Riders

44

Back in the lorry, Dino peered unenthusiastically into the fridge. “One black avocado, half a can of beans, a pork pie that ought to be on superannuation. You have two choices,” he said to Fen. “You can cry yourself to sleep, right, or come out to dinner with me. I’m starving.”

“I’m not hungry and I ought to ring Jake.”

“Sarah called him. He said, what the hell were you doing risking Hardy’s neck, then exhausting him, showing off in that double lap of honor.”

Fen pulled a face. “And that’s all the bloody praise I get.”

Dino took her to an Italian restaurant off High Street, Kensington, which stayed open late. Outside, Fen could see dusty, yellowing plane trees fretted by raindrops, and lovers under pulled-down umbrellas hurrying to catch the last tube. Imprisoned in Wembley, with its heat, airlessness, and tensions, she’d forgotten an outside world existed. At the next-door table a couple were holding hands. Taking in the merry din, the bottles of chianti, the photographs of the Colosseum on the wall, the solicitous waiters, Fen was reminded of the night in Rome with Billy, when her face was all bruised and he’d fed her risotto with a spoon. She wanted him so badly it took her breath away.

“What are you thinking about?” demanded Dino.

“That I ought to be in the intensive care unit, not wasting your money.”

“It is my money,” said Dino, grabbing the menus. “I’ll order for you.”

“Grapefruit bolognese’ll do me fine,” said Fen, emptying half a glass of wine in one gulp.

“How come you speak Italian so well?” she said when he’d finished ordering.

“Because I am Italian, I guess.”

“You’re American.”

“Only by adoption. I’m just a simple, lousy, Latin lover at heart.”

“Why have you streaked your hair gray?”

“Well, hearing you were heavily into older guys, like Billy, I figured I stood more of a chance if I looked more mature. Besides,” he grinned, “I thought it suited me.”

“It does,” admitted Fen. “You look too bloody glamorous for words, but it’s too early to make jokes about my broken heart.”

Dino put a suntanned, beautifully manicured hand over hers. “How come you didn’t acknowledge my telegram?”

“I wasn’t sure it was from you.”

“It said it was, didn’t it?”

“You don’t know the terrible thing Rupert did to me in Rome.”

Just for a second his hand tightened painfully on hers.

“No, not that,” said Fen. “I’d been packed off to bed ludicrously early and was sitting there, dying of boredom, when Rupert rang up, pretending to be you, and asked me out to dinner.”

“Did you go?”

“Did I? I’ve never got bathed, washed my hair, and dressed quicker in my life. Then I found Rupert and Driffield killing themselves at the bottom of the stairs.”

Dino looked half-smug, half-sympathetic.

“That was a lousy trick. Were you disappointed?”

“Shattered. After that, I thought the telegram was probably one of Rupert’s vile little practical jokes too, so I never wrote and thanked you.”

“If you had, I’d have been over much sooner.”

“And I might never have got involved with Billy. D’you think I’ll ever get over him?” she added dolefully.

“Sure you will. Just stick around.”

The waiter arrived with their first course: half a dozen Mediterranean prawns each and a huge bowl of mayonnaise, strongly flavored with garlic.

Dino ordered another bottle, and started stripping the prawns with incredible dexterity, then dipping them in the mayonnaise and passing them to Fen.

“Mm, they actually are delicious. Do you undress women as expertly?”

“Far more expertly, and I don’t pull their heads and legs off, either.”

Fen paused for a minute, thinking how amazingly attractive he was; if you liked that sort of thing, she told herself hastily.

“Did you ever get Helen Campbell-Black into bed?”

Dino grinned. “We had lunch several times, but she never had more than one course and left half of that because she was always wanting to rush me off to some art gallery. I said, ‘Honey, I am not into culture, I’m only into sex.’ ”

“You didn’t manage to divert her into some large double bed?”

