Well Groomed (70 page)

‘I can,’ Rufus offered hopefully. ‘I always fancied a crack at Hugo’s car.’

‘You haven’t passed your test yet,’ Gus snapped. ‘I’d go, but I’m way over the limit. Which of you two is driving?’ he asked Lisette and David.

‘Hugo was,’ Lisette admitted. ‘I thought he was staying sober.’

‘Typical,’ Gus hissed. ‘Matty?’

He shook his head. ‘I’ve had at least half a bottle.’

‘I’ll do it, so I will,’ Ma offered with a mild burp. ‘If I get stopped, I’ll just say I’m a foreigner.’

‘I’ll call a cab.’ Gus looked anxiously at his watch.

‘There’s no way he’ll wait,’ Zoe pointed out. ‘How much have you had, Tash?’

She bit her lip, trying to think. It suddenly occurred to her that she had been far too busy filling other people’s glasses to tend to her own.

‘A glass, maybe,’ she realised. ‘No more.’

‘Okay, use the Land-Rover,’ Gus ordered. ‘Stefan will probably want to come too.’

‘You’re not going, are you?’ Penny looked anxious.

‘Of course I fucking am!’ He glared at her. ‘Don’t you understand? The horse is seriously injured. He might never compete again. Hugo will be all over the place.’

Numb with shock, Tash passed the study in which Hugo was still talking to the vet in desperate, urgent tones, telling him to hold on until he got there. Grabbing the keys to Gus’s Land-Rover, she shot outside and started it up, thankful that no other cars were blocking it in.

There she sat in the cab for what seemed an endless amount of time, her heart churning with fear for Hugo. Bodybuilder was a big, strong horse – the sort of animal that could recover from a break if carefully tended. And in her experience, horses that cast themselves in the box seldom suffered the sort of severe break that necessitated destruction. But whatever the outcome, Hugo’s Badminton chances were in ruins.

Finally, she saw him running out to join her, his face white with worry.

‘Let’s go!’ he hissed as he jumped in beside her.

‘What about Stefan and Gus?’ Tash stared back to the house. ‘I thought—’

‘I told them not to come. Now let’s fucking go or I’ll drive myself.’

The journey was short, fast and silent with Hugo drumming a jittery tattoo on the dashboard and chain-smoking beside her, legs jumping with impatience and fear. With the tragedy of nature mistimed, it was a breath-taking night still caught in twilight, the downs rolling away in dark-velvet, erotic mounds, the shot-silk sky hanging warm and heavy overhead, hinting of a storm. Dead flies clustered on the windscreen as Tash twisted and heaved the cumbersome Land-Rover around the narrow lanes, groaning up the steep hills to Maccombe and finally bouncing up the back drive to the yard. Hugo was out of the cab before she had even braked and rushing to Bod’s box, which had both doors closed but from which a thin line of light around the frames showed it up against the rest.

Switching off the engine, Tash hurriedly clambered out to be greeted by astonishing silence. There were none of the usual dogs barking and horses whickering, or even a radio blaring from one of the groom’s rooms in the cottages to the left. Just an eerie void. Even the flood-lights were off – the night only illuminated by two exterior bulbs.

She went cold. If Bodybuilder was being urgently treated, she reasoned, surely there would be more light? More noise? More bustle and panic?

As she waited by the Land-Rover, uncertain what to do, she saw Jack Fortescue emerging from the large stable office at the opposite end of the yard, scratching his bald head and squinting at the familiar Land-Rover.

‘Oh, it’s you, Tash.’ He walked towards her. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I brought Hugo.’ She noticed that he was wearing a dinner suit beneath his moleskin waistcoat and wellies.

He suddenly looked alarmed, his plump, weathered face seeming to sink back towards its bones with worry.

‘Where is he?’ he asked quickly.

‘In the box.’ Tash nodded towards it. The top half was now ajar, letting out a bright slash of light that cut left through the yard.

‘Shit.’ Jack rubbed his head. ‘We had to destroy the horse ten minutes ago.’

‘You what?’ Tash bleated. ‘But he only cast himself.’

Jack was already hurrying towards the box. Throwing herself after him, Tash tripped as she caught up.

‘The horse was in agony,’ he muttered through his teeth as they reached the door. ‘It was my decision. Hugo wasn’t around to take it.’

