Must Be Love (17 page)

‘What do you think, Alex?’

‘They’re perfect,’ he says, smiling with approval.

‘Boring,’ says Lucie. ‘The purple’s much nicer.’

By the time I’m fully kitted out, I feel quite sexy. There’s something about riding gear: jodhs with Lycra that holds everything in, knee-high boots that make my legs look even longer, and a hat with a green silk that looks great with my blonde locks. I don’t go along with Lucie’s suggestion that I need a hairnet. What’s she trying to do? Make me look like Ena Sharples so her dad doesn’t fancy me any more?

‘I love the jodhs’ – Alex touches my bottom – ‘and the hat.’

‘It’s a bit like wearing a headache.’ I try to take it off, but it’s pretty well jammed to my skull.

‘You have to have one – riding’s a dangerous sport. Not all that dangerous,’ Alex corrects himself, but it’s too late – I noticed. He grins. ‘Otherwise the Fox-Gifford line would have died out long ago.’

‘Actually, Alex, I’d prefer to give riding a miss today. I’d really rather watch you and the children …’

‘You are looking a bit peaky, ha ha.’ He tugs at the peak on my silk. ‘Come on, Maz, some fresh air will do you good. Now, are we sure there isn’t anything else before I settle up?’

‘I’m paying,’ I say hurriedly.

‘No, this is my treat – and Lucie wants a new dandy brush.’

‘Specially for my pony, Tinky,’ says Lucie at the same time as Sebastian says, ‘I wanna ’andy brush too.’

‘All right,’ Alex sighs. ‘Go and choose one.’ Is he always this indulgent? He looks at me, a little embarrassed perhaps. ‘Seb’s becoming quite the shopaholic – he gets it from his mother.’

‘Maz, you have to have a crop.’ Lucie pulls a sparkly purple stick off a display of horsewhips of all different lengths and colours, and I wonder what kind of person makes an industry out of beating horses. ‘If your horse is naughty, you give him a smack. Like this.’ She whacks her own leg. ‘Ouch!’

‘That seems a bit mean,’ I say, trying not to laugh at Lucie’s self-inflicted discomfort, but she’s undaunted. She puts her hands on her hips and squints through loose strands of her hair. ‘You have to let them know who’s boss.’

‘Lucie’s right,’ says Alex.

‘Daddy’s got lots of whips at home,’ Lucie goes on.

‘Alex, I didn’t know you were into S and M,’ I tease, then cover my mouth, remembering too late. The children. Not in front of the children.

‘What’s S and M, Daddy?’ says Lucie.

‘It’s a bit like those sweets, M&Ms, but for grownups.’

Alex settles up with Delphi at the till. I watch them, but there’s no hint that anything is going on, and anyway, I dismiss it because my stomach is uncomfortably compressed inside the jodhpurs, reminding me that I have another, more pressing problem to think about.

The Manor itself is an elegant Regency house with a porch at the front supported by fluted pillars, and looks as if it’s straight out of a Jane Austen adaptation. However, on closer inspection, you can see that it’s beginning to need some TLC. There are cracks opening up in the white render, a couple of slates missing from the roof, and the downstairs window frames are rotting, giving the impression that the Fox-Giffords prefer to spend their money on their horses than their home.

The house sits in a formal garden with lawns, a spreading cedar and traditional borders, and is surrounded by green fields. The Fox-Giffords’ herd of red South Devon cattle are grazing in the fields to the west of the Manor. To the east and continuing round behind the Manor, there are grass paddocks for the horses, divided by posts and electric tape.

‘I hope you don’t think I’m going to have a go at those,’ I say, as we pass the showjumps set up in the outdoor arena.

‘What do you think, Lucie?’ Alex asks.

‘You have to learn to walk, trot and canter properly first,’ Lucie opines.

‘And I don’t want a big horse either,’ I go on. ‘The smaller the better.’

‘Don’t worry, Maz.’ Alex is laughing. ‘We’ll look after you.’

‘I’m going to kill her.’ I glance behind me to see my would-be murderer in his car seat, arms folded, lower lip jutting out and tears in his eyes. ‘I wanna go riding with Mummy. I want my mummy.’

‘Oh, do shut up, Seb,’ says Lucie, as Alex parks in the courtyard at the back of the Manor alongside some other vehicles – a battered Range Rover, a lorry with a jumping horse stencilled on the side, and a vintage Bentley. There are four horses and ponies tied up outside the stable block. Lisa, the Fox-Giffords’ groom, has tacked them up ready for us.

‘You’re riding Jumbo.’ Lucie shows me to an enormous grey cob who rolls his eyes and flares his nostrils, blowing warm breath over my hands as I introduce myself. Does he like me? I’m not sure. I don’t kiss him.

