Riders

25

The moment Billy got back he rang the news desk at Janey’s paper, to be told that she was away. Her interview with Jack Nicholson had taken longer than expected — Billy wondered miserably what form it had taken — and she was expected back sometime that week.

Now it was the fifth day of the Horse of the Year show and there was no sign of her. He must have passed the competitors’ board fifty times a day in the hope of a message. Every time he saw a tawny mane of hair in the crowd his stomach disappeared. His fears that she’d been nice to him only because she wanted some good quotes were multiplied when he talked to Joanna Battie and Dudley Diplock.

“Did they know her?” he asked.

“ ’Course I do,” said Joanna. “She’s her paper’s star writer, hang gliding one week, going into battle in a tank the next, interviewing Prince Charles the next. Pretty high-powered stuff.”

“Very pretty,” said Billy.

“Very,” said Dudley with a wolfish laugh. “Puts herself about by all accounts. Fleet Street claims she got to the top on her back.”

“On her front,” said Joanna. “Janey’s much too liberated to accept the missionary position.”

Billy felt quite sick. “Are you sure?”

“Well, let’s say she’s a bloody good journalist and, like most of them, she’s not too particular how she gets her information. They pay her well. I reckon she’s on twenty thou a year, don’t you, Joanna?”

After a sleepless night, Billy talked to Rupert as they exercised the horses. Rupert was reassuringly outraged.

“For God’s sake! Remember the things they’ve said about you and me in the past, even implying we’re a couple of fags. You know it’s all fairy tales. They make it up to excite themselves. Christ, Revenge is sluggish. I’m going to have to nail up his box during the day to stop the public stuffing him with goodies.”

At that moment Humpty Hamilton came waddling past in a pale blue quilted waistcoat. “Hi, Sweet William,” he said, and waddled on, roaring with laughter.

Next to come by was Driffield. “Hello, great lover,” he sneered. “Seen the paper?”

Finally, as Billy was handing The Bull back to Tracey, Lavinia rode into the practice ring. “Hello, Sweet William,” she said, an acid note creeping into her voice. “You have made a conquest.”

Heart thumping, Billy ran to the newsstand.

“Hi, Sweet William,” said the man behind the counter, handing him a newspaper. “You’ve boosted my sales so much this morning you can have it for free.”

Billy retired behind a pillar. Janey’s piece was in the middle, opposite the leader page, with a huge heading “Sweet Sweet William” and a picture of Billy taken from an extremely flattering angle.

“When I went to see Billy Lloyd-Foxe,” Janey had written, “I took him a bunch of freesias. They should have been sweet Williams, since he is easily the nicest man I have ever met.” Then there was a lot of guff about his Jean-Paul Belmondo looks, and his clinching the team silver and winning the King’s Cup. Then it ended:

“We all know of his sympathy with animals, his brilliant horsemanship, and his ability to smile even in the bitterest defeat. Last year he admits he was heartbroken when his long-standing girlfriend, Lavinia Greenslade, married French hearthrob Guy de la Tour. Since then the only female in Billy’s life has been Mavis, his blond mongrel, who follows him everywhere, bestowing a slit-eyed expression of marked disapproval on any lady intruder.

“Billy lives with Helen and Rupert Campbell-Black, and his soothing, easygoing presence must be a great help in sustaining a somewhat volatile marriage. But Billy, with characteristic modesty, says he owes everything to Rupert (including money, he adds with a smile). He also has the highest praise for his chef d’equipe, martinet Malise Gordon, and of course The Bull — who eats the fruit out of the Pimm’s jug — with whom he jumped a final clear in the team event to clinch the silver for Britain. He may only have got a silver, but he’s got a heart of gold. I haven’t heard a bad word about him on the circuit. After seven hours in his company, all I can say is please give me back my heart, Billy. Our offices are open to accept parcels twenty-four hours a day.”

Billy read it incredulously over and over and over again. It was a love letter. He rushed to the telephone. There was still no answer at Janey’s flat. The Features desk said she’d got back last night and was racing to finish the Nicholson piece and had probably switched off her telephone. Billy couldn’t bear it. He had to see her. He told Rupert he was going into London for a couple of hours.

“Well, don’t be too long,” said Rupert, grinning. “You’re obviously better in the sack than I thought. And what’s this about my ‘somewhat volatile marriage’? What does ‘volatile’ mean — that I’m always out on the tiles?”

