Mount!

by Jilly Cooper

  ‘How do you control him when you walk him out?’ she asked Pat.

  ‘With a chain through his mouth, which hurts like hell if you tug it.’

  As well as Love Rat, Old Eddie loved going down to the stud to chat up Vanessa, known as Gee Gee which stood for Gentle Giantess because she was six foot, Junoesque and considered strong enough to look after the more biddable stallions. Meerkat, Rupert’s second jockey, who was only five foot two, had a massive crush on her.

  Once the covering season began, things became frantically busy with stallions expected to cover up to three times a day and mares who poured in from all over the world to board. An added problem was that they couldn’t be put to their allotted stallion unless they were ovulating, which caused endless logjams, and overcrowding of the car park.

  ‘I’m fed up with being sworn at by French lorry drivers,’ grumbled Roving Mike.

  ‘I think they’re lush,’ simpered nympho Celeste. ‘They can overnight in my room at the hostel any time.’

  One slightly milder morning, instead of real snow, drifts of snowdrops spread across the lawn and the pale-blue sky reflected in the lake, beside which a group of Rupert’s two-year-old fillies were ecstatically frolicking and guzzling their first grass in weeks.

  Seeing Rupert by the covering barn, deep in conversation with Pat and Meerkat, Gala avoided the stud and wheeled Eddie back to the yard, where he loved to ogle the stable lasses. Here they found Fleance, one of Rupert’s most exciting two-year-olds, a pure white, son of Love Rat and just back from the gallops. He had been tied up outside his box by Celeste.

  Next minute Roving Mike, who had the hots for Celeste, rolled up and they both dived into Fleance’s box, leaving the colt outside. It was not warm enough. Gala’s lips pursed with disapproval. A second later, she was distracted by Titus Andronicus prowling by on his morning walk, towing along a very nervous stud hand. As keen for a shag as Michael and Celeste, Titus caught sight of the fillies by the lake. Bellowing with excitement, he went up on his hind legs, punching the air. Then, tugging the latch chain out of the lad’s hands, he took off across the fields towards them.

  Poor little fillies! Without thought, leaving Eddie in his wheelchair, Gala untied Fleance and, jumping on his back, with only a head collar to guide him, she hurtled out of the yard towards the lake, riding effortlessly in perfect harmony with the colt. She’d never been on anything so fast: joy overwhelmed her.

  ‘Come on, Fleance! Come on!’

  They were gaining on Titus who, endangering his manhood, cleared a fence into the field by the lake. At that moment, hearing her shouting, Rupert, Pat and Meerkat had come out of the covering barn (where for once Love Rat had performed quickly and effortlessly) and saw Gala thundering by.

  ‘What the fuck?’ yelled Rupert.

  ‘My God,’ said Pat. ‘Titus has got loose.’

  ‘Titus, Titus,’ called a panting Gala.

  Fortunately, as he reached the lake, Titus was pegged by rushes and she was able to catch up with him. Grabbing him, three tons of gleaming black muscle, just before he reached the fillies, Gala leapt off and set Fleance free. To her relief, Titus was then distracted by a swan flapping its wings on the bank and Gala’s pockets were bulging with chopped carrots with which she just managed to mollify him until Pat, ashen beneath his freckles, pounded up.

  ‘Thank Christ,’ he panted, grabbing the latch chain, then as Titus reared up again: ‘All right, laddie, calm down … Where in hell did you learn to ride like that?’

  ‘I used to race a bit in Zim.’

  ‘Bloody marvellous, well done. You OK?’

  ‘Fine, I’ll go and get Fleance,’ who had wandered off to chat up the fillies and who was delighted with the rest of Gala’s carrots.

  ‘Well done!’ cried Meerkat excitedly as Gala cantered Fleance back to them. ‘You ride great, doesn’t she, Rupert?’

  But Rupert was looking at Fleance then at his stopwatch.

  ‘That colt’s trained on bloody well. He’s just been twice up the gallops and now given a lot of weight and a beating to Titus, one of the fastest horses in the world. I know Titus is let down and not fit, but Fleance’s definitely on for the Guineas.’

  ‘Only if you put Gala up,’ reproved Meerkat, who wasn’t a bit frightened of Rupert. ‘You ought to be more grateful. Gala’s just saved you, your prized fillies and Fleance, and Titus’ bollocks into the bargain.’

