‘It was you who wrote to me from the Solomon Islands after I lost the baby, wasn’t it?’ Tash asked Beccy as they settled back on their benches, trying to blot out the sound of voices, horses and commentary outside. ‘The letter meant a lot. I’ve kept it.’
‘Not me,’ Beccy said sleepily. ‘I’ve never been to the Solomon Islands.’
‘Then who wrote it?’
‘It must have been Lough.’ She yawned and fell asleep.
Tash felt beaten up with tiredness, yet couldn’t switch off enough to rest, her head whirring through her adolescence, her stepsister arriving in her life, that shy blonde shadow who blushed so easily and found making friends hard, storing up that terrible secret for so many years.
And then she was back in Melbourne, reliving the near miss and the terrible day that followed. She couldn’t picture Lough there at all, but knowing that he had been there knitted him even more tightly into the fabric of her life, cloaking all her restless thoughts in confusion as she lay staring at the horsebox ceiling.
On the opposite side of the cramped living space, Beccy slept like a baby, so many of her secrets released that now she felt as light as a feather, her dreams sweet.
As soon as they got back to Haydown Tash shut herself quietly in the study and phoned Hugo. He was driving through France, speaking on the hands-free and having to shout over the engine rumble.
The final line-up for the European Championships had just been announced, he reported cheerfully, and he was once again on the British team. It made what she was about to say even more difficult.
‘I can’t come to Germany after all,’ she told him. ‘I have to stay with Beccy.’
‘She’s had a fall?’
‘No, nothing like that. But I can’t leave her.’
‘Why not?’
Tash knew she couldn’t betray that confidence right now, their fragile bond after all these years of family angst, not even to Hugo. Beccy’s wellbeing was too important. This could make or break her future happiness.
‘I can’t explain just now – but I will soon, I promise.’
‘You have to come.’ His tone was icily uncompromising. ‘Bring Beccy with you if necessary.’
‘No. She couldn’t cope with that.’ Her stubbornness fuelled Hugo’s anger.
‘You expect me to believe this is about Beccy when we both know who’s five minutes’ drive away?’ he stormed eventually.
Tash tried to stay calm. ‘This has nothing to do with him.’
‘Like hell it doesn’t. I bet he’s constantly scratching at the back door. Well, you have to choose between us.’
‘This is about Beccy, not Lough!’ she howled.
‘No, Tash. This is about
us
. Stay away and this marriage might as well be over.’
‘You’re not seriously suggesting we separate?’
‘If you don’t come to Germany, I want you out of the house by the time I get back.’
She was too shocked to speak, listening to the rumbling engine his end, the horn-beeps and traffic, imagining Hugo driving furiously along the autoroute, his ultimatum hanging in the air on both sides of the Channel. However recklessly spoken, it was too late to take it back now.
As her mind raced she suddenly realised she could hear a woman’s voice purring directions to Hugo, deep and seductive, nothing like that of his official travelling companion India. Jealousy ran its knife through Tash’s already hammered heart. It had to be V.
‘You hypocrite!’ she screamed. ‘You bloody, bloody hypocrite!’
It was only after she had hung up and finally calmed down a little that she realised the voice had been one she’d heard a thousand times before. It was the horsebox’s sat nav.
Still reeling, too frightened of Hugo’s anger to risk another call, she went in search of her much-neglected BlackBerry and hurriedly composed a badly typed text.
Pls lets forget that conbersation eve hapened. i love you zzz.
He called her half an hour later, his voice intimate and apologetic as hands-free was abandoned in favour of a quiet corner of a roadside café. ‘It’s forgotten.’
She laughed with tearful relief. ‘We so need this holiday. Just us.
Time to relax.’
‘No more texts?’ he said quietly.
‘No more texts,’ she agreed, not quite understanding. ‘Better to say things out loud.’
‘Quite,’ he coughed tersely. ‘One doesn’t text a bolting horse to ask him to slow down.’
Bolting horses were something Tash didn’t want to picture right
now. Having put Luhmühlen to the back of her mind, she felt sick as she contemplated riding the strongest horse on the yard around one of the toughest tracks in continental Europe in just a few days’ time.
‘Cub will look after you,’ Hugo assured her. ‘So will I. Just be there.’
