Mount!

by Jilly Cooper

  Then, at Eddie’s raised eyebrows, ‘No one’s going to get killed this time. I’m going to clear the track through the wood so it’s completely safe. Be great if you as a terrific rider could represent the Campbell-Blacks.’

  ‘I’d be glad to,’ said Eddie. ‘But what about Tabitha – she’s brilliant – or Xavier? He used to ride point-to-points.’

  ‘We need a big name like yours,’ said Rufus, then with typical fundraising pushiness, ‘And it would be wonderful if Mrs Wilkinson and Quickly could parade as well. They really pulled in the crowd last time.’

  ‘Who’s riding for the Northfields – Alfred?’

  ‘Christ, no. Actually a rather marvellous distant relation’s come out of the woodwork. Do think about it – could be very special. We could discuss it over dinner next week.’ In Rufus’s fox-brown eyes, the admiration was not entirely for Eddie’s skills as a jockey.

  ‘You’ll have to ask Rupert. Not sure he’d like the idea or would regard me as a legit Campbell-Black.’

  ‘I’ll send him an email. Could raise a lot of money for the Injured Jockeys Fund.’

  ‘Hardly appropriate, with James Northfield copping it. I’ve really got to go.’

  Back at the quarantine barn, Lark was settling Quickly for the night, rinsing the last dirt out of his eyes, telling him what a champion he was and that tomorrow they’d return to Penscombe for a hero’s welcome. Although Gav had employed a second security guard to watch Penscombe horses through the night, Lark wondered if she ought to sleep in Quickly’s box. But she was so desperate to shower, and put on a rather daring zebra-print dress to go out on the town with the others. Eddie had been so lovely today … perhaps, perhaps.

  She was just handing Quickly a carrot from a box which said Made in China, when he started and jerked up his head, hitting her in the eye.

  ‘Lark,’ said a voice.

  Swinging round, Lark gave a scream and leapt in front of Quickly. ‘Go away! Don’t you dare come near him. Did you unstitch his bridle?’

  ‘You have everything wrong,’ protested Bao. ‘It wasn’t me doing the bad things. I never let out Love Rat and I love Safety.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’ Lark wanted to yell for help, but the place was deserted. ‘What were you doing over at Valhalla, and where’s Safety Car?’

  For a terrifying moment, she thought Bao was going to strangle her. But he merely put a tape recorder to her ear.

  ‘I am good at hacking, listen to message.’

  The accents of the voices were unmistakable. Lark gave a shiver of horror.

  ‘Oh my God!’

  ‘I have Green Galloper at airport. I know where Safety Car is heading. If we hurry we might save him.’

  ‘We must let Gav or Eddie know.’

  But neither were answering their mobiles.

  ‘There is not time, you know how to look after horse in bad way. I need your help.’

  Upstairs was deserted. Team Campbell-Black had left the grooms’ quarters for a celebratory dinner with Valent. Hurling her sponge bag into her overnight case, Lark wondered if she was crazy to trust Bao. Was she being ambushed? She scribbled a note for Marketa.

  So sorry to bunk off. Look after Quickly for me. Apologize to Gav and Eddie. Bao and I are going to try and find Safety Car.

  Bao was waiting outside in a Mercedes. As Lark joined him in the front, she opened the glove compartment, looking for a tissue to mop up her tears then shrieked as she discovered a gun.

  ‘Is OK, we’re going to need it,’ said Bao, adding wryly, ‘I am not stepson of mafia thug for nothing.’

  92

  Leaving Eddie, besieged by press and admirers, and Etta and Valent rhapsodizing with Rosaria and Mr Fat and Happy on the joy of homebred wins of such magnitude, Gavin and Gala sloped off.

  ‘Shall we go to my room or yours?’ asked Gala. ‘Mine’s nearer.’

  In the end they went to Gav’s because it had less history, and kissed all the way in the taxi.

  ‘How can one be on earth and in heaven at the same time?’ sighed Gala who was at least three drinks up.

  Gav’s room, with Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel on the bedside table, was much smaller. It would have been nice to have got things going in Rupert’s Jacuzzi, reflected Gala. On the walls were paintings of priapic, plunging Arab stallions. Out of the window reared up Dubai’s tallest buildings.

  ‘Too much competition,’ said Gav, drawing the curtains. As he poured Gala some white, the bottle rattled against her glass. In a cardboard box on the floor were half a dozen little black camels with gold humps and hooves.