  ‘She did,’ acknowledged Rupert. ‘If you lost a stone or two, you might be able to ride out.’ Then, patting Fleance: ‘This is a serious horse.’

  ‘Roo-pert!’ reproved Pat and Meerkat in unison, as a furious Gala swung round and cantered Fleance back to his box, outside of which she found Old Eddie ogling Celeste, who had just emerged zipping up her jeans, followed by Roving Mike, tucking in his shirt-tails.

  ‘Oh, so there’s Fleance,’ said Celeste accusingly. ‘What are you doing on him? You should have put on a rug.’

  I hate Celeste, I loathe Rupert, thought Gala as she tackled another mountain of ironing that afternoon and miserably ate her way through a packet of chocolate biscuits. Hearing a step, she shoved the biscuit packet under the clothes she’d done and continued to iron one of Rupert’s shirts.

  ‘Where’s Taggie?’ asked Rupert, as he wandered in, followed by his pack of dogs who greeted Gala with noisy affection.

  ‘Gone to Cheltenham.’

  Rupert had been about to thank her for stopping Titus, but seeing she was ironing his blue and green striped lucky shirt, he snapped: ‘For Christ’s sake, don’t burn it!’

  ‘Iron it yourself then.’ As she switched off the iron, gathering up the clothes, Banquo, with his Labrador nose, tugged out the three-quarter empty packet of chocolate biscuits which had melted all over Old Eddie’s underpants and Rupert’s dress shirt, which he was supposed to be wearing for a dinner that night.

  ‘You won’t ride out if you keep guzzling those.’

  ‘Oh fuck off,’ muttered Gala, stomping off upstairs.

  Word, however, had got round about her courage and enterprise earlier.

  An hour later, Taggie called up the stairs. ‘Pat’s outside – he wants a word, Gala.’

  The ‘words’ were, in fact, a ravishing bunch of spring flowers. Dear Gala, thank you from everyone at Penscombe Stud for saving Fleance and the fillies from Titus, said the card.

  As Gala started to cry, Pat put his arms around her and hugged her. ‘Don’t let Rupert get to you. We all think you’re fantastic.’

  Going back into the kitchen, Gala found that Taggie had bought her a pair of leopardskin wool pyjamas.

  ‘Pat tells me you’re the heroine of the yard.’

  Tugging at a piece of kitchen roll with which to wipe her eyes, Gala noticed the label said multi-purpose and super-absorbent, which summed up Taggie.

  ‘You are the nicest person I’ve ever met,’ said Gala.

  19

  Gala, like most carers from Africa, particularly Zimbabwe, was terrified of the dark and went around bolting doors at night. She had been made especially twitchy by a spate of burglaries in the Gloucestershire area, where the thugs had broken in, emptied jewel boxes and particularly concentrated on gold and silver, which could then be melted down and sold abroad. A trainer in the next county had been stripped of every cup and trophy, many of them embarrassingly only lent for a year by the racecourses. Rupert, who in addition had pictures worth millions, had been warned by the police to watch out.

  The house was empty one frosty late-February night except for a peacefully snoring Old Eddie. Taggie was staying yet again across the valley, doing a dinner party for her mother Maud. Young Eddie had gone to an all-night rave-up with Trixie. Rupert had been invited to some dinner and wasn’t due back until tomorrow.

  The house creaked and groaned, the wind whined down the chimney and rattled uncut-back creepers against the windows. A full moon was hidden by impenetrable ebony clouds. Gala had reached a black hole of despair. Tonight would ha
ve been her eighth wedding anniversary. Ben had given her a huge and beautiful emerald brooch for her seventh.

  Oh Ben! At least no one would be woken by her bawling her head off. She had made the mistake of watching a film on saving the white rhino. Six hundred had already been slaughtered in Zim this year. Having taken out the dogs, she had locked up and had a boiling bath before putting on her new leopardskin pyjamas which were rather sexy and gave her back her shape. For what? she thought bitterly, but she pinned on the wedding anniversary emerald. Running downstairs to doublecheck she’d locked the front door, she found it open. She must be losing her mind. Bolting and locking it again, she put a big chair against it.

