Mount!

by Jilly Cooper

  ‘Omigod, he must have been in agony.’

  ‘With adrenalin coursing through his veins he probably didn’t feel it at first, but that’s why he died on you.’

  Quickly nudged Eddie in agreement. Purrpuss, after a long day, didn’t stir.

  ‘Oh thank God. Is that true?’ Eddie looked so sweet with tears rolling down his wasted cheeks.

  ‘Absolutely. Come on, another day, another race. Gav will be back soon to sort things out. Come with me.’

  Upstairs, she drew him towards the bedroom.

  ‘You sure? I haven’t eaten all day, I must taste horrible – can I use your toothbrush?’

  When he returned, he said, ‘I’m all sweaty.’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  Feeling her warm breath on his face, Eddie kissed her tentatively, and gradually they caught fire, tongues caressing each other’s. His hands were on her lovely soft body, unhooking her bra so her breasts tumbled out.

  ‘Omigod, I have dreamed of this.’

  Next minute they were tearing off their clothes.

  ‘I haven’t shaved down there for months, I’m like a forest,’ confessed Gala. ‘I haven’t been to bed with anyone since Ben died.’ There, she’d said it.

  ‘Fuck off, Gropius,’ said Eddie as they fell into bed.

  ‘You ought to go to sleep,’ said Gala as she stroked his blond curls.

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  Sliding his hand between her legs he found a clitoris budding: ‘Down in the forest something stirred.’

  Then, as they both shook with laughter, ‘You’re so wet it’s a rainforest. And a tiger’s entering it.’

  As he slid inside her, she gasped in ecstasy.

  ‘Oh, that is the best feeling. I’d forgotten how wonderful sex was,’ said Gala as he finally rolled off her.

  Petruchio hacked up in Chantilly and Rupert and Meerkat flew straight back to Penscombe, landing after midnight.

  Having been shouted at by Valent for being rude to Etta, feeling much guiltier that he’d reduced Gala to tears, Rupert went into the yard. Here Louise, the nightwatchman, informed him that Quickly could hardly put his foot down when he was unloaded. Walter had called Charlie Radcliffe, who found that the nail had also gone through an abscess. He’d poulticed Quickly and given him antibiotics and painkillers.

  ‘Why didn’t anyone ring me?’

  ‘Vet said it wasn’t life-threatening.’

  ‘Where’s Gala?’

  ‘Gone to bed about an hour ago. She was shattered,’ said Louise accusingly. ‘Done everything she could.’

  Going into Quickly’s box, Rupert found him asleep. Purrpuss, tucked up between his legs, mewed warningly: ‘Don’t wake him, poor boy’s had a rough day.’

  Going out into the moonlit night, Rupert saw a light on in Gala’s flat.

  ‘She was upset,’ chided Louise.

  ‘I was vile to her – better go and apologize.’

  ‘Sure she’d appreciate it,’ said Louise gleefully.

  The flat door was ajar. Gropius, for once on the sofa, banished from Gala’s bed, wagged sleepily. He liked Rupert, who always made a fuss of him.

  No one else was in the sitting room. Gala must have fallen asleep with the light on, thought Rupert. He’d leave her a note to cheer her up in the morning. Searching for a pen, he glanced through the open door into the bedroom and froze. Utterly sated, entangled on the rumpled old spare-room duvet covered in red roses, lay Gala and Eddie. Eddie had his head cushioned by her splendid breasts, his hand between her thighs, down the inside of which gleamed silver evidence of recent pleasure. A smile softened Gala’s strong, sexy features; a hand still wearing Ben’s wedding ring rested protectively on Eddie’s golden curls. His clothes, evidence of rapid removal, lay tangled with hers on the floor. Eddie’s sticking-out ribs showed the cruel amount of weight he’d lost, but his smile was angelic.

  Rupert was blasted with fury. How dare Eddie take advantage of Gala, how dare Gala cradle-snatch Eddie! He somehow managed not to yell at them, or to drag Eddie off the bed and hit him across the room. They both ought to be shot.

  He jumped as a solid object hit his calf. But it was only Gropius, always hopeful of a snack.

  ‘They’re setting you a bloody bad example,’ hissed Rupert.

  They both looked so bloody beautiful. He was appalled by the intensity of his rage.

  Out in the yard, the moon had shrugged off a shawl of black cloud, and lit up Rupert’s set, murderous face. Louise laughed in delight as he stalked past her. What a marvellous piece of gossip.

