Well Groomed (33 page)

Wincing, Tash sat at the table and started to gnaw at her carrot, letting Beetroot scrabble around to keep balance on her lap. She had tried to keep Niall from her head for the past few hours, determinedly concentrating on Snob. Now even the mention of his name made her stomach lurch with anguish and guilt.

‘Ted says Snob’s going to be okay.’ She spoke between mouthfuls. ‘I was so worried, I thought—’

‘We spoke for quite some time, actually.’ Zoe put down her knife on the table and glanced pointedly at India.

‘I – er – said I’d look at Rufus’s new CD Rom,’ India explained before dashing upstairs, stealing a last, regretful look at Neighbours.

Sitting down opposite Tash, Zoe pushed her pudding-basin bob from her eyes and brushed a few imaginary crumbs from the table in front of her as she clearly braced herself to give Tash a ticking off.

‘He says it was pretty tricky in Scotland.’ She let out a long-suffering sigh.

‘Yes, well, he was behaving a bit oddly. He—’

‘Niall said you were very cold and distant. That you hardly made an effort with anyone.’

Tash stared at her, eyes widening.

Zoe covered her mouth and blew through her fingers as she regarded Tash thoughtfully before continuing.

‘I get the impression that he’s really very worried about you, Tash – he seems to think you’ve changed recently.’ Her blue eyes were awash with concern and kindness, but there was a critical edge to her voice. ‘He was incredibly hurt that you left without telling him. Penny would never have called you if she’d thought you were going to race back like this. I think Niall’s really cut up that you seem to value your horse above him.’

‘He wasn’t himself,’ Tash bleated rather pathetically, desperate not to mention her fears about Minty. ‘He was all wrapped up in the film and his cast.’

‘It’s his job, Tash,’ Zoe sighed, abandoning impartiality in her exasperation.

‘He was drunk when I got there.’

‘Did you ask him why?’

‘I tried, but we were hardly alone at all. I tried to talk to him, but he kept shutting me out.’

‘Christ, Tash.’ Zoe rubbed her forehead in despair. ‘You behave like a teenager on a first date with him sometimes. I can just imagine what you were like. He’s probably as miserable as hell up there, missing you like crazy and dying for your support, some of your daft energy. Instead he got a timid schoolgirl who cowered as though he was about to say boo!’

Tash had never heard Zoe speak so harshly. She was so over-emotional and exhausted that she simply didn’t know how to react.

‘I see.’ She stood up, still gripping Beetroot awkwardly to her chest, her voice hoarse with shame. ‘You and Niall had quite a chat then?’ She started to back out of the room.

‘Is that all you have to say?’ Zoe looked astonished.

‘More or less.’ Tash’s face was aflame with humiliation. She couldn’t believe that Niall had told all this to Zoe, her closest friend and ally. She was horrified that he had aired their problems – and such a one-sided version of them, too – to someone she considered to be her own confidante. He may well have wanted to use Zoe as a go-between, an emotional arbiter, but Tash was far too proud and angry with them both to comply. Instead she wanted to stamp her feet like a kid and run home to Mummy. She was shredded from the drive, hollow with hunger and aching to talk to Niall without a busy-body, curry-cooking interpreter present.

‘We’re all worried about you, Tash.’ Zoe stood up, anxious for her interrogation to continue, clearly apologetic for her harshness. ‘You
have
changed lately – snapping at people, disappearing off on your own, working more than usual, losing so much weight, mooning over Hugo.’

‘I have not been mooning over Hugo!’ she wailed, feeling a childish tantrum tugging at her temples.

‘Well, Kirsty seems to think you have, darling.’ Zoe moved over to her.

‘Kirsty thinks every female over ten is after Hugo.’

A car door banged outside and Wally scrambled out of the kitchen, bark booming.

‘Most of them are.’ Zoe was trying make a joke out of it. She moved forward, her voice softening along with her eyes. ‘Darling, you’re engaged to Niall. I know it’s only human to want one last fling, but Hugo of all people!’

Tash was almost purple with misunderstood, shattered pride. She clutched Beetroot, who was slipping fast.

‘I am not after Hugo! I hate bloody Hugo,’ she screamed. ‘And I hate Kirsty, and I hate you too!’ She dashed blindly out of the kitchen, almost flooring Kirsty and Hugo who were coming in from the main door, stripping off coats and boots.

