Well Groomed (72 page)

He had lost his two best horses in less than a year, and it was probable that he would also lose his sponsorship and backing as a result. He no longer had a ride at Badminton, a chance for international teams, a career he could reliably live off. He had several brilliant youngsters, but they were still years away from earning their keep in top-grade competitions unless he sold them all to buy a good international horse, and Hugo was unlikely to do that – he liked to make his horses from nothing, not buy them ready-prepared like cakes. His best mid-grade horse that year had been Mickey Rourke, and he had given him back to Tash. Before that it had been Drunken Hunk, and again Tash had benefited from Hugo’s belief that a horse should be with a jockey he clicks with.

Tash knew exactly what horse Hugo had always clicked with and longed to have the chance to ride again. He was a horse so similar to Bodybuilder that it was uncanny. She had battled and battled to find the same chemistry with him that Hugo had discovered on the very few occasions he had ridden him, the same chemistry that she had seen him demonstrate with Bod only the previous day.

Tash gazed at Mickey’s lop ears and watched them multiply like grey rabbits as tears started to sprout from her eyes. When she’d realised last night that she would lose Snob after Badminton, she’d been almost ripped apart with unhappiness. Now it seemed insignificant. At least Snob would carry on rampaging and causing merry havoc in someone else’s yard. Bodybuilder, the greatest Badminton hopeful of all, would never trot out of the Maccombe yard again, never shiver with excitement when he was led into the horse-box at the crack of dawn, realising that he was off to vie for glory. There had been one final victory which Hugo had longed to give him, a ghost of a dream that he had been denied the chance to fulfil.

Tash had the same dream, the same foolish, romantic notion. But her circumstances were far less noble and her nerve far less steady. By giving up her last chance to prove herself, she knew that she could give Hugo a second one. She just wasn’t certain she was brave enough to do it.

That evening, Niall returned to the forge after a very boring day’s shooting, most of which had been spent waiting for the ground to dry out enough to enact a picnic scene on the downs. He was in a strange, excitable mood that Tash couldn’t read, talking incredibly fast and moving around the room like a zephyr as he hastily went through his post, collected his messages and started to change his trousers for a clean pair that were hanging on the rail of the range. He didn’t bother to explain why he hadn’t returned the night before, nor did he ask her what had happened with Hugo at Haydown, although he had plenty to say on the subject of Bod’s inconvenient death.

‘Hugo was like a bloody lunatic today,’ he told her, wandering around in his underpants. ‘He hired this bloody great JCB which rolled up at lunchtime and started heaving chunks of earth out of the bottom of that steep field of his, what’s he call it?’

‘Twenty Acres?’

‘’S the one. Lisette is going nuts – I mean, we’re shooting the quad bike scene down there on Monday, and here he is digging it up. The next thing a fucking crane turns up and before you know it there’s a bloody dead horse swinging around on the end of it, headed for the hole like an oversized fair-ground game!’

It was a typical Niall story told in his hyperbolic style. Tash wanted to deck him for insensitivity. He must be wildly distracted, or drunk, or both.

‘He was burying Bod.’

‘So he was,’ Niall nodded in agreement, pulling on the clean trousers, which were still damp. ‘And Lisette is screaming at him the whole time that the horse would have to be moved before the quad bike scene, or she’d have to re-insure the actors for injury by equine grave. I ’clare, it was madness. Finally Hugo stormed off to the house and left them all to it. Jesus, but that man frightens me sometimes. I’m going out tonight, all right?’ He started to look shifty, as though he was about to confess to something, but Tash was already halfway to the door.

‘Fine,’ she said, reaching for her coat. ‘So am I.’

She drove the design classic to Maccombe in a daze, half an eye noticing the thick, heavily muddied tracks running all over the flat verges where the Land-Rover had wandered on to them during her return journey the previous night.

It was a mild, bosky evening, so different from the cloying closeness of the night before. The sun, almost resting on the distant ridgeway like a ball on a seal’s nose, was drenching the valley in a last pink blush, an hour away from dropping out of view.

Haydown was still buzzing with film types wrapping up for the night as they coiled cables, moved furniture and double-checked everything against the inevitable clip-boarded list.

Hopping with nerves and trepidation, Tash encountered Stefan in the yard watching a young mare being lunged over a grid in the menage.

‘I thought they weren’t shooting here tonight?’ She nodded towards the house.