Tash didn’t want to leave Beccy behind on her own. She was terrified she’d run away, or worse. She knew it was illogical to suddenly start panicking, having trusted Beccy to her own devices for so long now, but her instability made so much sense in the light of recent revelations and it frightened her that she’d done nothing to help.
Beccy was adamant that she was fine: ‘I really feel so much better for talking. I just want to ride. I’ve got Franny to look out for me, and the Moncrieffs. You must go. Hugo would never forgive me for wrecking his plans.’
She did seem remarkably controlled and sensible about it, and Tash knew she couldn’t let Hugo down. Their marriage was on a far too wobbly tightrope to change direction, and she’d been plagued with terrible nightmares since Beccy’s confession, involving Hugo and the children falling from bridges and under horses. The more her stepsister had offloaded her angst, the more Tash seemed to acquire her own. She was so jittery and forgetful she put Beetroot and the Rat Pack in the back of the car to drive to the airport, only realising her mistake once she was on the M4, and necessitating a hasty turnaround. She missed her flight and had to wait several hours for the next available seat.
When she called Hugo to explain he was unsympathetic, ‘You were already cutting it fine. Now you’ll barely have a chance to sit on this horse before the competition. He’s way too fresh.’
She’d barely give her first four-star ride in years a thought. She knew she should try to blank her mind of everything going on at home and focus on the competition, but instead she waded through a very heavy volume about depression on the flight to Hamburg. By
the time she arrived at the venue for the Luhmühlen three day event her head was throbbing with details of hypomania, cyclothymia, melatonin activity and cognitive functioning.
Concerned that she was so late, Hugo barely pecked her on the cheek before legging her up into the saddle.
Her first ride on The Cub showed up her distraction as he took off with her across a schooling ring, dumping her unceremoniously at the foot of the arena rails. Later, after the competitors’ briefing, the first official course walk came as a shock. Luhmühlen was traditionally less challenging than its British four-star counterparts, but this year the cross-country course left many of the competitors scratching their heads over its technical complexity. It wouldn’t suit a big galloping horse, they all agreed. Cub was a very strong, galloping horse.
‘I think you should have the ride back,’ Tash told Hugo. He ignored her.
After the course walk, she rode again. Hand-galloping Cub along one of the tracks at the outskirts of the equestrian centre, she decided to test his brakes so kicked him on for a short pipe-opener then tried to pull up and failed. Instead, they careered back to the stables at breakneck speed, much to the delight of her fellow countrymen.
The large British contingent was in party spirits, seeing the event as a prolonged hen and stag party for Dolf and Jenny. A fancy-dress barbecue in the lorry park was planned for that evening, after the first horse inspection, and some of the jokers among the Brits even trotted up their horses wearing their costumes, much to the disapproval of the more humourless members of the ground jury. Rory, dressed as a guardsman complete with bearskin, cut a very dashing figure as he clanked alongside Humpty.
‘He looks like the Hamley’s logo,’ Tash laughed.
‘Entirely appropriate, given that he’s been like a kid let loose in a toyshop since he’s been based with MC,’ Hugo reflected as the toy soldier quick-marched past.
‘More like a knight on a crusade from what I hear,’ said Tash.
Rory had taken the European circuit by storm since teaming up with MC and Kevin. He had posted wins in France, Belgium and Germany in the past month. His place in the British team at the European Championships was now assured. In contrast, Tash could
barely remember what it was like to earn her first cap; it seemed a lifetime ago.
Her nerves took another pounding as Cub gave her a black eye when he knocked her flying during his trot up, bouncing sideways in high spirits and propelling her into a flower arrangement. Only just hanging on to the reins, she scrambled out with geranium petals in her hair, her nose and cheekbone throbbing where she’d banged them against the ornamental urn. To the crowd’s amusement, one of the Brits called out, ‘Coming to the party as Ophelia, Tash?’
Cub passed the inspection with flying colours and a colourfully floral handler, whose deep purple bruise was already taking shape around her hazel eye, making the mismatch with its green counterpart all the more striking. Tash felt horribly self-conscious, and Hugo’s reaction hardly reassured her that her eye looked any less than grotesque: ‘It’s okay, your costume has a mask.’