  ‘I bought them for Dora, Gee Gee and Clover, et cetera. Did you know you can teach camels dressage?’

  ‘I’m more interested in undressage,’ said Gala, turning down the gold-flecked counterpane. ‘Let’s go to bed.’

  Gav was silent for a minute, then he helplessly stammered, ‘Look, I’ve got problems. “Floppy Dick” – you heard Cosmo. I tried to sort it, made an appointment with James Benson, but I bottled out. I simply can’t get it up.’

  ‘Hush.’ Gala pulled him down on the sofa beside her. Putting her fingers to his lips, she said, ‘We don’t have to do anything, just lie in each other’s arms. You are so beautiful,’ she went on then, taking in his pale, tense face, his chattering teeth, his shaking shoulders. ‘I’ve always wanted you. When I first came to Penscombe and said how attractive you were, only to be told you didn’t put out, I was the one who was put out.’

  Then, when he didn’t even smile, ‘There’s no hurry, darling, we’ve got the rest of our lives to get it together.’

  Gav looked up incredulously. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘The rest of our lives.’

  ‘You mean that?’

  Nodding, Gala took his sweating, trembling hands. ‘Every word,’ she said softly. ‘To Gav and to hold, till death us do part. Gropius needs a father.’ She had to joke, to stop herself crying. ‘If you knew how gutted I was when I realized the Valentine I thought was from you was really from Eddie.’

  ‘What about Rupert? He must have got three thousand Valentines.’ How could he possibly measure up?

  ‘I’m not a man-eating tiger whisperer,’ said Gala. ‘Taggie’s the only person who can handle Rupert. I was always crucified with guilt because I love her so much.’ There was a pause as she took a slug of wine. ‘But I hope he’ll give me a good reference.’ Then when Gav half laughed: ‘And what about Bethany?’

  ‘She certainly won’t give me a good reference.’

  ‘I’ll never be a millionth as beautiful as her.’

  ‘You are.’ Gav stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers. ‘“Your angel’s face,”’ he said, without the trace of a stammer, ‘“as the great eye of heaven, shines bright, and makes a sunshine in the shady place.”’

  ‘That’s beautiful – who said that?’

  ‘I just did,’ he kissed her nose, ‘and Edmund Spenser, more than four hundred years ago.’ And he buried his lips in hers until they were both breathless.

  ‘It’s very hot in here. I’m going to undress,’ said Gala, and was stripped off and into bed first.

  As he joined her, she ran her hands over the Doberman-sleek hard shoulders and chest, the flat stomach and the thighs iron-hard from riding. ‘You are divinely built,’ she said and felt herself squirming with desire.

  ‘Pity we’re not going to do anything tonight except hold each other,’ she added, but as his hands roved over her breasts, and hardening nipples, she cried: ‘Oh that’s heaven, perhaps we might.’ Her hand slid down, but his limp penis didn’t respond.

  ‘Oh God, it’s no good.’ He rolled over, burying his despairing face in the pillow.

  ‘You have the most gorgeous arse,’ said Gala, wanting to keep things light. ‘You sure it wasn’t you had the bum implant, not Sauvignon?’

  Lingeringly, she kissed first one buttock and then the other, gently running her finger up and down the cleft between them until Gav g
roaned with pleasure.

  ‘Turn over,’ she whispered, and when he did, she started kissing her way up his thighs, giving little puppy licks. Then, moving on to his penis, constantly murmuring words of love, she massaged the base, running her tongue round the tip, then taking the whole thing in her mouth, while reaching up to scratch his rigid belly with her fingernails.

  ‘No, no,’ he muttered.

  ‘Stop it, I’m entitled to enjoy myself,’ and she did, as miraculously, gradually, gradually his cock soared, growing and growing, until it was stabbing the back of her throat. Still she carried on licking and sucking.

  ‘Go on, please go on, omigod,’ gasped Gav, as he stiffened, tensed – and next moment had exploded into her mouth and joyfully, Gala swallowed every drop.

  ‘That’s the nicest drink I have ever had,’ she mumbled. ‘Much better than Pinot Grigio.’

  ‘Penis Grigio.’ They both shook with laughter, yet when Gala wriggled up the bed until she was level with him, she found his face wet with tears, and held him sobbing in her arms.

  ‘Thank you, thank you, God, I love you.’

