by Jilly Cooper
‘I love him, Dad,’ said Tommy.
In a corridor of the Marsden, Amber slumped against the wall, desperately pale beneath the fluorescent lights.
Her father, all wired up in bed, had just told her he’d got lung cancer but in his usual sweet way had belittled any horrors.
‘Don’t worry, darling, I’ll lick it. God, I could murder a fag or a drink now.’ He had started laughing and coughing, then couldn’t stop.
‘Does it hurt terribly?’
‘A bit – just had a shot of morphine – like Oliver Twist asking for morphine.’ Billy laughed again, triggering more coughing. He reached for her hand. ‘Darling – oh shit – I know it’s hard but please don’t tell anyone. If the BBC find out they’d probably lay me off and I’ve got a few bills to pay. Your mother’ll want to make it public.’
Amber said she thought she ought to tell her brothers, Christy and Junior, who were both abroad.
‘Not yet,’ Billy pleaded. ‘How’s Mrs Wilkinson?’
‘Good. Entered for the Gold Cup. I’ll try and win it for you.’
‘That’s great, darling.’ Billy’s eyes were drooping. ‘Rupert’s having trouble with Eddie Alderton, who’s just like Rupe when he was young. Like Bambi and Bambi’s father or grandfather. Rupert’s never had a son that played up before. I’m so lucky to have you.’ Billy’s words were slurring. He was asleep.
Amber fled into the corridor, too stunned to cry. Twenty was too young to lose a father. She hadn’t spoken to her mother since the appalling interview with Rogue. She could only imagine the meal Janey would make of ‘my beloved Billy’s battle with cancer’. It was Janey who’d leaked the quite untrue story about Amber having a walk-out with Dare Catswood, who Milly Walton was mad about anyway. But Janey would love a rich daughter she could bum off.
I mustn’t work myself up, thought Amber. She’d never felt more lonely in her life. If only she could call Rogue, but he’d be shagging some slapper in Fairyhouse or Larkminster.
‘It is, isn’t it?’ said a voice, as a woman in a fur coat sidled up. ‘We thought it was, we’re such fans. How’s Wilkie?’
‘She’s fine,’ stammered Amber.
‘Could we possibly have your autograph?’
She handed Amber a little red diary, and as Amber scribbled her name, said, ‘Thank you so much, we’re such fans of your dear father too.’
‘So am I,’ mumbled Amber.
Rogue, flying back to Fairyhouse, had reached Heathrow. Amber’s number was engraved on his heart, as was everything she’d said about him. He wanted to call her or text her, ‘Sorry about your Dad, call me,’ but she’d have switched off her mobile in the hospital. He located the Marsden number, then tore it up. He’d be the last person she’d want to talk to.
Rafiq’s euphoria and feeling of coming home were also sadly fleeting. Furious came out of the Larkminster Cup so well that Marius entered him for a big race at Ascot a week later, where he was a very hot favourite.
While he was riding out on the morning of the race, noticing bluebell and primrose leaves pushing through the faded leaf mould and rejoicing that spring was on the way for him and Tommy, Rafiq was startled out of his reverie by his ringing mobile.
‘Furious is not going to win today,’ said a voice with a thick Pakistani accent, ‘or we take out your family in Peshawar.’
‘You don’t know my family,’ hissed Rafiq, pulling History Painting into a clearing.
‘Oh yes we do.’ The caller reeled off names and addresses until Rafiq’s blood froze. It must be some terrorist mafia.
‘Just fuck off,’ he stammered.
‘You’ve been spending a lot of time with Tommy Ruddock recently. D’you want her and Furious taken out as well?’ The voice grew thicker and more menacing. ‘We need funds. Allah will reward you if Furious doesn’t win.’
Rafiq, who was vastly brave, hung up. Determined to ignore the threat, he caught up with the others and told no one.
The terror he always felt before a race was intensified a hundredfold that afternoon when he saw Tommy leading Furious round the parade ring at Ascot. She looked so radiantly happy and newly pretty because Tresa, feeling guilty about Snog-a-Trog, had straightened her hair for her.
Eddie Alderton, who was riding in the same race, had also noticed. ‘Like your hair,’ he called out to Tommy. Then to wind up Rafiq: ‘How about a drink later?’
But Tommy had blushed, smiled and, turning lovingly towards Rafiq, said she was sorry, she was busy.
