by Jilly Cooper
‘What are you doing here?’ asked an utterly delighted Alan.
‘I’m back in England for a good nine months,’ said Seth. ‘We’re doing a BBC film of The Seagull and after that Corinna is off to the States in a tour of Macbeth. And next year there’s talk of Antony and Cleopatra at Stratford.’ Then, breaking away from his well-wishers, Seth added, ‘And you must be Etta Bancroft. Alan told me how pretty you were and about the syndicate. I’m desperate to have a share in Mrs Wilkinson, such a sweet horse. I love her big white face, looks as though they ran out of grey paint.’
And Etta melted because he was absolutely gorgeous.
‘She must run a lot at Stratford so I can nip out of rehearsals and cheer her on,’ he added, taking Etta’s hands. ‘And lots of Sundays as that’s my day off.’
‘That’s one day the vicar can’t do,’ giggled Trixie.
Within five minutes, such was Seth’s exuberance and charm, they’d agreed to form a syndicate.
These are my friends, thought Etta joyfully. If they have shares in Mrs Wilkinson, nothing can go far wrong.
‘What a heavenly dog,’ she said, patting the black greyhound’s sleek body, which was even more toned and muscular than his master’s. The dog proceeded to look down his long nose at Araminta and Cadbury, rotate his tail and stand on his toes, before crossing the garden and leaping on to the bench seat with the most cushions.
‘What’s his name?’ she asked.
‘Priceless, in all senses of the word,’ said Seth. ‘This calls for another drink.’
‘Several drinks,’ said Alan. ‘We must decide on a trainer.’
‘Let’s go for Marius,’ suggested Seth. ‘He’s so near and Olivia’s so sweet. Harvey-Holden’s a no-go after that horrendous court case. Isa Lovell’s broken away from Rupert and only just started up on his own, and he’s a tricky bugger.’
‘We ought to ask Rupert,’ protested Etta. ‘He did lend me his lawyer for the court case.’
‘He’s too big and too opinionated,’ said Seth, who didn’t like competition. ‘Meanwhile Dermie O’Driscoll’s too far away. Robbie Crowborough’s bent. Corinna’s nephew paid thirty-five thousand for a horse that Robbie claimed had never been beaten. In fact it had never actually raced, just stayed in a field so it developed laminitis then broke down.’
‘We won’t go to Robbie,’ interrupted Alan, seeing alarm on people’s faces. ‘Let’s check out Marius.’
‘Who will approach him?’ asked Major Cunliffe, who’d had several up-and-downers with him over speeding racehorses.
‘I will if you like,’ said Alban, feeling a surge of authority. ‘Known him since he was a boy. Now what would everyone like to drink?’
‘This calls for champagne,’ said Seth.
‘I do hope Marius will allow us to see lots of Mrs Wilkinson,’ said a suddenly worried Etta.
‘You can always wave across the valley at her,’ suggested Woody.
How sweet he is, thought Niall, then out loud, ‘I’m afraid I can’t run to a share in Mrs Wilkinson – yes, I’d love a glass of fizz please, Seth – but I hope when she goes racing I can pray for her success and safe return.’
‘Bless this horse,’ grinned Seth.
He had such merry dark eyes and a wonderful laugh, decided Etta, which immediately made people feel better. She was horrified to find herself thinking what fun he’d be in bed.
‘Will Marius let us drop in?’ she asked.
‘Well, he is rather anti-visitor,’ admitted Alan, ‘but Olivia will be very accommodating, she’s so easy-going.’
‘Pity Wilkie can’t be a weekly boarder,’ said Trixie.
‘Cheer up, darling,’ whispered Alan. ‘You’ve just made twenty-seven thousand. Nine shares at three thousand pounds each in Mrs Wilkinson. Thirty thousand minus your three thousand share.’
Etta clapped her hands for quiet.
‘I can’t thank you all enough for helping me,’ her voice trembled, ‘but if Mrs Wilkinson retires from racing, would it be OK for me to try and buy her back?’
Later, Alban insisted very unsteadily on walking Etta home through the gloaming to her bungalow, commenting on the frightful mess Valent’s builders were making at Badger’s Court.
‘Can’t leave well alone.’
‘He’s been angelic to Mrs Wilkinson,’ protested Etta.
‘Surprised he didn’t slap scaffolding on her as well.’
