by Fiona Walker
Yet that night Tash and Hugo slept facing one another for the first time in weeks. They had finished on an identical score. There could be no argument about that.
The Burghley organisers had got what they had hoped. Tash and Hugo were the story of the night, making it on to the national newspapers’ sports pages the next day, when the focus would shift to Rory and his Grand Slam dream.
Had Rory been riding Rio, his dressage would have been one of the last on the Friday afternoon, in among the cluster of elite riders to guarantee maximum attention for his Grand Slam bid. But, having substituted for Faith on White Lies, he rode in to the arena in the relative cool and quiet of an early slot.
Dressage had never been Whitey’s forte, and during his long partnership with Rory they had struggled to overcome nervy, cumbersome tests riddled with errors. But the old racehorse had been in training with Faith for almost a year now, a far more classical and precise rider and he had reaped the benefits. Rory, meanwhile, had been in training with the best event riders in the world – Hugo, Janet Madsen and MC among them – plus he’d had a last-minute fuel injection from dressage Olympian Anke. He was still a rough diamond, but he could sparkle on his day. He was sitting on his comfort horse, his teddy bear that was as familiar as his bed at home. He had everything to prove and lose, yet he knew the horse owed him nothing and it was such a joy to ride him in front of a crowd again that he pushed for those extra moments and marks that Anke had been harrying him for all the previous day.
To his absolute delight, he came away with the best score of the morning session. It didn’t matter that his spot at the top of the leaderboard was almost immediately usurped by Stefan on his great horse Thor, and then later pushed further down the order by Lough and Rangitoto, Sonja Ricker and another German rider, Kevin the French boy wonder and Gus on his second ride. Seventh after dressage at Burghley was a dream come true, even if it wasn’t quite the Grand Slam fairytale lead the media longed for.
He walked the cross-country course a final time with Anke, which wasn’t perhaps ideal because she saw each fence from a dressage perspective and gave him long technical lectures on line and approach when his instinct – and knowledge of the horse – just said ‘keep straight and kick on’.
‘I thought Faith was going to walk with us?’ He managed to get a word in as they stood in front of the Lover’s Leap, a big galloping ditch and hedge of such gapingly straightforward magnitude that Anke had no tips on approach or prowess whatsoever, other than saying something in Danish that Rory was certain was an oath.
‘I would have liked that too.’ She sighed, tilting her head from one oblique degree to the other as she studied the beautifully clipped birch. ‘But she insists she must stay away from you.’
‘Why?’ he asked forlornly, hopping down into the ditch which was as deep as his shoulder and so wide a tractor could drive along it. ‘Has she got something catching?’
‘She’s had something catching for many years,’ Anke said as she walked backwards, her head still angled. ‘But she is very infectious right now. Do you think it would help set the horse’s quarters underneath him to make a half halt about three strides away here, ja?’
Still standing in the ditch, his head barely visible to Anke, Rory stared up at the yawning blue sky between take off and hedge. ‘I think it would help more to give the horse a bloody big boot in the ribs three strides away, frankly.’
‘Shame on you,’ Anke tutted, but she secretly knew that she would personally be booting for Denmark, eyes tight closed. She hadn’t walked a four-star course with a competitor before and it was a very humbling experience. She had never seen anything as terrifying in her life as these huge, unforgiving timber fences to be taken at galloping speed with lightning reactions from horse and rider required at all times. Close up, they took her breath away. She was terribly relieved that Faith was no longer going to try to jump them.
‘I underestimated you,’ she told Rory when they finally walked back in front of the spectacular Burghley House to re-evaluate the last two fences on the course.
‘Oh yes?’ he asked vaguely, hoping that Faith had got Whitey fit enough to get here with fuel still in his tank. He was descended from a long line of fantastic staying chasers and could count Desert Orchid among his close cousins, but without the fittening work he was nothing.
‘My daughter is a wilful girl,’ Anke was saying. ‘She sets her mind on something and she cannot let it go, you know?’
