Score!

17

At first Tab had tried so hard to make her marriage work, giving up booze and fags for the sake of the baby, keeping tidy the charming cottage Rannaldini had lent her, cooking — admittedly pretty disgusting — meals. But Isa was used to a clockwork mother and a clockwork mistress, Martie in Australia, who’d both provided uncritical admiration, clean shirts, tea on the table, and an impeccable answering service.

He was also as driven as Tristan, and didn’t want to be distracted by jealous tantrums or grumbles about burst pipes. He was away most days, race-riding or at his father’s yard, where it was made quite plain Jake didn’t want Tab anywhere near his horses.

So gradually she drifted into drinking. One Sunday, when Isa had gone over to see Jake, she had downed half a bottle of vodka before starting on the ironing. Trying to watch Champions on television at the same time, she singed the colours of a very important owner. Isa could curse in Romany for over five minutes and proceeded to do so.

On the way home, he’d stopped at the garage to buy Christmas cards for all his owners.

‘You can’t send those,’ said Tab, in horror. ‘They’re all spangly and it’s horrendously naff to say “Season’s Greetings”.’

‘Don’t be fucking stupid,’ snapped Isa, and handed her a fiver. ‘Here’s the stamp money. Make sure you post them tomorrow. What’s for supper?’

‘Hell, I forgot. I’ll ring for a pizza, or we could go to the Heavenly Host.’

‘We can’t afford it.’

And the row escalated. The following night Isa arrived home late to find Tab had gone out clubbing in Rutminster, and things went from bad to worse.

Isa was so cool, silent and withdrawn, Tab so up-front and tempestuous, she felt like a tidal wave hurling itself against the sea wall. Physical passion had drawn them together, but the doctor had insisted on no intercourse for the first three months.

‘It’s all right,’ bleated Tab, who was terrified Isa might find a replacement from all those groupies mobbing him on the racecourse, ‘I’ll go down on you.’

But when she tried, she retched all over him and the bedclothes. She was suffering from morning, noon and night sickness. Her hormones were all to pieces and she was paranoid about everything, snapping Isa’s head off one moment, in floods of tears the next.

Isa was sympathetic until he saw the overflowing ashtrays and plummeting vodka bottles.

‘Hasn’t the doctor told you to give up?’

‘He said cut down because it would cause me and Baby Rupert too much stress if I stopped completely.’

‘Don’t call it fucking Rupert.’

Tidy by nature, Isa was driven crackers by Tab pinching his jerseys, socks, razors, and CK One, his precious aftershave. As she drank more, she forgot more: to put out milk bottles and dustbins — but, worse still, for a jockey’s wife, she forgot telephone messages. Isa started putting all calls through his mobile and his bleeper, which made Tab even more paranoid about other women.

At Christmas everyone made an effort. As their daughter, Darklis, was in South Africa, Tory persuaded Jake to let her invite Isa and Tab to stay.

The Old Mill, which Tory had been given by her rich grandmother, was big, rambling and totally horse-orientated. The only paintings on the walls were of Jake or Isa’s horses, or of their various sporting achievements. There were scant carpets on the wooden floors, all the sofas and armchairs needed upholstering. Nor were the Lovells into central heating.

Outside were days of extraordinary beauty and bitter cold. The chill factor, because of the east wind from Siberia, was minus 16 and produced wonderful sunsets and sunrises, rose pink on the horizon above snowy fields.

Traditionally in racing yards, the grooms have Christmas Day off. It was a matter of pride for Jake to do the horses with Isa, just to show everyone that polio hadn’t got the better of him. Outside he noticed the wind had scattered ivy-mantled branches all over the fields, clearing out the dead wood. Like me, he thought, with a shiver.

The only way he could relieve his pain-racked leg and back was to soak in a boiling bath, but he returned home to find Tab had used all the hot water. He found her in the kitchen, hugging the Aga, clean, pale hair flopping over her ashen face, her long turquoise eyes angry and bloodshot. Exactly like her father, thought Jake savagely, and as capable of causing havoc.

Poor Tory, attempting to cook Christmas dinner for the family and the grooms, was also trying to get to know her daughter-in-law.

