Well Groomed (18 page)

Tash shuddered and wished she could eat something. But it was Flab-busters the next night and she’d been lapsing all week so she had to try and make up for it with a last-minute fast.

She hugged Beetroot and then suddenly laughed. Niall was coming down to the forge on Friday night. Valentine’s Day! She was going to see him in less than three days! And she was going to be slightly thinner than last time. She was such an idiot for feeling jealous.

Now almost ecstatic, she twirled Beetroot around the forge, put the sheets in the machine to be washed and settled down to work like smoke on the Valentine’s cards. If she got hers to Niall in the post tomorrow, he’d be guaranteed to get it on Friday morning, which would cheer him up during the flight from Scotland to Berkshire.

Miraculously, Tash had lost five pounds by the next Flab-busters meeting, most of which she suspected was body fluids through not drinking a single cup of tea all day. She was also wearing one less jumper and no socks. Theresa was nonetheless delighted.

‘Well done, Natasha!’ she beamed, her metallic eye make-up twinkling on her lids like two slug trails. ‘We’ll shift that tubby tummy in next to no time.’

Having arrived more promptly than the week before, Tash sat in the back row of plastic chairs and sulked. Earlier that week, she had prided herself that, even though overweight, she still had a fit, wash-board stomach. Now she realised that in fact it poked out further than her tits.

Despite this, she maintained a certain flush of pride throughout Theresa’s class – blissfully ignoring the skinny woman’s attempts to motivate her slimmers with a series of badly painted cardboard road signs which bore such heavy warnings as ‘Slow Down At Refrigerator Chicane’, ‘Watch Out for the Ryvita Roundabout’, and ‘Never Exceed the 30 Cal Per Hour Limit’.

Back in Gus’s Land-Rover, Tash listened dreamily to the latest groin-pumping Oasis track on the radio and distractedly put the two Valentine’s cards in their written envelopes before gumming on first-class stamps and posting them in the town’s main Post Office to fox their recipients. If she had posted them in the village, India had pointed out, it would have narrowed down the field of Hugo’s admirers by far too much for their first move. The fact that letters posted in the village bore the same postmark as those mailed in the main market town bypassed Tash entirely.

She still harboured the gravest doubts about her involvement in the project. Consequently, she had heavily disguised both her handwriting and her artistic style as she had created a card for Hugo of quite revoltingly sentimental cuteness, covered with big-eyed ponies and Labrador puppies with a Byron quote she had hurriedly and carelessly dredged up from Niall’s
Dictionary of Quotations
:

Merely innocent flirtation. Not quite adultery, but adulteration.

She couldn’t pen anything more romantic, although she had promised India that she would dig up something truly passionate by Donne or Yeats or, at worst, Patience Strong. Nothing had seemed right however. She simply could not bring herself to write such things to the ignorant, unfeeling and philistine Hugo. So she had settled for the obtuse angle with far more pleasure, signing the centre of the card with a simple question mark and a hefty squirt of a hugely overpowering perfume that Sophia had given her for Christmas, called Fire of Desire.

Niall’s card, by contrast, had taken hours to make, consisting as it did of a great collage of photographs of herself, Beetroot and Giblets – most of them very wonky Polaroid ones which she had taken the night before. These had been cut out Blue Peter-style and glued on to twee gold paper to be surrounded by pressed flowers, glittery stars which Sally’s kids had left behind after their Christmas visit, and witty little cartoons of herself performing a dance of the seven veils. It was a wildly indulgent and really pretty naff card, but Tash knew Niall would appreciate the effort she had put into it and laugh uproariously at the result. There would be plenty of time to be more romantic and sultry together on Friday night. Just to be extra-careful she had marked the card ‘Private’ and ‘Urgent’ and ‘Confidential’ in several places and put the Lime Tree Farm address on the reverse to make sure he spotted it amongst the heaps of adoring red envelopes he would undoubtedly receive from fans. The year before Tash had learned her lesson when Niall, shooting an action adventure in Venezuela over Valentine’s Day, had taken almost a week to locate her anonymous card amongst all the others that Bob had forwarded.

