by Jilly Cooper
On their way to watch the race, Etta bumped into Amber Lloyd-Foxe, who was riding in a later ladies’ race and looked very upset.
‘I should be riding her,’ she pleaded to Etta, ‘please put in a good word.’
Up in the Owners and Trainers, aware that owners invariably hug each other if their horses win, Shagger placed himself next to Woody. Etta was shivering so uncontrollably, Alban put his greatcoat round her shoulders so it fell to her ankles, like Mrs Wilkinson’s rug. God, she’s sweet, he thought wistfully.
Everyone had their mobiles poised to report victory.
Back in Willowwood, the whole of Greycoats was now watching on the school television. Dora and Trixie were watching at Bagley Hall. Joey rushed downstairs to put on another hundred for himself and Woody. If she won at 5–1, that would pay the mortgage and the gas bill.
Through his binoculars, far down the course on the left, the Major could see the jockeys circling. For once the piss-taking Rogue was the butt of their humour, as they patted him on the head from the superior height of their horses.
‘Oh Daddy,’ said Debbie, taking the Major’s hands, ‘this is a dream come true.’
‘Good thing to have a grey,’ Alban told Etta, ‘always identify them.’
Through her shaking binoculars, Etta could see only that Mrs Wilkinson wasn’t happy, her coat white with lather as she gazed longingly in the direction of the stables and the lorry park.
‘I can’t look.’ Phoebe put her hands over her eyes. ‘Tell me what’s going on.’
‘Are you ready, jockeys?’ called the starter. ‘OK, then off you go,’ and encouraged by a steward cracking a whip behind them, off they went.
Except for Mrs Wilkinson. Feeling her hanging back, Rogue gave her a couple of hefty whacks. Next moment, she’d veered left, ducking under the rails, scraping him off as, with lightning reflexes, he kicked his feet out of his irons, and depositing him on the grass before scorching off to the lorry park.
‘Hurrah,’ yelled an overjoyed Harvey-Holden from behind the stunned syndicate, ‘that’s one less horse to beat.’
‘I can’t look,’ cried Phoebe. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Bugger all,’ said Chris as the rest of the runners thundered by on the first circuit.
Harry, the lorry park attendant, grabbed Mrs Wilkinson as she hurtled towards him. By the time Tommy caught up with her, the race had been won by Heroine and a gloating Harvey-Holden.
Collapse of stout syndicate.
Everyone was flattened with disappointment.
Etta was in tears. ‘I’m so dreadfully sorry.’ Alan and Miss Painswick gave her their handkerchiefs.
Alan tried to comfort her. ‘Lots of owners never get a winner.’
‘We should have brought Niall with us,’ said Woody. ‘He’d have prayed us into the frame.’
Everyone, to Etta’s white, horrified face, was very sympathetic.
‘I must go to her.’ She wiped her eyes. ‘Rogue shouldn’t have hit her. Why didn’t Marius tell him?’
‘Jockeys are paid to use their crops,’ spluttered the Major the moment Etta ran off down the steps. ‘Rogue’s had two wins already. Proof of the pudding. This has cost us three thousand plus a hundred and eighty-five pounds a month.’
‘I wasted a day’s holiday,’ pouted Phoebe.
‘We came back from Lanzarote,’ grumbled Debbie.
‘I’m sure she’ll win next time,’ protested Painswick. ‘I expect something frightened the poor little soul.’
‘All trainers go through lousy seasons,’ said Shagger contemptuously, ‘but Marius is having a lousy decade. We should have gone to Harvey-Holden,’ he added. Looking down, they watched a returning Heroine being clapped back to the winners enclosure.
At least I won’t have to fork out for the champagne and I’ll have lots of people to interview about depression, thought Alan.
‘What happened to Mrs Wilkinson?’ cried the children at Greycoats.
Major Cunliffe’s committee, who’d stopped proceedings to watch the race, had a good laugh to see ‘a most familiar face’ looking absolutely livid.
50
Rogue returned from the race with only his pride hurt. Temporarily denied his treble, he needed to collect his saddle and pull himself together for the big race on History Painting. On his way he bumped into a jubilant Amber.
‘Aren’t you going to debrief connections?’ she mocked. ‘I was taught to work out what happened in a race and why it happened, so you can talk positively to the owner and trainer.’