Outside her bungalow, as Etta groped for her key, she had a feeling that if she asked Alban in for a drink he’d accept. Only because he wants another drink, she thought humbly. But as she turned to say good night, he suddenly blurted out:
‘Awfully glad you’ve come to live in Willowwood, Etta, think we’ll have a lot of fun with Mrs Wilkinson,’ and he planted a kiss only half a centimetre off her mouth, which was half open in surprise.
‘I’m pleased too,’ she stammered and scuttled into the house.
‘How can we possibly afford another horse,’ cried a despairing Mop Idol, when a drunk Joey finally got home, ‘with four children to feed and little Wayne’s christening to pay for? I can’t clean any more houses in Willowwood.’
Little Wayne’s christening took place the following Saturday afternoon at the parish church, with the ceremonious planting of a willow in the churchyard afterwards to mark the birth of a son. Lots of Ione’s compost was used to bed the tree in. Niall was thrilled for once to have a full church. Sir Francis Framlingham’s effigy in the church was garlanded with roses, a white ribbon was tied round the neck of the little whippet at his feet, and lilies and willow fronds placed on Beau Regard and Gwendolyn’s joint grave.
Tilda’s children, who had sung charmingly in church, now accompanied by their parents and other villagers, gathered round to watch the tree ceremony, performed by Ione Travis-Lock, before singing a final hymn and repairing for tea in the village hall.
Alas, Alban had had a hellish morning. In the post he had received a letter turning him down for yet another New Labour quango. He would therefore not be paid £250,000 a year to decide over the next two years whether a lack of playing fields leads to obesity in children.
As a result, he had been getting tanked up in the Fox, ending up putting a full glass to his cheek, so red wine spilled all over his check shirt. When he fell off the bar stool, comely Chrissie, in a miniskirt, low-cut T-shirt and pink boots, offered to help him back across the green, through the churchyard and in via the side door of Willowwood Hall. Unfortunately she had forgotten about the planting of the willow.
In the middle of ‘Gentle Jesus meek and mild,’ Alban tottered into view. ‘Q-U-N-G-O, Q-U-N-G-O, Q-U-N-G-O,’ he sang, ‘and his name was QUANGO, but it’s not quango for Alban,’ and he collapsed on top of Chrissie, rucking up her miniskirt to reveal a leopard-print thong between plump white buttocks. As they writhed around between the gravestones, grief and rage twisted Ione Travis-Lock’s face. She had seen this all before. Throwing down the spade, she hurdled over the gravestones, roaring, ‘Put my husband down,’ to Chrissie, and frogmarched Alban home.
Next day, he was shunted off to rehab and wouldn’t be joining any syndicate.
42
In late July, Etta and Alan – because he was a friend of Olivia’s – drove across the valley to meet Marius. It was a suffocatingly hot afternoon with fields yellowing and the ground cracking from lack of rain. Etta felt sick with apprehension. She was wearing a new off-white linen trouser suit, which Trixie had persuaded her to buy.
‘You’d better spend some of the money you’re going to get from Mrs Wilkinson, before Romy and Martin swipe the lot.’
As Alan drove past a sign saying ‘Horses’ and turned into Marius’s long drive, Etta hastily pulled down the mirror to check her face. ‘I don’t know how one should look as a prospective owner.’
‘Solvent and undemanding,’ replied Alan. ‘You look perfect.’
Since she’d met Seth, Etta had found herself taking more trouble with her appearance. She had
lost five pounds, and Trixie had persuaded her to have her hair highlighted again and cut so it fell in soft tendrils over her forehead.
Etta tried not to talk about Seth all the time, but now found herself saying, ‘Such fun Seth’s joined the syndicate, Corinna must be quite a bit older than him.’
‘Lots, Seth’s a bit of a gerontophile,’ then glancing slyly at Etta, ‘so there’s hope for you, darling.’
‘Don’t be silly.’ Etta went crimson and hastily changed the subject. ‘Oh, do look, there’s Willowwood from a completely different angle. There’s Badger’s Court and Wilkie and Chisolm under the trees, and Willowwood Hall, and the top of your barn. Thank goodness you can’t see Little Hollow for willows or Marius would reject us out of hand.’
Throstledown was a long, low eighteenth-century Cotswold house, tucked into the hillside with gallops soaring below it and fields, including an exercise ring, spreading over the valley down to the river. Looking across from Willowwood, you couldn’t see how run-down it was: tiles missing from the roof, drainpipes and gutters rusting, paint peeling on doors and window frames.