Suddenly Rafiq couldn’t bear anything to happen to her, so he deliberately pulled Furious. This he did by holding him up for too long so that two furlongs out there was still a pack of horses ahead of him. Furious had no desire to mingle with them so he dawdled and came in sixth.
‘Perhaps he was tired,’ Rafiq told Channel 4. ‘He only run a week ago.’
This enraged Marius. ‘Don’t you dare accuse me of overrunning my horses,’ he shouted at Rafiq. Having bollocked him for careless riding, however, he gave him the benefit of the doubt.
The Ascot stewards were less lenient. They and the crowd had been looking forward to seeing Furious repeat his Larkminster Cup form. They suspended Rafiq for a week for breaching the non-trying rules.
Later Marius returned to the attack.
‘If anyone thinks I encouraged you to pull Furious, I could be banned from entering any horse in a race for forty-two days (which would rule out the Gold Cup and the entire festival), and be fined thirty-five thousand which I can’t bloody afford, so don’t do it again.’
Rafiq felt bitterly ashamed but waited in terror for another telephone call.
118
Alan for once was working flat out. From his study window, over a pile of Wilkie’s cuttings and photographs, he could often see her let out for an hour or two in her New Zealand rug, trailing her devoted entourage through the frosty fields.
He had accepted the fact that his marriage was dead. He hadn’t seen Carrie for days. The hedge fund market was in free fall, Carrie clinging to the wreckage. He was convinced his only happiness lay in running off with Tilda, and he needed to make a massive success of Mrs Wilkinson’s story to fund it.
He knew he was neglecting Trixie and he hardly had time to see Tilda, but he found intense satisfaction in rising at dawn to write, sustained by endless cups of black coffee made on the percolator Tilda had given him for Christmas. He didn’t even slip out to the Wilkinson Arms at lunchtime or in the evening. Alban and Seth missed him dreadfully, and Chris complained his takings had nose-dived.
Adding pieces to the jigsaw, Alan had been digging into Wilkie’s early history, even braving Harvey-Holden.
‘H-H dear boy, I must devote a chapter to Usurper’s leaving her dam and spending time at your yard. It’s all a bit shadowy. Who broke her? You must have had valuable input. I’m determined to portray you in a positive light.’
‘Fuck off,’ said Harvey-Holden, hanging up.
How had she escaped the fire? wondered Alan. Hengist remembered Rafiq being close to Jimmy Wade, one of the Ravenscroft stable lads, when he was in prison, but when Alan asked Rafiq for details Rafiq had also closed up. H-H had such a rapid turnover of staff, most of them foreign, so when they left they disappeared off home. Alan talked to H-H’s ex-wife, who remembered little Usurper as being a poppet, ‘But frankly my mind was on escaping from H-H, not his horses.’
Moving on to the present, they were now a few weeks away from the pinnacle of the National Hunt season – the Cheltenham Festival. After her glorious win in the King George at Kempton on Boxing Day, Mrs Wilkinson was favourite for the Gold Cup. But after every big race the bookies would shuffle the pack and a new challenger would emerge.
It had been a tremendously exciting season, with Killer and Rogue battling to be leading jockey, Shade pouring in more and more to become leading owner, and Marius, Harvey-Holden, Isa Lovell and Dermie O’Driscoll fighting to become leading trainer.
One of the greatest prizes was
the Order of Merit series, which awarded a million pounds to the horse that notched up the most points for wins in the biggest races. Mrs Wilkinson, Furious, Ilkley Hall, Bafford Playboy, Internetso, Dermie O’Driscoll’s Squiffey Liffey and Rupert Campbell-Black’s Lusty were all in contention. But as Marius refused to overrace his horses, Wilkie and Furious were unlikely to triumph unless they won the Gold Cup or the National. Fans and press still kept reminding H-H and Shade they had let Mrs Wilkinson slip through their fingers.
The Gold Cup demanded level weights, which meant all horses had to carry 11 stone 10 lb on their backs. This, in turn, meant that Amber, who was light, had to drop into her saddle a deadening amount of lead, which didn’t move and thrust like her body, to be as heavy as the other jockeys.
Mrs Wilkinson had gone up 13 lb in the handicap after the King George at Kempton and another 7 lb after a good win at Warwick. She was therefore in danger of being forced to run only in races carrying weight beyond her strength. Like running a marathon when you’re giving Jude the Obese a piggyback, reflected Alan.
