dozing off, then waking up with the sensation of falling, then lying awake, jumping fences in his head, seeing them growing higher and impossibly higher, as the long hours crept towards dawn and cigarettes piled up in the ashtray.
The sky was getting grayer. He began to shake.
“Are you all right?” said Sarah. “Don’t worry. You’ve been jumping super at home. Mac’ll take care of you.”
Macaulay tried to knock Jake’s hat off to cheer him up and was sworn at for his pains. When Jake was mounted, Macaulay tried again, just a little buck that in the old days would have made Jake laugh — but which today nearly put him on the floor and produced another torrent of abuse. To further shatter Jake’s confidence, Rupert was crashing Rock Star over the practice fences, putting him wrong, so he hit his forelegs hard and would be certain to pick them up when he went into the ring. God, he was a beautiful horse in the flesh, thought Jake; a chestnut stallion showing all the compressed power of his American breeding, with curving muscles like coiled steel cables.
Jake jumped a couple of fences, then, having been nearly sent flying by Rupert, retreated to the outer field, desperately trying to get his nerves under control. Suddenly he passed Helen Campbell-Black, looking like a city gent, ludicrously out of place in a pinstriped suit.
“Hi,” she said, smiling and coming towards him.
Jake nodded curtly and, circling, rode back to the arena.
Fen was waiting for him: “You’re on,” she said. “Good luck.”
“Good luck,” called voices on all sides.
In the old days he had usually been all right once he got into the ring, the nervous tension a necessary preliminary to the class itself, heightening awareness, but that was when his body was fit and flexible, not frozen with fear. Now he was like a child at his first gymkhana. What if he really was jinxed? Sailor had died here. Last year he had smashed up his leg. These things went in threes. What had the fates in store for him today?
Macaulay, aware of his master’s terror, heard the bell and suddenly decided to take matters into his own big hoofs. Bucketing towards the first fence, he cleared it easily. Somehow, clinging onto his mane, Jake stayed in the saddle. It was a very hit and miss business. The crowd had their hearts in their mouths all the way round. No one cheered, for they didn’t want in any way to distract Macaulay, but as he cleared the last triple with a flourish they broke into a roar that seemed to part the gray clouds and bring out the sun, putting a sparkle on everything.
Fen found herself hugging Malise in the collecting ring. “He did it,” she gulped, “he really did it. It’s going to be all right.”
As Jake rode towards the exit, deadpan as ever, the cheers mounted and all the people in the boxes came out onto the balconies to bellow their approval. Helen joined in the applause politely. She felt absurdly deflated. Jake had hardly noticed her and then cut her dead.
“Great round,” said Malise.
Jake shook his head. “It was bloody terrible and you know it, but at least I, or rather Macaulay, got around.”
Everyone was congratulating him. It amazed him. They were so thrilled to see him back. But he couldn’t take the hero worship and the enthusiasm just yet. He wanted to be alone with Macaulay to thank him. Riding quietly out of the collecting ring he saw Helen Campbell-Black. Aware that he’d snubbed her earlier, he rode towards her.
“Hello.”
She looked up: “Oh, hi,” she said, ultracasually.
There was a long pause.
“He jumped well,” she stammered. “I’m so happy for you.”
“How’s Marcus?” said Jake to the top of her trilby.
“He’s real fine, so much better. Look, I’ve been meaning to thank you for ages for lunch and for Marcus’s circus. You were so kind driving all that way.” She was really gibbering now.
“That’s all right,” said Jake.
After another long pause she looked up and they gazed at each other.
“I’ve got your handkerchief, too,” she said, color mounting in her face, “and Marcus plays with his circus the whole time. He just adored you.”
Jake said nothing, but went on staring down at her.
As Macaulay sidled beneath him, Helen put up a trembling hand to stroke the horse’s black neck.
“Are you going to Rome?” she asked, desperate for something to say.
“No. Are you?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t go.”
“W-what?” She looked at him in amazement.
“I said, don’t go. Make some excuse. When’s Rupert leaving?”
“Lunchtime on Monday week. He’s flying out.”
“Right. You’ll be home in the afternoon?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll ring you there.” And he was gone.
Helen was thrown into complete panic. Had she dreamed it? Could Jake really have said that? From that Saturday at Crittleden to the Monday nine days later, when Rupert left for Rome, she went through every fluctuation of excitement, worry, terror, and disbelief.
She was completely inattentive at committee meetings and at parties. When the parties were boring she could think of nothing but Jake. Yet when Amanda Hamilton invited them to dinner on the Saturday and Helen, radiant in russet taffeta, was chatted up by two rather glamorous Tory MPs, she hardly missed him at all. Amanda had been particularly nice to her, soliciting her aid to persuade Rupert to go into politics.
Perhaps if he did, thought Helen, things would be different. He’d be in England most of the time and there wouldn’t be any of those punishing three-o’clock-in-the-morning departures, and by using his brain he might have less of a chip about her apparent intellectual superiority.
Rupert was highly relieved that Helen wasn’t coming to Rome. Amanda Hamilton was going to be out there for the Rome tennis tournament, staying with friends. He was making no progress with Amanda. Like a do-it- yourself cupboard, he told Billy, she was taking far longer to make than one would expect. Pathological about adverse press, she even refused to lunch with him. But she fascinated him more than any woman he’d met for ages, and he was determined to get her into bed before long.
When Rupert’s car refused to start on Monday, Helen drove him to the airport. As she drove slowly back to Penscombe, admiring the wild cherry blossom and the pale green spring leaves, she reflected that it was a good thing she’d be out when Jake rang, just to show she wasn’t that keen.
Walking into the house she buried her face in a huge bunch of white lilac which filled the entire hall with its scent. Marcus rushed out to meet her and show her the pictures of the fair he’d painted at play school.
“Any messages?” she called out casually to Charlene, who was in the kitchen.
“No. Oh, I tell a lie, Mrs. Bacon rang about jumble.”
“No one else? Are you sure you didn’t go out or into the garden?”
“I’ve been here all afternoon.”
Helen was totally thrown. She’d been so certain Jake was going to crowd her, that she had a tiger by the tail. Why the hell couldn’t Mrs. Bodkin throw away dead flowers, she thought, as she wandered restlessly round the drawing room, moving ornaments, even snapping at Marcus. She tried to read. Half an hour passed. Then Malise rang, hoping to catch Rupert before he left. Janey rang for a gossip and the headmistress of Marcus’s play group rang about their summer bring-and-buy. Helen was uncharacteristically terse with all of them. Then Charlene’s mother rang and gossiped to Charlene for twenty minutes. Helen couldn’t even accuse her of wasting money as it was an incoming call. Perhaps Jake was in a call box trying to get through; perhaps he’d lost the number. Oh, the nightmare of being ex-directory. Unsupervised by Charlene, the children swarmed into the drawing room. The next moment Tab had put jammy fingerprints all over the apricot silk curtains.
“Charlene,” screamed Helen, “for God’s sake, get off the telephone.”
Charlene flounced in, looking martyred. “It’s Gran. She’s got cancer of the bowel.”
