Riders

by Jilly Cooper

  “I’m sure there are some strawberries,” said Malise, smiling at Helen.

  “What about you, Jake?”

  Jake shook his head and got to his feet. “Thank you for dinner. I’m off to bed,” he said. “Can I settle up with you in the morning?”

  “This is on the BSJA,” said Malise.

  “Well, thanks,” said Jake.

  “Sleep well,” said Malise. “Order breakfast from Reception. They all speak English, and for Christ’s sake don’t drink the water in the taps.”

  “You going to bed?” said Rupert in surprise. “Sorry about the polpi and the gazpacho. New boy’s tease, you know.”

  “I know,” said Jake bleakly, “only too well.”

  Looking at the set white face, in a flash Billy remembered. Lovell, J. Of course! He knew he’d seen him before. He was the gypsy boy at St. Augustine’s, Gyppo Jake, whom he and Rupert had bullied unmercifully until he ran away. It was the one thing in his life he’d always been ashamed of. He wanted to say something to Jake, to apologize for the teasing at dinner, but it was too late. He’d gone.

  Outside Jake took a taxi down to the showground. Fortunately he’d remembered his pass and the guards let him in. He realized he was very drunk.

  The Great Bear overhead kept disintegrating and reforming, like a swarm of illuminated gnats. Crossing the exercise ring, he threw up behind a large Spanish chestnut. As he covered it with sand, he hoped one of Rupert’s bloody horses would slip on it tomorrow.

  Bastard, bastard, bastard, he hadn’t changed at all. New boy’s tease indeed. Nausea overwhelmed him again. He leant against an oak feeling dizzy. Finally he made the stables. It was a comfort that Africa and Sailor were so pleased to see him. Blinking sleepily, they smelt of hay and contentment. One arm round each of their necks, he clung onto them, desperate for reassurance. They were his horses from his yard.

  “Tomorrow,” he said, “we’ll go out and lynch him.”

  17

  Jake never knew if it was a result of meeting Rupert again, or because he drank too much tap water, but in the early hours of the morning he was laid low with a vicious attack of gyppy tummy. For the first few days of the show, it was all he could do to struggle up and crawl down to the stables to look after Africa and Sailor. Later in the day, he was either eliminated or knocked up a cricket score of faults in every class he entered. The jumps were huge and solid, with the poles fitting deeply into the cups, and the competition was fierce. Both Africa and Sailor were out of sorts after the long journey. Jake was so strung-up, he transmitted his nerves to the horses, who jumped worse and worse as the week went on.

  To make matters worse, none of the classes started before three o’clock in the afternoon, with an evening performance beginning at 11 P.M. By the time the final National Anthem had been played it was 3 A.M. and usually four o’clock before Jake fell into bed, to wake like a stone at six in the morning, his usual time for getting up, after which he couldn’t get back to sleep again.

  A doctor was summoned and gave him pills and advised forty-eight hours’ rest. But for a workaholic like Jake, this was impossible. He couldn’t bear to be parted from his horses, his one link with home. He had no desire to sightsee with Malise or Helen, or lounge round the pool sunbathing with the others and be confronted with the contemptuous bronzed beauty of Rupert Campbell-Black.

  So while the others relaxed and enjoyed themselves, Jake didn’t miss a round jumped by another rider, or a workout in the warm-up area. He was learning all the time, but not to his advantage. There were too many of his heroes around to influence him, and he got increasingly muddled as first he tried to ride like the Italians, then like the dashing Spaniards, then like the mighty Germans.

  The rest of the team, except Rupert, tried to be friendly and helpful. They were all relieved he was not the white-hot savior predicted by Malise, but as one catastrophic round followed another and he became more monosyllabic and withdrawn, they gave up.

  Rupert, on the other hand, was openly hostile. On the morning after they arrived in Madrid, he was riding round the practice ring when Billy said, “You know that new chap?”

  “The great gourmet and conversationalist?” said Rupert scornfully.

  “Don’t you recognize him. He’s the same Gyppo Lovell who was at St. Augustine’s with us.”

  “Can’t be.”

  “Bloody is. Don’t you remember his mother was the cook. Mrs. Lovell? She did herself in.”

