Well Groomed (52 page)

‘I know you like to wear the trousers around here, Tash,’ he laughed, ‘but isn’t this going a bit far?’

‘Glad you find me so amusing,’ she mumbled, dashing out and ignoring his sudden shouts of protest behind her.

Snob was indeed in a sweat, but Tash was too busy trying to stop her breeches falling down to allow him to get the better of her. Somehow, with her buttocks clenched and her elbows stapled to her sides like a guardsman on parade, she steered him through the test with hardly a faulty move. Afterwards she whooped in amazement, exchanging a high five with Stefan, who was warming up his elastic little bay gelding, Happy Monday, for the show-jumping.

‘It’s psychology.’ He rode alongside her as she patted Snob on the rock-hard neck muscle. ‘For once you weren’t wound up about his temper and mood, you were too busy concentrating on something else to let it bug you. He picked up on that and, given a bit of trust for once, he got on with the job like a champ.’

‘Rubbish,’ she laughed. ‘I think India fed him some dope cake.’

‘I didn’t!’ India protested, throwing a blanket over Snob’s rump as she followed them on foot.

‘Now, if it’s not too much trouble, Hugo would like his trousers back.’ Stefan pointed to a burger stand behind which Hugo was gesticulating madly. ‘They’re his lucky ones and you know how superstitious he is – we got a fifteen-minute delay by telling the judges that Bod’s cast a shoe, but you’d better hurry up.’

For a moment Tash’s brows shot up as she gaped at Stefan in bewilderment. Then, slowly, she lowered her eyes to her clean, white thighs encased in the impossibly tight-legged, baggy-waisted breeches.

‘These are Hugo’s?’ she breathed disbelievingly.

Grinning broadly, Stefan nodded. ‘I suggested he wore his spares, but he insisted he wants those back.’

Still high from her recent test, Tash started to giggle. Sliding from Snob and handing him over to India before she lost her composure completely, she laughed so much that her stomach was pinched with cramps and her eyes glistened with tears, star-fishing her lashes. As she ran towards the stand, her movement crab-like as a result of the tight breeches, she was almost bent double.

‘Don’t, whatever you do, wet yourself,’ Hugo hissed, dragging her behind the stand and starting to unbuckle his jeans. ‘I’m hiding from the dressage judges in case they smell a rat. Quick, we’ll swap.’

‘I’m not changing here!’ she wailed, noticing that a man with a large, panting mongrel had paused close by and was feigning interest in the menu on the side of the stand.

But Hugo was already holding the jeans out for her to take.

Very reluctantly, Tash prised off her boots and tried to pull down the breeches. The man with the dog was gawping openly now, and had been joined by the burger bar’s two spotty traders, who were peering over a stack of buns in the greasy rear window. The breeches got stuck at her knees.

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, lie down and I’ll pull,’ Hugo snapped.

‘Get lost.’ Giving the breeches a tug, she got her foot caught in the waist and fell over anyway.

With her head next to a spluttering petrol generator which was gushing out foul-smelling heat, Tash watched in horror as Hugo grabbed her by the ankles and pulled the breeches hard. The peering youths were pressing down on their burger buns now, and mongrel man was starting to breathe audibly. I’ve still got my dressage topper on, Tash realised, feeling the brow tip towards her nose as it hit the generator. Matched with her gloves, stock and hairnet, she must look like some sort of hard-hunting over-sexed aristo desperate for a rogering. Hugo was lifting her right off the ground with every tug now.

‘In other circumstances this might be rather enjoyable,’ she joked in embarrassment.

He gave her a withering look and told her to hold on to the base of the burger-bar trailer while he pulled. They were gathering quite an audience. Mongrel man, in the front row, was almost on top of them, his panting dog’s very pink tongue lolling inches from Tash’s face.

Everyone around was getting a glorious view of her stinky tights and kinky knickers – especially Hugo. She peered up at him, still tugging between her ankles. He was starting to look rather frantic, teeth gritted with effort. Because he’d already taken his jeans off, he was wearing his underpants and red socks below his fully jacketed upper half, his boots lying alongside him ready to pull on the moment he was in his breeches. It was simply a matter of getting her out of them first.

‘I can’t get – blast – them – blast – off – ah!’

