by Fiona Walker
‘Get lost.’ Giving the breeches a tug, she got her foot caught in the waist and fell over anyway.
With her head next to a spluttering petrol generator which was gushing out foul-smelling heat, Tash watched in horror as Hugo grabbed her by the ankles and pulled the breeches hard. The peering youths were pressing down on their burger buns now, and mongrel man was starting to breathe audibly. I’ve still got my dressage topper on, Tash realised, feeling the brow tip towards her nose as it hit the generator. Matched with her gloves, stock and hairnet, she must look like some sort of hard-hunting over-sexed aristo desperate for a rogering. Hugo was lifting her right off the ground with every tug now.
‘In other circumstances this might be rather enjoyable,’ she joked in embarrassment.
He gave her a withering look and told her to hold on to the base of the burger-bar trailer while he pulled. They were gathering quite an audience. Mongrel man, in the front row, was almost on top of them, his panting dog’s very pink tongue lolling inches from Tash’s face.
Everyone around was getting a glorious view of her stinky tights and kinky knickers – especially Hugo. She peered up at him, still tugging between her ankles. He was starting to look rather frantic, teeth gritted with effort. Because he’d already taken his jeans off, he was wearing his underpants and red socks below his fully jacketed upper half, his boots lying alongside him ready to pull on the moment he was in his breeches. It was simply a matter of getting her out of them first.
‘I can’t get – blast – them – blast – off – ah!’
One ankle suddenly came free and Hugo lurched backwards, almost losing his balance. The second didn’t take much more force and Tash sagged back on the ground for a second in relief before reaching for his discarded jeans, her topper right over her nose now like something from Cabaret.
Humiliatingly, his jeans were also far too tight on the thighs and clung to her in all the wrong places like a pair of seventies slacks. She couldn’t wait to get back to the lorry to change, but their boots had become muddled up in the tug of war, and she waited an interminable amount of time while Hugo stepped in and out of footwear like Cinderella’s ugly sister, red socks bobbing.
‘Mine are the small ones,’ Tash said helpfully, and almost got punched in the face.
He had less than five minutes to ride Bodybuilder in, which was a ridiculously short space of time. The huge black horse was notoriously temperamental and, like Snob, could explode in the dressage phase, but, also like Snob, he relished a challenge. And this day he rose to it.
At first Hugo was spitting, but having performed his best test in weeks followed by a clear jumping round, he was willing to be conciliatory and gradually thawed to see the funny side of the incident. In fact, slouching in the lorry drinking coffee with Tash as he waited the half-hour before he needed to warm up Bodybuilder for the next phase, he was momentarily back to his old form, laughing and teasing and generally immeasurably improved from his glum sulks of the morning.
Changing for the cross-country phase, Tash scoured the box for her kit which had as usual spread itself everywhere. Now buried behind The Times, Hugo swigged from his coffee mug and talked about the Four Poster Bed shoot.
‘They won’t leave me alone,’ he complained. ‘This art director chap, Sean, keeps wandering around the house as though he owns it. Yesterday he walked in on Stefan having a bath, said, “Don’t mind me,” measured the window, and walked out again.’
‘Sounds like Gus when he’s decorating,’ Tash muttered, pulling on her scruffier breeches, no longer caring if he saw her tights as he’d had such a long close-up of them earlier. But The Times didn’t move.
‘Gus says he hasn’t spoken to you for ages,’ she said tentatively, having heard Gus say quite a lot more than that recently – all of it unflattering. ‘You never come down to the farm anymore.’
‘I came to pick you up today. Anyway, none of you lot ever come up,’ he pointed out.
‘Gus did,’ she reminded him, wondering if she was being suicidal breaking his good mood. But she knew that Gus was deeply hurt by the slight. Zipping up her body protector, she braced herself for an old-fashioned Hugo snarl.
He stayed behind the paper, but sounded quite regretful. If Tash hadn’t known better, she’d have said he sounded guilty.
‘I should have called him to apologise. Truth is, I was all over the place that night – I’d just been summonsed by the BHS and the press were all over my back about the barbarity of the sport. But that was no excuse to take it out on Gus. He was being a good mate and I was being a prat.’