‘Fuck off,’ snarled Rogue, disappearing into the weighing room to change silks and receive more mobbing up.
Etta found Mrs Wilkinson in the stables, head down, trembling violently from head to foot, with Tommy hugging, stroking and desperately trying to comfort her.
‘Rogue said he’d watched the video.’
‘He says that to everyone.’
Etta’s mobile rang. It was a spitting Dora.
‘It was all Rogue’s fault for giving her those reminders.’
Back in the bar, a grey-faced Joey downed a treble whisky. Having already lost £500 on Mrs Wilkinson, he was just wondering whether to try to recoup his losses by backing History Painting in the next race when his mobile rang, and he went even greyer.
Valent had rolled up at Badger’s Court unexpectedly, just as the ceiling collapsed in the dining room taking all the £8,700-a-roll wallpaper with it. Joey would have to get a taxi straight back to Willowwood.
Joey had in fact met Collie for a drink in the Fox the previous night. Both men had children at Greycoats. Collie told Joey if he didn’t get any winners today, he was handing in his notice. Marius was drinking far too much. Trainers should either be charming to owners or get inside the heads of their horses. Marius, at the moment, was doing neither.
‘Where might you go?’ Joey had asked. ‘Christ,’ he said when Collie told him.
History Painting and Rogue fell three out in the next race, which was won by Harvey-Holden with Shade’s horse, Gifted Child.
‘Still waiting for Mrs Wilkinson to come in?’ he called out bitchily to Alan and Alban, as he loped off yet again to the winners enclosure.
Marius had an equally dreadful time at Rutminster, where Bertie and Ruby Barraclough felt even more humiliated than Major Cunliffe. Count Romeo had been absolutely useless, trotting up at the back of the field, fooling around, gazing at sea-gulls and sheep.
Since the court case, Valent Edwards had been sorting out businesses in India and China. Back in England he had been goaded by Bonny Richards, who, determined to have a minimalist house in London, had been pressurizing him to throw out Pauline’s stuff. Not realizing Mrs Wilkinson and Chisolm had gone to Marius, she’d also been nagging him to get them out of Badger’s Court or they’d soon be claiming squatters’ rights.
‘I’m not going to live in the house if they’re there.’
Valent had therefore returned unexpectedly to Willowwood to find Mrs Wilkinson’s stable being knocked down and rebuilt and his entire workforce, with no manager in sight, watching Mrs Wilkinson screw up on a portable television.
Legend has it that it was Valent’s ensuing roar of rage that brought down the ceiling of the dining room and all of the £8,700-a-roll wallpaper. This resulted in an extremely unpleasant hour for a returning Joey.
When Etta got back to Little Hollow, her telephone was ringing. It was Valent.
‘How dare you send Mrs Wilkinson to a two-bit yard and a crap trainer without telling me,’ he roared.
‘Marius was local,’ stammered Etta. ‘We wanted to be able to go on seeing her.’
‘I didn’t allow her to camp out in my study for nearly two years for that.’
‘I know. I’m so sorry.’
‘Or come back from China to win her back in the court case.’
‘I know, I know. You saved her from Harvey-Holden.’
‘She’d be better off with him. At least he gets winners.’
For once E
tta was glad the mature conifers were protecting her from Valent’s wrath.
‘Marius hasn’t had a winner for two hundred and twenty days. It’s absolutely goot-wrenching, he hasn’t even got anyone manning his phone. I’ve been trying to get through all day. Why didn’t you send her to Rupert Campbell-Black? He helped you enough giving you his lawyer.’
‘I know,’ sobbed Etta, ‘I’m so sorry, but Rupert’s too big, too impersonal. I was frightened he’d be tough on her, she’s so sensitive.’ God, she sounded like Phoebe.
‘Well, you picked the wrong trainer. Collie’s leaving.’
‘No,’ gasped Etta. ‘Collie’s wonderful.’
‘He can’t survive on the pittance Marius pays him, so he’s off. Who owns Mrs Wilkinson now?’
Etta quailed. ‘We all do, all the Willowwood syndicate.’
‘Joodge Wilkes gave her to you,’ snarled Valent.
I couldn’t afford to keep her, Etta wanted to plead. If she’d told Valent, he might have bought Wilkie for her. He’d done so much, she was terrified of imposing any more.
