by Jilly Cooper
‘The flip side is that the press will be out in force to see if Rogue gets his ton, and Corinna will think they’re all for her.’ Dora giggled. ‘I’ve just rung Painswick, neighing down the phone pretending to be Mrs Wilkinson and asking her to take poor deserted Chisolm a piece of carrot cake for her tea.
‘And Etta, if you get a moment, you won’t forget to show Corinna those pictures of Paris. There’s a fantastic part for him in Phèdre if they bring the production to England.’
60
The sun kept making brief appearances in a sky dominated by inky-blue clouds, either tasselled by falling rain or with rainbows leaping up into them like chasers. Gradually, as the road twisted and turned, stone walls gave way to neat fences, sheep-coloured fields scattered with sheep, blue mountains topped with fir trees and square Georgian houses in white or faded red.
Once again Alban kept slowing down to discuss who lived in the larger ones.
‘They put Phoebe and me in separate rooms, last time we stayed there,’ brayed Toby, ‘so I got into Phoebe’s bed. Next moment our host marched in and jumped on us. Bit put out to find me there, then tried to join in.’
‘Look, there’s a signpost to Much Wenlock,’ said Seth. ‘“On Wenlock Edge the wood’s in trouble.”’
‘So will we be if we don’t get a move on, Alban,’ called out Alan.
‘Housman was born on the borders of Shropshire and Worcester actually,’ said the Major, determined to keep his literary end up.
‘Housman was a very difficult, introverted man, rather like Marius,’ mused Seth.
‘Housman was gay,’ protested Alan.
‘Marius isn’t exactly jolly,’ grinned Seth.
‘I guess it’s worth putting money on Rogue and Bafford Playboy,’ said Chris.
Corinna, on her third half-pint of champagne, was pretending to learn Phèdre. Etta sat down beside her.
‘I hope you don’t mind, darling Dora Belvedon’s boyfriend Paris is determined to be an actor. Just wondered if you knew of anything for him? He’s awfully good-looking, they’re still talking about his Romeo at Bagley.’
‘No, no, no, no!’ exploded Corinna, so everyone in the bus stopped talking. ‘Every day the post is a Niagara of demands, every telephone call, every email wants something, a favourite recipe, a doodle, a tile painted, a thirty-minute trip to a studio to talk up some lousy dead actress, a fête to open, a request for a piece of jewellery, a signed T-shirt. Me,’ raged Corinna, ‘in a T-shirt, free seats for a play, a sponsored walk. Even worse are the endless execrable scripts that thunder through the letter box, the letters from parents demanding help for their children. Find me a director, a producer, most of all an agent. Watch this DVD of my play about recycled gerbils, watch this video of me in Hamlet, give me a part in your next play.’
Her rage was terrifyingly eruptive, the spit flying from her lips, mad eyes glittering, emotions going to work on her face like a jockey on the run-in, all the time brandishing Phèdre as though she was going to bash Etta on the head.
‘I’m so sorry,’ whispered Etta. ‘It was tactless of me, when you must be so tired.’
‘I have no time for myself. I am an artist, but my public devours me,’ stormed Corinna. ‘I am sucked dry like a lemon.’
Debbie smirked at Phoebe. Serve Etta right for sucking up.
Gazing down at her trembling hands, Etta suddenly saw the photographs she was clutching being taken from her and replaced by a large glass of champagne.
‘Shut up, Corinna, just shut up,’ ordered Seth. ‘You’re not Phèdre now, just look at these pix.’
‘Take them away,’ screeched Corinna, the back of her hand pressed to her forehead.
‘Bloody look,’ hissed Seth.
There was a long pause.
‘Christ, he is beautiful,’ admitted Corinna. ‘Heart-stopping.’ She examined the pictures more closely. ‘How old is he?’
‘Eighteen,’ stammered Etta, ‘he’s just gone up to Cambridge.’
Corinna glanced up at Seth.
‘Hippolyte?’ she said. ‘If we do an English run.’
‘Or Konstantin,’ said Seth.
‘Tell him to ring me up,’ said Corinna. Then, bursting into deep, rather too consciously infectious laughter, she patted Etta’s cheek: ‘I’m sorry, you were quite right.’
As the bus rumbled into Ludlow racecourse, Etta couldn’t stop shaking. Seth helped her down.
