by Jilly Cooper
‘Hear you’re taking off the ivy,’ she yelled. ‘Good of you to give Pocock some work, but ivy does provide food for the bees and shelter for the birds. Ivy flowers are particularly good for late feeders in winter when there’s not much food about. So think carefully about it,’ and she pedalled on.
‘Bossy old bag,’ said Painswick with surprising ferocity. ‘She didn’t think carefully about cutting Harold’s hours.’
They were joined by Alan, who’d been for an unlikely walk, with his shirt buttons done up wrong. He urged Miss Painswick to get the ivy off, ‘Pocock’s such an old pro,’ and insisted on carrying Etta’s shopping home.
‘But what about the birds and the bees?’ Etta asked him anxiously.
‘I don’t think Painswick knows much about them,’ said Alan.
So Painswick gave Pocock the go-ahead.
After a restless night, Painswick set out for Throstledown. Marius’s remaining horses were out in the fields, shaking manes and tails, kicking irritably to drive away the flies from their bellies. Heavy rain in the night had bowed down the willows, so, like George Eliot’s hair, their crinkly pale green tresses divided at the top to reveal yellow partings.
Half an hour later, Pocock rolled up at Ivy Cottage, shinned up his ladder and began cutting back, tugging, pulling, clipping, sweating, swearing. By working frenziedly, he managed to get half the ivy off the first day and returned on Saturday. Collecting a cup of tea and leaving Miss Painswick to scrub the kitchen floor, he was soon up his ladder, cutting and pulling, trying to swear less.
Tugging off the ivy which was threatening to invade a rather pretty bedroom window, he nearly fell off his ladder, for there, changing to go out after a vigorous morning’s housework, was a naked Miss Painswick. Pocock had to grab hold of a clump of ivy, for she had the most charming body, with full high breasts, and as she turned, a plump but firm bottom curving in at the waist. Leaning inwards, he discovered there was not a varicose vein in sight and her pubic hair was the softest mouse brown.
Scrambling down the ladder, a huge erection steepling his dungarees, Pocock frantically pretended to be draining a cold cup of tea as Etta and Priceless arrived to take Joyce shopping.
Five minutes later, hearing excited squeaks of ‘Joyce, Joyce,’ Painswick ran out to find Etta admiring the cottage and Pocock’s work.
‘Oh Joyce, the cottage looks so pretty and Harold’s just unearthed the most charming little window upstairs.’
Painswick, primly dressed in her grey boxy jacket and straight skirt, stood back to look, her lips pressed ready to disapprove.
‘It does look nice, very nice indeed. Thank you, Harold. You were quite right.’
‘Not finished yet,’ Pocock smiled, showing several missing teeth.
As he finished stripping her house, he now dreamed of undressing her as well.
Pocock wouldn’t take any payment, so Painswick presented him with a lovely dark blue scarf she’d been knitting him to say thank you and invited him round for a drink the following afternoon.
Having invested in a couple of bottles of really good red, she spent a happy afternoon making canapés: asparagus rolls, smoked salmon sandwiches, cheese straws, mushroom vol-auvents, sweet potato wedges and little chicken kebabs, all laid out on a table spread with a pretty pale blue cloth.
On impulse, Miss Painswick removed all the photographs of Hengist Brett-Taylor and replaced them with vases of flowers from the garden. Then she settled down to read the Lady and Country Life. She loved working at Throstledown but it was nice to get away.
Harold arrived in a lightweight dog-tooth check jacket, a bright blue tie and off-white trousers. Miss Painswick thought how dashing he looked, with his ruddy face and shock of white hair, and going into the kitchen for a bottle of red, gave herself another squirt of Anaïs Anaïs.
Pocock was very touched by the banquet on the drawing-room table, and although he would have much preferred beer, he was even more touched by the seriousness of the red.
‘The cottage looks wonderful, so much bigger and lighter inside,’ said Miss Painswick. ‘You were quite right, I should have done it years ago, thank you so much. I hope you’ll help me choose some roses for growing up the sides.’
Pocock, almost too nervous to eat, nibbled at a mushroom vol-au-vent.
‘Have a stuffed date,’ said Miss Painswick.
Though they had never had any trouble chattering before, they found themselves embarrassingly robbed of speech and were relieved when Chisolm leapt over the back garden fence. Pausing to dead-head a few roses, she trotted bleating up the lawn, in through the French windows and greeted them both fondly, nicking a cheese straw before settling in a flowered chintz armchair.
