by Fiona Walker
She had gone against her own maternal instincts this time, arranging for the children to stay away until Saturday when her family supporters were all arriving. Surprisingly, Ben and Sophia had offered to bring them and Alicia as a part of their cavalcade, thus providing the new Polish au pairs with a long weekend off and Tash with much-needed family back-up.
‘It’s the least we can do,’ Sophia had announced breezily. ‘We’ll have Granny Bea and Lotty, who loves to babysit, with us, so it’ll be absolutely no trouble. I’ll pop down to Haydown and fetch them on Friday.’
Knowing Berkshire to be well adrift of any route between Worcestershire and Lincolnshire, Tash had a distinct sense that there was something afoot, but she was far too preoccupied to worry about it.
Even Alexandra and Pascal had announced that they were coming to England, coerced by Polly who didn’t start college for another week. In their honour, Matty and Sally had made last-minute plans for a night in Stamford and not to be left out again, James and Henrietta had found a convenient golfing hotel with a ground-floor room for Beccy, who was keen to support them all, especially Lough.
Hugo was highly cynical about Beccy and Lough’s union: ‘Rory and Sylva Frost had a better chance of making it to the altar, quite frankly.’
Tash disagreed, and she clung on to the thought that at least he had released Lough from his missile lock, even if Sylva remained on the radar. She was still the prime suspect for ‘V’.
That evening, to her alarm, she’d received a message from Sylva on her own BlackBerry, wishing her luck and suggesting that she and her new squeeze might pop along to the trials incognito and say hello which, given that they couldn’t get within a few yards of any of Pete’s eight houses without being noticed, seemed unlikely. Sylva said she was looking for a horse again, but Tash did not dare mention it to Hugo. There wasn’t much that she felt she could mention to Hugo at all, in fact. He was so explosive, she felt she should send in a bomb-disposal robot with a before she spoke.
The next day, after the competitors’ briefing and the first official course walk, Hugo was incandescent with rage to discover Oil Tanker’s stable bandages wrapped too tightly around his battered brown legs. He told Franny she was fired.
‘And what the fuck are you going to do without me, you dickhead?’ she yelled back with twice his fury.
‘There are plenty of others here this week would give their eye teeth to work for me.’
‘Not with a temper like that. Anyway, I didn’t put on the fucking bandages – I left them off after you rode him this morning like you said to.’
‘Then who the bloody hell’s been fiddling with them?’ He raked a hand through his hair. ‘Not this again. I thought we’d seen an end to this after Badminton!’
‘Calm down,’ Franny soothed. ‘It was probably Fudge.’
‘Tell Fudge not to touch my horse again,’ Hugo spat. ‘She can look after Rory’s.’
‘No point,’ Rory declared, coming out of his own stall. ‘I can’t present him.’
‘You must!’ Franny was appalled. ‘What about the Grand Slam?’
Rory shook his head. ‘The horse is more important. You see if you don’t agree.’
Gazing limpid-eyed at them over his stall door, black coat as glossy as melted liquorice, the stallion was a picture of health and it was hard to believe that something as mundane as a corn could wreck his rider’s one shot at over a quarter of a million pounds. But when Hugo lifted his hoof and pressed on the leather pad the horse flinched dramatically, almost dropping to his knees.
‘He’s not lame, but he’s very short in front,’ Rory told him as he watched fearfully, his dreams literally in Hugo’s hands.
Hugo took him to the back of the stable. ‘Chances are the ground jury will pass him fit.’
‘What would you do?’
‘For me, there’s too much pain there to risk it. He’s young. He’ll have his chance.’
‘I might not get another chance.’ Rory’s heart was rupturing.
‘So run him.’
Rory shook his head. ‘He’s not mine to risk.’
Hugo patted him on the back, nodding towards the opposite side of the long lines of temporary stabling. ‘Have you spoken to the owner yet?’
Rory heaved a deep sigh. ‘She’ll probably run away from me.’
‘She needs to make the final decision.’
