The Little Shop of Afternoon Delights

by Sarah Lefebve

‘It really isn’t any big deal, you know. Here, hold the reins on his neck. Are you sure you want to do this? You don’t have to, you know.’ Lottie was now looking concerned, as she realised just how pale Amanda was (which was evident when she pushed the riding hat back where it should be), and noticed that her hands were trembling.

  ‘I do.’ Which was ‘I do have to’, not ‘I’m sure I want to do this’.

  ‘Why?’

  Now there was a question she wasn’t sure she was ready to answer. ‘I’ll tell you later, if I survive.’

  Lottie’s easy laughter echoed around the indoor school. ‘I have never killed a client yet and believe me, I’ll be very cross if you ruin my perfect record. Right, keep your hand on the pommel and hold the stirrup like this.’ She twisted it round. ‘Foot in. No the other one.’

  God, this was embarrassing. Amanda swapped feet and hopped around, hoping the horse didn’t move.

  ‘Now all you do is put the other hand here on the saddle, no, keep your foot in the stirrup and spring up. I’ve got him, he won’t go anywhere, will you Merlin?’

  Merlin shifted and whisked his tail, then stamped a foot. Amanda decided he hated her. Already.

  ‘Just imagine it’s like getting on,’ Lottie paused looking for inspiration, ‘a bus.’

  ‘A bus?’ Buses weren’t hairy, didn’t bite or kick, and had seats that it was bloody hard to fall off. She hopped a bit more, and thought springy thoughts. Merlin shifted to the side and a squeak of alarm escaped as she realised she was in danger of doing the splits for the first time in her life, unless she hopped very quickly. Shit, she just had to get a grip and do this. With a momentous effort, mentally as well as physically, Amanda gripped the saddle with both hands and attempted to ‘spring’.

  The whole saddle shifted round towards her, the foot that had left the ground missing its return spot and immaculate cream jodhpurs met terra firma with an ungainly clump, as her other foot, still in the stirrup, disappeared underneath Merlin’s ample stomach.

  ‘Oh bugger, the girth’s loose.’ Lottie, who didn’t seem to have noticed that Amanda was now at her feet in an ungainly heap and on the verge of hysterical tears, was staring at the saddle, which had slid round Merlin’s generous barrel.

  ‘He doesn’t like it too tight until you get on.’ Tabatha, who Amanda had been too stressed to spot lurking in the shadows, had joined them and was hauling the saddle straight. ‘And he doesn’t like his coat ruffling up.’

  I don’t like my bloody coat ruffling up, thought Amanda, as she watched the girl undo the saddle completely and reposition it. She clambered back on to her feet as Lottie unceremoniously hiked the girth as tight as it would go. ‘There you go, I’ll hang onto the other side this time.’

  How could it take two assistants to get her into the saddle? Amanda had never been so embarrassed or so out of her comfort zone in her life. They made it look so easy, these horsey people, leaping on and off like it was the easiest thing in the world and she was dying to just ask for a ladder, or a crane. And how the hell was she supposed to get down once she was up there?

  ‘Shall I give you a shove?’ Tab, ignoring the request to hold onto the other side, had crept up behind her and made her jump. ‘No.’ The noise sneaked out like she was a hamster being squeezed and she made a heroic attempt to clamber on board. No way was she going through the indignity of having a goth girl boosting her backside.

  Somehow, by some miracle, she had overcome gravity and was up, wondering how anyone could look elegant in this position. And how one stayed on once the animal moved.

  ‘Here hold on to the pommel.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Front of the saddle.’

  Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Fine.’ She forced the word through gritted teeth and dug her fingernails into the hard leather of the sticking-up bit of the saddle in front of her. ‘Can I get off now?’ was the one and only thought in her semi-frozen brain.

  ‘I’ll just lead him round until you get used to it.’

  Get used to it? Never in a thousand years, thought Amanda as the horse lurched forward and she very nearly tipped off. Was she ever going to get used to this? She felt like a marble that had been dropped on a table that wasn’t quite level.

  ‘Put one hand on your stomach.’

  ‘Sorry?’ Was the girl mad? That meant letting go. As Merlin tripped, which she was sure he’d done on purpose, if she was capable of stringing a thought together, her fingers tightened.