He shook his head. “She was running scared the whole time. Whenever I put my hand on her back to guide her across the road, she shot into the oncoming traffic. If you try anything further, a burglar alarm goes off.”

“In Rupert’s lorry?”

“No, in her head. She’s so beautiful you want to gaze and gaze, but I guess she’s like a Ming vase: beautiful but empty.”

“Goodness, I’ve eaten all those prawns,” said Fen.

“Good girl.” Dino ran his hand down the inside of her arm, caressing her gently, almost abstractedly as if she were a dog. “Funny, I fancy you. I always have.”

Fen jumped away. “You mustn’t say things like that. I’m not ready for propositions.”

“Wasn’t a proposition. Just a statement of fact.”

“Even though I’m not as beautiful as Helen?”

Dino looked at her meditatively. “You could gain some weight,” he said, “but you’ll do.”

Fen noticed he was beginning to squint slightly. He must be desperately jet-lagged.

“How’s Manny?”

“Awesome; much better than me. He’s grown so much and filled out. He was winning a lot earlier in the year. Then my daddy had a cardiac arrest in July. He’s better now, but I was off the circuit for some weeks.”

“Why have you suddenly come over here at the end of the season?”

“To work with this guy whom I reckon is the best coach in the world. I’m going to stable the horses at his barn for a few months, take in a few shows in Europe, then have a stab at the World Cup in April. Then back to the States for the run up to the Olympics. I guess I want a gold as much as you do.”

“Who is this coach? Do I know him?”

“No one knows him very well. He’s kind of unapproachable.” Dino smiled confidingly. “Actually, I fancy one of his female jockeys. I figured if I was living there with permanent access, I might stand a better chance.”

Fen slumped in her chair, utterly deflated. She looked down at the tiny lamb cutlets that had just arrived and removed the blackened sprig of rosemary that lay across them. She was utterly heartbroken over Billy, but no girl likes an attractive reboundee whipped from under her nose before she’s even had a moment to try and rebound onto him. It would have been useful to have Dino in England if anyone asked her to bring a man to a party or to some official dinner. Moodily she poured too much salt onto the side of her plate, watching it turn green in the mint sauce.

“No, I don’t want any more to drink,” she said sulkily. “I’ve got a class at nine tomorrow.”

Dino took no notice and filled up her glass.

“Did you meet this girl on the circuit?” she asked.

“Last year at the World Championship.”

Fen glanced up suddenly and was amazed to see he was laughing.

“Jesus, you’re thick, Maxwell. You may win trophies at shows, but you’ve got the perception of a blindworm.”

“I don’t understand,” stammered Fen.

Dino took her hand again, turning it over, gently tracing the heart line with his thumb.

“I saw Jake this afternoon. He figures you’ve done a fantastic job, but it might help to have another guy around the barn to jump some of the horses. In return, he’s going to help me with Manny when he comes out of the hospital.”

Fen suddenly felt near to tears again. “So he thinks I can’t cope?”

“On the contrary, he thinks you’re too good to waste. He wants a gold for you, too. He’s only helping me because he knows there’s no way I can beat you.”

Fen sat on Jake’s hospital bed a fortnight later. “It is absolutely infuriating,” she grumbled, “but the entire household: Tory, the children, the grooms, the horses, even Wolf, are madly in love with Dino Ferranti. It’s a good thing you’re coming home next week to restore normality before they all defect to America with him.”

She got up and wandered restlessly around the room, looking at the inside of the hundreds of get-well cards, eating grapes, trying not to be upset by Jake’s hisses of pain as, with contorted, sweating face and gritted teeth, he battled on, endlessly bending and stretching to strengthen the muscles of both broken and wasted legs. She couldn’t help noticing how fragile and lacking in muscle they looked and wondered if he would ever ride again, let alone make the big time.

“The physiotherapist warned you not to overdo it,” she said reprovingly.

“Physiotherapists aren’t interested in medals,” said Jake, pushing his drenched fringe out of his eyes.

