Riders

by Jilly Cooper

  “That’s the girl from last night,” said Dino.

  “Ha,” said Ludwig. “Mees Maxwell, Jake Lovell’s groom. Maybe that’s zee horse Jake’s going to jump. Looks very familiar. No, it can’t be.”

  “Looks bloody well,” said Dino.

  Les Rivaux is one of the most beautiful seaside ports in Brittany. The showground is about a mile outside the town, half-ringed, on the inshore side, by the forest in which Fen had threatened to let Rupert’s horses loose. In front lies the sea. On the day of the first warm-up class of the show, it lay like a film of mother-of-pearl on the platinum blond sand.

  “Too many foreigners,” said a large English lady tourist disapprovingly, as two Italians nearly fell off their horses at the sight of Rupert’s groom, Dizzy, riding past in a tight turquoise T-shirt and no bra.

  Les Rivaux was already swarming with Dutch riders in leather coats, Portuguese with hot eyes and chattering teeth, Argentinian generals, Americans in panamas and dark glasses, all gabbling away in different languages, all lending a Ritzy, illicit flavor to the showground. The weather was still muggy and hot and, although the swallows were flying low and the cows lying down, there was no sign of rain to soften the punishingly hard ground.

  A large crowd gathered to watch this first event, a small speed class in which most of the riders had entered the horses they would later jump in the World Championship. In the big afternoon class, they would jump their second horses.

  Rumors had already begun to circulate round the showground that Jake Lovell was jumping one of Rupert’s old horses. Jake was not to be drawn, nor was Fen, and when Rupert first saw Tanya leading Macaulay and Desdemona quietly round the collecting ring that morning, he stared for a minute at the familiar big black horse with dinner-plate feet and the ugly white face, but made absolutely no comment.

  It was a mark of Rupert’s nerve that it had no effect on his riding. He continued to bitch and mob up the other riders, which was always his way of psyching himself up before a class, then produced a round that threw everyone else into a panic. Not only was his speed faster than light, but, from the way he had to exert every ounce of brute strength to keep Snakepit on course, the horse was obviously a devil to ride.

  Guy de la Tour, the star on whom the French crowd had pinned their hopes, jumped a slower but stylish clear to a storm of bravos. He was followed by Ludwig, recovered from his hangover, but who, despite Clara’s long legs, couldn’t catch Rupert. Speed was not Macaulay’s strong point; he was too careful and jumped too high. Jake was very happy with a slow clear, putting him in eleventh place.

  As the Americans were hot favorites for the Nations’ Cup, there was a lot of interest in how the horses would react to a French course. Neither the Number One male rider, Carol Kennedy, nor the Number Two, the redheaded Mary Jo Wilson, had found their form yet, and notched up eight and four faults respectively.

  Interest was therefore centered on Dino Ferranti, riding a young liver chestnut thoroughbred called President’s Man. Dino had never competed in Europe before, but even Fen, who’d had another row with him in the practice ring because his groom dismantled the upright when she was about to jump it, had to admit he was a glorious rider. For the purist, he lounged in the saddle like a cowboy and sat a little too far back, but he was so supple he seemed made of rubber, and was able to throw his weight completely off the horse while it was in the air, yet somehow touch down smoothly as he landed.

  Loose mane and long tail flying in the American fashion, President’s Man loped round the course like a cottontail rabbit. There was consternation and raised eyebrows all round when the clock said he was three seconds faster than Rupert.

  “Well done,” said everyone as he came out.

  “That’s very lucky to win the first class in the show,” said Humpty. “That is a handsome animal. Who’s he by?”

  “Great, our first win,” said Mary Jo, rushing up and hugging Dino. “That’s Rupert second, Ludwig third, and Guy fourth.”

  “Do you mind?” said a shrill voice, barging through the circle of mutual admiration. “I haven’t been in yet.”

  “Soixante-six,” called the collection ring steward. “Numero soixante-six.”

  “Je suis ici,” shouted Fen, ramming her hat down over her nose and galloping into the ring. Desdemona was only 14.3, little more than a pony. Her father was a thoroughbred, her mother a polo pony, and she was fast and nippy, with amazing acceleration between fences, but, like her mistress, her courage at this stage was much greater than her technical skill.