  ‘That was a blown-away job,’ giggled Gala. ‘All this and Quickly winning by a short head.’

  ‘You gave me very long head. We must stop making terrible jokes.’

  After they’d lain giggling and entangled for a few minutes, Gav said, ‘Your turn now.’ He might not be able to go again, but he was desperate to give her pleasure.

  He reached down to stroke her, and was so turned on to feel his fingers gripped by such wetness and warmth, he’d soon pulled her up on top of him.

  ‘Oh, wow, oh wow!’ gasped Gala, arching upwards in ecstasy, as his cock soared up inside her. ‘You are amazing, Mr Latton. Dubai’s tallest buildings have got nothing on you … aaaaaagh … they’ll be landing helicopters and hanging flags from you soon.’

  ‘Don’t distract me, concentrate.’ But she had made him relax. Next minute, he’d pulled out, rolled her over on her back and was on top of her and inside, driving and driving until he erupted into her a second time, yelling how much he loved her.

  When they’d got their breath back, and the shuddering had ceased, he murmured, ‘You’ve cured me of Bethany. I thought the disease was terminal,’ and again his eyes filled with tears. ‘Oh God, I love you so much,’ then, ‘What about Ben?’

  ‘Ben was the past – the “blue remembered hills” – you’re my future. I feel safe with you – I trust you.’ Then after a long kiss, ‘Sorry to lower the tone, but I must go and have a pee.’

  Rifling through her bag in the bathroom, she found the dark-red lipstick called Passion.

  ‘Come back, I miss you,’ shouted Gav.

  Returning to the bedroom, she was overjoyed how happy he looked.

  ‘I need a pee too,’ he said, getting up. In the bathroom he found scrawled across the mirror in dark-red lipstick: Him Potent: To Gav and to Hold. I will always love you.

  As he returned, his happiness was interrupted by a thundering on the door, which he told to bugger off.

  ‘Let me in, let me in, it’s real urgent,’ said a voice, as the thundering increased.

  Grabbing a towel, Gav opened the door an inch to discover a distraught Eddie.

  ‘You gotta come. Marketa found a note from Lark.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Telling Marketa to take care of Quickly, because she’s gone off with that crook Bao to find Safety.’

  93

  Safety Car had always adored jaunts and, seeing all the World Cup preparations in the yard, he had sussed a trip abroad was in the offing. So when, at dead of night, he was taken from his field and led up the ramp of a lorry, he went trustingly. Unloaded after a few hours, he could smell the sea. Tethered in a filthy stable, which reeked of petrol, he began to worry. Used to living outside, the confinement drove him crazy. Soon, Rupert, Marketa and Gavin would come and fetch him. When they didn’t, his whinnying became increasingly loud and desperate, until the men who’d taken him, whose strange accents he didn’t understand, clouted him with spades. Then when he tried to win them over, offering a hoof for a Polo, they hit him harder – and when he lay down and died for his country, they kicked him in the belly until he scrambled up.

  For a couple of days they had tried to fatten him with an excess of food, but when he refused to eat, they loaded him up at night, took him across the Channel, then into a trailer jolting miles across country.

  Where was Rupert? Where was Lark? Where was Marketa? Where was Quickly? And his sheep friends? By this time, he was dying of thirst. Weak from lack of food and hoarse from calling out, he was yet again unloaded, but nothing prepared him for the hell ahead of a big red lorry. He could hear moaning and banging and breathed in a terrible stench of blood and excrement. But once again, hoping he was going home, he had trotted up the ramp where a scene of utter horror greeted him.

  Horses of all shapes and sizes were rammed together – injured, diseased, exhausted, distraught: ponies, donkeys, terrified racehorses, massively stressed, violent stallions showing white eyes, trying to mount mares, who were in turn frantically trying to protect foals, before they were crushed underfoot.

  Almost most pathetic were the horses who’d been deliberately fattened into obesity, their feet and fetlocks buckling agonizingly under their immense bulk. Some had gashes on their sides, some had broken limbs. Every so often, once they were on the move, a horse would have a panic attack, shaking the whole lorry, leaving more gashes and broken limbs until the entire floor ran with blood.

  There were no stops for water or feed or rest. The gypsy drivers, mostly Eastern European, were paid to reach Northern Italy as soon as possible, dump their cargo of horses and drive back again to collect another load. There were meant to be border checks, but the drivers, warned in advance of these, were able to sail through without being stopped.