‘Ouch!’ wailed Kirsty as Tash trod on her foot.

‘Steady on!’ Hugo laughed, spinning back as she slammed her way past. ‘I think that dog wants a sick bag.’

With Beetroot pressed tightly to her chest, legs lolling, Tash raced into the yard and found to her horror that Hugo had blocked in the design classic with his muddy high-tech Range Rover.

‘Bastard!’ She kicked the offending car and its alarm went off, shooting Beetroot deep into her coat in fear.

‘Tash!’ Zoe came running out of the house in her wake, tripping over as she hastily pulled on her shoes. ‘Please stay for supper – I’m sorry I had a go at you the moment you walked in. I want to help. I’m so worried about you!’

Ignoring her, Tash wrenched open the design classic’s boot and dragged out her case before stumbling from the light of the yard and along the wet, muddy grooves of the track to the gates. Once her feet made contact with the more secure Tarmac of the shadowy lane, she ran all the way home.

Waiting for her on the mat at the forge was a large wad of post. In it was a long letter from Alexandra setting out her plans for the reception and announcing that she was planning to get Tash’s dress made in Paris as she had plainly made no progress on it herself. There was also a long message from Henrietta on the answer-machine explaining that she had found out that there was a very grand commercially owned house in Fosbourne Dean which could host weddings, and that she would try and book it the next day unless Tash raised an objection.

‘We simply have to have a venue,’ she explained in her curt, cut-glass voice, sounding slightly hysterical. ‘The invitations need to be printed and posted desperately soon, and without a venue it’s hopeless. And if I haven’t got your guest list by next week, I’m making it up myself!’ With that she had given a manic sob and rung off.

The fax was spewing out a large number of wedding dress designs from France, beneath which was a very lewd fax from Rufus, who had a habit of sneaking into his school staff room when it was deserted to send them as a joke.

There wasn’t a single message from Niall.

Despite eyelids that seemed to be weighed down with lead false eye-lashes of fatigue, Tash kick-started herself with a coffee that was more granules than water and called the loch-side hotel. She was told Niall was still out filming. But it was the usual round of switched-off mobiles, answering services, mechanical voice-mail-boxes and third assistant directors telling her he’d wandered off to get a cup of tea and they couldn’t see him. In the end, drooping with tiredness, Tash called the hotel again and left a message apologising for her swift exit and asking him to call her the next day.

Despite several more messages, he didn’t call her back for almost a week, and then it was MacGinnen who got in touch.

‘Sure we were both in funny moods last weekend.’ He glossed over the whole affair with a melodious laugh. ‘I miss you so much, angel. I can’t wait to see you again. Tell me everything that’s been happening this week. How are Zoe and the kids? How’s that chestnut of yours doing now? I just want to hear your voice kissing my ear.’

‘I miss you too, Niall.’ Tash fought tears, desperate for comfort. ‘I love you so much.’

‘I know you do, angel. And I’m blown away by it – I truly don’t deserve you. Now tell me what you’ve been up to?’

For the first time ever, Tash found herself feeding him a pack of lies about how great things were. She simply couldn’t bear to tell him the truth.

Relations between Tash and the Lime Tree Farm mob were in reality growing increasingly strained. She found it almost impossible to talk to Zoe, who made gallant efforts to be conciliatory. Tash was aware that she was sulking like a child, but felt hurt and very much alone. Gus and Penny were clearly worried about her too, but tactfully kept conversations practical and friendly. Neither of them wished to get involved in her personal problems, and both were too busy and distracted about money really to spare the time.

They had now been forced to sell three of their most promising youngsters to free up some cash, plus one of Gus’s best internationals, Party Animal. This meant he was left with only two advanced horses to ride that season. One was the yard’s vintage star, Sex Symbol, whom Gus worshipped because he had won Penny her last gold medal before she’d retired from top-flight competitions, but he was fifteen years old and only really had one more season in him before he retired to loll around in the Lime Tree fields and hunt for fun. The other was another gallant old-timer, the mule-faced, grouchy Fashion Victim, who was incurably lazy and unpredictable, so had remained unsold despite being on the market for almost a year. Neither was attractive to sponsors, team selectors, or likely to give Gus any long-term purchase on the sport, and he knew it. He became increasingly crabby and snappy, especially towards Tash.