Billy took a taxi to Janey’s flat. It was a long time before she answered. Compared with her glamorously tawny appearance before, she looked pale and black under the eyes and rather unadorned like a sitting room the day after the Christmas cards are taken down.

“Billy,” she said, “how lovely to see you.” She didn’t sound as though it was at all.

“I’m sorry to barge in, but I’ve missed you like hell.”

She backed away nervously. “Darling, I’m terribly sorry, I can’t stop. The office want Jack Nicholson by tomorrow lunchtime, so I’ll have to work all night.”

“Surely you can stop for five minutes.”

“I can’t, honestly. I’ve got complete brain freeze, I’ve just got to crack it.”

“The piece you wrote about me, it was so kind, and ludicrously flattering.”

She smiled, looking suddenly more like the Janey who’d come down to Penscombe. “Did they run it today? They must have held it back for the Horse of the Year. I filed the copy weeks ago.”

And perhaps she feels quite differently about me now, thought Billy. He was dying to ask about Jack Nicholson. Instead he said, “It’s the last night tomorrow. Will you have dinner with me afterwards?”

“I don’t know. I’m supposed to be dining with some MP as a preliminary interview. What time d’you finish?”

“About eleven, but I’m off to Washington, New York, and Toronto on Monday, and I must see you.”

“You must go now, but I really will try and make it tomorrow.”

“I’ll leave a ticket at the gate. Janey, I love…”

But she’d shut the door on him. Billy was filled with black despair. She hadn’t seemed pleased to see him, dismayed in fact, and rather guilty and not looking him in the eye. If she’d filed that copy weeks ago, she was bound to have met someone else in America.

Back in her flat, Janey Henderson felt equally suicidal. Her vanity wouldn’t allow her to explain to Billy that she’d already been home for forty-eight hours on a crash diet, in order to look ravishing for him on Saturday night. He’d caught her at the worst possible moment — she’d been writing and hadn’t got dressed or had a bath or used deodorant for two days. Her body had that rank smell of fear and sweat that always drenched her when she was wrestling with a piece. She was convinced her breath smelt from her all-meat diet. She hadn’t shaved her legs since she’d last seen him, her hair was filthy, she was sure she had dandruff and she couldn’t meet his eyes because he’d caught her with unplucked eyebrows and no makeup. Also her ginger cat, Harold Evans, had been sick in the bathroom that morning and she hadn’t had time to clean it up. The flat looked a tip because her cleaner had walked out while she was away and the neighbor who’d come to feed Harold Evans had failed to change his litter box — hardly a lovers’ bower.

Janey knew she ought to go back and wrestle with Jack Nicholson. Instead she reread the proof of the piece on Billy. She had actually lied to him and had only telephoned the corrections through the previous night. It really was rather good, and he looked even more gorgeous just now in a battered Barbour. He must have masses of girls after him. She mustn’t seem too keen. She’d lusted and lost too often over the last ten years. She was, in fact, twenty-nine. That was another lie she’d told Billy. Would he ever trust her when he found out?

Janey Henderson came from a respectable upper-middle-class family. Her father had been in advertising, her kind easygoing mother had stayed at home, brought up the children and encouraged them to have careers, but never taught them how to do anything around the house. Janey, the baby of the family, had been the most successful. She possessed a strong sex drive which led her into trouble, but was bourgeois enough to be paranoid about being talked about. Used to adoration at home, she expected it from her lovers and in order to keep them happy she would tell lies and, when they rumbled her and grew angry, she tended to move on to another one, who could be fooled for a few weeks that she was absolutely perfect. Her father doted on her and, if she had any troubles with landladies or bills or angry bosses, she’d run to him. In the old days he had always bailed her out, but since his advertising agency had folded in the economic collapse of 1973, he suddenly found himself very short of money.

Janey Henderson was attracted to power. As a journalist, she had racketed around and met endless stars. She had mixed with the rich and famous and longed to live like they did. She was a good, if sloppy, writer, an inspired listener who was able to sift out the minutia that mattered. A teenager in the swinging sixties, she had enjoyed the fruits of the permissive society and benefited in her career from the rise of the women’s movement. She had also seen her girlfriends trying to do their own thing, raising their consciousness and their husbands’ blood pressure, finally walking out on these husbands and then being absolutely miserable as single parents. At twenty-nine, Janey realized there was nothing one needed more than a good man. She wanted to settle down and have children. She had seen Rupert’s beautiful house and assumed that servants and land and unlimited Pimm’s were all the normal perks of a show-jumper’s life. Janey also longed to be a more serious writer. If she married Billy, she could be more selective, producing one piece a month instead of two or three a week, and could even write books.