‘Do you think she’s had a domestic with Wilkie?’ asked Painswick. But as she rose to fill Pocock’s glass, Chisolm bossily nudged her hand, spilling dark red wine all over his pale new trousers.
Painswick was distraught.
‘I’m so sorry, naughty, naughty Chisolm, bad girl. Oh, your smart trousers, I’m so sorry.’
Salt was the answer, but she was so flustered she couldn’t find the salt cellar and instead seized a dishcloth. Filling a bowl with hot soapy water, she started sponging down Pocock’s trousers, furiously rubbing at his crotch.
‘So, so sorry.’ She paused, to wonder if salt would be better.
‘No, no,’ croaked Pocock, emboldened by wine, asphyxiated by Anaïs Anaïs and feeling pretty breasts pressed against his arm. ‘This is much better. Oh Joyce.’
As she rubbed, Miss Painswick realized something inside his trousers was moving upwards and her pursed mouth fell open in surprise.
‘You’re so pretty,’ muttered Pocock, putting out a rough garden-grooved hand, stroking her hair until it fell out of its prim bun. Then, cupping her head, he drew it close, glancing at her in wonder, ‘Oh Joyce,’ and he kissed her amazed mouth.
‘Oh Harold,’ sighed Painswick, ‘this is a surprise,’ particularly as his hand left her hair and began to unbutton her navy-blue dress so he could slide it inside her bra, where he found breasts just as thrilling as the ones he’d seen through the window.
‘You’re so lovely,’ he gasped, as Painswick’s scented softness and plumpness collapsed on top of him.
Unchecked, unnoticed, Chisolm worked her way through asparagus rolls, stuffed dates, mushroom vol-au-vents, cheese straws, sweet potato wedges and the brown bread and butter beneath the smoked salmon, and then managed Country Life, the Lady and a few pages of Thoroughbred Owner and Breeder for pudding.
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Etta was delighted when a glowing Painswick confided that she and Harold were now an item. Did he propose on Gardeners’ Question Time? she wondered. She was, however, ashamed how low she felt to think that Pocock, not she, would in future be enjoying cosy suppers of macaroni cheese and Midsomer Murders. Joyce had been such a staunch, comforting friend.
Far worse, after Bonny’s horrible jibes about her being a ‘lascivious old lady’, Etta had been very off-hand with Valent and refused all his invitations. Then she grew increasingly and miserably aware of how much she had come to depend on his friendship and kindness, as snatches of music or poetry reminded her of the lovely evenings they’d spent together.
She was desperately broke. Martin was grudging about helping her repair her car and the damage caused by the floods. The blackberries she used to pick while walking Priceless were over. She’d eaten all the apples which hung over her fence from Valent’s orchard. Pavarobin was most put out that she no longer mixed cake and croissants with his birdseed. She imagined the fish in Valent’s pond mouthing reproachfully when she no longer passed by to tend his garden. Gwenny and Priceless had got so used to chicken and liver she felt as disconsolate as a restaurateur trashed by A. A. Gill when they flatly rejected tinned or dried food.
Conkers baked in the oven soaked in vinegar and threaded with string for Drummond’s birthday were equally spurned, Drummond displaying no interest in ‘boring old nu
ts’. Later Etta received an irate call from Romy: had she no idea how much damage conker fights caused, had she not heard of Health and Safety?
Etta longed to send the conkers to Valent, and thought wistfully what fun they could have had playing with them. Only the rose she had grafted for him, growing on her window ledge since the flood, seemed a link with the past.
Her great fear was that Mrs Wilkinson, now over the cough and match-fit, would have to be sold, because none of the syndicate could afford training fees any more.
One cold October evening, coming out of the village shop she bumped into Mop Idol and, hoping for news of Valent, asked her home for a cup of tea. Mop Idol looked so thin and pale compared with her usual lovely blonde buxom self that Etta wished she’d been able to afford to make sloe gin this year. There were only two teabags left, Etta hoped she wouldn’t want a second cup, but when she asked after Joey, Mop Idol burst into tears. He had failed to keep up the mortgage payments. He was so overdrawn that the bank was threatening to repossess the house. Last week he’d put the wages on a horse which had lost and he was betting maniacally to recoup his losses.
