“He was my horse. What fucking business is that of anyone’s?”

“The RSPCA for a start, and the FEI, not to mention the BSJA. It won’t do your image any good, nor will a lot of emotive stuff about selling Macaulay to the Middle East, and him starving and ending up in the stone quarries.”

“If you believe that story.”

“I do,” said Malise, “and it could ruin you. The press are longing to get you, and you know what the English are like about cruelty to animals. It’ll take a lot of guts, but go back into the ring and keep your trap shut. Bet you’ll get a lot of marks.”

Back came the bands, but this time the four horses were too tired to be disturbed by the drums and the cymbals. Ludwig shook Jake by the hand. “Well done, my friend, well done.”

“Clara was the best-trained horse. You should have won it,” said Jake.

“You fought back from a terrible start; zat is more important.”

Dudley Diplock ran up to Jake. “Seuper, absolutely seuper,” he cried, giving Macaulay a wide berth. “Can I interview you immediately after the presentation?”

Rupert rode in last. The crowd gave him almost the biggest cheer in sympathy. He was handsomer than Robert Redford, he had jumped three spectacular clears, and certainly most of the women in the audience had wanted him to win.

Jake rode forward, leaving the other riders lined up behind him, and removed his hat as the band played the National Anthem. His hair was drenched with sweat and there was a red ring on his forehead left by his hat. In a daze, he was given an assortment of rosettes, so you could hardly see Macaulay’s white face for ribbons. There was also a purple sash, which clashed with Jake’s scarlet coat, and a huge laurel wreath for Macaulay’s neck, which he tried to eat. Then, to Jake’s intense embarrassment, one beautiful girl in matching green suits after another came up and presented him with prize after prize: a gold medal, a Sèvres vase, a Limoges tea set, a silver tray, a magnum of champagne, an enormous silver cup and, finally, a check for £10,000.

There was nothing except one rosette and much smaller checks for the others.

“Can’t we each have one of those girls as consolation prizes?” said Dino.

Even when Prince Philip came up and shook him by the hand, Jake was too euphoric even to be shy and managed to stumble a few sentences out. Aware that the place was swarming with photographers and television cameras, Macaulay resolutely stuck his cock out and refused to put it in again.

“Just like Rupert,” said Fen.

As Jake came out of the ring, he was cornered by Dudley Diplock. “May I personally shake Macaulay by the hoof. How the hell did you get him to do it?” he added, lowering his voice. “I’ve been waiting ten years for someone to give that shit Campbell-Black his comeuppance. The whole show-jumping world will club together and give you a medal.”

Gradually it was dawning on Jake that most people seemed more delighted Rupert had lost than that he had won. After the television interview with Dudley, which was not very articulate but so full of euphoria and gratitude to Macaulay and Tory and all the family and Malise, that it charmed everyone. Malise joined them. Neither he nor Jake were demonstrative men, but for a second they hugged each other.

“You were brilliant,” said Malise in a strangely gruff voice. “Sorry I didn’t get to you earlier but I’ve been with Rupert. He wanted to object.”

“Nothing to object about,” said Dudley.

“Quite,” said Malise. “But that’s never deterred him in the past. Fortunately, they weren’t having any of it. But he has been badly humiliated, so I think the less crowing about that side of it the better. Come on,” he added to Jake, “everyone’s waiting to talk to you.”

“Who?”

“The world’s press, for a start.”

“I want to ride Mac back to the stable. I’ve got nothing to say to them. I won. Isn’t that enough?”

Malise looked at him. Was there a flicker of pity in his eyes? “It won’t have had time to sink in,” he said, “but things are never going to be the same again. You’re a superstar now, a world beater. You’ve got to behave like one.”

On the way, they passed Helen Campbell-Black; she was crying. Both Malise and Jake hoped that Rupert wasn’t going to take it out on her. As they fought their way into the crowded press tent, euphoric English supporters, stripped to the waist, including Humpty, Ivor Braine, and Driffield, were already getting plastered.

“Fucking marvelous! You beat the bugger,” said Driffield, thrusting a glass into Jake’s hand, while Ivor overfilled it with champagne.

“Three cheers for the champion,” said Humpty. “Hip-hip-hooray.” Everyone joined in. The noise nearly lifted the roof off.