Diving into her number vest, Tash couldn’t wait to tell Gus off for calling Hugo a bloodless Vulcan.
Outside, she could see India calmly walking Snob around in his cross-country armour, bandages stitched in place, bridle sewn to his top plait so that it wouldn’t be pulled off in a fall, grease on his legs to help him slither over fences if he hit them. She had even tied his tail up to the bone with a matching bandage to stop it getting coated with mud – Ted could never be bothered. Tash was impressed. She searched for her coloured hat silk to swap it for the black one.
‘That was a bloody good dressage test you just rode, by the way.’ Hugo drained his coffee mug. ‘That big chestnut of yours has really improved – you could hardly hold him last month.’
Tash pulled a sceptical face. ‘He comes to hand or goes to pot depending on his mood, but he’s still so strong my arms ache to buggery by the end of the course.’
Hugo looked over his paper seriously. ‘If you don’t entirely trust him, Tash, you shouldn’t be competing him. You have to know him inside out or you’re truly in danger.’
‘I think I know him pretty well,’ she bristled, locating her silk amid a pile of spare number vests.
‘I know that sounds rather damning, but I’m just thinking of your safety.’ His face was open and honest. ‘You can’t let a horse think he can take over the reins and choose which line he wants – if he suddenly goes through the bridle halfway round Badminton, you could be leaving Gloucestershire in a blood wagon. He has to obey you even if he’d rather go faster or jump bigger or muck around.’
Tash fiddled with her crash helmet, pursing her lips as she absorbed his criticism so that she looked as though she was sucking an oversized gob-stopper. Finally irritation got the better of her.
‘Surfer obeyed you,’ she reminded him. ‘He trusted you.’
‘Perhaps too much,’ Hugo answered smoothly, not losing eye-contact for a moment. ‘Yes, they need to obey you, but sometimes they have to put in that extra stride, or apply the brakes if their rider gets it wrong, It’s called self-preservation and the best horses – including Snob – have it in spades. Surfer had too little, took on everything I asked him to, and to my everlasting shame I abused that.’
Tash stared at him, barely able to believe her ears. Admitting he was in the wrong was as rare for Hugo as poetry recitals and Buddhist chants.
A cool blast of air preceded India’s popping her head around the door and tapping her watch. Tash nodded, grinning as she spotted Snob’s pink nose resting on top of India’s green lace hat. She was one of the only people he would abide wearing hats.
Not taking any notice, Hugo continued lecturing.
‘What I’m talking about,’ he went on, ‘is bullish over-enthusiasm, and that’s far more risky than Surfer’s obedience. Because when it happens there’s nothing you can do about it.’
‘If it happens.’ Tash reached for her stopwatch and started to strap it on her arm, along with her marker times.
‘I’ll give you a couple of hours’ work together next week, if you like,’ he offered, watching her struggling into her armour. ‘Hack up to Maccombe one day and we’ll see what we can do – I’ve got some ideas that might help.’
‘Thanks.’ She looked at him in amazement, astonished by the offer. It was almost a year since he’d given her any help. ‘That would be great. When?’ She blushed slightly, aware that she was sounding over-ea
ger.
‘Tomorrow suits me.’ He shrugged indifferently, lighting a fag.
‘Fine.’ She looked away, trying not to smile stupidly.
Still waiting in the doorway, India caught her eye, her expression strangely devious.
‘But tomorrow’s your birthday, Tash!’ she complained. ‘Gus said you could laze around all day eating the chocolates you’ll get given and watching junk TV.’
‘I’m not too good at lazing,’ Tash said quickly, and then blushed even more when she realised how ridiculous this sounded. She was famous for being hugely lazy. At Lime Tree Farm, she’d had one well-chronicled day off when she’d slept right through till the next morning, not getting out of bed once.
Snatching at his newly imported strong bit, Snob was eager and over-fresh as Tash circled him at the start. She had spent twenty minutes working him in circles to calm him, but her effort seemed wasted as he rotated on the spot, dragging his head between his knees and then snatching it up as he fought for control, not understanding why they couldn’t launch themselves on to the course right away instead of waiting for the man in the hat to count them down. Apart from India’s, Snob was not keen on hats. Each time he clapped eyes on Jenny, who was wearing a red fake fur pork pie number today, he feigned hysteria. Tash only just held him as she bounded up to wish them luck.
