by Fiona Walker
Tonight, she had tracked down an incredibly figure-hugging, wasp-waisted little black dress that her mother had bought at ludicrous expense from a Paris catwalk collection over a decade earlier to mark her engagement to Hugo. It had seemed rather too old for her at the time, but now it looked sensational – Isabella Rossellini meets Juliette Binoche.
‘Wow.’ Hugo reached out and pulled her towards him. ‘You’re quite breathtaking.’
She smiled, her belly flipping and skipping beneath its hefty support. She was finding it hard to take deep breaths, but it was worth it.
They stumbled along the back corridor towards the stairs, kissing all the way.
While Hugo loved all this new dressing up his wife was doing, he was less enamoured of the effort it look to undress her. The last time she had worn this dress – many, many years ago – he had simply had to reach beneath it to encounter the delicious sensation of stocking top, soft thigh and lace. Now he found industrial packaging. Hauling her out took both of them many minutes, but at least it was worth it.
They hadn’t made love this frenziedly since Amery was conceived. It was heaven, climaxing loudly and lovingly in short succession on the unmade mattress in a distant, barely used room, far enough away from the children not to be heard.
Yet, less than twenty minutes later, they were back in the kitchen and arguing once more because Sylva Frost had just tweeted Tash to say that she wanted to buy Oil Tanker, the Australian horse Hugo was importing. He had other ideas.
‘I’ve already sold two third-shares.’
‘Who to?’
‘Ben and Sophia, and a … secret investor.’ He pulled an apologetic face.
‘Why “secret”?’ Tash’s suspicion radar was instantly on full alert.
‘She doesn’t want her identity revealed,’ he shrugged.
‘Not even to me?’ So it was a ‘she’, she realised, feeling increasingly paranoid that it was the mysterious V.
He held up his palms. ‘What can I say? She insists that’s how it is.’
‘Well, I think that’s ridiculous.’ Tash had taken a microwave meal out of the fridge and was angrily stabbing its cellophane cover with a carving knife. ‘And why didn’t you tell me you’ve already syndicated the horse?’
‘I’m telling you now.’
Leaving the microwave heavy breathing as it heated luxury paella, she headed into the study and sent Sylva a private message. Horse part sold. One third left.
Tash called up the happy face of eBay to cheer herself up. She’d won several bundles of winter clothes along with a Sheridan bridge table for Alicia.
‘What are you doing?’ Hugo appeared suddenly over her shoulder as she was checking her purchases, several of which were for him. She hit the minimise button in a hurry.
‘Buying the Vs’ Christmas presents. They still have no decent winter clothes, and how those trainers stay so white is beyond me.’
‘Verucca bleaches everything,’ Hugo said in a bored voice.
‘Don’t call her that.’
Just then, Sylva tweeted: I want a whole horse. Find me a pretty one. A palomino! See you on Boxing Day. Cau. X’. She was declared offline a moment later.
‘Well that’s a relief.’ Hugo read the message over her shoulder. ‘I don’t want her involved with Oil Tanker.’
‘She’s not going to ride him, Hugo.’
‘That’s what Dillon said about Heart and look what happened to him.’
Tash said nothing. She blamed herself for the fact Heart had just arrived back with them so lame in front that he was barely able to walk. Rocco Naylor was threatening to sue Hugo or Nell or both if the horse wasn’t one hundred per cent sound by the end of the lease.
‘You’re not going to ride Oil Tanker either,’ Hugo said idly as he carried on reading her Twitter page.
‘Why not?’ Tash thought he looked a straightforward horse.
‘Because you don’t ride.’ His tone was light but unmistakeably sarcastic.
‘I need more time.’
‘For Christ’s sake, it’s been four months since the boy was born.’
‘He has a name. Amery. Our son. I know you hardly see him, but that’s no excuse for not using his name.’
Hugo had stopped listening. He was reading Sylva’s message again. ‘What does she mean, “see you on Boxing Day”?’
‘We’ve invited her to the shoot,’ she reminded him.
‘That’s a family thing.’
‘Yes, and she’s bringing her family. So is Dillon Rafferty.’
‘Christ, why don’t you put a poster up welcoming all and be done with it?’
‘Don’t be like that, Hugo. They’re worth a lot of money to the sport.’
