Mount!

by Jilly Cooper

  ‘Don’t worry, he and I’ll watch it on TV. We’ll look out for the most beautiful woman, and he’ll think he’s there.’

  Young Eddie was panicking. He hadn’t slept all week, watching endless replays of the Guineas and the Dante. He had thrown up last night’s fillet steak and half bottle of red wine drunk to steady his nerves, followed by this morning’s bowl of cornflakes. He hadn’t been to the gym sufficiently often. Would he be strong enough to hold up Quickly?

  Hoping sex might send him to sleep last night, he’d hardly had the energy to yell: ‘Groom service!’ outside The Shaggery or give much joy to Lou-easy when she obliged.

  The rest of the night was spent thinking longingly of Sauvignon, smiling at him and calling out, ‘Well done, Eddie,’ after the Guineas. He knew that Rupert and Valent had had vast ante-post bets, and that the yard and particularly the stud, who were coming to the end of a knackering four-month covering and foaling season, had put their bonuses and pool money on Quickly.

  Finally, he’d been half-longing, half-dreading (in case he screwed up) his parents, Luke and Perdita, coming over, only to learn yesterday that his father had broken his leg in a fall from a polo pony, and that Gav, also due back, was staying on in Palm Beach to help Perdita run the yard. Last night, Eddie had Skyped his father, who was clearly in a lot of pain. Gav had sent him an email.

  Nor was Valent Edwards at all happy when he learnt that Sheikh Abdul Baddi from Qatar, who was snapping up horses like a little boy in a sweet shop, had wanted a Derby winner and through Rupert’s bloodstock agent friend, Bas Baddingham, had offered twenty million for a majority share in Master Quickly. Alas, Etta, who hadn’t even been very happy sharing Quickly with Rupert, wouldn’t dream of it.

  ‘He’s only a horse, Etta,’ begged Valent, ‘and a very tricky one at that. He kicked your teeth out and bit his mother and Chisolm, and everyone else. Might not win the Derby, might be a disaster at stud. Do you really want to pass up twenty million?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Typical, thought Rupert furiously. Oil’s well that doesn’t end up well, the stupid bitch.

  At least Etta and Valent had got a fine tan for the Derby, having just spent ten days in Mauritius.

  ‘Have I got to wear a topper?’ grumbled Valent. ‘I feel such a prat.’

  ‘It really suits you, as long as you wear it tipped forward,’ said Etta. ‘The dress code says I’ve got to wear a substantial fascinator.’

  ‘You’re substantially fascinating in that frock,’ quipped Valent, admiring his wife rising out of her pink spotted silk dress.

  ‘Bit too substantial.’ Etta patted her tummy. ‘Shouldn’t have stuffed my face on holiday.’

  Rupert’s dark-blue lorry, driven by Bobby, carrying Cathal, Marketa, Meerkat, Jemmy, Gala, Quickly, Safety Car, Hell Bent Hal, Mrs Wilkinson and Chisolm had nearly reached Epsom. Most of the journey had been spent bitching about Rupert’s short fuse. Gala, with Purrpuss in his collar and lead, purring on her knees, was feeling the most fed up.

  Rupert was still so pissed off with her for joining the protest and shouting back at him when Bao arrived that he’d deliberately punished her by assigning her Bao, to learn about prepping a horse before a big race. How could she concentrate on getting Quickly calm and to a pitch of fitness and beauty with some little Tiananmen Squire hanging around, pestering her with questions and asking what he could do to help? Bao had cheerfully put up with being nipped and even kicked when Quickly had to be tranked before being shod on Tuesday, so he could work his new plates in before Saturday and the drugs would be out of his system in time.

  As the lorry rumbled through the pretty town of Epsom with its village green like a cathedral close, crowds were streaming along the pavement, including a surprisingly large number of young people.

  ‘Perhaps Poster Boy Eddie really is pulling them in,’ sneered Cathal, admiring the bare shoulders, plunging cleavages and vast expanses of plump white leg on show.

  ‘My God, can those skirts go any higher?’ said Bobby, nearly ramming a lamp-post.

  ‘Christ, look at all those people,’ gasped Jemmy as they reached the racecourse. ‘No wonder the Guv’s uptight.’

  The biggest crowd in years had come out on a lovely day in expectation of a Campbell-Black victory. Quickly was a massively short 2–1. No one was more excited than Jemmy, who was going to lead up Fleance and pony Quickly down to the start on Safety Car. One day perhaps he’d be riding in the race instead.