Janey Henderson pondered on these things. The sight of the blank page in the Olivetti and the mess in the flat brought her back to earth. There was no MP to be interviewed tomorrow night. If she had to hand in copy at lunchtime, she reckoned it would take her till late evening to clean the flat and make herself look ravishing.

Harold Evans was weaving furrily round her ankles, demanding lunch.

“I must take you away from all this squalor, Harold,” said Janey, picking him up. “How would you like to live in Gloucestershire?”

Back at Wembley, Billy was inconsolable, despite the fact that Rupert had good news of a possible sponsor. “He approached me to test the water. I said you’d need at least £50,000 a year to stay on the road.”

“What a lot of money — what does he make?”

“Cat food.”

“The Bull won’t have to eat it, will he?”

“No, but he might have to change his name to Moggie Meal Charlie, or something.”

“Christ, what’s this sponsor like?”

“Oh, frightful. Thatched hair, jangling initial bracelets, frilled duck egg blue evening shirts, firm handshakes, fake American accent, and calls you by your Christian name every second sentence.”

“What’s his name?”

“Kevin Coley. Rather suitable under the circs. Puts a lot of himself into his products.”

Billy grinned. “What’s in it for him?”

“Social mountaineering. He’s made his pile and now he wants upmarket fun and some smart friends. He thinks you have tremendous charisma.”

“Glad someone does,” said Billy gloomily. “He won’t much longer if The Bull goes on knocking down fences.”

“I think you should talk to him,” said Rupert. “Fifty grand a year’s not to be sniffed at. Your mother’s not likely to croak for at least twenty years. And I thought you wanted to marry that girl?”

“After today, I don’t think she’ll have me.”

Billy was sure that Janey wouldn’t turn up the following night. Even his horoscope was ambiguous: it warned Pisces subjects to watch out for fireworks, and make travel plans in the evening.

It had been the Germans’ Wembley. Hot-foot from the Olympics and their double gold, they had jackbooted their way through the week, winning every big class except the Sunday Times Cup, which had gone to Rupert. On the last night the crowd was really hungry for a British victory. The big class was the Victor Ludorum, a two-round competition in which riders with double clears jumped off against the clock for £6,000. Rupert jumped clear in the first round and so did Billy, although he was very lucky. The Bull rapped every fence and had the upright swinging back and forth like a metronome on lente, but he didn’t bring it down and the crowd went wild.

They had given him and The Bull a colossal welcome whenever he’d come into the ring that week. But each time Dudley Diplock had announced them as “that great Olympic combination — Billy Lloyd-Foxe riding The Bull” the little horse had raised two hoofs at the commentary box and knocked up a cricket score. He was tired after a long season. Tonight, however, he felt more bouncy. “You’ve got to win,” Billy urged him, “to impress Janey, if she comes.”

Now Billy sat in the riders’ stand, biting his nails, watching Rupert jump his second round. Revenge was also a bit tired. He flattened twice and had eight faults at the combination and a brick out of the wall. As he came out of the ring, Rupert patted Revenge consolingly, determined to refute any charges of cruelty, knowing the television cameras were still on him.

Billy met him in the collecting ring.

“Just wait till I get this bugger back to his stable,” said Rupert. “I’m going to beat the hell out of him.”

“He’s had a long year,” protested Billy. “Think how well he did in the Sunday Times Cup.” He did hope the honeymoon between Rupert and Revenge wasn’t over.

As he mounted The Bull to warm him up over a couple of practice fences, he could hear Dudley Diplock waxing lyrical over “Ludwig’s second clear.”

“That’s that Dudley Moore,” said a fat woman who was leaning over the rail to her friend. “He’s done the commentary here for years.”

Billy felt desperately low; Janey was obviously not coming. His mind was a complete blank. He couldn’t remember the course, or how many strides there were between any of the fences. The Bull clouted the practice fence.

“For God’s sake, pick your bloody feet up,” snapped Billy with unusual irritation. The Bull looked martyred and limped a few paces. As Billy turned him to jump it again, he heard a voice calling: “Hello, William.”

