The Country Lovers

by Walker, Fiona

  ‘Good God, is that a thing? Please tell me you haven’t…’

  ‘I don’t think pictures of me sunbathing in a bikini in Cornwall count.’ For once, Pax was grateful for their unadventurous, uncatalogued sex life.

  ‘If you ask me, it all boils down to money. Supposing Mack has divorce in his sights, he’ll be after maximum return on his eight years; bad PR devalues your stakehold. There’s the stud to think about now, Pax. He’s an acquisitive sod, let’s face it.’

  ‘He’s in bits, Lisp.’ Pax was shocked. ‘I’m the one calling time on our marriage.’

  ‘Don’t you dare feel guilty,’ Alice snapped. ‘You’re telling me he wants to take your son away from you.’

  ‘Well, he won’t get him!’ She’d barely slept more than three hours strung together all week, more weight dropping off, anger chasing blame around in circles as she paced the cottage’s small rooms. She’d never imagined it would all happen as quickly as this, but Mack had always been knee-jerk. Often without the knee.

  ‘That’s the spirit!’ Alice applauded. ‘Mack’s just hiding behind his parents like most big girls’ blouses.’

  Grateful for the rallying cry – even if it did sound more Blyton than ‘Fight Song’ – Pax caught sight of her mother lounging in the saddle like Nancy Astor, urging Luca to hurry up as he put a bridle on the leg-lashing, sweated-up Beck. Witnessing Luca’s predictably compliant smile, she felt a fresh spike of exasperation. ‘Mack’s an entire clothes rail of blouses, Lisp. He’s even accusing me of sleeping with Luca O’Brien. I’m more likely to run over the man. All bloody men in fact!’ She let out an angry growl then ducked as Ronnie looked up.

  Her sister snorted on the phone. ‘Of course, the quickest way to get rid of him is to out-ride him. Men hate that that.’

  ‘Buy a motorbike, you mean?’ She had a vision of herself in full leathers snarling past Mack’s sports’ bike at 100 mph on the Fosse Hills.

  ‘No, out-ride this Horsemaker-on-the-make. You can do his job, darling. Make him redundant.’

  There was a furious clatter of hooves on cobbles and she peered out to watch Beck prancing across the yard to be mounted at last, her stomach tightening involuntarily. He looked half wild.

  Pax had to hand it to O’Brien, he was up in the saddle before the stallion knew what was happening.

  ‘Nothing ever stood in your way when you rode for the stud,’ Alice pep-talked.

  She watched Luca sit out a couple of huge bucks and ride out through the arch after her mother. With his helmet brim low as a visor and Puffa zipped up over his chin, he looked like a black knight.

  ‘I’ll pick my own battles, Lisp.’

  Her first was with the muck heap, descending into chaos in Lester’s absence. If she couldn’t roar back to the Mack Shack to drive the tractor over her shit of a husband, the next best thing was flattening his namesake.

  ‘I’d lay money on you and Mack being back together again by Valentine’s Day,’ Alice predicted. ‘And you’ll see off Luca before that.’

  *

  Bridge sang ‘Holding Out For A Hero’ in a flat, sardonic undertone as the Bags trotted up the bridle path beside the stud like guardsmen, all heads looking left across its paddocks to the stable yard.

  ‘Movement nine o’clock!’ Gill held up her hand and they all pulled up to look.

  A tall figure was driving a tractor with a bucket on the front, reshaping the muck heap into steps. The red hair was unmistakeably Pax Forsyth’s.

  ‘Our lady of the manure,’ Bridge muttered, remembering Carly saying the woman had looked straight through her.

  ‘Now she’s your classic Demelza Poldark,’ Mo sighed.

  ‘I prefer my fictional heroines buxom,’ Petra dismissed.

  ‘Good technique on that hydraulic lift,’ Gill admired. ‘She must be helping out while Old Lester’s laid off.’

  ‘Thought I’d seen that Noddy car of hers in the village a lot lately,’ said Mo.

  ‘Still making calls to her Chipping Norton-set lover from lay-bys, then?’ Bridge scoffed.

  ‘Why don’t I know about this?’ Petra was agog.

  But the Bags were distracted by Mo letting out an excited squawk as, in the far distance, two riders crossed the track, heading towards the woods on the hill’s brow.