‘Well, I hope you all have a jolly day out. I’m going hunting.’
‘You can’t!’
‘I always go to the meet,’ he said witheringly, heading back to the kitchen where the microwave had pinged so long ago, the supper was entombed coldly in its plastic casket awaiting the afterlife.
‘So meet me half way.’ She followed him.
‘I never do anything by halves.’
‘Except half-passes.’
‘At least I’m still riding them.’
They shared the meal in silent discord, both desperate to make up but unwilling to budge off their high horses. Tash wasn’t even sure whether she was qualified to occupy a high horse any more. She knew Hugo’s antagonism came from a genuine worry that she wasn’t yet back in the saddle, and he was right to be concerned. She longed to talk to him about her paralysing nerves but she just didn’t know where to start. Instead, she waited for him to go outside to do night-check, then headed upstairs to change into her pyjamas for Amery’s late feed.
Hugo found her curled up in bed with their baby son, wearing just her pyjama bottoms. She looked beautiful in sleep.
He had been going to ask her advice about one of the pregnant mares that was causing him concern, but he couldn’t bear to wake her.
Instead, he went downstairs to call the vet, getting through to the after-hours service and then heading into the study to check his mail, virtual and snail, while he waited for the duty vet to ring him back. It had been a long time since he’d caught up. His laptop was covered with paint, he noticed, as he logged into the email account.
Tash may have come on in leaps and bounds on the internet but she still ignored email and so Hugo was greeted with a plethora of unread messages congratulating him for his eBay purchases. Sandwiched between these and the usual fan mail and marketing offers were an alarming number of poison pen letters.
You Beauchampions are so spoiled, Hugo read a line from one. Another threatened: Prepare to suffer.
None were very original, but the sheer quantity rattled Hugo. Watch your backs, they taunted. You are riding for a fall … I am watching you … Keep your doors locked at night. I’m right outside … I know your secrets. All came from the same Gmail account that belonged to someone called Shadowfax. And the most recent was unpleasantly close to the bone: Your marriage is over. Thinking back to the summer and the Olympics, Hugo felt a claw rip at his temples.
Deleting the lot, for once grateful that Tash was no IT girl, he determinedly dismissed the messages as junk and turned his attention to the vast pile of bills surrounding the laptop. They were all final demands. While he’d been away, the office had descended into chaos, part crèche, part artist’s studio with piles and piles of unopened post. Tash seemed to live in here, yet do nothing but dream and play. He lifted the dust sheet on the easel and found a portrait of a family there – a happy, laughing bunch he didn’t recognise. A commission, no doubt. He was pleased that she was at least painting again. She seemed to do precious little else while he was away teaching and competing non-stop.
Then he spotted a neat pile of canvases stacked against the wall and stooped to investigate.
There were over a dozen portraits. Horses, dogs, children, families, houses – they were all there, painted in Ta
sh’s characteristic style, so vibrant and lifelike, so utterly truthful. They were stunning. She must have been working every hour she could to get so much done. All her commissions were completed, ready to be sent off as soon as she convinced herself that they were good enough. Tash always took for ever to decide her work was worthy, often hiding it somewhere obscure only to unearth it many weeks later and decide that it really was pretty good, much to her own and the client’s surprise and delight when it arrived at long last.
Drawn by a half-remembered likeness, Hugo lifted the sheet on the easel again.
It was them. It was himself and Tash and the children and all the dogs, looking happy and relaxed and content as they lounged beneath the cedar at the top of the old parkland pasture now known as Thirty Acres. The likenesses were uncannily, brilliantly there: the way his blue eyes seared into nowhere as they restlessly longed for distraction, the way she ducked her head but looked up with such honesty and intensity, Cora’s cock-headed humour, especially little Amery’s delicious gummy smile. Even the bloody dogs were spot on.
His eyes filled with tears. ‘Bloody fool.’
He needed a cigarette.
Gratefully remembering that the mare needed checking and the vet was coming, he went in search of his yard boots, coat and fag packet.