‘Darling Etta, you’re a saint. Corinna’s rehearsing the bit of Phèdre when Hippolyte rejects her. I’m so sorry. You’re the best thing about this syndicate. Thank you so much.’ He kissed her cheek and the grey day was flooded with light.
Alan shook his head and thought of Housman again:
His folly has not fellow
Beneath the blue of day
That gives to man or woman
His heart and soul away.
Like Yelena and Serebryakov in Uncle Vanya, he reflected, Seth and Corinna descended on the country and affected everyone with their selfishness, passing fancies and disregard for other people’s lives.
Despite a dank, wet, cold Monday afternoon, a very creditable crowd had turned out to watch Rogue. Mist drifted round the bare trees like an anxious hostess. The lovely flat course was ringed with small mountains.
‘Those must be Housman’s blue remembered hills,’ said Seth. ‘I wonder if he liked horses.’
‘He wrote a good poem about carthorses,’ said Alan.
‘Is my team ploughing,
That I was used to drive
And hear the harness jingle
When I was man alive?
‘Then he died and his ghost didn’t like someone else driving his horses.’
‘ ’Spect those poor jockeys that Rogue’s ousted feel the same,’ said Chris disapprovingly. ‘That’s probably Rogue in that ’elicopter.’
‘That’ll be a bookie,’ said Alan.
‘Everyone got their badges?’ said the Major bossily.
‘Seth doesn’t need a badge,’ cooed Phoebe, ‘everyone knows him.’
Corinna, giving Phoebe a filthy look, grew increasingly disagreeable.
‘Christ, it’s arctic, no wonder bloody Valent backed out. I’m getting a taxi home.’
Happily, at that moment, a pack of press and photographers, gathered in anticipation of Rogue’s ninety-ninth and hundredth, turned their attentions to Corinna, who became all smiles and waves.
‘Darlings, isn’t it thrilling? Yes, it’s my first time jump racing,’ she was soon telling Richard Pitman. ‘I’ve come to cheer on my horse, Mrs Williams.’
‘My horse?’ Debbie and Phoebe exchanged expressions of outrage.
‘Leave her,’ muttered Seth. ‘Anything’s better than her stupid tanties.’
‘I don’t know how you put up with her, Seth,’ said Phoebe.
Awesome Wells was livid. He’d been riding Oh My Goodness, which had been favourite in the first race, a mares only, and been so certain of victory he’d asked little Angel from Throstledown out to dinner.
Then Rogue had rolled up and taken Dare Catswood’s ride on Gifted Child off him. The commentary had the crowd in stitches.
‘Rogue Rogers and Gifted Child are taking them along, and Oh My Goodness in the dark blue and purple colours is moving up. And, Oh My Goodness …’
Alas, poor Awesome kicked too early. When she hit the front, Oh My Goodness, not liking being on her own, started looking around for friends. She allowed Rogue to hurtle past on Gifted and take the race, his ninety-eighth, to ecstatic cheers.
‘Can I borrow fifty quid off you, Tommy?’ asked Awesome.
Only two races to go. Rogue won his ninety-ninth and rode grinning into the winners enclosure to cheers and the thud of gloved hands clapping.
‘I’d like him for supper,’ said Corinna, now thoroughly over-excited by the strange cries of the bookies and the horses clopping clockwise round the parade ring.
Seth was delighted to be even more mobbed than Corinna
.
‘When’s the next Holby City?’ asked eager ladies.
‘Perhaps Corinna should do a stint in Corrie to raise her profile,’ sniffed Debbie.
Down in the parade ring, Bafford Playboy was flexing his muscles, excited as a dog about to go for a walk. Mrs Wilkinson by contrast was cold and edgy, with no Sir Cuthbert, no Chisolm, no Count Romeo to comfort her. Only Bafford Playboy, a bully who she remembered bashing into her at the point-to-point.
As Corinna reached the parade ring, two women, wearing fur hats like Saturn’s rings which showed off their exquisite cheek-bones, suddenly noticed her and squealed in excitement. ‘How fritefly exciting to see you, such fans, what brings you to Ludlow?’
‘My horse, Mrs Wilson, is in this race … Which one is she?’ she hissed to Etta.
‘Number ten, over there.’
‘But she’s tiny, no bigger than a donkey,’ exploded Corinna.
