Kiss and Tell (44 page)

‘I know.’ Tash sighed, looking strained. ‘Hugo’s off to Adelaide straight after that, but Rory will stay here, and Lough Strachan should have finally arrived by then, so we’ll have more help.’

Faith was too disappointed about Rory to be interested in Lough, who the Moncrieffs seemed to think had disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle.

Tash was introducing a pretty girl with dreadlocks. ‘Beccy will show you the ropes. You must excuse me if I dash off,’ she apologised, already backing away. ‘The au pairs have discovered the steam cleaner and I’d have to get back in the house to stop them vaporising the dogs.’

‘She’s not on the yard much,’ Beccy told Faith after she’d gone. ‘Prefers having babies and painting pictures to horses these days.’

Faith was surprised. Tash was one of her all-time heroines – meeting her was a secret thrill – and she thought she was lovely. But sacrificing horses for domesticity was a crime in her eyes.

‘She was supposed to be in France now too,’ Beccy went on, grateful to have someone new to gossip to. ‘But they changed their plans at the last minute – something to do with Tash’s mother not being around. She’s got a house there. There was a huge row and Hugo left in one hell of a bad mood. It’s their anniversary next week.’

They were walking through the yards now, and Faith’s eyes were
on stalks. Haydown was her Mecca and it didn’t disappoint. The horse facilities were out of this world.

‘It’s a bit quiet here today,’ Beccy pointed out the obvious as they toured empty yards. ‘Everything’s turned out apart from the injured ones. When Jenny comes back with the Pau horses next week there’ll be more going on.’

She turned and blushed as Lemon hacked into the yard, parakeet Mohawk squashed beneath a racing helmet with a yellow bobble-top silk. Having trained as a jockey, he still rode with his stirrups very short.

‘Got lost again!’ he lamented as he jumped off. ‘Fucking downs – why are they called that when there are so many hills? And they all look the same!’

‘It’s ’cos they get you down when you’re lost.’ Faith stepped forward to hold the horse while he unsaddled.

‘And you are?’ he demanded camply.

‘Faith.’

‘I’m Lemon. Great tits.’

Faith bristled. She was now more sensitive than ever about her bust, which was, today as every day since arriving in West Berkshire, crammed with her biggest chicken fillets. It was her new body armour, along with her attitude. ‘Are you always this rude?’

He winked at Beccy who was giggling nearby, clearly thinking him hilarious. ‘No, you misunderstand me. I’m a twitcher. Saw some great tits when I was out riding just now.’

‘Is that a fact?’ Faith snarled, hackles rising further.

‘Getting colder, isn’t it? Might see blue tits later.’ He dumped his saddle on a stable door, ready to take his horse from her to lead him to the wash box. ‘We twitchers love all tits.’

Beccy was still sniggering.

Faith held on firmly to the rein he was trying to take from her.

‘One more tit comment around me and you won’t be twitching any more, buster. You won’t even have a pulse.’ Her voice was pure ice.

Lemon blinked, taking a proper look at her for the first time. Then he smiled widely, realising he’d met his match.

‘Frightfully pleased to meet you. Faith,’ – he held out his hand, aggrandising his Kiwi accent to finest old-colonial Queenstown – ‘you have my word that I will not mention those indigenous British birds in your presence again.’

‘Thank you,’ she shook his hand, dropping the snarl to smile back. As he walked away, leading the horse, she added: ‘Great arse.’

Beccy adored Faith and her attitude. Working on the yard became even more fun with her sparking off Lemon. Having become the straight man to the little Kiwi’s pushy humour, she delighted in witnessing him take massive doses of his own medicine. Despite being ten years their junior and always working at twice the rate, Faith still managed to stick up for Beccy at all times and backchat faster than a cobra strike when Lem was being domineering. Within a week she had him in check and he became increasingly Lemon cordial.

Beccy felt no immediate threat to her position as Lemon’s number one Limey because he still flirted with her all the time, play-fighting and telling her how sexy and beautiful she was. Faith refused to join in that game.

‘I don’t know how you put up with it,’ she grumbled one day after a particularly full-on flirtation session involving a pitchfork and the hosepipe. ‘It’s so fake when gay men flirt with women like that.’ Her blunt self-assurance made Beccy feel stupid at times.

‘He told Jenny he was bisexual, apparently.’

