Rupert could tell she was absolutely livid.
“I’ll pay for it,” he said.
“The money doesn’t matter,” she wailed. “Think of the seven years’ bad luck. Think of Georgie’s O levels and the next election.”
Rupert looked out through the lift-gate bars on the window at the yellowing grass of Kensington Gardens.
What about my gold? he thought broodingly.
As soon as Jake returned from Dublin, Olympic panic set in. The telephone never stopped ringing with officials, press, horsiana manufacturers, and potential sponsors, who’d heard he and Fen might go professional after the Games.
Because they were not rich like Rupert, they had to keep taking the rest of the horses to shows right up to the last moment. In between, there were endless medical tests for both horses and riders, and Jake and Fen had to rush up to London to get their Olympic uniforms fitted, then on to Moss Bros. to choose coats and breeches.
Fen was livid she wasn’t allowed to wear a dark blue coat. “Black’s so hard,” she grumbled. “Anyway, I’m not going to a funeral.”
“You may well think you are,” said Jake, “when you see the size of the fences.”
* * *
Jake was so ludicrously busy he had no time to see Helen, which, despite Malise’s strictures, drove her so frantic she even rang him at the yard.
“It’s me, darling. Why haven’t you called? Pretend this is a wrong number and call me back as soon as you’ve got a moment.”
It was almost a relief when she and Rupert flew off to Los Angeles, giving him a breathing space in which he could concentrate on the job in hand. But if he worked flat out during the day, he still spent his few hours in bed worrying about the future.
Their finances were still in a precarious position. The bank manager needed the Mill House and the yard and Tory’s shares as security. He was very proud of Jake and his incredible comeback and often dropped his name at the golf club, but Jake knew this amiability would vanish overnight if he got into financial trouble.
Now he had been picked for the Olympics he was an infinitely more bankable proposition, particularly as half a dozen potential sponsors were pestering him. But he didn’t like any of them and he knew they’d cool off if he came home without a medal. Anyway, he’d seen the appalling pressures sponsors had put on Billy, Humpty, and Driffield — having to take days off to open factories and turn up at parties and chat up important clients before a big class. Jake knew he didn’t have the easy kind of charm or placid temperament to cope with such an invasion of his privacy. He was terrified of no longer being his own boss. It would be back to Brook Farm Riding School and Mrs. Wilton. If the sponsors owned the horses they might take them away, as Colonel Carter had taken Revenge.
More than anything he wanted to get a gold and beat Rupert. But now just as much, he wanted Helen, her cool, slender body and the extraordinary white-hot passion he inspired in her. When he was with the horses or the family he could switch off and forget about her. But at night the pain of longing came back more intensely than ever.
But, how the hell could he support two households? If Helen ran off with him, Rupert would see she was left penniless. Even if she got a writing job she’d have to employ someone to look after the children (if Rupert let the children go, which was unlikely). And if Jake walked out on Tory he would lose the children, Fen, and the Mill House, not to mention Tory and her incredible backup. He’d have to find another owner. And how would he divide the horses? Would he get Macaulay’s front half, Tory the back, like a pantomime horse?
Finally, Helen worried him. She said she was prepared to live on nothing, but she’d had six years with Rupert, with daily women to clean her beautiful house, nannies for the children, and gardeners to tend those exquisite flower beds, not to mention champagne and flowers at every four-star hotel she stayed at. How would she cope with poverty? She had compared herself with a potted plant, wilting unwatered in a greenhouse, while the rain fell on the sweet earth outside. But equally, how would a pot plant fare when faced with the winds and snows of the outside world?
He had tried to discuss this with Helen, but she was so insecure she always misconstrued this as backing off. None of this had he thought through when, tanked up with champagne, he had posted her the blue silk handkerchief from Dublin.
On the day before he left for Los Angeles, as if in answer to a prayer, he had a telephone call from Garfield Boyson, who owned a huge video empire. Boyson was amiable, intensely tough, a lifetime lover of horses, and rich enough not to be worried about money.
“I’m driving through your village at lunchtime,” said his crackling voice from a car telephone. “How about a drink?”
“Too busy,” said Jake. “We’re leaving tomorrow.”
“You’ll not be too busy for this,” said Boyson. “See you at the Stirrup Cup in half an hour.”
Sloping off to take leave of Mrs. C-B, thought Fen sourly, as Jake disappeared without explanation. Village boys stopped to admire Boyson’s gleaming Rolls-Royce, his chauffeur nodding in the late August sunshine. Inside the bar a bench seat was tightly clamped round Boyson’s vast bulk. As he downed a treble whisky and clawed up potato crisps, his eyes, almost entirely hidden by rolls of flesh, were shrewd and kindly.
“Hello, lad, what’d you like?”
“Tomato juice. I’m working,” said Jake pointedly. He lit a cigarette.
“You should give up that habit,” said Boyson. “L.A.’s lousy for people with bad chests.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Worcester sauce?” asked the barmaid. “Oh, it’s you, Jake. Didn’t see you come in. How’s it going?”
“Spare,” said Jake.
The barmaid looked at the wall where one of Macaulay’s World Championship rosettes was proudly hung.
“Hope we get one from Los Angeles to join it,” she said.
Jake turned to Boyson. “Well, I’m sure you didn’t ask me here to tell me to give up smoking.”
Boyson laughed fatly. “I didn’t. Sit down, lad. I’ve watched your career for some time. Admired your guts, the way you fought back. Admire that sparky sister-in-law of yours.”
“Men tend to.” Unsmiling, Jake looked at his watch.
“Rupert’s right about you,” said Boyson. “Said you were as short on charm as you were on inches.”
“Thanks,” said Jake, draining his glass and getting to his feet.
“Sit down,” said Boyson, waving a fat ringed hand. “One thing I don’t want is a PR man. I’ll not ask you to chat up customers and open shops. Just like to make things easier.”
“What d’you get out of it?”
“Well, not to pussyfoot around. My name in front of your horses. Boyson Macaulay. Boyson Hardy. Doesn’t sound bad.”
“No!” said Jake.
“Wait a minute. For that I’d pick up your bills and your traveling expenses and give you a new lorry with my name on it. Noticed yours was falling to pieces at Crittleden. I’d even buy you some horses.”
“And when we start losing?”
“We’ll draw up a watertight three-year contract. All riders lose form, so do horses. I know all that. But you’ve always worked with second-class horses, making them into top-class ones. I’d like to see what you could do with a horse like Rocky or Clara.”
Boyson had ordered more drinks, exchanging Jake’s tomato juice for a large whisky. Jake drained it without noticing.
“You’d start ordering me about, expecting me to ride your way.”
“I wouldn’t. I might argue with you occasionally, but you’d be the boss. I don’t expect you to tell me how to run my company.”
“What sort of terms were you thinking about?”
“About seventy-five grand a year, and extra of course for the box and any horses.”