  ‘That’s him!’ Gill pointed out a flash of blond beard that looked fittingly Royalist.

  ‘Be still my beating heart,’ Petra breathed.

  Bridge had to admit there was a certain nobility about the Horsemaker’s upright stature and the way he remained so still while his horse, a magnificently wild-looking grey, bounded along on springs. Riding three lengths behind, neat as a jump jockey, Ronnie’s distinctive petite frame was crouched low over a wiry bay.

  ‘They’re using Sansom Estate headland to cut across to Poacher’s Woods,’ said Gill. ‘That can’t be Ronnie’s warmblood stallion he’s riding, can it?’

  ‘We can go up to the ridge, loop around and meet them on circular track.’ Mo had her blood up. ‘That’s no stallion, Gill love.’

  ‘I am a vet.’

  ‘Bet you two shepherd’s pies and a game casserole.’

  ‘Raise you a vaccination and a box of bute.’

  ‘You’re on!’

  Off they cantered, hammering along the deep tyre ruts, splashing through puddles and kicking up stones, the view spreading out in all directions the higher they climbed.

  ‘Isn’t this a bit sad act, hunting the poor man down like stalkers?’ Bridge shouted at Petra as they set off after Gill’s ground-eating gelding, Mo falling behind already.

  ‘You know Gill loves the thrill of the chase,’ Petra called back.

  At that moment, Craic took exception to something in the hedge and kinked sideways, cannoning off Petra’s mare and stumbling down on his knees. Pitched forwards, Bridge was then smacked firmly on the chin as he scrambled up, her lip caught in her teeth. She could taste blood.

  ‘Great.’ She wiped it with the back of her hand. ‘Just what I need before an interview.’ Lisping at Mrs Bullock through red foam.

  ‘You have a job interview?’ Petra demanded.

  Bridge tried to close the question down with a non-committal hum, grateful for Mo reappearing between them on her cob, less so when she shrieked, ‘Oh my good lord, what happened? There’s blood!’

  ‘It’s just a nick.’ Bridge felt her lip with her fingertips, and realised it was bleeding quite a lot.

  The three riders set off again, Craic pogoing fretfully from rut to rut, impossible to get back into a canter.

  ‘Try lowering your hands and softening your contact, Bridge,’ Petra suggested kindly. ‘What job interview?’

  Bridge, who found being told how to ride by Petra only slightly less irritating than being quizzed by Petra about her employment status, sucked her sore lip, which already felt the size of a wrasse’s, glowering at Craic’s grey ears. ‘It’s just a fecking job, okay?’

  Mo tutted. ‘You want to watch your lip, Bridge.’

  ‘I’ll fecking swear if I want to!’

  ‘Your sore lip.’ She smiled kindly. ‘It’s going ever so swollen.’

  Bridge reached up and touched it in alarm. Still bleeding, it did feel very odd.

  Craic had planted again, head shooting up. A rustling from the trees beside them made him shoot sideways. Then he gave a loud, alarmed snort as Gill came thundering back down the track.

  ‘There you are!’ she hissed urgently, turning at speed like a polo player. ‘You owe me three suppers, Mo, it’s definitely the stallion. I just spotted them from the ridge. They’re still at the far side of the woods, keeping off the main tracks. I think we need to clear off.’

  Picking up the urgency, Craic needed no more invitation, setting off at full tilt.

  ‘Oh feck,’ muttered Bridge, realising she had no brakes whatsoever. And they were heading straight for the woods.

  *

  Sitting on Beck felt phenomenal. Luca had forgotten the
feeling of exaggerated, quick-thinking movement, a rocket engine one could only hope to control by building co-operation and confidence. He’d ridden thousands of horses in his lifetime, and only a very few of them possessed anything close to this purity of power.

  ‘I could watch you ride all day, Luca.’ Ronnie had been buttering him up from the moment they rode off the yard to keep him onside. ‘Didn’t I tell you he’d settle?’

  ‘Sure, he’s happy enough.’