  Taggie and Rupert were lunching in the Ladbrokes box. Liking to take presents, Taggie had asked Jan to get her a big box of chocolates. Instead he produced a tin. Inside was a huge iced cake decorated with the words Lovely Ladbrokes and a galloping grey horse.

  Taggie’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Oh thank you, that is so beautiful. What,’ she hugged Jan, ‘would I do without you?’

  ‘You’ll never have to do without me,’ whispered Jan, his arms closing round her. ‘I’m here for the long haul.’

  Taggie melted, then jumped out of her Issey-scented skin as Rupert yelled: ‘Taggie, for God’s sake hurry up! Eddie and I’ve got to walk the course.’

  As Quickly had flatly refused to fly in the Green Galloper, Fleance had been loaded instead. Fleance, born whickering with his ears pricked, had inherited all Love Rat’s sweetness. His fellow passengers in the Green Galloper were Etta, Valent, Taggie and Young Eddie. Rupert flew the plane so he didn’t have to talk to Etta, who spent the flight stroking Fleance’s white face.

  Bao, on the other hand, had been shopping and bought a dark-blue Lamborghini which he was longing to try out, so he gave his new friend Dora a lift to Epsom. He was wearing a really sharp pale-grey suit, a white shirt, and pink tie.

  ‘Lovely suit,’ said Dora.

  ‘Of the pig – you think she’s OK?’

  ‘Stunning,’ giggled Dora. Tweeting, emailing, Facebooking, checking messages, she also proceeded to give Bao a racing lesson.

  ‘The Derby is the most demanding race in the world, the one everyone wants to win. One fascinating aspect of the race is that, although the great Aidan O’Brien and his son Joseph have been the only trainer and jockey father and son combination to win the Derby, Rupert and Young Eddie could be the first grandfather and grandson combination. Rupert’s not very keen on that angle, although Cosmo adores it, and the Racing Post have a picture of him and Eddie on the front page, headed: GRANDFATHER’S DAY?

  ‘Nor is Rupert utterly delighted that Eddie’s getting more fanmail than him – not that Rupert ever opens his. But Eddie’s Facebook crashed this morning, with so many women wanting to be his friend and more.’

  ‘Campbell-Black Rupert is handsome man.’

  ‘He is. What he minds about is Eddie’s screaming fans unnerving Quickly. Sometimes I wonder if Rupert understands the value of publicity. He isn’t remotely pleased that Quickly’s darling mother, Mrs Wilkinson, Chisolm her goat companion and Amber Lloyd-Foxe, who won the Grand National on her, will be parading this afternoon before the Derby. Just grumbles that the din will upset Quickly even more.

  ‘And he was really rude about my idea of painting black stripes on Mrs Wilkinson’s white coat, like the Investec zebra. It would have blown Investec’s minds. Life is very hard.’ Dora sighed. ‘All Rupert cares about is that Quickly’s got a lousy draw out in the car park. Nearly there. This is Surrey,’ she added as they passed large, handsome modern houses with electric gates. ‘Footballers’ houses. Rupert’s daughter Bianca lives in Australia with a footballer called Feral Jackson. One of these houses would suit them perfectly.’

  The gardens blazed with azaleas, rhododendrons, bright-pink hawthorn, laburnum and lilac, like jockeys’ colours mingling at the start. Driving on, they passed hedges strewn with wild roses, Pony Club paddocks, low-slung woods full of oaks and bracken.

  ‘Bracken means adders,’ shuddered Dora.

  ‘Good for the Year of the Snake,’ said Bao, overtaking a hurtling Ferrari.

  ‘Are you enjoying
it at Penscombe?’ asked Dora.

  ‘I am happy at stud. Pat Inglis is very kind. Love Rat speak to me and I love Blood River, he look out on loading bay and think every mare arriving for him.’

  ‘Like Young Eddie,’ said Dora, getting out her make-up bag.

  ‘My father wants me to be hands in, but Milburn Gala, she doesn’t like me.’

  ‘Well, she had a bad time,’ said Dora, applying blue eye-liner. ‘The Chinese mafia killed her husband and all her animals in Zimbabwe and burnt her house down. She is very sad and thinks Chinese people are cruel to animals. I don’t, of course,’ added Dora, conveniently forgetting her placard-waving at Bao’s arrival.

  ‘I will be very kind to Purrpuss and Quickry,’ said Bao. ‘What do cats like? There is pet shop.’ The Lamborghini screamed to a halt.