‘They weren’t.’ He turned to her, squinting through the lowering sunlight. ‘But there’s been a lot of fuss about the smashed conservatory and Hugo’s big dig. They’re going to have to go into extra time or something. I heard one of the crew saying they’re so behind schedule that they’re re-negotiating dates already. Looks like this wrap party will be an unwrapped party.’

Tash closed her eyes. It would make things ten times worse, she realised, if they announced their split at the party. No wonder Niall had looked so evasive earlier.

‘I heard about the JCB drama,’ she sighed, looking down the sweeping drop of Twenty Acres. Apart from some heavy tyre marks leading to and from the bottom gate and a flat, muddy rectangle beside the large chestnut tree, there was little sign of disturbance, and all the heavy mechanical equipment had long since departed. She felt a great, leaden drag of sadness weighing down her shoulders as she thought of poor, talented Bod lying there.

‘It was a bloody fiasco,’ Stefan sighed. ‘That Lisette is such a bitch – no wonder Niall chose you.’

Tash grimaced, turning her face to the sun to avoid looking at him. ‘It wasn’t quite like that. Is Hugo around?’ She quickly changed the subject.

‘Dunno – hang on.’ He leaned over the fence and yelled at the girl in the menage: ‘Hugo back with The Broker yet?’

‘Hours ago.’ She jerked her head towards the house. ‘He went in there. Follow the sound of pouring scotch.’

When Tash finally tracked him down he wasn’t drunk at all. He was swigging tea in the old nursery upstairs wearing a personal stereo and reading
Eventing
. It was obviously one of the few spots in the house he could get some peace – the whole place was crawling with filmies checking off clip-boards and dismantling equipment. He looked dusty and dishevelled, still dressed in his riding gear, straw clinging to his t-shirt. To Tash he’d never looked more forlorn or more desirable, his beautiful face pinched with unhappiness. Once again she fought down the run-to-him-and-leap urge, hovering nearby until he noticed her and pulled off his headphones.

‘What d’you want?’ he asked guardedly. His blue eyes were squinting from lack of sleep and rimmed with red.

She stood with half the room still dividing them, desperate to remain calm and practical, not smother him with soppy tears and pity.

‘I want you to help me out,’ she said firmly, launching straight in. ‘I need you to ride Snob for me at Badminton.’

‘What?’ He stared at her levelly, his face guarded.

‘I need you – want you – to ride Snob. I can’t do it,’ she explained hurriedly, moving towards him. ‘We’ve started to fight one another and it’s not safe – everyone’s been telling me that for weeks, but I couldn’t pull him out because he stands such a good chance of winning. Just not with me. You could ride him; you’ve always handled him better than me.’

Hugo continued staring at her in silence. Close to, Tash could see how exhausted he looked with black smudges beneath his eyes and a little tic rattling in one cheek.

‘I phoned the head of the entry committee today, and she told me it would still be allowed if we declare a change of rider on Monday morning. Please, Hugo.’

The muscle in his cheek was twitching more noticeably now, and he was clenching his fists so tightly that the knuckles gleamed through like pearls.

‘Will you do it?’ Tash asked cautiously, not liking the blue flame glitter of his eyes.

He took a deep, shaky breath and then exploded so angrily that she screamed.

‘How DARE you?’

‘What?’ She reeled backwards.

‘How dare you be so fucking insensitive and childish and downright IDIOTIC as to think this can be some sort of bloody consolation prize for my misery?’

She cowered away from him as he stood up, shaking with fury, his face a twisted mask.

‘You silly little bitch!’ he howled, starting to pace around frenziedly. ‘I can’t believe you’re capable of this – it’s bloody beyond me how you even got the notion into your head. Christ!’

‘I wanted to help you, Hugo. Can’t you see that?’

‘Oh, I can see that,’ he snarled. ‘I can see that all right. I bet you and Niall had a good old chat about it this evening, huh? “What can I do to make poor old Hugs feel better now that his favourite horse has just croaked, Niall baby?” – “I know, Tash angel!”’ he aped Niall’s accent perfectly. ‘“Why not offer him a turn on yours?” – “Oh, Niall, you’re so clever, darling. I’ll do just that.” Like a rich kid offering a pauper a ride on his fucking bicycle!’

‘It wasn’t like that! I didn’t mean it like that!’

