Hengist was also using Rafiq in the documentary to put for- ward the Muslim point of view. There was a touching moment when they were filming in the church, as a bristlingly defensive Rafiq had gazed down at the stone effigy of Sir Francis for a few moments before murmuring, ‘He too went a long way for his religion.’
Rafiq had mellowed. As a Muslim he had learnt that human life was sacred, but, steeped in the ideology of the terrorist training camp, he had come to believe that his own life should be sacrificed for the cause in the holy war to wipe out non-believers. But gradually he had found himself growing to love nonbelievers. Not just Hengist, who had protected him in prison, or Marius, who had bought back Furious and given him a chance as a jockey most lads could only dream of, or Etta and Painswick, who’d mothered him so kindly, or Valent, who’d tipped him so generously and fought his corner. There was also his dear friend
Tommy, who worked so tirelessly on his horses, advised him so tactfully and had contributed so much to his dramatic rise to fame.
Rafiq was keeping his nose clean. He was extra careful because he was sure the police were watching him and tapping his telephone calls, hoping this would lead them to his cousin Ibrahim, who he believed was still hiding out in the lawless badlands on the borders of Pakistan.
To up their incomes, Josh and the other lads all passed on tips to punters. ‘It’s a lovely day in Willowwood’ was code for a horse likely to win, while ‘It’s raining in Willowwood’ indicated one that hadn’t a chance. Rafiq had stopped even giving free tips to the friends he had made in gaol.
Tommy, meanwhile, who looked after Wilkie, Romeo, a rapidly improving Bullydozer, and Furious when Rafiq was away, was well ahead in the Throstledown points system that allocated a groom three points for a win and one for a place.
Tresa and Michelle (even though she now worked for Harvey-Holden) were wild with envy. They were a thousand times prettier than Tommy, but they didn’t get the fan mail, weren’t pestered for autographs or have their pictures in the
Racing Post
. Owners pinched their bottoms, but they didn’t thrust fistfuls of tenners into their jeans pockets for racking up wins and turnout prizes.
To Tresa and Michelle, Tommy was the school swat, always working, always putting the stupid horses first, because she had nothing else with which to fill her life. They couldn’t appreciate that the public adored Tommy because she always smiled and although no one hugged and patted her horses more enthusiastically when they won, she comforted them and their jockeys equally lovingly when they lost.
This festering jealousy erupted one late January evening after the Larkminster Cup, when traditionally jockeys and stable lads and lasses from neighbouring yards joined up at a Larkminster club called Electric Blue for a party.
On this occasion, the drinking was very heavy, both to celebrate Furious’s victory and to blot out a hideous death. Harvey-Holden had run the lovely little mare called Gifted Child, who had never really fulfilled the promise she had shown when she was trained by Marius. He had therefore instructed his hired assassin, Vakil, who had so terrorized Bullydozer, to slip Gifted Child a bucket of water before the race.
As a result, she broke a blood vessel and her off fore, landing clumsily six out. Struggling up, she collapsed trying to jump the next fence. Her stable lass had gone home in tears. Vakil, unmoved, had pocketed £300 from Harvey-Holden, and this evening was intending to lay a stable lass or at least a prostitute. ‘Why you no kiss me?’ he was asking Tresa.
‘Because you’re not a good kisser,’ she snapped back.
Vakil worked forty-eight weeks a year and sent his wages home to support his wife and four children in Pakistan, whom he boasted would one day become dentists and lawyers and keep him in his old age. Tonight he was planning to enjoy himself.
The party from the racing yards was seated at a long table looking down on a dance floor filled with writhing couples and surrounded by more packed tables. As well as Tresa and Vakil, the racing party included Josh, Michelle, little Angel and jockeys Johnnie Brutus and Dare Catswood, who’d had a second at Larkminster, and Dare’s brother Jamie. Jamie was Harvey-Holden’s new pupil assistant, who claimed he wanted to train
horses but was really more interested in getting up at midday and shagging stable girls.
Jamie had a loud voice, wore red cords and a striped scarf – a prat in a cravat – and was accepted because Mummy had horses in training and rich Daddy was a member of the Jockey Club. Jamie was good with owners and at opening champagne bottles, and it was agreed H-H needed someone like that.