  Back in the house, Taggie was waiting anxiously in bed.

  ‘Are you OK? I heard the plane land.’

  ‘I dropped in to check on Quickly and found Gala in bed with Eddie.’

  ‘Gosh,’ giggled Taggie. ‘I’m so pleased, that should cheer them both up.’

  ‘Not funny, he’s got two rides at Goodwood tomorrow.’

  ‘You must be shattered. But oh, Rupert, Janey clobbered me as I was leaving Ladbrokes’ box. She’s got wind of the fact that Lime Tree Cottage is going to be empty and she wants to rent it for the summer to relive memories of the time she lived here with Billy.’

  ‘Bloody not,’ said Rupert, wriggling out of his green gingham shirt and dropping it in the bin for the luck it hadn’t brought him. ‘We’re not having that shit-stirring bitch within a hundred miles of the place. Gala had better move in then when Gav comes back.’

  As it was a fourth Sunday, it was Gala’s turn to lie in. She was woken by a telephone call from Eddie.

  ‘Never, never guess what.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Grandpa popped in to apologize to you last night and caught us fast asleep after that utterly sublime fuck.’

  ‘Omigod. How did he react?’

  ‘Furious, incandescent. “How dare you take advantage of a vulnerable widow?”

  “Only too easily,” I said. “Have you got the hots for her too? She’s sensational in bed.”’

  ‘Oh Eddie, you didn’t.’

  ‘He roared at me not to be impertinent. And Louise saw him coming and going last night, so it’s all round the yard and stud.’

  ‘Omigod, he saw us in bed with no clothes on!’

  ‘In flagwaving delicto, America and Zimbabwe’s finest. I told him it wasn’t your fault – that I’d been trying to get you into bed for yonks. When can we do it again? Funny, he wasn’t at all upset when he caught Mike going down on Celeste at the Christmas party. Just said: “Atta boy.” And when Gav returns, you can come back to the house and live down the passage from me.’

  Before Gav returned, however, Gala had instead moved into Lime Tree Cottage, the sweet seventeenth-century house so coveted by Janey Lloyd-Foxe. Originally inhabited by gamekeepers, it stood in the heart of Rupert’s woods to the west. But since his empire had expanded down the valley, it lay only a hundred yards into the trees.

  ‘See how you get on,’ said Rupert. ‘If you find it’s too isolated, we’ll find you a room in one of the hostels.’

  ‘I love it,’ said Gala, joyfully breathing in the sweet scent of lime blossom, happy that from her bathroom she could see foals romping in the fields behind the stud.

  53

  Gav was dreading coming home. He could imagine the press: CHEAT TAKEN BACK – and how would the staff react? His confidence had been much boosted by working with Luke. They had talked a lot, particularly after Luke broke his leg, mostly about horses and books, which they both loved.

  Luke had introduced him to an ex of his, a beautiful divorce lawyer called Margie.

  ‘How did it go?’ asked Luke after their third date.

  ‘Not great, she suggested I go to a therapist. I said I’d have to be pissed to do that, and I can’t go back on the booze. Only booze kills shyness.’

  ‘Sure, I understand.’

  ‘Only an ex-alki has any idea of the grey wasteland of sobriety. Sorry, that sounds nauseatingly self-pitying.’

  ‘I
guess all you need,’ Luke said, ‘is a woman who really loves you.’

  ‘If it doesn’t work out with Rupert, and he’s tricky,’ Luke had insisted on Gav’s last night, ‘come back and work for me any time. And look after Eddie. He’s more vulnerable than one thinks.’

  He had given Gav a copy of Robert Frost’s poems as a leaving present. Gav immediately went to his favourite, ‘Stopping by Woods’, in which the poet wants to explore the snowy woods, but knows he should go straight home because he has ‘promises to keep’.

  Gav’s promises were to get Quickly right and Rupert to the top of the Leading Sire list.

  When he returned on the second Monday after the Derby, however, he was overwhelmed by the warmth of his reception. Penscombe was in need of a celebration after Quickly’s Derby debacle. So the balloons and Welcome Back Gav signs went all the way down the drive. Almost more cards awaited him than for Rupert on Valentine’s Day. Best of all, when he went into the yard, Quickly put his head out and gave a great whicker of welcome and tried to scrape down his door. Every horse in the yard then looked out and joined in until the whickering and scraping became a thunderstorm. Whereupon Safety Car rushed in, dropped his broom and trotted up to Gav, laying his head on his shoulder in ecstasy, following Gav from box to box as he greeted old friends, staying with him when he toured the stud and the adjoining fields. Walter and Pat accompanying them were amazed: Gav seemed to know the name and pedigree of every horse, even able to recognize recently born foals, and identify their sires and dams.

