by Jilly Cooper
Then she opened her eyes and found his were open and looking at the television. As she furiously wriggled away from him, Eddie laughed. ‘Oh, Mrs M.I.L.F. Milburn, I’m taking a look at Grandpa’s enemies.’
He pointed at a trio in the paddock: a short young man with oiled black curls, a pale demonic, dissipated face and large black rolling eyes, and a taller, thinner, older man – also very dark with a sallow, closed gypsy face. They were talking to a jockey wearing silks that were magenta and red as a drop of blood.
‘That nasty threesome,’ explained Eddie, ‘is Cosmo Rannaldini, shit and slimeball whose father Roberto was a great conductor but so evil he was murdered. Must be catching, joke, joke, joke.’ Eddie slid a sidelong glance at Gala, who commented on Cosmo’s lack of inches.
‘That’s why he likes racing – people assume he’s an ex-jockey. And that’s his trainer, Isa Lovell, another shit, who worked with Grandpa, then stole all his ideas when he left to set up his own yard and stud. They both dissed Grandpa recently because their stallion Roberto’s Revenge is higher up the Leading Sire list than Love Rat, saying Grandpa was a has-been and that you could see the rust. Then Cosmo made some fatuous joke about “Roberto’s Revenge first, the Rust nowhere”.
‘That’s Tarquin McGall, their stable jockey. He’s bloody good but must be costing them a fortune. He fights dirty, sharpens his elbows, pushes you into the rails and uses his whip to hit other people’s horses coming upsides, plus he’s always pinching people’s rides. He’s the Go-to Jockey for the big occasion, big horses in big races. He wouldn’t need to go to Plumpton on a freezing Monday morning.’
Gala could hear the longing and envy in Eddie’s voice.
‘Cosmo’s spending zillions on horses, building up a huge arsenal to go to war with. Grandpa’s trying to find out who’s backing him.’
Then, as a beautiful middle-aged woman in a sea-green dress and turquoise hat, graciously waving her tail like Mother Jaguar from a Just So story, joined the trio: ‘Now that’s another M.I.L.F. – Mrs Walton, Cosmo’s Squeeze. She’s one of the mothers at the boarding school he only left four years ago. She fancies Grandpa, so does Cosmo’s mother, some godawful opera singer.’
Next moment, Mrs Walton had broken away from the group to talk to Rupert and kiss him on both cheeks.
‘If Grandpa lifted a finger,’ said Eddie, ‘she’d drop Cosmo like a mistakenly picked up adder. Look how furious he is. Grandpa’s Book of Mares is longer than the Chinese phone book.’
Gala laughed and longed to ask if Rupert ever cheated on Taggie. Instead she said: ‘Taggie’s so sweet.’
‘She’s a saint, not a mean bone in her beautiful body. Everyone imposes on her, me included.’
‘I hope I can make her life easier.’
‘You have already, particularly if you tell her exactly what happens in this race, so she can pretend she has watched it when Rupert rings up. He hates her missing big races.’
They were interrupted by a voice quavering, ‘Gala, Gala, where are you, darling?’
‘It’s the ghost of Rupert Black,’ said Eddie in a sepulchral voice.
‘Stop it.’ Gala had been frozen with horror for a second. ‘It’s your great-grandfather on the monitor – I must go to him.’
But as Gala leapt up, Eddie pulled her back. ‘Leave him, he’ll go back to sleep. You’ve got to brief Taggie about the race.’
‘I can hear heavy breathing.’
‘That’s Banquo, he often sleeps on Great-grandpa’s bed.’
Next moment a snore rent the air.
‘What did I tell you, M.I.L.F.?’
‘Do you have a girlfriend?’
‘Sort of. She has a baby of fifteen months – and no, it’s not mine; it’s always waking her up in the night so she gets tired, particularly as she’s trying to get four starred A-levels to help her get into Oxford. She’s only eighteen, very pretty but much too bright for me. I’d still like to fuck you. Which guys do you fancy in the yard?’
‘I really don’t know any of them. Michael Meagan’s very friendly and Pat is really nice. What about the dark one, who never smiles or hardly speaks to anyone?’
‘Gavin Latton. Mr Lean and Moody, destroyed by a nympho wife. He used to work for Isa, and found her in bed with Cosmo and two jockeys. Genius with horses. He sorted out Libertine; most women want to sort him out. He’s madly intellectual for a horse guy, reads a lot, got on really well with Trixie, my girlfriend. But you’d have more fun with me.’ Eddie filled up both their glasses.