‘Nice horse, very well related,’ said a proud hovering Alban, raising his hat to the Saturn ring ladies. ‘Her sire was Rupert Campbell-Black’s Peppy Koala.’
61
Marius was raw with nerves. He refused to admit how fond he’d become of Mrs Wilkinson. Was he crazy forcing her on to a right-handed track, was the trip too short, would she ever get her little feet out of the mud? There wasn’t a blade of grass left in the winners enclosure. Now his wife, who he hadn’t seen since she left him, had turned up with Shade and he’d forgotten how beautiful she was, particularly smothered in Shade’s furs, which she’d been so violently opposed to wearing in the old days. Collie and Harvey-Holden were with them. Marius looked straight through the lot.
Etta was distressed. Having put a tenner she could ill afford on Mrs Wilkinson, she had mislaid her betting slip. Searching frantically, not wanting to bother anyone, she didn’t notice Shagger surreptitiously picking it up and putting it in his notecase.
One more race needed. The crowd cheered, the press gathered, as Rogue, always last to leave the weighing room because he liked to make an entrance, sauntered out in Shade’s orange and magenta colours, smiling round, whacking his boots, kissing Olivia on both cheeks and shaking the hands of Shade and Harvey-Holden.
Mrs Wilkinson had beaten Playboy once, so Harvey-Holden instructed both Rogue and Dare Catswood, who was riding Stop Preston, to block Wilkie’s good eye and hem her in.
‘Amber Lloyd-Foxe will panic and lose it.’
Rogue raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
Amber was already in a state of shock, having barged into the weighing room and discovered Rogue naked on the scales and flashing the biggest tackle therein.
‘Don’t win by too much,’ Marius warned her.
Mrs Wilkinson was allowed three races over hurdles as a novice before she was allotted a handicap, which Marius wanted as low as possible because it meant less weight to carry.
The twelve riders were down at the start, surrounded by even more photographers. Nervous as a cat, poised for his hundredth, Rogue on a vast Bafford Playboy was eight inches taller than Amber, and winding her up.
‘Winning isn’t everything,’ he said reassuringly, and then after a pause, ‘it’s the only thing.’
He’s much less beautiful in a gum shield, thought Amber. Wish he’d keep it in all the time.
‘Make sure you’re in the frame, darling,’ he added as they rode their horses up to look at the first fence, ‘then you’ll get into the winners and be able to cash in on all my publicity.’
As she glared up at him, he ostentatiously checked his reflection in her goggles.
Mrs Wilkinson was trembling violently, psyching herself up.
‘Who’s going to make it?’ asked the starter.
‘I am,’ said Dare Catswood.
‘I’m keeping mine handy,’ said Awesome.
‘I’m going to win,’ said Rogue.
They were out, bumping and jostling for position on a course which curled off towards the trees round to the right.
The flag fell, the tape flew, they were off. Dare Catswood set a furious pace on Preston to exhaust Mrs Wilkinson, who hated not leading the pack.
Rogue and Amber rowed all the way round.
‘Don’t crowd me,’ she screamed as he sat on her tail.
‘You know I’m only looking at your arse.’
Amber was having a nightmare ride. The pace was faster than anything she’d ever imagined as they took off and landed on ground slipperier than turkey fat.
With no right eye, Mrs Wilkinson couldn’t see the rail. Frantic to find something on which to focus, she kept hanging left.
‘Get off my line, you stupid cunt,’ yelled the jockeys as she drifted across them. The track had been ripped to pieces by earlier races. As horses overtook a faltering Mrs Wilkinson, they kicked clods of earth in her good eye.
At the next flight she slipped again, jumped wildly left and would have unshipped Amber, if Rogue hadn’t grabbed her silks and tugged her back into place.
‘Use your fucking stick down the left side to correct her,’ he yelled. ‘You’re not with the Pony Club now.’
‘It’ll bloody freak her out,’ yelled back Amber.
‘Well, yank her back to the right, then.’
Watching the television by the tote, Marius was in agony. How could he have put Wilkie through it? Etta was in double agony, with Corinna driving her nuts. Too vain to wear her spectacles, she bombarded Etta with questions.
‘What’s that funeral cortège following the riders?’
‘Oh, ambulance, doctors, vets and things.’
‘Who’s in the lead?’
‘Dare Catswood and Awesome Wells.’
‘Which one’s Mrs Willoughby?’