  50

  Cosmo continued his sledging. He and Isa had three horses in the Derby: the perfect gentleman, I Will Repay, black Eumenides, who’d won one of the Derby trials, and Boris Badenough, the dark-brown pacemaker. They were no doubt planning team tactics to hem in Quickly.

  Rupert had refused to retaliate or talk to the press except to say that Quickly was very well. As he stalked the course with Eddie, and Meerkat panting to keep up, Eddie grew paler as he appreciated why Epsom’s slopes and cambers made the Derby so demanding.

  ‘You probably don’t realize it,’ announced Rupert, ‘but during the race, the track rises by a height of nine double-decker buses on top of each other, and then slopes downwards the height of seven more double-decker buses.’

  ‘Wow!’ said Meerkat.

  ‘As Quickly’s drawn in the car park, you’ll probably spend most of the race trapped on the rail.’

  ‘Rupert!’ They’d been ambushed by a hot-eyed, very done-up journalist from the Scorpion called Rhiannon Tate, who was wafting scent and entrapment.

  ‘Morning, Rupert. You worried Cosmo Rannaldini has three horses running?’

  ‘Not at all,’ snapped Rupert. ‘If they want to avoid humiliation, I’d advise all three to stay home in their boxes.’

  ‘Wow!’ Rhiannon was wearing so much mascara, it was hard for her eyes to widen. ‘You so certain Quickly’s going to win?’

  ‘Of course. Now piss off.’

  ‘Cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck,’ sighed Eddie.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ snarled Rupert.

  ‘Counting chickens before they’re hatched.’

  ‘Couldn’t cluck if they hadn’t hatched. Not if you ride that horse as you’ve been told. This is the highest point. Quickly will only cope here if he’s well balanced as you race downwards. And keep the whip in your left hand to stop him running down the cambers or you’ll be done for interference.’

  ‘Eddie, Eddie!’ Two ravishing blondes had kicked off their stilettos and dived under the rails towards him. ‘Can we have your autograph?’

  As he signed their race cards, the first blonde caught sight of Rupert’s steely face. Pretty lush for an older man, she thought. Her forehead wrinkling – he looked familiar. Confident in her beauty, she asked: ‘Can I have yours too? I can’t quite place you.’

  ‘No, you can’t,’ said Rupert, striding off towards the finishing post.

  ‘You idiot,’ said the second girl. ‘That’s the King.’

  Many, many trainers have been kept going because of betting. Rupert had always bet with Ladbrokes and over the years both sides had made a great deal of money out of the other. Today he had accepted an invitation to lunch in the Ladbrokes box, although with Hell Bent Hal in the Woodcote Stakes and Fleance in the Coronation Cup for four-year-olds and upwards, and Quickly in the Derby, he wouldn’t have time to do more than pop in for a drink from time to time. But it would be nice for Taggie, Etta, Valent and Bao, the latter both potentially powerful customers, and Dora to have a base and enjoy a nice lunch.

  Taggie was so relieved. Rupert always wanted her to watch the big races with him and be there to accept any cups, but he was always so busy with the horses, she was often left on her own, and being very shy, she found it hard to talk to random horsey strangers.

  But even if she’d turned up without Etta and co, Ladbrokes staff and customers were so warm and friendly, and when she took Bao out on to the packed balcony, the crowd immediately beckoned her through to the rail to appreciate the full splendour of Derby Day.

  And Bao just gasped. Shaggy dark-green woods stretching to the horizon formed the perfect backdrop on the far side of the track to a glorious funfair of coloured merry-go-rounds and roller-coasters, couples screaming on Walls of Death or in the giant beaks of vast birdlike cranes. Below them, spilling over like Young Eddie’s chest of drawers, were rows and rows of open-topped buses crammed with eating and drinking revellers, which was where Old Eddie would have been with his chums from White’s.

  On both sides of the track more picnickers, men and women in bright colours, spread over the grass enjoying the glorious sunshine. But to the left, crammed together on a little lawn fenced off to keep the riff-raff at bay, were men in top hats and morning coats, and women in pretty dresses and hats in more subtle colours: the Investec Set.

  ‘And that’s the winners enclosure – not big enough for a Shetland pony,’ pointed out Dora.

  There were Investec zebras everywhere, and overhead floated a huge zebra balloon.

  ‘Oh poor Gala, I’ve never seen such crowds – and all these zebras to remind her of Pinstripe,’ sighed Taggie.

  There was a deafening roar as the Red Devils parachuted down on to the course.

  Then the band started up and the crowd became a sea of waving Union Jacks, as the limo carrying the Queen in royal-blue and the Duke of Edinburgh came slowly past.