‘You might not think so, but I’m afraid you did, darling,’ he drawled, voice ringing with acid mockery. ‘Bod wasn’t a shitty toy I need a replacement to play with, or a dead hamster that the parents can whip out of a cage and replace with a new, live one undetected. I shed blood and tears on that horse – he was a fucking star and a damned good friend. And now he’s dead, so don’t you bloody DARE offer me an animal you’ve spent the best part of two years fucking up so that I can prove I’m a better rider than you. I don’t need five days in Gloucestershire with your shoddy seconds to do that, darling.’

Tash couldn’t speak for tears. How badly she’d misjudged the situation. She flinched as he started backing her towards a wall, his pale, furious face just inches from hers.

‘I never imagined you capable of shallowness to this degree, Tash,’ he whispered, voice seething with blame. ‘Christ! I can’t believe I thought so much of you. I was talking crap when I said I loved you last night. I was just pissed and fucked up about losing Bod.’

For a moment Tash thought she’d misheard him. She’d played that conversation over and over in her head all day. She knew exactly what he’d said. She stared into his blisteringly angry face, taking in the ice-chip eyes, snarling mouth, beautiful, straight nose with its nostrils flared in contempt.

‘You didn’t say you loved me, Hugo,’ she said.

‘Didn’t I?’ For a moment his gaze flickered. ‘Are you sure?’ He sounded as though he was confirming a feed order, voice snappy and abrupt.

She nodded frantically. ‘You told me you didn’t want to be my friend, and that falling in love was like eating garlic, and that Tennyson was a sad loser. And then you told me to get lost.’

‘Oh.’ He rubbed his chin awkwardly, moving away. ‘I was obviously in a more philosophical mood than I thought.’ He was looking hugely uncomfortable now, shoulders hunched, hands banging together, legs moving stiffly. Tash had never seen him so self-conscious.

‘What –’ she started cautiously, voice wobbling with nerves and hope ‘– made you think you said you loved me last night?’

He turned back to her, chewing his lip for a moment, still looking jumpy. Then the easy, mocking smile slid back into place.

‘I think I probably wanted a shag.’ He shrugged. ‘I do seem to recall asking, now I think about it. And I certainly needed cheering up – the “I love you” line usually works. Thank God I didn’t try it after all – I was probably far too plastered to get it up.’

She yelped, backing away as though struck. ‘You don’t mean that!’

‘Don’t I?’ he laughed. ‘You were certainly giving me the come-on at the farm earlier. Or did you just want to make that childish kiss-the-bride Badminton deal because you know you haven’t a hope? I expect that’s why you’re offering me Snob now. At least that way he stands a chance of winning.’

With a sob, Tash threw back her arm and, not stopping to think, swung her hand with all her weight behind it. Her palm and his cheek made contact with such an almighty smack that she winced, her hand buzzing with pain.

For a moment he gazed at her, eyes watering, one pale cheek starting to colour. Then he strode out, heels clicking on the polished floors until they faded away.

Tash raced from the house, crashing past Lisette and the ubiquitous clip-boarded minion as she ran.

‘Tash – hello there!’ Lisette called after her, but Tash had already pelted towards the design classic, which unusually started first time.

By the time Lisette had raced after her to the yard, Tash was shooting up pebbles and toxic fumes in her wake. Once again the lanes from Maccombe to the Fosbournes got a heavy hammering under her erratic driving.

Once again Niall didn’t return to the forge that night.

The phone rang again and again but, certain that it was either her mother or Henrietta eager to discuss what shade of dog collar the vicar should wear, Tash had disconnected the fax and answerphone and simply let it drone on unanswered. Hugging Beetroot for comfort, she listened to Abba’s greatest hits at full blast to punish herself some more for her idiotic attempt to cheer up Hugo and appease his pain. He was right, she was as shallow as a puddle in a drought. She’d wanted so much to believe that he’d almost confessed to loving her last night, but when she thought back with the agonising logic of hindsight, she’d dressed like a siren at Zoe’s dinner party and he’d hardly noticed it when he arrived, simply making the usual derisive remarks. In fact, he’d only started flirting with her after she’d asked him to kiss her if she won Badminton. And he’d been pissed then. Later, when they’d raced up to Haydown, she’d hung around to comfort him, and instead of letting him ramble on about the horse he’d just lost, she had engineered the conversation towards their feelings for one another instead. No wonder he’d told her to piss off the moment Stefan arrived. She wanted to die with humiliation.