‘Then you should have given Bod more painkillers until he arrived!’

He paused for a moment. ‘That would have killed him too. I must speak to Hugo first, you understand? Bloody awful blow. Excuse me.’ He slipped into the box, closing the door behind him.

In the briefest second that Tash saw inside, Hugo was crouched by the big, black horse’s head, cradling it in his arms.

She waited outside for a few moments, but heard nothing. She wandered towards the office, but Jenny and two of the other grooms were inside crying, so she moved silently away, anxious not to intrude. Their loss was a communal one and right now she felt far more angry than weepy, rage and indignation flaming inside her on Hugo’s behalf. She simply couldn’t believe that Jack had made such a catastrophic decision without waiting to consult him. It was unthinkable. He was one of the best eventing vets in the county, knew full well the value of a top competition horse to its owner’s happiness, living and livelihood. He had just wiped out Hugo’s best horse. She wanted to throw bricks through the windows of his flashy Discovery and slash its tyres in fury.

Eventually she settled on the bonnet of the Land-Rover with her feet resting on the bumper and looked out to the shadowed storm-gathering valley, across the field that she had foolishly agreed to ride down with Hugo all those weeks ago, when she had thought she was going to marry Niall and live happily ever after.

Then, listening to Hugo’s horses shift around in their boxes, she gazed into the dark, hazily obscured distance and recalled that when Hugo had run a warm, lazy hand up her leg, she had almost disintegrated with excitement even though she had been convinced he was just trying to tease her. She had longed for him for so many years, sometimes with such titanic force that it had physically hurt, but each time he’d reached out to touch her she had recoiled, terrified by her feelings, paralysed with fear that he still held her in the same disdain he once had, frightened that he was trying to exact some sort of revenge. For the one time he had really shown his feelings, several summers ago in her mother’s overgrown garden in France, she had been far too loopily infatuated with Niall to notice. The memory made her sink her face into her hands in despair.

‘Do you want some tea or anything?’

Looking up, Tash noticed that Jenny, looking strangely naked without her usual hat, had tearfully wandered across the yard to the Land-Rover. She shook her head, feeling too sick to drink anything.

‘I’m sorry about Bod,’ she croaked, about to add how appalled she was by Jack’s decision, but Jenny blew her nose loudly and squinted towards the box with puffy eyes.

‘Hugo in there with Jack?’

Tash nodded. She was amazed that she couldn’t hear Hugo’s voice raised in anger, screaming and yelling at the vet.

Blinking, Jenny rubbed her nose and sniffed tearfully. ‘He was a mean bugger, old Bod, but we all loved him – mostly ’cos we knew Hugo loved him so much. He almost fell apart when he found out he had Navicular, and now this.’

‘What do you mean?’ Tash was gaping at her in horror.

‘He had Navicular disease, Tash,’ Jenny told her in a low voice. ‘Very early stages – Jack only diagnosed it a couple of months ago. Just after Hugo lost Surfer.’

‘Oh, Christ!’ Tash covered her mouth.

‘Jack had to do it – no choice. The horse was in agony – stupid, pigheaded sod kept trying to get up even though he was almost unconscious with painkillers. He would never have recovered, not with a future like his.’

Navicular disease was one of the cruellest ailments to affect horses because it was so random, the infection of a tiny, tiny bone in the hoof that developed slowly and relentlessly and was totally incurable. It caused excruciating pain which could be treated to a degree with drugs, shoeing and diet, but ultimately it always killed. For a horse like Bodybuilder, who lived to work and compete, it spelled the end of their lust for life long before it wiped away life itself. Tash had seen it affecting one of Gus’s horses when she’d first joined the yard – an old eventer who had hobbled around on weak legs, desperate to go to every event and hollow with misery when he was left behind. Eventually he lost so much condition and became so depressed that Gus had decided it was kinder to help him on his way.

‘He wouldn’t have been able to event after this year,’ Jenny sniffed, mopping her eyes. ‘The pain would have started to slow him down within eighteen months or so, even with those funny corrective shoes he wore.’

Tash closed her eyes as she remembered joking about his roll-toed, wedge-heeled shoes at an event the previous month – telling Hugo that they made Bod look like a seventies swinger.