  Laughing and joking, Ludwig, Dino, Rupert, and Guy had their backs to the ring, all admiring the comely Mary Jo. Suddenly they heard cheering from the crowd and, turning, saw the little roan mare flying round the ring. She turned in the air over the stile, whipped over the double, and took the wall at full gallop, clearing it by inches. Jake put his hands over his eyes as she thundered down towards the combination.

  Looking in wonderment through splayed fingers, he saw her pop, pop, pop over the three fences like a Ping-Pong ball. Knocking a tenth of a second off Dino’s time, she had to gallop halfway round the ring before she could pull up. Pink in the face with elation, she made a discreet but perfectly noticeable V-sign at the group round Mary Jo as she came out of the ring. Darklis and Isa were yelling like savages.

  Jake bawled her out for “bloody irresponsibility.” “You could have brought her down at any moment.” Then his face softened, “But it was a great round.”

  They were calling for the winners. Fen stuck her nose in the air and rode into the ring. Dino caught up with her. In a white stock, black coat, and the tightest of white breeches, with her newly washed hair tucked into a net, she was almost unrecognizable as the angry child who’d barged into Rupert’s caravan the previous night.

  “Lady, ah sure underestimated you.”

  Fen ignored him.

  “You look real pretty when you’re mad, but Ah sure wish you’d smile.”

  “I will when they give me my rosette.”

  “Ah thought you were Jake Lovell’s groom.”

  “So I am, so are Isa and Darklis. We all muck in. Everyone’s everything.”

  “Are you going to ride that pony in the World Championships?”

  Fen patted Desdemona lovingly. “No. I’m too young.”

  “Thank Christ for that,” said Dino, looking them up and down. “I guess it’s only a matter of time, though.”

  News of Rupert’s strip poker party and Fen’s moonlight flit with his horses spread round the ground like wildfire, rivaled as gossip only by stories of Billy’s drinking, and speculation as to whether Jake’s horse, now registered as Nightshade, was really Macaulay. Then, an Italian rider found a bucket of bran in his horse’s stables, not put there by any of his entourage, and immediately everyone started panicking about sabotage. Security was tightened up all around. The Americans and the Germans hired security guards with Rotweillers. Even Rupert went so far as to employ a man to sleep all night outside Snakepit’s box.

  “Terrified Fen’ll let him out again,” said Dizzy.

  “I bet you wouldn’t have taken him,” she added to Fen, “if you’d known what a sod he can be—only equaled at the moment by his master. I don’t know what the hell’s the matter with him.”

  Rupert was missing Billy. In every major competition he’d ever jumped, Billy’d been there to fool around with, bounce ideas off, and talk out problems. Rupert was too proud to go to Malise for advice. He’d lecture him and then be irritated if Rupert didn’t follow the advice. Helen was too ignorant and not really interested.

  Hyped up to a peak of physical fitness, Rupert longed to swim in the sea, but thought it might put his eyes out for the Nations’ Cup tomorrow. He longed for a drink, but he’d vowed not to touch a drop till the championship was over. French girls mobbed him, if anything, more than English ones, but he was finding easy lays less and less satisfactory, and Helen’s arrival the following day would put the kibosh on that. He was als
o livid with Helen for not bringing out the children. Lavinia de la Tour had offered them the run of Guy’s château, thirty miles away, but Helen was too nervous about French food and water and rabid dogs and the effect of the heatwave on Marcus’s delicate skin. Tab, whom Rupert was dying to show off, Helen felt, was too young.

  Rupert had never suffered from nerves before, but he didn’t want to ride Macaulay in the final. He’d watched the gypsy rabble of the Lovell gang—those beautiful children, with their frightful Birmingham accents and their fearlessness, swarming all over Jake’s horses, polishing and plaiting them up, kissing them, playing round their feet as if they were big dogs. He’d never seen horses so relaxed or children so happy. He compared Marcus’s cringing terror and he vowed Tab would never grow up like that.

  He was drawn to Dino Ferranti, whom he’d met while jumping on the Florida circuit, as he was drawn to Ludwig, as the rich, beautiful, and successful are invariably drawn to one another.