  ‘That’s a Dardanius, that’s a Titus.’

  As the mares gathered jealously around him, nudging and nuzzling, Walter sneered: ‘Pity he’s not as successful with women.’

  ‘Shut up,’ snapped Pat. ‘Not through want of their trying.’

  Next, Gav had a session with Rupert at his office. Here he noticed again a framed Breeders’ Cup race card, the year Love Rat won.

  ‘How is he?’ he asked.

  ‘Getting lazier. Thank God the season’s over. He just goes to sleep on the mares: “Hang on, I’m just having a fag”. I’m not sure he’s up to another season.’

  Gav grinned to see a new clock of a stallion mounting a mare, waggling his near hind leg in time to the ticking.

  ‘Eddie bought it for me to make up for the Derby,’ explained Rupert. ‘We’d better talk about that …’ but the telephone rang. It was the Racing Post.

  ‘I gather Gavin Latton’s back,’ said Lee Mottershead. ‘What are your plans for him?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know anyone more conscientious than Gav, so he’s going to be my Assistant Trainer.’ And, at Gav’s look of amazement, Rupert added: ‘Of course, I have every confidence and more,’ and rang off.

  Then he was back to the Old Rupert, noticing on his laptop that one of Cordelia’s foals, which Gav had dismissed as a dud, had just won a huge race in France. ‘Why the hell did you let that filly slip through the net?’

  ‘Do you mean it about Assistant Trainer?’ stammered Gav.

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘I’m not great with people. I want to work with horses.’

  ‘What’s your take on the Derby?’

  ‘Eddie needs to be got as fit as Quickly. I think he’s bingeing and flipping and taking too many laxatives and it’s fucked up his digestion. And he’s spending too much time in the sauna. He needs to jog, go to the gym and build up muscle so he can hold up horses when he needs to. He’s got to stay off drink and women.’

  Particularly Gala, Rupert found himself thinking.

  Next he heard Gav saying: ‘He must go back to protein, chicken, steaks, salmon.’

  ‘Yansy Pansy can sort that,’ said Rupert.

  ‘Quickly also needs a pacemaker to calm him down. Safety Car isn’t quick enough. We’ve got to make sure Quickly doesn’t pull and exhaust himself. I have found exactly the right horse – a bay three-year-old called Bitsy, or See You in a Bit, who could be ridden by Meerkat or even Jemmy.’

  ‘Well, go and buy him.’

  Leaving Rupert’s office, Gav met Gala riding the dark-brown delinquent Blank Chekov back from fourth lot and thought how gorgeous she looked. Embarrassed at having blown her out, he was too shy to meet her eyes. Gala, thinking in turn how divine he looked, his pallor replaced by a Palm Beach tan, but still mortified how she’d drunkenly jumped on him, finally broke the ice.

  ‘Awfully sorry about last time, you could do me for sexual harassment.’

  Gav smiled slightly. ‘You could equally ban me as a non-trier.’

  As they both laughed with relief, Gav thanked her for leaving his rooms above the tack room so tidy and in such good nick.

  ‘I’ve probably left the odd book and things.’

  ‘Are you OK in Lime Tree Cottage?’

  ‘I love it.’ Gala was on the brink of asking him to come and have a drink, when Taggie came running out and kissed Gav.

  ‘Oh, it’s good to have you back; everyone’s missed you so much. Rupert, in particular, has been tearing his hair out,’ and she drew him back into the kitchen. ‘You will come and have supper with us tonight? We’ve got lovely goulash.’

  But Gav was still too ashamed of nearly bringing the yard down.

  ‘Honestly,’ he stammered, ‘I ought to unpack and things.’

  ‘Oh please. We can eat outside and you can tell Bao what the stars are. He’s such a dear boy.’

  At that moment, a hunk came out of the kitchen and took Gav’s hand in both of his.

  ‘Gavin, welcome home, so good to see you here. I’ve heard a ridiculous amount about you – all great, I promise you. Please stay to supper. Taggie made a Pavlova with our first strawberries – you won’t be able to resist that.’

  Glancing up into Jan’s film-star face, marvellously strong features lifted by a huge smile, dark red hair visible in the V of an open-neck check shirt, Gav suddenly felt raped.

