Jump! (76 page)

‘She didn’t stay long. Bonny was sensational, she’d get an Oscar in one of Bolton’s erotic fantasies.’

Amber had no strength to slap his mocking face.

‘You’re just a tart.’

They reached the start, the banter flying as the jockeys circled.

‘I’m going to get two hundred winners by the end of March,’ boasted Rogue, patting History Painting and undoing the bottom plaits of his mane.

‘How d’you know?’ asked Awesome admiringly.

‘I’ve put ten grand on myself, does concentrate the mind.’

The starter looked at his watch:

‘Who’s going to make it?’

‘I am,’ said Killer, glaring round.

‘I might not,’ muttered Amber as Bullydozer leapt about. Amber daren’t ride him down to look at the first fence in case he took off.

She caught Killer staring in her direction, pale squinting wolf eyes hidden by his goggles, thin lips curling in an evil smile. Amber tugged her silk sleeve down over her glove. The Nurofen was wearing off.

Up went the tapes, Bullydozer set off quick enough to win the Derby.

‘Too fucking fast, I’m making it,’ yelled a furious Killer, particularly when a totally out-of-control Bullydozer cut straight across him, barging into Playboy like a drunken dodgem car.

Killer didn’t take prisoners of either sex.

‘Get off my line, you fucking cunt.’

Changing tactics, Rogue decided to cruise at the back on History Painting so he could once more feast his eyes on Amber’s delectable bottom – they must suspend hostilities. Seeing her tugging on Bullydozer’s mouth, he felt a stab of fear. She was pulling one-sided, having no effect. Slowly, slowly Killer was edging her into the rail dividing the steeplechasing track from the hurdle track, which ran along beside it. They were out in the country, hidden by a clump of trees and a small building where the stable lads camped out. Any moment Killer was going to ram an elbow into Amber’s ribs and hoist her over the rail: ‘You’re going hurdling, you bitch,’ and Amber would have no strength in her right hand to tug Bullydozer back. To his horror, Rogue realized the wings of the next fence were hurtling towards her. She was going to crash into them.

Killer was drifting back to the right so no one could blame him. Amber had lost her balance, and her saddle – hadn’t Michelle tightened the girths sufficiently? – was slipping to the left.

Picking up his whip, Rogue thrust History Painting forward, forcing their way between Amber and Killer, reaching up because Bullydozer was so much bigger, grabbing Amber’s wrist so she screamed in agony, tugging her upright, grabbing her reins with his other hand, holding her until she managed to right herself, as somehow, taking most of the brushwood with them, they survived the next fence.

‘You stupid, stupid bitch, what have you done?’ yelled Rogue, then glancing down he saw the wrist brace and vet wrap. ‘Jesus.’

‘Let me go, go on,’ gasped Amber, whiter than the daytime moon, as they hurtled round the bend into the home straight.

Fortunately Bullydozer had realized the race was longer than the Derby and decided to pull himself up. So Rogue, mindful of his two hundred wins, beetled off, made one of his spectacular last-minute runs and mugged an enraged Killer and Playboy on the line.

Killer and an even angrier Harvey-Holden called for a stewards’ inquiry. Amber had cut across Playboy and bumped him several times. Without this he’d have been several more lengths ahead and Rogue would never have caught him.

‘Neither Marius nor Shade will ever put you up again,’ gloated Harvey-Holden. He didn’t want to make too much fuss in case Rogue reported Killer for intimidating Amber.

Amber sorted things by fainting in the middle of the inquiry and the strapped-up wrist was discovered.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she stammered when she came round, ‘I had a fall on the gallops this morning. I thought it was OK to ride. I was wrong, I couldn’t hold him up, he barged into Playboy.’

An X-ray revealed a broken wrist and broken thumb.

The stewards agreed there wasn’t much point suspending her. According to the course doctor, the wrist would have to be pinned and she wouldn’t be riding for at least three months anyway, so they put it down to unintentional interference.