‘Wilkinson. She’s the grey and Amber’s wearing emerald green colours … Lying fifth, no, sixth now.’
Etta was terrified seeing Mrs Wilkinson lurch ever wider as they swung into the home straight.
‘Taking the scenic route,’ yelled Rogue as he and the other jockeys got to work, somehow staying put as their frantically thrusting bodies kicked and pushed and, like weavers with their looms, switched whip and reins to different hands as they thrashed their horses on.
‘Which one is Amber?’
‘The one in emerald green.’
‘Why isn’t she whipping Mrs Willoughby like the others? She seems to be going backwards. Where’s that good-looking Rogue Rogers?’
‘In the lead in magenta and orange.’
‘Why can’t he ride Mrs Willoughby?’
‘Please, Corinna,’ cried Etta, ‘watch the big screen.’
Mrs Wilkinson had steadied. Ahead galloped Preston and Awesome Wells’s chestnut mare Katya Katkin, and ahead of them Rogue and Playboy. But Rogue was having to use a lot of whip, Playboy was not jumping fluently, wearily dragging his feet out of the mud. Harvey-Holden, registered Amber, even with Collie’s added expertise, has not got that horse fit enough.
Already the crowd were roaring him home.
‘Come on, Rogue!’
‘Kick on, son.’
‘Come on, Playboy!’
Two out Dare Catswood and Preston fell, horse and jockey lying in a crumpled heap. Very carefully, Mrs Wilkinson landed to the left and jumped over them, allowing Rogue to surge even further ahead.
‘He’s going to piss all over it,’ said Chris in disgust.
‘She’ll be third. Come on, Wilkie!’ cried Etta.
Deafened by the increasing roar of the crowd on the run-in, Rogue glanced back through his legs, realizing he was safely in front, then up at the big screen. Yippee, a hundred up.
Playboy, a young horse, however, decided, rather than run the gauntlet of those cheering, shouting punters and the flashing photographers, to swing right through the gap in the rails on to the steeplechasing course. Before Rogue could yank him back left on to the run-in, he had cleared the next fence.
Like a wireless switched off, the cheers stopped.
Stupid prat’s taken the wrong course, thought A
mber in ecstasy.
‘Now’s our chance, Wilkie,’ she cried, as Mrs Wilkinson, eye-balling Katya Katkin and grinding her teeth, trundled past the aghast, astounded faces. She was in front by a mud-splattered nose, and despite being briefly headed by Katya, fought back with tremendous courage and stayed ahead all the way to the line.
As Amber pulled up, still shaking, burying her face in Mrs Wilkinson’s muddy shoulder, she heard a stream of expletives coming from a returning Rogue and ostentatiously clapped her hands over her ears.
‘Dear, dear, why didn’t you use your whip to stop him hanging right?’
‘We won, we won,’ screamed Etta. ‘Oh Corinna.’
But Corinna had gone. Having lavishly reapplied blood-red lipstick, she had hurtled down the steps, across the grass, ducking under the rails and running down the course with her arms out.
‘With any luck she’ll be trampled to death like a suffragette,’ said Seth.
Tommy came panting up, hugging Mrs Wilkinson, pulling her ears and crying as she clipped on the lead rope.
‘Well done, you took out Rogue.’
‘Hubris took him out,’ said Amber.
‘Hugh who?’ said Awesome, cantering up and putting an arm round Amber’s shoulders. ‘Well done, you took out that fucker.’
Next minute Corinna pounded up, arms out, then, deciding Mrs Wilkinson’s face was too muddy to be kissed, snatched the lead rope from Tommy and the microphone from Richard Pitman, so he could interview her rather than Amber.
‘We don’t need two of us to lead her,’ Corinna then said dismissively to Tommy, and strode off to the winners enclosure. The photographers went crazy.
Amber’s deadpan face was as mud-speckled as a thrush’s egg, but as she rode into the winners enclosure she touched her green hat, punched the air and grinned in ecstasy, and the crowd roared their applause. Rogue would get his hundredth later on, this was the young conditional’s moment.
As she dismounted, Marius was beside her, ex-wife, Shade and Harvey-Holden forgotten.
‘That was brilliant. Must have been really hairy. I’m sorry, the trip was wrong, the going was wrong, she’s never running right-handed again, but she still won. God, she’s got guts.’