Rivals

you some fudge.’

‘Thank you,’ said Tab, looking slightly mollified. ‘Can I have a bit now?’

‘I don’t see why not. I like your puff-ball skirt. I wanted to get one, but my knees are far too knobbly.’

‘Mummy says hers are, too,’ said Tab. ‘Perhaps they’re not suitable for grown-ups.’

Stroking the dogs, Taggie sat down on one of the stone seats inside the porch.

‘What’s your name again?’ said Tabitha.

‘Taggie. It’s really Agatha, isn’t that awful? Tabitha’s so much nicer. My parents call me Tag, sometimes, which sounds just like Tab, doesn’t it? I expect when Marcus shouts Tab we’ll both go charging into the kitchen to see what he wants and bump into each other in the doorway.’

Tabitha stared at her consideringly, and suddenly she smiled.

‘And you’re nine and a quarter?’ said Taggie.

‘Yes,’ sighed Tab, pushing her blonde hair out of her eyes. ‘Can’t you see my wrinkles?’

Taggie giggled. ‘Still, it’s awfully young to be in the Mounted Games. Were you the youngest?’

‘Yes,’ said Tab. ‘If you come back to Warwickshire with us tonight you can see Biscuit. We’ve got a foal here. Would you like to come and see it?’

‘Yes, please,’ said Taggie.

The front door opened; it was Marcus. ‘Hullo,’ he said. ‘Daddy wants to know where you’ve got to.’

‘She’s talking to me, stupid,’ said Tab. ‘She’s brought you some fudge.’

‘Tag,’ bellowed Rupert from the kitchen, ‘where are you?’

‘Here,’ said Tab and Tag in unison. Then they both looked at each other and burst out laughing.

Taking Taggie’s hand, Tabitha dragged her into the kitchen. ‘Can she come back to Warwickshire with us this evening and see Biscuit?’ said Tabitha.

Rupert, who was drinking black coffee and reading the racing pages of the Sunday Times, looked surprised.

‘Of course she can. I thought you’d kidnapped her.’

‘She’s brought us fudge, and carrots for Biscuit, and a big bottle of cough mixture,’ said Tabitha, unpacking the carrier bag.

‘It’s sloe gin,’ said Taggie, blushing. ‘I made it yesterday. You mustn’t drink it for three months.’

‘Thank you, angel,’ said Rupert, kissing her on the cheek. ‘I hope I don’t have to wait that long for you,’ he murmured in an undertone.

‘Come on, Taggie,’ said Tabitha impatiently. ‘I thought you wanted to see the foal. This fudge is smashing.’

They had lunch in Cheltenham in an up-market hamburger bar. The children, who insisted on sitting on either side of Taggie, had huge milkshakes. Rupert, who complained he had alcohol shakes, ordered a carafe of red.

‘That jersey suits you,’ he said approvingly to Taggie. ‘How d’you manage to keep it out of Maud’s clutches?’

Taggie blushed. ‘I slept with it under my pillow.’

‘We’re doing a “Messiah” at the end of term,’ announced Tabitha, sucking air noisily from the bottom of her milkshake. ‘There are going to be two trumpets and a drum, and real fathers in the chorus. I’m in the altos. They’re much naughtier because they’re mostly boys, silly twits.’

‘D’you like singing?’ asked Taggie.

‘No. Mrs Brown takes us. She’s just got married. She takes us for history too. She was reading a book called Improving your Home in class this week.’

‘She was reading a book about drains in our class,’ said Marcus.

‘And that’s what I pay your school fees for,’ grumbled Rupert. ‘I wish they’d organize a sponsored walk to Save the Parents.’

Having ordered, he looked across at Taggie, who was talking to Marcus about conkers.

‘We used to roast them slowly in the oven to harden them up.’

‘We soak them in vinegar,’ said Marcus.

‘My sister Caitlin used to put them in the hot cupboard and they always fell down behind the boiler and went mouldy. We’ve got masses at The Priory if you want any more, but I expect you’ve got hundreds already.’

Christ, she’s sweet, thought Rupert, noticing the way the grey cashmere moulded the full breasts.

‘Mary had a little lamb and surprised the midwife,’ said Tabitha to her father.

‘Really,’ said Rupert absent-mindedly.

‘Mary had a little lamb and surprised the midwife. It’s a joke.’

‘Ha, ha,’ said Rupert, filling up Taggie’s glass.

‘Why d’you always say ha ha and not mean it? Can I have a packet of Frazzles?’

‘No,’ said Rupert. ‘Here’s your lunch.’

‘Can I have punk hair like Cameron?’ said Tabitha, picking bits of mushroom out of her salad and putting them round the edge of her plate.

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I don’t like short hair.’

‘You’ve got very nice hair,’ said Marcus to Taggie, blushing scarlet as he bit into his hamburger.

‘Yes,’ agreed Rupert. ‘She has.’

Tabitha gazed dreamily into space. ‘Mrs Bodkin must have slept with Mr Bodkin an awful lot of times.’

‘What on earth makes you think that?’ asked Rupert in amazement.

‘She told me she’d had four miscarriages,’ said Tab.

Taggie didn’t dare look at Rupert. She thought she had never been happier in her life. Suddenly the most ordinary things — a hamburger smothered in tomato ketchup, the mural of the village street round the wall, with its milk cart and postman — were illuminated because she was with Rupert and these adorable children.

‘Everything all right, Meester Campbell-Black?’ asked the Manager.

‘Perfect,’ said Rupert. ‘Could we have another carafe of red?’

‘I would like to congratulate you,’ went on the Manager, looking round rapturously at Marcus, Tab and Taggie. ‘I never knew you haff three such beautiful children.’

42

After lunch, they went for a walk in Rupert’s woods. It was ridiculously mild. Insects moved leisurely in the rays slanting through the thinning beech trees, like specks of dust caught in the light from a projector. Birds sang drowsily, orange leaves drifted down on to already orange paths. The squirrels, stupefied by the sun, were fooling around on the ground instead of gathering nuts.

‘What are you singing at school?’ asked Taggie.

‘“Green grow the rushes-oh,”’ said Tab.

‘I’ll sing you three-oh,’ sang Marcus.

‘What is your three-oh?’ sang back Tab.

‘Three for the rivals, Two, two the lily-white boys, Clothed all in green-o,’ replied Marcus, his pure treble echoing through the soaring cathedral of beech trunks. Then both children took up the chant:

‘One is one and all alone, And ever more shall be so.’

‘Lovely,’ sighed Taggie.

‘Three for the rivals sounds like Corinium, Venturer and Mid-West,’ said Rupert.

He used up a couple of reels of film, then, exhausted after a strenuous week at Blackpool, fell asleep under a chestnut tree, while Taggie played games with the children.

‘D’you know,’ she said, drawing them away down the ride so they wouldn’t wake Rupert, ‘that every time you