‘You’ve been very stupid,’ the Stipendiary Steward, who was a friend of her father’s, told her sternly. ‘If it doesn’t heal right, you have only yourself to blame. And I hope you’ll be suitably grateful to Rogue, who saved your life or at least your riding career. He not only pulled you straight but managed to pull up your horse – one of the most spectacularly brave pieces of—’

‘The horse was tired. He pulled himself up,’ said Amber sulkily.

‘Don’t be so ungrateful,’ snapped the Stipe.

Amber spent a week in Larkminster hospital and in a lot of pain after an operation to set and pin her wrist and thumb. But the pain in her heart was worse. No matter how many flowers and cards poured in from friends and from the public – ‘Please get well soon, Mrs Wilkinson needs you’ – she kept thinking of how she had put her life on hold, determined to make it as a jockey, and if she were off for at least four months, as the doctors now forecast, everyone would forget her. She was suicidal.

Marius, though delighted History Painting had won the Edward Thring Cup, was not going to forgive her for riding for Harvey-Holden. Nor was Shade:

‘How dare you ride with a broken wrist, making me look a prat.’

‘Special’ Donaldson had cancelled lunch, and who was now going to ride Mrs Wilkinson?

No matter how much Tommy and Rafiq and her sweet father, Billy, tried to reassure her this was just a blip in her career, Amber sank into despair.

Matters weren’t helped by Rogue all over the papers and television winning Ride of the Week for his gallant rescue, or when Amber’s unprincipled, scoop-crazy mother, Janey, interviewed Rogue for the
Daily Mail
. T
HE BRAVE
S
IR
G
ALAHAD WHO SAVED MY
A
MBER’S LIFE
was accompanied by sexy photographs of Rogue, stripped to the waist, flaunting his six-pack, highlighted brown hair tousled, kingfisher-blue eyes flashing.

Having just clocked his one hundred and thirtieth winner, Rogue was quoted as saying: ‘One should always be ready to help young and inexperienced riders.’

‘Sir Gala-had everyone in sight,’ howled Amber when she read
the piece, ‘how dare he call me young and inexperienced …’

She wasn’t even mollified when Rogue sent her two dozen red roses.

On the Saturday after the accident, she was visited at midday by an old schoolfriend. Milly Walton was looking so urban chic and ravishingly little girlish, in a pale pink smock and brown leggings. Perching on Amber’s bed, reading her cards and eating her grapes, Milly tried to divert her with London gossip about all their mutual friends and the parties Amber had been missing, which she might now have time to go to.

As Amber was still looking wintry and bored, Milly tried to interest her with the information that she had a new boyfriend – a jockey.

‘You’re mad,’ snapped Amber. ‘For a start, jockeys are useless in bed. They’re only interested in coming as fast as they can.’

‘This one is fantastic,’ protested Milly.

‘Can’t be a jockey then.’

‘He is. He’s called Dare Catswood.’

‘Dare’s an amateur,’ said Amber scornfully. ‘Amateurs are different, they have to work harder for a ride.’

Milly giggled. ‘Well, I think he’s hot.’

‘Jockeys get thoroughly spoilt.’ Amber was on a roll now. ‘Once they’ve got a licence everyone wants to hop on them, like a bus in the rush hour.’

‘You
have
changed,’ sighed Milly. ‘At school you were crazy about Rogue Rogers, had pictures of him all over your study …’

‘Rogue lives up to his name, he’s really like a bus in the rush hour, just comes more often and in more lanes. Even the roses he gave me got brewer’s droop in twenty-four hours. He’s the worst of the lot.’

In mid-rant, Amber suddenly clocked that Milly wasn’t laughing any more, just looking horrified and deeply embarrassed.

As she swung round, Amber’s heart failed, for standing in the doorway was Rogue. Beneath the peak of his blue baseball cap, on which was printed the words ‘Italian Stallion’, his eyes were shadowed and tired, his laughing face unutterably bleak.

‘R-rogue,’ stammered Amber, ‘what are you doing here?’

‘On my way to Chepstow, thought you might like these.’

He threw a huge bunch of freesias on the bed, followed by Richard Dunwoody’s autobiography.

‘On second thoughts, not,’ he took back the book, ‘you don’t seem to like jockeys.’