The group were all shouting with laughter. Yelling to make themselves heard over Lily Allen and the pounding of the disco, they gazed through visibility much thicker than the fog at the races earlier, in order to play a game called Snog-a-Trog. Snog-a-Trog involved each person in the party picking out a really unattractive member of the opposite sex – which was often hard through the gloom – and seeing how quickly they could snog them. Jamie, whose new job it was to time horses on H-H’s gallops and who was already very drunk, was randomly timing progress with a stopwatch.
Michelle, looking sexually predatory in tight red-leather trousers and a red see-through shirt with a red bra underneath, had kicked off. She had approached a bespectacled geek in shortsleeved crimplene and with a mullet, who’d been dancing around waving his arms like an over-adrenalized tic-tac man, only to be primly told he was engaged. Josh was now across the room dancing with a girl with a turbot’s face and a huge bust, which rather precluded him getting close enough to kiss her.
This caused as much mirth as the fact that Awesome Wells, who had been expected to join the party after whizzing up to Wetherby, had afterwards got into the wrong private jet, fallen asleep and ended up in Dubai.
Amber, who was also riding at Wetherby, and Rogue, who was riding at Fairyhouse, were expected later, as was Rafiq. After his great win in the Larkminster Cup, Rafiq was doing a television interview about being the latest role model for young Muslims.
Great excitement was caused by the arrival of Eddie Alderton, a very blond American flat jockey who had grown too heavy and tall to do the weights, and was trying his luck as a jump jockey at Rupert Campbell-Black’s yard, Penscombe. He also turned out to be Rupert’s grandson, far more beautiful and drunk than anyone else, and he was buying most of the booze.
‘I wanna play Snarg-a-Trarg, I wanna play Snarg-a-Trarg,’ he kept saying.
‘You gotta girlfriend?’ asked Tresa, licking her lips.
‘Ah got five.’
‘Five?’ shrieked Michelle disapprovingly.
‘That still leaves two days free a week, if you’re up for it,’ said Eddie. ‘Snarg-a-Trarg.’
Lily Allen was followed by Michael Jackson, then by Lady Gaga.
‘He settled beautifully, switched gears going into the last, you’d think he’d just jumped in at the start,’ Johnnie Brutus was telling himself.
‘I’m going to have a crack at that tarty blonde,’ announced Dare Catswood, and came back very shaken. ‘It’s a bloke, tried to drag me into the Gents.’
‘Here’s Rogue,’ sighed Angel, ‘isn’t he gorgeous?’
Rogue had had a treble at Fairyhouse today and was riding there tomorrow, but had come back for the party.
To match his eyes he was wearing a kingfisher-blue sweatshirt which said, ‘I rode work for Rupert Campbell-Black and survived. Could you?’
As he walked in, girls nudged each other, tossed their hair and rucked up their dresses. Rogue glanced round, waved at Johnnie Brutus, scowled at Dare Catswood, then, clocking that Amber wasn’t at the table, made his way over to Tommy. She was sitting in a dark corner, making herself as inconspicuous as possible.
‘Hi,’ he said, kissing her. ‘Where’s Amber?’
‘So sorry, she’s not coming.’ Then, as Rogue’s face fell, ‘She’s just texted me, she’s gone to see her dad who’s in hospital in London.’
‘Do you know which hospital?’
‘I think she said the Marsden. She didn’t know you were turning up here.’
‘D’you want a lift home?’
‘I’m waiting for Rafiq.’
‘OK, see you.’ Ignoring the yells of ‘Rogue, Rogue,’ he was on his way to the door when Johnnie Brutus swayed after him.
‘Where you going?’
‘Back to Ireland.’
‘You just arrived. You’re working too hard, relax. I’ll find you a slapper, there are a couple at our table.’
Rogue glanced at Michelle and Tresa. Having just discovered he was Rupert’s grandson, they were laughing uproariously at Eddie Alderton’s jokes.
‘I’ve had them both and they were rubbish,’ said Rogue bleakly, and he was gone.
‘Where’d Rogue go?’ protested Eddie. ‘I wanted to talk to him. I want to ride Lusty in the Gold Cup but I guess Grandpa’ll put up Rogue. Thinks a lot of Rogue.’
