by Fiona Walker
Faith drove the last few miles home to Wyck Farm on autopilot, running straight past her waiting mother and shutting herself in her bedroom.
There, back in her familiar surroundings, looked down upon by walls decked with posters of dressage and horses, pictures of Rory, rosettes and one solitary Brad Pitt photo ripped from one of her parents’ Sunday supplements, she felt hollow with inexperience and ignorance.
Now she was determined to wise up, to be as cool as Sylva Frost. Even if she could never hope to be that beautiful, she could try to be that assured, to acquire a little of that attitude and sexual poise.
‘I love him, I love him, I love him.’ She exhaled, her breath a dragon puff of hot, scorching truth.
Anke was not at all pleased to have Faith home in such disgrace. She’d been appalled to learn from Kurt and Graeme that her lovely, athletic, handsome daughter had sneaked off for cosmetic surgery to alter the way she looked for ever.
When she hadn’t emerged from her room for almost an hour Anke took up a cup of tea and knocked on the door before going in to perch on the edge of the bed. Faith was texting Carly to let her know the latest.
‘How could you do it to yourself, kaereste?’ she asked, trying not to stare at the vast, gravity-defying hemispheres jutting through Faith’s polo shirt.
With a sigh, Faith cast her phone to one side and started to pull up the shirt.
‘No – please don’t!’ Anke looked away, unable to bear seeing that body she had created from her own now so mutilated.
Something warm and rubbery landed in the palm of her hand.
Anke looked at it in wonder. ‘What is this?’
‘My fake tits. I put them in today because I thought I might see Rory. Even though he told me not to have the operation, he is such a boob man that I have to try something. Then I remembered he’s not here any more.’ Her face pinched with disappointment, she looked away.
‘Rory talked you out of surgery?’ Anke gasped in disbelief, tears springing to her eyes as she realised her beautiful daughter wasn’t really altered at all, apart from very white teeth and a very black mood.
‘Men are such hypocrites!’ Faith fumed. ‘He said “don’t do it to yourself, Faith”, but his latest lover is so plastic she’d melt if she sat too close to a radiator.’
Anke stroked her back. ‘Men can be like that, kaereste. What they want with their hearts and want with their eyes doesn’t always match up.’
‘Do you think Rory might want me with his heart then?’
‘Maybe one day.’ Anke stretched forwards to give her daughter a rare hug, immensely grateful that there was nothing fake to get between them. ‘But you must give him time to find that out for himself.’
When Anke went back downstairs to tell Graham the good news that his stepdaughter was not quite as distorted as they first thought, he was surprisingly disappointed.
‘You’ve got to admit it would have been an improvement,’ he said.
‘There’s nothing wrong with the way she looks.’
‘I’m not saying that. I’m just saying cosmetic surgeons are God’s way of touching up His handiwork. What girl wants a flat chest and big nose?’
‘She inherited those features from me, Graham.’
‘Nonsense,’ he blustered. ‘They came from her father’s side, I reckon, along with that wilful streak of hers. She’s put you through all this worry over nothing, and now she’s lost her job in the best dressage centre in the country. She’ll have to make up for it.’
Anke found his comments very hurtful, but she did back up his determination to keep Faith on a short leash for the time being.
‘You’ll have to get another job, of course,’ Graham told Faith when she emerged from her bedroom to check her email account on his computer. ‘You can’t mope around here for months on end until you go to university. We had enough of that with your brother.’
‘I’m already looking for work. I’ve posted an ad on yardand-groom already. That’s why I’m checking email.’
Graham was pleasantly surprised, although he needed more control. ‘You will work with your mother at the bookshop.’
‘I don’t think so.’ Faith was already online and accessing Hotmail. ‘We agreed I could work with horses this year.’
‘That’s before you let us down so much.’ Anke was peering over her daughter’s shoulder, surreptitiously trying to read her messages. ‘I can’t trust you on your own again.’
‘It was my money to spend as I like.’
‘Not during work hours, it wasn’t. D’you know how many young riders would sell their souls to train with Kurt and Graeme?’