‘In need of modernization,’ observed Alan.
‘Rather like me,’ sighed Etta. ‘Wouldn’t Lester Bolton or Valent just love to gut it.’
The garden was also desperately neglected. Etta longed to pull up the weeds and water the wilting plants. No one answered the front-door bell, so they went round the back, past a huge horse chestnut, through an arch topped by a weathercock of a golden bird. Here loose boxes and a tack room and office formed three sides of a square joined up by the back of the house.
Etta wondered if they’d see Josh, the handsome red-headed stable lad who still kept up an on-off relationship with Trixie, encouraged by Alan because Josh had given him some excellent tips.
The place, however, was deserted, except for a few horses brought in to escape the flies, who were half asleep in their boxes. Only one horse, lurking at the back of its box, kept up a shrill, desperate whinnying.
Etta could smell burning and found the remnants of a bonfire beside the nearly dried-up fountain in the middle of the yard.
‘That’s odd,’ murmured Alan, extracting a sapphire and crimson fragment from the ashes and putting it in his pocket. ‘Someone’s been burning a flag which once was flown almost continually at Throstledown to indicate a winner.’ He looked at his watch. ‘The stable lads must be still on their break. Anyone around?’ he shouted.
Instantly a man appeared at an upstairs window of the house.
‘I don’t care what paper you come from,’ he yelled, ‘get the fuck out of here!’
Next moment a bullet whistled over their heads, through the arch, and lodged in the vast horse chestnut.
‘We’re not press,’ shouted back Alan, leaping behind Etta. ‘It’s Alan Macbeth, Marius. We’ve got an appointment with you, but not yet with the Grim Reaper. It’s about putting a horse in training.’
Marius stared down at them in bewilderment, then shook his head. ‘I’ll come down.’
He emerged not unlike the Grim Reaper, his eyes bloodshot, his face deathly white above the stubble, except for a faint tracery of crimson veins, caused by drink. His dark hair was tousled and drenched with sweat, yet despite the heat he wore a thick navy-blue Guernsey inside out. A belt on the last notch barely held up his jeans. Thin as a pencil, he could have ridden his horses himself. He reeked of whisky, yet such was his bone structure, he still looked beautiful.
A grey and black lurcher ran out expectantly, looked hopefully around, gave a whimper and slunk back into the house.
‘We wanted to talk to you about training our horse, Mrs Wilkinson,’ repeated Alan.
Marius led them back into the kitchen, where the lurcher shuddered in its basket. On the table was a pile of unopened post. The telephone was off the hook. At the Races was on the television with the sound turned down, a three-quarters empty bottle of whisky on the draining board. On the kitchen table, an untouched bowl of dog food was gathering flies, as was a tin of Butcher’s Tripe with a spoon in it.
Propped against a vase of wilting flowers, drawing the eye, was a cream envelope with ‘Marius’ scrawled on it and a letter sticking vertically out of it. Alan sidled over, dying to read it. Etta longed to fill up the vase and cuddle the trembling lurcher.
‘Is it a bad time?’ she stammered, as Marius glowered at them. ‘We made the appointment with Olivia earlier in the week.’
‘Didn’t put it in the diary,’ said Marius flatly. ‘Mind obviously on other things. Nor did she put in the diary that she was leaving me. She’s gone,’ he added, gritting a jaw already trembling worse than the lurcher.
‘I’m so sorry,’ whispered Etta.
‘She’s gone off with Shade Murchieson, taking my child and most of my dogs, and Shade’s taken his twenty horses away as well.’
‘Christ,’ said Alan, appalled. ‘Where’s he taken them?’
‘Not far.’ Marius gave a horrible, unamused laugh. ‘To Ralph Harvey-Holden. The press have got on to it already. Shade must have tipped them off, he gets off on publicity.’
Alan shook his head. ‘This is awful. When did she go?’
‘Friday afternoon. Shade moved his horses on the same day, while I was rather appropriately at Bangor, or bang-her.’
Marius reached for the whisky bottle, taking a swig. Then, catching sight of horses circling at the start, he turned up the sound. ‘One of my remaining horses is running in the four fifteen at Market Rasen.’ Going to the door, he bellowed, ‘Tommy! Can you show these people round what’s left of the yard?’
