by Fiona Walker
Tash said nothing. She still couldn’t speak for the shocks and swords of pleasure running through her.
Afterwards they slept in their blindfolds. Whether they were too ashamed to show their faces to one another or too exhausted to care, neither really knew.
Chapter 68
Unable to sleep, Beccy took Karma into Flat Pad and stood in front of Snob’s grave, remembering the sheer power and lion-hearted bravery of Tash’s famous stallion. He remained the most inspirational horse Beccy had ever encountered.
Hugo would leave for Germany in just a few hours; Tash flew out in less than a week. Soon Beccy would be at greater liberty to shake the devil from her back. The way forward was increasingly clear to her. Riding was her only escape from all the tension and blame at Haydown; competing made her forget about what was happening, what Franny referred to as ‘the fall of the house of the usher’ because bets were being taken on the circuit whether Hugo’s marriage would last until the big wedding in three weeks’ time. It was common knowledge that the Germany trip was a make or break for the couple.
After years of ambivalence, Beccy now found herself desperate for them to stay together and willed the glue to stick, determined to hold up her end of the bargain and do the yard proud while they were away. That included renewing her text life with Lough.
Let’s talk had started badly, with Beccy texting back Are you in love with my sister? And Lough replying Yes. She knew she’d walked into that one – and God, he was honest – but it wasn’t great for the ego, making her angrily text straight back: If let’s talk means let’s talk about Tash, I’d rather stay silent. To her surprise, his reply had been just as quick: How’s Heart?
When living at Haydown, Lough had always had time for the eye-catching bay who demanded attention from all around him as he recovered from his injury. Bolshy, bargy and bored from his long box rest, Heart was incredibly tricky to handle, and now that he was allowed to walk out for twenty minutes a day, he was flattening the staff on a regular basis as he mowed them down in his enthusiasm to get to the horse walker. Beccy was happy to report that news, at least. They’d exchanged more messages over the past two days, mostly routine stuff about horses and competition plans, but Beccy cherished the contact. She saw them as two Titanic survivors talking about life back home as they bobbed around on a life-raft awaiting rescue, knowing that they were in this together, and that talking took their mind off the perilous sea around them.
But then, earlier that evening, Lough had rocked that boat again by asking after Tash, wanting to know how long she’d be staying on in England before leaving for Germany. He obviously planned to try to see her. Beccy had yet to reply, determined not to be cast as go-between. She’d already done enough damage as Cyrano de Bergerac, and blamed herself for sowing the seed that had sprouted into a tree of temptation in this idyllic garden.
Turning to look at Haydown, a beautiful doll’s house pearlised in the moonlight, her self-hatred hardened.
Please leave Tash alone she texted Lough now.
She sat on the damp grass until the early hours. There was no reply.
The next day, the big Haydown horsebox and three other event team lorries companionably hooked up in convoy on the M20 to travel together to the ferry port, where they were forced to wait for a crossing. Storms were blowing in, making for long delays.
At a terminal cafe, Hugo found himself nursing a revoltingly chemical-tasting coffee beside Lucy Field and staring glumly out at the rain-lashed windows while she texted non-stop, no doubt communicating with her ‘mysterious married lover’, whose identity was now such an open secret that nobody would be surprised if they got his and hers tattoos that season. The incessant beep-beep-beeping of her key strokes set his teeth on edge.
‘Why don’t you just call him?’ he snapped. ‘His wife’s away in Shropshire today.’
‘This is sexier.’
‘Do you text each other while you’re shagging, too?’
‘C’mon, Hugo. We all do it. You’ll text Tash all the time from Germany.’
‘Tash doesn’t do texts. My wife prefers to talk like a grown-up.’
Lucy bridled at his sanctimonious tone. ‘So all those texts Lough’s been seen sending aren’t to her?’ she asked bitchily.
‘What?’ he turned to glare at her.
‘He was at it non-stop at Stoke Heath yesterday. Everybody noticed.’
‘Let’s hope he was booking his flights home,’ Hugo said coolly, pushing away his coffee and heading off to check his horses as the wind buffeted the lorries from all sides.