  And all because the Italians liked to eat their horse and donkey meat fresh, and believed the lies on the packet that the animals had been reared locally. Anyway, nobody kicked up a fuss, because the live horse trade and the slaughterhouses were run by the mafia, and people were too scared to rock boats.

  When the horses were finally unloaded, Safety Car was one of the few who could still stumble down the ramp, leaving a litter of corpses and groaning bodies behind him. Filthy, bloodstained coat coming out in handfuls, tail and quarters rubbed bald, his head, sunken between his shoulders, felt too heavy for him to lift. Then he heard even more hysterical neighing from a building ahead, smelled fresh blood, and violent trembling once again jolted his wasted frame. Dragged inside the building, more tortures awaited, as pints of blood were drained off for the plasma, needed for blood transfusions to combat equine diseases like swamp fever.

  Hearing more groaning and crashing and terrified whinnying from the slaughterhouse ahead, Safety Car pulled back in panic. As the two slaughterhouse hands in charge of him swore and yanked him forward, the one who wasn’t smoking clubbed him round the head.

  ‘Stop that,’ yelled a voice and in burst a dark man in a grubby off-white suit, followed by a slender, fair girl.

  Recognizing them, Safety Car managed the faintest of whickers and pricking his one ear, staggered forwards.

  ‘Give me that horse,’ shouted the dark man.

  Pretending not to understand, the first slaughterhouse worker was about to stub out his cigarette on Safety Car’s shoulder when the cigarette was shot out of his hand, which was a language both workers understood, particularly when they saw that the dark man was brandishing a gun, and, in his other hand, waving a big handful of notes.

  ‘Give us that horse,’ he ordered, and only when the girl had taken hold of Safety Car’s lead rope did he hand over the cash and didn’t lower his gun until they’d both helped a tottering Safety Car to safety.

  ‘Bastards, bastards,’ screamed Lark, taking in the bloody moaning wreckage inside and out of the red lorries. ‘We’ll get you for this. We’ll never give up until this never happens
again.’ Then, realizing she was frightening Safety Car, ‘Poor old boy, we’ll get you cleaned up and find you something to drink and half a ton of electrolytes – and then you’re going home.’

  94

  Taggie came out of hospital on the Monday after the World Cup. She would later have to have chemotherapy and perhaps radiotherapy, and it still hadn’t been ascertained if the cancer had spread to her lymph glands, but Rupert, petrified of her catching an infection, refused to let her stay in any longer.

  Once the world learnt why Rupert had walked out of the World Cup, the family came storming in from all over the world and none of them demanded their airfares. Marcus cancelled a huge concert in Moscow. Tabitha was unexpectedly devastated.

  ‘I’m sorry I’ve been so awful. I love you so much – you’re the best stepmother anyone ever had.’

  Equally devastated was Taggie’s father Declan, who bit off the head of his wife, Maud, when she claimed Taggie had been selfish not to tell anyone she was ill.

  Nor would there have been a daffodil left in the world as flowers poured in.

  ‘An entire flora,’ said Rupert proudly as vases ran out and yellow buckets had to be plundered from the yard.

  ‘I hope you realize, Mum, at last, how much people love you,’ chided Bianca.

  Eddie had brought back Quickly’s World Cup saddlecloth for Taggie, and when she praised him, replied that it was easy to get winners when a horse was gotten that ready.

  Rupert’s frightful press had in turn subsided overnight, particularly when people learnt of Love Rat’s death. There was also huge praise for Gav: ‘Small talk, but great victories’, and how wonderfully he’d readied Delectable, Chekov and Quickly and how, when stepping into Rupert’s shoes, he hadn’t found them at all too large.

  Rupert was the first to praise Gav, but appealed to the media to leave them alone: ‘Taggie needs rest.’

  Taggie was ashamed of feeling so cast down. It was lovely to be home, and Rupert was being so adorable to her. He’d told her not to worry about chemo or radiotherapy; he’d be with her every step of the way. She was so pleased about Gav and Gala, who couldn’t keep their hands off each other and seemed so happy. But outside, the emerging spring was so beautiful, she couldn’t shake off the dread it might be her last. She found it impossible to stay in bed, longing to get up and feed the dogs, who’d been banished from her bed, and the birds. Rupert had really lost it when he caught her sneaking out to feed the badgers.