‘Can’t you ever forget about being a bloody Campbell-Black?’
Isa had walked in and caught sight of the piece in her hand. Sharon, stretched out on the bed, scattered receipts as she waved her tail.
‘Have you been ransacking my mother’s tights drawer?’
‘Hardly be tight on me,’ snapped Tab. She’d got so thin she could jump through the hoop of the sellotape hanging from the bedside table.
‘I was looking for a thick jersey,’ she went on, ‘which one certainly needs in this house. The only thing I could find was Pond’s Vanishing Cream. Your mother could start by using it on her hips.’
She thought Isa was going to hit her.
‘You been drinking?’
‘Of course not. I promised.’
Isa wasn’t sure. Like most drinkers, Tab went through three stages: clinging and filled with anxiety when she woke up, incredibly cheery after the first few slugs, then punchy and belligerent when she was coming down. It looked as though she’d reached the third stage. But he didn’t want to upset his mother, so he asked if Tab would come downstairs to open the presents.
‘The gritters are out,’ he added, gazing at the lights flashing along the horizon. ‘We’re in for a hard night.’
‘People use them on their teeth round here.’
The Lovells were frugal, short of money and had allotted one present to each person. Tory had gone to a lot of trouble to track down an early history of eventing in a second-hand-book shop for Tab. Isa had rather pointedly given Tab some scent called Quercus, so she wouldn’t nick his CK One any more, and a rather ugly gold locket.
‘I’m going to put your picture in one side,’ said Tab, hugging him, ‘and Sharon and The Engineer in the other.’
Used to Penscombe prodigality, where everyone received presents from every dog, horse and human, and in anticipation of a fat Christmas cheque from Rannaldini, Tab had rolled up with a crate of champagne and a side of smoked salmon for the Lovells. Her individual presents were less successful and all wrongly labelled. Tory opened a red fishnet stocking of dog treats, destined for Sharon, then some boxer shorts.
‘Sorry, they’re meant for Isa, although I suppose Sharon could wear them if she was a boxer not a Labrador.’
Isa, thinking of their bank account, grew increasingly tight-lipped as he opened a silver-topped whip, two beautiful dark blue cashmere jerseys, ‘because I’m always nicking yours’, and a camera, when he’d already got four.
Tab herself was desperately disappointed to have nothing from Rupert and, even more worryingly, no fat cheque from Rannaldini. Instead, he and Helen had given her a royal blue vase edged with gold and decorated with a pastoral scene.
‘Very pretty,’ said Tory.
‘Except Bussage picked it up at a car old-boot sale,’ said Tab furiously.
She was most excited about the present she’d got for Jake and Tory. She had taken a photograph of their ancient lurcher, Beetle, from Isa’s photograph album, and commissioned Daisy France-Lynch, a friend of Rupert’s, to paint from it an exquisite miniature. To her horror, Jake merely grunted and put it face down on the table.
‘Why are your parents so ungrateful?’ sobbed Tab as she watched Isa changing for dinner, thinking how ravishingly a dark suit became his wild black hair and pale gypsy face.
‘Why d’you do things without asking me?’ hissed Isa. ‘Beetle was the puppy my father bought for my mother, as a peace-offering because he loathed living with your mother, and he wanted to come back to Mum and he’d heard her dog had been run over. He found Mum in hospital, dying of a massive overdose because she couldn’t live without him either. They believe Beetle was the talisman that saved Mum and their marriage, and you have to go and give them a flaming painting of her.’
‘I didn’t know, I never thought,’ sobbed Tab.
‘You never do,’ snarled Isa, reaching for his aftershave.
She
must
have been drinking to have wrongly wrapped up all those presents. Then he twigged, as he realized he was slapping not CK One on his face but neat vodka.
Dinner was bearable because there was plenty of wine, Tory had cooked a delicious turkey, and as Isa and Tab were sitting at opposite ends of the table divided by the grooms no-one realized they were not speaking to one another.
The telephone had rung constantly: owners, jockeys, friends, Tory’s sister Fenella from America, Darklis from South Africa, all called to wish the Lovells happy Christmas. No-one rang Tab.
Tory found the silver bachelor’s button in her Christmas pudding, which caused lots of laughter. From silver charms in puddings, the conversation moved on to superstitions.
‘One mustn’t get married after sunset,’ said a pretty redhead, making eyes at Isa.