He trailed across the wide avenue, his handsome head drooping as all around him horses were strapped and polished and show-sheened and hoof-oiled for the first veterinary inspection.
These days, the riders were also expected to put on a show as they ran alongside their mounts, the popular theory being that a striking outfit might distract the ground jury’s eye from a slightly unlevel horse. This year, with an all-male ground jury at least one of whom was a well-known roué, the girls were all going to town.
When Rory looked around for Faith in the busy row of temporary stabling that housed Whitey’s stall, he didn’t immediately recognise her. There were a lot of leggy Swedes to one side, including Hugo’s old friend Stefan, who had welcomed him like a lost brother earlier, but whom he couldn’t face talking to right now amid his lofty, model-like compatriots. Then, beyond Gus’s two rides and Lough’s top horse Rangitoto, were a lot of small, sexy Italians in figure-hugging stretch tweed applying each other’s mascara. Despite standing in front of a box with a card that definitely read ‘White Lies’, Rory even struggled to recognise his old campaigner, now as luminous as a pearl, his usually unprepossessingly scraggy neck neatened by immaculate plaits, his big black eyes glowing kindly with their rims emphasised by Vaseline, his ungainly flat black hooves like gleaming coal and his rather pathetic tail still plaited to its tip and protected by a stocking, awaiting a last-minute liberation to retain its waves. The big pink and grey scar on his chest where he’d been impaled on a fencing stake just a couple of years earlier was still a vivid reminder of how close they had come to losing him, a fact Rory knew was the result of his negligence because he had been drinking heavily that day. Now the horse looked magnificent and as fit as Rory had ever seen him. The deep, demanding whicker that he let out on seeing his old master lifted Rory’s dejected heart a little.
One of the tall Swedes had come to talk to him now, wearing a very short skirt and knee-length brown leather boots with scarily high heels. She had fantastic legs, tanned the colour of a Werther’s Original. Rory’s eyes got stuck there for a long time.
‘Come to wish us luck?’ she asked in a strangled voice.
His gaze shot up to the face, working around the tan and the make-up and the professionally straightened and highlighted sheet of blonde hair. The big smile was as white and straight as a toothpaste ad, but nobody could mistake the dimples in the cheeks and the sparkle in the fiercely kind eyes.
‘Faith.’ He managed to croak her name, his heart and groin fluttering disturbingly.
‘Rory,’ she confirmed.
‘You look … different.’
She pursed her lips in a smaller smile, dimples deepening, and she gave a quick nod to Whitey. ‘Your boy’s in great spirits.’
He rubbed the satiny white neck and the horse nickered again, nosing his pockets for mints. ‘He looks amazing and it’s all down to you. You’ve done the most fantastic job with him, getting him here again. I’d given up on him, thought his career was long gone, but you had faith.’
‘It’s my name,’ she reminded him, her own voice tight with nerves. Rory knew the first vet’s inspection struck fear into them all, however sound they believed their horses to be.
‘He’s done it all before,’ he reminded her. ‘He knows what it’s all about. He’ll look after you.’
She nodded, not looking at him. It was the most they’d spoken since she had reappeared from her ‘holiday’ and she was almost hyperventilating with tension and the need to say so much more and ask so much more. But they were starting to call the first horses for the inspection.
‘Shoul
dn’t you be getting Rio?’ she asked.
‘We can’t run him, Faith. His feet are too sore. Even if they pass him now he’ll be in agony later.’
Faith took the news silently, staring fixedly at his neck because she still couldn’t look him in the eye. Under such close scrutiny, Rory’s neck, which was already itchy from the photo ID hanging around it, reddened dramatically.
‘You think I’m right?’ he checked worriedly when she still hadn’t said anything after another full minute, and the Tannoy was calling horses with numbers ever closer to hers.
‘I’m sorry,’ she was still staring at his neck. ‘What did you say?’
‘Is it okay not to present him?’
‘What are you talking about?’ She looked into his eyes at last, blinking all the more because she wasn’t used to wearing mascara and it made her eyes run.