‘I have no idea how to change a nappy,’ Tab was saying disdainfully.

‘They use Velcro now. It’s as easy as putting a bandage on a horse,’ said Tory encouragingly.

Picking up Jake’s hatred, Tab escaped to pack her presents, stopping on the way upstairs to pinch Tory’s sellotape and a pile of newspapers because she’d forgotten to buy wrapping paper. The whole thing took ages because she kept stopping to read. There was a huge piece, in the Telegraph colour mag, about eventing stars destined for the next Olympics. Tab was not even mentioned, which made her feel more of a failure than ever.

Turning to the Sunday Times she found a lovely picture of Rupert and a piece saying how well he was doing. Tearing it out, she fought back the tears. The blue sky outside reminded her not of Mary’s robes, but of Rupert’s eyes. The bells pealed far more sweetly at Penscombe.

Remembering the mountains of presents, the banks of holly, the huge fires, Taggie’s goose, her parsnip purée, and the brandy round the Christmas pudding, which flamed longer than the Great Fire of London, Tab forgot the earth-shattering rows with which she and Rupert had disrupted the entire household. The last one had been because Rupert had only bought her a Golf GTi convertible for Christmas, instead of paying forty thousand for The Engineer, for which Rannaldini had forked out later in the year when he’d married her mother. God, she had taken her wonderful family for granted.

‘Can’t you ever forget about being a bloody Campbell-Black?’

Isa had walked in and caught sight of the piece in her hand. Sharon, stretched out on the bed, scattered receipts as she waved her tail.

‘Have you been ransacking my mother’s tights drawer?’

‘Hardly be tight on me,’ snapped Tab. She’d got so thin she could jump through the hoop of the sellotape hanging from the bedside table.

‘I was looking for a thick jersey,’ she went on, ‘which one certainly needs in this house. The only thing I could find was Pond’s Vanishing Cream. Your mother could start by using it on her hips.’

She thought Isa was going to hit her.

‘You been drinking?’

‘Of course not. I promised.’

Isa wasn’t sure. Like most drinkers, Tab went through three stages: clinging and filled with anxiety when she woke up, incredibly cheery after the first few slugs, then punchy and belligerent when she was coming down. It looked as though she’d reached the third stage. But he didn’t want to upset his mother, so he asked if Tab would come downstairs to open the presents.

‘The gritters are out,’ he added, gazing at the lights flashing along the horizon. ‘We’re in for a hard night.’

‘People use them on their teeth round here.’

The Lovells were frugal, short of money and had allotted one present to each person. Tory had gone to a lot of trouble to track down an early history of eventing in a second-hand-book shop for Tab. Isa had rather pointedly given Tab some scent called Quercus, so she wouldn’t nick his CK One any more, and a rather ugly gold locket.

‘I’m going to put your picture in one side,’ said Tab, hugging him, ‘and Sharon and The Engineer in the other.’

Used to Penscombe prodigality, where everyone received presents from every dog, horse and human, and in anticipation of a fat Christmas cheque from Rannaldini, Tab had rolled up with a crate of champagne and a side of smoked salmon for the Lovells. Her individual presents were less successful and all wrongly labelled. Tory opened a red fishnet stocking of dog treats, destined for Sharon, then some boxer shorts.

‘Sorry, they’re meant for Isa, although I suppose Sharon could wear them if she was a boxer not a Labrador.’

Isa, thinking of their bank account, grew increasingly tight-lipped as he opened a silver-topped whip, two beautiful dark blue cashmere jerseys, ‘because I’m always nicking yours’, and a camera, when he’d already got four.

Tab herself was desperately disappointed to have nothing from Rupert and, even more worryingly, no fat cheque from Rannaldini. Instead, he and Helen had given her a royal blue vase edged with gold and decorated with a pastoral scene.

‘Very pretty,’ said Tory.

‘Except Bussage picked it up at a car old-boot sale,’ said Tab furiously.

She was most excited about the present she’d got for Jake and Tory. She had taken a photograph of their ancient lurcher, Beetle, from Isa’s photograph album, and commissioned Daisy France-Lynch, a friend of Rupert’s, to paint from it an exquisite miniature. To her horror, Jake merely grunted and put it face down on the table.

