Score!

‘Hasn’t the doctor told you to give up?’

‘He said cut down because it would cause me and Baby Rupert too much stress if I stopped completely.’

‘Don’t call it fucking Rupert.’

Tidy by nature, Isa was driven crackers by Tab pinching his jerseys, socks, razors, and CK One, his precious aftershave. As she drank more, she forgot more: to put out milk bottles and dustbins — but, worse still, for a jockey’s wife, she forgot telephone messages. Isa started putting all calls through his mobile and his bleeper, which made Tab even more paranoid about other women.

At Christmas everyone made an effort. As their daughter, Darklis, was in South Africa, Tory persuaded Jake to let her invite Isa and Tab to stay.

The Old Mill, which Tory had been given by her rich grandmother, was big, rambling and totally horse- orientated. The only paintings on the walls were of Jake or Isa’s horses, or of their various sporting achievements. There were scant carpets on the wooden floors, all the sofas and armchairs needed upholstering. Nor were the Lovells into central heating.

Outside were days of extraordinary beauty and bitter cold. The chill factor, because of the east wind from Siberia, was minus 16 and produced wonderful sunsets and sunrises, rose pink on the horizon above snowy fields.

Traditionally in racing yards, the grooms have Christmas Day off. It was a matter of pride for Jake to do the horses with Isa, just to show everyone that polio hadn’t got the better of him. Outside he noticed the wind had scattered ivy-mantled branches all over the fields, clearing out the dead wood. Like me, he thought, with a shiver.

The only way he could relieve his pain-racked leg and back was to soak in a boiling bath, but he returned home to find Tab had used all the hot water. He found her in the kitchen, hugging the Aga, clean, pale hair flopping over her ashen face, her long turquoise eyes angry and bloodshot. Exactly like her father, thought Jake savagely, and as capable of causing havoc.

Poor Tory, attempting to cook Christmas dinner for the family and the grooms, was also trying to get to know her daughter-in-law.

‘I have no idea how to change a nappy,’ Tab was saying disdainfully.

‘They use Velcro now. It’s as easy as putting a bandage on a horse,’ said Tory encouragingly.

Picking up Jake’s hatred, Tab escaped to pack her presents, stopping on the way upstairs to pinch Tory’s sellotape and a pile of newspapers because she’d forgotten to buy wrapping paper. The whole thing took ages because she kept stopping to read. There was a huge piece, in the Telegraph colour mag, about eventing stars destined for the next Olympics. Tab was not even mentioned, which made her feel more of a failure than ever.

Turning to the Sunday Times she found a lovely picture of Rupert and a piece saying how well he was doing. Tearing it out, she fought back the tears. The blue sky outside reminded her not of Mary’s robes, but of Rupert’s eyes. The bells pealed far more sweetly at Penscombe.

Remembering the mountains of presents, the banks of holly, the huge fires, Taggie’s goose, her parsnip puree, and the brandy round the Christmas pudding, which flamed longer than the Great Fire of London, Tab forgot the earth-shattering rows with which she and Rupert had disrupted the entire household. The last one had been because Rupert had only bought her a Golf GTi convertible for Christmas, instead of paying forty thousand for The Engineer, for which Rannaldini had forked out later in the year when he’d married her mother. God, she had taken her wonderful family for granted.

‘Can’t you ever forget about being a bloody Campbell-Black?’

Isa had walked in and caught sight of the piece in her hand. Sharon, stretched out on the bed, scattered receipts as she waved her tail.

‘Have you been ransacking my mother’s tights drawer?’

‘Hardly be tight on me,’ snapped Tab. She’d got so thin she could jump through the hoop of the sellotape hanging from the bedside table.

‘I was looking for a thick jersey,’ she went on, ‘which one certainly needs in this house. The only thing I could find was Pond’s Vanishing Cream. Your mother could start by using it on her hips.’

She thought Isa was going to hit her.

‘You been drinking?’

‘Of course not. I promised.’

Isa wasn’t sure. Like most drinkers, Tab went through three stages: clinging and filled with anxiety when she woke up, incredibly cheery after the first few slugs, then punchy and belligerent when she was coming down. It looked as though she’d reached the third stage. But he didn’t want to upset his mother, so he asked if Tab would come downstairs to open the presents.

‘The gritters are out,’ he added, gazing at the lights flashing along the horizon. ‘We’re in for a hard night.’

‘People use them on their teeth round here.’

The Lovells were frugal, short of money and had allotted one present to each person. Tory had gone to a lot of trouble to track down an early history of eventing in a second-hand-book shop for Tab. Isa had rather pointedly given Tab some scent called Quercus, so she wouldn’t nick his CK One any more, and a rather ugly gold locket.

‘I’m going to put your picture in one side,’ said Tab, hugging him, ‘and Sharon and The Engineer in the other.’

Used to Penscombe prodigality, where everyone received presents from every dog, horse and human, and in anticipation of a fat Christmas cheque from Rannaldini, Tab had rolled up with a crate of champagne and a side of smoked salmon for the Lovells. Her individual presents were less successful and all wrongly labelled. Tory opened a red fishnet stocking of dog treats, destined for Sharon, then some boxer shorts.

‘Sorry, they’re meant for Isa, although I suppose Sharon could wear them if she was a boxer not a Labrador.’

Isa, thinking of their bank account, grew increasingly tight-lipped as he opened a silver-topped whip, two beautiful dark blue cashmere jerseys, ‘because I’m always nicking yours’, and a camera, when he’d already got four.

Tab herself was desperately disappointed to have nothing from Rupert and, even more worryingly, no fat cheque from Rannaldini. Instead, he and Helen had given her a royal blue vase edged with gold and decorated with a pastoral scene.

‘Very pretty,’ said Tory.

‘Except Bussage picked it up at a car old-boot sale,’ said Tab furiously.

She was most excited about the present she’d got for Jake and Tory. She had taken a photograph of their ancient lurcher, Beetle, from Isa’s photograph album, and commissioned Daisy France-Lynch, a friend of Rupert’s, to paint from it an exquisite miniature. To her horror, Jake merely grunted and put it face down on the table.

‘Why are your parents so ungrateful?’ sobbed Tab as she watched Isa changing for dinner, thinking how ravishingly a dark suit became his wild black hair and pale gypsy face.

‘Why d’you do things without asking me?’ hissed Isa. ‘Beetle was the puppy my father bought for my mother, as a peace-offering because he loathed living with your mother, and he wanted to come back to Mum and he’d heard her dog had been run over. He found Mum in hospital, dying of a massive overdose because she couldn’t live without him either. They believe Beetle was the talisman that saved Mum and their marriage, and you have to go and give them a flaming painting of her.’

‘I didn’t know, I never thought,’ sobbed Tab.

‘You never do,’ snarled Isa, reaching for his aftershave.

She must have been drinking to have wrongly wrapped up all those presents. Then he twigged, as he realized he was slapping not CK One on his face but neat vodka.

Dinner was bearable because there was plenty of wine, Tory had cooked a delicious turkey, and as Isa and Tab were sitting at opposite ends of the table divided by the grooms no-one realized they were not speaking to one another.

The telephone had rung constantly: owners, jockeys, friends, Tory’s sister Fenella from America, Darklis from South Africa, all called to wish the Lovells happy Christmas. No-one rang Tab.

Tory found the silver bachelor’s button in her Christmas pudding, which caused lots of laughter. From silver