by Jilly Cooper
‘Everyone pronounces things differently,’ said Etta. ‘Alban says “orf” and “corsts”.’
She was about to tell him Corinna was trying to ape his and Ione’s accent for Lady Bracknell, then decided it was a bit close to Bonny being too common to play Corinna’s daughter.
‘You’ve chosen all my favourites,’ she cried instead, spooning up lentils.
Valent then said he’d enjoyed the extract from The Canterbury Tales so much he’d bought the book, and wasn’t Alban exactly like Chaucer’s perfect gentle knight, even to his wearing understated camouflage clothes.
‘What other poems do you like?’ asked Etta.
‘“I struck the board, and cried, No more,”’ said Valent, and he told her about Goldstein Phillipson and how guilty he felt abandoning middle management and the younger staff.
‘Was that the crisis you had to sort out when you couldn’t make the party after Antony and Cleopatra?’ asked Etta. ‘We all missed you so much, particularly Trixie.’
Not meeting Etta’s eyes, or admitting he couldn’t bear everyone drooling over Seth, who was so good-looking and so much younger, Valent lied that it had been about the new lighter-but-tougher football boots. Then, his tongue loosened by wine, he told her how he longed to work with Ryan again.
‘I luv him, Etta, and I used to talk to him every day when Pauline was alive. I miss him, but he doesn’t approve of me and Bonny.’
He was about to say how lucky she was having children living nearby, but having earlier seen Martin bossily pounding the streets with Jude the Obese in the twilight, he decided she wasn’t and moved on to the possibility of buying Searston Rovers.
‘They have a wonderful player called Feral Jackson.’
‘How do you know that?’ asked Valent, impressed.
‘He’s a friend of Dora’s. Wish she’d come back, she’s so sweet.’ Etta got the chocolate tart out of the fridge and cut a large slice for him and, ‘bugger Bonny’, tipped cream all over it.
‘Do you miss football?’ she asked. ‘You were brilliant at it.’
‘Playing in goal taught me to watch and concentrate,’ explained Valent. ‘It’s dangerous, you get kicked in the face, and in the hands when you fling yourself at people’s feet, everywhere really. And it’s not spectacular. Everyone remembers the fortyyard goal or the score backwards over the head, but not the great saves.’
‘Unless you’re Gordon Banks,’ said Etta, who’d been shown the photographs in the office by Joey. ‘And that amazing Colombian scorpion save. You’re a hero too. That save against Holland …’
Valent was impressed and smiled: sunlight on the Yorkshire crags again.
‘I wish Bonny thought so.’
‘How is she?’ Etta decided to take the bully by the horns.
‘I’ve been away. She’s rehearsing, which she luvs.’ Then he confided that Bonny always made him conscious of his age. ‘I know I’m too old for her.’
‘You’re not, you look really gorgeous and you’re really young at heart. Look how Trixie and Rafiq and Dora and Tommy adore you.’
‘Bonny’s Ryan’s age.’ Valent looked down at his uneaten chocolate tart. ‘God, what a waste. I was a war baby.’
‘The badgers will adore it.’ Etta removed his plate. ‘Shall we open that second bottle?’ she asked hopefully. It was so nice having him sitting on the sofa, idly stroking a supine Priceless.
Valent picked the bottle up, then found it had a screw top which his big hands couldn’t shift.
‘Fucking arthritis. That comes from being in goal.’
‘Give it to me,’ Etta shoved the top between the front-door hinges, letting in a blast of cold air. They could hear a gaggle of Mrs Malmesbury’s geese going to bed. After a couple of turns, the bottle opened.
‘Thank goodness Sampson isn’t alive, he would have been furious with me for spoiling the paintwork.’ Etta filled up their glasses.
Curious, but suspecting she didn’t like talking about Sampson, Valent asked if she had any other gossip.
‘Mrs Malmesbury’s having a problem with her geese.’ Etta removed the plates and the chocolate tart, popping another bit in her mouth. ‘God, I’m a pig. Now here is a point.’ Etta paused, waggling a finger at Valent. ‘Mrs Malmesbury’s youngest goose, Spotty, was shared by two young ganders, but when the older goose, who was the girlfriend of the much older gander, Honky, got eaten by a fox, Spotty the young goose promptly flew over the fence, abandoning her two young gander lovers, and moved in with Honky the old gander, who was desolate without his mate.’ Etta absent-mindedly broke off and ate another corner of chocolate tart. ‘So you see, like Bonny and loads of other women, she found an older mate much more attractive.’
