“Darling, we must talk about money.”

Janey, however, was deep in The Tatler. “Oh look, there’s Mike Pardoe, and there’s Rupert’s mother. She is amazingly well preserved. She must be over fifty.”

Billy tried again. “I’ve just been through the returned checks. The bank say they’re going to bounce anything more we submit. Soon, I won’t be able to feed the horses.”

“Oh, dear,” said Janey in mock horror. “Of course the horses always come before everything else.”

“How long d’you think it’ll be before the book’s finished?”

“How can I tell? Oh, that is a sweet one of Tab, and Helen looks marvelous. She is so bloody photogenic. And there’s Caroline Manners. What an incredibly plain child.”

“You said July, last time I asked.”

“More likely October.”

“So it won’t be published this year?”

“Nope. Oh, look, Henrietta Pollock got engaged. Poor man.”

Billy’s heart sank. He was hoping to keep the manager sweet by a promise of £14,000 by Christmas.

He tried again. “We simply can’t go on like this. We’ve got an overdraft of £30,000. We owe the tax man twenty grand and the builders fifty grand and the VAT-man’s threatening to take us to court, and you spend £50 at the hairdressers, and £250 on clothes, expecting me not to notice. D’you take me for a complete fool?”

“Not complete. Pity you pranged the car. Oh, there’s Ainsley Hibbert. She’s gone blond. Not a bad guy with her, too.”

“Janey, have you listened to a word I’ve said?”

“Yes, I have. We owe rather a lot of money: about £100,000, in fact. You’ll have to tap darling Mumsie, won’t you? She won’t let poor Billy starve.”

Billy was having difficulty keeping his temper.

“If the book’s not going to be finished yet, could you do some journalism, just to pay the more pressing bills?”

Janey got up. “I must go and put on the parsnips.”

“I don’t want any dinner. If you honestly think I can eat…”

“It doesn’t seem to stop you drinking. Why don’t you go out and win something? It’s awfully boring being married to a failure.”

Billy put his head in his hands.

“Why d’you always try and make me feel small?”

“You are small,” said Janey. “You told me you’d lost a lot of weight recently.”

“For Christ’s sake, can’t you take anything seriously? If we really try, I know we can get straight.”

“Borrow something from Rupert.”

“He’s pushed himself, at the moment.”

“Paying for the new indoor swimming pool,” said Janey, walking out of the room.

Two minutes later Billy followed her, putting his arms round her. “Angel, we can’t afford to fight.”

Janey laughed bitterly. “I should have thought that was the only thing we could afford to do.”

The telephone rang. Billy went to answer it. “Oh, hello. Yes, I see. I quite understand. It was very good of you to let me know. Good luck, anyway.” Very slowly he put the receiver down; as he turned he seemed to have aged twenty years.

“That was Malise. I’ve been dropped for the World Championships. He wanted me to know before I read it in tomorrow’s papers. They’ve selected Jake Lovell instead.”

What, thought Janey, was Kev going to say, stuck with a tent in Les Rivaux and all his male customers revved up for a stag freebie full of Oh-la-las?


33


Although there was colossal prestige in being picked for the Olympics, it meant one competed only against amateurs. The competition the riders wanted to win almost more, therefore, was the World Championship, which took place every two years, midway between the Olympic Games, and which was open to amateurs and professionals alike. The championships were also considered more of a test of horsemanship, because in the last leg the four finalists had to jump a round on each others’ horses.

As well, more and more show jumpers were forced to turn professional. “Vot is zee point,” as Ludwig told Dudley Diplock in an interview, “in competing at zee Olympics, when so many of zee best riders are banned, and only votching zee event on television?”

It was with considerable trepidation, at 6:30 A.M. on a Tuesday in mid-July, that Jake set off with Fen and Tanya for Les Rivaux in the lorry, to take the ferry at Southampton. The lorry had been loaded up with hay, hard feed, and woodshaving bedding the night before. Tory was to follow later with the car, the caravan, and the children. Everything was planned to the last “t”—including a large jar of lemon sherbets for Macaulay. Even so it turned out to be a nightmare journey. The temperature was up in the eighties. Cow parsley along the motorway verges had given way to hog-weed, holding its flat disks up to a cloudy gray sky, through which the sun shone opaque like an Alka-Seltzer. Jake drove, Tanya map-read, Fen kept them both supplied with cups of black coffee.