Faith had stopped listening as she scrolled through her mail. She’d had quite a few responses to her ad, although none of them were in the discipline she had hoped.
‘Racing!’ Anke managed to read one. ‘You cannot go and work in racing!’
Faith had to admit her size was against her – she weighed more than most racing staff – but she was a good rider and a hard worker, plus the National Hunt yards that were dotted all around the downs close to the Beauchamps’ base were not as weight-obsessed as the flat yards.
‘You cannot work in racing!’ Anke said again.
Faith knew that the hours were awful and the pay was worse, but the geography was perfect and from what she’d heard a busy National Hunt yard full of red-blooded lads living in close proximity would be the perfect start for her sexual learning curve and development of Sylva Frost attitude.
‘I would rather be based in an eventing yard, but there’s nothing on offer now it’s the end of the season,’ she pointed out as she started typing enthusiastic replies to the enquiries, suggesting she could start as soon as they confirmed the job and accommodation.
‘Eventing?’ Anke sounded even more appalled.
‘Yes, I’ve gone off dressage,’ Faith said coolly, practising her attitude. It sounded good.
Anke bit her lip. She knew full well that this was about Rory, and she could tell that fighting it was hopeless. Graham was right: Faith had a wilful streak that had no link to her mother’s fair-minded Danish blood. At least if the family supported this change of discipline Faith was unlikely to revisit notions of going under the knife. Big breasts might be a disadvantage in dressage, but they were a positive danger in eventing.
‘Wait there! I’ll make a couple of calls,’ Anke insisted, rushing into the kitchen for her old Filofax that contained numbers dating back to her professional career when she had been dressage coach to most of the top event riders in the South of England.
Chapter 26
Every year for almost a decade Tash and Hugo had taken a family holiday in France after Pau three day event, letting the grooms take the horses home in the lorry while they headed to Alexandra and Pascal’s manoir in the Loire Valley. There they would rest and eat and drink and talk themselves hoarse before heading home. It was a hugely relaxing break, and Tash always looked forward to it immensely, never more so than this year with a new baby to show off to her ever more remote mother.
But then, just days before Hugo and Rory set off for the Pyrenees, a postcard arrived from Tibet, featuring a large yak lying down, wearing a brightly coloured blanket. Taking a year out with P & P, so you will miss your R & R, darling ones. But I will have such tales to tell my wonderful grandchildren when I come home! xxx
‘She’s where?’ Hugo laughed when she showed the card to him.
‘She and Pascal must have gone travelling with Polly and her friends,’ Tash gasped, hardly able to take it in. ‘I know she was incredibly worried about letting her go backpacking, after what happened to Beccy.’
‘Isn’t this a bit extreme?’ He studied the card. ‘Surely a good global roaming mobile and Hotmail account would cover it?’
‘She’s always loved travelling. Pascal retired this year so they have the time now.’
‘Knowing your mother, they’re doing it in style, with hot and cold running Sherpas and a fully loaded por
tmanteau.’ Hugo seemed impressed, having always admired Alexandra’s spontaneity and sense of adventure.
‘She could have told us what she was planning.’ Tash felt terribly hurt. ‘They’ve been gone weeks.’
‘We had the Olympics and then the new baby all over us – they probably didn’t want to stress you out even more.’
Nevertheless, Tash was shocked. She and Alexandra hadn’t spoken in weeks, but she’d been pinning her hopes on the holiday, knowing that her capricious mother could be hard to contact but that she wouldn’t dream of missing the opportunity to meet her grandson at last.
She hurriedly phone Sophia to see what her sister knew about it all.
‘It comes as no surprise, frankly. You know what she’s like,’ Sophia assured her airily.
‘She hasn’t even seen Amery yet.’
‘Linus was practically out of nappies by the time he met his grandmother, remember?’
‘That’s because Mummy fell out with his father. We haven’t fallen out.’
‘And she’s always been very protective of Polly,’ Sophia gave a jealous sniff, having long struggled with the youth, beauty and monopoly of their halfsister. She then changed direction sharply, on to the subject of Hugo’s surprise fortieth birthday party. ‘You still haven’t given me a clue about numbers and budget, Tash. I simply can’t organise it all myself!’