‘Can we skip the fancy dress?’ she asked as they headed back to the lorry afterwards. ‘I really need to go through the dressage test a few more times. I’m not sure I can take a party.’
‘You’ve forgotten what four-star eventing is about,’ he insisted, determined to evoke past years when they’d whooped it up on the circuit every weekend. ‘It’s not just the winning, it’s taking the parties. India’s chosen a Batman theme for the Haydown team.’
But Tash was far from gracious about the choice of fancy dress costume, hired from a local shop.
‘What
is
this?’ she exclaimed in horror when she opened the bag and saw a lot of orange fake fur.
‘Batman for me, Catwoman for you.’
‘Catwoman?’
‘There was a bit of a mix-up at the hire shop,’ he said cheerfully.
When she pulled it out there was no mistaking the face on the vast fluffy head, with its half-closed eyes and laconic grin. ‘Hugo, this is a Garfield costume.’
‘I know.’ He smiled unapologetically as she held the bodysuit in front of her, its fat, padded belly dangling above what appeared to be furry orange tights. It was hideous.
He picked up two huge paws. ‘It’s too late to take it back. You’d better try it on.’
She clambered into the hideous suit, which was as hot and uncomfortable as it was unflattering, covering her from fingertips to toes in
orange fluff. The tail, stiffened inside with some sort of wire netting, jutted out like a caveman’s club, clouting everything within range as she turned. The feet were bigger than diving fins and kept falling off. With the head on she was over six feet tall and could barely see a thing through the little mesh peephole in the pale pink nose.
‘Jesus!’ Hugo, wearing nothing but his boxers, abandoned attempts to figure out his Batman suit and stared at her in wonder. ‘That is terrifying.’
She pulled off the head, hair statically charged so that it stood on end. Her blackening eye was stinging like mad. ‘It’s far too hot.’
‘You’ll have to wear less underneath it then.’ He grinned, looking increasingly pleased about the accidental costume selection.
Tash scowled, shrugging off the fat suit to strip off her T-shirt and leggings.
‘Here, let me help.’ Hugo moved behind her, pulling her top over her head, his breath on the back of her neck. ‘You know, I think this bra looks far too hot.’
‘You think so?’
‘Definitely.’ He started to unfasten the clasp. ‘Best not wear it.’
With India still at the stables, they had the horsebox to themselves.
Perhaps fancy dress wasn’t such a bad antidote to stress and tension, Tash decided as Hugo turned her to face him and raised one of her legs so that her foot rested on the chair beside him. Then her naked superhero almost lifted her off her feet.
Knowing that his wife was wearing nothing but a lacy black g-string beneath the monstrous orange suit, Hugo guarded her ferociously from all the hot-blooded event riders that evening, Batman cape flapping. He needn’t have worried, however, as the six-foot Garfield attracted no lascivious looks whatsoever, although speculation was still raging around the lorry park about the state of the Beauchamps’ marriage, and Lough’s involvement. India, dressed as Robin, refused to be drawn when she was cornered by Lucy Field in a very pink fairy queen outfit.
‘I don’t think Tash is even in there.’ Lucy eyed the fat orange cat with suspicion as it tripped over its own feet by the drinks table. ‘I bet she’s already running back home, saying her nerves are bad again.’
‘You’re just frightened she’ll steal your crown.’ Having heard the rumours about Lucy’s involvement with Gus, India disliked eventing’s leading lady rider intensely.
‘A cat may look at a queen,’ Lucy smirked, ‘but that doesn’t put it in line for succession. Even if’ – she dropped her voice to an intimate whisper – ‘she’s bonking the Prince of Darkness.’
‘She’s married to the king,’ India reminded her crossly.
There was a crash from the drinks table and they both looked up to see Garfield causing havoc among the beer bottles with his huge, padded tail.
Tash had been a very well-known face on the circuit for many years, but hadn’t competed internationally for quite a long time, instead being associated in more recent years with being pregnant or carrying a baby in a papoose and supporting her husband from the sidelines. Her reappearance as a four-star contender and unabashed comedy turn delighted many, particularly the younger riders who’d grown up with her as their idol.
‘You’re quite the most cheering sight I’ve seen all year,’ Rory told her when he raced up to give her a hug, ‘and that includes the Lexington and Badminton trophies with my name engraved on them.’