‘Oh c’mon, I’ve been involved with dressage too long to fall for that one,’ Faith sneered. ‘Gay men always say that to make girls fancy them. It’s good for their egos. Kurt did it for years. Still does.’

The following day, as the girls took a tea break after mucking out and sat on a log to watch Tash loose schooling one of the home-bred youngsters for the first time in the round pen, Faith sprang a surprise question on Beccy. ‘So, do you fancy Lemon, then?’

Beccy was about to laugh, but something stopped her and she watched the straw dust dancing in the light from an early ray of sun that was radiating from beneath the stable yard’s arched entrance. Autumn was still putting on a magnificent show, the copper leaves sweeping down and littering the grass around them, like God’s pencil shavings as he frantically sharpened between sketching in the grey lines of winter.

‘No! Well, hmm. A bit, maybe,’ she found herself saying, and it came as a shock even to herself. She guessed she must be such a desperate old virgin that she fancied anything with a pulse these days. She wasn’t about to admit to her feelings for Hugo or her
secret text life with Lough. Lem called her ‘sexpot’ and told her she had the most beautiful eyes. It made her feel good.

‘Crikey. You and I will be great mates.’ Faith turned to her, grinning stupidly.

‘Yes?’ Beccy was thrilled.

‘I thought you’d be after Rory.’

‘God no.’ Beccy was about to announce that she found Rory vile, then realised that was perhaps not wise. She knew she wasn’t always good at reading people, but she had enough sense to realise that Faith was very touchy on the subject of Rory.

‘You want to have a drink in the Olive Branch tonight?’ Faith suggested. ‘We’ll ask Lemon.’

‘Oh. Okay.’ She felt suddenly plagued by ridiculous butterflies.

In the round pen Tash called the young horse back to her, rubbing him between his eyes and scratching his neck once she’d caught him.

‘Has she said anything about how it’s going in Pau?’ Faith asked casually.

‘No idea. I sense she and Hugo aren’t talking much,’ Beccy told her with satisfaction.

‘Is it that bad?’ Faith was shocked. The Beauchampions were her idols.

‘Things have been very shaky since Blenheim,’ Beccy confided in an undertone, then shut up as Tash led the youngster passed them and paused to point out in her gentle but nonetheless certain way that they should both be working.

Beccy glared at her stepsister’s retreating back, hoping that things were set to get even worse in her marriage. It gave her hope.

Any feelings she had for Lemon were mere surface scratches compared to the mortal wounds of loving Hugo.

That evening in Fosbourne Ducis, the Olive Branch’s landlord couple, Italian chef Angelo and his English wife Denise, observed the raucous new trinity of Haydown and Lime Tree yard staff with suspicion.

Faith and Lem were getting louder by the minute. As designated driver, Beccy was sober and deflated. Her mobile phone had packed up after too many rain-sodden days stored in her pocket while working on the yard; she had fallen off that morning, her bank balance
was zero while her credit-card bills topped almost four figures, and she felt her new-found crush fading fast as Lemon and Faith bonded more and more.

Faith was lovely when sober – tough, acerbic, straight-talking and funny. But she had no head for drink whatsoever and became a monster after one vodka and coke. And Lem had immediately spotted an opening to take advantage.

He encouraged her to join him in his favourite pastime of slagging off Hugo. ‘He’s such a reactionary’… ‘Tash is a saint to put up with that shit’ … ‘Beccy says the marriage is on the rocks.’

‘I said no such thing!’ Beccy squeaked at Faith, appalled that her indiscretion was now being broadcast within earshot of locals who knew the couple well. ‘He’s just been away a lot. After the Olympics he was in Ireland, then France for Fontainebleau and Le Lion d’Angers, plus Holland for Boekelo, now back in France again.’

‘Avoiding being at home,’ Lem said knowingly. ‘Classic sign of a shaky marriage.’

‘Classic sign of being an event rider,’ Faith shot back.

‘My dad used to disappear for weeks on end before he and my mum divorced,’ he told them. ‘He was a shearer and used the excuse that he was away working, but they couldn’t stand each other. Mum didn’t realise he’d left her until she found out he’d been living with the woman across the road for three months.’ He and Faith seemed to find this screamingly funny, whereas it made Beccy want to cry.

‘You think Hugo shags around?’ Lem pondered.

