Riders

by Jilly Cooper

  She hardly had time to cover her red nose and her three spots, which had reappeared, when the cab pulled up. Her heart sank when a spectacular but utterly stoned girl opened the door. Her bright pink hair matched her trousers. Her sequined waistcoat only just covered her nipples.

  “Hi,” she said vaguely.

  “Is Enrico here?”

  The girl gave a silly laugh. “Somewhere he is. Come in.”

  Having repaired her face as best she could, Fen went into a big, dimly lit room. People with glazed expressions were having off-center conversations. Everyone was very done up and glamorous. Fen recognized several well-known actresses. Two women were necking in a corner, a man in a ballet skirt and a tweed coat was asleep on the sofa. There was no sign of Enrico.

  She found him in the next room, in a corner, with Fabiola on his knee, one hand inside her shirt, the other halfway up her thigh. He was talking to two other girls. Heart hammering, Fen walked over.

  “Hello, Enrico.”

  “Fenella.” At least he tipped Anna-Fabiola off and came towards her. For a minute, she was wrapped in warm masculine reassurance as he held her to his chest. But she could also smell stale sweat and there was garlic and whisky on his breath when he kissed her.

  He let her go and led her back to Anna-Fabiola, who smiled vacantly. The two girls who’d been vying for his attention looked at Fen as though she was something the cat couldn’t even bother to bring in. She desperately needed a drink.

  “What happened to your breeches?” said Enrico. “I wanted to ’ave you like that.”

  “They split in the jump-off,” said Fen miserably. “In front of ten thousand people. It was awful.”

  But Enrico wasn’t interested. He was talking to Ralphie, who’d just wandered over with his flying suit undone almost to his crotch, so as to display a pink, hairless chest. In the end Fen was forced to find her own drink. When she came back Enrico had undone all the buttons of Anna-Fabiola’s shirt and was playing with her breasts.

  “Isn’t she lovely?” he said to Fen. “Wouldn’t you like to play with her, too?”

  With a sob Fen turned away. Suddenly she wished she was going home in the lorry with Dino and Sarah, home to reality and sanity. She was exhausted, sober, desperately in need of comfort, and bitterly aware that she was looking her worst and couldn’t compete with any of the girls hanging around Enrico. She was amazed when he followed her, taking her upstairs and opening and shutting several doors before he found an empty bedroom. There was no lock on the door.

  “We can’t” said Fen, aghast. “Someone might come in.”

  “Let’s hope they will,” said Enrico. “You are very sexy, cara. You need to be shared.”

  Next moment he was undressed, lying on his back, his chest matted with black hairs like an ape, his cock rising like some grotesque Italian pepper grinder. The smell of unwashed body assailed her as she knelt over him. She suddenly remembered Dino’s warning about crabs. When Enrico seized her head, forcing it down, she nearly threw up.

  “Go on, little schoolboy, you make love to me this time.”

  His hand was fingering her bum crack. Appalled, she wished she could ram her tail between her legs, like Wolf. It was all horrible, with none of the ecstasy of the last time. She longed to run away but she had nowhere to go. There were no trains to Warwickshire at this hour. Anyway, she had to do the broadcast. There was a bang on the door. Fen snatched the sheet round her. It was Ralphie and Anna-Fabiola.

  “Come and join us,” said Enrico, holding out his arms.

  Leaping out of bed, Fen snatched up her clothes and fled past them. She spent the night, shivering, on a tiny sofa in some maid’s room, which actually had a lock on the door. All she could think about was getting back to the Mill House to tell Dino what a fool she’d been.

  Somehow she got herself together and to the BBC by ten o’clock in the morning. It was a children’s program; she couldn’t let them down. She was met by a very embarrassed producer who said that, as Doctor Seuss was in town, they’d had to completely rejig the program and, very sadly, wouldn’t be needing her after all. Of course, she’d be paid all expenses and her fee and she must come another time; they’d be in touch. Fen knew perfectly well he was lying, that he’d seen the story and the photographs of her breeches splitting in all the morning papers and was terrified she might corrupt the young.

