait for me there.”

The wood was full of primroses and violets. For a dreadful moment she’d thought she’d found the wrong copse or that he wasn’t coming. Then at last he appeared over the hill, stuck behind a trundling farm tractor carrying bales of hay. Taking both hands off the wheel, he raised them in a gesture of despair.

He was out of the car in a second, leading her into the wood, beech husks crunching beneath their feet. Then, as Helen tripped over a bramble cable, Jake caught her, drawing her behind a huge beech tree, laying her against the trunk, taking her face between his hands, examining every freckle and eyelash and yellow fleck in her eyes.

“Even Helen of Troy couldn’t have been as beautiful as you,” he whispered, and kissed her very gently on the lips. Helen was very glad the beech tree was holding her up. No one had ever melted her in this way. She had no desire to fight him off, just a longing that he would go on holding her forever. But as they broke for breath, some death wish prompted her to ask, “It’s not because I’m Rupert’s wife?”

For a second his face was black with rage, just like the time he’d pulled a knife on Rupert.

“I don’t want anything of Rupert’s,” he said through gritted teeth, his hands biting into her arms until she winced. “Get this absolutely straight. Rupert poisons everything he touches. It’s a measure of what I feel for you, that I still want you despite the fact you’re his wife.”

This time he kissed her really hard and she kissed him back, half-longing that he’d push her down and take her on the beech husks. But he led her back to her car, his face shuttered.

“You’re not cross?” she stammered. “I’ve had such a good time today. Living with Rupert makes you skeptical, I guess, so you question everyone’s motives.”

“Well, don’t question mine. Where you’re concerned they’re quite straightforward. I just can’t stand that shit having anything to do with you.”

He opened the door and, as she got in, leaned over to slot in her safety belt, kissing her briefly on the forehead.

“You know this is only the beginning?”

“Is it?” Helen was overwhelmed by a great happiness.

He nodded. “But we can’t afford to rush things. I’ve got too much to lose.”

“You mean Tory and the children.”

“No,” he said slowly, “I mean you. I don’t want to panic you. Drive carefully. I’ll ring you tomorrow afternoon.”

It was a good thing there weren’t any traffic cops lurking as Helen floated home. She got lost twice and bought peace offerings of freesias for Charlene and sweets for the children. Really, she was going to the dogs in grand style. She came through the door singing with happiness at five past five.

“So sorry I’m late. Lunch went on and on and on. Everyone was rabbiting on about sponsored swims and bring-and-buys. What are you having for supper, darlings? Beefburgers and french fries. How yummy.”

Normally Helen would have freaked out at junk food, thought Charlene, putting the freesias in water, and she certainly didn’t get like that over a thimbleful of sherry and one glass of hock.

In the evening Charlene went to a wine bar with Dizzy, who this time hadn’t gone to Rome.

“Promise, promise, promise, you won’t tell anyone?”

“I promise.”

“Goodness,” said Dizzy in awe, a quarter of an hour later. “I wouldn’t have thought the old thing had it in her. Are you sure?”

“Well, she certainly wasn’t preventing cruelty to children. Mrs. Paignton-Lacey dropped off the minutes for the last meeting on the way home, two hours before Mrs. C-B got back.”

“Christ,” said Dizzy. “Well done, her. About time someone gave Super Bastard the run around. I wonder who he is.”

“Must be pretty special. She came back floating above ground like the hovercraft. She was never like that after lunching with Dino Ferranti.”