  ‘Please stay,’ urged Jan in his loud harsh voice. ‘It would delight Taggie so much.’

  What right has he to presume? thought Gav.

  ‘Sorry, got to settle back in. Lot to catch up on.’

  ‘Understood. How about tomorrow or the next day?’

  ‘Up to Rupert or Taggie,’ said Gav tersely. ‘Need time on their own, without half the world butting in.’ Grabbing a handful of the carrots Jan had been chopping for the goulash, he returned to the yard, where he met Safety Car, who dropped the yard brush and wolfed the carrots before they were offered to anyone else.

  ‘I suppose I owe you,’ muttered Gav, scratching Safety in the ribs, where normally the older horse would exchange mutual nibbling with Quickly. ‘See You in a Bit’s going to take over your job as pacemaker from now on.’

  Pacemakers are the great unsung heroes of racing. Always the bridesmaids, they are ridden by the trainer’s second jockey and will set exactly the right pace to settle the star horse ridden by the first jockey, who will scorch past and take the race at the last moment.

  Blessed are the pacemakers, sighed Gav, for they inherit fuck all.

  See You in a Bit, or Bitsy, arrived a week later from America, to act as Quickly’s pacemaker. Quickly both adored him and bullied him unmercifully when they were turned out together, not letting Bitsy anywhere near any proffered carrots or apples, and livid when Purrpuss sat on Bitsy and washed his ears. But when Gala took Bitsy out for a bit of light relief – a ride on his own round the village – Quickly grew even crosser and called out for him continually.

  Bitsy was a bright bay, with long white socks on all four legs.

  ‘You are the dearest horse in the world,’ sighed Gala.

  ‘I bet you say that to all the bays,’ quipped Eddie.

  Eddie and Gala noticed wryly that when Quickly, ridden by Gav, set out after Jemmy and Bitsy, Quickly looked a completely different horse.

  Things in fact improved dramatically after Gav’s return; he noticed details others didn’t. He was impressed by Jemmy, who as an apprentice had an invaluable 7 lb claim, whic
h meant he was allowed to ride 7 lbs lighter, and should be used more. He got to work on Beijing Bertie who, as a four-year-old, he felt was capable of winning a few races. In addition, he encouraged Bao to ride him and soon had them both cantering up the gallops, which would please Mr Tong when he and Mrs Tong arrived for Royal Ascot, the most glorious week in the Racing Calendar and which was fast approaching.

  Bookies were already offering 10–1 on what coloured hats the Queen and then Taggie Campbell-Black would be wearing on Ladies Day. Jan had bought Taggie a silver-grey picture hat with a pink ribbon as an early birthday present and with such inside information planned to have a huge bet.

  Among numerous horses entered for Royal Ascot, Rupert had great hopes for Quickly ridden by Eddie in the mighty St James’s Palace Stakes. Dave meanwhile had won his fourth Group One in Australia and looked a serious candidate for the Melbourne Cup.

  A few days before Ascot kicked off, however, Gala, returning for Evening Stables, discovered Old Eddie coming out of Quickly’s box.

  ‘Careful you don’t get bitten,’ she warned.

  ‘Too interested in carrots. He’s so greedy he nearly took off Eddie’s signet ring,’ said Jan, who’d been chatting to Louise in the tack room.

  ‘You look well,’ said Old Eddie, admiring Gala’s sunburned legs.

  ‘I’m getting a bit more sleep now I’ve moved into Lime Tree Cottage out in the woods,’ admitted Gala. ‘Living over the yard one never gets a lie-in, because from five-thirty onwards Quickly starts hollering for his breakfast.’

  Next morning when she came into work, however, Gala was surprised not to be greeted by a noisy Quickly. Entering the box she found him standing in the corner, head drooping, last night’s hay and feed untouched, Nurse Purrpuss weaving round his fetlocks.

  ‘Poor old boy,’ cried Gala. ‘What’s up?’

  In answer, Quickly started coughing. His nose was running and as he sneezed he scattered droplets all over Purrpuss, who spat and jumped away. Found to have a high temperature, Quickly was placed in isolation, and was so depressed he didn’t even attempt to kick the place down. Unable to put his hoof over his mouth, Quickly must have sneezed over the other horses yesterday because by the evening Touchy Filly, Bitsy, Hell Bent Hal, Blank Chekov, Fleance and Beijing Bertie were all hacking away, struck down by a mystery virus which completely ruled out Royal Ascot.