As if reading her thoughts, Valent shouted, ‘You might have given me first refusal.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘No good being bluddy sorry, it’s a bluddy disgrace. You’ve let me down and you’ve let Joodge Wilkes down.’
‘Where’s Collie gone?’ whispered Etta.
‘To Harvey-Holden,’ said Valent, and hung up.
Harvey-Holden had always relied on cheap foreign labour, Poles, Ukrainians, Czechs and Pakistanis, who tended to form little ghettoes and speak only in their own languages. He needed the emollient Collie to hire and fire, rebuild morale and then unite people.
Collie had been seduced by the wonderful yard being built and paid for by Jude the Obese, and the house with four bedrooms and a lovely garden that Harvey-Holden was prepared to give him. Olivia, whom he’d adored but never slept with because he loved his own wife, would be around acting as a buffer between him and Shade the impossible.
He longed to be part of a winning team again. Best of all, when he walked into the yard, was the rumble of joy from Playboy, Ilkley Hall, little Gifted Child, wayward Preston and all Shade’s other horses, which he’d loved and understood. Now they would be his again.
51
Marius was almost as devastated by Collie’s departure as by Olivia’s, but again he was too proud and too obstinate to beg him to come back. The story, leaked by Harvey-Holden, was soon all over the racing pages. This upset Marius as well as his owners.
Bertie Barraclough, for example, was very unhappy with Count Romeo. After the fiasco at Rutminster, Marius entered the horse in a maiden hurdle at Stratford. Giving the ride to Rogue, he told him to get his bat out. As a result, the handsome Count was up with the leaders. Then he suddenly caught sight of himself on the big screen, swerved right, cantered across the track to admire himself, to the hysterics of the crowd, and came in last.
‘Racing is all a question of whether,’ quipped Harvey-Holden, ‘whether Count Romeo is going to get off his fat black arse or not.’ This was quoted in the Racing Post and read by Bertie, who disapproved of bad language.
Rogue was so angry he shouted at Marius in the unsaddling enclosure, ‘Go back to school. I’m not riding for you any more until you learn to train horses.’
There was speculation in the yard as to who would take over Collie’s job. Josh, Tresa, Michelle and Tommy were all in the frame. But Marius was notoriously bad at decisions and appointed no one. Foul-tempered by day, by night he drowned his sorrows, staggering out with a torch long after evening stables to give his horses a last handful of feed and check their doors were shut. Invariably, next morning Tommy would find the wheelbarrow turned over, feed scattered all over the yard, and would hastily sweep up before the other lads appeared.
One particularly freezing morning, when Tommy was admiring the winter stars and breaking ice on the horses’ water bowls, a flash sports car drove up. Bulked out by two pairs of long johns, breeches, three polo necks, a body protector, a fleece under the jacket, a scarf, a bandanna under the hat, ear muffs and gloves, the figure jumping out was unrecognizable. All anyone could see was the eyes.
‘Like those burkas your women wear,’ said Tresa dismissively to Rafiq, who was shivering worse than Mrs Wilkinson because he couldn’t afford many clothes.
‘Who the hell is it?’ Josh asked Tommy, as Marius legged the stranger up on to a new horse who hadn’t been on the horse walker or done any road work. Now, wired to the moon, the horse put in a mighty buck, then galloped down the drive, raced towards the gate into the road and screamed to a halt without unseating her.
‘She can certainly ride,’ said Tommy.
During two more lots, the stranger had both her horses flying like angels. Later, when everyone was having breakfast, she took off her hat and bandanna.
‘God, one gets sweaty under these things.’
It was Amber Lloyd-Foxe.
Michelle, who never bothered to ride out when she had a period, was furious when she found out.
‘What’s she doing here? I hope Marius isn’t considering her for head lad. That class always stick together. She probably went to school with Marius’s sister.’
‘Bollocks, she’s only nineteen,’ said Josh. ‘She just wants to ride races.’
Amber, hearing Collie had gone and Marius was short-staffed, had not only offered to ride for nothing, merely to get experience, but also to help out in the yard, even to drive the lorry.
Reluctantly, Marius agreed and, also reluctantly, noticed how beautifully Mrs Wilkinson went for her over both fences and hurdles.