‘Isn’t there still work,’ Etta felt her voice go thick, ‘at Badger’s Court to be done?’
‘Valent’s away, you know how involved he gets, in the States. He’s launching a night-light called Guardian Angel, made by his Chinese factory, to stop kids being frightened of the dark. Wish he could invent something to stop grownups being frightened,’ sobbed Mop Idol.
Remembering how she’d told Valent about Poppy’s terrors, Etta nearly wept too.
‘Oh Etta, what am I going to do?’ went on Mop Idol. ‘I’ve got four children and I don’t think I can work any harder.’
‘Of course you can’t.’ It would be even worse if she knew about Joey and Chrissie. Thank God, Joey had not got Chrissie pregnant.
Etta felt so sorry for her, and it also brought home how in the past she’d relied on Valent for help. If she had just picked up the telephone she was sure he’d have helped Joey, but no longer.
Mop Idol then set out for the Fox, which only paid £5 an hour. ‘Least it’s helping in the kitchen, not in the bar, so people won’t see how dreadful I look,’ she said, vanishing into the night. ‘Thank you, Etta, for being so kind!’
Morale was also rock bottom up at Throstledown, where the staff had had to disinfect every centimetre of yard to get rid of cough germs.
Overwhelmed with restlessness, Etta took her torch and wandered up through the rustling leaves. At least the rustle meant no rain and firmer ground for tomorrow.
At a meeting in the Fox last week, there had been a strong move, led by the Major and Shagger, to sell Mrs Wilkinson and cut their losses. Dora, however, back from New York and bursting with plans, had reminded the room that Mrs Wilkinson’s website was still receiving a thousand hits a day, and the fan mail begging her and Chisolm to come back to the race track was still flooding in.
‘There’s a public hunger out there,’ pleaded Dora. ‘Racing is crying out for a really charismatic horse ridden by a really charismatic jockey.’
‘Then Rafiq must ride her,’ insisted Phoebe. ‘A member of our ethnic minorities would be …’
‘Far less marketable than a beautiful girl on a gutsy little mare,’ snapped Dora. ‘Marius is putting up Amber. They both get mare’s allowances.’
Everyone recognized that this might be Willowwood and Marius’s final race. The money lent him by Painswick had gone on feed bills.
As a last hope, because she was so well and rested, Marius had entered Mrs Wilkinson for a two-mile four-furlong chase at Cheltenham on Saturday. She would be running well below the handicap but what the hell. Excellent prize money of £55,000 had attracted some big hitters. They included Rogue, who was forging a strong relationship with Rupert, on Lusty and Killer on Ilkley Hall. Despite it being early in the season, both jockeys were even more fiercely competitive and travelling to every meeting to get rides where they could win.
Arriving as a vast yellow moon was rising, Etta found the Throstledown yard deserted except for Tommy, who had fallen asleep in the tack room. The others had gone to the pub to drown their sorrows and spend their lack of wages. The open half-doors of the empty boxes were like cavernous eye sockets. Etta gave an old piece of blackberry and apple pie to Chisolm. To Mrs Wilkinson she gave half a packet of Polos and a serious talking-to.
‘It’s your last chance, Wilkie, it’ll break your heart and all ours if you have to be sold. You’d die living with Harvey-Holden,’ Etta shuddered, ‘and he’d sack Chisolm for starters. Jude would probably eat her for tea. Everyone needs your help. Tommy, Rafiq and Painswick will lose their jobs if you don’t get your hoof out. Marius is desperate for a winner. You owe it to us, Wilkie, you’ve had such a long break.’
Mrs Wilkinson looked and felt wonderful, her silver mane lustrous, muscle like iron beneath her gleaming pewter coat. She pretended to be asleep. Her good eye was closed, but from the lower lid of the empty socket of her blind eye, infinitely pathetic, as if to say ‘I did have life once’, sprouted three long black eyelashes.
‘You’ve been so brave and come such a long way since I found you in the woods,’ whispered Etta, ‘but so many people’s lives have been wrecked by the floods. Please help us.’
Mrs Wilkinson pretended to be asleep but she was listening.
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One source of help which had been withdrawn was Corinna and Seth’s grand Shakespeare evening in aid of the flood victims. This had fallen through because Corinna refused to participate if Bonny was involved.