Syndicates, however, become spoilt, and the more Willowwood won, the more they wanted. They were now looking forward to a trip to Leopardstown where a prep race in early February, six weeks before the Gold Cup, would boost both Wilkie’s large Irish fan club and sales of Alan’s book, when it was published. Dora had organized interviews with everyone. A special Cheltenham Festival preview had been arranged on Sunday evening to coincide with the meeting, where all the leading Irish trainers, owners and pundits would be holding forth and would in turn be riveted to hear Marius’s views on his horses’ Gold Cup chances.
Mrs Wilkinson still preferred to travel everywhere with Chisolm in the trailer. On this occasion Marius decided to fly her over to Ireland, believing that this would be less traumatic than a long journey imprisoned in the bowels of a ferry. Mrs Wilkinson thought differently and absolutely freaked out, trembling violently, rearing, lashing out and flatly refusing to join History Painting and Bullydozer on the plane.
When the flying groom got tough on the runway and, moving in between Tommy and Wilkie, tried to drag her on blindfolded, Wilkie completely lost it and most uncharacteristically savaged him.
‘Ouija Board did exactly the same thing on a trip to the Far East,’ observed Alan. ‘Happens to great horses.’
All the same he was pissed off. Many of the syndicate, including Etta, had been too poor to go, but those who had already booked their flights and hotel rooms were livid – particularly Alan and Tilda, who were looking forward to a five-star night alone. Unlike Pocock and Woody, Tilda was too worried about her reputation to limp trembling through the frozen grass, although, Alan teased her, she was so pretty now with her straightened teeth, not even a binocular-waving Major would recognize her.
Wilkie’s defection also meant that Tommy didn’t go to Dublin either, which broke her heart. She’d so hoped, away from home, she might learn why Rafiq, after being so angelically loving, had so suddenly rejected her. He had bitten her head off when not totally ignoring her, and seemed terrified of being seen near her in public.
Fuel had been chucked on the fire when Etta, finding Tommy sobbing into Wilkie’s shoulder, had again most uncharacteristically shouted at Rafiq for being mean. Rafiq had shouted back at Etta to mind her own business. Everyone was on edge.
119
Amber was just as miserable as Tommy. Like Mrs Wilkinson, she should have backed out of going to Dublin. She felt dreadful abandoning her father when he was still so ill in hospital, but a distraught Dora had begged her to go. She’d set up so many interviews for Amber, which would really make her name in Ireland, and compensate a little for Wilkie and Chisolm’s absence. Furthermore, the generous Irish racing authorities had offered Amber the wonderful Parnell Suite at the Shelbourne Hotel.
What had shamingly tipped the balance was the knowledge that Rogue was riding in five races at Leopardstown. Amber dreamed that on his home territory they might somehow get together, and relieve the dull ache of longing that never left her. But on arrival in Dublin first thing on Sunday morning, she learnt that Rogue too was in hospital having dislocated his shoulder in a fall at Doncaster.
‘Poor sod swears he’ll be OK for Cheltenham,’ said a jubilant Johnnie Brutus, who’d picked up those of Rogue’s rides not appropriated by Killer. ‘Must be gotted. This’ll lose him the championship. All he cares about these days is winning. Used to be such a fon bloke, now he never laughs any more.’
Seeing Amber’s stricken face, Johnnie suggested she come out on the town with them that evening:
‘Dare Catswood dropped two Viagras in Awesome’s Bloody Mary on the plane out. He’s had a hard-on since he arrived – convinced it’s the Dublin air.’
‘I can’t,’ sighed Amber, ‘I’ve got to go to this preview with Marius and tell the audience about Wilkie. Mr Monosyllabic is not going to satisfy them.’
Marius was out looking at horses and the other jockeys were riding in races, so later Amber travelled out to Leopardstown with Phoebe, the Major and Debbie.
As they crossed the Liffey, blue-grey and silver, reflecting the clouds and the sun glinting through them, the taxi driver announced he used to jump off this bridge as an eight-year-old.
‘Wasn’t it polluted?’ shuddered Debbie.
‘Filthy, it was so clean you could see the mullet going through it.’ As they drove past faded russet houses, Debbie shuddered even more over the litter and the graffiti.