  He’d quickly learnt that as a boss Ronnie had fixed ideas about things, along with a short temper, impetuosity and a boundless enthusiasm. With no riding arena at the stud and the fields midwinter-slippery, her method was the old-fashioned one of getting on a raw horse and riding straight out at a brisk trot, sticking to hedged tracks and woodland so he had too much to think about to want to turn tail or escape into open country. Beck was unfit and unshod which also made him less inclined to bolt for home.

  Despite his protests, in his heart, Luca had wanted to ride the horse again as much as she wanted him to.

  On his toes and eager to go forwards, Beck remained amazingly light in the hand, all his disciplined German training still at Luca’s fingertips. Stiffer, admittedly, and understandably tense, but less argumentative than Luca had anticipated given all the bad riding he’d endured. It would be self-aggrandisement to imagine Beck remembered his rider after all these years, but Luca sensed he recognised the technique, the quietness of seat and contact.

  But Luca was all too aware that he was sitting on a ticking bomb, and Ronnie’s unswerving belief in them both made him uncomfortable, as did any interest in Beck’s past.

  ‘Did you ride him much in Germany?’ She was still admiring them.

  ‘For four or five years on and off.’

  ‘Oh, I wish I’d seen that. I bet it was arena porn. No wonder he sold for so much.’

  Upbeat and chatty, Ronnie was no fool, aware of the secrecy surrounding Beck’s sale to the Middle East and his inglorious return, that hurried, dust-storm cover-up. The deal to spare him the bullet made each answer Luca gave feel like a step along a ship’s plank. Luca knew his silence could be the only thing keeping Beck safe.

  ‘Ever jump him?’

  ‘At home, setting him up for big competitions, you know. This one got pretty uptight on tour.’

  ‘Like Keith Moon?’

  ‘Who’s Keith Moon?’

  ‘The Who’s Keith, yes.’ She laughed and he looked at her curiously, growing accustomed to the private jokes that she dangled half a generation out of reach, cat to mouse. But Luca was no mouse, as those who mistook quietness for timidity knew to their cost.

  ‘The horse was unpredictable, explosive. Ruled out of home teams.’

  ‘Thank goodness he’s such a survivor. He spent some time as a field ornament before coming here, so perhaps he’s had time to clear his head. My friend Blair bought him for his wife…’ She paused, looking away so he couldn’t see her face. ‘Verity’s an absolute darling, a brilliant horsewoman in her day, but she’s very ill now, and, in hindsight, already was then. I did him a terrible disservice agreeing to it.’ It was unclear whether she meant Beck or Blair.

  A pheasant flapped squawking out of the undergrowth so close that even old Dickon shied back, but Beck – already so overwhelmed by everything that each muscle was hinged tight – merely turned an ear.

  ‘He’s a donkey,’ Ronnie teased.

  ‘Give him time,’ muttered Luca. History had taught him that a horse as sharp as Beck wouldn’t tolerate shock and awe tactics long. His father Malachy, a horse dealer all his life, was fond of the old saying: You can tell a gelding, but discuss with a stallion. This felt dangerously like dictating terms. But Ronnie was the boss, and history had also taught Luca you underestimated her at your peril. The old saying ended, and you ask a mare.

  ‘What makes you so sure this horse can turn the stud’s fortunes?’

  ‘We are going to turn them, Luca. All of us.’ The blue gaze held steady.

  Hers was a Charge of the Light Brigade hot-headedness which refused to countenance failure. With the stud’s fortunes clearly galloping into cannons, Luca needed to address her battle plan: from what he could tell, she seemed to be fighting both for her family and against them. He needed to find a way to penetrate her antique varnished Englishness. But oh, what an oil painting he’d landed in. Looking across hibernating fields, curled around a sleeping goldmine, it was hard to imagine the war being waged here.

  ‘May I ask you something?’

  ‘How formal.’ Ronnie gave him a knowing smile. ‘Which must mean you’re going to ask something awkward, wayward, bedward, or all three.’

  ‘That would be far too forward, so it would.’ Luca spun, his timing lousy, the stallion tensing, sensing his rider’s disquiet, the imperceptible bond breaking.

  ‘Oh do be forward. Say what you’re bloody thinking.’ Her eyes glittered beneath the hat peak, catching the flirtation and playing with it. The cat once more.

  ‘Ever thought about selling up?’

  The glitter disappeared. ‘Why would I?’

  ‘Your kids want that, don’t they?’