‘Given three years or so it would have crippled him,’ Jenny shrugged. ‘Hugo could have had him denerved, but it’s a dreadful risk. He said he was going to talk to a racing trainer friend about it just this week, but I don’t think he held out much hope. Come in for tea later if you feel like it.’ Giving Tash’s hand a squeeze, she trailed back to the office, glancing up at the threatening storm clouds which had started to gang together overhead.

When Hugo and Jack finally re-emerged, they talked in hushed voices by the door for a few moments, their heads low as the vet passed over a couple of sheets of paper and patted Hugo on the back. Then he headed towards his Discovery, nodding briefly at Tash as he passed. Left behind, Hugo bolted both the doors on the box shut and twisted the large metal knob on the wall that clicked off the interior light, pressing his forehead to it for a moment.

Watching him, Tash wondered whether she should leave: she’d made such a bodge of comforting him after he’d lost Surfer, and now this – he would probably want her to beat it, accusing her of being cursed. But she stayed put, deciding that he could, if he wanted, just walk straight past her to be with his grooms, or head for the house alone or even come over and tell her to piss off. She didn’t care, she just couldn’t leave him in this state.

He walked towards the Land-Rover, eyes gazing into the black valley. Silently, he heaved himself up beside Tash on the bonnet and lit a cigarette. His hands were shaking so much that he dropped the lighter afterwards. It clanged off the radiator grille and fell to the Tarmac.

‘Storm should break soon.’ He squinted at the sky. ‘It’s bloody close.’

Tash nodded, still saying nothing. She kept trying to commiserate, but the words were sticking to the top of her mouth like peanut butter as she fought not to cry. She couldn’t believe he was being so dead-pan about it. She guessed he was in shock.

‘Will you stay a while?’ he asked.

‘Of course, as long as you like.’

‘Oh, I won’t keep you long.’ His voice was icy. ‘I know you’re dying to get back to the dinner party and darling Niall.’

‘I won’t go back there – not after this.’ She shook her head. ‘I’ll go home.’

He was silent for a few moments, tugging on his cigarette and staring into the distance, his profile lost in shadow. Then he dropped his head to his hands and groaned – a long, low, echoing sound that was one of the saddest Tash had ever heard.

‘I can’t believe this is happening to me,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘Such a bloody diabolical year.’

Saying nothing, she watched as his fingers raked the back of his neck, digging into the knots of tension there.

‘I worshipped that horse, Tash.’ His voice was muffled, although whether it was from his sleeves or tears, she couldn’t tell. ‘He was so bloody-minded and so fucking brilliant. I adored that fucking horse. Why’d he have to do something as bloody idiotic as lying down and getting his legs trapped in the corner of his stable? It’s so – so fucking pointless.’

‘I know.’ She touched his shoulder.

For a long time they remained sitting there, Hugo slumped forward in despair and Tash, feeling stiff and awkward and unable to move, touching his shoulder like an old seer bequeathing information to a disciple. The wind had started to pick up now, flattening her thin silk shirt against her arms and making goose bumps spring up all over her, and the clouds were pressing down overhead like a water-logged black tent.

At last he looked up, his hair all over the place, eyes wild.

‘Twice in two months. People will think I’m jinxed. Owners will start to take horses away.’

‘Of course they won’t,’ she assured him. ‘They’ll all feel desperately sorry for you, and angry at how unjust life is.’

‘Is that how you feel, Tash?’ he asked, turning to her, his eyes suddenly focused and glittering through the gloom. ‘That life is unjust?’

‘Sometimes,’ she hedged uneasily. ‘It certainly has been to you this year.’

A loud drum roll of thunder rattled in the distance, making the horses start in their boxes. Tash jumped nervously.

Hugo didn’t even seem to notice. He was still staring at her, eyes haunted.

‘So far it’s been the worse year of my bloody life – which is pretty good going as it’s still only May.’ He rubbed his hair. ‘Let’s see. What more have I to lose between now and December? So far I’ve lost my best horses, my heart and my house to a bunch of idiots with clapper-boards. Will you come to bed with me? I hate storms.’

For a moment Tash wondered whether she’d heard him right.

‘Will you come to bed with me?’ he repeated in a low, level voice.

If the circumstances hadn’t been quite so awful, she would have laughed. She had wanted him to ask her that for almost half of her life – and here it was, the offer, on possibly the worst night they had ever shared.