‘He started off working in the stud here, then Grandpa moved him over mostly to the yard; there’s a terrific rivalry between stud and yard, a lot of backstabbing. Yard earn more in pool money, which is a percentage of any winnings. Stud only get £50 extra for every mare covered.’
Images of the great silver cup and the colours of the jockeys were imposed on the track as the runners went down to the start, led by Chinese riders in red coats, white breeches and black boots.
‘Much cooler than those lumps on carthorses who ferry you down to post in the States,’ said Eddie. ‘Safety Car and Libertine will think they’re out with the Cotswold.’
Lion’s legs were hanging down out of the stirrups to calm a sweating, cavorting Libertine.
‘That’s Safety Car. Grandpa’s pet.’
‘Why does he love him so much?’
‘He was off for seventeen months with tendon problems, practically lived in the house then won race after race. Titus was so jealous because everyone loves Safety that he bit his ear and most of his tail off, but it worked in the opposite direction; now racegoers all over the world recognize Safety because of his one ear and tail, and cheer him on. He’s so kind. He’s been flown out to calm Libertine and act as his pacemaker.
‘Isa’s using a very good horse, Nero Tolerance, as a pacemaker for Feud for Thought. Ironically, both Libertine and Feud for Thought have frightful draws in double figures but Safety Car’s got the best draw, and he’s 100–1. I’ve put £100 on him. He won’t win, but look at the old moke still in his winter coat.’
‘Like me,’ said Gala.
The huge starting gates, with a tractor attached to lug them to different parts of the course, looked like a giant bus whose windows darkened as each horse was led into its stall. Libertine, way out in Stall 14, neighed anxiously to Safety Car in Stall 1.
‘After Feud for Thought beating Dardanius in the Derby, it matters so much to Grandpa that Libertine beats the shit out of Feud for Thought today.’ For once Eddie sounded serious.
‘Why do you call him Grandpa?’
‘To remind him of his age – mustn’t let him get too cocky.’
A deafening roar, the gates crashed open and they were off. Isa’s pacemaker Nero Tolerance set off at a cracking speed. Safety Car, despite his emerging winter coat, took advantage of his brilliant draw, hugging the rails, stripping off the paint, while both Libertine and Feud for Thought got stuck behind a cliff of horses, which soon included Nero Tolerance, who’d run out of puff.
Although Safety Car’s wily old jockey could see the huge black shadows of rivals creeping up menacingly on the left as the rest of the field wrestled to overtake him, Safety, drawing away, battled on, refusing to give up. ‘He’s looking forward to the pint of beer in his feed when he gets back. Come on, Safety!’ yelled Eddie.
And Safety, finding more and more, giving everything he was capable of, kept going, until he staggered first past a winning post, fantastically garlanded with flowers.
‘Fucking marvellous, what a heart! Given himself enough time to choose one for his button-hole,’ whooped Eddie.
Libertine, son of Love Rat, seeing Safety Car’s straggly tail and reassuring dark-brown rump surging ahead, rallied and came second. Safety Car, however, was so exhausted, he crashed into the rails, and a sobbing, deliriously happy Marketa had, in between steadying hugs, to drench him with buckets of water until he recovered.
While Eddie and Gala had been yelling their he
ads off, so had the lads at Penscombe, who had been watching televisions in stud and tack room. Libertine, Love Rat’s colt, had won $500,000, Safety Car more than $2,000,000, 5 per cent of which would be divided among them. Rupert, who’d put ten grand on Safety Car at 100–1 was ecstatically punching the air. Teddy Matthews could be seen crying with joy, both over a wonderful win and the fact that, as the jockey, he’d netted a 10 per cent $200,000.
‘He and Safety can both retire,’ said Eddie.
‘And the Racing Post’s got the perfect headline: SAFETY FIRST,’ giggled Gala.
Robert Cooper from At the Races had been trying to interview Rupert all day. Now grumbling: ‘He’s bound to push off to his hotel,’ he was amazed when a euphoric Rupert almost hugged him, saying what a wonderful servant Safety Car had been to the yard, and how brilliantly Teddy had ridden him, and how Love Rat’s son Libertine had come second.