‘Why are your parents so ungrateful?’ sobbed Tab as she watched Isa changing for dinner, thinking how ravishingly a dark suit became his wild black hair and pale gypsy face.

‘Why d’you do things without asking me?’ hissed Isa. ‘Beetle was the puppy my father bought for my mother, as a peace-offering because he loathed living with your mother, and he wanted to come back to Mum and he’d heard her dog had been run over. He found Mum in hospital, dying of a massive overdose because she couldn’t live without him either. They believe Beetle was the talisman that saved Mum and their marriage, and you have to go and give them a flaming painting of her.’

‘I didn’t know, I never thought,’ sobbed Tab.

‘You never do,’ snarled Isa, reaching for his aftershave.

She must have been drinking to have wrongly wrapped up all those presents. Then he twigged, as he realized he was slapping not CK One on his face but neat vodka.

Dinner was bearable because there was plenty of wine, Tory had cooked a delicious turkey, and as Isa and Tab were sitting at opposite ends of the table divided by the grooms no-one realized they were not speaking to one another.

The telephone had rung constantly: owners, jockeys, friends, Tory’s sister Fenella from America, Darklis from South Africa, all called to wish the Lovells happy Christmas. No-one rang Tab.

Tory found the silver bachelor’s button in her Christmas pudding, which caused lots of laughter. From silver charms in puddings, the conversation moved on to superstitions.

‘One mustn’t get married after sunset,’ said a pretty redhead, making eyes at Isa.

‘And never eat your own wedding cake,’ said her plump friend.

‘Why not?’ asked Tab quickly.

‘Anyone want any more Christmas pudding?’ cried Tory desperately. ‘Jake, do shove round the white.’

‘Why not?’ insisted Tab.

Even more of a chill than there was already fell over the room.

‘A marriage is supposed to be doomed if you marry after sunset,’ said the pretty redhead with a shrug, ‘and the gypsies say if you taste your own wedding cake your child will die.’

‘But I did both those things,’ Tab clutched her tummy in horror.

‘It’s only a silly old gypsy’s tale,’ said Tory, in distress. ‘Think of the times you see a single magpie and nothing awful happens.’

A ringing telephone made everyone jump.

‘It’s your father, Tabitha,’ said the head lad returning from answering the call.

Tab streaked out of the room. ‘Daddy, oh, Daddy!’

‘My darling leetle girl,’ said Rannaldini, ‘your mother sends love. I just wanted to know how you are getting on.’

As Tab returned to the dining room, hollow with desolation, Jake was making some dismissive crack about Penscombe Pride not winning the George VI tomorrow.

‘My father’s a far better horseman than either you or Isa ever were,’ screamed Tab, and fled upstairs where, mistaking Jake and Tory’s room for the loo, she regurgitated turkey and vodka all over their bed and passed out.

The next day, Isa and Jake went off to Kempton, and Tab, who had no intention of getting to know her mother-in-law better, made the excuse that she couldn’t leave The Engineer any longer and drove back to Paradise.

It was lovely to come home to such a pretty place. Magpie Cottage, which was faded russet, rather than black and white, lay just across the valley from Rannaldini’s watch-tower, with a beech copse behind and a stream running down one side. On the lawns, back and front, it was hard to tell where snow ended and snowdrops began.

Tab loved Magpie Cottage but she grew nervous on her own; Sharon picked up the vibes and kept barking at the wind or imagined bangs, which made Tab more scared than ever. Taking a slug from the bottle of vodka she’d bought in a pub on the way home she started brooding on the superstitions they’d discussed last night and then about one magpie for sorrow.

Finding a paintbrush and some black paint in a kitchen cupboard, she went out into the fading afternoon. The sky was a pale, silvery grey, dotted with darker grey clouds and patches of gold on the horizon. The snow was too powdery to make snowballs, but had drifted beautifully, sharp as a shark’s fin against the garden wall. Sharon charged round the lawn raising spray like a skier, as Tab added an S to the board outside. Now it was Magpies Cottage — two for joy.

‘I’m going to make my marriage work,’ she told Sharon, ‘and you can show everyone how good Labradors are with babies.’