Riders

searching for new ones. If he was at home he was training horses or selling them on. Horses took over his life, so determined was he not to turn professional.

Podge traveled with him, adoring, satisfying his physical needs, suffering but not sulking if something better took his fancy. And on the rare occasions he was back in Gloucestershire, there was Hilary, ranting, cantankerous, and insatiable, but exerting a horrible fascination over him.

After the party for Janey and Billy, Helen retreated into herself, becoming more and more house-proud, “spending her time rubbing female fingerprints off Rupert,” said Janey. Helen spent a great deal of money on clothes and at the hairdresser’s, and did a lot for charity. Hilary didn’t help. For her own good reasons, she kept urging Helen to walk out on Rupert.

“You are a talented writer, inhibited by a fascist pig — virtually a one-parent family. What support does he give you, looking after Marcus?” she demanded.

“Unlimited funds,” Helen had to admit truthfully.

“Our parents’ generation sacrificed their careers for marriage,” went on Hilary. “You mustn’t make such sacrifices. It is impossible to be happily married, a good mother, and have a career.”

Helen hoped she was a good mother. She was certainly an adoring one. Marcus was walking now and his first word was “Mummy.” And he had several teeth. He had grown into a beautiful child, shy, with huge solemn eyes, and a riot of Titian curls which Rupert was always urging Helen to cut. Marcus was wary of Rupert, who was not amused by jammy fingers on clean white breeches, or by the fact that Marcus screamed his head off if ever Rupert put him onto a horse. Calm and sunny when his father was away, Marcus picked up the vibes from Helen and became whiny and demanding on his return.

Another bone of contention was the dogs. Having read articles in The Guardian, Helen was terrified Marcus would catch some obscure eye complaint from them. She wanted them kept outside. Rupert flatly refused. The dogs had been there before she had, he pointed out coldly. In fact, since Marcus was born, he reflected, the dogs were really the only things pleased to see him when he came home. Both he and Helen festered inside with a sense of grievance.

Billy was saddened by the increased deterioration in Rupert’s marriage, and discussed it at length with Janey. One hot evening at the end of July, on the eve of their departure for Aachen they lay in bed at Penscombe sharing a bottle of Moet.

“How on earth,” said Janey, “can anyone as beautiful as Helen be so uptight? If I had those kind of looks…”

“You do,” said Billy, snuggling up against the spongy cushion of her bottom, feeling for her breasts.

“D’you think I’d look nice with my hair up, like Helen?” asked Janey.

“I’d rather you shaved your bush.”

“D’you think they’ll split up?”

“No. I think underneath they still love each other. Besides, Helen’s too scared of the outside world, and Rupert doesn’t believe in divorce. Marriage is for children, and having someone to run your house. You get your fun elsewhere.”

“I hope you don’t feel like that!”

“No,” said Billy, sliding his hands down over the smooth folds of her belly.

Janey pressed her stomach in. “I must lose weight. Do you think he’s gone off her physically?”

“Hard to tell. He nearly killed an Italian diplomat who made a pass at her a couple of years ago. She’s one of his possessions; he’s very territorial.”

“Do you think he’s good in bed?”

“Cock like a baseball bat. Used to bat bread rolls across the room with it when we were at school.”

“Lucky Helen.” Janey sat up, excited at the thought.

“Am I big enough for you?” asked Billy anxiously. Janey climbed on top of him, holding on to the brass bedstead, causing frightful creaking. “Quite big enough. Look how good I am at rising at the trot.”

28

Hilary, in fact, was Rupert’s first serious affair since he had met Helen, and it was a complete love-hate relationship. Despite her protestation that all men were beasts, Hilary herself was an animal in bed — insatiable, almost a nymphomaniac. She didn’t bathe enough, she was a slut, she had a bad temper, and Rupert had to keep kissing her to shut her up, and later cut her nails himself to stop her lacerating his back. He detested her hypocrisy in still going on being a friend to Helen.

It was the one affair about which he never boasted to Billy, knowing how appalled Billy would be. Making love to Hilary was like eating a pork pie when you were desperately hungry, then discovering by the date on the discarded wrapping that it should have been eaten a month before.

“If you ever breathe a word about this to Helen I’ll throttle you,” he frequently warned her, and she knew he wasn’t joking. This, however, did not prevent her from rocking the boat. The night before Rupert was due to leave for Aachen he’d stood her up and she had rung up Penscombe in a rage, screaming at Rupert down the telephone. Rupert, who was in bed with Helen at the time, reading his horoscope in Harper’s, held the receiver to his ear for a minute, then said calmly, “Have, a word with Helen about it. She’s just here.” And Hilary was forced to pull herself together and issue an impromptu invitation for Helen and Rupert to come to a dinner party in three weeks’ time, which meant she had to go to all the expense of giving one.

For Hilary, despite her ranting, was mad about Rupert and grew increasingly strident as he showed no inclination to move in with her. Part of the fascination for him was that they saw so little of each other, perhaps a couple of hours a month.

Hilary was sure she could nail him if they had a little more time together. While Rupert was in Aachen at the end of July, she flew out to Germany, leaving the children with the long-suffering Crispin. Her excuse was that she needed to be alone to paint. After Aachen, Rupert sent Podge home with Billy and the horses, saying he was off horse-hunting and would be home in a day or two. He had been very short-tempered with Podge all week, because he felt guilty and nervous about Hilary coming out. Together, he and Hilary drove to a hotel in the Black Forest, chosen by Hilary. Their stay was a disaster. Having screwed her, Rupert found it a nightmare to have to make conversation with her at dinner, or walk with her in the forest, or be greeted by her carping, rather common voice when he woke in the morning. After forty-eight hours, they had a mighty row and returned home on separate planes.

Podge, meanwhile, had returned home twenty-four hours earlier with Billy and Janey to find England in the grip of a drought. Day after day the sun blazed down; young trees and flowers withered; Penscombe’s green valley turned yellow; the streams dried to a trickle; leaves were turning. In Gloucestershire people were forbidden to water the garden or wash their cars, and there was talk of standpipes and water rationing.

When they got back, Janey and Billy collapsed into bed for sixteen hours to get over the journey. But Podge and Tracey still had to get up at six next morning after four hours’ sleep, because the horses had to be looked after. When a telephone message came through that Rupert was coming back that evening, Podge redoubled her efforts. Usually, to reestablish his ascendancy as master of the house and the yard, he came home in a picky mood, criticizing everything she’d done and then biting her head off for sulking. By late afternoon, the relentless heat showed no sign of letting up. Most of the horses were inside to avoid the flies, and were let out at night. Arcturus, a gray Irish-bred stallion, was Rupert’s latest acquisition. He showed potential, but had blotted his copy book by jumping sloppily at Aachen. Wearing only a black bikini and espadrilles, her sweating hair in a ponytail, Podge chattered away to him as she strapped his dappled coat to firm up his muscles.

“Bugger off, sweetheart,” she said, as Arcturus nudged her lovingly in the back. “Your master’s coming home tonight, and he’ll want you looking lovely. Hope he’s cheered up and not cross with us anymore, Arcy. You didn’t mean to hit that last triple, and I didn’t mean to bugger up the map-reading on the way out. He can be ’orrible, Arcy. If he wasn’t so lovely when he was being lovely, I don’t s’pose we’d put up with the ’orrible bits.”

“I don’t expect you would,” said a voice behind her, “but I’m in one of my lovely moods today.”