“Tory’s planning a surprise Thanksgiving dinner for Dino, so he won’t feel homesick,” Fen went on. “Sarah is actually putting on makeup first thing in the morning for the first time in history. Any minute Desdemona will start curling her pink eyelashes. I can’t think why he has to be so bloody charming all the time. Goodness, you’ve got a card from the Princess! You are a star. Are you looking forward to coming home next week?”

“Of course,” panted Jake, leaning back for a second against the bedhead.

“We’re all longing to have you,” said Fen.

Neither statement was strictly true. Jake, having dreamed of nothing but getting out of hospital for five months, was now thrown into a blind panic at the thought of facing the outside world. Learning to walk again was really taking it out of him — crashing over all the time, dragging himself up again, black with despair that neither of his legs would ever be strong enough to support him, and terror whether he’d ever have the guts to get on a horse again.

Night after night, he dreamed of tumbling poles and colossal horses crashing from great heights onto his legs, splintering them to spillikins, and woke up sobbing and screaming, until the night nurse arrived to calm him down. After his early animosity, he felt an almost slavish gratitude to the nurses and the Matron, who had all taken such a personal pride in getting him right. When they weren’t too busy on the wards, particularly at night, they would spend hours talking to him and he found himself unbending as he never did at home or with the other riders. There was one blond nurse for whom he had a special fondness: Sister Wutherspoon, who brought him fresh eggs from the country and always popped in to show herself off, radiant and scented, before she went out on dates. Jake suppressed a faint suspicion that she might return his interest. Desirable nurses were not attracted to bad-tempered cripples like himself.

Finally, he didn’t feel up to facing the whole slog of running the yard, driving miles to shows, raking the country for new horses. He longed for the children but didn’t know if he could cope with the decibel level of their shrill demands, or with the doglike devotion of good, shiny-faced Tory, heaving her eleven-stone bulk round the Mill House, as she waited on everyone.

All he wanted to do was to spend two months soaking up the sun on some Hawaiian beach, with Sister Wutherspoon in a grass skirt ministering to his every need. Grass skirts would be no good in Warwickshire; Macaulay would eat them. He was glad Dino was going to be there to shoulder some of the responsibility.

Fen, on the other hand, was in a muddle. Having run the yard virtually single-handed for five months, she was close to collapse, but she had been buoyed up by her hopes of Billy coming sweet, and by the feeling that she was being indispensable and splendid. Now Dino had moved in and taken over at least half of the reins. Everyone seemed happier and she couldn’t help being jealous. She felt she’d been demoted from head girl to the upper fourth and when Jake came home, she’d be back in the kindergarten.

She was irritated by the way everyone deferred to Dino. She couldn’t fault him as a worker. Despite the very late hours he kept, he got up at six like everyone else and spent at least seven or eight hours in the saddle, working not only his own horses but all of Jake’s novices. He had strange ideas about feeding his horses, arriving with a trunk full of vitamins and additives, but he was out of bed in a flash if there was any trouble with a sick horse in the night.

And, despite his languid, playboy image, he was amazingly domesticated. Fen nearly fainted one evening when she came home from an interview in Birmingham with ATV, to find him ironing his shirts.

“What are you doing?” she asked in amazement, “Tory can do those.”

“Why the hell should she? She’s exhausted.”

Fen watched the expert way he slid the iron along the folds of the blue silk sleeve into the cuff. “Where d’you learn to do that?”

“At college. All the money went on the horses. I couldn’t afford to send shirts to the laundry. I hate crumpled shirts, so I figured I better learn to iron.”

“You’ll make a wonderful wife someday,” said Fen.

At that moment Darklis appeared in a pink nightgown, looking disapproving.

“ ’Lo Fen. We saw you on the telly. Are you coming, Dino? You promised to read Green Eggs and Ham. Dino’s going to take me to Disneyland,” she added to Fen. “Come on, Dino.”