One ankle suddenly came free and Hugo lurched backwards, almost losing his balance. The second didn’t take much more force and Tash sagged back on the ground for a second in relief before reaching for his discarded jeans, her topper right over her nose now like something from Cabaret.

Humiliatingly, his jeans were also far too tight on the thighs and clung to her in all the wrong places like a pair of seventies slacks. She couldn’t wait to get back to the lorry to change, but their boots had become muddled up in the tug of war, and she waited an interminable amount of time while Hugo stepped in and out of footwear like Cinderella’s ugly sister, red socks bobbing.

‘Mine are the small ones,’ Tash said helpfully, and almost got punched in the face.

He had less than five minutes to ride Bodybuilder in, which was a ridiculously short space of time. The huge black horse was notoriously temperamental and, like Snob, could explode in the dressage phase, but, also like Snob, he relished a challenge. And this day he rose to it.

At first Hugo was spitting, but having performed his best test in weeks followed by a clear jumping round, he was willing to be conciliatory and gradually thawed to see the funny side of the incident. In fact, slouching in the lorry drinking coffee with Tash as he waited the half-hour before he needed to warm up Bodybuilder for the next phase, he was momentarily back to his old form, laughing and teasing and generally immeasurably improved from his glum sulks of the morning.

Changing for the cross-country phase, Tash scoured the box for her kit which had as usual spread itself everywhere. Now buried behind
The Times
, Hugo swigged from his coffee mug and talked about the Four Poster Bed shoot.

‘They won’t leave me alone,’ he complained. ‘This art director chap, Sean, keeps wandering around the house as though he owns it. Yesterday he walked in on Stefan having a bath, said, “Don’t mind me,” measured the window, and walked out again.’

‘Sounds like Gus when he’s decorating,’ Tash muttered, pulling on her scruffier breeches, no longer caring if he saw her tights as he’d had such a long close-up of them earlier. But
The Times
didn’t move.

‘Gus says he hasn’t spoken to you for ages,’ she said tentatively, having heard Gus say quite a lot more than that recently – all of it unflattering. ‘You never come down to the farm anymore.’

‘I came to pick you up today. Anyway, none of you lot ever come up,’ he pointed out.

‘Gus did,’ she reminded him, wondering if she was being suicidal breaking his good mood. But she knew that Gus was deeply hurt by the slight. Zipping up her body protector, she braced herself for an old-fashioned Hugo snarl.

He stayed behind the paper, but sounded quite regretful. If Tash hadn’t known better, she’d have said he sounded guilty.

‘I should have called him to apologise. Truth is, I was all over the place that night – I’d just been summonsed by the BHS and the press were all over my back about the barbarity of the sport. But that was no excuse to take it out on Gus. He was being a good mate and I was being a prat.’

Diving into her number vest, Tash couldn’t wait to tell Gus off for calling Hugo a bloodless Vulcan.

Outside, she could see India calmly walking Snob around in his cross-country armour, bandages stitched in place, bridle sewn to his top plait so that it wouldn’t be pulled off in a fall, grease on his legs to help him slither over fences if he hit them. She had even tied his tail up to the bone with a matching bandage to stop it getting coated with mud – Ted could never be bothered. Tash was impressed. She searched for her coloured hat silk to swap it for the black one.

‘That was a bloody good dressage test you just rode, by the way.’ Hugo drained his coffee mug. ‘That big chestnut of yours has really improved – you could hardly hold him last month.’

Tash pulled a sceptical face. ‘He comes to hand or goes to pot depending on his mood, but he’s still so strong my arms ache to buggery by the end of the course.’

Hugo looked over his paper seriously. ‘If you don’t entirely trust him, Tash, you shouldn’t be competing him. You have to know him inside out or you’re truly in danger.’

‘I think I know him pretty well,’ she bristled, locating her silk amid a pile of spare number vests.

‘I know that sounds rather damning, but I’m just thinking of your safety.’ His face was open and honest. ‘You can’t let a horse think he can take over the reins and choose which line he wants – if he suddenly goes through the bridle halfway round Badminton, you could be leaving Gloucestershire in a blood wagon. He has to obey you even if he’d rather go faster or jump bigger or muck around.’

Tash fiddled with her crash helmet, pursing her lips as she absorbed his criticism so that she looked as though she was sucking an oversized gob-stopper. Finally irritation got the better of her.

