“I don’t read enough,” said Billy apologetically. “Helen, Rupert’s wife, is always accusing us of being intellectual dolts.”
“You can read the instructions on a Pimm’s bottle and that’s enough for me.”
“Shall we go outside?”
Janey considered. She didn’t want to get flushed and shiny.
“We can pull the bench into the shade,” said Billy.
“They wanted me to bring a photographer but I said it would cramp my style.” The way her eyes wandered over his face and body when she said it made him feel hot and excited.
She sat in the shade, Billy in the sun. They talked about The Bull.
“Honestly, I worship the ground he trots on,” said Billy. “He’s such a trier and he’s got such a beautiful mouth.”
“So have you,” said Janey.
Billy didn’t know what to do with his mouth now.
“Is it true that you’re thinking of turning professional?”
Billy nodded. “I’ve had my shot at the Olympics, so there’s no excuse really not to. I can’t go on living with Rupert forever. I’m twenty-seven now.”
“Don’t you find it difficult, the three of you?”
“Easy for me; must be hard for them sometimes.”
“They don’t mind you coming in late, bringing back girls?”
“Haven’t been many of them lately.”
Janey looked at him until he dropped his eyes.
“What about Lavinia Greenslade?”
Billy filled up her glass before answering.
“I was very cut up when she married Guy. But at least I had something to get stuck into with the horses. Since we split up, I’ve had my best season.”
“Are you getting over her?”
Billy ate a piece of apple out of his Pimm’s. “Yup. I got over her in the Golden Lion about six weeks ago.”
“It was six weeks, three days to be exact.”
Billy sidled down the bench and took her hands. “I didn’t know how to find you. Every time anyone interviewed me in Colombia, all I wanted to say was that I’d got a message for the girl in the Golden Lion (you look a bit like a lion), and would she please come back. I spent more time thinking about you than worrying about the next day’s rounds.” Then an awful thought struck him. “You’re not married or engaged, are you?”
Janey shook her head. “The ash came out of the dress, by the way.”
Reluctantly, Billy let go of her hands. “Do you interview lots of people?”
“Robert Redford last week, Cassius Clay the week before that.” Billy felt quite faint with horror.
“You didn’t meet
They finished the Pimm’s and they talked and talked. Billy had never felt such a strong sexual attraction to anyone. She was so glowing and she had a special way of swiveling her eyes and gazing up at him from under her eyelashes that made him quite dizzy with longing.
It was so hot, they had lunch in the kitchen. At first he sat opposite her, then he came and sat beside her.
“Do you have hundreds of brothers and sisters?”
“Yes. I’m the youngest. They’re all married. My mother despairs of getting me off the shelf.”
“That’s ridiculous. How old are you?”
Janey paused for a second. “Twenty-four.”
Neither of them ate much lunch, but they finished one bottle of Muscadet and started on a second.
“I hope this piece is going to be okay,” sighed Janey. “My shorthand keeps misting over. How long have you lived here?” she asked.
“Since I was twenty-one, although before that I used to come here sometimes in the school holidays. I adored the place even then. If Rupert and I had fights, I used to wander off down the valley. There’s a secret glade with a pond where I used to look for a kingfisher.”
“What’s he like?”
“Rupert? Oh marvelous. I know him so well, it’s like a marriage.”
Janey put the top on her pen and, putting her notebook away, then said in a deceptively casual voice, “What’s his own marriage like, off the record?”
“Very happy,” said Billy firmly. He knew that journalists were always trying to catch him out over Rupert.
“Must be under terrible pressure, now she’s got a baby and can’t go everywhere with him, with girls mobbing him wherever he goes.”
“They’ve got it worked out, and if you met Helen, she’s so stunning, no one would want to wander from her. Anyway, it’s always a honeymoon whenever he comes home.”
Oh, dear, he hoped he hadn’t landed Rupert in it, but somehow he wanted to convince Janey that marriage to a show jumper wasn’t impossible.
“Can we go and see The Bull?”
“Can you ride?” said Billy, gathering up the fruit from the Pimm’s jug.
“I’ve tried, but I can’t stay on when they start running.”
Billy grinned. “I’ll teach you.”
They seemed to have spent an awfully long time over lunch. The sun was already dropping, shining into their eyes. The Bull was delighted with the Pimm’s fruit.
“Why don’t we go and look at your secret glade?” said Janey.
“All right,” said Billy. “Let’s leave your notebook in the tackroom. You’re not going to need it.”
There wasn’t a breath of wind, but the great heat of the day was beginning to subside; smoky gray ash trees seemed to shiver in the stillness. The cows were lying down and the young horses in the big field were trying to crowd into the shed to get away from the flies.
As they walked up the fields their hands occasionally brushed. Janey felt the corn stubble bristling against her sandals. As the path narrowed she moved in front. Billy admired the length of her smooth and tanned legs. The softness of her upper thighs, beneath the white shorts, made his throat go dry.
“I always come up here when I am very happy or when I am very sad — when I was dropped from the British team, when I was picked for the Olympics.”
Janey gave him another sidelong glance and picked a blackberry.
“Which do you feel now?”
“Not sure. That’s up to you.”
She didn’t answer. They had dropped down now to a little spring, crowded with forget-me-nots and pink campion, which had almost dried up, she noticed.
Unlike me, thought Janey, who could feel herself bubbling between her legs.
They came to a gate. On the right was a mossy old wall, skirting a poplar grove.
“Hell,” said Billy, looking down the path. “It’s overgrown with nettles. You’ll get stung,” he added, as Janey clambered over the gate. “I’ll carry you.”
“No,” squeaked Janey, pulling away from him.
If only she’d stuck to her diet last week and been down to her target nine stone, she’d have let him. But nine stone seven was too heavy; he’d rupture himself.
“We’ll go back,” said Billy reluctantly.
“No,” said Janey. “I need to see this enchanted glade where you seduced all those pony club groupies and Lavinia Greenslade.”
Billy, construing this as rejection, was suddenly cast down. She was coming here so she could get some good quotes. Janey ran down the path. Thirty yards down on the left she found a willow-fringed pool with its green banks completely secluded in the green gloom. She’d forgotten how much nettles hurt. “Ow, ow, ow,” she moaned, collapsing onto a bank, tears stinging her eyelids, white spots jumping up on her brown legs.
