Reaching the top of the gallops, they were greeted by a wonderful view of fields and donkey-brown woodland in a geometric pattern of stone walls stretching to the horizon. Spring seemed to have gone into retreat as a bitter east wind flattened the grass and Rupert’s long lake had gone grey, mirroring the lowering skies above.
Leaping out of the Land-Rover to escape Rupert’s antagonism, Rafiq gasped at the cold, then gasped in horror as Eddie Alderton suddenly swung Mrs Wilkinson off the gallops, straight down the rollercoaster ride. Now Eddie whooped and yelled, and it was Mrs Wilkinson’s turn to be terrified so witless she closed her eye until she reached the bottom. If it had not been for the pain caused by the ring bit, she would have scraped Eddie off by running under the branches of the nearby beech. Next moment Tommy came panting up.
‘How dare you!’ she shouted at Eddie. ‘How could you be so cruel! You’ll set her back years. Don’t you know what a terrible past she had, her eye gouged out, look at the scars on her body. Someone was obscenely cruel to her, and now you’re being obscenely cruel all over again. There, there, my pet,’ Tommy caught Mrs Wilkinson’s reins. ‘That bloody bridle’s made her mouth bleed, you bastard.’
‘Oh, put a sock in it.’ Eddie pretended to play a violin.
Rafiq’s mood was not improved later in the day when Eddie brought Tommy a bunch of daffodils picked from Rupert’s garden, apologized for upsetting her, and took her off to see the stud and the stallions in her break.
‘They’re so beautiful,’ sighed Tommy as Peppy Koala was led past. ‘Jump horses like Lusty and Sir Cuthbert go on for ages, awful to think flat horses end their glorious careers so early.’
‘I don’t know,’ drawled Eddie, ‘I’d much rather fuck all day than be thrashed within an inch of my life for not running round a racetrack fast enough.’
Rafiq, who was hovering, could see a blush creeping up Tommy’s cheek.
‘Is it easier racing in England?’ she asked.
Eddie grinned. ‘Sure, the horses are slower.’
Meanwhile, every time Dora drove in and out the press accosted her.
‘Which story are you doing? Marius and Amber, Bonny back
with Valent, Wilkie and Furious going to Rupert, or Rogue Rogers wrecking his career for love?’
‘All four,’ replied Dora happily.
Chisolm was having a lovely time, her column in the Mirror getting more and more unbridled:
‘Here I am at Penscombe. Never a dull moment. Excellent primroses and violets. Love Rat, Rupert’s top stallion, whinnies to Mrs Wilkinson every time she passes. Furious kicked Rupert’s black Labrador Banquo yesterday. Rupert very cross. Why can’t he talk to the rest of us in the loving, “Come to Daddy” way he talks to his dogs?’
‘Watch it,’ snapped Rupert.
Great reservoirs of rage kept bubbling up over Rogue losing him the Gold Cup and forcing him to sack him. If only he could get him back. Agents were never off the telephone offering him lousy replacements for his three National horses.
Valent and Hengist Brett-Taylor, who was still making his film about Beau Regard, Mrs Wilkinson and the Willowwood legend, kept trying to persuade Rupert to put Rafiq up on Furious. Rupert, however, had been poring over the videos of Rafiq’s races, noting the ones when his horses should have won, and concluded Rafiq was bent. That horse Bullydozer had certainly been nobbled at Leopardstown.
The police had already warned him to watch out.
‘Rafiq’s OK,’ insisted Hengist. ‘He learnt his lesson inside.’
‘Bollocks,’ said Rupert. ‘Bang up heavy-duty villains together, they just learn more skills to continue their villainy.’
Nor was Amber finding it easy at Throstledown. None of the stable staff liked the new hierarchy. Would Miss Toffeenose end up as the boss’s wife?
Her allies, Tommy and Rafiq, had gone to Penscombe. Painswick, who’d been devastated by the departure of Wilkie and Furious, didn’t approve of Amber in Marius’s bed. Wandering down to the yard one morning, Amber found Tresa reading OK! and gossiping to Josh.
‘Amber’s always got to the top on her back,’ she was saying.
‘Rubbish,’ shouted Amber, making them both jump, ‘I got to the top on Wilkie’s back,’ and stormed off upstairs.