At that moment, he wanted to kiss her with all his heart. He felt his chest expand until he thought it was going to burst. His mouth even started to water. That had never happened to him before.
‘Faith, you’re on!’ Lemon appeared, thrusting his Mohican between them as he elbowed Rory to one side and unlatched the stable door. ‘Where’s his bridle?’
Faith snapped out of her reverie. Handing Lemon the bridle from the hook at her side, she reached out and took Rory’s hand, towing him back towards Rio’s stall.
‘He really isn’t sound,’ he started to protest.
‘I believe you!’ she replied urgently, reaching his big plastic tack crate and cranking it open, where the suit-carrier containing his best tweed jacket, shirt and tie was lying neatly on top.
Then she started pulling his T-shirt over his head.
‘Steady on!’ he gasped as there were a few titters and a couple of catcalls around him. ‘What are you doing?’
For a moment she couldn’t speak as she found herself tangled up with hot, sinewy Rory and warm, Rory-smelling T-shirt, but then she wrestled the shirt free, clutching it like a rescued kitten for a moment. ‘Getting you ready for the inspection.’
‘But we’re withdrawing Rio. I have to notify the ground jury.’
She unzipped the suit carrier. ‘Yes, yes, but first you have to present Whitey.’
‘No – I can’t poss—’ He was forced to shut up as she pulled a Tattersall-checked shirt over his head.
As it slid down, warm Rory smells floated up through the open neck and she had to take a few moments to compose herself again before snapping at him to do his cuffs up.
‘Where did you get these clothes?’ she sneered as she almost garrotted him with a tie he’d got as a free gift when renewing his tractor insurance.
‘The feed merchant mostly,’ he admitted while she reached up to straighten his hair before making him hold out his arms like an aeroplane so that she could put on a beige suede waistcoat.
‘It’s so old fogey.’ She buttoned him up and stepped back.
‘Faith!’ Lemon was shouting urgently. ‘They need you to go to the arena now!’
‘Go on then.’ She gave Rory a push.
‘But, I—’
‘You take Whitey. I can’t possibly run in these heels.’
‘But you’re riding him.’
‘No I’m not. I’ll talk to the stewards now and get the substitution sorted, along with Rio’s withdrawal. You just make sure this horse trots up sound.’ She turned as Lemon hurried Whitey across the grass towards them.
The Tannoy was shouting for Whitey now.
‘Go, go, go – they’ll eliminate us otherwise!’
Rory knew there was no time to argue. His loyal Whitey was soon trotting like a show hunter at Royal Windsor. There was no question that the horse was sound and full of running, dragging Rory all the way to the arena.
‘You quite sure about this?’ Lemon peered up at Faith, who was way over his head height, especially when she had her high heels on.
She nodded. ‘He has to win the Grand Slam.’
She dashed after Rory, with Lemon panting behind.
‘He won’t do it on that old thing.’
‘He can!’ she defended hotly, wobbling in her spiked boots.
‘I can help fix it for you,’ Lemon panted beside her.
‘Yeah,’ she laughed, putting on a burst of speed as she heard Whitey announced in the arena, and sprinted the last twenty yards just in time to see her beloved pair trot up.
Lemon was left standing in her wake, already out of puff.
‘I can fix it for you!’ he repeated, but he was out of earshot.
A moment later he heard ‘White Lies – pass!’ and a smattering of applause.
‘Fuck you then!’ He turned back to get Lough’s horse ready.
The rest of the Lime Tree Farm and Haydown horses sailed through the vet’s inspection, along with Whitey.
To Rory’s amazement, there was no objection to his last-minute substitution. Event riders were notorious complainers if protocol was breached or favours seen to be granted, and just getting it past the ground jury was a tall order. ‘What did you tell the officials?’ he asked Faith, awed by her powers of persuasion.
‘That I’m expecting your baby and have high blood pressure,’ she replied, before belting off to meet her mother.