On the morning of Valentine’s Day, Tash was up well before the post and, having settled Beetroot in the Lime Tree Farm kitchen with Enid, was out in the yard mucking out before six, accompanied by Wally, who had a rather kinky taste for fresh horse droppings. It was still dark, and the damp cobbles gleamed in the harsh neon working lights, contrasting with the warmth of the yellow lighting inside the stables which gave the shavings and feedbuckets a strangely Nativity look. Tash, dressed in several jumpers, three pairs of leggings beneath a pair of Niall’s old jeans and a daft woolly balaclava shaped like a duck’s head, felt far from Christ-like. Her occasional true-blue swearing through chattering teeth was quite unchristian too, particularly when Snob, a sulky riser, bit her on her well-padded behind several times. She knew him well enough to realise that this wasn’t a savage attack – simply his grumpy, macho version of a hearty ‘good morning’ – but the pain was eye-watering and she longed for him to be like Hunk, who blew her raspberry kisses and handed her his water bucket with his teeth, a trick Ted had taught him, not realising that it would sometimes be half-full, which had a tendency to drench the ungrateful recipient.

For once Kirsty was up for the early shift and helping out, albeit grudgingly and between long fag breaks. She’d allotted herself the easy task of giving the horses a small net of soaked hay each to chew through before their hard feeds.

‘Morning, Tash,’ she sniffed, tightening a woolly scarf around her slender neck as she emerged from Mickey Rourke’s box. ‘Hunk any better this morning?’

Tash, who had just trotted him out across the yard, nodded with relief. ‘His paces are so level now a spirit measure wouldn’t move.’

The big, beak-nosed bay horse was on his last week’s enforced stable rest, and had been suffering depression in his quiet, polite way as a result, no longer pulling so many silly faces to make Tash laugh or playing dead to get attention first thing in the morning. He was also off his food and had to be coaxed into eating with little treats like Polos and sugar cubes mixed in, of which Gus thoroughly disapproved. Having watched all the other horses getting tacked up and ridden out each day, he also craved attention, and Tash found more and more of her coffee time was being soaked up paying quick guilt visits to him as if he were an elderly relative. It would be great fun for them both to start working together again and she couldn’t wait for the all-clear from Jack Fortescue, the vet.

‘Hugo’s thirtieth birthday party should be good fun, huh?’ Kirsty continued breezily as they crossed paths heading for the manure bonfire.

‘Er – sure,’ Tash hadn’t heard anything about it. ‘When is it again?’ she asked ultra-coolly. The effect was rather spoilt by the fact her wheelbarrow chose this moment to tip its uneven load on to poor Wally.

‘The twenty-eighth of March, you clot. Don’t you remember?’

‘Not off hand – I might be in Scotland with Niall,’ Tash said rather quellingly, disliking Kirsty’s supercilious attitude. ‘Is it going to be a big do?’

‘Huge.’ Kirsty, having dumped her load, leaned back against the corrugated patchwork on the side of the barn and lit a fag as she watched Tash still struggling to right her barrow. ‘He’s invited half the eventing world, plus loads of London cronies and most of his family. Should be terrific.’

Tash was doing some mental calculations. ‘Won’t Richie be over in England then?’

Kirsty looked shifty. ‘Should be.’

‘That’ll be nice,’ Tash enthused, shovelling the last of her dropped load back into the barrow. ‘You’ll be able to show him off. I must say, I’m dying to meet him.’

‘I thought you were dieting to meet him.’ Kirsty grinned and, giving her the ghost of a bitchy wink, headed off to the store-room to mix up the hard feeds.

When they stopped for breakfast, the post had arrived and India and Rufus, in their school uniforms and wolfing back toast, were examining their small piles.

‘I’ve got three.’ Rufus beamed up at Tash as she staggered in, her hands numb with cold. ‘I must say, that duck’s head is seriously unflattering.’

‘Thanks.’ Tash, collapsing into a sturdy chair by the cluttered table, was gaping at India’s pile. ‘Christ – did you advertise or something?’

India, looking pink with embarrassment and excitement, shook her head. ‘I honestly can’t think who sent them.’

‘She sodding well got twelve!’ Rufus whistled enviously.

‘Wow!’ Kirsty was examining her own three fat red envelopes.

Tash peered at the rest of the pile of post in mild hope, but she was fairly certain that Niall, if he remembered to send one at all, would have sent it to the forge. There was a great heap of bills for Penny and Gus, she noticed worriedly.

‘Mum’s got one too.’ Rufus waggled a rather crumpled pink envelope at Tash. ‘But she just pooh-poohed it, and refused to open it until she’d walked Enid. Bloody spoil sport! I bet she doesn’t get back before the bus comes so we’ll have to wait until this evening to see it.’

