‘Why’s that?’
‘Hugo’s on the British team, Niall.’
‘Is he now? Ah, that’s great. Say good luck from us.’
Tash laughed with incredulous delight. The thing around which her entire life was revolving – more than having a second child, trying to keep the house running, worrying about their livelihood – was barely of passing interest to Niall.
‘In that case we must watch him on TV,’ he was saying vaguely. ‘India is here next week; she’ll be keen to see it. Still has horses in her blood after all those years grooming for Penny and Gus. Now, are you going for a home birth?’ he asked cluckily, more fascinated by delivery suites than medal podiums.
‘Not after last time – it’s not encouraged.’
‘Of course, you had an emergency C-section just like Zoe. A
malpresentation, was it not? Always makes me think of perfume girls demonstrating beauty ranges in shopping centres.’
She giggled. Niall was incredibly clued up about childbirth, having taken an active interest in that of his twins, whereas Hugo equated it all to horses and would have been more comfortable if Tash could be confined in a foaling box for the final weeks with a deep straw bed, CCTV and a sweat-activated alarm.
‘Little Cora didn’t want to come out, and who can blame her?’ Niall was saying now, his voice laced with that hypnotic laugh. ‘I remember feeling much the same way with you once.’ His delighted laughter rang out.
He had obviously had even more wine than his wife. A recovering alcoholic who fell off the wagon more often than a faulty cart wheel, Niall considered his summers in Ireland to be time out from AA, pointing out that his hard-drinking Irish family would disown him if he stuck to orange juice.
‘Yes, well, I really ought to—’ Tash started.
But once he was on a roll Niall was unstoppable. Unbeknown to Tash, when Zoe had handed him the phone a few moments earlier she had mouthed
Cheer her up
, and that was what Niall intended to do in the best way he knew: full-throttle flirtation.
‘You are a gorgeous girl, Tash French,’ he crooned, using her maiden name as he had so often in the past, ‘and I’m glad to hear that Beauchamp fellow appreciates what he’s got in you.’
‘Mmm. Quite.’ Tash’s eyes flashed as she heard Hugo come loudly in through the back door accompanied by his dogs.
Niall was thoroughly enjoying himself, revisiting a favourite old haunt. Zoe, who was accustomed to his wild flirtations and the fact that he remained quite hopelessly in love with every woman he had ever wooed, thankfully none more so than his wife, was quoted as saying that being married to a dedicated method actor and renowned playboy was like being in love with dozen different men, at least a few of which would always be in love with somebody else.
‘Sure I know I was a fool to let you go,’ he was purring now. ‘You have such an exquisite soul. Not to mention those magnificent legs. Best set of legs I’ve ever set eyes on. I’ll bet that gorgeous arse of yours is just as shapely and firm as it ever was, pregnancy or no.’
Only half listening because Hugo had marched up behind her
and was demanding to know who was on the phone ‘at this bloody hour’, Tash felt her haemorrhoids throb.
‘It’s – um – Niall,’ she managed to mutter over her shoulder, so flustered that she accidentally pressed speakerphone.
‘… loved staring at your pins, angel …’ Niall was still reminiscing, his voice now booming around the room at top volume. ‘Sure, I remember making you walk around in nothing but frilly knickers when we shared that chilly fleapit – d’you not recall? I wanted to kiss each and every one of your goose bumps …’
Behind her, Hugo’s eyebrows shot up and he hissed, ‘What the fuck does he want?’
Tash fumbled to mute the call. ‘I called him.’
Hugo cocked his head at this.
Not realising that her explanation was open to interpretation, she pressed a few more buttons but only succeeded in turning up the speaker volume even more, while now also digitally recording Niall’s words.
‘… remember when I had you all to myself to play the naughtiest games …’ He was recounting with an enchanted laugh, his warm brogue so familiar that he could be on the battered little work-top television telling Jonathan Ross one of his hilarious anecdotes about filming on location. Instead he was on the kitchen phone remembering making love with Tash ‘… that day the heavens opened so hard that the ceiling fell in and we just carried on fornicating in the plaster dust and rainwater, watching the forked lightning overhead …’
Eyebrows cranking higher, Hugo stalked off to feed the dogs.
Tash finally pressed a button that cut off Niall’s voice and treated them both to a tinny version of ‘Eine kleine Nachtmusik’.