Amber found it such a bleak house. Marius, however kind he was to her, was above all a trainer, one-track and focused, who worked a seventeen-hour day, rising at five and not going to bed until after the ten o’clock news. No time really for love. Mistletoe the lurcher, who now shadowed Amber, was her only friend.
Poor Amber was in such a muddle. She was finding the relationship with Marius too frenzied. He was too needing of comfort and he still talked in his sleep about Olivia, whose presence was stamped all over the house.
Then she read, in Katie Nicholl’s column in the
Mail on Sunday
, that Olivia had been seen this week having a discreet drink with Rogue, and Amber felt the same searing red-hot-poker jab of jealousy. Rogue’s colours were superimposed on her heart rather than the racecourse.
She must get back on a horse. She longed to ride Sir Cuthbert in the National but Lady Crowe had a soft spot for goofy Awesome and insisted he was given the ride on her old horse. Amber had been gutted to be jocked off Wilkie. She couldn’t bear the thought of Eddie Alderton beating her and yanking her around.
Finally, she was sick with worry about her father, who’d told the BBC he couldn’t cover the three days at Aintree but hoped to fly up to interview Amber if she got a ride in the National. He didn’t realize he simply hadn’t the strength.
Feeling horribly disloyal to Marius, knowing the press would have a field day, Amber rang her godmother Taggie to discover when Rupert had ten minutes free and drove over to Penscombe. She had spent a lot of time there as a child, but always been aware that Rupert was the rich man in his castle, the Lloyd-Foxes the comparatively poor men at his gate. Rupert’s daughter Tabitha had won Olympic Gold for eventing and another daughter, Eddie’s mother Perdita, was an international polo player. Suddenly Amber had a desperate urge to be up with them.
Taggie hugged her, loving as ever, but she looked harassed. ‘I’m afraid Rupert’s very uptight.’
Amber found Rupert in his office, which had two doors so he could escape from people he didn’t want to see; probably her as well, when she begged him to let her ride Mrs Wilkinson.
‘Dad’s only got a few weeks to live. He’ll never see another Grand National.’
‘You don’t have the experience,’ said Rupert flatly, horrified how thin and pale she looked. ‘It’s too tough for a slight girl on a very small horse. Aintree has made heroic efforts to make the entire course, and particularly the fences, more forgiving, but there are still thirty of them. Thirty fences, four and a half miles, loose horses careering everywhere, like no other race. Statistically half the field don’t come home. No mare’s won for years. No woman rider’s ever won. No grey’s won since Nicolaus Silver. The odds are against you. Like girls playing rugger against Martin
Johnson.’ Rupert took a deep breath. ‘I don’t want to risk you or Mrs Wilkinson’s lives, angel.’
‘Mrs Wilkinson will be much safer if I’m riding her. Her whiskers have grown, we’ll slide through the gaps. Please, Rupert, for Dad’s sake.’
Bitterly regretting there would now be no chance of Eddie riding his grandfather’s three-thousandth winner on the People’s Pony, Rupert agreed to let Amber ride her instead.
‘But you’re going to have to build up some muscle. Tomorrow you’re taking Wilkie drag hunting, four runs over really fast, high black fences to give her some practice.’
Feeling sick with guilt, Amber drove back to Throstledown. Marius was so proud, would he regard her riding Wilkie as the final betrayal and chuck her out? Mistletoe ran out to welcome her, but Painswick had fortunately gone shopping. Amber was about to break the news to Marius when a car drew up and a lot of terriers and India Oakridge fell out.
‘Daddy, Daddy,’ screamed India, rushing into the office, ‘look what Mummy’s just bought me.’
They were the first cuddly Wilkinsons and Chisolms.
‘They’re absolutely awesome. Wilkie neighs, sticks her tongue out and shakes hands and Chisolm bleats and butts people. Look, she’s got a flower in her mouth. Aren’t they lovely?’
‘That is neat,’ said Amber, picking up Wilkie, ‘and just like her. Where did you get it?’
‘Cavendish House, they’re galloping out of the shops,’ said India’s mother, walking in wearing dark glasses.
‘Look at Chisolm,’ cried India. Having wound up the goat, she put her on the table, where she promptly butted Marius’s whisky on to the floor.
‘Well done, Chisolm,’ said Olivia coolly. ‘Daddy shouldn’t be drinking whisky in the middle of the afternoon anyway.’ Then, turning to Amber, ‘And you can get out. This is where I belong.’