Chased by the storms, Tash and Beccy drove to the Welsh borders in the ancient hunting box for the two-day trials near Bishop’s Castle, arriving as the sky blackened with approaching rain and thunder. They would ride a horse each in the entry-level class, after which they would camp overnight, ready to compete two more in the bigger classes the next day.
Going first on the batty Lor, Tash knew it wasn’t the weather for heroics. They posted a diabolical dressage score and later flattened most of the show-jumps by approaching them sideways, or even backwards.
Determined to beat her stepsister, Beccy rode her best dressage test to date on her more stolid entry, then secured a rare clear round on a day when most horses had the wind up their tails and poles were flying.
As she rode back to the box to change, she took her phone from her pocket and switched it on. Lough had replied to her previous night’s text at last.
I just need to know that Tash is okay, was all he’d written. Reading it with a heavy heart, Beccy knew how hard he must have found it to ask, how much pride he was losing by confiding in her, his adoring spy.
She is very okay, she punched each letter of her reply angrily. Beccy felt like a schoolgirl cast as the nurse in Romeo and Juliet, when she’d only ever auditioned for the title role.
A dramatic electrical storm was blowing in by the time Tash set off across country. As she nursed Lor around, taking time to settle her into a quiet rhythm and riding all the longest, safest lines, she was only grateful Hugo wasn’t around to witness her wimpiness. But at least they arrived at the finish intact and relieved.
By contrast, Beccy flew out of the start box as though she was on the turf at Epsom. Spurs niggling at her horse’s side, she stoked him out of his natural rhythm into a full-pelt charge.
Walking Lor around higher up the hill in the park to cool her off, Tash was appalled to see Beccy riding so carelessly. Lightning crackled through the air as she belted through the water faster than a medieval herald warning of an approaching enemy. The young horse was looking increasingly ragged and unhappy. Just two fences from home they parted company as he sensibly ducked out of a combination they’d approached far too fast, and Beccy carried on alone, landing neatly on top of the jump.
She was surprisingly unruffled afterwards, blaming the weather. ‘They’re all misbehaving today.’
‘You were the one out of control, not the horse,’ Tash pointed out.
Beccy’s pale eyes didn’t blink. ‘I knew precisely what I was doing.’
‘So you were deliberately trying to kill yourself?’
She shrugged mulishly, looking away.
Tash sighed. ‘Beccy, you have a touch of brilliance, but you’ll wreck it if you ride like that. It’s as though you didn’t care whether you lived or died out there.’
Beccy refused to speak to her for the rest of the day.
Her erratic behaviour concerned Tash, and she suspected Beccy was far more hurt by the break-up of her relationship with Lemon than any of them realised. She’d been too wrapped up in her own worries to tackle it, but her stepsister’s mood swings and insomnia hadn’t gone unnoticed.
Thunder still rolled angrily in the distance as they bedded down for the night. The atmosphere inside the box wasn’t any better.
‘I’m sorry I had a go at you.’ Tash tried to mend the rift as they both fidgeted around on bench beds as hard as prison bunks, seeking comfort. Hav
ing drawn the short straw with the sleeping bags, she was zipped into an old relic that probably dated back to Hugo’s teens and mummified her completely. ‘You really could be very good, you know. We just have to harness all that talent.’
Beccy was reluctant to accept praise from a woman who had approached most of today’s jumps with her eyes shut. ‘Hugo says you have to ride to win at all times.’
‘Not if winning endangers you and the horse.’
‘This sport is dangerous, Tash. We all know that. And I like danger.’
Tash peered across at her from the depths of her hooded sleeping bag. ‘You’re amazing, you know, Beccy. You seem so timid, yet you have the heart of a lion. When you learn to control that, you’ll be unbeatable.’
Beccy accepted this a little more gratefully, but she was fighting too many demons in her head to believe the advice.
‘People are starting to talk about how good you are, you know,’ Tash told her now.
‘Nobody that counts.’
‘Well it takes a bit of time to catch all the right eyes for—’
‘Nobody gives a stuff if I do well.’
