Riders

by Jilly Cooper

  “Weeties,” said Tabitha, sensing weakness.

  “Oh, okay” said Helen, “if you really want all your teeth to fall out.”

  Looking in the diary after a sleepless night, Helen saw to her horror that she was supposed to go to a fund-raising lunch for the NSPCC. As vice-president for the local area, she was expected to play a leading part and make a rousing put-your-hand-in-

  your pocket speech after lunch.

  The president was very put out when Helen rang and said she couldn’t make it. Charlene had to go to an unexpected funeral, she explained, so she had to stay home and look after Marcus and Tab.

  “Surely one of the grooms can do that? I mean, we are expecting you. You’re on the poster and you’re such a draw. They’re all looking forward to meeting you.”

  “I’m sorry, Davina, but I really can’t leave them.”

  “What about Janey Lloyd-Foxe?”

  “She’s away.” Horrifying how easy she found it to lie. “Honestly, I’d never forgive myself if Marcus had an asthma attack.”

  The president was not so easily defeated. She rang back at half-past eleven, just as Helen was having a bath.

  Charlene answered the telephone before Helen could reach it.

  “Hello, Mrs. Paignton-Lacey, Mrs. C-B’s in the bath.”

  “Give it to me.” Dripping, Helen snatched the telephone.

  “D’you always have a bath in the middle of the morning? Who was that answering the telephone?”

  “Charlene.”

  “I’d thought she’d gone to a funeral.”

  “She’s just leaving.”

  “Hmm, well I’ve sorted out your problems. Angela Pitt’s nanny’s a state-registered nurse and she’s quite happy to bring Angela’s smalls over to you and look after your smalls.”

  “That’s very kind,” said Helen, realizing the bedroom door was still open and Charlene was probably hovering, “but I’m afraid the answer’s no.” She kicked the door shut.

  “But that’s absurd. Surely a state-registered nurse is better…”

  “At looking after Marcus rather than his own mother?” snapped Helen. “Since we’re talking about cruelty to children, I figure my first duty is towards my own kids. I appreciate your help, Davina, but please don’t try and run my life,” and she hung up.

  Looking at herself in the bedroom mirror, she was suddenly elated and amazed by her own defiance. Suddenly, however, panic assailed her. What if Davina rang again and got Charlene after she’d left, or if Marcus really had an asthma attack? Whimpering with terror, she rang the Red Elephant. Could she leave a message for Mr. Lovell? After a long pause, the manager said there was no one booked in the name of Lovell, although they had four Mr. Smiths and five Mr. Browns who’d booked tables for lunch. Helen rang off. Perhaps he wasn’t going to show up at all.

  Mrs. Campbell-Black, reflected Charlene, as she listened to Helen singing ‘I’m in the Mood for Love’ in the bath, was behaving in a very odd way. Yesterday she’d unloaded all Badger’s tins of dog food from the supermarket into the dishwasher and put a packet of Tampax in the fridge. Even when she came out of the bath and found Tabitha trying on lipsticks and dropping one on the pale gold carpet, she didn’t fly off the handle as she normally would.

  And now she was walking into the kitchen in a new silver flying suit and shiny black boots, with her hair trailing down her back in one long red plait.

  “You look fantastic,” said Charlene, in genuine amazement. “Like an astronaut. You ought to go to the moon.” (She’s over it already, she thought to herself.)

  “Do you really like it?” asked Helen, shyly, desperate for reassurance.

  “Gorgeous. Makes you look so slim. You’ll be wasted on the NSPCC,” Charlene added slyly. And asphyxiate them too with all that expensive perfume, she reflected. Mrs. C-B must have bathed in it.

  Marcus wandered in. “Mummy pretty. Going out?” His face fell.

  “Only to a lunch to make money to help kids who aren’t as lucky as you. I must go. I won’t be late.”

  God will smite me down for such terrible lies, she thought.