“I’ll be up when I’ve finished this lot,” he said, refusing to be bullied.

In the hall Fen met Tory wearing a dressing gown, pink from a hot bath.

“I’ve just left ‘Diana’ Ferranti slaving over a hot iron,” said Fen.

“Isn’t he marvelous?” sighed Tory. “I had a blinding headache and he just took over. He’s cooking supper, too. Gosh, it smells good. So nice to have a man who can tell the difference between rosemary and basil. Jakey wouldn’t notice if you gave him dog biscuits.”

“I’m beginning to think Dino’s more interested in Basils than Rosemarys, anyway,” said Fen pointedly.

She went out to the yard to check the horses. It was a very cold, starry night. An early frost had lurexed the cobbles in the yard and starched the golden willow spears which rustled underfoot and already clogged the stable gutters. As she adjusted a rug here and checked a water bowl or bandage there, Fen brooded on Dino’s deficiencies. In some painful way he reminded her of Billy. But while Billy was like a dog: loving, dependent, enthusiastic, Dino was feline, cool and detached. He was far tougher and more critical than Billy. He saw Fen’s faults only too clearly. But whereas Jake would bite her head off, Dino tended to mob her up.

Only last week he had caught her shouting at Sarah for giving Hardy, who was supposed to be on a diet, the wrong feed. When he told her to pack it in, she started shouting back at him, whereupon he calmly bundled her into a loose box and shut both doors on her until she cooled down.

“How can I have any authority with the grooms if you take the piss out of me all the time?” she complained furiously afterwards.

“They have to humor and nurse you before big classes, so bloody well treat them properly at home.”

Most irritating of all, despite saying how much he fancied her during dinner after the Sunday Times Cup, he hadn’t lifted a long, suntanned finger in her direction since he arrived at the Mill House. Perhaps living in such close proximity had put him off. Not that she cared a scrap; she was still hopelessly hooked on Billy. But she was irked that girls with soft caressing American accents always seemed to be ringing Dino up, and twice since he’d been living there, he’d disappeared off in his car after work and not returned until dawn was breaking. Occasionally Fen cried herself to sleep and wondered if Dino, who occupied the blue room at the end of the passage, ever heard her as he tiptoed past to bed.

All in all, for a man who was supposed to be staying in England because of her, he was behaving in an odd way. Standing in Desdemona’s box, ruffling her coat which had thickened from being turned out during the day, she gave her the last glacier mint.

Looking out of the half-door she saw a small pale sliver of new moon curling itself round the weather cock. Turning the fifty-pence piece in her pocket, she sighed, realizing there was no point wasting a wish on Billy anymore.

“Please, Moon,” she said, “give me a gold.”

A week later Jake came home. It was a perfect October afternoon with all the trees, silhouetted, against a rain-heavy navy blue sky, turning color. There was not a speck of dust anywhere in the yard or an inch of tack unpolished. Only Dino’s horses and four of the novices who were still going to shows were in their boxes. The rest of the horses were out in the different fields which checkered the hill behind the stables.

But they sensed something was up. They had been restless all day, snapping and shrieking at each other, not settling down to serious grazing, but hanging round the gates. Only now, just before Jake was due, had they all galloped off out of sight to talk to Macaulay, Africa, and Africa’s foal, who were grazing in the top field. Darklis and Isa weren’t back from school yet, although a huge banner saying, “Welcome Home, Daddy,” which they’d painted with Sarah and Dino’s help, hung from the two largest willows across the gateway. Above the murmur of the millstream Fen heard the sound of a car on the bridge. Sarah darted forward to remove a couple of willow leaves which had floated down into the yard. Then Wolf, who’d also been jumpy all day, gave an excited bark. As the car drove into the yard he leapt forward, scrabbling hysterically at the paint with his paws.

