“Your brother-in-law,” said Sarah, “may be moody, and prefer four-legged creatures to anything on two legs, but at least he pays properly and gives you plenty of evenings off.”
Not if you’re family, he doesn’t, thought Fen gloomily, as she watched Sarah, tarted up to the nines, drive off to a party in her pale blue sports car.
Once again, Fen repeated Dino’s words, “There is more to life than the inside of a tack-cleaning bucket!” She was fed up with bloody horses. She wanted some fun.
A delectable smell of chicken casserole drifted out from the kitchen. Looking at her watch, she was surprised to see it was half-past nine. Inside, she found Tory stacking up a pile of envelopes. She had spent the evening canceling shows and wondering which bills to pay first.
“Poor lovie, you look shattered,” she told Fen. “Let’s have a drink before dinner.”
“Can we afford it?” said Fen, looking at the bills.
“I think so,” said Tory. “At the moment, anyway. It just infuriates me that, having paid for all that foreign stabling in advance, we won’t be able to use it.”
Having opened a bottle of red wine and filled two glasses, Fen slumped in the armchair by the Aga. Although it was the end of April it was still cold. Wolf, the lurcher, who was missing his master even more than Macaulay, leapt onto Fen’s lap for comfort.
“Poor old boy,” said Fen, cuddling his shivering, shaggy body.
“How’s Mac?” said Tory, draining the broccoli.
“Still off his feed. His whole routine’s been disrupted. Ouch,” she screeched, as Wolf, hearing the sound of a car on the gravel, leapt off her knees, scratching her thighs with his long claws. Next moment, he was through the back door and had rushed off, barking frantically, into the yard.
“Who the hell could that be?” said Fen.
“Wolf obviously knows him,” said Tory. “He’s stopped barking.”
“May I come in?” said Malise.
“Oh hell,” muttered Fen, “he’ll think we’ve eaten and stay gassing for hours.”
“Hello,” said Tory, blushing with her usual shyness. “You’ve come at the right time. We’ve just opened a bottle.” She filled up another glass.
Malise sat down at the long scrubbed table, enjoying the warmth, admiring the children’s paintings and the newspaper photographs of the horses on the corkboard, alongside this year’s already substantial number of rosettes for which there was no longer space in the tackroom. He looked at the pile of envelopes.
“You’ve been busy.”
“Canceling shows,” said Tory. “Hoping we might get some of our money back. Why don’t you stay for supper?” she stammered. “We’ve got masses.”
“I’m sure there isn’t enough,” said Malise.
“Tory always cooks for five thousand and it’s always marvelous,” said Fen.
Malise suddenly realized he hadn’t eaten all day.
“Well, it’d be awfully nice.”
“It’s only chicken,” said Tory apologetically.
“I’ll get it out,” said Fen. Typical Tory, she thought, as she got four huge baked potatoes and a large blue casserole out of the oven.
“Nice kitchen,” said Malise as he put butter in his baked potato. “How’s Macaulay?”
“Devastated,” sighed Fen. “He even misses shows. Every time the telephone goes in the tackroom, he starts cantering around the field.”
“This is excellent, Tory,” said Malise. “I hadn’t realized how hungry I was. By the way, I’ve just been to see Jake.”
“Oh, how kind. How was he?”
“Pretty miserable still; frustrated, bored.”
“And still in a lot of pain?” asked Tory.
“Yup, but at least I gave him something to take his mind off his leg. You’d better get the horses in tomorrow, Fen. He’s agreed you can jump them.”
“Poor Jake,” said Fen. “I drove over to see him this morning. He looked awful. What did you say?” She stopped with a piece of carrot on the way to her mouth.
“He’s going to let you ride the horses.”
“Where?” stammered Fen.
Malise laughed. “Rome, Paris, Windsor, Barcelona, Crittleden, Lucerne, just for starters.”
Fen opened her mouth and shut it again. Then she turned to Tory. “Is this true?”
Tory laughed and hugged her. “If Malise says so, it must be.”
“But we can’t afford it.”
“Of course you can. You’ll be jumping as a member of the British team, so those expenses’ll be paid, and if I’m anything to go by, you’ll be in the money very soon.”
Fen looked at him incredulously. “Thank you,” she said in a choked voice. Then, jumping to her feet and falling over Wolf, she ran out into the yard, muttering that she must go and tell Macaulay.
“Oh, please, God, forgive me,” she prayed as she buried her face in Macaulay’s neck, “I didn’t mean it when I said I wanted to give up show jumping.”
The following day, Fen loaded up Macaulay in the trailer and drove to Oxford. Without asking anyone’s permission she unboxed him in the Woodstock Road and rode him across the emerald green, billiard-table-smooth hospital lawn and, cavalierly trampling a bed of dark red wallflowers underfoot, banged on the window of Jake’s room.
Jake, sunk in the depths of gloom, thought he was hallucinating when the great white face with the white eye peered through the glass at him. Fortunately it was a slack period. Matron was at lunch, patients were resting, and comely Sister Wutherspoon, who was a show-jumping fan, pushed Jake’s bed so it was flush to the opened window. The reunion touched everyone. At first Macaulay couldn’t quite believe it, pressing his face against Jake’s shoulder, whickering in ecstasy, then licking his pajama jacket and his face with a great, pink, stropping tongue. For a minute Jake couldn’t speak, but at last his face took on some color as he fed Macaulay a whole pound of grapes and a bar of chocolate and an apple. Word soon spread round the hospital. A crowd of nurses had soon gathered in the room to pat and even take photographs of the World Champion, thrilled to see the delight on Jake’s face. They had all been worried about his slow recovery and his black depression. In the middle, the matron walked in and everyone melted away. Fortunately, she was also a show-jumping fan.
“We really don’t allow visitors out of hours, Mr. Lovell, but I suppose we can make an exception in Macaulay’s case.”
After twenty minutes, Fen put Macaulay back in the trailer and came back to talk to Jake, thanking him over and over again for letting her go, promising to ring him every night.
“When are you off?”
“Friday morning. Grisel’s collecting me.”
She saw him again once before she left, on the way home from a day trip to London. He was so busy giving her last-minute instructions, he didn’t notice she never took the scarf from her head.
“Rome’s tricky,” he said. “You’ll find the fences coming off the corners very fast, and at dusk the trees around the arena throw shadows across the poles, which make it very easy to make mistakes. Macaulay’s eyesight’s not brilliant. If you’re in any doubt, don’t jump him. You won’t like Rome: lots of wops with machine guns pinching your bottom. Don’t carry money or your passport in your bag, the muggers are frightful, and put any winnings in the hotel safe at once.”
“If there are any,” said Fen in a hollow voice.
“I gather Billy Lloyd-Foxe is back in the team, too,” said Jake. “If you have any problems, go to him rather than Malise. He has to ride the horses. He knows what he’s talking about.”
* * *
“I’ve been very wicked,” said Fen, when she got back to the Mill House three hours later and found Tory in the kitchen darning Fen’s lucky socks. “I’ve bought three pairs of trousers, three shirts, two dresses, and a bikini. I