‘And never eat your own wedding cake,’ said her plump friend.
‘Why not?’ asked Tab quickly.
‘Anyone want any more Christmas pudding?’ cried Tory desperately. ‘Jake, do shove round the white.’
‘Why not?’ insisted Tab.
Even more of a chill than there was already fell over the room.
‘A marriage is supposed to be doomed if you marry after sunset,’ said the pretty redhead with a shrug, ‘and the gypsies say if you taste your own wedding cake your child will die.’
‘But I did both those things,’ Tab clutched her tummy in horror.
‘It’s only a silly old gypsy’s tale,’ said Tory, in distress. ‘Think of the times you see a single magpie and nothing awful happens.’
A ringing telephone made everyone jump.
‘It’s your father, Tabitha,’ said the head lad returning from answering the call.
Tab streaked out of the room. ‘Daddy, oh, Daddy!’
‘My darling leetle girl,’ said Rannaldini, ‘your mother sends love. I just wanted to know how you are getting on.’
As Tab returned to the dining room, hollow with desolation, Jake was making some dismissive crack about Penscombe Pride not winning the George VI tomorrow.
‘My father’s a far better horseman than either you or Isa ever were,’ screamed Tab, and fled upstairs where, mistaking Jake and Tory’s room for the loo, she regurgitated turkey and vodka all over their bed and passed out.
The next day, Isa and Jake went off to Kempton, and Tab, who had no intention of getting to know her mother-in-law better, made the excuse that she couldn’t leave The Engineer any longer and drove back to Paradise.
It was lovely to come home to such a pretty place. Magpie Cottage, which was faded russet, rather than black and white, lay just across the valley from Rannaldini’s watch-tower, with a beech copse behind and a stream running down one side. On the lawns, back and front, it was hard to tell where snow ended and snowdrops began.
Tab loved Magpie Cottage but she grew nervous on her own; Sharon picked up the vibes and kept barking at the wind or imagined bangs, which made Tab more scared than ever. Taking a slug from the bottle of vodka she’d bought in a pub on the way home she started brooding on the superstitions they’d discussed last night and then about one magpie for sorrow.
Finding a paintbrush and some black paint in a kitchen cupboard, she went out into the fading afternoon. The sky was a pale, silvery grey, dotted with darker grey clouds and patches of gold on the horizon. The snow was too powdery to make snowballs, but had drifted beautifully, sharp as a shark’s fin against the garden wall. Sharon charged round the lawn raising spray like a skier, as Tab added an S to the board outside. Now it was Magpies Cottage — two for joy.
‘I’m going to make my marriage work,’ she told Sharon, ‘and you can show everyone how good Labradors are with babies.’
18
The cold spell continued. There was no racing, which made Isa very twitchy and cross because neither he nor Jake were making any money. The horses grew bored and restless. Pipes froze, so Tab, who’d forgotten to stop the milk, bathed in it instead.
Rupert beat the chill factor by taking Taggie, Xav and Bianca skiing. Tab ground her teeth over their photographs in the paper.
Fighting hangovers, and sickness, she still staggered up to do The Engineer every morning because she couldn’t bear him to get closer to one of Rannaldini’s grooms than herself. Then she returned to the vodka, which she found increasingly difficult to buy because she had no money. Several of her Christmas cheques bounced, before she discovered Rannaldini had stopped her allowance as well.
Isa doled her out pocket money for housekeeping, but grudgingly. It would be much more sensible, he said, for her to wheedle some serious dosh out of Rannaldini, which was why she had accepted the invitation to
Riverdance
on Isa’s birthday in January. At the last moment, Isa had cried off in a rage. Tab had a maddening habit of always borrowing his jackets. Grabbing his Puffa from the back of the bedroom door, he had found all the Christmas cards to his owners unstamped and unposted in the pocket.
Which was why Tab had a lone evening with an amused but utterly unyielding Rannaldini.
‘Isa is a successful jockey. You have a charming, free cottage, and if you bothered to check, you ungrateful child, you’d discover the Sèvres vase I gave you for Christmas was worth a few bob. Young people should make their own way.’
He wouldn’t even lend her a grand or two to appease Isa and the bank manager.
The coupling of an alcoholic and a workaholic is not a happy one. As Isa worked endlessly to keep the show on the road and compensate for lack of support from Tab, he had less and less time to spend with her, which lowered her confidence and made her drink more out of loneliness.
