“Bill Lloyd-Foxe?” he said, pumping him by the hand. “Kev Coley.”

Billy was almost blinded by his jewelry.

“I think Rupe’s spoken about me.”

“Of course,” said Billy, trying not to laugh. “He was most impressed.”

“So was I, by tonight’s win. Great stuff, Bill, great stuff. I’m ready to talk terms. Why don’t we have dinner together?”

Billy’s heart sank. “Well, actually, I’ve got someone with me.”

“Bring her, too,” said Kev expansively. “My wife Enid’s up in the stands. The girls can chat while we talk business.”

Suddenly they were interrupted by an old lady, tears pouring down her face. “Oh, Mr. Lloyd-Foxe, I read in the paper you were thinking of turning professional. You won’t sell The Bull, will you?”

Billy smiled. “Of course not.”

“I’ve bought him some Polos.” She got a dusty packet covered in face powder out of her bag.

“Gosh, that’s terribly kind of you,” said Billy.

“Don’t you worry your head, ma’am,” said Kevin Coley. “If Bill turns professional, he’ll never have to sell The Bull.”

Billy found Janey in the lorry, repairing her face. Tracey had already hung the rosettes up on the string across the window.

“Darling, I cried my eyes out — it was so choke-making.” She mustn’t hug him too hard or her new trousers might rip.

“Sweetheart, do you mind if we go out to dinner with a man who wants to sponsor me?”

“No, yes, I do. I want to be alone with you and see the conquering hero come.” Putting her hand down, she touched his cock.

Suddenly Billy realized that if he married this wonderful girl, he could sleep with her every night for the rest of his life.

“We can do that later on,” he said. “It just means that if I pull this deal off, I can ask you to marry me.”

Rupert joined them, wearing a dark suit, and smelling of aftershave.

“I hear you’ve met up with Medallion Man,” he said, then in an undertone to Billy, “Do you mind frightfully saying that I had dinner with you all tonight if Helen asks? I am sure she won’t.”

“Where are you off to?” said Billy.

“Well, do you remember a little unfinished business called Tiffany Bathgate?” and added, as Billy looked disapproving, “and anyway, I thought I’d make myself scarce, in case you and Janey wanted to use the lorry later.”

At four o’clock in the morning, Billy lay in Janey’s arms in the double bed in her flat. They had just made love and he was thinking how beautifully she kept the place. There were clean dark blue sheets on the bed, and three bunches of freesias on the bedside table had driven out any smell of cat. What a glorious, talented creature she was.

“Ouch” he said, trying not to wake her as Harold Evans kneaded his stomach.

“Billy,” she said, “there’s something I’ve got to tell you. Promise you won’t hate me for it?”

Billy’s heart sank. The lovely iridescent soap bubble was about to burst. “I’m twenty-nine, not twenty-four,” she went on.

Billy started to laugh with sheer relief. “Is that all? I wouldn’t have minded if you’d said forty-four. Are you sure you won’t find it infra dig to marry a younger man?”


26


Billy found himself very nervous about telling Helen he was getting married. Rupert had been no problem. In fact Rupert and Janey both experienced passionate relief that they enormously liked but didn’t fancy one another; they were too alike, perhaps. And Rupert, having set up the sponsorship which enabled Billy to marry Janey and start his own yard, felt he had masterminded the whole affair, which mitigated any jealousy.

Nothing would happen in a hurry, anyway. Billy would have to find somewhere to live and, although it might be difficult to go on being partners if Billy were a professional, Rupert was sure they could work something out. Although it would be a struggle financially, Rupert wasn’t prepared to turn professional until he’d had another stab at a gold medal in Los Angeles in four years’ time.

Helen, however, was shattered when she heard the news. Without Billy the precarious balance of their marriage would surely be destroyed. He was so sweet to Marcus and he could always jolly Rupert out of a bad mood by making him laugh. Nor did the two women really take to each other. After Billy and Rupert returned from their American trip, Billy brought Janey down for the weekend. Both girls were set back on their heels by the glamour of the other. Janey never expected Helen to be that beautiful. Helen didn’t expect Janey to be that sexy. Janey had never worn a bra and her clothes were always a little too tight, because she kept falling by the wayside on her diets, and her shirts and dresses were always done up a button too low. Helen’s were always buttoned up to the neck. After six years in Fleet Street, Janey was virtually unshockable and, during dinner on the Friday she arrived, kept both Rupert and Billy in stitches, providing wildly inaccurate lowdown on the sex lives of leading public figures.