‘Yeah, yeah.’ Valent smiled, thinking how he liked watching Etta’s face as she talked.
‘Anyway, the two young ganders were so furious, they got poor old Honky down, pulled out his feathers and pecked out one eye, like poor Wilkie, but it made no difference to young Spotty. She still adores her old Honky even with one eye, and leads him around everywhere.’
‘So you think I ought to wear an eyepatch?’ said Valent dryly. ‘And talking about eyepatches, how’s Mrs Wilkinson?’
When Etta had finished telling him, he promised to ring Marius first thing and say Rafiq must ride her.
‘Oh, would you?’ said Etta in delight. ‘That’s so kind. If he doesn’t make it as a jockey Rafiq ought to become a pop star, he’s got such a beautiful voice. Wilkie really loves him singing to her and waggles her ears in time.’
Valent suppressed a yawn. ‘I must go.’
Gwenny thought better and jumped on to his lap, her tail fluffed up like a Christmas tree. Hearing a fox barking outside, Priceless leapt down and rushed sniffing and snorting to the door.
‘Has Seth given him up completely?’ said Valent in disapproval.
‘Well, he can’t take him on tour.’
‘He must eat you out of house and home. And Gwenny?’
‘Pocock’s sort of given her to me. I think,’ she added, seeing Valent look even more disapproving, ‘he rather fancies Joyce Painswick. He keeps nagging her to let him take the ivy off her cottage, says it’s pulling out her brickwork.’
‘Bonny’s pulling out my brickwork.’ Valent realized he’d spoken aloud. Christ, he must be pissed. Then, reluctantly, ‘I must go. Everything all right up at the yard?’
‘OK. Marius needs more winners. He’s still eaten up missing Olivia.’
‘Geese mate for life,’ said Valent. As he opened the door Priceless shot off into the night.
The rain had stopped, the mature conifers were wearing stars as tiaras, narcissi scented the air.
‘Good night, Etta.’ Valent took hold of both her arms. There was a bit of a mish-mash as he kissed her on the forehead and she tried to offer him both cheeks, so they laughed.
‘Chinking cheeks is a bit luvvie for me, I like tooching flesh.’ Valent put his lips to her fringe.
‘Thank you so much,’ said Etta. ‘It was really lovely.’
‘Could we do this again,’ asked Valent, ‘and have a home fixture next time?’
‘Yes please, and you will put in a good word for Rafiq, won’t you?’
100
Amber was overwhelmed with jealousy when she learnt Rafiq was going to ride Mrs Wilkinson on Friday at Rutminster. She bombarded him with advice, until he was both confused and panic-stricken.
He had also learnt from stable gossip that Harvey-Holden had regrouped his army. Bullydozer was in the same race and Harvey-Holden and Vakil had taken the poor horse into the indoor school, subjecting him to their private and particularly brutal form of schooling, and deprived him of water to make him more biddable. Killer, his jockey, having been beaten for a second time by Mrs Wilkinson, was in even less of a mood to take prisoners.
Seeing Bullydozer in his box before the race, Tommy had peered over the half-door and was horrified to see the cuts on his legs inflicted by Vakil’s pitchfork
. Seeing Tommy, he ran trembling to the back of the box.
‘Poor old boy.’ When she surreptitiously offered him a Polo, he nearly took her hand off. He trusted no one.
As Rafiq walked apprehensively into the parade ring, his olive skin looked the muddy green of a real olive. He was so desperate not to let the yard and Tommy down. Since he’d been given the ride he had prayed so incessantly to win, he hoped Allah wouldn’t punish him for neglecting other things. He also felt guilty being blessed before the race by a ‘Christian infidel’, but ‘“My father’s house has many mansions,” ‘ Niall had reassured him.
The crowd, swollen by numerous fans of Mrs Wilkinson, had read of Amber’s broken wrist and were fascinated to see how this handsome Pakistani would fare in her place. Rafiq had competition. Feline little Johnnie Brutus was riding Shade’s Last Quango and Killer was on Bullydozer. Bullydozer, however, who’d wasted precious energy walking his box and sweating up going down to post, had run his race before it started.