As they neared the coast, the sky darkened. At the port Fen lost the horses’ health papers and the entire lorry had to be turned out, before she found them where they should have been all the time, in the horses’ passports. By now, they had missed two ferries and the horses, picking up the vibes of anxiety, were stamping and restless. After a further delay, despite blackening skies and large, white-tipped agitated waves, the ferry decided to sail. A storm blew up in midchannel, bucketing the boat from side to side and throwing Fen’s new pony, the young and comparatively inexperienced Desdemona, into such a panic she nearly kicked the box out.

Fen, having had repeated strips torn off her by Jake for losing the health papers, was further upset by two lorry-loads of little calves on the boat, mooing piteously, with their pathetic faces peering out between the slats. In turn, she went and tore a strip off their driver for not giving them any water.

Finally, they reached the French port at seven o’clock and set off for Les Rivaux. Jake was going mad at being stuck behind juggernauts, but this was Fen’s first trip to France and she couldn’t contain a surge of excitement, as the sun came out and they drove past orchards, poplar-lined rivers, and a ravishing château, half-hidden by trees, its reflection glimmering in a lake. She was bitterly disappointed that her hero, Billy Lloyd-Foxe, hadn’t been selected. He’d bought her a drink at Westerngate; not that that meant much, for he’d been buying everyone drinks. But perhaps she might meet some handsome Frenchman at the World Championship who’d sweep her off to his château and make fantastic love to her behind peeling gray shutters. Her dreams were rudely shattered by a loud bang. The lorry swerved terrifyingly. Somehow, Jake managed to steer it into the slow lane and, despite frenzied screeching of tires from all sides, avoided a crash. They had blown a tire, causing the most frightful traffic jams, which resulted in apopleptic Frenchmen, no doubt missing their dinners, leaning continually on their horns, which did nothing to improve Jake’s nerves.

Eventually, just as the breakdown van arrived and towed them onto the side of the road, a vast dark blue juggernaut with the familiar emerald green words “Rupert Campbell-Black, Great Britain” on the side, flashed past, blowing a derisive tantivy on the horn and making no attempt to stop and help.

It was three o’clock in the morning, and many more cups of black coffee later, before they finally rumbled into the horse-box park to find, as a final straw, that two of their boxes had been appropriated by Rupert’s horses and a third by a horse belonging to someone named Dino Ferranti.

“He’s the American Number Three,” said Jake.

Fen loved Jake, despite having so many strips torn off her that she was practically fleshless. She knew this kind of hassle was the last thing he needed before a championship. He was all for putting the horses in other stables and sorting it out in the morning, but Fen, seething with protective indignation, was determined to drag Rupert’s new groom, Dizzy, out of bed.

It wasn’t hard to find Rupert’s caravan, even though it was parked some way from the others under an oak tree. Every light was blazing and such sounds of laughter and revelry disturbed the hot summer night that even the stars looked disapproving.

Throwing open the door, she found Rupert, Ludwig, and a languid very good-looking boy with streaked blond hair, lazy gray eyes, and an olive complexion playing strip poker. Dizzy, wearing only a G-string, was stretched out on one of the bench seats. Another beautiful dark-haired girl was sitting on Rupert’s knee, wearing one of his striped shirts and nothing else. Ludwig was down to his underpants, a riding hat, and one sock. The languid boy was just in jeans, and Rupert, who was off the drink and smoking a joint, was the only one fully dressed. They were all high as kites, laughing uproariously and half watching a blue film on the video, in which a plump redhead was doing unmentionable things to a supine Father Christmas.

Having glanced at the film, Fen went crimson, and looked back at the table, hastily averting her eyes as one of the brunette’s breasts fell out of the striped shirt.

“Bon soir,” said Rupert. “Asseyez-vous. It’s fifty pence in the back stalls.”

“Come on, honey,” drawled the handsome boy in a strong Southern accent, his eyes crossing like a Siamese cat. “Come and sit on ma knee.”

“No, you come and neck wiz me,” said Ludwig, getting to his feet and clicking his bare and socked heels together.

“You’re all disgusting,” stormed Fen. “And what’s more,” she said, turning on Rupert, “you and some creep named Dino Ferranti have stolen our stables.”