She turned to watch Hugo, always struck by the way that the dogs lined up in von Trapp order as they awaited their food – apart from rebellious Beetroot the mongrel who, in her dotage, liked to lie down belly-up in her checked bed when awaiting food.
The Haydown pack was large but incredibly well-mannered and disciplined, with all its members given a specific job to do. Beetroot was the genteel and ageing lady’s companion, the only dog allowed up the stairs, on the sofas or the bed. The Bitches of Eastwick were three Labradors that Hugo had trained to the gun. The Roadies were two big Rhodesian ridgeback brothers who guarded the yard and
helpfully rounded up stray livestock and children as required. Finally, the Rat Pack were three snappy little hunt-terrier bitches that kept the Haydown rat and rabbit population down and were named variously after Hugo’s ex girlfriends and/or female adversaries.
They all adored him because he treated them fairly but firmly and was top dog. By contrast they walked all over Tash, who bribed them, spoiled them and alternately hugged them all close or shooed them away from Cora. Only Beetroot remained her ally, although the pretty little biscuit-coloured bitch with her black envelope-flap ears and long, feathered lash of a tail joined the rest in sucking up to the pack leader at mealtimes.
Tash watched the food bowls clatter down on the quarry tiles in the boot room in specific order and listened to the appreciative chomps of a large pack eating dried dog food as competitively as hounds thrown a haunch.
‘I didn’t call Niall,’ she explained, still holding the phone as it tinkled out Mozart. ‘I called Zoe but she had to go to one of the twins and—’
‘Forget it.’ Hugo flashed a tired on-off smile as he emerged from the boot room and crossed through the kitchen past her, heading for the rear lobby that led to the main house. ‘I’m whacked. I’m going to bed. Lock up once you’ve chucked the Roadies out, will you?’
‘But …’
He was already gone. Always the first to finish eating, Beetroot scuttled after him, claws slithering on the flagstones in her haste to join him in bed.
Tash remembered feeling much the same way when they were first married; she had suffered from almost continual indigestion.
Wearily she pressed the phone’s green button. Niall was still reminiscing, apparently unbothered by the artificial hold music that had briefly featured at the other end of the line:
‘… that day that you made me walk up onto the downs to make love behind the gorse bushes on Wayfarer’s Walk and some spotty teenager flying a kite literally stepped back on top of us. I’ve never laughed so much …’
Tash smiled into the phone as she, too, couldn’t help remembering that sunny day over a decade ago when she’d hardly had a care in the world compared to now. Laughter was a rare commodity now, as was fun, silly, adventurous sex.
‘It was a man with a hang-glider,’ she recalled.
‘It was?’
‘He was taking a run higher up the ridge and lost his footing – he passed over us so low that he kicked you on the bottom.’
‘So he did now,’ Niall chortled, sucking in a deep, contented breath that was no doubt accompanied by a puff on a rare Cuban cigar. ‘Did the spotty kid with the kite fall over us after that?’
‘He didn’t.’
‘He did so. I remember because he was wearing a T-shirt on promoting one of my films.
Celt
, wasn’t it?’
Tash suddenly found the conversation less entertaining. Face cold and heart pounding as she guessed what Hugo must be thinking of her right now. ‘The kite kid must have been with somebody else.’
‘Was it?’ Niall was unapologetic. ‘I admit I got rather fond of that spot hidden among the gorse bushes, so I did …’
With a rueful pang, Tash realised that not long after pleasuring her amid the gorse bushes Niall had been pleasuring another in the same spot. He had never been particularly faithful and was notorious for transferring his affections from one woman to another with shameful speed. In Tash’s case, the other woman had been Zoe.
As the baby let out a series of kicks Tash touched her bump for comfort and felt a shudder of fear course through her, her cold face even clammier and her clanking heart raking indigestion up from her belly now. Any thoughts of infidelity and affairs made her very jumpy and afraid indeed.
Niall had moved on from reminiscing about nefarious activities behind West Berkshire gorse bushes and was contemplating matters at hand: ‘Have you got a name for the little fellow yet?’
‘Waitrose,’ Tash muttered, still thinking uncomfortably about betrayal.
On cue Zoe’s soothing tones came back on the phone.
‘Sorry about that – Cian is out like a light again, bless him. I hope Niall’s been keeping you entertained.’
‘Highly.’