‘Undoubtedly,’ Faith asserted, ‘they all do on the eventing circuit. Mum used to coach Hugo years ago, before he married, and says he was notorious. He was known as Clear Round because every woman in eventing wanted to jump him. He once even shagged Julia Ditton in the commentary box while she was live on air, but nobody ever guessed. Every time a horse jumped a fence she let out a shriek of delight.’

They both fell about.

Beccy felt like a small child trapped with her two ASBO parents.

When not slagging off Hugo and counting down his marriage, Faith and Lemon were having conversations that not only verged on the obscene, but left Beccy feeling sexually ignorant and prudish: ‘You ever got your period while riding out?’ … ‘Never. Have you ever come?’ … ‘Come first, come second, come third, me. You?’ …
‘I always come first’ … ‘I’d like to see that someday’ … ‘You’d have to work on it’ … ‘You should see me in action. These fingers are pussy poetry. All that mane plaiting’ … ‘And your tongue runs away with you, too’ … ‘I give good head’ … ‘Head or tails?’ … ‘Depends who’s asking …’

‘Beccy says you’re bisexual,’ Faith told Lemon with a hiccup.

Beccy felt her face flame.

But he wasn’t at all fazed. ‘Yeah – lucky me. If I reach down the front of someone’s pants I’m always satisfied with what I find.’

‘Well that’s good news, huh, Beccy?’ Faith gave her a thumbs-up.

She flashed a very weak smile.

‘Afraid
I’m
off limits,’ Faith told Lem.

‘Why’s that?’

‘Never wear pants.’

Beccy felt totally out of her comfort zone, longing to be back at Haydown with Tash, a huge meal, her copy of
Cheers!
and an old eventing DVD playing on the kitchen telly.

At that moment, landlady Denise bore down on them to collect empties and pointedly wipe the table, as though trying to clear away the loud, indecorous chat from her well-mannered country pub. ‘Can I get you folks anything to eat?’

‘Just another round, gorgeous.’ Lemon hammed up his New Zealand accent, gazing up at her through his pale lashes and bright yellow fringe.

Denise shuddered and gave Beccy a sympathetic look.

‘I’m going outside for a smoke.’ Lemon lurched off.

Faith grinned at his retreating back then turned to Beccy. ‘You’re right. I think he is bi.’

Beccy raised an eyebrow, deciding the new friendship was off. ‘Thanks for playing cupid. I really appreciate it.’

The sarcasm wasn’t lost on Faith, who blinked a few times to get her head together. When she spoke again, her voice was slurred, but she knew exactly what she was saying.

‘Okay, here’s the deal.’ She glanced towards the door to check that Lem was still outside smoking. ‘I have to be honest, Beccy. You’re way too cool for him – look at you. Gorgeous. Sussed. Older woman. Travelled the world, seen all sorts of things, slept with maharajas and Masai warriors for all I know. You even smuggled drugs, for chrissake. Oh, sorry, you probably don’t like being
reminded of that. Anyway, Lemon’s not for you. He’s funny, but he’s not even in your league.’

Beccy gaped at her.

Eventually, Faith waved a hand in front of her companion’s face: ‘Hello? Are you there?’

‘You think I’m a cool older woman?’

‘You are! You are way cool. I’m such a geek. This is all an act, but you’re the real thing.’

It should be easy to take a compliment, but Beccy had never taken the easy route. It was why she had travelled for so long on such a solitary path. ‘Faith, I’m not cool. I’m a twenty-seven-year-old virgin with no career path and a chip on her shoulder.’

To her surprise, Faith raised her glass in a salute. ‘Beccy, you and I have
so
much in common.’

Beccy’s mouth was still formed in a little surprised ‘o’ when Lemon rejoined them, reeking of fags, knocking back his tequila and eyeing them both mischievously.

‘I did a naughty thing just now when I was having my smoke.’

‘Oh yes?’ Faith was only half interested in his practical jokes.

‘I texted Lough that Tash and Hugo have split up.’

She snorted in surprise. ‘You what?’

His porcine eyes glittered. ‘I reckon I’ve had it the wrong way round, you see, – telling Lough what he doesn’t want to hear: “You’re in deep shit. Hugo’s spitting blood.” Maybe this’ll work. Carrot and stick. Tell him something he
wants
to hear.’

‘Why would he want to hear that Tash and Hugo have split up?’ asked Faith. ‘Have I missed something?’

Beccy felt her face flame.

Lem looked at her thoughtfully before turning to Faith. ‘
Ka mate k
inga tahi, ka ora k
inga rua
, as the boss says.’