Tash pretended the baby was crying and rang off. She couldn’t think about that right now, particularly with Hugo standing close by, barking into his mobile.
She suddenly felt tearful. Her mother was rather wayward and fickle, avoided confrontation and could be very impulsive, but she was never usually this neglectful.
It was a few moments before she realised that Hugo was speaking in French. For a brief and thrilling moment she thought that he had somehow managed to summon Pascal to the phone in the Himalayas and was giving him a piece of his mind about this ‘year out’. But then she picked up enough to realise that he was trying to rescue their holiday plans. Her heart sank as she guessed exactly which hostess he would call for a last-minute invitation.
‘That’s settled!’ he announced triumphantly as he rang off. ‘MC would love to have us to stay after Pau.’ His old eventing friend Marie-Clair Tucson owned a stud farm near Angers. ‘We’ll meet up there after the trials.’
Tash secretly dreaded spending any time with MC, who had once been a lover of Hugo’s, swam naked, smoked cigars and regarded small children as vermin. Thinking that he was missing the point, and feeling even more tearful, she suggested they stay in a family-friendly gîte instead.
‘Don’t be silly, Tash. MC is a fabulous cook, and we can look at some of her young horses while we’re there.’
‘But this holiday is always totally away from horses,’ she reminded him, voice strangled with emotion. ‘We agreed we need one week a year without a horse in sight.’
‘That’s hardly going to happen on a stud farm, is it?’
‘Which is why I don’t want to go.’
‘It’s agreed now.’
‘Well dis-agree.’
He gave her a withering look. ‘I know you’re upset about your mother swanning off like this, but—’
‘You have no idea how I feel!’ she wailed, tears finally spouting. ‘I don’t want to go to France at all if Mummy’s not there. I want to stay here.’ Nowadays, her default position when upset was to cling to home and the familiar.
But Hugo, who had spent the autumn dashing to competitions all over Europe and Ireland, couldn’t understand Tash’s thinking at all. He knew that living out of a lorry was tough with such a young family, but surely all the luxuries of MC’s fabulous farm would appeal to her?
He tried hard to make conciliatory noises. ‘It’s been a tough season and God knows we all need a break. I can see how tense you’ve been since Blenheim.’
‘I’ve been?’ she laughed incredulously. Hugo was the one who had been impossibly short-tempered, snapping at Rory, berating Beccy and, most of all, ragging poor little Lemon, who seemed as stumped as the rest of them as to where Lough Strachan could be.
‘Let’s get to France and let our hair down, huh?’ He put his arm around her. ‘It’ll be like old times.’
For a moment, Tash longed for it to be true. But she already knew the reality. With no au pairs or grandmother to help with childcare she would be constantly guarding a small baby and rampaging toddler while Hugo demanded equal attention and stimulation. Yet the thought of being all together was a rare opportunity.
‘It’ll be hard work with the children,’ she started to weaken.
‘We can leave them here with the Czechs.’
Tash couldn’t believe her ears. ‘What?’
‘Just for a few days. My mother will oversee them.’
‘Amery is still breastfeeding!’
‘Can’t you express?’
Tash was too staggered to speak. Her jaw was still swinging when the phone rang.
‘I’ve solved your staffing shortage,’ Penny’s cheerful voice greeted her as soon as she picked up. ‘You can borrow our new working pupil, Anke Brakespear’s daughter. Howzat?’
Tash managed a grateful sob.
‘You okay?’
‘Having a domestic.’
‘Righti-ho. Hang on in there, and if he claims you’re driving him away hand him the car keys and tell him to do it himself. Always brings Gus to heel.’ She rang off, leaving Tash glaring at Hugo.
‘I am not going to France without the children.’
‘Fine,’ he shrugged, as though they were just talking about packing extra socks. ‘Bring them along.’ He picked up his phone and read a text that has just come in.
‘Only if we stay in a gîte.’ Tash craned her neck to see if the message was from V, but he’d pocketed the phone before she could read a word.