‘Good. Now what were you saying before I had to break off – something about Hugo buying you flowers? That’s so tender and thoughtful. He
must
have turned over a new leaf. Fatherhood has obviously reformed his rakish ways.’
Tash could hear Hugo upstairs, ordering Beetroot out of the bedroom so loudly that Cora was bound to wake up.
‘Yes, he’s quite the new man these days. He’s promised to bring me a lovely present back from the Olympics if he wins gold.’
‘Oh, what’s that?’
Tash thought about handsome Lough Strachan with his Maori tattoos and fiery reputation, and smiled as she anxiously stroked her belly, which unborn Amery was now using as a bouncy castle. Things would get better after the Games, she was certain of it. With new staff starting they’d have lots more help on the yard and in the house; having Beccy in situ would help reconcile the increasing rift between Tash and her father. And Hugo would stop sneaking into Waitrose to buy flowers for whatever – probably perfectly innocent – reason. Yes, it would all get better after the Games, especially if he won a medal.
‘Undivided attention,’ she sighed. ‘He’s bringing me back his undivided attention.’
Zoe laughed throatily. ‘In that case we’ll definitely be cheering him on this end.’
As a special reward for completing her A levels so diligently, Faith Brakespear was treated to a home-cooked spread of all her favourite things – her mother’s
leverpostej
pâté on rye bread, then roast lamb with all the minted and caramelised trimmings, and finished with treacle tart with toffee ice cream, all washed down with lashings of kir royale – during which she was toasted with an announcement that threw all her life plans into disarray.
‘I have arranged the best job for your gap year,
kæreste
,’ her mother Anke revealed with the delight of a magician pulling a solid gold rabbit from a satin topper. ‘You will be the working pupil at Kurt’s dressage yard in Essex.’
‘Essex?’ Faith croaked stupidly, thinking how far away it was from Oddlode and her beloved riding coach, Rory Midwinter.
‘Big county near London,’ her stepfather Graham mocked kindly.
‘Unusually high consumption of hair bleach and Turtle Wax. We used to live there, love.’
‘You will have to start at the bottom, of course,’ Anke was saying pragmatically, although her eyes sparkled with pride at achieving such a coup, ‘but Kurt knows how talented you are and how much you want to be a professional dressage rider, and you
are
his daughter, so he will make it happen for you, and Rio of course. Imagine what this will do for your chances, being his protégée?’
Long heralded as Britain’s best-ever dressage rider, Kurt Willis was a dashing blond cavalier who looked like a Ralph Lauren model and oozed pure, natural riding talent from every pore. Married to Anke for almost twenty years, much of it platonically, he had acknowledged and raised Faith and her older brother Magnus as his own children until the marriage finally foundered when, unable to live the lie any longer, he came out of the closet in public as well as private. Now known affectionately to his children as the Gayfather, he still lived in Essex with his long-term partner Graeme Fredericks, a fellow dressage rider – both men enjoying a famously open relationship involving a luxury gin palace, several million-pound horses, two poodles and a lot of strapping young grooms brought over from the continent each year. Anke, meanwhile, had gone on to marry a golden Graham herself, Lancashire-born haulier turned Essex freight millionaire Graham Brakespear. And after almost a decade as companionable near-neighbours to Kurt in Essex, the couple had moved to the Cotswolds with Magnus, Faith and their own son Chad two years earlier. All four collective parents and step-parents, Gayfathers and Graham/Graeme fathers remained gratifyingly close and friendly, and had recently been joined in this curious family tree by Magnus’s biological father, Stig Jorgen, a Swedish dressage trainer with whom he had recently become acquainted. Only Faith’s own birth father, an Irish horse trader whom she refused to acknowledge despite her mother’s various attempts to forge a relationship between them, remained out of the loop. She had spent her childhood craving a conventional family; in her early teens she’d taken Graham’s surname and was happy to let new acquaintances believe that she’d inherited her stubborn loyalty and broad shoulders from him.
Faith had no interest in acquiring more fathers. She simply wanted competitive glory and Rory. Now she was torn in two by her mother’s proposal.
‘You will go to Essex after your birthday party. You might as well start work straight away because, of course, Kurt and Graeme are not at the Olympics this year.’ The duo had controversially been left off the British dressage team for the first time in twenty years in favour of an all-female squad, all of whom were under twenty-five. ‘Kurt thinks the future is in a protégée, darling, and he wants that protégée to be you!’ Anke finished rapturously.