If it hadn’t been for the split-second lighthouse beam of hope and happiness on Marius’s face, Amber might have put up a ght.
‘OK, I’ll pack my things.’
‘Amber, wait,’ called out Marius, but he didn’t follow her upstairs.
There wasn’t much to pack, she’d lived in Marius’s shirts since she’d been there.
Back in the kitchen she found India had escaped to see the
horses, and Marius and Olivia gazing at each other as though they were playing statues.
‘I’m off,’ said Amber. ‘I just want to say one thing, Olivia. Marius loves you. He and I only got together because we both desperately needed someone, but we aren’t making each other happy. He’s a brilliant trainer, and you were a brilliant team together, but he’s done really well in the last year without you, so don’t mess him around any more.’ For a second she crouched down to stroke Mistletoe. ‘And please look after this sweet dog because she’s got a lousy home here.’
‘How dare you,’ exploded Olivia, but Amber had turned to Marius. ‘Thank you for having me to stay. Sorry I won’t have time to write a thank-you letter, but I’ll be too busy revving up to ride Wilkie in the National.’ Then, gratified at the outrage on the faces of both Marius and Olivia, she sauntered out. ‘See you at Aintree.’
Her mobile rang as she hurtled down the drive. It was Taggie.
‘I’ve left Marius,’ gasped Amber.
‘Hurrah,’ said Taggie, ‘come and stay at Penscombe.’
Next morning Amber took Wilkie drag hunting and Rupert was just pondering whether he dared risk putting up Eddie on Lusty in the National, when Lusty broke a blood vessel on the gallops, spraying blood all over Eddie. Later the horse scoped dirty, proof of a virus, which probably explained why Furious had beaten Lusty in the Gold Cup. This freed up Eddie to ride Furious in the National, giving Rupert a legitimate excuse to jock off Rafiq.
Eddie, who detested the way his grandfather insisted he work in the yard, feeding and skipping out horses, had been winding up Rafiq all morning. For a third time, he flicked droppings over the partition into Furious’s box, narrowly missing Rafiq.
Then Rupert came out and broke the news that Lusty was a non-runner and Eddie would be riding Furious.
‘I’m not riding that goddam awful pig,’ protested Eddie, throwing down his shovel with a clatter.
Emerging from Furious’s box, a distraught Rafiq launched into a stream of Urdu expletives.
‘Don’t speak of Furious like that,’ he yelled. ‘I’m riding him in the National.’ If he said it loud enough someone might believe it.
‘Afraid not,’ said Rupert, ‘you don’t have the experience.’
‘You’re just a bloody racist,’ snarled Rafiq.
‘I am not,’ replied Rupert in outrage. ‘I have two black children, my son is going out with a Muslim girl whose Pakistani parents I get on with extremely well. Don’t you dare call me a racist.’
‘Prove it,’ said Rafiq haughtily, ‘let me ride Furious.’
On cue Furious put his head out of the box, laying it on Rafiq’s shoulder.
‘Loosen up, Rafiq,’ drawled Eddie, ‘National’s for the big boys.’
At which Rafiq jumped on Eddie and tried to throttle him and four other lads had to be called in to pull him off.
Tommy’s father had rung Rupert that morning, warning him yet again to watch Rafiq, so Rupert sacked him, banning him from the house and the yard.
The moment he cooled down, Rafiq was devastated to be leaving both Tommy and Furious, and realized he had nowhere to go. He couldn’t return to Throstledown and the sneers of Tresa and Josh. Rupert offered him £500, which he threw back at him. He still had his Gold Cup winnings. Clutching the little gold replica of the cup he had won, he flcavalry charge up to theed, howling vengeance, down the drive.
An utterly distraught Tommy, who had been riding out and missed the drama, pleaded with Rupert to change his mind. ‘Rafiq’s been on edge because he loves Furious so much. Even if he doesn’t ride him, let him stay on to do him, you’ll have a million times better horse.’
‘He’s a security risk,’ Rupert told her coldly, ‘and your father feels the same. He rang me today.’
It didn’t help that the son of Rupert’s great friend Drew Benedict had been killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan the day before.
The Grand National approached. All the media were featuring cuddly Wilkinsons and Chisolms, expressing the hope that the speed they were careering out of the shops – resembling the cavalry charge up to the first fence – was a good omen for Mrs Wilkinson on Saturday.