‘Thinks a lot of himself,’ snapped Tresa.
‘Who was he talking to?’ drawled Eddie.
‘Tommy Ruddock, works in our yard.’
Eddie got out a pair of binoculars and stared through the gloom at Tommy.
‘That’s my Trarg.’
Michelle and Tresa screamed with laughter.
‘Have a crack at Lotto Briggs,’ advised a returning Johnnie Brutus. ‘Dare peeked into the ladies’ changing room at Cheltenham, said she wears grey underwear, has a forest down there and her girlfriend would geld you. But you’d win first prize, Eddie, you can’t get uglier than that.’
‘No, I’m going to try that Tarmy,’ insisted Eddie, ‘she might know something I don’t know about Rogue.’
Tommy tried to make herself even smaller. She was overwhelmed with longing. If only she were beautiful, like the other girls, jumping, swaying, their blonde hair swinging like the willows of Willowwood, showing off lovely legs in jeans or the shortest of minis.
She was used to melting into the background. Sometimes, out of kindness, girls dragged her on to the dance floor. Tommy was aware that tonight she looked particularly plain. She’d been up since five, ridden out four lots, driven to the races and back and bedded the horses down before coming here. She hadn’t slept last night, worrying quite unnecessarily how Furious would perform. But the rain, which had been great for him, had frizzed up her hair more than usual. The heat in the room had turned her pink face red, and she’d forgotten a powder compact to tone it down.
When she got to the races, she’d found someone had pinched Rafiq’s silks and Furious’s cheek pieces, so she’d had to rush round begging replacements from travelling head lads and valets. She suspected Tresa had nicked them but she mustn’t get paranoid. Oh God, they were all laughing and looking in her direction.
She supposed Rafiq was turning up because he’d hoped Amber would be here. Shy about going into clubs, he had asked Tommy to wait for him this evening. She drained her pina colada, then noticed the most beautiful man in the group, white-blond and Nordic, jumping down from the platform and fighting his way across the room.
‘Tarmy Ruddock,’ said the softest Southern voice.
Tommy started as the Adonis put two glasses of champagne down on the table and said, ‘Budge up.’
Tommy budged.
‘You are a legend.’
‘Me?’
‘You do Furious and Mrs Wilkinson, I’ve read about you in the
Racing Post
. Even my grandfather wants to poach you.’
‘Me?’ squeaked Tommy.
Tommy couldn’t believe anyone, despite squinting slightly, could be so good-looking.
‘Furious was awesome for a change,’ said Eddie dismissively. ‘My grandpop would soon get rid of those mulish antics.’
‘It’s part of Furious’s character, he had a deprived childhood.’ As Tommy raised her glass to drink, her trumpet sleeve fell back to reveal a huge bruise.
‘Jesus, your boyfriend do that?’
‘No, Furious, he gets excited. I haven’t got a boyfriend.’
‘You have now,’ said Eddie. ‘Come and dance.’
‘Oh look, Eddie’s got her on the floor,’ screamed Michelle.
‘Can’t dance,’ said Tresa, as Tommy bounced around like a bull terrier puppy.
‘Doesn’t get much practice,’ sneered Michelle.
Jamie Catswood was looking at his stopwatch. ‘He’s going super,’ he told the others.
As Eddie drew Tommy against him, Tommy could feel the solid muscle beneath his blue denim shirt. As he laid his cheek against hers, he made a thumbs-up sign behind her head to the giggling table, followed by a drinking sign to tell them to fill up his and Tommy’s glasses.
The Black Eyed Peas were electrifying the dancers.
‘I’ve got a feeling tonight’s going to be a good night,’ whispered Eddie into a bemused Tommy’s ear.
They were all convulsed with laughter when a shadow fell across the table. It was Rafiq. He was wearing, courtesy of
Hello!
, tight black jeans and a shirt the clear scarlet of runner bean flowers. His hair, newly cut and styled for the Channel 4 interview, was spiked upwards with product, showing off the flawless cheekbones and forehead usually hidden by flopping black curls. He looked arrogant and antagonistic – not quite the ideal role model for young Muslims – as he scowled across at Vakil.
‘Here’s the “Shere” Khan of
Hello!
,’ mocked Josh.