  “Hardly surprising after producing an undersized little runt like that. Didn’t he become a boarder?”

  “Yes,” said Billy bleakly. “He was in our dormitory. We gave him such hell he ran away.”

  “Perhaps we should repeat the experiment. With any luck he might do it again.”

  “You didn’t help much last night,” snapped Billy. “Making him order octopus. Poor sod, he’s never been abroad before.”

  “Certainly doesn’t know how to behave in a hotel,” said Rupert. “I caught him making his bed this morning.”

  For a few minutes they rode on in silence, then Billy said, “I feel I ought to make it up to him somehow for being such a shit at St. Augustine’s.”

  Rupert started to play on an imaginary violin. “Don’t be so bloody wet. Little creeps like that deserve to be hammered. How the hell did he get started anyway?”

  “Well that’s the interesting part. D’you remember a hugely fat deb named Tory Maxwell?”

  Rupert shuddered. “Only too vividly. Maxwell big as a house—unable to turn round without the use of tugs.” He glanced sideways at Billy, relieved to see he had made him laugh. “And quite rich.”

  “That’s the one. Well, Jake Lovell married her and evidently used all her cash to get started.”

  “No wonder he’s undersized; squashed flat in the sack. Must be like going to bed with a steamroller. Who told you all this?”

  “Malise. Last night. He thinks Lovell’s brilliant.”

  “Well, he’s wrong. Lovell’s just about as insipid as the mince his mother used to cook. And, what’s more, he kept Helen and me awake all night throwing up.”

  To rub salt into Jake’s wounds, all the other members of the team were jumping well and in the money, particularly Rupert, who won a Vespa on the third day and insisted on roaring round the showground on it, to everyone’s amusement and irritation. Jake’s was the only part of the British tackroom without its share of rosettes.

  Rupert never lost an opportunity to put the boot in. On the third day, just before the competition, he persuaded Marion to hide all Jake’s breeches and his red coat and fill up his trunk with frilly underwear.

  Marion was only too happy to oblige. Wandering round, heavily curvaceous in pink hot pants and a sleeveless pink T-shirt, she was the toast of the showground, always followed by a swarm of admiring tongue-clicking Spaniards, and the recipient of endless bonhomie from the other male international riders.

  Jake, resentful that Rupert not only had an exquisite wife but a spectacular groom, ignored Marion, a reaction to which she was unused.

  “He went bananas when he found his clothes missing,” she told Rupert gleefully. “He’s not as cool as he makes out.”

  Although Marion soon returned his clothes, what upset Jake more was that the yellow tansy flower he always wore in the heel of his left boot to bring him luck had somehow vanished. Without his talisman, his luck was bound to plummet and as a result he lost even more confidence.

  Most of all he was upset by Rupert’s constant cracks about Sailor—that he must be a mule or a camel, and no wonder he’d frightened them at customs; they must have thought they were letting a dinosaur into the country. Jake felt very protective towards Sailor, whom he loved very deeply, and his heart blackened against Rupert.

  On the fifth day Malise announced the British team: Rupert, Billy, Humpty Hamilton, and Lavinia, with Jake as reserve. In the evening he took Jake out for a drink and explained there was nothing else he could do on Jake’s current form.
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  “Don’t worry,” he said, spearing an olive out of his very dry martini. “This often happens to new caps.”

  “Not as badly as this,” said Jake, gazing gloomily into a glass of soda water. He still felt too sick even to smoke. His eyes seemed three inches deep in his face. His face was gray and seamed with exhaustion; he must have lost half a stone.

  “It’s a vicious circle,” said Malise gently. “Everyone talks about the killer instinct and being hungry enough to go out and win, but you’re so snarled up inside you’re frightening the hell out of your horses. I know the fences seem huge and you’re worried about overfacing them, but you must be more aggressive. The only way to tackle those fences is to attack. Be accurate, but ride on all the time. Those big heavy poles are so firm you can afford to clout them. Africa should be able to sail over them anyway.”

  Jake’s face registered no emotion. A fly was buzzing round their heads. Malise flicked it away with a copy of The Times.

  “Spanish fly,” said Jake suddenly, with the ghost of a smile. “S’pposed to be good for sex, isn’t it?”