‘She was only joking,’ stammered Milly. ‘I know she’s a huge
fan really, so am I. She always took the piss out of everyone when we were at school.’

‘Perhaps she should go back there and learn some manners.’

‘Rogue, I’m sorry,’ wailed Amber, but Rogue had turned on his heel, slamming the door behind him.

Amber cried for the first time since she broke her wrist, howling even louder when Milly discovered a little card inside the freesias, ‘Darling Amber, I’m so sorry, please come back soon. All my love Rogue,’ in Rogue’s handwriting.

She was utterly inconsolable.

Dora, having passed eleven GCSEs, decided to leave Bagley Hall because she was fed up with her mother moaning about the fees. Choosing to take a gap year, she was in New York in late February, staying with her half-sister Sienna and her husband Zac, when she received a long email from Alan:

Darling Dora, we all miss you. Hope you’re fine. I thought I’d give you an update on the syndicate. I’m really pissed off because my Life of Wilkie has hit the buffers again because Amber’s been sidelined for four months with a broken wrist and there’s no one to ride Wilkie – who’s due to run at Rutminster early next month.

The tragedy is that the last time she ran and won, the syndicate had such a fantastic time afterwards at the après stage
Antony and Cleopatra
party, they’re frantic for another opportunity to behave badly.

From what I can gather, Alban and the Major both pulled Corinna. Amber disappeared upstairs with Marius. I draw a veil over Painswick and Pocock. Seth was off pleasuring Bonny and God knows who else and the Vicar and Woody are looking very smug.

Valent pushed off before the orgy, said he had a crisis at work, but I guess, being an alpha male, he was pissed off with all the women drooling over Seth, who incidentally was magnificent as Antony.

On the luvvie front, Corinna, on the grounds that Dame Judi shines in comedy, agreed to play Lady Bracknell in a BBC production of
The Importance of Being Earnest,
due to start any minute, only to discover that Seth’s playing Jack Watling and, far, far worse, Bonny’s been cast as Gwendolyn.

Corinna proceeded to throw her toyboys out of the pram, screaming that Bonny was far too lower middle to play her daughter. Seth, being a bitch, told Bonny, who threw a hissy fit, particularly when Seth suggested she use the same voice coach she employed to iron out Valent’s Yorkshire accent.

Corinna, meanwhile, to bone up on her patrician vowel sounds, keeps inviting a thoroughly over-excited Alban round for drinks.

Tomorrow to fresh Woodies and parsons new.

God knows what a den of depravity we’ve unleashed.

One big piece of gossip is that Collie’s left Harvey-Holden – they fell out because Collie didn’t like the way H-H treated his horses and the fact he hired Michelle the moment Marius fired her. Anyway, Collie’s up-sticked and gone to work in Ireland. Harvey-Holden’s made sinister Vakil his head lad. I think the RSPCA should be told.

But to go back to our syndicate, the upshot is they’re all frantic for another jolly so they can misbehave again. Wilkie is booked to run at Rutminster in ten days’ time. Marius is tearing his hair out over who to put up. There’s talk of Awesome Wells. Any ideas? Please come home soon. Love to Paris

Dora emailed back instantly:

All that stuff must go in Wilkie’s biography – particularly the Major and Corinna – wow! The only person to ride Wilkie should be Rafiq, they’d adore each other and he’s a fantastically gentle rider. All love Dora.

Alas, more gossip had reached Rafiq that Amber had got off with Marius at Stratford. Raging with jealousy, Rafiq had been particularly truculent and bolshy towards Marius, which didn’t predispose Marius to reward him with any rides, especially as Furious had done a leg and been confined to even more bad-tempered box rest than Amber.

Unwilling to risk a tongue-lashing if he approached Marius direct, Alan asked Etta, who was so fond of Rafiq, to plead his cause.

Valent Edwards suspected he spent so much time abroad because he missed Pauline, most agonizingly when she wasn’t there when he returned home to England.

As he flew back to Willowwood at the beginning of March, to sadness was added exhaustion. Over the past five years, among his myriad activities had been sorting out a wayward New York bank called Goldstein Phillipson, who’d originally invited him on to their board to add gravitas.