He then delivered some withering put-downs about Valhalla’s horses: ‘Such a long way to come to get nowhere,’ and happily posed for photographs with Safety Car, Libertine and their jockeys and stable lasses, Marketa and Lark.
God, he’s handsome when he’s happy, marvelled an unwillingly captivated Gala.
As a bell rang in the yard announcing a win, the telephone went: Rupert calling to compare joyous notes with Taggie. Eddie kept him talking while Gala rushed upstairs and, frantically apologizing for not waking her before, dragged Taggie out of the shower and gave her the glorious news. A dripping Taggie then rushed downstairs wrapped in a scarlet towel.
‘Didn’t they run brilliantly, darling Safety Car, darling Libertine, darling Teddy Matthews – give him my love,’ she cried, crossing her fingers, then jabbering with apology because she and Rupert had rowed before he left, she was so sorry, she loved him so much, and Rupert was obviously saying how much he loved her. Taggie came off the telephone, tearful yet starry-eyed, like a moonbow at night.
‘Some of the horses are going on to Singapore,’ she told Gala and Eddie, ‘and some are going on to Dubai. Libertine and Safety Car are coming home so we’ve got to greet them with a hero’s welcome. Must go and give Love Rat a carrot, he’ll probably be asleep. Rupert’s whizzing up to China to follow up some of Valent’s contacts. He’ll be home around the twentieth – God, how blissful.’
Hearing the adoration in Taggie’s voice, Gala was wiped out by longing for a lost Ben, who would never come home.
Seeing all those Chinese crowds only reinforced the fact that she’d never be able to prove Zixin Wang was behind the poachers’ raid and bring him to justice. Tearing upstairs, her heart aching far more than her legs, she had just thrown herself sobbing on her bed, when Old Eddie’s voice crackled on to the monitor.
‘Gala, darling, I need a pee.’
So she laughed instead. At least someone needed her.
16
Young Eddie Alderton won neither of his jump races at Plumpton. Safety Car, Libertine, Marketa, Lark and Cathal returned to their hero’s welcome. Gala buried herself in work and watched military programmes with Old Eddie, as she addressed hundreds more Christmas cards adorned with Love Rat’s photograph and wrapped up endless presents she had helped Taggie buy on a trip to Cheltenham. Here she had nearly fainted over the variety and beauty of the clothes, but resisted buying anything. She mustn’t waste money when her sister in South Africa needed it.
Christmas was the worst time to be missing Ben – with all the loving kindness of Christmas and the shops ringing with carols and songs.
‘Last Christmas, I gave you my heart, and the very next day Wang took you away.’
She worked endless hours in the hope of being tired enough to sleep at night, and on her break she kept on wandering down to both the stud and the yard armed with Polos, so that all the horses were soon whickering in welcome. She also sneaked a glance at Gavin Latton, who was very attractive but still totally ignored her.
And she’d never been so cold. It gnawed into her soul, particularly when the temperature dropped and an icy wind howled up the valley from the Bristol Channel. She put on more jerseys, and with Rupert coming home soon, she’d have liked to have shed her spare tyres, but couldn’t diet in such weather.
All the horses were inside except Safety Car, who kicked his box out when they tried to stable him, insisting on staying outside, heavily rugged-up with his six sheep friends. Rupert was due home on the twenty-first.
On 20 December it started snowing at lunchtime, and kept on snowing like a thief stealing the landscape, flakes pouring down like the plucked and swirling feathers of the doves that raided Taggie’s bird-table. Gala, who had never seen snow before, was so excited she forgot the cold and raced round the garden trying to catch enough flakes to make a snowball.
The lads had checked if Safety Car was OK and, when he still refused to come in, they had gone off to a party in the next-door village and failed to get back through the blizzards and drifts. Nor could Taggie, who’d gone to cook her parents’ supper across the valley.
Gala was so shattered that, having tucked up Old Eddie, she collapsed into bed, Ian Rankin almost immediately falling out of her hands. Her prayers that she’d be spared nightmares, however, seemed shot to pieces when she was aroused by a thundering on her door, which became more and more insistent. Groggily staggering to answer it, Gala found an enraged Rupert.
‘Get up! Where the fuck is everyone? I need you outside – who the hell are you?’
He had arrived, not even bothering to log a flight-path, landing the helicopter suicidally dangerously in a raging blizzard and three feet of drifting snow.