  Malise laughed. “Never tried it myself, more Rupert’s province. Expect you’re feeling homesick, too, missing Tory and the baby, and you’re pulled down looking after the horses by yourself. It’s amazing how your first win will buck you up.”

  “If I ever do win.”

  “My dear boy, I’ve seen you on form. I know you’re good. You’ve just got to calm down.”

  Jake suddenly felt an emotion close to adulation. He could imagine following Malise into battle without a qualm. If only he’d had a father like that, or even a father like Mr. Greenslade, who bossed you around all the time because he minded about you. There he was buying himself a drink at the bar, and about to come and join them.

  “I’m going to be very unorthodox,” said Malise. He handed Jake a bottle with some red pills in. “Those’ll make you sleep; put you out like a light. Don’t tell the rest of the team I’ve given them to you. They’ll play havoc with your reflexes, but you’re not jumping tomorrow or in the Nations’ Cup, and a couple of good nights’ sleep’ll put you right for the Grand Prix on Saturday. And don’t tell me you don’t approve of sleeping pills. Nor do I, except in an emergency. Tomorrow you’re not going anywhere near the stables. Marion and Tracey will look after Africa and Sailor. You can go on the sightseeing jaunt with the rest of the team.”

  After fourteen hours’ sleep, Jake woke feeling much better. He didn’t know whether Malise had had a word with them, but all the team were particularly nice to him as they set off out of Madrid in an old bus, across dusty plains, like the hide of a great slaughtered bull, then through rolling hills dotted with olive trees and orange groves. The road was full of potholes, sending sledgehammer blows up Jake’s spine as the back wheels went over them. Rupert sat next to Helen with his arm along the back of the seat, but not touching her because it was too hot. Billy sat in front, talking constantly to them, refereeing any squabbles, sticking up for Helen. Lavinia Greenslade sat with her father. Humpty sat with Jake and talked nonstop about Porky Boy.

  Only Rupert didn’t let up in his needling. Every donkey or mule or depressed-looking horse they passed reminded him of Sailor or “Jake’s Joke,” as he now called him.

  They lunched at a very good restaurant, sitting outside under the plane trees, eating cochinella or roast suckling pig. It was the first square meal Jake had been able to keep down since he arrived. While they were having coffee, a particularly revolting old gypsy woman came up and tried to read their fortunes.

  “Do tell your ghastly relation to go away, Jake,” said Rupert.

  Helen, beautiful, radiant, and clinging, was surprised Rupert was being so poisonous to this taciturn newcomer. She tried to talk to Jake and ask him about his horses, but, aware that he was being patronized, he answered abruptly and left her in midsentence.

  Afterwards they went to a bull farm and tried playing with the young bulls and heifers with padded horns and a cape. Rupert and Billy, who’d both had a fair amount to drink at lunchtime, were only too anxious to have a go. Humpty, who’d eaten too much suckling pig (“You might pop if a horn grazed you,” said Rupert), refused to try, and so did Jake.

  Side by side, but both feeling very different emotions, Jake and Helen watched Rupert, tall and lean, a natural at any sport, swinging away as the little bull hurtled towards him. Determined to excel, he was already getting competitive. Billy, fooling around, couldn’t stop laughing, and was finally sent flying and only pulled out of danger just in time by Rupert. In the end Rupert only allowed himself to be dragged away because they had to be in Madrid to watch a bullfight at six. Before the fight, they were shown the chapel where the matadors pray before the fight.

  “Do with a session in there before tomorrow afternoon,” said Billy. “Dear God, make us beat the Germans.”

  The bullfight nauseated Jake, particularly when the picadors came on, riding their pathetic, broken-down, insufficiently padded horses. If they were gored, according to Humpty, they were patched up and sent down into the ring to face the ordeal again. They were so thin they were in no condition to run away. The way, too, that the picadors were tossing their goads into the bull’s neck to break his muscles reminded Jake of Rupert’s method of bullying.

  The cochinella was already churning inside him.

  “I say, Jake,” Rupert’s voice carried down the row, “doesn’t that picador’s horse remind you of Sailor. If you popped down to the Plaza de Toros later this evening, I’m sure they’d give you a few pesetas for him.”