  She was so tired, she fell asleep instantly, then – cruellest of all nightmares – dreamt about rhinos having their horns hacked off, leaving cavernous bloody wounds and terrified babies … and there was Ben, face dark and twisted beyond all recognition, trying to save them, then being lifted off the ground by machine-gun fire. Gala woke sobbing and screaming to hear a rattle of bullets outside, which became louder and more insistent. They were coming to get her. Petrified, heart pounding, she crept up to the window – nothing but dark, not a shaft of moonlight – then jumped in panic at another rattle of gunfire.

  Why weren’t the dogs barking? Was it burglars? She clutched her emerald brooch as she crept down the dark landing. Her mobile was back in her room, and anyway Pat Inglis’ and Cathal’s numbers could only be located on the board in the kitchen. She didn’t dare switch on a light, in case the intruders clocked her.

  Reaching a window looking out on to the front of the house, she jumped at another rattle, then died. As the moon parted the ebony clouds, lighting up a frost-sparkling lawn, there was the ghost of Rupert Black in the same white shirt, hair glittering white-blond. Then the clouds slid over the moon, followed by more gunfire. Locked and bolted doors don’t keep out ghosts. Then the moon emerged again, and she gave a cry of relief as it lit up a plump black Labrador, and a brindle greyhound and two Jack Russells weaving round Rupert Black’s feet as another volley of gravel hit the window.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, let me in!’ howled a voice.

  Oh God, it was Rupert. Hurtling down the stairs, Gala tripped and fell. Saving herself by grabbing the post at the bottom, encountering velvet, and switching on the light, she realized it was Rupert’s dark-blue smoking jacket.

  ‘What the hell’s going on? I’ve been trying to get into my house for the past half hour!’ he shouted as Gala’s shaking hands struggled with bolts, keys and chains. ‘Do you want me to freeze to death?’

  ‘I didn’t know you were coming back, I’m so sorry.’

  Next moment, she was sent flying by a tsunami of dogs, barking excitedly, wagging, whining and weaving round her feet.

  ‘I’m truly sorry. I didn’t hear you come in.’

  Seeing how pale and trembling she was, and on the verge of tears, Rupert said as he went into the kitchen: ‘You’d better have a drink.’

  ‘You honestly don’t have to, I ought to go back to bed,’ stammered Gala, thinking how utterly gorgeous he looked in that white shirt. In fact, compared with the long-legged yearling slenderness of him in the nude painting on the landing, he was now as powerful and solidly muscular as one of his stallions.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ he told her.

  ‘Well, at least put something on.’ Gala seized a thick dark-blue jersey drying on the Aga.

  As Rupert shrugged into it, enjoying the warmth, he clocked the emerald on her pyjama top. ‘Been robbing Cartiers?’

  ‘Ben, my husband, gave it to me for our last wedding anniversary. Actually it would have been our eighth anniversary tonight.’

  ‘Better celebrate then.’

  Having switched on At the Races, Rupert got a bottle of champagne out of the fridge.

  ‘Go on,’ he nodded to the much-blanketed sofa, where she was instantly joined by Forester sliding behind her, and Banquo and Cuthbert taking up guard on either side of her and Gilchrist collapsing on her feet.

  ‘You’ve certainly seduced my dogs. Where the hell did he get that emerald from?’

  ‘Ben was diverting the river flowing through our land into a pond for the cattle. He found the stone on the river-bed. Thank you.’ Gala accepted a large glass. ‘And he took it to a local jeweller who turned it into a brooch. I’ve often wondered if the jeweller tipped off Wang, the local mafia warlord, that there were minerals on our land.’

  ‘What did Ben do?’

  ‘He was a farmer, but also a game warden, obsessed with saving the white rhino from the poachers. We were caught up in a court case to keep our farm. Finally, after five years of haggling, we won. Next day it was burnt to the ground. I’m boring you.’

  ‘No,’ said Rupert, who was watching a race on At the Races Stateside with half an eye.

  ‘You told Taggie you didn’t want to know.’ Gala took a slug of champagne, the desire to unburden overwhelming. ‘I’d been shopping in Harare to get some drink for a wedding anniversary party – seven years and no itch. I found,’ she took a deep breath, ‘that all the farmworkers who had been loyal to us had been murdered; they’d strung up our Staffies and our black Lab, then they’d cut and hacked the legs off our horses and cows.’

  ‘Christ.’ Rupert turned down the television. ‘Where was Ben?’

  ‘Saving a baby rhino. Poachers had killed its mother and sawed off her horn, but the baby had managed to survive for four days, crawling under her to suckle from her teats.’ Gala gave a sob. ‘Ben was trying to load the baby on to his truck. The poachers must’ve known he was there – they came back and fired fifty bullets into his body.’