  All the way home in the train, Fen died of shame as she huddled behind dark glasses, coat collar turned up, watching businessmen glued to and gloating over her photograph. The headlines were predictable: “Bottoms Up” said The Sun; “Cheeky Fen” said the Mirror.

  Tory met her at Warwick station, looking very red-eyed. Fen thought it was because she’d been behaving so badly.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t ring,” she stammered. “I meant to, but I was so choked about my breeches splitting. When did the others get back?”

  “About three in the morning,” said Tory, starting up the Land Rover.

  Wolf, in the back, crept forwards, wagging his tail and putting his rough face against Fen’s cheek. At least she had one friend. For a mile or so they didn’t speak. It was a mean, gray day. The only color came from the last red beech leaves and the blond grasses edging the road.

  “Was Dino in an awful state?” mumbled Fen.

  There was a pause.

  Then Tory said, “He’s gone.”

  “Gone?” said Fen, “Where?” Suddenly she felt as if she’d jumped out of a plane and her parachute wasn’t opening.

  “Back to America.”

  “But he can’t have,” whispered Fen.

  “He left this afternoon, loaded up the horses and everything.”

  “But whatever for?” said Fen, aghast.

  “He didn’t say,” said Tory, bursting into tears.

  “Did he—did he leave any message for me?”

  “Only to say he’d probably see you in Los Angeles.”

  “Nothing else.”

  “He gave me a dishwasher,” sobbed Tory. “It arrived half an hour after he’d gone.”

  48

  Back in November that same year, Helen Campbell-Black sat in James Benson’s waiting room, flipping through the houses for sale in Country Life, and idly wondering how much Penscombe was worth. Glancing at her gold watch, she decided there wasn’t really time before her appointment to rush to the john for yet another quick cleanup. It seemed ludicrous, after having two kids, that she was still desperately embarrassed by anything down there. She shifted slightly on the leather sofa. The irritation was really awful and not helped by her worrying about it all the time. Outside the waiting room, a group of starlings, ravenous after a week of hard frosts, were jostling each other around the bird table. A thrush darted forward, warily grabbing a crust that had fallen on the starched white grass and carrying it off to the safety of a nearby ash tree. Helen admired his speckled breast and bright eyes. How odd that the bird and the complaint between her legs should have the same name.

  What a beautiful woman, thought the nurse, as she showed Helen into the consulting room. If there was one patient likely to make Dr. Benson flout the Hippocratic oath, it was she. He always insisted on seeing Helen on the last appointment before lunch, so he could spend more time with her. And although he was supposed to be a friend of the husband’s, he never referred to him in any other way than as “that shit Campbell-Black.”

  This morning’s examination did nothing to revise Dr. Benson’s opinion, but as he ushered Helen back to her chair his face was as bland as ever.

  “I’m afraid you haven’t got thrush,” he said. “It’s the clap.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The clap. Gonorrhea.”

  For a second he thought she was going to faint.

  “What!” she gasped.

  “Gonorrhea,” he said gently.

  “But I can’t have, I mean, I haven’t, I wouldn’t sleep with anyone but…” her voice trailed off.

  “I’m sure not, but,
whatever you’ve heard to the contrary, it really isn’t caught from lavatory seats.”

  “So in fact…” she began.

  “When did you last have intercourse with Rupert?”

  She tried to pull herself together, trying to remember. “About a fortnight ago.”

  “That was probably it, although it could have lain dormant longer. Don’t worry. It’s easy to cure.”

  Helen started to cry. Benson went to the cupboard and poured her a large gin and tonic, even adding ice and lemon. It was several minutes before she could bring herself to drink it, as though she were terrified of contaminating the glass. Benson yearned to take her in his arms and comfort her, but he could still hear his secretary typing outside and, with four children at public school, he could ill afford to jeopardize a brilliant career.

  “I can’t believe it,” Helen said in a choked voice. “I feel so polluted, and where can Rupert…?”