‘What’s happened, what’s the matter?’ asked Gala.
‘Get dressed and come down to the yard. Where’s Taggie?’
‘Gone to stay with her parents.’
‘Where are the lads?’
‘Gone to some party.’
‘Well, hurry up for Christ’s sake, and bring any duvet you can find.’
Gala grabbed every garment in her wardrobe, put them over her pyjamas and tugged Eddie’s green woolly hat over her rumpled curls. Having not bothered to remove last night’s mascara and eyeliner, her eyes were smudged like a panda. Oh, what did it matter!
Outside the front door she plunged into a wall of snow, flakes still hurtling down, a vicious east wind chucking crushed icicles in her face. Rupert’s beechwoods soared like the Cliffs of Dover.
Slipping and sliding, the snow filling up her Uggs, she found Rupert and Gav in the yard breaking ice on water buckets with hammers and putting extra rugs on shivering horses. As Rupert snatched the duvets from her, there was an almighty crash followed by terrified bleating and neighing.
‘Safety Car!’ yelled Rupert. ‘Christ, he’s not still outside?’
Racing down to the paddock, he, Gav and Gala found that a huge sycamore branch, thick as a trunk, had collapsed, trapping Safety Car and his six sheep inside his three-sided field shelter with a buckling corrugated roof the only thing preventing the branch from crushing them all to death. One of the three sides had already caved in, scattering bricks over the sheep. Safety Car, pinned down on his side, gave a faint whicker and tried to scramble up as Rupert approached.
‘No boy, stay still.’ Rupert knelt down and stroked him. ‘Get some ACP,’ he hissed as he steadied the terrified animal, comforting him until Gavin rushed back with an injection to plunge into his veins. While this was kicking in, Rupert ordered Gala to slowly and delicately remove the fallen bricks, chucking them into the snow, enabling the sheep that weren’t dead to wriggle free and bound off. Then he told Gala to take over from him.
Safety Car’s big donkey ear was drooping. Feeling how cold it was, Gala hugged him, wiping snow out of his half-closed eyes. Despite being doped, he was growing more restless, particularly as another sheep wriggled free and bounded off.
‘You’ll be next. It’s all right, good old boy,’ Gala told him.
His shoulders were still trapped under the biggest branch, which Rupert and Gavin, t
heir hands bleeding, were struggling to lift clear. Leaving Safety Car for a moment, Gala, proud of her strength, joined them in their struggles, but still none of them could shift the branch a centimetre.
Then, miraculously, Roving Mike, Cathal and Meerkat – all reeking of drink – rolled up, having waded across the fields. Meerkat was despatched to make Safety up a big bed, the other two roped in to help lift. Swearing, they all managed to raise the great branch a couple of inches.
‘Hope to Christ he hasn’t broken anything,’ muttered Rupert.
But to prove he was OK, Safety Car grappled for a grip on the frozen snow with his unshod feet, plunged forward, ignoring cries of ‘Steady, boy!’, slipped then lurched upwards, swaying violently. Then everyone gave a cheer as he staggered to freedom.
‘Everyone out!’ bawled Rupert and glanced round to see they all were, as he and Gav let go of the biggest branch and both leapt forward to grab Safety Car’s head collar on either side. ‘You’re coming inside for once, you old bugger,’ said Rupert as, slipping and sliding, they guided the huge horse, swaying like a drunkard, to one of the foaling boxes, where straw had been spread over the floor and up the walls.
‘Not deep enough,’ Rupert said curtly, then to Gala: ‘Go and rustle up more duvets from the house. Where are you going, Gav? Get Safety some mash and put a pint of beer in it.’
To Gala’s amazement, Gav sharply told Rupert to ask one of the other lads. He was off to rescue any remaining sheep.
By the time Gala had staggered back with the duvets, Gavin had returned carrying the last survivor, a young ewe, too cold and tired to be frightened, and laid her bleating beside Safety Car, who nudged her and whickered sleepily.
‘She’ll comfort the old boy, Guv,’ insisted Gav.
Having instructed another lad to make up Safety Car’s mash with a pint of beer, he crouched down beside the old horse, reassuring him and raking his mane.
More lads had got through and were shovelling away the snow on pathways to the stable doors and chucking down rock salt to melt the ice. The horses were now whinnying and stamping impatiently.