‘Can’t I have a smaller one?’ I ask, taking a couple of steps back.

‘You’ll be fine – he’s like a rocking horse,’ Alex says. ‘Get your hat on, Seb.’ I watch him fasten the strap under Seb’s chin. He’s a good dad. He isn’t distant or stuffy with his kids. He picks Seb up, carries him around the yard, then drops him, giggling, onto a small grey pony almost twice as broad as it is tall.

‘Hold on tight.’ Alex checks the girth before he sweeps Lucie up and sticks her onto the other pony, a handsome bay. ‘Your turn next, Maz.’

Alex unties Jumbo and leads him into the middle of the yard alongside Lucie’s pony. He gives me a leg up, then alters my stirrup leathers to the right length. If I wasn’t in such a delicate condition, I believe I might have just found something about horse riding to enjoy, I muse, as he slips one hand between the saddle flap and my inner thigh to get to the buckle.

‘There you go.’ Alex slides my foot into the stirrup just as Sophia comes marching towards us in a coat, skirt and muck boots. My heart sinks. I’m not sure I’m in the right frame of mind to tolerate her animosity without biting back.

‘Humpy!’ yells Lucie. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I wouldn’t miss this for the world.’ She stops and stares at me.

‘Relax, Maz,’ Alex whispers. He shows me how to hold the reins, thumbs on top. ‘There’s no need to grip with your knees.’

‘I’m not gripping with my knees. I’m hanging on with everything I’ve got.’

‘When you want to go forwards, squeeze with your calves, but not too hard. Jumbo’s pretty responsive,’ he goes on.

‘What do I do when I want to stop?’ That seems more important to me.

‘Don’t worry about that now.’ Alex leaves me to grab a lead rope, which he attaches to the bridle of Seb’s pony before he springs up onto his horse, Liberty. ‘We’re off!’ he yells, but instead of the Charge of the Light Brigade, which I was expecting, it’s all very sedate. Seb’s pony, Mr Pickles, jogs alongside Liberty. Lucie follows on the bay, Tinky Winky, and I take up the rear with Jumbo.

‘Toes up, heels down, Madge. You’re like a sack of potatoes. You’ll never make a rider – you haven’t the right conformation for it.’ Sophia schleps along with us as far as the end of the drive. ‘Of course, all the Fox-Giffords learn to ride before they can walk, and my husband was as good as born in the saddle. His mother was out hunting with the Cotleigh’ – she pronounces it Coat-leigh – ‘when she went into labour. She got orf and dropped him out under a hedge.’

I’m not sure whether to believe her or not.

I hang on to the front of the saddle as Jumbo lengthens his stride to catch up with the others, and I wish I could be so casual about being pregnant that I too could drop this baby under a hedge somewhere, and leave it there to be adopted by some caring passerby. And then I imagine a baby, naked in the mud, bawling its eyes out, as a load of people on their posh hunters mill around it, keeping the hounds at bay. I suppose it’s little wonder Old Fox-Gifford turned out as he did.

We head along a bridleway through fields, then up the ridge of East Hill to Talyford. When we pass the Old Forge I find myself wondering how Penny and Sally are. In fact, I sense that if I wasn’t worrying about how I’m going to tell Alex I’m pregnant, I might actually be enjoying the ride.

Later, we turn back along the valley, then cross the flood-prevention channel to reach the meandering river Taly where the sun glances across the water and the Devon hills cast long shadows along our path. Jumbo is far more enthusiastic on the way home, striding out in front, but once we reach the old railway line where I first met Alex, Alex trots Liberty past me, towing Seb’s pony alongside him.

‘We’ll let the horses stretch their legs here. Hold on tight, Maz.’

‘No!’ I squeal as Jumbo takes off with the others, hooves clattering and throwing up old clinker from the cinder track. I’m not sure what’s most exhilarating, the fear, the complete loss of control or the speed … Jumbo is no longer lumbering. He’s a racehorse.

I can hear Alex’s voice over the wind whistling in my ears.

‘Sit up! Sit up!’

I haul on the reins and discover I have no brakes. I pull and Jumbo pulls back, racing along like a train. All I can do is hang on, until Jumbo decides he’s had enough and comes to a sudden stop, planting his front feet and dropping his head into the bushes to the side of the railway track to graze.

‘Let the reins slip through your fingers!’ calls Lucie, but I’ve already worked that one out. If I hadn’t, I’d have been off over the top of Jumbo’s head.

‘Did you enjoy that, Maz?’ Alex calls.