  “Have got it from?” Benson shrugged. “Some passing scrubber on a trip abroad.” Then, seeing the anguish in her face. “You know—far from home, missing you, needing to celebrate a victory. Won’t have meant a thing to him. He’d better come and see me the moment he gets back. He’ll have to be off sex for a bit, too.”

  “I can’t believe it,” Helen said again, gazing into space, shaking violently.

  Benson was surprised. He only saw a reaction like this when he told parents their children had some fatal disease or had to break the news to a patient that they had cancer.

  “You’ll need a course of penicillin injections. Nothing to worry about.” He turned to his desk. “And I’m going to give you tranquilizers and some sleeping pills to tide you over the next few days. Cheer up. It happens to the best people.”

  “I feel so contaminated,” whispered Helen. “How could Rupert do it?”

  “Probably didn’t know. Come on, we’ll organize the jabs and then I’ll buy you lunch.”

  “No,” Helen leapt up, cringing away from him, “I couldn’t force myself on anyone, knowing this.”

  Helen had to wait until late the following night to confront Rupert, although the entire household was aware something was up. The grooms, Mrs. Bodkin, Charlene the nanny, all knew that Mrs. C-B had gone off to see handsome Dr. Benson and had returned white-faced, had locked herself in her bedroom, and had given way to hysterical sobbing.

  “Didn’t touch any lunch or dinner,” said Charlene. “Didn’t even come and say good night to the children.”

  “Might be a hysterectomy, might be cancer of the womb,” said Mrs. Bodkin, in excitement.

  “Might be another baby,” said Dizzy, “Which means she can’t walk out on His Nibs for another nine months.”

  “If it is, I’m off. I’m not looking after three children,” said Charlene. “What d’you think it’d be like working in public relations?”

  Rupert got back from Hamburg about nine o’clock. He realized something was up when Helen didn’t come down and say hello, although far off were the days she’d charged down the stairs to fling herself into his arms. He dumped his case in the kitchen.

  “All dirty washing,” he said to Charlene, who had positioned herself at the kitchen table, it being the best place to hear any excitement, and was reading the Daily Mail and eating a yogurt.

  “Look what I bought for Tab,” said Rupert, proudly producing an exquisite German doll in national costume. “According to the instructions on the box she does almost everything except say ‘Oooh’ at the moment of orgasm.”

  “Beautiful,” said Charlene. “What did you get Marcus?”

  “Sweets,” said Rupert blandly. “I must have left them in the lorry. I suppose I better give them to him in the morning.”

  “Bastard,” Charlene said to herself.

  “Where’s Helen?”

  “In her room.”

  “She all right?”

  “Not in carnival mood.”

  “Know what it’s about?”

  “She’s been a bit jumpy all week. Went to see Dr. Benson yesterday and came back in a frightful state.”

  “Oh dear,” said Rupert pouring himself a large whisky, “I’d better go and see her.” Then his eye was caught by a recipe on the corkboard in Helen’s writing entitled: How to make Prawns and Kiwi fruit in Pernod-flavored Mayonnaise. Getting out his fountain pen, he wrote “Oh, please don’t.”

  Charlene giggled, so Rupert proceeded to tell her how his new horse Rock Star had gone. “He really is world class. If I can’t get a gold with him I might as well retire.”

  When he went upstairs an hour and several whiskies later, he found the bedroom door locked.

  “Let me in.”

  “Go away,” screamed Helen.

  “I’ll break the door down, or shoot it out if you’d prefer.”

  After a long pause she unlocked it.

  “Christ, you look as if a train’s hit you.” He’d never seen her so gray.

  “I went to James Benson yesterday.”

  “So I hear. Are we expecting quads?”

  “Don’t you dare be flip,” she hissed. “I’ve got gonorrhea.”

  “Really,” drawled Rupert, his dark blue eyes suddenly taking on that opaque look. “You must be more careful who you leap into bed with in future.”

  “Stop it, stop it,” screamed Helen. “You know perfectly well I haven’t slept with anyone but you.”