‘You ride very well for a girl,’ Rafiq told her.
‘I ride very well full stop,’ snapped Amber.
Rafiq, Tommy, Angel, even Josh and Tresa were delighted to have her around, because it bugged the hell out of Michelle that Amber wasn’t remotely afraid of her.
It was also noticed that Rogue had made it up with Marius and was coming down more often to school horses. To begin with he indulged in horseplay on the gallops, pulling the bridle over Mrs Wilkinson’s head, goosing Amber, leaving a welt on her bottom when he whacked her with his whip, but after she slashed him across the face with her own whip he backed off.
52
As Mrs Wilkinson had hardly exerted herself at Worcester, Marius shortly afterwards entered her for another maiden hurdle at Newbury, where a different mix of the syndicate turned up to cheer her on. Shagger, utterly sceptical of the mare’s ability, persuaded Toby to stay in London for some City lunch. Ione and Debbie were too busy battling over next Sunday’s church flowers. They were united, however, in their displeasure that Niall the vicar had been persuaded he needed a day off and gone to the races. Why couldn’t he bless Mrs Wilkinson before she left Willowwood?
Nor was Ione pleased that Alban had been hijacked again to drive the Ford Transit, which Chris the landlord had finally collected. Handsomely resprayed in emerald green and decorated on both sides with pale green willows and the words ‘Willowwood Syndicate’, it was now being revved up outside the Fox.
‘Isn’t it lovely,’ cried Etta. Weighed down by carrier bags, she came running up the high street. ‘Oh, thank you, Chris.’
‘Mrs Wilkinson better win today so we can pay for it,’ said Chris, winking at everyone as he loaded a groaning picnic hamper and a large box of drink.
He was staying behind to man the Fox as it was the turn of pretty, wistful Chrissie, who still hadn’t managed to get pregnant, to go to the races. Scuttling past driver Alban, who she’d last seen when they grappled on the churchyard grass during little Wayne East’s christening, she found a seat at the back.
‘Now you be’ave yourselves,’ teased Chris, further winking to mitigate the cheekiness, or Mrs T-L will have something to say when you get ‘ome, Alban.’ He banged on the bus roof as it set off to Newbury.
‘You could always hang Chris out of the window and use him as an indicator,’ observe
d Alan.
The instant they rounded the bend, Joey put back the gold pen he’d taken out of his woolly hat to mark the Racing Post and, announcing he was going to snog in the back, moved seats to join Chrissie and pour her a large brandy and ginger.
The bus was impeded by a huge lorry delivering an indoor swimming pool to Primrose Mansions, whereupon Alan leapt out and redirected it to Harvey-Holden’s yard.
‘Jude the Obese can use it as a bidet,’ he told the giggling passengers. ‘Poor Alban – must be hell driving a lot of piss artists,’ he muttered, filling his glass with Pouilly Fumé and handing the bottle on to Seth.
‘Hell,’ agreed Seth. He’d just finished filming in several episodes of Holby City, and was feeling exhausted but exuberantly end-of-termish. ‘But I wish he’d get his finger out or we’ll miss the last race.’
Alban was indeed sad. To save water, at his wife’s insistence he was wearing a wool check shirt for a third day. He was chilled to the marrow because Ione believed in extra jerseys rather than central heating. Finally, he’d heard that a £200,000 job to chair an independent review of an independent economic review accused of government bias had fallen through because he was considered too right wing.
If only he could have poured his heart out to Etta. How pathetic to be jealous of Pocock, who’d taken the seat beside her.
Major Cunliffe would also have liked to sit next to Etta. Freed of his wife’s beady chaperonage, he was feeling flirtatious and was delighted, as inky clouds massed on the horizon, that his grim forecast looked correct. Up the front, he was again acting as Alban’s satnav, which didn’t speed up the proceedings particularly as Alban kept slowing down to identify the inhabitants of the great houses along the route.
‘That’s Robinsgrove, Ricky France-Lynch’s place. His wife Daisy did a lovely oil of Araminta.
‘That’s Valhalla,’ he announced ten minutes later, ‘where the late Roberto Rannaldini lived. Absolute shit but brilliant musician.’
As he turned up the wireless to drown the Major’s directions, the bus was flooded with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.