‘Oh, I know.’ He wondered whether she was with Dillon tonight, but the thought made him too miserable to ask.
‘For a long time I thought she had set her mind on something very impractical and wasteful,’ she half-laughed, ‘something that would hurt her very deeply in the end.’
‘Eventing is much safer these days,’ Rory assured her. ‘I know you would prefer that she did straight dressage and that’s such a great talent in her that she may do it one day, but this sport is like nothing else.’ He held up his arms to their spectacular surroundings. ‘And I really do think Faith has what it takes to make a very good event rider.’
‘Oh, I agree.’ Anke nodded almost tearfully. ‘She will make a very good event rider. But will he make her happy?’
But Rory had moved of earshot as he strode up to the big, arched Land Rover fence at the end of the course and imagined the euphoria of sailing through it with just seconds to spare. Cutting things fine was one of his specialities.
Now sharing unlucky thirteenth spot on the overnight leaderboard, Tash and Hugo slept facing one another again, edging a little closer this time. She could feel his breath on her nose, an idle fingertip touching her.
In the darkness she lay wide awake, her eyes open, feeling his breath on her lips, her heart so swollen in her chest that it seemed to drop anchor through the bed, a near shipwreck of a marriage almost washed up on rocks yet still somehow floating.
‘I love you,’ she whispered.
It was a long time before she realised that his eyes were open as well.
‘I love you too,’ he breathed.
Soon they were asleep, two inverted commas curled around a shared sentiment.
Chapter 87
Cross-country day at Burghley provided near-perfect conditions, bright sunlight countered by a light breeze that cooled the competitors and drew record crowds to the magnificent park, its four-star track laid out through rolling turf like jewels set in the plushest green velvet.
It was only when one apparently insignificant fence on the course began to claim scalps that mutterings of dissent started spreading through the stabling and the competitors’ tent. The new complex, ironically sponsored by a health insurance company, consisted of two big tables set at oblique angles. Some of the riders walking the course earlier in the week had complained about the awkward, curving four strides between the elements, with no provision to turn a circle, but it was generally agreed that the distance was probably fair if ridden well.
Then really good riders started falling off. There were stops on the course every half hour, with competitors held up while the victims and debris were picked up and patched up, all due to this one obstacle. Ambulances rattled back and forth to collect casualties.
When Gus, ‘Mr Stick-on’, came back with a bloodied nose and smashed front teeth, leading his first horse behind him, tension really grew among the rest of the entrants. Rider representatives were sent off to talk to the ground jury; several less experienced combinations withdrew.
Out in the park warming up, Tash and Hugo didn’t fully appreciate the extent of the carnage taking place on course. Not speaking much, but catching one another’s eyes with ridiculous regularity, they took their horses for a quick blast at gallop and then a slow cool-down to the perfect tick-over to get ready to concentrate on the big jumping questions as soon as they were out on the course.
In the collecting ring and at the start, however, talk was all of the controversial tables fence. The rider representatives were pushing hard for a
turning circle to be allowed between the two elements to increase safety, but the debate was still raging as Hugo was counted down.
‘I think I should ride it as planned.’ He looked to Tash for confirmation.
They both knew the alternative route was incredibly long and absurdly time-wasting.
Oil Tanker and Deep River were both scopey, accurate and experienced horses that jumped in a free-flowing rhythm. Fences like the tables were bread and butter to them.
But something in Tash hesitated as Hugo was counted down from ten, his blue eyes still on her and not the first fence, where they should be.
She knew that their loved ones were out there in the crowd: their children, her mother and father and their families, her sister and brother and Hugo’s disreputable mother propping up the Pimm’s tent. She didn’t want to let any of them down, but she didn’t want to frighten them either.
‘… three … two … one …’
‘Take the long route!’ she suddenly shouted as Hugo got the ‘go’ and streaked off towards the Burghley Overture fence with an appreciative set of whoops and claps from the gathered crowd.