Goggles once more hid Killer’s cruel, slanting, wolf-pale eyes, but the same evil smile flickered round his thin lips. Soon he was up to his old tricks. A discreet elbow in Rafiq’s ribs as they jumped the first ditch nearly unseated him. At the end of the first circuit, he crept up the inner, pretending to be whacking a wilting Bullydozer, but instead the whip in his grey-gloved hand kept striking Mrs Wilkinson in her good eye, which totally disorientated her. And so it went on.
Hidden by the vast Bullydozer, Mrs Wilkinson was so small, even the television cameras couldn’t pick up what was going on. But as Killer cut across them for the third time, Rafiq lost it.
‘Fuck off, you bloody Paddy,’ he screamed.
‘Fuck off, you bloody Paki,’ screamed back Killer.
As he dropped back to rest Bullydozer, Johnnie Brutus came upsides on Wilkie’s left, blocking her view of the rails, bumping her, but Rafiq held her steady and still she battled on, hearing the crowd yelling, ‘Wilkie, Wilkie, Wilkie.’
Even when a sixth sense told her Killer was creeping up again, she found more and more, scrabbling at the boggy turf with her little feet, beating Last Quango by a length. Bullydozer, who’d fallen away, wasn’t even placed.
The syndicate went crazy. Even more so did Rafiq. ‘It’s a dream, it’s massive,’ he told Alice Plunkett as he gave Mrs Wilkinson equally massive pats, ‘no money in the world can make up for it,’ massive pat, ‘she’s tiny, but she’s so tough,’ massive pat, ‘she’s a credit to her connections. I thank them for their faith in me,’ massive pat. ‘Marius is great trainer, and Tommy Ruddock keeps her so well,’ massive pat, ‘she has one eye only but biggest heart in the world. This is best day of my life,’ three massive pats, ‘I am speechless.’
‘Oh Rafiq, oh Wilkie.’ Tommy and Chisolm hurtled up, sobbing and bleating. ‘You rode her brilliant, she was so brave. That Killer ought to be shot. Both he and Johnnie were interfering with her, but she held on and you kept her straight.’
But Rafiq had been distracted by Killer riding back.
‘What do you do that for?’ he howled, all jockey hierarchy forgotten.
‘You needed a lesson, new boy,’ hissed Killer. ‘Don’t mess with me again, you little shit, or it’ll really hurt. Fucking suicide bomber.’
Rafiq raised his fist.
‘Don’t hit him,’ cried Tommy. ‘Marius will sort it.’
This wasn’t good enough for Mrs Wilkinson, who, swinging her head round, took a chunk out of Bullydozer. The much bigger horse shrank away, utterly exhausted, terrified of the beatings to come.
‘Listen how they love Rafiq,’ said Phoebe in delight as he and Wilkie were cheered back to the winners enclosure. ‘It isn’t just Amber who pulls in the crowds.’
Valent, who’d interrupted a board meeting in New York to watch the race, immediately rang Etta.
‘Bluddy marvellous, Rafiq was awesome, he kept his cool and her on her feet. She looked bewildered. Well done for suggesting him, Etta.’
Marius stalked off to complain. Trilbies crowded the hat stand of that home of the establishment, the stewards’ room. Gone were the days of a whisky between races. Now only coffee cups and papers littered the long, polished table.
‘That was dangerous both for Rafiq and Mrs Wilkinson,’ shouted Marius at the men sitting round it. ‘Killer cut across her, bumped her again and again and slashed at her good eye with his whip. Then Johnnie Brutus took over. Killer should be suspended for the rest of the season and Johnnie too. Bloody hooligans.’
Alas, the Stipendiary Steward, who was a friend of Harvey-Holden, wouldn’t shift. Nor was there any way he was going to suspend Killer just before the Cheltenham Festival.
‘We’ve made our decision. Mrs Wilkinson was given the race. Nothing Killer did altered the placings. Your jockey’s the green one, Mrs Wilkinson was hanging left into Killer’s whip. Look at the video.’
Then came the unkindest cut of all.
‘Wait till you’re back with the big boys, Marius, before you start throwing your weight about.’
Back at Ravenscroft, Harvey-Holden, shivering and spitting with fury that Mrs Wilkinson had won yet again, went into Bullydozer’s box with a whip and a mad, set face.
Next moment, Bullydozer had him against the feed box. Just in time, Vakil dragged his boss to safety.
‘That horse is going to the sales next week,’ screeched Harvey-Holden.