Outside, there was a frantic kicking coming from the rear yard. One of Lough’s horses had cast itself, trapped in a corner of its box after rolling and unable to free its legs to get up. Hugo hurried inside, dodging flying hooves as he shouldered its flanks and heaved to free it. At last the horse stood up, shaking, eyeing him warily from beneath a thick dusting of shavings. When Hugo stepped forward it almost mowed him down in fright, dancing this way and that against the rear wall and kicking out.
‘That’s fine, don’t thank me,’ he muttered, heading towards the door. He marched off to check the mare, wishing that he had sent Lemon and the horses back to New Zealand that day. The thought of Lough finally arriving made him very jumpy indeed.
Chapter 36
In Rumorz nightclub in Marlbury, Libido-ration was not happening for Faith. The cube-like building had once been a gym, adapted into a club when it went bankrupt with a tiny dancefloor crisscrossed with coloured lights. The music was anonymous techno anthems, interspersed with two lurching ballads an hour to get the clients necking. Just to keep them on their toes, a DJ also occasionally broke through the rhythmic beat to shriek something along the lines of ‘Party on, Marlbury girls and boys!’ which was singularly inappropriate given that there were only eight people in there for most of the night, three of which were the gang from Maccombe.
Burping at regular intervals from so much Diet Coke and fizzy water because she was driving, Faith was dying of boredom. The clientele – two lads from a National Hunt yard on the downs, two IT boffins from a company called Wigitex in the thriving Marlbury silicon valley and a man called Gutter who winked a lot and said he was a council operative – had all tried and failed to chat her up. She was medusa to all who approached.
For all Lemon’s lecturing, she wanted Rory to be the one who claimed her cherry in the pact. Anything else seemed like cheating, and strangers were too stomach-turning to contemplate. She just didn’t want to know them.
Lemon, however, was determined to have fun. He’d bought an ecstasy tab from one of the bouncers, which he shared with Beccy. Faith refused to touch any of it. Her Brain Candy night had put her off drugs entirely.
Lemon washed his fragment back with Mexican beer.
Beccy slugged hers with a WKD.
Faith texted Rory. Wish You Were Here.
He didn’t reply.
Leaving Lemon and Beccy eagerly awaiting their high, Faith went and danced alone in a dark corner. When Gutter started rubbing up against her she decided to go and sit in the car with the doors locked and Radio Three for company, reaching on to the back seat for an old sweatshirt and bodywarmer because it was freezing cold. She extracted her chicken fillets and threw them on the passenger seat before locating a packet of tissues in the glove compartment to wipe off her make-up. Then, with Handel’s Messiah for company, she played loves me loves me not with passing car headlights on the nearby flyover.
The half-hourly ballad struck up just as Beccy and Lemon were reaching the perfect pitch, and Dillon Rafferty’s version of ‘A Winter’s Tale’ raunched its way through the cube.
The floor was theirs.
The club had finally started to fill up, but nobody was occupying the small laminated square as they wrapped their arms around one another and camped it up.
Beccy could feel the blood in her veins, the love in her heart and the beat through her feet.
When Lemon’s lips connected with hers it seemed beautiful and right. When his tongue circled hers, so muscular and wholehearted, she joined in with abandon.
Their bodies ground together. Somewhere, in that hollow cube, libido-ration was unleashed in Beccy.
Her breasts tingled, nipples so electric that she was certain a blue arc could be seen crackling between them; her groin throbbed with the beat as though she had her own personal drummer in her g-string. She felt wholly, all-consumingly sexy.
When cheesy but sexy Rafferty was replaced with Massive Attack and far more dangerous ‘Inertia Creeps’, Beccy kissed for all she was worth. Lemon responded with alacrity. It was heaven.
She closed her eyes and imagined it was Hugo’s lips on hers, his body moving with hers, sinew and muscle and hot skin, the promise of pleasures untold and passion unlocked.
They broke off for a moment to breath, sharing sweet gulps of the same air.
Hugo was still in front of Beccy, her mind’s eye projecting him there.
‘D’you fancy me more than Tash?’ she breathed, hardly aware she was saying it.
‘I don’t fancy Tash,’ he nibbled her ears. ‘Too bloody tall to do this to for a start.’
She giggled, ‘And married, of course.’
‘Yeah, to a total shit.’ He pressed his lips to her neck.
‘Oh, don’t stop,’ she sighed.