‘I could have been killed,’ I say weakly.

‘No way,’ Alex says. ‘The horses know exactly where to stop.’

I wish I’d known where to stop on that fateful night, then I wouldn’t be going through all this hassle now.

We return safely to the Manor. At least, we’re all in one piece until we reach the yard, where Mr Pickles, perhaps overexcited at the thought of being home, gives a sneaky buck, at which Seb flies out what Lucie euphemistically calls the side door, landing on his bottom.

To my amazement, he doesn’t cry.

‘I falled off.’ He beams from ear to ear. ‘I falled off, but I didn’t get dead.’

‘Humpy says you have to fall orf seven times before you can say you’re a rider,’ says Lucie. ‘I’ve fallen orf nine times now, so I’m a very good rider. That’s what Humpy says. Now give him a slap on the bum, Maz. Harder.’

‘All right, that’s enough, bossyboots,’ Alex butts in. He jumps down and ties Liberty and the pony up outside the stables, before coming to help me dismount.

‘How was it for you?’ he murmurs, as I slide down to the ground into his arms. I try to push him away, my palms pressed against his chest, but he won’t let me go until our silks nudge, peak to peak, and he’s given me a lingering kiss.

‘They’re only kissing, Sebby,’ I hear Lucie say, ‘not having sex.’

‘Who’d have kids?’ Alex whispers as he releases me.

My gut tightens. Little does he know …

Once we’ve untacked the horses and turned them out for a good roll, we get together in the Barn where Alex makes tea: cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off, fruit cake, jelly and ice cream. After we’ve eaten, the children have baths and get ready for bed, but as before they won’t settle and I wonder how many more weekends we’re going to spend like this.

What makes it more frustrating tonight is that I have to talk to Alex in private. The last thing I need is Lucie overhearing and telling the world and his wife. This is between me and Alex, no one else.

‘I don’t understand,’ Alex says wearily, when they’re still up and about at nine. ‘I’d love an excuse to be in bed by eight.’

Seb is running about in pyjama bottoms and no top. Lucie, wearing a purple nightie, sits astride the arm of the sofa. She looks younger, more vulnerable than she was when she was astride her pony. Sucking on her thumb and stroking her nose, she holds a scruffy piece of blanket up to her face.

‘I thirsty,’ wails Seb.

‘He wants some of that milkshake Mummy won’t let us have,’ says Lucie on her brother’s behalf. ‘The strawberry one.’

‘It’s the sugar in it,’ Alex says, aiming this at me. ‘It keeps them awake.’

Which seems a very good reason not to let them have any. I sit back in one of the armchairs, listening to Alex negotiate. I bet he doesn’t pander to his clients in quite the same way, I think, when Lucie and Seb are sitting on the sofa with cups of milkshake a few minutes later.

‘Thank goodness for that,’ Alex says, after I’ve flicked through every channel on the digibox, and read
Horse & Hound’s
Stallion Special from cover to cover. To be honest, I skimmed it, looking at the photos of all those gleaming thoroughbreds, images of perfect masculinity, and wondering how on earth I’m going to broach the subject of our reproductive accident. Do I break the news gently, or come straight out with it? I close the magazine. My hands are trembling.

‘They’ve gone to sleep at last,’ Alex goes on.

‘You’re too soft,’ I tell him, wondering if it’s a reaction to the way his parents brought him up.

‘Who says, Supernanny?’ Alex picks up a cushion from the sofa and bats me softly about the head. I draw up my feet, my knees under my chin. He drops the cushion and, laughing, leans over the chair, his face close to mine. I grab the collar of his polo shirt, pull him to me and kiss him.

‘We have to talk,’ I murmur.

‘Oh, not right now,’ Alex whispers, his voice hoarse and seductive.

‘Alex …’ As I slide my palms flat against his chest, he backs off a little.

‘Sounds serious.’ He raises one eyebrow, his expression quizzical. ‘Is it?’

I nod, and Alex sinks to his knees, holding my hands in his.

‘Fire away.’

I gaze at his face, my heart balled tight with nerves, my fingers trembling. It would be so easy to push everything aside and say, It’s nothing, let’s go to bed. But I can’t. It isn’t going to go away. I take a deep breath.

‘I’m pregnant,’ I blurt out, and then I sit there waiting for his response.

‘You’re having our baby?’ Alex says eventually.

‘Of course it’s our baby. It wasn’t the immaculate conception.’ Then it dawns on me that he’s thinking the worst. ‘You don’t think I’ve been sleeping around? Of course, I have every opportunity,’ I go on sarcastically, and to my ears my voice sounds cold and indifferent, when inside I’m hot and hurt and upset.