Tash and Hugo rode their dressage tests on the Thursday within twenty minutes of one another. In his current combative state of mind, Hugo had wanted to complain about the running order, which had meant that Franny was run ragged trying to ensure that two horses and their riders had everything they needed to warm up almost simultaneously, but Tash talked him out of it, pointing out that it looked unsportsmanlike.
Traditionally, all the big players came late on in the order, even though it was supposed to be a random draw, but this time Tash and Hugo were aware that they had been relegated to the graveyard slot to do battle, the apparent snub reflecting their slipping popularity and rankings.
Oil Tanker picked up on the atmosphere and showed off to disastrous effect, believing that his airs above the ground were far more entertaining than all the boring technical stuff that he was being asked to do. No matter how carefully and sensitively Hugo rode him, theirs was always going to be a mediocre score and well below their best.
Tash was pulling on her tailcoat as he came out. ‘Bad luck.’
For a moment his focused blue eyes met hers and she felt a spark of the old connection.
‘You show them what we’re capable of,’ he muttered, taking off his topper and propping it under one elbow as he rode the horse away to cool off, certain he’d blown any real chance of victory.
It was a long time since Tash had trotted into an arena with grandstands and crowds on the scale of Burghley, and even on the first day of dressage, just before lunch, the crowd lit up to see a well-known name returning to the big time on her lovely, rangy liver chestnut mare whose ears practically met in the middle as they trotted around the perimeter of the white-boarded rectangle, waiting for the judge’s signal.
It wasn’t the most polished test that she had ever ridden, but given her long absence from this level, she acquitted herself well and the crowd clapped and cheered as though she was still anchor of the British team. She felt enormously grateful to them.
As she walked River out on a long rein, acknowledging them with a self-conscious wave, she realised just how much she had missed the buzz. She was amazed to find tears in her eyes.
She rode out into the park to cool the mare after her efforts in the arena cauldron, her tails slung over the pommel of her saddle.
Hugo and Oil Tanker appeared at her side. ‘Well done.’
‘Thanks.’ She smiled across at him, on far too much of a high to care if he was foul-tempered or not.
They both knew that the running order had been carefully orchestrated to create maximum tension, pitching the shaky, gossiped-about husband and wife team against one another on the first day. Yet, far from adding to the strain between them, it brought them closer together. Out in the park they debriefed,
sharing details of their tests and how their horses felt for the next day, slipping back into old, familiar habits as they slid forward a gear in communication without realising it. The emotional thaw was setting in at last.
Once their horses were back in Franny and Fudge’s care they returned to the horsebox to change out of their tails. Rory was lying on the seating, fast asleep in front of the racing on the little flat-screen TV, Twitch on his lap. Sleep was his coping mechanism at times of great stress, and it always amazed his peers that he could nap during the day at a three day event. He’d been training with Anke all morning, an exhausting process in itself, but the added mind-warp of seeing Faith standing beside her mother had opened the tap on his adrenalin and drained it out of him. He didn’t even stir when Tash realised he was lying on her change of clothes and pulled them out from under him.
Twitch watched Tash and Hugo with interest as they stripped out of their breeches and into jeans. They watched one another too, but warily, eyes stealing glances while the other thought they weren’t looking.
They walked the cross-country course again, together this time, sharing their thoughts about lines of approach, optimum speed and take-off points, turns and strides and sight lines, talking in low voices.
‘If you’re clever, you can swing River out to try to make a stride here,’ he told her at the Discovery Valley, a tricky combination deep in the parkland’s undulating terrain. ‘The bounce could be too tight for her.’
Tash, who had been planning to go for the bounce, knew he’d probably saved her a run-out.
It was familiar territory and they stayed rigidly focused and on topic. They hadn’t pooled resources like this for such a long time that it felt liberating. They needed one another’s judgement more than they needed to protect their personal pride.
While the couple were out on the course the lorry park gossip was ruthless.
‘They are finished,’ predicted Lucy Field.
After the last horse of the day had exited at A, the dressage tallies were totted up. The Beauchampions’ dressage scores were much further down the order than they would have been in their heyday, just a few short years earlier.