‘Surfer obeyed you,’ she reminded him. ‘He trusted you.’

‘Perhaps too much,’ Hugo answered smoothly, not losing eye-contact for a moment. ‘Yes, they need to obey you, but sometimes they have to put in that extra stride, or apply the brakes if their rider gets it wrong, It’s called self-preservation and the best horses – including Snob – have it in spades. Surfer had too little, took on everything I asked him to, and to my everlasting shame I abused that.’

Tash stared at him, barely able to believe her ears. Admitting he was in the wrong was as rare for Hugo as poetry recitals and Buddhist chants.

A cool blast of air preceded India’s popping her head around the door and tapping her watch. Tash nodded, grinning as she spotted Snob’s pink nose resting on top of India’s green lace hat. She was one of the only people he would abide wearing hats.

Not taking any notice, Hugo continued lecturing.

‘What I’m talking about,’ he went on, ‘is bullish over-enthusiasm, and that’s far more risky than Surfer’s obedience. Because when it happens there’s nothing you can do about it.’

‘
If
it happens.’ Tash reached for her stopwatch and started to strap it on her arm, along with her marker times.

‘I’ll give you a couple of hours’ work together next week, if you like,’ he offered, watching her struggling into her armour. ‘Hack up to Maccombe one day and we’ll see what we can do – I’ve got some ideas that might help.’

‘Thanks.’ She looked at him in amazement, astonished by the offer. It was almost a year since he’d given her any help. ‘That would be great. When?’ She blushed slightly, aware that she was sounding over-eager.

‘Tomorrow suits me.’ He shrugged indifferently, lighting a fag.

‘Fine.’ She looked away, trying not to smile stupidly.

Still waiting in the doorway, India caught her eye, her expression strangely devious.

‘But tomorrow’s your birthday, Tash!’ she complained. ‘Gus said you could laze around all day eating the chocolates you’ll get given and watching junk TV.’

‘I’m not too good at lazing,’ Tash said quickly, and then blushed even more when she realised how ridiculous this sounded. She was famous for being hugely lazy. At Lime Tree Farm, she’d had one well-chronicled day off when she’d slept right through till the next morning, not getting out of bed once.

Snatching at his newly imported strong bit, Snob was eager and over-fresh as Tash circled him at the start. She had spent twenty minutes working him in circles to calm him, but her effort seemed wasted as he rotated on the spot, dragging his head between his knees and then snatching it up as he fought for control, not understanding why they couldn’t launch themselves on to the course right away instead of waiting for the man in the hat to count them down. Apart from India’s, Snob was not keen on hats. Each time he clapped eyes on Jenny, who was wearing a red fake fur pork pie number today, he feigned hysteria. Tash only just held him as she bounded up to wish them luck.

‘Hugo says he’ll catch you up on the way round,’ she giggled, bouncing on the spot so that she and Snob, opposite one another, resembled energetic disco dancers at a club.

‘He’ll be lucky.’ Tash gritted her teeth as Snob practically pulled her arms from their sockets.

‘I wish he was chasing me,’ Jenny sighed, looking wistfully into the far corner of the collecting box.

Following her gaze, Tash could see Hugo circling nearby on the tall, regal Bodybuilder, his face shadowed by the peak of his red silk, his attention rapt, entirely into getting in tune with his horse.

She wanted to ask Jenny exactly what she meant, but there was no time. Checking her stopwatch, Tash felt a skip of nerves in her chest as the starter gave her thirty seconds and Stefan, who had been around the course already, issued last-minute advice about the way it was jumping which she was far too nervous to take in.

India had already raced back to the horse box to collect Hunk, whom she was going to ride in as he was due in the dressage ring almost as soon as Tash completed with Snob. She wished she was nearby with the reassuring smile she had inherited from her mother, and the loud whoops of encouragement she normally let fly when Tash set off. Stefan and Jenny were far too pragmatic to bother.

‘Be careful and don’t take risks, remember?’ Stefan was admiring Jenny’s rear as she bent down to haul up a welly sock, crimson leggings straining over two round, plump buttocks. He liked red-heads with round bottoms.

‘Yes – be safe.’ Jenny caught Stefan looking and grinned delightedly.