‘Of course they do. I care. Hugo cares. Your mum and Daddy – I mean James – are going to be so proud of you when they see you compete.’
‘They won’t want to see me ride.’
‘Of course they will.’
‘My real dad will never see me ride, though.’
‘He’d have been very proud of you.’
‘Whatever.’
Tash sighed, realising she wasn’t making much headway. Beccy was impenetrable. Yet competing together threw a line between them that neither could escape. Beccy might want to cut it straight through, but Tash wanted to death-slide along it.
‘You’re probably very like him, you know,’ she tried again. ‘Your father must have been such a wonderful man. I bet he’s the one you get your fearlessness from.’
‘He was more of a man than James, that’s for sure.’
Tash bit her lip and decided to give up. She was just making things worse. They fell silent and she thought Beccy was conking out, but then she heard a quiet sobbing, just audible above the wind and thunder outside.
When she tried to stand up and go to console her, Tash found that the zip of her sleeping bag was stuck fast. With only her face poking out, she was a useless wriggling caterpillar. Thrashing around until she made it off the bench, she stood upright, hopped about, fell over and ricocheted against the sides of the box until, eventually, she raised her arms enough to catch the end of the zip and lower it, Houdini-style, bursting out to comfort Beccy in the dark on the sleeping bench opposite.
‘Beccy, you poor thing. What’s wrong?’ She automatically reached out to hug her stepsister.
The arm came out of the dark like a flail, missing Tash’s face by inches but catching her on the shoulder with enough force to push her away. ‘L-leave me alone!’
Tash stood in the shadows for a moment, unable to bear the sound of sobbing wracking through Beccy.
Cautiously, she crouched down by her head. ‘Please tell me, Beccy. I want to help.’
‘I g-get so unhappy sometimes. I can’t b-bear it.’
‘Shhh. It’s okay. I’m here. It’s okay.’
This time, when Tash reached out her hand to touch her shaking shoulder, Beccy let it rest there. A moment later, she’d scrabbled into Tash’s arms, clinging on tight as her whole body was overwhelmed by weeping.
For minutes on end, Tash just held her tight, astonished by the sobs that shook Beccy like the thunder raking the landscape. It was like holding Cora after a bad dream or a fall, a child with no comprehension that these feelings weren’t the end of the world.
Beccy needed to be held. She hadn’t been hugged tight in so long, she hardly dare try to work back through her memory to remember when. Lemon had never been into hugging, or kissing, or comfort to any great degree. Beccy craved comfort. That she was in the arms of her nemesis no longer mattered. It was a long time since she’d felt this low.
Tash stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head, grateful when the tidal wave of tears finally began to retreat. She felt Beccy’s muscles relax into the hug, just like Cora getting sleepy. A heavy head rested against Tash’s shoulder, her slow, warm breathing regulated against her collarbone.
‘I was seven when my dad died,’ she mumbled unexpectedly, just as Tash thought she was dropping off to sleep.
‘I know.’
‘And you’re right, he was wonderful.’ She tilted her head back and looked at Tash, wet eyes gleaming. ‘He was the most civil of civil engineers, the bridge builder in every sense. Nobody had a bad word to say about him. He’s our lost hero, me and Em and Mum. Your father could never live up to that.’
‘I know.’ Tash held her tighter. ‘He knows.’
‘But that’s all lies.’
‘No. Beccy, don’t say—’
Beccy buried her face again. ‘Do you know how he died?’
‘He fell from a bridge,’ Tash replied cautiously.
She felt Beccy’s facial muscles tighten against her shoulder.
‘He killed himself.’
Tash took in a sharp breath, not knowing how to react. ‘It was an accident, surely?’
‘I saw him jump.’
‘You were so little—’
‘I saw him jump, Tash. And I still have his suicide note.’
‘But …’
She pulled away. ‘He fucking abandoned us!’ Her eyes were luminous in the half light. ‘I hate him.’
‘Beccy, you don’t know—’
‘I saw him. I was there that day,’ she sobbed. ‘Tash, nobody knows this. Nobody.’
‘Tell me.’