As Alan and Etta retreated outside, a hot breeze was nudging the golden weathercock. The shrill, desperate whinnying was continuous now. A stable lass, with fuzzy dark hair, very reddened eyes and a large bottom, emerged from the flat over the tack room, tugging on a rugger shirt and buckling up her jeans.
Introducing herself in a breathy voice as Tommy Ruddock, she said Collie, the head lad, was at Market Rasen, with the yard’s best horses, History Painting and Don’t Interrupt. She showed them Oh My Goodness, Wondrous Childhood, who was lazy at home but caught fire at the races, and Asbo Andy, who was very naughty and always running away on the gallops.
Etta noticed how pleased the horses were to see Tommy.
‘Asbo Andy sounds like darling Stop Preston. He’s naughty too, isn’t he?’ asked Etta, who was then horrified to see Tommy’s face collapse as she mumbled, ‘Preston’s gone to Harvey-Holden. I’ve looked after him since he was a yearling, it’s very hard when they go.’ She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her rugger shirt.
‘I’m so sorry, it must be dreadful.’
‘Horace was Preston’s friend,’ sniffed Tommy, leading them towards the next box, where the half-door hid a skewbald Shetland. ‘That’s why he’s yelling his head off. He and Preston have been together all that time too.’
‘Poor little thing,’ but as Etta stretched out her hand, Tommy pulled it back just in time to stop Horace biting her fingers off.
‘He’s not himself,’ apologized Tommy. ‘And this is Sir Cuthbert, the old man of the yard, who belongs to Lady Crowe.’
The dapple-grey horse was turned away from them, his body slumped, his head drooping in the corner.
‘He loved a sweet little mare called Gifted Child. They were turned out together this summer. He was Gifted’s sugar daddy, very protective, always pushing other horses away. Now she’s gone to Harvey-Holden he’s heartbroken, won’t eat and walks his box.’
‘Perhaps he could befriend our horse, Mrs Wilkinson, if she comes here,’ suggested Etta. ‘Perhaps you could too, she needs so much love.’ She noticed a bramble covered in green blackberries poking through the roof.
Moving on to the last box, they discovered a handsome but sulky-looking Pakistani brushing down a beautiful chestnut, which flattened his ears and darted his teeth at them.
‘That’s our newest horse, and that’s our newest lad,’ said Tommy brightly as the Pakis
tani merely grunted in acknowledgement of Etta’s ‘Hello’. ‘He’s called Furious.’
‘The horse or the lad?’ asked Alan.
‘Where did he come from?’ asked Etta.
Tommy waited until they were out of earshot, then said, ‘Larkminster Prison, both Rafiq and Furious. As therapy and to learn a trade while he was inside, Rafiq looked after Furious, one of the prison’s rescued racehorses. Furious has settled in but he doesn’t like other horses and he hated being turned out. But Marius has found him a sheep friend, and they’ve finally bonded. Furious stayed out all last night, and Rafiq and I crept out with a torch. Furious had wrapped Dilys, his sheep, round him like a duvet, it was so sweet. He’s aloof, Rafiq, but he’s a real softie round horses.’
‘Mrs Wilkinson has a goat friend called Chisolm,’ said Etta eagerly. ‘Do you think Marius might let her come here as well?’
‘Don’t see why not,’ said Tommy, ‘plenty of empty boxes.’
Tommy showed them the tack room, which smelt of hoof oil, saddle soap, liniment and leather. On the walls were framed photographs of past winners, flanked by overjoyed owners and by Marius and Olivia, radiant and separate in their glamour. Riding many of the horses was a laughing jockey. Etta suddenly realized this was the wild and wicked Rogue Rogers, who’d once lived in Willowwood.
‘You poor darling,’ said Etta, putting an arm through Tommy’s, ‘you must miss Olivia terribly.’
‘We all do, we just hope she’ll come back.’
Alan, looking at Olivia’s picture, was strangely uncommunicative.
Tommy then took them back to Marius’s office, where he could presumably distance himself from any goings-on in the house. Much tidier than the kitchen, it contained another television also tuned in to At the Races with the sound turned down, a laptop, a microwave and a fridge. On the shelves were directories called Horses in Training and Races and Racecourses, files entitled Blood Tests and Tracheal Washes and individual box files containing the progress and medical history of each horse. Those marked Bafford Playboy, Stop Preston, Ilkley Hall, Gifted Child, etc., had been hurled on the floor and were no doubt destined for the bonfire.