  Jake gritted his teeth and said nothing.

  “That’s wight,” whispered Lavinia, who was sitting next to him. “Don’t wise. It’s the only way to tweat Wupert.”

  Jake felt more cheerful, particularly when, the next moment, Lavinia plucked at his sleeve, saying, “Can I wush past you quickly? I’m going to be sick.”

  “I’ll come with you,” said Jake.

  Neither of them was sick but on the way home enjoyed a good bitch about Rupert. The rest of the team went out to a party at the Embassy. Jake followed Malise’s advice and went to bed early again.

  On the morning of the Nations’ Cup, Jake woke feeling better in body but not in mind. The sight of fan mail and invitations so overcrowding Rupert’s pigeonhole that they spilled over into Humpty’s and Lavinia’s on either side gave him a frightful stab of jealousy.

  Then in his own pigeonhole he found a letter from Tory, which filled him equally with remorse and homesickness. “Darling Jake,” she wrote in her round, childish hand, “Isa and Wolf and all the horses and Tanya and most of all me (or should it be I) are missing you dreadfully. But I keep telling myself that it’s all in a good cause, and that by the time you get this letter, you’ll have really made all the other riders sit up, particularly Rupert. Is he still as horrible or has marriage mellowed him? I know you’re going to do really well.”

  Jake couldn’t bear to read any more. He scrumpled up the letter and put it in his hip pocket. Skipping breakfast, he went straight down to the stables. He wanted to work the horses before it got too punishingly hot.

  Walking into the British tackroom, he steeled himself for whatever grisly practical joke was on the menu today, but he found everything in place. Because it was Nations’ Cup Day, everyone was far too preoccupied. The grooms were tense and distracted, the horses edgy. They knew something was up. Jake worked both the horses and was pleased to find Sailor had recovered from the bout of colic he’d had earlier in the week, and Africa’s leg was better.

  Back in the yard he cooled down Sailor’s legs with a hose, amused by the besotted expression on the horse’s long speckled face. Nearby, Tracey was washing The Bull’s tail. Beyond her, Rupert’s groom, Marion, was standing on a hay bale to plait the mighty Macaulay’s mane, showing off her long brown legs in the shortest pale blue hot pants and grumbling about the amount of work she had to get through. Macaulay was so over the top that, rather than risk hottin
g him up, Rupert had decided to ride Belgravia in the parade beforehand and bring out Macaulay only for the actual class. This meant Marion had two horses to get ready.

  Jake, who’d been carefully studying Rupert’s horses, thought they were getting too many oats. No one could deny Rupert’s genius as a rider, but his horses were not happy. He had surreptitiously watched Rupert take Mayfair, Belgravia, and Macaulay off to a secluded corner of the huge practice ring and seen how he made Tracey and Marion each hold the end of the top pole of a fence, lifting it as the horses went over to give them a sharp rap on the shins, however high they jumped. This was meant to make them pick up their feet even higher the next time. The practice, known as rapping, was strictly illegal in England.

  Jake, however, was most interested in Macaulay. He was a brilliant horse, but still young and inexperienced. Jake felt he was being brought on too fast.

  In the yard the wireless was belching out Spanish pop music.

  “I do miss Radio One,” said Tracey.

  The Italian team came past, their beautifully streaked hair as well cut as their jeans, and stopped to exchange backchat with Marion and Tracey.

  As Jake started to dry Sailor’s legs, the horse nudged at his pocket for Polos.

  “How long have we got?” Tracey asked Marion.

  “About an hour and a half before the parade.”

  “Christ,” said Tracey, plaiting faster. “I’m never going to be ready in time. Give over Bull, keep still.” The Bull looked up with kind, shining eyes.

  “You want a hand?” asked Jake. “I’ve nearly finished Sailor.”

  “You haven’t,” said a voice behind him.

  It was Malise Gordon, looking elegant, even in this heat, in a pale gray suit, but extremely grim.

  “You’re going to have to jump after all,” he said. “That stupid idiot, Billy, sloped off this morning with Rupert to have another crack at bullfighting and got himself knocked out cold.”

  Tracey gave a wail and dropped her comb. The Bull jerked up his head.