‘She must be debarred from the Bard.’
Martin was so appalled that his darling Bonny should be so despised and rejected, he called on Corinna to mediate and got a bucket of water tipped over his head. All this provided a great deal of chunter-fodder in the minibus on the way to Cheltenham.
Dora, who’d fed the story to the press, pointed out that the three radio masts on Cleeve Hill looking down on the racecourse must be Seth, Corinna and Bonny playing the three witches in Macbeth.
‘“When shall we three meet again?”/“In thunder, lightning, or in rain?”’ intoned Dora, glaring at the Major. ‘That’s very symbolic. If the syndicate folds and this is Wilkie’s last race as our horse, heaven knows when we will all meet again.’
‘She’s got to win,’ quavered Tilda, or how would she ever see Alan?
Alas, from Mrs Wilkinson’s point of view, it had rained very heavily in the night, but at least a watery sun was breaking through a gap in the charcoal-grey clouds.
When they arrived Rupert Campbell-Black’s Lusty, mean, moody and magnificent, as was his master, was prowling round the parade ring, followed by Ilkley Hall looking sleek but slightly porky after his summer break. He was followed by Cosmo Rannaldini’s Internetso, who’d won his last three races, and a flash French gelding called Julien Sorel, on whom Lord Catswood had rather ostentatiously spent £250,000, as a twenty-first birthday present for his son Dare.
Mrs Wilkinson had been reluctant to get into the trailer, but the moment she and Chisolm stepped out on to the Cheltenham courtyard leading to the stables and heard the cheers of her admirers, many of whom waved ‘Welcome Back Wilkie’ placards, she perked up.
‘You’re a Saturday horse now, Wilkie,’ Tommy told her fondly.
Down in the parade ring, more well-wishers fighting for space laughed and applauded as she strutted past, big grey ears flopping through the holes in a silly green straw hat Dora had brought her from Mexico as a publicity gimmick.
‘There’s Tommy,’ cried the punters. ‘There’s Etta, where’s Valent? There’s Chisolm. There’s Amber in the green silks. Isn’t she pretty? There’s Rafiq who rode her earlier in the year. He’s hot. He’s riding that big brown one today.’
Bullydozer, huge, lumbering, pouring with sweat because Vakil had shaken a fist and cursed him in the pre-parade ring, was madly in love with Mrs Wilkinson, who’d protected him and admitted him to her g
ang shortly after he arrived. Now he followed her everywhere and looked round in admiration as Mrs Wilkinson, who had no desire to be held up by anything, dragged Tommy across the grass, sending owners and trainers leaping for their lives, to greet her syndicate, nudging Marius in the ribs: ‘I’m going to win for you today.’
‘Not unless you take off that bloody hat,’ grumbled Marius, as shaking hooves with Painswick, pretending to fall asleep on Etta’s shoulder, showing off, Mrs Wilkinson demonstrated once again how she adored an audience.
Brandishing a microphone, Alice Plunkett sidled up to a seething Harvey-Holden. ‘Nice to see your old mare back on form,’ she said slyly.
‘Looking like the seaside donkey she is,’ snarled Harvey-Holden. ‘What possessed Marius to think she’s got a hope in this race? And don’t think the Rev Niall giving her the last rites is going to help. She and Bullydozer don’t stand a chance.’
In retaliation, as soon as Amber mounted her, Mrs Wilkinson gave three terrific bucks to show how well she was, then, thrashing her plumy tail, giving a squeal of rage, took a lunge at her old enemy, Ilkley Hall.
‘Keep control of that brute,’ howled Harvey-Holden. ‘Neither of you have learnt any manners since you’ve been off the track.’
‘Hear, hear!’ sneered Killer, who’d been surreptitiously texting illegal tips from the weighing room.
The wolf whistles of the crowd did not appease blonde Tresa. Being the head lad’s partner had not brought her any perks. She was overworked, had not been paid for the last month and now she was leading up Bullydozer and Rafiq, who’d joined the yard long after she had.
Michelle, who was leading up Ilkley Hall, smiled at her smugly. ‘Let’s have a drink and catch up next week.’
‘I’d keep her on a loose rein to relax her,’ called out Dare Catswood from the heights of a quarter-of-a-million-pounds’ worth Julien Sorel, as a hopelessly over-excited Mrs Wilkinson carted Amber down to the start.