  ‘Pax doesn’t.’

  ‘But she doesn’t want to run it.’

  ‘Doesn’t she?’

  He didn’t want to talk about Pax, muttering vaguely, ‘She’s enough on her plate.’

  ‘She never has enough on her plate! She hardly bloody eats.’ The good-humoured despair in her tone masked deeper feelings, regret so close to the surface, it was impossible to hold her gaze without feeling sucked in. ‘She used to love the stud, the land, the horses. Daddy had her lined up to be his successor. Entirely my fault it didn’t happen. I let her down so badly.’

  ‘When you left?’

  ‘When I came back.’ She sighed. ‘Do you think we should sell it, Luca?’

  Beneath him, Beck was balling up, back shorter and tighter, ready to spring. Pax’s words rang in his ears again: You have absolutely no idea about our family!

  He shook his head, tossing the question away with a smile. ‘Forget I asked.’

  ‘At my age, that’s entirely probable.’ She dangled one of her flirtatious, age-gap hooks, sharing the smile.

  ‘Sure, age means nothing; it’s how grown-up you are that counts.’

  ‘Oh, I do like that. Now I want no more mention of selling anything but horses. We must sell horses, Luca.’

  Relieved, he suggested instead that he start educating the thoroughbred three-year-olds, eager to get going on those bred at the stud with the class to make her money fast. ‘They look plenty ready.’ The comforting simplicity of breaking young horses was a much-needed one.

  With a dismissive wave of the hand, Ronnie explained that she’d entered them all in the Doncaster sales later that month. ‘They’re Oak Hill’s last crop, so Lester thinks we’ll get a decent price, even at this time of year, and it’s fewer for you to break in.’

  ‘Cancel the entries. I’ll make you more money from them.’

  ‘It’s a quick turnaround – and cashflow is a little tight.’

  ‘Why d’you ask me here, Ron, if it’s not to do what I’m best at?’

  ‘We have some nice youngsters earmarked for you to start.’

  Luca said nothing, although his body stiffened imperceptibly with displeasure, and the stallion snatched at the bit and shied at a shadow.

  ‘I just wish we could get Pax back in the saddle,’ Ronnie was lamenting. ‘I can just see her towing little Kes round the lanes on a lead rein, can’t you? Wouldn’t that be heaven?’

  Luca was thinking the opposite, when a switch tripped beneath him.

  He felt Beck spring-load long before he heard anything. He seemed to grow six inches, the crabbing trot exaggerating to passage, his whinnying bellow feeling like sitting on the main amp in the O2 Arena during a rock guitar solo.

  Then they heard the hoofbeats.

  Moments later, three women came flying along the track on horseb
ack as though riding a racing finish, one on a hairy grey pony, its white eyes bulging, another kicking along a huge bay as she tried to head off the first. Not far behind them, the third woman on a chestnut was shouting at them both to pull up.

  Beck was already up on his hind legs, slamming back down and trying to pull the reins out of Luca’s hands as he plunged sideways, head shaking.

  ‘Put him behind me!’ Ronnie rode off the track to make space for the galloping lunatics.

  But Beck had no intention of letting them pass. Whinnying again, he lunged forwards.

  Luca knew in an instant that all communication had gone, sitting through a twisting, turning series of explosive bucks. He might as well be on a tiger’s back.

  With another screaming bellow, Beck reared up again, striking out at the approaching horses in warning as he did so. The woman on the bolting grey let out a shriek and both pony and rider disappeared into the trees.

  The bay pulled up sharply ten metres away.

  The chestnut mare at the rear had other ideas. Letting out a squeal of recognition, she tossed her head and flattened her ears indignantly. Moments later, she was throwing her own series of twisting bronco disco moves that deposited her rider on the track.

  ‘I’m fine!’ the woman gasped and sprang up with a nervous laugh.

  Pitching himself against the stallion’s neck as he reared again, Luca fought for balance. The chestnut mare was still trotting towards them, ears flat back, furious at such a machismo display.

  ‘Get that horse caught!’ Luca shouted, startled by her behaviour, the kamikaze bravery of a pissed-off alpha mare. Her owner was equally foolhardy, running in pursuit, face beaming.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she shouted cheerily at Luca. ‘They’ve already shagged.’