  ‘Christ, that is so fucking awful. What did the police do?’

  ‘What police? They all work for the government, who are hand in velvet glove with Wang.’

  ‘There must be some way of getting him.’

  ‘You don’t tangle with mafia warlords; they don’t like being reminded of their transgressions,’ said Gala bleakly. ‘Wang’s mining our land now.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ Rupert filled up her glass.

  ‘I was having a nightmare about rhinos. I thought the rattle of gravel on the window was gunfire, then I looked out of the window and saw a blond man in a white shirt in the moonlight and nearly died. I thought it was the ghost of Rupert Black.’

  Like a suddenly floodlit statue, Rupert’s still face broke into a smile.

  ‘Funny coincidence, I crossed swords this evening with a descendant of the guy Rupert Black’s supposed to have taken out. A prat called Roddy Northfield. His elder brother Rufus, Lord Rutshire, owns Rutminster Racecourse. Roddy, who runs the racing side, wants to raise cash building horrid little houses everywhere.

  ‘Rutshire’s gay with no heir and not much into racing, so Roddy, who has a repulsive lumpen son, Alfred – who’ll probably inherit – is already throwing his considerable weight around. He’s got a new sponsor who wants to move their big July race from its midweek slot to Saturday, which will mean a logjam of about five races all worth £100,000 taking place within the same two hours. Bloody stupid. Roddy’s the King of Waffle. The debate was entitled “Whither racing”. “Going fucking nowhere with you at the helm”, I told him.’

  ‘Gosh, was he cross?’

  ‘Bellowing like Titus. I was so bored I left before dinner.’ He glanced up at the clock. ‘I’ve got a runner at Saratoga in a minute, one of Love Rat’s fillies.’

  ‘You must be starving,’ said Gala.

  Going to the fridge, Rupert took out a dish of chicken paprika she’d made earlier, but before she had time to suggest she heated it up, he was spooning it up, nodding in approval.

  ‘This is bloody good, nothing like the muck the boots used to serve up to my father.’

  He offered the dish to Gala who, thinking what beautiful hands he had, shook her head.

  ‘Not if I need to lose several stone.’

  ‘In those pyjamas, you’ve actually got a body.’
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  ‘I usually wear ten layers, but it’s getting warmer.’

  ‘That is so awful, what happened to you.’

  Don’t be too nice, she thought, not wanting to cry. Kindness is the greatest aphrodisiac; she couldn’t believe he was being so lovely.

  ‘If someone did that to Tag or my dogs, I’d rip them apart.’

  He put the empty dish in the washing up machine and took some chocolate tart out of the fridge.

  ‘Did you have any children?’

  ‘We were waiting for the court case to be settled.’

  ‘What sort of bloke was he – Ben? Attractive?’

  ‘Very. Honourable,’ she hugged Banquo, ‘like a Labrador but tougher, and very straight. I get panic attacks I’ll never see him again. I want to Skype him in heaven to see if he’s let the Staffies sleep on his cloud.’ Her voice broke again. ‘When we first got them he insisted they lived outside but within a month they were up on the sofa enjoying The X-Factor.’

  But she had lost Rupert, who’d turned up the sound.

  ‘Here’s Love Rat’s filly Flippity Gibbet being ponied down to the post, looks good, just three or four ribs showing. She’s got his ears and wide eyes.’

  He emptied the bottle into Gala’s glass, never taking his eyes off the horses.

  ‘Come on little girl, come on little girl … fucking marvellous!’

  The dogs all wagged their tails as Flippity Gibbet scorched past the post, three lengths clear.

  Gala was shocked at the joy she felt, as a euphoric Rupert opened another bottle. Next moment there was a bleep, Weatherbys’ tracking system telling him any time of the day, anywhere in the world, that his horses had won or been placed in a race.

  ‘Do you switch it off in bed?’ Gala was appalled to find herself asking as he filled up her glass and quickly added: ‘To Flippity Gibbet!’

  ‘To Ben,’ said Rupert, raising his glass to her. He sat down on a kitchen chair, looking at her. ‘I cannot imagine a fraction of what you feel. But my great mate Billy Lloyd-Foxe died last year.’

  ‘To Billy, then.’ Gala raised her glass. ‘He sounds so lovely.’