  Dino reminded Rupert a little of Billy. They were both easygoing and had the same sense of the ridiculous. But at twenty-six, Dino was tougher and more ambitious. He was vainer than Billy too, with his pale silk shirts, his beautiful suits, his expensive cologne, and his ash blond hair that fell perfectly into place, however much he ran his hands through it. But beneath that almost effeminate languor, Dino had a will of iron, and physical strength like Rupert that allowed him to be in the thick of a party until five o’clock in the morning, yet still able to wipe the smile off the opposition next day.

  Dino’s grandfather had been an Italian immigrant who loved messing around with flowers and had started a small perfume factory. He produced a perfume called Ecstasy, which became as famous and enduringly popular as Joy, Arpège, or Chanel No. 5. His son, Paco, had a shrewd head and capitalized enough on his father’s talent to become a millionaire, as president and founder of Ferranti, Inc., which made all kinds of scents, colognes, soaps, and aftershaves, which sold worldwide. Later he diversified and started an engineering business. His three elder sons all went dutifully into the company. But Dino, his favorite, the youngest and most beautiful, rebeled. From an early age, he was interested only in horses, riding his own ponies and, even though he was beaten for it, his father’s racehorses. Assuming he would grow out of this obsession, Paco let his son ride as much as he liked, feeling deeply relieved when Dino reached six feet by the time he was seventeen, obviously too tall for a flat-race jockey. At six foot two, he was too tall for a jump jockey and turned instead to show jumping, but there was no way he could make big money out of the sport in America. His brothers complained he always smelled of the stables and flew off to further the cause of the Ferranti empire whenever he came home.

  Deciding to cut his losses, Dino enrolled at Massachusetts Institute of Technology to major in business economy. When he took his freshman exams, his papers were exemplary until the last exam, when, such was his despair, he staggered in dead drunk in a dinner jacket just as everyone was picking up their pens. Waving a half-empty gin bottle, he proceeded to offer it round to other shocked and frantically shushing candidates, before passing out at his desk.

  Such was the brilliance of his other papers, all straight A’s, that the examiners overlooked such a lapse. Dino was elected president of the next year’s class. Paco was so delighted that the day Dino was due to come home for the vacation a plane landed on the campus airstrip—Paco’s reward for his son’s success.

  Dino promptly flew home, kissed his mother and, having thanked his father, asked for a private word in the library.

  “Dad, business isn’t for me.”

  Paco was astounded. “But you’re doing so well.”

  “I didn’t want to embarrass you by having a Ferranti fail, and I guess I hate losing, too, but I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in an office. You’ve got other sons to do that. I’m going to jump horses.”

  Paco sighed. “Still, still. Why can’t you do both?”

  “Because horses need you twenty-four hours a day, just as a successful business does. I’m a great rider, I know it. I want to be up there competing against the best in the world. It is the only life I want to lead.”

  “Are you asking or telling me?”

  “Telling,” said Dino gently. “If you’re prepared to help me, I’ll be eternally grateful. If not, I’ll make it on my own.”

  “You can’t make a living out of it.”

  “In Europe, I can.” He saw the sadness in his father’s eyes. “I’m not a loser. I won’t starve. I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t try.”

  Paco looked at his favorite son reflectively. “All straight A’s—all but one, when you were loaded. I never guessed how much you were hating it. That takes guts. Maybe you’ll make a go of it. I’ll make a bargain with you. I’ll help you out for the first five years, so you can stay in the States.”

  Five years later, almost to the day, Dino arrived in Les Rivaux.

  The World Championships start with a Nations’ Cup. The twenty riders in this event who have the least faults go through to the next leg, which consists of three grueling individual competitions. The four riders who average out the least faults in these go through to the final. A compulsory rest day follows. Then the final takes place in which each of the four riders jump their own horse, and then in turn the horses of the other three riders.

  Great Britain had patchy fortunes in the Nations’ Cup. Rupert produced two dazzling clears on Snakepit. Humpty, trying to impress a new sponsor, jumped disastrously with over twenty faults in both rounds. Driffield went clear, then went to pieces in the second round. Jake had eight faults in the first round, then went clear.