He hadn’t heard her.
‘The combination in front of you has withdrawn,’ an official told Tash, ‘so you can either wait for your official start time or go a little sooner if you’re ready – the Beeb are live streaming so they do appreciate as many horses on the course as we can manage. There have been a lot of hold-ups.’
It was always lethal to tell Tash that somebody was relying on her. She couldn’t do enough for them.
‘Of course I can start.’ She smiled, looking around for her family. At last she spotted them, Ben holding Cora, dressed in her fairy wings, on his shoulders, while Amery was bounced in Sophia’s arms wearing a hat shaped like a horse’s head with mad eyes and ears at fantastically wonky angles.
So full of love she thought she would take off over the course like a helium balloon, Tash suddenly relished the idea of setting out straight after Hugo across country and chasing him down. The sooner she and River finished, the sooner they could all be together.
‘Count me down whenever you’re ready,’ she told the starter, heading into the box.
The crowd cheered loyally as she set off. Cora waved her fairy wand.
For just a few minutes, she and Hugo were on the course together.
Tash flew the first few galloping fences before dropping down the huge step at the tricky Leaf Pit and over a skinny box into open country once more.
Then, just as River had put in a thrilling flyer at the trakehner, she saw an official on the course waving a flag at her.
She pulled up the mare, feeling suddenly icy with fear. ‘Is it Hugo?’
‘Not sure – I’ll find out what’s going on,’ the steward started gabbling into his walkie talkie and then walked off to consult with his cohorts, glancing uneasily over his shoulder at Tash.
Heart hammering, keeping the mare moving as best she could to ensure her muscles stayed warm and relaxed and ready to start jumping again, Tash strained her ears for more information, but there was nothing. Then, before she had a chance to find out what was happening, she was re-started on the course.
She struggled to get River into a rhythm once more as the big questions came at them thick and fast in this section of the park, her mind one horse ahead on the course, wondering where Hugo was.
The mare was sharp and precise but they were increasingly disconnected. They separated a marker flag from a fence corner, corkscrewed sideways over a skinny and then tripped in the water at the Trout Hatchery, almost tipping under. Splashing back out to an encouraging cheer from the crowd, she kicked on up the hill.
Then it was the tables. She sighted her line as she had planned on her course-walks and had talked through with Hugo the night before.
‘Go the long route,’ a voice told her. ‘Go the long route.’
But she hadn’t walked it well enough. This route looked much more straightforward. There was nothing obvious to make it tricky, nothing apart from the huge gouged skid marks in the turn at the second element take-off revealing how many valuable mistakes had been made there.
As she came over the first table and swung the mare left, she sighted the tree that she was going to use to line up her take-off point. Where was her stride? Where was her stride? It was looking far too long.
One … two … three …
River couldn’t possibly take off from the point Tash set her at, yet there wasn’t enough room to put in another stride before the huge table. Clever, careful and eager to preserve her legs and her mistress, River had no choice but to stop, rising up as she cranked back her huge momentum, back legs sliding under her.
Tash would have stayed in the plate were it not for a small, yappy dog choosing that moment to burst out of the crowds and fly at the mare’s fetlocks. Already off balance, River shied away and practically sat down on one haunch, pitching Tash out behind her and cramming her up against the solid side of the table for a brief, horrifying moment, her head twisted on to her shoulder, trapped between solid timber and horseflesh, her hips and legs pinned under her struggling horse’s back end.
The directors in charge of the live streaming immediately cut away and a howl of terror and worry went up in both the competitors’ tent and in front of the main video screens where huge crowds were gathered.
There was another long stop on the course, and as soon as the air ambulance landed from depositing one casualty in Peterborough, it was given another.
Afterwards, riders were told that they were allowed to circle between the tables.