There was a long pause. Beccy sniffed and hiccupped, fighting back another rush of tears. Then she said in a small voice, ‘If I tell you, will you swear not to tell anybody else?’ She sounded terribly young and frightened.
‘I swear.’
‘On your life?’
‘On my life.’
The story, as it came out in stops and starts, in coughs and gulps, told Tash so much about the Beccy she had never understood, about this secretive, manipulative, childlike woman whom nobody in the family could ever get close to. It was no wonder she’d run away to the other side of the world and had never wanted to come back.
She knew much of the background already. Married young to dashing and talented Andrew, Henrietta had followed her civil engineer husband around the world as he designed and built bridges. The couple had two adorable blonde daughters, enjoyed expat life and seemed to have an enviable marriage until, ten years into marriage and thirty-five years into his life, Andrew Sergeant had fallen from a semi-constructed suspension bridge in Singapore.
Grief-stricken, Henrietta had returned to England with the children and struggled to rebuild her life, supported at first by his company’s life insurance, but that had soon run out. She got her rusty typing back up to speed, signed on with an agency and got a job as secretary to venture capitalist James French. Andrew was rarely mentioned, but when he was, he was portrayed as a noble, heroic figure and his death seen as the untimely loss of a great husband and father with everything to live for.
Outside the horsebox, the storm moved in overhead, buffeting their little tin confessional so that it groaned and rocked like a ship at sea, but Beccy didn’t seem to notice.
‘Mum has no idea what really happened, but she knows a lot she never lets on about. Dad was bipolar – manic depressive. It took me a long time to get that out of her, but it made a lot of sense. He was the best father in the world one month – just such fun. Then the next he flipped a switch, turned off and withdrew himself. He didn’t want to know us. It was so confusing. Em remembers more, but she edits it like Mum. Keeps the best bits and remember his death as heartbreakingly valiant.
‘They weren’t even at home that day; they were away checking out a new international school. It was just me. Dad had been off work fo
r days in one of his moods, sitting alone on the veranda just staring into space. I was being looked after by our nanny, but I kept going to find him because I wanted him to read to me. He told me to go away. When he said he had to go out I begged him and begged him to take me with him.
‘I don’t think he knew where he was going or what he was going to do. He’d never have taken me with him if he had. We sat on the banks of Singapore River near the bridge he’d been designing and he cried a lot. I had a book with me – a pony book from England. He made me give it to him and he wrote all over it. I was so angry. Then he handed it back to me and cried again. I said I wanted to go home, but he wouldn’t take me. He said he was going to climb his bridge and asked me if I wanted to come up with him. I was afraid of heights even then and I was still angry about the book, so I said no, I’d wait for him there. I think that saved my life.’
She started to cry again – not the all-consuming sobs of earlier, but the quiet, desperate gasps of truth escaping after decades bottled up.
‘I didn’t really watch him climbing, to be honest. I was trying to read what he’d written in my book, but his handwriting was all spidery and I wasn’t very good at reading then.
‘Then I looked up and he was at the top, waving at me. At least I thought he was waving at me. The sun was so bright in my eyes. I remember shading them. And I waved back. But the next moment he was falling. My dad. Just falling …’
Tash held her as tight as she could as the tears shuddered through her.
It was a long time before she could speak again.
‘Somebody from the site took me home. I don’t remember anything about that. Mum said it was an accident and I believed her. For years I believed her, even though I had the writing in my book, which I was too frightened to read.
‘It was only when Mum married James that I read it. I was so unhappy I figured it couldn’t make me feel any worse. I wanted to be close to him, to my own dad, not yours.’
‘Oh Beccy.’ Tash pressed her face to Beccy’s hair. ‘My poor Beccy.’
‘There it was. My father admitting he couldn’t go on. Saying he was a bad person. And, forgive me, Tash, but I blamed you all at the time. I blamed all the fucking Frenches for killing my dad, because I knew it was my fault really, and I j-just couldn’t admit it. As soon as Mum married into your family all my memories turned bad. I didn’t want James, I wanted my own father back. The father I’d allowed to die. The father I could have stopped d-doing that t-to himself.’