  Terror increased on the drive to the restaurant as she passed two NSPCC stalwarts driving like mad in the other direction—late for their one glass of sherry. She glanced in the driving mirror, hoping she wasn’t getting too flushed. She was so nervous, she’d been rushing to the loo all morning. It would be terribly difficult to pee wearing this flying suit; she’d have to take the whole thing off. There was the Red Elephant. She couldn’t see Jake’s Land Rover anywhere.

  He was waiting in the bar, three-quarters the way through his second whisky. For a minute she thought he was going to kiss her on the cheek, then he settled for shaking hands.

  “D’you want a drink here, or shall we go straight in?”

  All along the bar sat businessmen, gawping, finding her face vaguely familiar, trying to identify her.

  “Let’s go straight in.”

  Rupert could never enter a restaurant without turning the whole place upside down so Helen was amazed that Jake slid in so quietly. They reached their table in a corner without anyone recognizing him. There was a bunch of dark purple irises in a royal blue vase.

  “It’s not considered good form, but would you rather sit with your back to the room?” Jake asked.

  Helen nodded.

  At her request for a glass of white wine, Jake ordered a bottle and another whisky for himself. Helen found herself quite unable to meet his eyes. It had been so easy to talk before because it had been just a monologue, with her pouring out all her woes. Now, sitting opposite, conversation was incredibly heavy going, like chopping up raw swede with a blunt knife.

  Marcus was much better. Darklis and Isa were well. Both of them felt it bad form to mention Tory or Rupert. Helen was reluctant to ask Jake about his horses in case she betrayed her total ignorance. Jake felt the same about films, plays, and books. The weather had been perfect, so that lasted them only thirty seconds. A kindly waiter arrived with the menus. Helen randomly chose whitebait, which she hated, and grilled lamb cutlets with zucchini.

  She hadn’t actually looked him in the face yet. White wine didn’t seem to jolly her up at all. Desperate for something to say, she boasted she’d met half the Tory shadow cabinet at dinner on Saturday. Then thought what a fatuous thing to have done. Jake was bound to be wildly left wing. Conversation didn’t improve with the arrival of food. There were long silences. Jake, unsmiling, said very little. Helen was beginning to rattle. Gloom swept over her; she had no charm; she was boring him as she bored Rupert and obviously Dino. She looked down at the silver bodies of the whitebait in their coats of batter and could see their glassy little eyes staring at her.

  Suddenly Jake leaned across, took her knife and fork, and put them together and beckoned the waiter: “Could you take the plates away, and bring our next course; but there’s no hurry.”

  “Anything wrong, sir?”

  “Nothing. We just weren’t as hungry as we thought.”

  Helen gazed down at her hands, which were frantically pleating the white tablecloth.

  “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “What a dreadful waste.”

  Jake stretched out his hand and very gently began to stroke her cheek. For a second she shied away, then gradually relaxed under his touch.

  “There,” he said softly, “there. It’s all right, pet. I’m just as scared as you are.”

  “Are you?” she glanced up, startled.

  “More so, I should think. I was so terrified you’d say no. I couldn’t work up the courage to ring you until six o’clock. I hung round the phone box, steeling myself.”

  “And I figured you weren’t going to call.”

  “And I thought you’d probably cry off this morning, so I booked in under the name of Smith, and went out first thing, so you couldn’t reach me.”

  “And when I got cold feet and rang up to cancel and found you hadn’t booked, I got in a blind panic because I thought you
weren’t coming.”

  They both found they were laughing. Then she told him about the hassle with Davina and the NSPCC.

  “What was your excuse?”

  “I said I was going to look at a horse. Tory looked at me as though I was barking. We haven’t got enough cash for a three-legged donkey at the moment.”

  “And I left all that whitebait.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Nice treat for the restaurant cats. D’you mind if I smoke?”

  As the match flared, she noticed the beautiful, passionate mouth, with the full lower lip and for the first time realized his eyes were not black but a very dark sludge green matching his shirt.

  “Have you really got gypsy blood?”

  “Sure. My father was pure Romany. I ran away back to the gypsies when I was six. After my mother died, I tried to find him, and lived with the gypsies for three years before the social security people caught up with me and slapped me in the children’s home.”

  “So you’ve really had no family life to speak of?”