And there she was. Her lovely hair all tortoiseshell and lionlike as it had been at Penscombe. She was wearing a black and gray striped silk rugger shirt with a white collar and very tight black trousers.

Billy found it impossible to wipe the silly grin off his face as he trotted across the collecting ring towards her. “You made it! God, that’s wonderful! And you look bloody marvelous. Was the MP furious you ditched him?”

“Livid.”

“I don’t blame him.”

“I heard Rupert’s out already,” she said. “I’ve just passed a stand absolutely hung with whips, spurs, boots, and strange leather devices, exactly like a tart’s store cupboard. I don’t know what you get up to in show jumping, really I don’t.”

Billy laughed.

Janey patted The Bull. “I’m sorry I was a bit offish yesterday, I’m always awful when I’m working.”

“Did you finish the piece?”

“Yes.” She shot him a sly look. “It wasn’t nearly as complimentary as the one about you.”

“Number Forty-three,” shouted the collecting ring steward. “Where’s Number Forty-three?”

“Billee, they’re calling you!” shouted Hans Schmidt.

“For the last time, Number Forty-three.”

“I think they’re calling you,” said Janey.

Billy came down to earth. “Oh my God, so they are. Don’t move, I won’t be long.”

“I want to watch you.”

“Stop coffeehousing,” said Rupert, “and get into the ring.”

“Oh, thank goodness. Rupe, this is Janey. Will you get her a drink and look after her till I get back?”

“How d’you do?” said Janey. “I hear you had two legs out of the combination. It sounds awfully rude.”

“Oh, please,” Billy prayed as he rode into the ring, “don’t let her fall for him.”

He must concentrate. But joy seemed to surge along the reins and The Bull bounced round the course rapping nothing and the crowd went berserk as Billy pulled off the only British double clear.

“Well done,” said Janey, who was sitting in the riders’ stand with Rupert, clutching a large vodka and tonic. “You were marvelous, and you got a bigger ovation than the Rolling Stones.” She giggled. “I asked Rupert who that fat man in the ring with a tape measure was. He said he’s the course builder. I said, how did he know he was coarse. You do have the most extraordinary terminology in show jumping. What on earth’s a rustic pole?” She’d obviously made a hit with Rupert, who generally didn’t like people taking the piss out of the sport.

There were six riders in the jump-off. Three Germans, Wishbone, Count Guy, and finally Billy. Ludwig went first and jumped a very fast clear. From then onwards, there were no clears until Hans Schmidt came in.

“They’re so controlled, those German horses, you’d never think they could motor,” said Janey.

“Look at his stride — twice as long as The Bull’s,” said Rupert.

Hans, incredibly, knocked two seconds off Ludwig’s time, cutting every corner.

“Billy won’t make it?” asked Janey.

“I don’t think so. The Bull simply isn’t fast enough.”

Hans came out, a broad grin on his round face. “Beat zat,” he said, as Billy rode into the ring.

“And here comes Billy Lloyd-Foxe on The Bull, our Olympic silver medalist riding for Great Britain,” said Dudley, trying to be heard over the cheers.

“Must be hell having to jump while you’re having a shit,” said Janey.

The cheers continued as The Bull circled, his fluffy noseband like a blob of shaving cream, cantering along on his strong little legs, bottom lip flapping, ears waggling, taking in the applause. Billy gave him a pat. He was a medieval knight jousting for Janey’s hand.

If he wins, everything’ll be all right and he’ll ask me to marry him, said Janey, crossing both fingers. As the bell rang the cheering started; as he rose to the first fence it increased, and it increased in a steady crescendo as he cleared each fence, riding for his life. As he turned for the last two fences, the double and then the huge wall, Billy glanced at the clock, realizing he was in with a chance. The cheer rose to a mighty roar and the whole crowd rose to its feet as one to bellow him home. The Bull was over the double and hurtled over the wall, nearly crashing into the side of the arena, before Billy could pull him up.

The ten thousand crowd turned to the clock. Billy turned around, putting his hands over his eyes. As he took them away a mighty roar took the roof off. He had won by a tenth of a second. The scenes that followed were worthy of a cup final. People were leaping over the stands into the arena, rushing forward to cheer and pat The Bull. Spectators were throwing hats, cushions, handbags into the arena.

Rupert looked at Janey and saw all her mascara had run.

“Wasn’t he wonderful?” she said.

“You do love him, don’t you?”