  “I don’t know that at all,” said Rupert coldly. “I see little enough of you, and your extreme reluctance to come on any of my trips abroad would rather suggest the contrary.”

  “You bastard,” yelled Helen. “You caught it from one of your disgusting whores.”

  “Oh, come on. You’ve got absolutely no proof. I’ve certainly got the clap. I was treated for it in Hamburg—those German clinics are like Sainsbury’s on a Saturday morning—but I caught it from you.”

  “Don’t put that number on me. I’ve never looked at another man since I married you.”

  “What about Dino Ferranti?” said Rupert softly. “He’s been in England for six weeks. Rumor has it he spends most of his nights on away fixtures.”

  “I haven’t been near Dino or anyone else,” said Helen. “You gave it me and you know it. I’m leaving you and I’m taking the children.”

  “You can take Marcus,” yelled Rupert, “but if you lay a finger on Tab, I’ll fight you in every court in this country.”

  This was the final straw. Maddened, Helen tried to lash out at him, but Rupert dodged back and only the ends of her long colorless nails caught his cheek. The next moment the door opened.

  It was Marcus, red hair ruffled, eyes huge with terror, pajama top falling off.

  “Thtop thouting, Daddy, please thtop thouting.”

  Tabitha toddled in after him, wearing only the top half of her pajamas, nappy discarded.

  “Daddy, Daddy,” she squealed in delight, running towards him, “Daddy home,” then seeing blood on his face, “Daddy got a hurt.”

  “Poor Daddy’s indeed got a hurt,” said Rupert, pulling a couple of tissues out of the box on Helen’s dressing table to stem the bleeding. Then, gathering Tab up in his arms, he walked out of the room. “I’m beginning to think you and Badger are my only fans.”

  Helen, with a superhuman effort, pulled herself together. “Daddy has cut himself shaving,” she told Marcus. Everyone loved everybody, she went on. She was absolutely fine. Anything to ward off an asthma attack. But thin mucus was trickling from his nose, a sure sign that one was on the way. He was having difficulty in breathing. Oh God, it was her fault for locking herself in her room and not coming to say good night. He must have heard her crying.

  “Relax, Marcus, please.”

  Soon she had laid him facedown across her lap, tapping his frail ribs with cupped hands to force the mucus out of the bronchial tubes as the physiotherapist had taught her. He had swallowed so much phlegm, eventually he threw up all over her and the carpet. By the time she had got him to bed and calmed him down, read hi
m a story and cleaned up the mess, it was long after midnight.

  The light was on in Rupert’s dressing room. On the bed she found Rupert fully dressed, stretched out fast asleep with the sleeping Tab in his arms. Photographs of Rock Star were scattered all over the bed and the floor. In their blond beauty and their carefree abandonment, they were so alike. When Helen tried to take Tab back to her own bed the child went rigid in her sleep and clung on, so Helen left them.

  Back in her bedroom, she wearily took a couple of sleeping pills and tried to think rationally about her marriage. She was trapped, trapped, trapped. She longed to leave Rupert, but where could she go? Certainly not home to her parents. The tensions of those two months in Florida last summer had put paid to that, and how could she ever afford Marcus’s colossal medical bills in the States? And if she walked out, taking the children, they would have to give up so much: Penscombe, the valley, the swimming pool, the camp up in the woods, the tennis court, the horses, the skiing, the jet-set existence, the fleet of servants, not to mention the library and the pictures, which they would probably appreciate later. All this for life in a one-bedroom flat. Janey at least had a career and could support herself; Helen had nothing. Her novel, to be honest, was merely a series of jottings. She poured everything out in her journal, sometimes leaving it around in the hope that Rupert might read it, and realize how unhappy she was. But he only read Dick Francis and Horse and Hound. Maybe he was as unhappy as she was and only bullying Marcus to work off his frustrations.

  Yet she was only twenty-seven. Was this emotional dead end really all there was to life? Admittedly there were times of comparative contentment when Rupert was away, which was, after all, eleven months of the year, interspersed with periods of desperation like the present one, when he humiliated her publicly by chasing other women, and now giving her the clap.