‘Hugo says he’ll catch you up on the way round,’ she giggled, bouncing on the spot so that she and Snob, opposite one another, resembled energetic disco dancers at a club.
‘He’ll be lucky.’ Tash gritted her teeth as Snob practically pulled her arms from their sockets.
‘I wish he was chasing me,’ Jenny sighed, looking wistfully into the far corner of the collecting box.
Following her gaze, Tash could see Hugo circling nearby on the tall, regal Bodybuilder, his face shadowed by the peak of his red silk, his attention rapt, entirely into getting in tune with his horse.
She wanted to ask Jenny exactly what she meant, but there was no time. Checking her stopwatch, Tash felt a skip of nerves in her chest as the starter gave her thirty seconds and Stefan, who had been around the course already, issued last-minute advice about the way it was jumping which she was far too nervous to take in.
India had already raced back to the horse box to collect Hunk, whom she was going to ride in as he was due in the dressage ring almost as soon as Tash completed with Snob. She wished she was nearby with the reassuring smile she had inherited from her mother, and the loud whoops of encouragement she normally let fly when Tash set off. Stefan and Jenny were far too pragmatic to bother.
‘Be careful and don’t take risks, remember?’ Stefan was admiring Jenny’s rear as she bent down to haul up a welly sock, crimson leggings straining over two round, plump buttocks. He liked red-heads with round bottoms.
‘Yes – be safe.’ Jenny caught Stefan looking and grinned delightedly.
By the time Tash and Snob were streaking towards the first fence, Stefan had already wandered away to help India, and Jenny was attending to Hugo’s girths. Only he watched Tash’s departure, his face pinched with concern.
Splattered with mud and grinning from ear to ear, Tash almost mowed India down as she galloped through the finish five minutes later and turned in a wide circle to slow Snob gradually to a walk. Pulling up too quickly could jar a horse’s legs, although she didn’t have to worry with Snob, who always took several hundred yards to battle down to a walk.
‘Fantastic!’ India whooped when they finally united. ‘That was really fast.’
Tash shook her head. ‘We had a stop at the ditches – he got his legs in a mess in the middle because we jumped the first part too big. But he was really obedient, so yah, boo and sucks to Hugo.’
She jumped off and started wrestling to undo the breast straps of the martingale.
‘I didn’t hear them mention the stop.’ India took Snob’s head. ‘Hugo’s still clear according to the tannoy. I’ve got Hunk ready – he’s by the box. You’d better go and get changed as soon as you’ve weighed in. And wash your face if you want to impress those judges.’
Tash grinned, amazed by India’s super-efficiency. She had only come to help at all because Franny, hearing that Hugo would be involved, refused point blank to care for Tash’s two horses that day. Tash was now pleased that she had.
She was so busy with Hunk that she didn’t see Hugo again until just before her second crack across country. Finished for the day, he was wearing a large grey sweater over his muddy breeches and sharing a cigarette near the start with the sport’s craggy-faced old timer Brian Sedgewick, a can of lager in his hands.
‘I hear we have you to beat,’ Tash called as she rode past them.
‘No chance,’ Hugo laughed. ‘You need to go inside the time to do that, and you’ll never make it on that old cob.’
Her competitive streak aroused, Tash exploded on to the course in a flurry of kicked mud. Although shorter-striding and less energetic than Snob, Hunk was more economical across country as he wasted less time pulling and fighting. He simply settled into his plodding, easy stride and bounced over the fences as though skipping for joy and simply taking a pipe-opener across the fields at home. Feeling him back to his full strength and running for fun underneath her, Tash barely glanced at her stopwatch. This competition was a confidence-bolster for Hunk, a dress rehearsal for Badminton without the pressure of the full event. Her primary objective had never been winning, she mainly wanted to give Hunk a big dollop of encouragement, but he was going so well that she was confident enough to tackle most of the direct routes to keep in touch. But even she was surprised when she glanced down to her watch at the final time-check to see that she was almost ten seconds ahead of the clock.