She nodded, getting out a paper handkerchief.

“Well, mind you look after him.”

Billy and The Bull got another deafening round of applause as they came into the ring to collect their rosette. Then the band played “Little White Bull,” and The Bull, very smug after all the attention, bucketed round the ring twice, deliberately keeping within the circle of the spotlight. Afterwards, Billy came up to see Janey. “You were so wonderful,” she said. “I’ve never been so proud in my life. What an absolutely sweet horse he is.”

From all sides, people were congratulating Billy, but he had eyes only for Janey. “Look, I’ve got to go back into the ring for the personality parade. Will you be all right? How did you get on with Rupert?”

“Great, but he’s not nearly as attractive as you.”

Billy blushed. “He must have been pulling his punches.”

The cavalcade that brings the Horse of the Year show to an end must be the most moving event in the equestrian calendar. Among the celebrities were little Stroller and two of the police horses who’d displayed exceptional bravery in an IRA incident, followed by ponies, hacks, and hunters, the heavy horses and, finally, the Olympic team. Then Malise, not without a tremor of emotion in his voice, read out Ronald Duncan’s beautiful poem: “To the Horse,” and Janey found herself in floods of tears again. What a wonderful, dashing, romantic, colorful world she was moving into, she thought, after three large vodka and tonics on an empty stomach.

As Billy came out to the collecting ring, a man came up to him whom he instantly recognized from Rupert’s description as Kevin Coley.

“Bill Lloyd-Foxe?” he said, pumping him by the hand. “Kev Coley.”

Billy was almost blinded by his jewelry.

“I think Rupe’s spoken about me.”

“Of course,” said Billy, trying not to laugh. “He was most impressed.”

“So was I, by tonight’s win. Great stuff, Bill, great stuff. I’m ready to talk terms. Why don’t we have dinner together?”

Billy’s heart sank. “Well, actually, I’ve got someone with me.”

“Bring her, too,” said Kev expansively. “My wife Enid’s up in the stands. The girls can chat while we talk business.”

Suddenly they were interrupted by an old lady, tears pouring down her face. “Oh, Mr. Lloyd-Foxe, I read in the paper you were thinking of turning professional. You won’t sell The Bull, will you?”

Billy smiled. “Of course not.”

“I’ve bought him some Polos.” She got a dusty packet covered in face powder out of her bag.

“Gosh, that’s terribly kind of you,” said Billy.

“Don’t you worry your head, ma’am,” said Kevin Coley. “If Bill turns professional, he’ll never have to sell The Bull.”

Billy found Janey in the lorry, repairing her face. Tracey had already hung the rosettes up on the string across the window.

“Darling, I cried my eyes out — it was so choke-making.” She mustn’t hug him too hard or her new trousers might rip.

“Sweetheart, do you mind if we go out to dinner with a man who wants to sponsor me?”

“No, yes, I do. I want to be alone with you and see the conquering hero come.” Putting her hand down, she touched his cock.

Suddenly Billy realized that if he married this wonderful girl, he could sleep with her every night for the rest of his life.

“We can do that later on,” he said. “It just means that if I pull this deal off, I can ask you to marry me.”

Rupert joined them, wearing a dark suit, and smelling of aftershave.

“I hear you’ve met up with Medallion Man,” he said, then in an undertone to Billy, “Do you mind frightfully saying that I had dinner with you all tonight if Helen asks? I am sure she won’t.”

“Where are you off to?” said Billy.

“Well, do you remember a little unfinished business called Tiffany Bathgate?” and added, as Billy looked disapproving, “and anyway, I thought I’d make myself scarce, in case you and Janey wanted to use the lorry later.”

At four o’clock in the morning, Billy lay in Janey’s arms in the double bed in her flat. They had just made love and he was thinking how beautifully she kept the place. There were clean dark blue sheets on the bed, and three bunches of freesias on the bedside table had driven out any smell of cat. What a glorious, talented creature she was.

“Ouch” he said, trying not to wake her as Harold Evans kneaded his stomach.

“Billy,” she said, “there’s something I’ve got to tell you. Promise you won’t hate me for it?”

Billy’s heart sank. The lovely iridescent soap bubble was about to burst. “I’m twenty-nine, not twenty-four,” she went on.

Billy started to laugh with sheer relief. “Is that all? I wouldn’t have minded if you’d said forty-four. Are you sure you won’t find it infra dig to marry a younger man?”