  ‘Sit up straight, woman, you look like an old crony.’ The bark came out of nowhere, and Amanda, who had been incapable of seeing anything beyond the horse’s ears and Lottie instinctively shot up straight, a habit borne out of years of being instructed by a mother, who despite not having the money to buy a hat thought all ladies should act like they had one on their head.

  Astonishingly enough she didn’t fall off and the feeling that any second now she was going to hit the deck dissipated slightly.

  Billy strode into her field of vision. ‘Okay?’ He was looking at Lottie in a slightly awkward way, which was something Amanda couldn’t remember seeing in the ultra-confident, tubby figure before.

  ‘We’re fine, thanks.’ Lottie scuffed a boot in the rubber-flecked surface and for a second Amanda forgot she was on top of a horse.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it then, shall I?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Stop gripping that poor bugger with your knees like you’re trying to squeeze the last breath out of him, love.’

  Amanda felt her jaw drop down in sympathy as her knees dropped open.

  ‘Fresh air between your thighs might be good if you’re looking for a good seeing to, darling, but not if you’re riding a horse. I know just how he bloody feels.’ And with that muttered parting comment, he strode out of the school, tapping his crop against his boot.

  Amanda gulped and wondered how floppy knees and wrap-around thighs were supposed to work.

  ‘Do you want to go any faster?’

  ‘What? No, no.’

  ‘You’re doing fine.’ Lottie smiled up at her and continued the slow plod around the school. ‘Just let go a bit.’

  It suddenly dawned on Amanda that she actually was doing fine. Billy’s terse instruction to sit up and stop crouching over the horse like a big cat about to sink its teeth into dinner, had unstiffened her shoulders and had her looking at where she was going, rather than where she didn’t want to. The floor. She wasn’t quite sure what her legs were supposed to do if she wasn’t allowed to hold Merlin in a death grip, though.

  ‘Just imagine you’re a puppet, let your legs just hang loose, all the weight in your heels. You need a haircut, don’t you Merlin?’

  ‘No he doesn’t, he likes being like that.’ Tab was still lurking in the shadows, which Amanda presumed was to make sure her precious horse wasn’t being maltreated.

  ‘He’s handsome.’ It was the first thing she’d said without a quake in her voice, not a particularly clever thing. But progress. It proved that her brain hadn’t permanently been disconnected from the rest of her, although the fact that she was sitting on a horse rather disputed that.

  But Tabby’s ‘he’s mega’ seemed to signal approval.

  ‘Where your hand is, under your tummy button, that’s where your balance is. If you think about that you’ll go with him.’

  Sitting up straight, hand on tummy and feeling like a puppet wasn’t quite how she’d imagined this riding lark, and it didn’t look as if she’d be heading over any jumps (well not voluntarily) any time soon.

  ‘Is your dad,’ she clutched at the saddle as Merlin missed a step, ‘okay?’

  ‘He’s fine. I don’t know about you, but I’m getting dizzy, we’re going to turn round and go the other way.’

  Merlin lurched, Amanda grabbed, and every thought of hand on tummy disappeared. She needed to hang on.

  ‘He’s just, well he’s a bit worried about if…’ Lottie let go fo
r a moment to swap to the other side of the horse. ‘About you.’

  ‘Me?’ It was a mistake to screech because the horse’s head was tossed in the air and her ungripped knees decided that hanging free was a bad survival policy. Lottie didn’t seem to notice the minor crisis, though.

  ‘Okay? Shall we try without stirrups for a bit?’

  ‘Yes, no. Fine, I’m sorry I’m so pathetic.’ Sit up straight, relax, if she repeated the mantra often enough maybe it would stick. ‘What about me?’

  ‘Yes, you without stirrups.’

  ‘No, I meant your dad. Why is he worried about me? Does he think I’ll harm his horse?’

  ‘Merlin isn’t Dad’s, he’s Tab’s. He’s frightened,’ Lottie stopped, which meant Merlin stopped, which meant Amanda nearly fell off and had to clutch a handful of mane and shove herself back into the saddle. ‘Dad that is, not Merlin. He knows that you’re dealing with Uncle Dom, and Dom hates him, so he’ll tell you to sell up to some other developer who’ll bulldoze the place,’ she took a breath, ‘and he’ll lose everything. Come on Merlin.’ She clicked at the horse, who took a step forward and jolted Amanda out of her astonished silence.