“Welcome home,” cried Fen, running forward. “Steady boy.” She caught Wolf’s collar before opening the car door. “You don’t want to send your master flying.”

But when he realized it truly was Jake, Wolf remained motionless for several seconds as though he’d been stunned. Then he put back his head and let out a series of spine-chilling howls. Jake noticed tears were coursing down the lurcher’s rough brindled cheeks.

“Come on, boy,” said Jake gently as the dog crept forward, laying his head on his master’s knee, tail rammed between his thin trembling legs, as though he couldn’t believe such a miracle. No one spoke as Jake stroked Wolf’s head over and over again, smoothing away the tears. Then, as he struggled out of the car, Dino went forward to give him a hand.

“Hi,” he said. “It’s so good to have you home. Even the sun’s come out to welcome you.”

Jake nodded, face impassive, not trusting himself to speak.

“Come inside and rest, darling,” said Tory.

“I want to see the horses.”

“You must take it slowly,” she pleaded. “Today’s been such a strain.”

“Pass me my crutches,” snapped Jake.

“Here they are,” said Fen.

As he stumbled painfully across the cobbles, slipping and once falling to his knees, Fen was about to rush to help him.

“Don’t,” said Dino sharply, grabbing her arm.

He tried not to show how shocked he was by Jake’s appearance in the sunlight. Gray with exhaustion, desperately thin, he’d had to make two extra holes in his belt to keep his trousers up.

“Oh, God,” said Fen, as he stumbled again.

“He’s got to do it on his own,” said Dino.

After what seemed an eternity he reached the gate, leaning on it, gasping, to recover his breath. Laboriously he managed to open it and stagger inside, leaning back against it for support. The field sloped up to the skyline, dotted only by a few orange beeches and lemon yellow ashes. Not a horse in sight. Jake put his hand to his mouth and whistled. There was a long pause. He was about to whistle again when suddenly over the brow of the hill they came, black, dark brown, chestnut, bay, gray, roan. Some of them jumped over fences from nearby fields, thundering down the hill, manes and tails flying. It was like the last furlong of the Derby as they hurtled towards Jake. Hardy came from the back, elbowing, nipping, shoving the others out of the way, squealing jealously. Already plump from their rest, they had never moved faster in the height of their fitness as they stampeded the gate.

“They’ll kill him,” whispered Sarah.

“They’re going to crush him to death,” cried Tory in anguish.

“Get him out of there,” urged Fen. “Oh, Dino, do something.”

But miraculously, about ten feet away, they jammed on their brakes and, although the ones behind cannoned unceremoniously into the leaders, they all slithered to a halt, not even touching the tips of Jake’s shoes. They stood there, gazing at him goofily. Then, with a thunder of whickering, they edged forward and with the utmost gentleness started to nudge and nuzzle his face, his hands, and his coat, occasionally getting jealous, flattening their ears at each other and giving each other a nip or a squeal. Hardy, true to his character, stropped Jake all over with his tongue, then gave him a sharp nip on the sleeve of his coat, just to show he was still boss.

“I’ve never seen anything like that before,” said Dino, looking down and seeing tears pouring down Fen’s cheeks. Finding her hand in his, he gave it a gentle squeeze. Fen looked down, started, blushed scarlet, and snatched her hand away to wipe her eyes.

“Someone’s missing,” said Sarah.

“It’s the big fellow,” said Dino.

Next minute they saw Macaulay standing on the crest of the hill, like Bambi’s father. Jake gave another whistle and the next moment Macaulay came crashing down the hill like an out-of-control steamroller, so fast that all the other horses parted in self-preservation to let him through. When he reached Jake, he chased all the others away with enraged squeals, instantly returning to press his great white whiskery face against Jake’s. Jake put his arm round Macaulay’s neck, clinging on for support, his shoulders shaking.

“D’you think he’s okay?” said Fen in dismay.

“Leave him,” said Dino. “He’s best alone with the horses.”