  “I’ve got one now, and when I see what Tory’s mother did to her, I reckon I was well off.”

  “What was it like living with the gypsies?”

  “Cold, sometimes, and always with the feeling of being moved on by the cops. But I enjoyed it, I learnt a lot. They taught me to recognize a good horse, and treat all nature as a medicine cupboard. Which reminds me.” He put his hand in his pocket and produced a bottle of gray-green liquid.

  “For you. For neuralgia.”

  Helen took it wonderingly. “You remembered. What is it?”

  “Extract of henbane. Deadly poisonous, neat. Crippen used it to murder his wife.”

  Helen looked slightly alarmed.

  “But that’s very diluted. It’s a marvelous sedative and a painkiller. Try it, but keep it in a safe place.”

  Helen was so moved and touched, she had to make a joke out of it.

  “D’you eat hedgehogs as well?”

  “No,” he said coldly, “nor do I tie them on top of poles, like your husband.”

  Oh dear, thought Helen, I’ve upset him.

  Then he said, “Did you know hedgehogs’ prickles go all soft when they’re with kind people?” and suddenly smiled.

  God, he’s attractive, thought Helen. She felt as if she were on top of a snowy mountain, perched on a sled, with her hands and feet tied, hurtling into the unknown with no way of stopping or steering.

  “Do you tell fortunes?”

  He shrugged. “A little. It’s really a con trick. The hand betrays the calling: if it’s rough, or pampered, or the nails are bitten. You look more for the face behind the eyes, the droop of the mouth.”

  Helen held out her hand. Her engagement ring, far too loose, had fallen underside down. For a second the huge sapphires and emeralds on her third finger caught the light, then fell back into place. Jake examined the palm for a second.

  “It tells me a small, dark stranger has entered your life.”

  “You think so.”

  “I know.”

  “Is he going to remain there?”

  “That’s up to you.” He ran his finger lightly along the heart line. “Whatever you may think to the contrary, you’re extremely passionate.”

  Neither of them made much headway with their second course, but finding so much to talk about now, they drank their way through a second bottle of wine.

  “Were you really intending to ask me out at Crittleden?”

  “No, I was far too preoccupied about riding again.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  “I suddenly wanted you like crazy.”

  Helen blushed. “Ever since you bought me lunch at the pub, I’ve kept thinking about you. I thought it was gratitude, now I’m not sure.”

  Jake undid one of the zips on her flying suit: “Pretty. Does this lead anywhere?”

  “Only a pocket.”

  “Nice. I’d like to live in your pocket.”

  Looking down at his hand at her collarbone, involuntarily Helen bent her head and kissed it, then went crimson.

  “I didn’t mean to do that,” she said, appalled.

  “I know you didn’t. I willed you to.”

  Still they lingered, oblivious of the yawning waiters looking at their watches, ostentatiously re-laying tables on either side of them. Seeing her slowly relax, and those huge eyes losing their sadness, Jake couldn’t tear himself away. He’d always thought her very overrated as a beauty. Now she seemed to blossom in front of him—lovelier every second.

  In the loo, Helen was amazed to see her own face. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t turned into someone else. It took hours to get her flying suit half off and have a pee. She kept undoing the wrong zips. She realized she must be very tight. She was appalled, looking at her watch, to see it was a quarter to four.

  She was glad that, in her flat boots, she was at least an inch shorter than Jake. As they walked to her car, he put a hand on the back of her bare neck under her hair, warm and reassuring. It was nice walking beside someone the same size. Rupert always dwarfed her.

  “I must go back,” she said wistfully. “I’m dreadfully late.”

  As he opened her door he said, “Drive a couple of miles down the road towards Penscombe. There’s a little wood on the left. Wait for me there.”

  The wood was full of primroses and violets. For a dreadful moment she’d thought she’d found the wrong copse or that he wasn’t coming. Then at last he appeared over the hill, stuck behind a trundling farm tractor carrying bales of hay. Taking both hands off the wheel, he raised them in a gesture of despair.