  ‘But I—’

  ‘What on earth are you two up to, meandering around like you’re riding Blackpool donkeys?’

  ***

  Lottie didn’t know whether it was good that Rory had arrived just when he had, at the point when Amanda was going to fall out with her for good and never speak to her again, or bad.

  Amanda, though, had ignored Rory. ‘But why would I do that? I’d never just tell you to go, you must believe that, I thought we were friends.’ She sounded slightly put out. ‘And Dominic wouldn’t try and do that, why would he?’

  ‘He hates Dad. They had this massive row.’

  ‘Really?’ Amanda had stopped clutching the saddle. ‘Are you sure? I wouldn’t have thought he hated anybody, does he?’

  Lottie was now totally confused.

  ‘And I thought he was your uncle, did I get that wrong?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He’s not your uncle? But I—’

  ‘I mean yes, he’s my uncle, and no, you didn’t get it wrong.’ But what had her and Billy got wrong? And she had seen Amanda over at Tipping House, hadn’t she? Lottie was thinking so hard about what she did and didn’t know that she’d unconsciously speeded up and the shout of alarm, as Merlin briefly broke into a trot for two strides, brought her back to the present. Lottie could quite honestly say that she had never seen anyone quite as scared as Amanda, which was another confusing thing. Why exactly did she want riding lessons?

  ‘Why do you want lessons, Amanda? You hate horses.’

  ‘I don’t hate them. They’re just so big, and fast, that’s all. But I thought if I was going to stay, I needed to fit in a bit.’ Lottie looked at her sceptically. ‘Well, there is a bit more to it than that, but…’

  ‘So you’re not selling up?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know for definite what I’m going to do. I mean this place is massive, and I don’t know anything about anything. You don’t mind if we stop now, do you? It’s just I’m sure I’ve got a big bruise on the inside of my knee, and my fingers hurt.’

  ‘Your fingers hurt?’

  ‘I think I’ve been hanging on too tight. And I’m not sure Pilates works quite the same as this, I mean I’m not convinced my inner thighs will ever meet up again.’

  ‘Sure, if you want. But you’ve only been on him about half an hour. And isn’t a gap between your inner thighs supposed to be a bonus?’

  ‘Not when it extends down to your ankles. Half an hour, God, it feels like hours, how do you sit on one for ages? You are sure it’s only been half an hour?’

  ‘Positive.’

  ‘Gosh, your father must hate me. I mean, I didn’t know he thought I was going to do that, and he still let me come here and he’s being nice.’

  ‘Well, what else can he do?’

  ‘How do I get down?’

  Lottie stared blankly at her. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had asked how to get off a horse. Or on, come to that.

  ‘Take both your feet out of the stirrups and then just put your leg over.’

  ‘I’m not convinced my leg will go over like that. I think I’ve seized up.’

  ‘Not over the front, over the back.’ Since the funeral, Lottie has discovered that she rather liked Amanda. And even with the thought in the back of her mind that if Billy was right then two seemingly nice people were plotting together to destroy her childhood home, it was still quite hard to dislike her. Being sat on a horse, scared stiff, had also seemed to loosen Amanda’s tongue; Lottie had never heard her say so much. Even after several bottles of champagne and a dance on the coffee table.

  ‘Oops sorry. But how do I?’ Amanda had seen hundreds of people jumping off horses, but now she couldn’t, for the life, of her work out how they did.

  ‘I could always help.’ Rory grinned good-naturedly at them and got a chorus of ‘no’s’.

  Lottie aimed a slap in his direction as he stepped up, keen to assist. ‘Just tip forward a bit, hold his mane.’

  Amanda was pretty sure that her skin-tight breeches, purchased more for appearance than practicality, were going to split straight down the centre of her bottom and show off the blue knickers she’d worn for luck and to give her confidence. And if the breeches didn’t, she might. It also seemed a bloody long way down to the ground, and gymnastics had never been her forte. She’d been the girl at the top of the rope in the school gym, not sure whether it would be more embarrassing to ask for help or to slide down and get severe rope burns all the way down her inner thighs. ‘Just let go’ had never been an instruction that had worked for her.