Tash didn’t want to go to hospital and protested vociferously when they strapped her to a stretcher for her first trip in an air ambulance as a patient. Clamped into a neck brace, she looked up at a sign that read ‘DO NOT PANIC – YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER’ above her head, intended for patients who recover consciousness en route to the hospital.
Tash had not lost consciousness, nor indeed did she feel injured, although the air travel made her quite queasy. As she was wheeled through echoing hospital corridors, grateful to be away from the deafening helicopter blades, she told the paramedics that yes, she knew her name and what day it was, and no, she had no neck pain and could feel all her limbs, although she had some sharp pains in her lower abdomen.
She was initially examined by an Indian doctor in a private side room, prodded and questioned at length before her neck brace was removed and she was moved in to the main Accident and Emergency unit to be left unattended in a cubicle, handed a small pot and asked to provide a urine sample when she felt able.
‘Why?’ She wondered if the FEI had brought in even more covert random drug testing.
‘Dr Singh was most insistent,’ the staff nurse told her, heading through the curtain to check on a neighbouring patient.
Shuffling off her examination couch, she went to find a loo, handing her sample back to a nurse when she returned. She sat back down on her allotted bed.
In the neighbouring cubicle a very familiar voice was complaining that he absolutely had to get discharged and get back to Burghley to check how his wife had done.
‘Hugo?’
The curtain swept aside and there he was, lying on his side in a bed in nothing but a skimpy surgical gown as blue as his eyes.
‘What are you wearing?’
‘They cut me out of my breeches,’ he explained. ‘A rather overzealous new nurse seemed to think I had a smashed pelvis like Beccy and might be bleeding internally, whereas in fact it appears to be a bruised coccyx and another ruddy cracked rib. You?’
‘Suspected drug-taking, or maybe diabetes.’ She held up her palms in confusion.
Hugo sat up, tapping his fingers impatiently on the metal frame of the bed, eager to leave.
‘There are more riders in here than the competitors’ tent,’ Tash giggled. ‘I spotted two on my way to the lavatory.’
‘Christ.’
‘We’ll have to hire a minibus to ge
t back to Burghley,’ she pointed out cheerfully, suddenly shot through with the strange high that sometimes comes after a fall, when one realises how lucky one is and that it’s all going to be okay.
Her joy was infectious, making Hugo laugh.
‘Come here.’ He shifted along the bed to make room.
She crossed through to his cubicle and perched on the bed beside him, taking his hand. ‘I’d never have forgiven myself if something truly bad had happened to you just now and we hadn’t made our peace.’
He ran his fingers along hers. ‘I’m bloody tough.’
‘We’re all fallible, all make mistakes.’
He looked at her levelly, eyes still bearing tiny ice chips of mistrust. ‘Are we talking about our riding here?’
‘Nothing happened with Lough.’ She gripped his hand tighter.
‘I know,’ he conceded, eyes softening at last. ‘I was a bloody fool not to trust you. I thought he’d won you away from me.’
‘It wasn’t a competition, Hugo.’
He looked away, muscles tensing in his cheek. ‘It was. You were the prize.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘The night I asked him to ride for Haydown, Lough got me all wrong. Christ, Tash, you don’t want to hear this.’
‘I certainly do.’ She looked at him, eyes wide. ‘You not telling me about it has hardly helped, has it?’
He ran a hand through his hair, looking away remorsefully. ‘I got in a spot of trouble in a bar, had my drink spiked, shot my mouth off. Lough thought I was a dick. I was a dick, quite frankly. I’d just won gold, my wife was having our first son any day and I felt invincible. I can hardly blame Lough for turning the screw. I was all over the place.’
‘And you offered me as a prize? For what? Getting to the top of the FEI rankings?’
He shook his head violently, turning to look at her and take her hand, blue eyes fierce with regret. ‘We made a bet that got totally out of proportion. He told me that I deserved to lose you. I said I’d like to see him try.’
‘Oh God.’ Tash covered her mouth with both their hands as the truth dawned. ‘You think that’s what he set out to do all along?’