‘Bullet through the head if you ask me,’ said Vakil.
*
Valent, who was delighted by Rafiq’s victory, sent him £500, which he sent straight to his family in Pakistan. Valent also sent £300 to Tommy, who wrote to thank him and suggested he bought Bullydozer.
‘Jessie, who does him, says Harvey-Holden’s got it in for him. Vakil hit him with a shovel yesterday and he’s done a leg, but he’s a good horse …’
Under an assumed name, Valent bought Bullydozer very cheaply at the sales. Arriving at Throstledown, the huge horse gave a sigh of relief, ate and ate, put on eight kilos in two days and stopped biting people. By contrast Jude the Obese, as WOO’s guinea pig, had lost eight kilos as she and Martin pounded the Willowwood lanes.
Realizing Marius had been on the brink of sacking him before his win, Rafiq tried to be more amiable and co-operative in the yard. But it was not easy.
He was constantly aware of the government continuing to bomb and destroy the social fabric of two Muslim countries. He had recently, on the internet, watched a film of American triumphalism – joyous Tarzan howls accompanying direct hits on, among other things, an old farmer and his donkey. Another friend had just been killed by US bombs on the Afghan–Pakistan border.
Rafiq was frightened of pouring his heart out to Tommy, knowing her father was a policeman. Worst of all, Amber, whom he loved so much, was being poisonous.
When she came out of hospital, she refused to stay with her parents because she’d had a blazing row with her mother over the interview with Rogue – so Tommy and Rafiq had found room for her in their flat over the tack room, which meant Rafiq sleeping on the sofa.
Amber was obsessed with getting her career back on track. When she wasn’t going to the gym or on power walks she would monopolize the only television, watching endless videos of races even when EastEnders was on.
Putting aside his jealousy of both Shade and Marius, Rafiq had tried with extreme gentleness to make love to her, but she had shrieked at him to go away and not touch her, only later sobbing for him to come back.
She also made constant demands on Tommy, to pull on her socks, do up her bra, unscrew bottles, wash her hair, even soap her lovely naked body in the shower.
‘Do you think Tommy’s a bit of a dyke?’ Rafiq overheard Tresa saying to Josh.
Storming upstairs to the flat in his break, Rafiq found Amber in floods. Having chucked the Racing Post with a picture of Rogue on the cover into the bin, she was now, with her left hand, trying to pull it out covered in baked beans and tomato ketchup. A blazing row followed over the way
Amber was treating Tommy.
A fortnight later, Tommy, who’d nipped into Larkminster during her break, returned to find Bullydozer’s box empty and Mrs Wilkinson, who rather fancied him, yelling her head off.
After searching everywhere, Tommy had roused the other lads and was about to ring the police when through the blue April evening Amber came cantering towards them, popping the vast Bullydozer perfectly over the huge new Gold Cup fences. Her right hand was in plaster, her left held lightly on to Bullydozer’s reins. Aware his charge was fragile, he was jumping with great care, an expression of seriousness and responsibility on his dark brown face.
Marius, who’d come back unexpectedly because Uttoxeter had been rained off, went ballistic. How dare Amber risk a valuable horse and her own life again? Secretly he was delighted he’d whipped another fantastic horse from Harvey-Holden.
101
With Bonny on tour or filming, Valent took to ringing Etta when he was in England. They spent happy evenings gossiping, discussing progress at Throstledown, grandchildren and poems they’d read, listening to music and the nightingales singing and making plans for the garden.
On one occasion they even sloped off to Larkminster and bought Valent a lovely dull-yellow jacket checked with red to wear to the races. It was so nice, they reflected individually, not to be mocked, put down and corrected.
Etta was shopping in Tesco’s one morning at the end of April. She was desperately broke and dickering whether to run to another bottle of white, when the money ought to be spent on getting her shoes mended and some more deodorant.
To stink or drink, sighed Etta.
‘Do you want a packer, Mrs Bancroft?’ asked the checkout girl, glancing at Etta’s pathetic pile of goods.
‘She’s already got one, I mean “wow”,’ said a voice, and a shoulder of lamb, a packet of mint, a bag of new potatoes, asparagus, frozen peas and a chocolate tart landed in her basket, followed by a lot of bottles. ‘Let’s have this for supper at my place,’ said Valent, getting a card out of his wallet. ‘I saw your Polo outside, nearly all Green now, Ione would be pleased.’