  She closed her eyes, said a silent prayer and did as instructed. For a brief, horrifying moment, her knee got stuck on the cantle of the saddle and a vision of the horse galloping off with her hanging limpet-like onto his side, like a Russian Cossack, flashed through her mind. Then her body weight took over (no doubt leaving a massive bruise on her inner thigh – how did one explain that whilst having a bikini wax?) and she slithered ungracefully to the ground, still clinging onto mane and saddle.

  She took a deep breath and asked the question she still wasn’t sure she wanted to, ‘Can we do it again next week?’

  ‘Really?’ Lottie looked surprised.

  Amanda laughed, probably she thought bordering on hysterics now she was back on the ground. ‘I know I was terrible, it’s okay if it’s just too much of an ordeal.’ She patted the horse tentatively, in the middle, between the biting and kicking ends, feeling slightly braver now she was out of the saddle and rapidly increasing the space between herself and horse.

  ‘No, it’s fine, no problem. I just wasn’t sure you exactly, well, enjoyed it.’

  ‘Nor am I.’ Amanda laughed ‘But it’s something I need to do. And, if you’ve got a minute, you couldn’t come back up to the house could you? I’d like to show you something, explain why David’s dad was here.’

  ‘I’ll do the horse for you.’ Rory had taken the reins from Lottie’s hands, knowing that in her state any information would help. He was worried about her. Lottie always just got on with everything as though she hadn’t a care in the world, but since Billy’s revelations, she’d had some of the stuffing knocked out of her. The prospect of Tippermere being turned into a giant theme park had bothered them all, but not seemed quite real. Talk of death, disaster, passion and feuds had somehow made it all more real. And made them realise that, for Billy, this was a much bigger deal than just losing bricks and mortar. It was a symbol. If he lost Folly Lake Equestrian Centre, he lost everything.

  Rory liked Billy, even if their relationship was more combat than camaraderie at times, and he had realised (quite unexpectedly) that he loved his daughter. It had hit him when Billy had been talking about Alexa just what losing Lottie for good would be like. He’d seen her trip to sunnier climes for what it was, a brief escape,
and would have been shocked if she hadn’t returned. But, as Mick had told him, letting her go had been the right thing to do, but not giving her a reason to stay now she was back might be the wrong thing. One drunken session after they’d all been to the drag hunt, the intoxicated Mick has suddenly become a talker and told Rory he was an idiot, that if he couldn’t be bothered to make an effort then he didn’t deserve her.

  The words hadn’t hit home until they’d been listening to Billy. The man Dom had accused of much the same.

  Being in love wasn’t something that had ever really been on his horizon, not even in the distance, but as Mick said, it’s a gift not a bloody right. God, that man must have kissed the blarney stone last time he was home and turned into a sentimental git to boot. Or, it could just be, Rory had reasoned, that the man fancied Lottie rotten and was hoping Rory would cock up.

  Merlin was tugging on the reins, eager to head for his hay net.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Go.’ He gave her a kick up the backside. It was hard to believe the relieved, but still pale and shaking, Amanda could be part of an evil plan, and disdainful Dom might not like Billy, but getting involved with a woman to undermine anyone just didn’t fit the picture of Mr Perfect. ‘Don’t forget to come back, though, I need a lift back to the yard.’

  ***

  ‘He’s sweet, isn’t he?’ Amanda gave Lottie a sideways glance. ‘He must really love you.’

  ‘Love me?’ Lottie looked slightly alarmed.

  ‘But you’re so close.’ Her voice had a wistful edge that completely mystified Lottie. ‘It must be lovely to share everything, to like all the same things. You know, share interests.’

  Which wasn’t how it seemed to Lottie at five o’clock on cold winter mornings, when sharing meant forking muck into the same wheelbarrow.

  ‘Did you love Marcus?’ It was easier to redirect the conversation than ponder about whether Rory did actually love her.

  ‘Yes, I suppose I did. It seems like another life, though, now, I mean, I didn’t even know you then, did I?’

  ‘No, but I was away quite a bit of the time.’ Lottie tried to be generous.