Another rider – delayed by a stop and a fall – pulled to the side as Tash and Hunk scattered dead leaves in their wake and bounded out of the final woods over the Elephant Pit. Then they raced up the hill to whistle over a pile of logs and pound through the finish, where Hunk proved a great deal easier to rein down to a walk than Snob.
‘Christ, that horse is fit.’ Stefan loped up, stuffing a hotdog into his mouth as he freed his hands to help her remove the saddle. ‘What’s your secret?’
‘Neglectful fiancé.’ Tash jumped off. ‘I’ve put a lot of work into him during the lonely evenings.’ She gave him a kiss on his black muzzle. Hunk threw a delighted, lip-smacking raspberry and hunted her pockets for Polos.
‘Well, unofficially you’ve won.’ Stefan spoke with his mouth full, winking at her as she undid the surcingle and pulled Hunk’s ears with delight. ‘I make you inside the time, and you were the only pair who could catch Hugs – he’s pretty pissed off with you for denying him his first win in weeks.’
But far from seeming pissed off, Hugo slapped her on the back and handed her a can of lager as soon as he caught sight of her.
‘Well done.’ He grinned. ‘Bloody brilliant. Have a fag and talk me through it.’
As Tash walked around with him and related, jump for jump, the delights of taking Hunk around the course, she shivered with happiness. It was so rare to be able to yak on about a triumph to someone who seemed eager to listen. Gus and Penny generally wore the ‘heard it before’ faces of those who had won and lost too often to want to pick the bones of each event anymore, and Niall – when he was in evidence – tried to join in her enthusiasm but bored easily.
‘Listen, there’s someone I want you to meet.’ Hugo led her towards the bar tent once India had emerged to take Hunk off for a cold sponge-over and a handful of Polos.
Twenty minutes later and Tash was even more ecstatic. She had an appointment for the following week with the marketing and managing directors of Mogo clothing, a very upmarket manufacturer who was breaking into the fleece and waterproof markets so favoured by events’ sponsors. They had initially approached Hugo with an offer, but he was tied up in an exclusive deal with an investment bank that he was eager to keep sweet, so he’d suggested Tash and had been politely haranguing
them to attend the event that day. Having seen her compete, the two men seemed enthusiastic. Riders normally had to chase sponsors and badger them for funding and endorsements. To be approached by one was almost unheard of. Tash almost exploded with gratitude.
‘I can’t believe it.’ She wandered back to the lorry with Hugo to collect Snob for the presentation. ‘Why me? Why not Stefan – he’s independent right now, isn’t he?’
‘He’s foreign, Tash, and they wanted a Brit.’
‘What about Gus? He’s gagging for a sponsor.’
‘Tash!’ He swung her round by the shoulders, laughing with frustration, his straight dark brows diving towards one another in disbelief. ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you that for all the respect and experience the Moncrieffs have in the field, you have better horses right now and you’re winning more comps? Your profile is far higher than Gus’s. How many interviews or features have you had written about you this year in the horse rags?’
She shrugged uncertainly. ‘Half a dozen maybe.’
‘Which is half a dozen more than Gus.’ He clutched her shoulders and faced her. ‘Look, Gus might be a bit jealous if you pull this off, but the yard needs the money, whether it’s you or him pulling it in – you’ll get entry fees and petrol-money, insurance costs covered; your top nags will get nice new rugs to show off the Mogo logo, their grub paid – maybe even new transport if you’re very lucky. And their mistress will get a lot of two-tone designer fleeces, which beats those holey old jumpers she slopes around in now.’
She hung her head and realised he was speaking a lot of sense. Glancing up through her lashes, she saw him still watching her, hands gripping her shoulders bolsteringly.
‘You fit their product.’ His blue eyes were warm with encouragement. ‘Just believe that next week. You’re a winner.’
‘Today, I am.’ She shrugged. ‘Lots of unsponsored riders are winners – look at Brian Sedgewick; he’s one of the top riders in the country.’
‘He doesn’t look like you, though, does he?’ Hugo sighed despairingly.