  The Americans jumped brilliantly; so did the Germans, putting them first and second, with the British a poor third. This meant four American riders, four Germans, Rupert, Jake, Wishbone, Piero Fratinelli, the Italian Number One, a couple of Mexicans and, to the ecstasy of the French crowd, Guy de la Tour, went through to the semifinal.

  By the third and final competition of the semifinal, Ludwig and Rupert were so far ahead on points that they virtually only had to stand up to get into the last four. The class consisted of ten enormous fences, with a jump-off against the clock. Rupert got eight faults, Ludwig twelve, which ensured them a place in the final. Dino went clear. Only Jake and Count Guy were left to jump.

  “It’ll be you, me, Ludwig, and Guy,” Rupert said to Dino as he came out of the ring. “One from each country. Very suitable.”

  Jake was so incensed by Rupert’s contemptuous assumption that there was no likelihood he would make the final, that he was prepared to carry Macaulay over the fences if necessary.

  “You must win this class, even to qualify,” said Malise, giving Macaulay a pat as Jake rode off into the ring.

  Macaulay was obviously determined to give all his supporters a heart attack. Fooling around, pretending to shy at the crowd, bucking and getting up to all sorts of antics between fences, he nevertheless went clear, kicking up his heels in a sort of equine V-sign.

  Everyone got out their calculators, trying to work out whether he was in or not. In came Guy, who was ahead of both Dino and Jake on points. Laughing, handsome, he was turned on by a big crowd, particularly of his own people. He could feel the waves of love and admiration wafting over like a hot blow dryer.

  Coming up to the penultimate fence, a huge upright which had unsettled everyone except Macaulay, Guy’s spectacular black gelding, Charlemagne, gave it a mighty clout. Everyone held their breath, but the pole stayed put. Alas, Guy made the mistake of looking round, like Orpheus, and the Eurydice he lost was his place in the championship. His concentration snapped and he put Charlemagne wrong at the combination. The horse hadn’t enough impulsion to get far enough over the first element and demolished the second and the third. The crowd groaned. All round the course, riders and their retinues were frantically tapping their calculators.

  “It’s worse than A-level math,” grumbled Fen.

  Next moment, Mal
ise came up to Jake, with a barely suppressed expression of delight on his face.

  “You’re in,” he said.

  Americans were crowding around Dino, punching him on the arm.

  “We’re in, we’re in.”

  No one dared show any elation in the face of such bitter French despair. Financially and, from the point of view of national morale, it was essential that the host nation had at least one rider in the final. The crowd were too stunned to clap. The commentator was too stunned even to translate into English his announcement that Rupert, Dino, Ludwig, and Jake would go through.

  Dino and Jake decided not to jump off. They wanted to rest their horses for the final. They rode into the ring together. Twenty thousand francs would be divided between them, but not the huge vase that went to the winner. It looked just like an urn.

  “Oh, my God, we can’t exactly break it in half,” said Dino. “You better keep it, Jake. I’m sure it’s to put your ashes in.”

  Hell, thought Rupert, I’m going to have to ride that black bugger after all.

  34

  It was one thing to get through to the final but quite another to have to think about it for the next two days. Ludwig was lucky. The German team liked each other, ate, drank, sightsaw, sunbathed, and worked their horses together. All were firmly rooting for Ludwig. A German victory was all that mattered. Dino received the same support from the American team.

  Malise sighed and wished he could unite the British in the same way. But Rupert, Humpty, and Driffield were all individuals motivated by self-interest and ambition and frantic jealousy. Nor could you expect any solidarity from Jake Lovell, a loner who liked to keep to himself at shows. At earlier shows, Billy had kept everyone sweet, particularly Rupert. Now he was absent, tempers and hatreds flared up. Driffield’s persistent grumbling was getting on everyone’s nerves. Humpty was in despair, knowing his newly acquired sponsors would be far from happy he hadn’t made the final. Rupert and Jake made no secret of their mutual animosity. It was ironic, thought Malise, that each would get more of a kick from finishing in front of the other than winning the championship.