Isa was so cool he fell asleep in the middle of a row, and she could never tell, behind that expressionless face, what he was thinking. In fact, throughout that long, hard, cruel winter, Peppy Koala, the chestnut colt, so charming, so idle, so uncompetitive, had never been far from his thoughts.
He was just making plans in late February to fly out to Australia when Mr Brown, Peppy Koala’s owner, suddenly called him. He was in England, taking over some Bristol electronics firm. Was Isa free tomorrow evening?
Mr Brown also wanted to see Jake’s yard, and having read about Isa’s wedding in
Hello!
, said he’d sure like to shake hands with the new Mrs Lovell, who looked a beaut, so perhaps they could have dinner at Isa’s place.
Switching off his mobile, Isa looked round at Magpie Cottage. God, it was a tip! The ravishing little chest of drawers Taggie had given them for a wedding present was already covered in drink rings, like a pond in a rainstorm.
Knowing there was no way he could bring Mr Brown back here in its present state, Isa swallowed his pride and a large whisky and rang Helen. Could he borrow Mrs Brimscombe, Betty and Sally tomorrow morning to blitz the place? Then all Tab had to do was collect some precooked food from Waitrose and make herself look beautiful.
As luck would have it, in lieu of payment, one of Isa’s owners had given him a brand-new Jaguar XK8, which was being delivered to the cottage that afternoon. If money ran out he could flog it. For the meantime it would impress Mr Brown.
The three-month ban on sex was now up, but the cold war seemed to have set in too hard for Isa to placate Tab by making a move on her that night. Tab had stopped being sick, but instead when she opened her mouth a stream of resentment came out.
On the morning of Mr Brown’s visit, however, she was full of good intentions: no booze, and wifely behaviour. By midday a tight-lipped Mrs Brimscombe and a giggling Betty and Sally had made the cottage look wonderful and set the table.
‘Why don’t you buy some daffies for that lovely blue vase?’ suggested Betty.
Tab had been just off to Waitrose when she went to Isa’s chest of drawers to borrow a pair of socks. Rooting round under the lining paper she found a lovely laughing picture of Martie, his Australian girlfriend. He’s still in love with her, she thought in terror, he’s going to leave me.
When the telephone woke her, it was dark. Isa wanted to know if everything was on course. Mr Brown had been impressed with Jake’s yard. They’d be back around six thirty.
‘What have you bought for supper?’
‘It’s a surprise,’ bleated Tab.
‘Shall I get red or white?’
‘Both, I should think. See you later.’
Whimpering with panic, Tab looked around her. How could she have made such a mess? An empty vodka bottle and fragments of the royal blue and gold vase Rannaldini had given her for Christmas littered the floor. She’d better go and buy the food for dinner; then she could tidy the place and herself while it was heating up.
Her car was out of petrol, so she borrowed Isa’s new Jaguar. God, it was bliss to drive. In no time she had reached Waitrose, and loaded up with a smoked-salmon mousse, three packets of Coronation Chicken, new potatoes, ready-made dressing and a pretty red and green bag of salad. Adding banana and yoghurt ice cream, a brown loaf and runny Brie, she was off to the checkout counter, piling on Pedigree Chum and Whiskas on the way. Catering was so easy if you knew how. She even ignored a great glacier of vodka bottles. Hurrah for Tabitha the coper.
Her undoing was a white tablecloth covered in glasses, and a beaming salesman with a special offer of Chilean Chardonnay.
‘Might as well have a slurp,’ muttered Tab, as her trolley developed a mind of its own and veered booze-wards.
A man in a flat cap and a green Husky had had the same idea, and was soon swilling away, waggling his nose back and forth in the glass like a windscreen wiper.
‘Remarkably good,’ he said to Tab.
‘It is,’ she agreed, smiling back at the salesman, ‘and a terrific bargain. Could I have another glass just to make sure?’
‘What a lovely little hidey-hole,’ said Mr Brown, as Isa drew up outside Magpie Cottage. ‘Look at those primroses. I’m dying for a leak.’
Isa’s first thought was that his Jaguar had been stolen, the second that his mobile was ringing. Ignoring it, he ran into the house. Chaos met his eyes. Charging into the downstairs loo, he found no bog paper and no towel. Fuck Tab!