She threw herself into working her own charges, battling with Snob who, as he got fitter, was growing stronger and more unruly by the minute, and bringing on kindhearted, clumsy Mickey Rourke, who was still on the market but remained unsold, although Hugo had made a stupidly low offer.

Dear, long-suffering Hunk was at last being hacked out and lunged to strengthen his leg. Tash relished her time with the easy-going gentleman of the yard with his clever, stand-up comic’s face and his incurable greed for Polos. Taking him out on slow, solitary hacks on the windswept downs, she could talk her heart out, certain that he was the most discreet of confidants and that, unlike Snob, wouldn’t savage her with his teeth if she rambled on too long. With several other youngsters to exercise and weekly competitions to attend in an attempt to qualify for the bigger events later in the spring, Tash found she could keep her mind totally focused on the job, falling into bed at night too exhausted to dwell on Niall, the wedding or her own childish behaviour towards Zoe. She even gave up going to Flab-busters as she found it harder and harder to spare the time. Yet the weight still dropped off. At any other time, Tash would have been ecstatic. Now she barely noticed.

Which was pretty much the state in which Niall found her when he came back from the shoot a fortnight after her disastrous visit. The forge was a tip, Beetroot greeted him with a frenzied attack on his legs with her teeth, and his vast pile of post was being used as a draught-excluder behind the front door.

Tash was asleep on the sofa when he arrived, her feet, wearing much-darned, unmatched socks, poking up in the air where her ankles were propped on the arm, her head lolling close to the floor, nose-to-handle with a half-full cup of cold tea into which some of her hair was falling.

Niall sat on the old dog-eared chair opposite and, disengaging Beetroot from his ankle where she was starting to draw blood, took in the muddy cord breeches, the old jumper which he recognised as one of his own, the narrowness of her wrists which protruded from the rolled-over cuffs.

He stared up at the ceiling in despair. ‘We’re both a couple of fucking kids pretending to be adults,’ he muttered, reaching for the script of the BBC adaptation of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, in which he was due play the evil, tyrannical Huntingdon. He had three days off between the wrap of Celt and the start of the location shoot for Wildfell, which was taking place in Yorkshire. Then it was down to London for studio work and a week off before flying to America to promote Tough Justice. The prospect exhausted him.

When Tash awoke the next morning, she found that she was on the sofa, her hair sopping with wet tea, an excruciating crick in her neck and Beetroot asleep on her stomach. Opposite her a loud snoring sent her heartrate into triple figures. She peeped across the gloomy room and saw that Niall, still wearing his coat, was asleep in the armchair, its throw pulled over his legs for warmth, a script scattered around him where it had dropped from his lap and the plastic spine had broken off.

She longed to wake him, but it was past six already and she had a competition to get to in Wiltshire. She didn’t even have time to shower as she pulled a clean shirt and jods from the washing machine – where they had lain damp and creased for days. She then grabbed her boots and, clicking her tongue for Beetroot – who had started to growl at the sleeping Niall – galloped along the lane. She competed three of Gus’s young horses at the novice trials that day and returned exhausted, aching, and fully aware that she could have ridden far better had half her mind not been on Niall.

Their reunion that evening was fraught with awkwardness, but not as hellish as Tash had anticipated. They were both on their best, apologetic behaviour, trying desperately to please one another. Niall hardly drank at all as Tash cooked a luxury Marks and Sparks dinner which he ate his way through with a cheerful smile, even though she had forgotten to remove the cellophane cover before putting it in the oven.

Niall wanted to make slow, gentle love to her, but by the time he got out of the bathroom from hastily cleaning his teeth, she was already conked out in bed, her alarm set for first thing the next morning, her back a long arch of deep-sleep, as clear as a ‘do not disturb’ sign on a hotel door.

He settled in beside her and rested his cheek against the soft hair that lay across his pillow. It smelled of shampoo and straw. Closing his eyes, Niall longed for her to shift around and envelop him in a sleeping hug as she so often did. Instead, Tash muttered something in her sleep about spare bandages and then started to snore.