“Lovell for prime minister,” yelled an ecstatic British supporter. Opening another magnum, he sprayed the entire press conference with champagne.

Jake was carried shoulder-high to the table with the microphones. He collapsed into a chair and was bombarded with questions. He answered the foreign ones through an interpreter.

He was extremely happy, he said, but very, very tired. One didn’t sleep much before a championship. He’d won because he was very lucky. Macaulay was a great horse, perhaps not in the class of any of the other horses, but he had been rested all year. Clara was the best-trained horse. She didn’t knock down a single fence, she ought to get a special prize.

Everyone was still clamoring for information about Macaulay.

Jake said carefully that he’d always liked the horse, and when Rupert sold the horse on, he’d tracked him down and bought him.

“Did you deliberately put him in to sabotage Rupert?” asked Paris Match.

Jake caught Malise’s eye. “Of course not. I’d no idea how he’d feel about Rupert.”

“Did you know Rupert had sold the horse because he was vicious?” asked Joanna.

Jake looked up, the somber black eyes suddenly amused. “Who’s vicious?” he said. “Rupert or the horse?”

Everyone laughed.

Later a celebratory party went on until four o’clock in the morning, but Rupert and Helen gave it a miss and flew home.

Soon all that was left of the World Championship was a few wheel tracks and a bare patch at the corner of the collecting ring, where all week ecstatic grooms had snatched up handfuls of grass to reward their successful charges, as they came out of the ring.


36


Aweek after the riders came back from the World Championship, Billy went up to London to speak at the Sportswriters’ Association Lunch. If they’d known I was going to be dropped, they probably wouldn’t have asked me, he thought wryly. Janey needed the car to go shopping (“Only food from the market; it’s so much cheaper,” she added quickly), so she dropped Billy off at the station. He couldn’t face Horse and Hound; it’d be too full of the World Championship, so he bought Private Eye, which always cheered him up, except when they were foul about Rupert. As he sat on the station platform, he turned to Grovel. He read a marvelous story about a member of the Spanish Royal family’s sexual perversions, and another, even more scurrilous, about a trade union leader and a pit pony. Then his heart stopped beating. The next story began:

“Ex-slag-about-Fleet Street, Janey Henderson, sacked for the size of her expenses, is now trying to write a book about men. Despite encyclopedic knowledge of the subject, Janey felt the need for further research and recently returned from four days in Marbella with loathsome catfood tycoon Kevin Coley. Meanwhile her amiable husband, Billy Lloyd-Foxed (as he’s known on the circuit), is forced to turn a blind drunk eye. Coley is his backer to the tune of £50,000 a year.”

Billy started to shake. It couldn’t be true, it couldn’t — not Janey. She’d always laughed at Kev. Private Eye got things wrong; they were always being sued. He read it again. The words misted in front of his eyes. He didn’t even hear the train come in. The ticket collector tapped him on the shoulder. “You want this one, don’t you, Billy?”

“Yes, no, I don’t know. No, I don’t.”

Running, pushing aside the people coming off the train, he rushed out of the station, flagging down the first taxi. “Take me home.”

“All right, Mr. Lloyd-Foxe.”

No one was there. Janey was still out shopping. He pressed the LR button on her telephone to find out the last number she’d rung. It was Kevin Coley’s, at the head office. Hating himself, he looked in her top drawer. Janey had started a letter which she’d crumpled up.

“Darling Kev, I won’t see you today, so I’m writing. God, I miss you, I’m just coming down to earth after Marbella. Can’t you think of somewhere nice and far to send Billy?”

He gave a moan of horror. His legs were trembling so much he could hardly stand. The bottle clattered against the glass and the whisky spilt all over the carpet. He drained it neat in one gulp, then he ran all the way to Rupert’s. He found him in the yard, selling a horse to an American.

One look at Billy’s face and Rupert said to the buyer, “Sorry, I’ve got to go. If you’re interested in the horse, give me a ring later.” Then, putting a hand on Billy’s shoulder, he led him inside.

As soon as the drawing room door was shut behind them Billy said, “Did you know Janey was being knocked off by Kevin Coley?”

“Yes.”

“How the hell?”

“Helen saw them lunching together in Cheltenham, and Mrs. Bodkin’s been chuntering. And Mrs. Greenslade said in Les Rivaux that she saw them coming off a plane.”

“It’s all over Private Eye. Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”