Helen had taken great trouble to cook a superb dinner: crab pancakes in cheese sauce, gigot of lamb, and the most perfect quince sorbet. It was a good technique if one wanted to establish a reputation as a brilliant cook, reflected Janey, to serve very small helpings as Helen did, so everyone wanted seconds. Janey, not having eaten all day, was starving, and had thirds of everything, praising Helen like mad. Everyone drank a lot. Janey got happily tight.

How nice, thought Rupert, to find a woman with such an appetite. He’d never admired Lavinia; she was a drip. Janey was fun and tough. She would be good for Billy.

Between Helen and Janey there was also professional jealousy. Janey asked Helen about her novel. Helen said it was coming on very very slowly.

“I’m an academic, you see, and I’m not prepared to put up with anything second-rate.”

“Why don’t you try journalism?” asked Janey.

Helen said she didn’t really feel she could bring herself to do anything like that. She’d never read the Post, but she’d heard it was very sensational.

Janey registered the snub and said that, in her experience, writers who were any good, wrote.

“I’ve got a book coming out in the spring,” she said. “A collection of interviews. I just got the piece I did on you in at the end, darling,” she added to Billy.

She and Billy were so in love, they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Helen wistfully tried to remember the time when she and Rupert were like that. The attempt at a second honeymoon after the Olympics had not lasted very long.

Marcus was brought down and admired and fed. How can such good-looking parents produce such a hideous baby? thought Janey. But realizing it would endear her to Helen, she asked if she could give Marcus his bottle.

“Billy tells me you’re getting a nanny.”

“Well, a girl,” said Helen. “It’ll mean I can spend more time with Rupert.” She must try to like this self-confident, sexy creature. “I’m so pleased you’re getting married to Billy,” she said when they were alone. “He’s so darling, but he’s kind of vulnerable, too. You will look after him, won’t you?”

“Strange — Rupert said the same thing,” said Janey. “I actually hope he’s going to look after me.”

Everyone else thought Janey was marvelous; the dogs, the grooms, Marcus, Miss Hawkins, Mrs. Bodkin, for whom Janey left a fiver. There was a bad moment, however, when Janey was changing for dinner on Saturday night and couldn’t be bothered to go down the passage to the loo. Instead, she got a chair and was crouching over the basin having a pee, when Helen walked in to turn down the beds. Helen was shocked rigid and even more annoyed that Rupert thought it was very funny. Janey, sensitive as radar, realized Helen didn’t approve of her.

“She’s a bit lined-skirt-and-petticoat, or half-slip, as she’d call it, isn’t she?” she said to Billy. “I bet she makes love in long rubber gloves.”

Billy laughed, but he refused to bitch about Helen.

“We really must look for a house very soon,” said Janey.

Rupert persuaded Helen to give a party at Penscombe for Billy and Janey. As she’d done up the house so beautifully, he said, it would be nice for everyone to see it, and they hadn’t had a party since their marriage. She wouldn’t have to do any work. They’d get in caterers, and as the drawing room wasn’t big enough for dancing, they’d hire a marquee. The party would be held in the middle of December just before the Olympia Christmas show, so all the foreign riders would be in the country.

There were frightful arguments over the guest list; all the show-jumping fraternity had to be asked.

“But not Malise Gordon or Colonel Roxborough. I don’t want any grown-ups,” said Rupert.

“Oh, we must have Malise,” protested Helen. “He’s so civilized.”

“He wasn’t very civilized when Ivor Braine took the wrong course in the Nations’ Cup last week. If he comes, he’ll start telling me to go to bed early because I’ve got a class next year.”

“You ought to ask him,” said Billy. “He’d be awfully hurt.”

“Oh, all right, but I’m not asking Jake Lovell. His fat wife wouldn’t get through the door.”

By the time they’d included Janey’s Fleet Street friends, and most of the celebrities she had interviewed, who knew Rupert and Billy anyway, as well as all Rupert’s smart friends, the numbers were up to three hundred. Rupert flipped through the final selection.

“I’ve slept with practically every woman on this list. Gives me a feeling of déjà vu,” he said to Billy.

“You haven’t slept with Hilary.”