  ‘Hope my horse goes faster than that,’ said a jolly man in a shiny pinstripe suit, filling up Taggie’s glass.

  Bao was ecstatic. ‘Your Queen is so beautiful and Edinburgh Duke too,’ he cried, frantically snapping with the camera on his smartphone.

  Dame Hermione, in strapless gold to match her highlighted hair, then welcomed Her Majesty with the National Anthem, accompanied by the Band of the Royal Marines.

  ‘Probably had them all, the old tart – that’s Cosmo’s mother,’ said Dora dismissively.

  ‘What is old tart? Harefield Hermione, wonderful singer,’ cried Bao, taking even more pictures. ‘I have plenty of his CDs.’

  Going inside, the box had filled up with Ladbrokes high-rollers, many of them professional gamblers, wearing lots of gold and striped shirts with white collars. Vast wodges of notes were being paid in and out of the mobile betting till at the entrance. Taggie and Etta were seated next to the jolly man in the pinstriped suit, who was called Barney.

  ‘Your husband and Quickly are going to bankrupt us today,’ sighed Rupert’s handsome friend, David Williams, who was Ladbrokes’ Media Director.

  The first race had started, the jockeys’ breeches like tiny white bugs bobbing along the rail in front of the dark trees lining the track.

  The din in the box was incredible. ‘Come on, come on ’Eavy Duty, come on ’Ollygofaster, get to work, get your arse into gear,’ yelled the high-rollers.

  ‘He looks nice,’ said Etta as a man went up to accept a large cup after the first race.

  ‘Should be,’ said Barney, ‘he’s werf five hundred million.’

  Ladbrokes were thrilled with Jan’s cake. ‘We’ll have it for dessert. We need some comfort,’ they told Taggie. ‘Your Quickly’s one to three now.’

  ‘He’s never seen a crowd like this before,’ fretted Taggie.

  ‘Is it true one isn’t allowed to bet in China?’ asked Barney as Bao extracted his own wodge of notes and set out for the mobile till.

  ‘I think so,’ said Taggie, ‘but he’s making up for it now.’

  ‘What are you on?’ Barney asked a returning Bao.

  ‘Hell Bent Hal and then Fleance in the Coronation Cup. I like Fleance, he talk to me.’

  ‘Would you like to join Ladbrokes?’ a
sked David Williams.

  Having eaten the most delicious pâté, they moved on to rack of lamb. With his napkin tucked into his shirt collar, Barney was gnawing away like a starved dingo.

  Hell Bent Hal and Meerkat hacked up in the Woodcote Stakes.

  ‘I lumped on that one,’ said Barney as Bao came back to the table with a fistful of notes. ‘Should have listened to you, Bao.’

  A great cheer went up as Taggie accepted Hal’s Cup.

  ‘What a lovely lady,’ said everyone.

  Fleance and Meerkat won the Coronation Cup – a mighty race worth £170,000 to add to Love Rat’s figures and a double for Rupert. As Taggie took Bao down to accept the Cup, she just managed to prevent him asking for a selfie with the Queen. Still giggling, fuelled by champagne, she escaped to a corner of the Ladbrokes box to ring Jan.

  ‘Everything’s wonderful, clever Hal and Fleance, and Ladbrokes adore your cake, such a success. Is everything OK?’

  ‘Fine, all the dogs are fine – I’ll go and give Love Rat a carrot.’ His voice softened. ‘I miss you so much, mam; you looked so lovely accepting the Cup.’

  ‘And I … I mean we – are missing you.’ Taggie jumped out of her skin, as on the television screen appeared Janey Lloyd-Foxe, most dangerous of journalists, always looking for cracks in Rupert and Taggie’s marriage.

  ‘It was the proudest moment of my life,’ Janey was saying as she mopped her eyes carefully, ‘my daughter Amber winning the Grand National on Mrs Wilkinson. But it was a bittersweet moment, because just afterwards my beloved husband Billy Lloyd-Foxe, great showjumper and broadcaster, died in hospital. I’m sure he’s looking down from heaven, so proud that Amber and Mrs Wilkinson, Master Quickly’s dam, are parading before the Derby this afternoon.’

  ‘Pissed,’ said Dora as she joined Taggie. ‘She’s had a hell of a lot of work. Botoxic bitch.’

  ‘What are you working on at the moment?’ Mick Fitzgerald asked Janey.

  ‘A sort of autobiography about my life with Billy, who was of course Rupert Campbell-Black’s best friend so it’ll be all about Rupert too. It’s going to be called Billy and Me.’