‘He doesn’t care about anyone but himself.’ The bitterness that cut through his voice was pure venom. ‘He doesn’t deserve any of it – his wealth, his beautiful wife, or his victories. He was just born lucky. Lough should have won gold.’ He stepped back, eyes semi-focused.
‘I meant don’t stop kissing me,’ Beccy craned forward to be embraced again, giddy with lust.
This time his mouth was hard against hers, biting at her lips, tongue lashing angrily past her teeth. Beccy found it dizzyingly exciting, passion sparking as her Hugo fantasies ignited further and her head spun.
Then, suddenly Lemon pulled away. ‘Fuck, I’m going to be sick. Sorry Becs.’ He lurched off towards the loos.
She didn’t see him again. Libido-ration stalled.
Cast adrift, she saw shapes and sounds drift past. Strangely her sense of happiness and wellbeing didn’t immediately desert her, but she missed having Lemon at her side, that stout little bamboo cane that had held up her flowering blossom head tonight. She was out of control and top-heavy.
Suddenly she wanted to go home. She looked around for Faith, but she – and Lemon – were missing. They must be together, she realised with a heart-stab of jealousy.
‘Are you all right?’ One of the little racing lads who had been chatting up Faith earlier was looking at her worriedly.
‘Have you got a car?’
In Wantage, Spurs Belling was having supper with his cousin, an event usually guaranteed to be a raucous catch up, but Rory was noticeably lacking his usual happy-go-lucky outlook.
‘Now Hugo’s back throwing his weight around I feel like a bloody yard hand,’ he complained. ‘I’ve been running that place with Tash while he’s away, not that I get any thanks from him or the others. Tash is sweet about it, but she’s always so busy. Lemon is pure poison and Beccy’s frankly weird.’
He snatched up his phone as it rang out with a message alert. As he read
it, Spurs noticed the colour in his cousin’s cheeks.
‘Secret lover?’
Rory shook his head, ‘I wish. My love life’s dead in the water. It’s just Faith with one of her weird texts. Drives me mad: she ignores me all day, then sends these strange messages that make no sense. I think she’s on drugs. It’s such a waste.’
‘I thought she worshipped the ground you canter on?’
He looked up in surprise. ‘In between being incredibly sarcastic, maybe. It’s got worse since hanging out with her new cronies. They’re all out ‘clubbing’ tonight. They invited me, but I’d rather assault my eardrums in private, where I don’t have to pay a fiver for a bottle of water. Man, I wish I were back in my own yard. I’m not good working with other people.’
‘You worked with Faith at Overlodes.’
‘She was different then.’
His cousin looked at him levelly. ‘Do I detect a growth spurt?’
‘She’s certainly “blossomed”.’
‘I was talking about you.’ Spurs raised his black brows above his distinctive silver bullet eyes. Having grown up cheek by jowl, he and Rory were almost as close as brothers and he sensed a sea change. Going to Haydown had been good for Rory, he realised. He was taking control at last. As a teenager, Rory had been forced to grow up very fast, very young, whereas it was Spurs who’d gone off the rails. Obliged to work hard and live independently Rory had never rebelled, but he had a fatalistic outlook that had been allowed to run riot. In a way it was why he was so brilliant at what he did – he was a fearless rider with no dependants, whose passion for horses had always eclipsed personal relationships – but it also meant that he didn’t look after himself, was easily seduced and rarely valued what he had.
In many ways Rory was very like his father, who Spurs remembered idolising for his dashing charm and wild riding, and the succession of beautiful women he had dated. James Midwinter’s great mistake had been to marry capricious Truffle, who already had one failed marriage, to a polo player, behind her and a reputation for taking flight at the slightest sign of trouble or ennui. James worshipped her, but married life was never easy for this free-spirited, boozy, philandering charmer and Truffle left him many times during their time together. For seven years James always managed to forgive and talk his wife back to the decrepit farmhouse he’d inherited high on the Foxrush ridge. Eventually, however, Truffle ran away for good, to live with a point-to-point trainer near Great Tew, keeping Rory with her until he could be sent off to boarding school like his sister Diana. A succession of marriages and love affairs followed, with Rory largely overlooked by his reluctant step-fathers and discouraged from spending the school holidays at home.