‘They’ve got daffies and the blossom’s much further out than in England.’
‘That’s because the air’s gentler, like the people,’ said Amber, who was surprised how much she’d enjoyed her morning’s interviews. All the journalists were so friendly and enthusiastic.
‘Where the Pony Club’s concerned, you’re a bigger icon than Jordan,’ the Irish Independent had told her.
‘I must try and keep my pedestal clean,’ Amber had replied.
Phoebe was now grumbling about the security at Birmingham.
‘We had to strip everything off. Painswick was down to her Damart thermals and Pocock to his long johns.’
Suddenly she shrieked with laughter as they passed a signpost to a place called Stillorgan. ‘That can’t be Rogue’s home town. He’s never kept his organ still in his life.’ Amber wanted to throttle her. The Irish, the soft caress of their voices, reminded her so much of Rogue before he had become angry. She hoped he wasn’t in too much pain.
Arriving at the racecourse with its big grey stand, she noticed the owners’ and trainers’ entrance, next to the ambulance gate, a constant reminder that danger, accident and death were never far away from jump racing. Outside, with prams full of goodies, one woman was selling slabs of chocolate for a euro.
Up in the stands, Amber looked down at the most beautiful course, ringed by blue mountains and woods through which, like rosy-faced children, more russet houses peered. On the rails were ads for Deloitte, Betchronicle, Party Poker and Irish Stallions, which brings us back to Rogue, thought Amber wearily.
Typically Irish, with horses at the heart of things, the stables were in the centre of the course. The runners, legs on springs like greyhounds, could be seen dancing across the track and returning more slowly after their race.
A large crowd had turned out in anticipation of cheering on Rogue, their favourite son, and to catch a glimpse of Mrs Wilkinson. People were soon bombarding Amber with questions:
‘Is she thirteen or fourteen hands?’
‘Did she miss a vocation as a footballer?’
Marius’s day started well when History Painting won a handicap chase for Awesome Wells, but deteriorated when Playboy pissed all over the big race, the Hennessy Cognac, for a revoltingly triumphalist Shade. At least Marius had been spared a gloating Harvey-Holden, who’d stayed at home, obsessively chasing winners, because Irish victories didn’t add any points in the leading English trainers’ championship. Instead he had sent Michelle and Vakil, who, because a despe
rately uptight Rafiq was riding Bullydozer in a novice handicap, missed no opportunity to mob up their former horse. Killer, riding a new French gelding called Voltaire Scott, had been sledging Rafiq equally viciously in the weighing room.
Here, for the first time, Rafiq had put on Valent’s new colours, purple covered with dusty green stars, green sleeves and a purple and green cap, inspired by an African violet Etta had once given him.
Watching Bullydozer in the parade ring, Amber thought he didn’t move or look as well as usual, perhaps because Tresa was too busy tarting herself up to get her horses gleaming like Tommy did. The big horse trembled and cringed but didn’t leap away when he saw Vakil. He really didn’t look right. Amber was tempted to say something to Marius, but he’d only bite her head off. Marius himself was looking funereal, wearing his dinner jacket, which he’d need for the preview tonight, over jeans because he couldn’t be bothered to bring two coats. Next door a trio of pretty women, however, were drooling over him.
‘That’s Marius Oakridge, who trains Mrs Wilkinson. Isn’t he handsome? His wife Olivia ran off with Shade Murchieson, the big fellow over there; looks a brute, I’d have stayed with Marius. He looks much gentler.’
Marius was belying this by telling a shivering Rafiq to ‘Go to the front, and lynch that fucker Killer,’ as he legged him up. Valent had just called Marius from China, wishing him, Rafiq and his adored Bullydozer good luck, saying he was sorry he couldn’t be with them. He was up-country and couldn’t get to a television.
‘Safe journey,’ called Amber in Urdu as Rafiq passed but beyond glancing round in terror he ignored her and rode on.
‘That’s JP’s plane,’ said one of the trio of pretty women, as a helicopter chugged over. ‘He’s coming to the preview tonight. He’ll be flying back to Limerick to change.’
Unlike Marius, thought Amber.
Up in the Owners and Trainers to watch the race, Amber was horrified to find herself rammed by the crowd next to Shade. Oiled up by champagne and watching Bafford Playboy’s victory again in the hospitality room, he was revving up to cheer on Killer and Voltaire Scott.