Tash looked across at India, who gave a flicker of a wink with one huge cobalt eye before re-examining her post in genuine amazement.

Sighing, Tash poured herself some coffee and decided that if she had looked anything like India at fourteen, she would have expected the postman to give himself a severe case of lumbago every 14 February. As it was, she had received precisely five Valentine’s cards in her entire life, and three of those had been from her mother.

‘Oh, look – Hugo’s invites have arrived!’ Kirsty whooped, having quickly cast aside a huge, flower-strewn card from Australia in favour of poring over an embossed mantelpiece weight. ‘He’s so wonderfully formal, don’t you think. Like Mr Darcy?’

‘There are similarities.’ Tash drew the froth from her coffee through her still-chattering teeth and listened as Gus and Penny stirred upstairs. Gus was clearly having a shower as the downstairs sink was making hiccuping noises – a sure sign that someone was trapped inside the ancient, misted-up cubicle in the main bathroom. Penny was swearing loudly from the direction of the laundry cupboard, cursing the ‘sodding bastard’ who had yet again nicked all her extra-thick socks.

‘That’ll be Mum.’ India stood up and started to search for her shoes. ‘She wears three pairs at a time in this weather and borrows Rufus’s Timberland boots. Where the hell are my Doc Martens?’

‘In front of the fireplace where you left them last night,’ Zoe announced smoothly as she walked in through the kitchen door, pulling back her thick red cowl, cheeks pink from a brisk walk. She was followed by a cowering Enid, who shot the massed crowd in the kitchen a distrustful look before slinking over to the Aga to curl into a tight foetal ball. A moment later, Beetroot dashed in through the door, trailing a long piece of binder twine which she presented to Tash as she wriggled in an ecstatic body-wag of welcome.

‘She came along for the ride,’ Zoe explained, sitting down beside Tash and nodding as she offered coffee. ‘You kids had better step on it, hadn’t you?’

‘Open your card first.’ Rufus grinned.

‘Okay, okay.’ Sighing, Zoe reached for it and ripped it open.

On the front was a glittery picture of an unrealistically fluffy kitten with eyes as big and blue as Pamela Anderson’s attached to electrodes. Inside there was a riddle:

My first is in horse, but not in carriage,

My second in hump, but not in marriage,

My third is in nag, but not in ride.

My fourth in bouquet, but not in bride.

I’m saying I just can’t get enough,

Be my Valentine, Hot Stuff.

‘Wow!’ Rufus was seriously impressed. ‘That’s so sexy, Mum.’

Zoe was trying hard not to laugh. India, deep inside the hood of her coat, had almost uncontrollable giggles.

‘Christ – that’s a bit direct, isn’t it?’ Kirsty was looking perplexed. ‘Shall we try to work it out?’

She made a lunge for the card, but Zoe whipped it away and tucked it beneath
The Times
. ‘Better not,’ she said airily. ‘It’s just a joke from Gus, I think. Far too childish to bother with.’ She hurriedly started to work her way through the rest of the mail.

Kirsty looked miffed, but soon cheered up as she caught sight of yet another one of Hugo’s embossed invites.

‘Oh, he’s invited everyone here – even Ted. Isn’t that great?’

Glancing at it, Tash noticed that her own and Niall’s names were missing, but she dismissed it before her ego had a chance to be bruised. An invite would undoubtedly be waiting for her on the forge doormat when she got back, as would her Valentine’s card from Niall.

‘I’d better get on.’ She struggled up, pulling her knitted duck warmer back over her nose. ‘Snob was practically beating his door in when I left him. You coming for a hack, Kirsty? Ted’s going to bring Fruit Chew.’

Kirsty was still absorbed in her invitation. She looked up, her eyes positively misted. ‘Oh, yes, I suppose so.’

‘Tash!’ Rufus called as they made their way out.

‘Yup?’ She spun around.

‘Duck!’ He threw a screwed-up Hugo invitation at her. It ricocheted plumb off her beak.

On the ride, Ted tried hard – if sleepily – to fish about the number of Valentines India had received. He was extremely fed up that he had missed breakfast by oversleeping, having yet again been involved in a three in the morning lock-in at the Olive Branch the night before. Tash couldn’t be sure, but she guessed from his hints that he himself had sent India about half of the dozen cards, industriously changing his hand-writing in each before posting them from a different region of West Berkshire.