Suspicions flaring, Tash took an even more stubborn stance. They were still arguing when Beccy appeared, pink-faced, at the door to say that they were both needed on the yard because one of the part-timers hadn’t turned up, the muck heap was full, they needed haylage bales moved and the tractor wouldn’t start.
‘We’re hopelessly behind,’ she apologised breathlessly. ‘Nothing’s been groomed yet.’
‘It’s okay, we’ll finally have some more hands on the yard next week,’ Tash promised.
‘What?’ Hugo looked at her crossly.
‘Lough Strachan?’ Beccy asked, turning pinker.
‘No, someone from Lime Tree Farm,’ she pulled on her coat. ‘And me.’
‘You’ll be in France.’
‘No, I won’t.’
As Hugo opened his mouth to protest, his phone beeped with yet another text. Stalling by the door, Tash bristled while he read it, longing to grab the indestructible device and try out its manufacturer’s guarantee.
‘I shan’t tell MC you’re a “non” yet,’ he said as he read it. ‘After all, I’m sure someone else will take your place if I RSVP a royal oui now.’
‘Who?’ She felt faint, the V in RSVP raging in her head.
‘Rory,’ he suggested lightly, typing a response to the text as they headed outside. It was obvious he didn’t believe that she would stay behind, but Tash’s obstinate streak was firmly in play.
The following day, when she still refused to change her mind, Hugo appeared with a vast bunch of roses, star-gazer lilies and asters held out like a shield in front of him as he pleaded with her to reconsider. But her reaction alarmed him all the more as, spotting the label, her eyes narrowed. ‘They’re from Waitrose.’
‘So?’
Looking highly disapproving, Tash took them without another word. Later that day they appeared, neatly arranged in two pewter vases, on Snob and Bodybuilder’s graves in Flat Pad, and Hugo realised he had done nothing to further his cause, although he had no idea why.
‘Are Waitrose flowers politically incorrect?’ he asked Beccy, baffled.
‘They do it for me.’ She sighed, giving him a bashful
sideways look that was wasted on Hugo as he stalked off, muttering about living orchids.
By the end of the week, Haydown was bursting with blooms, but Tash was no more willing to go to France. ‘Someone has to stay behind and water all these plants,’ she pointed out mulishly.
Chapter 27
When Faith arrived at Lime Tree Farm in Fosbourne Ducis, her chicken fillets and attitude were firmly in place. She immediately kicked up a dust cloud of controversy as an ageing and unfit grey Thoroughbred gelding that she had apparently kidnapped from Rory’s Cotswolds yard was dropped off by a passing local trainer on his way back from Cheltenham.
‘How did she get Charlie to agree to do that?’ Gus was staggered and secretly quite impressed that one of the meanest Lambourn stalwarts had taken a twenty-mile detour for an unprepossessing kid like Faith.
‘Flashed her fake tits at him probably,’ Penny muttered.
‘Has she got falsies?’ Fascinated, Gus couldn’t wait to take another look. He’d never seen fake breasts close up before and, being a leg man, would need them pointed out rather like Prince Philip touring a factory and told that he was looking at a bottling machine.
‘I definitely heard that Kurt fired her because she took time off to have a boob job,’ Penny nodded, having been to her dressage trainer for a lesson just that week and got all the gossip. ‘I hope Anke’s right that she’s a bloody hard worker and knows her stuff. When I told her she can’t have her own horse here d’you know what she said?’
‘He’s not my horse, I’ve just stolen him,’ Gus laughed, having overheard. He liked Faith’s style. Opinionated, domineering, defensive and obstreperous in equal measure, she was a tough cookie even in the notoriously hardened world of event riding.
‘She’s just like her bloody father,’ Penny was not looking forward to life as unwitting guardian to the irascible new cuckoo chick. ‘Thank God she’s going to start off at Haydown,’ she sighed with relief. ‘She can take that pensionable horse with her for a start. Tash has a knack with these stroppy girls, and Lord knows she needs the help with Hugo away so much. There’s no way she can cope alone, whatever he thinks.’