  He was out of the car in a second, leading her into the wood, beech husks crunching beneath their feet. Then, as Helen tripped over a bramble cable, Jake caught her, drawing her behind a huge beech tree, laying her against the trunk, taking her face between his hands, examining every freckle and eyelash and yellow fleck in her eyes.

  “Even Helen of Troy couldn’t have been as beautiful as you,” he whispered, and kissed her very gently on the lips. Helen was very glad the beech tree was holding her up. No one had ever melted her in this way. She had no desire to fight him off, just a longing that he would go on holding her forever. But as they broke for breath, some death wish prompted her to ask, “It’s not because I’m Rupert’s wife?”

  For a second his face was black with rage, just like the time he’d pulled a knife on Rupert.

  “I don’t want anything of Rupert’s,” he said through gritted teeth, his hands biting into her arms until she winced. “Get this absolutely straight. Rupert poisons everything he touches. It’s a measure of what I feel for you, that I still want you despite the fact you’re his wife.”

  This time he kissed her really hard and she kissed him back, half-longing that he’d push her down and take her on the beech husks. But he led her back to her car, his face shuttered.

  “You’re not cross?” she stammered. “I’ve had such a good time today. Living with Rupert makes you skeptical, I guess, so you question everyone’s motives.”

  “Well, don’t question mine. Where you’re concerned they’re quite straightforward. I just can’t stand that shit having anything to do with you.”

  He opened the door and, as she got in, leaned over to slot in her safety belt, kissing her briefly on the forehead.

  “You know this is only the beginning?”

  “Is it?” Helen was overwhelmed by a great happiness.

  He nodded. “But we can’t afford to rush things. I’ve got too much to lose.”

  “You mean Tory and the children.”

  “No,” he said slowly, “I mean you. I don’t want to panic you. Drive carefully. I’ll ring you tomorrow afternoon.”

  It was a good thing there weren’t any traffic cops lurking as Helen floated home. She got lost twice and bought peace offerings of freesias for Charlene and sweets for the children. Really, she was going to the dogs in grand style. She came through the door singing with happiness at five p
ast five.

  “So sorry I’m late. Lunch went on and on and on. Everyone was rabbiting on about sponsored swims and bring-and-buys. What are you having for supper, darlings? Beefburgers and french fries. How yummy.”

  Normally Helen would have freaked out at junk food, thought Charlene, putting the freesias in water, and she certainly didn’t get like that over a thimbleful of sherry and one glass of hock.

  In the evening Charlene went to a wine bar with Dizzy, who this time hadn’t gone to Rome.

  “Promise, promise, promise, you won’t tell anyone?”

  “I promise.”

  “Goodness,” said Dizzy in awe, a quarter of an hour later. “I wouldn’t have thought the old thing had it in her. Are you sure?”

  “Well, she certainly wasn’t preventing cruelty to children. Mrs. Paignton-Lacey dropped off the minutes for the last meeting on the way home, two hours before Mrs. C-B got back.”

  “Christ,” said Dizzy. “Well done, her. About time someone gave Super Bastard the run around. I wonder who he is.”

  “Must be pretty special. She came back floating above ground like the hovercraft. She was never like that after lunching with Dino Ferranti.”

  52

  Helen sent Charlene and the children out for a picnic the following afternoon so she could talk to Jake without being overheard. But gradually as the minutes ticked by, she felt her happiness subsiding like a tire with a slow puncture. Three, four, five, six, struck the grandfather clock in the hall. It was no longer afternoon. The children came home, tired and fractious and, sensing her sadness and inattention, played up even more. Helen looked at the chaos of toys lying around the nursery, counting “he loves me, he loves me not” as she put them away. The last piece of Lego was back in its box, and came to “he loves me not.” Jake must have gone off her. Perhaps Tory had kicked up a fuss when he got home and he’d decided the whole thing wasn’t worth the hassle.

  The evening passed with agonizing slowness. She couldn’t settle to anything. She was appalled how suicidal she felt. She couldn’t have got that hooked that quickly. This is only the beginning, he’d told her. A small dark stranger has entered your life. How could he hurt her like this? How could he reduce her to such ridiculous uncertainty and despair?