Going upstairs in the faint hope of finding some clean shirts, he saw instead the beautiful new iron bedhead above the spare room bed.
“Where did that come from?”
“I bought it weeks ago.”
“And paid for it?”
“Not yet.” Janey didn’t meet his eyes.
“Why d’you buy bloody bedheads when I can’t afford boots?”
“Why don’t you buy cheap vino instead of paying ?3 a bottle? Why are you always buying drinks for people, giving them the shirts off your back, even if they are streaked red like the dawn? As I said, why don’t you win something? I’m fed up with playing second fiddle to a string of bloody horses.”
Billy went back upstairs. When she joined him, he was lying in bed wearing pajamas buttoned up to the neck. Even though his face was turned to the wall she caught a waft of bad digestion and drink fumes.
“Billy,” she said apologetically. He didn’t answer, but she knew he was awake. Nothing, however, could dent her happiness. She was eight days late. She woke up in the night and Billy was so still she thought he’d committed suicide, so she woke him up in a panic and, half-asleep, he instinctively put his arms round her, forgetting the dreadfulness of the row.
He left before she woke in the morning to go to Westerngate, but returned on Friday night in better spirits. The Bull had come second in a big class, so perhaps his luck was turning.
Janey was delighted. “Who beat you?”
“Jake Lovell, of all people. He’s back on the circuit.”
“Who’s he?”
“You know Jake. Oh, I’d forgotten. You probably never met him. He was a cert for the Colombia Olympics, with two top-class horses. Then one had a heart attack at Crittleden. Appalling bad luck. Should never have been jumped. And then Rupert set his heart on the second.”
“And got it, no doubt,” said Janey. “He always gets anything or anyone he wants.”
“Yes, he did. It was Revenge actually. Belonged to Jake’s stepfather-in-law. Rupert made him an offer he couldn’t refuse; left Jake without any horses. Now he’s really back on form. I’m glad. I always felt bad about that business.”
Cheered up by Billy’s second, they got mildly tight together. “I’m so pleased you’re coming tomorrow,” said Billy. “They’re all dying to meet you. I want to show you off.”
Janey didn’t feel like being shown off. She felt fat and bloated; perhaps it was the first stirrings of pregnancy. In anticipation of maternity, and to cover the bulges (she was ten days late now), she was wearing one of Billy’s streaked shirts and nothing else.
“Do you like short hair?” she said, pausing at the
“I do on Mavis. Can I shave your bush tonight?”
It was all rather erotic. Billy had bought her a porn magazine to read and laid her on a towel on the bed and used his razor and masses of soap and hot water. Wincing in case he nicked her, she read a story about a Victorian maid and her boss, which was too absurd for words and full of misprints and anachronisms, which she kept reading out to Billy: “ ‘I want to lock your bunt,’ said the vicar, his hot six rearing up.” But it soon had her bubbling over inside; the libido was an awfully bad judge of literature, Janey decided.
“Christ, you look fantastic,” said Billy as he rinsed away the last soap and hairs. Janey peered at herself. “Rather like an old boiler chicken.”
“It’ll be fantastic going down on you. Did you ever allow any of your other boyfriends to do this to you?” asked Billy, as he leapt on her. “Can we play for a long time?”
Janey, however, having come quickly herself, wanted to get it over with. She was suddenly tired and wriggled frantically trying to bring him to the boil, and then exciting him with a story of how Pardoe took her in the back of his Jaguar one summer night.
Janey fell asleep immediately afterwards. Billy lay awake and fretted. Mandryka had put in a nasty stop yesterday. He must get to Westerngate early and sort it out. Janey woke up in the morning with a hangover, feeling Billy’s prick nudging her back, his hand stroking her shaven flesh.
“What time ought we to leave?”
“Ten at the latest. I haven’t declared and I promised Kev we’d be there for prelunch drinks.”
Janey didn’t want sex but, to get herself in a more receptive mood, she fantasized she was a schoolgirl in a gym tunic, being ticked off by a very strict headmaster in a dog collar. Next moment the headmaster’s wife walked in and they both decided to have her.
“Shall I tell you a story to excite you?” asked Billy.
“I’m fine,” said Janey, who was deep in headmasters. “Nearly there.” The next moment, pleasure flooded over her. She longed to go back to sleep.
“You look so fantastic,” said Billy, “how about
Janey couldn’t face a huge cock down her throat. “I can’t Billy, not with a hangover. Please stay inside me. I want to feel you coming.”
Afterwards they both fell asleep. When they woke it was five to ten.
“What are you doing?” said Billy, when he went into the bathroom five minutes later.
“Washing my hair.”
“But you can’t, we’ve got to leave
“You’ll just have to drive a bit faster, or go without me.”
“I can’t,” he said, aghast. “They’re expecting you. Your hair looks fine. It’s only a show. It’s you they want to see, not your hair.”
“I know what they’ll all say, ‘Not as attractive as her photograph, nothing to look at in the flesh,’ ” snapped Janey, who was now upside down, head in the bath, rubbing in shampoo. “I do have a public image to keep up. It was you who wanted bloody sex.” They didn’t leave until after eleven.
“Revving up is actionable,” hissed Janey, coming out of the house.
“So is being an hour late,” snapped Billy.
“And my fringe has separated.”
Billy didn’t think that a striped rugger shirt with a rather dirty white collar, flared jeans, and an old denim jacket were suitable, but he didn’t complain, as he would have had to wait another twenty minutes. Rancid with ill temper, they drove all the way to Westerngate with Janey trying to do her face, snapping at Billy every time he went round a corner. The traffic was terrible. They were held up for thirty-five minutes by a couple of gays unloading some carpet into an antique shop in Broadway High Street.
Billy kept looking at his watch. “Kev’s going to flip his lid. I’m going to be too late to declare.” His stomach was killing him.
They arrived at half-past one. Billy went straight off to try and square the secretary, leaving Janey to park the car in the sponsors’ car park. There was the Moggie Meal tent. There was the awful cat winking on the flag. Oh God, here was Kevin Coley, coming towards her, wearing a suit the color of a caramel cupcake. He looked simply livid.
“Hi, Kev,” she said casually. “The traffic was awful.”
“Where the hell is Billy? He’s been late once too bloody often and they’ve put their foot down. They’ve closed the declaration. They’re already walking the course. That means he’ll probably be dropped for the Royal and for Aachen, and it’s too bloody near the World Championships.”
“He’s gone to talk to the stewards now. They’ll let him in. The crowd have come to see The Bull.”
“Don’t you bank on it. Everyone’s been waiting for you, too. We held lunch until a quarter of an hour ago. It’s not bloody good enough.”
It was with great difficulty that Janey stopped herself shouting back at him. Matters were hardly improved when Billy turned up, abject with apologies, and said they were going to allow him to jump, and he had better go and walk the course.
“See you later, darling,” he said to Janey. “Go and have some lunch.” Face set, she ignored him.
Kevin Coley took her arm, none too gently. “You’d better come along to the tent and repair some of the damage. And smile, for Christ’s sake. You’re being paid for it.”
In the tent, they found customers and staff stuffing roast beef and lobsters. Most of them were already tight.
