didn’t have a turkey red face that clashed with it, like Humpty.
Tory was putting Isa to bed. Wolf, the lurcher, sat on his curved tail, shivering on Jake’s suitcase, the picture of desolation. Normally he went with Jake to every show, but some sixth sense told him he was going to be left behind tomorrow.
Next minute Isa wandered in, in blue pajamas with a Womble on the front and a policeman’s helmet on his head which he wore all day and in bed at night. His left wrist was handcuffed to a large teddy bear. He was at the age when he kept acquiring new words, and copied everything Jake and Tory said.
“Daddy going hunting,” he announced, seeing the red coat.
“Not exactly,” said Jake. “I’m going away for a few days to Spain, and you must take care of Mummy.”
“Will you be back before Mummy gets her baby out? Will you bring me a present?”
Jake turned so he could look at the coat from the back. He wished he knew how hot it would be in Spain.
“What d’you want?”
“Nuvver lorry.”
“You’ve got about ten,” said Jake. “For Christ’s sake, don’t touch that briefcase.”
“What’s this?”
“Spanish money.”
“Where is Pain?” said Isa, ignoring Jake and spreading out the notes.
“Over the seas. I said
Normally he hated snapping at Isa, but last-minute nerves were getting to him.
“Daddy have a whicksey,” said Isa, who regarded a stiff drink as the cure to all grown-up ills, “and get pissed up.”
“I said
“Mummy’s crying,” said Isa.
Jake felt a burst of irritation. He felt guilty about leaving her, but what else could he do? She wanted him to get on; what the hell was she crying for? He found her in the bathroom bending her bulk down slowly to retrieve plastic ducks, boats, and sodden towels. Her swollen ankles were spilling over her slip-on shoes. She had had those shoes since he married her.
“What’s the matter?” he snapped.
“Nothing.” She concentrated on squeezing out a flannel.
“What the hell’s the matter? I can’t help going.” His guilt at leaving her made him speak more harshly than he’d meant to. “It’s not going to be much fun for me; fifteen hundred miles on the train in the blazing heat with two horses.”
It was part of the bargain of their marriage that she never clung to him or betrayed her desperate dependency.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I’m over the moon that you’re going. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.”
Her lip trembled. Jake put his arm round her, feeling the solid shape of the baby inside her, pressing against him. For a second she clung to him, lowering her guard.
“It’s just that I’m going to miss you so much.”
“It’ll go very quickly,” he said. “I’ll ring you the moment I get to Madrid.”
Next minute they heard a terrific banging, and Wolf barking. Looking out, they saw Tanya, obviously having to stand on a bucket, peering out of the tiny high tackroom window.
“Will someone come and rescue me? Your wretched son’s just locked me in.”
And yet next morning, getting up at first light, with the rising sun touching the willows and the pale gray fields, the Mill House looked so beautiful that Jake wondered how he could bear to leave it. Tanya had already been up for two hours getting the horses ready. She had even borrowed two milk churns from a nearby dairy to carry water, in case Jake ran out on the train journey.
“I’m sorry you’re not coming,” he said.
“You can take me next time.”
“If there is a next time,” said Jake, lighting a cigarette.
“Nervous?”
Jake nodded.
Africa heard Humpty’s lorry before Jake did. She had changed over the years, growing stronger, more muscular, and filling out behind the saddle. She was more demanding and less sociable, and could be moody and impatient, especially if she was in season. Now, aware that something was up, she darted to her half-door to look out, eyes bold, ears flattened, pawing at her straw, stamping with her forelegs. The other horses put their heads out of the boxes, ready to be jealous because they were not included in the trip. Only Sailor stayed in his box, calmly finishing off his feed. Sailor calmed Africa down. But Jake was her big love.
Both Tory and Tanya felt a stab of relief that Bridie, Humpty’s groom, wasn’t at all pretty. Plump, with mouse brown curls, she had a greasy skin and a large bottom.
Just my luck to be stuck for four days with that, thought Jake.
Inside the lorry they could see Humpty’s three horses, with the resplendent Porky Boy on the outside, coat gleaming like a conker. By comparison, Sailor, shuffling up the ramp, looked as though he was going on his last journey. At least Africa, in her dark beauty, whinnying and prancing up the ramp, slightly redeemed the yard.
“Well, I don’t think you need have any worries about Jake getting off with that,” said Tanya, as the lorry heaved its way over the bridge, rattling against the willow branches.
“The forecast’s awful,” Bridie told Jake cheerfully. “I’m afraid it’s going to be a terrible crossing.”
In fact the entire journey was a nightmare. The horse box moved like a snail. A storm blew up in midchannel and the boat nearly turned back. Jake spent the entire journey trying to calm the horses. The crossing took so long they missed the train at Dunkirk and had to wait twelve hours before they caught another one, which took them to the Spanish border quite smoothly. There they got into trouble with both French and Spanish customs, who took exception to Jake’s emergency passport. Jake, speaking no languages at all, and Bridie, who had only a few words of Spanish, found themselves shunted off to a siding for a day and a half, fast running out of food. Bridie, who was quite used to such delays, whiled the time away reading Mills and Boon novels and being chatted up by handsome customs officials who didn’t seem remotely put off by her size.
Jake nearly went crazy, pacing up and down, smoking packet after packet of cigarettes, trying to telephone England.
“If you’re abroad, there are always holdups,” said Bridie philosophically. “You’ll just have to get used to them.” He’s as uptight as a tick, that one, she thought. Any minute he’ll snap.
At last Jake got on to Tory, who managed to trace Malise in Rome, who pulled more strings and eventually arranged for them to take the next Madrid-bound train. In the ensuing wait, Jake started reading Mills and Boon novels, too, not realizing that only now was the real nightmare about to begin.
Their transport turned out to be cattle trucks, with Humpty’s three horses and Bridie in one, and Jake, Africa, and Sailor in another. There were no windows in the trucks, just air vents and a sliding door. “Porky Boy won’t like this,” said Bridie. “He’s used to a light in his box.”
After lots of shunting and banging back and forth, until every bone in Jake’s body was jarred, they were then hitched to a Spanish passenger express. Once the train started there was no communication with the outside world. No one to talk to, just total blackness and occasional flashes as stations flew past. The whiplash effect was appalling. Jake knew exactly what it was like to be a dry martini shuddering in a cocktail shaker.
As they slowed down outside a big station, Jake heard crashing and banging from Bridie’s truck next door.
“Porky Boy’s gone off his head,” she yelled. “I can’t hold him still enough to dope him.”
Risking his life and eternal abandonment in the middle of Spain, Jake leapt out of his truck and ran along to Bridie’s, only making it just in time, and narrowly avoiding being crushed to death by a maddened Porky Boy. Somehow, with the flashlight between his teeth, he managed to fill the syringe, jab it into the terrified plunging animal, and cling on, soothing and talking to him, until he calmed down.
Bridie was tearful in her gratitude. Frantic about Africa and Sailor, Jake then had to wait until the milky white light of morning revealed rolling hills, dotted with olive trees, flattening out to the dusty, leathery plains around
