Mount! (22 page)

On the opposite wall, four times as large, was a splendid new oil of the Hon. Roddy in a white tie and a red hunting tail-coat. The artist had tactfully toned down the port-wine complexion, slightly narrowed the bulging cheeks, added shape to the turbot mouth and blended grey into the dark red hair, giving the face a distinction it didn’t possess.

‘Who painted that?’ asked Etta.

‘A conservationist,’ drawled a voice, as Rupert drifted in, wet from walking the course. ‘Make the perfect poster for
Save the Hippopotamus.
’

Whereupon Roddy turned magenta and Enid went into gales of laughter.

‘Naughty Rupert,’ she said, then, holding her scented cheek up to be kissed, ‘we’re so looking forward to seeing Master Quickly. Who was his damsire?’

‘Peppy Koala,’ said Rupert. ‘Bloody cold out, I need a drink.’

So did Master Quickly, who was livid at being deprived of food and water before his race, and when Lark tried to compensate by sponging his mouth, tried to eat the sponge. Lark, on the other hand, hadn’t touched the sandwich Gav had bought her, insisting she eat something. Not to appear ungrateful, she’d
shoved it in her jacket pocket. She mustn’t transmit her nerves to Quickly.

In his jockey’s bag, Meerkat stole a look at the Good Luck card from Gee Gee. If he came in the first three, he’d ask her out.

Back at Penscombe, Gala watched the race with Old Eddie and Young Eddie.

‘God, those woods are sinister. Were they the ones through which Rupert Black and James Northfield raced?’ asked Gala. ‘You wouldn’t be able to see a thing.’

‘Can’t see much today,’ said Eddie, who was eating his way through Old Eddie’s huge box of chocolates.

The runners were circling the paddock, some horses controlled by a stable lad on either side. Quickly was led only by Lark. Gav felt he’d fret less and feel freer with just one person.

‘Pretty girl that,’ said Old Eddie.

‘Very,’ said Young Eddie. ‘I Will Repay looks bloody good too – he’s twice the size of Quickly.’

And here was Meerkat walking out with the other jockeys, a rainbow of colours on such a dark day.

It should’ve been me, thought Eddie bitterly, scooping up a couple more chocolates. Without rides he had lost his incentive to lose weight.

Nice to see Etta and Valent, such an attractive man, holding hands, thought Gala, as the couple joined Gav, who was chewing gum, and Rupert to brief Meerkat. The draw wasn’t brilliant, with Quickly furthest away from the rail.

‘Stay on the outside – he hates being hemmed in,’ Rupert told Meerkat. ‘Keep him as balanced as possible, and let him loose at the furlong pole.’

As Gav legged up Meerkat, Quickly took the opportunity to tug Gav’s cheese sandwich out of Lark’s pocket and wolf it down before she could grab it back. Lark went crimson, but catching Gav’s eye, they couldn’t stop laughing.

‘I’ll try and get a word with Rupert Campbell-Black,’ said Sean Boyce from
At the Races
, adding, ‘Well, perhaps not,’ when Rupert told him to ‘beat it’.

Down at the start, it was even colder, the woods beetle-browed, glowering down on the water meadows. The spire of Rutminster Cathedral waved an admonitory finger.

Quickly had been led away from the other horses, as one by one they were loaded. Perhaps the ghost of James Northfield’s horse Spartan was putting a hex on him as, shivering ostentatiously, he lashed out at the loaders in their dark-green jackets, lifted his tail and crapped lengthily into the television camera, then refused to budge.

‘Come on, Quickly,’ begged Meerkat.

To fox him, the loaders unearthed an orange and black hood to put over his eyes, and circled him to kid him he wasn’t going into the stalls. But Quickly was not to be fooled.

‘For fuck’s sake, move it, Meerkat,’ yelled Tarqui McGall. He was trying to calm I Will Repay who, like the other horses, was stamping and plunging to get out of his stall.

Outraged at Meerkat tugging at his tail, having been lifted off his feet by the entire six-strong loader team into a stall, which turned out to be much wider than those at home, Quickly pondered, then calmly lay down, stretching out on his belly, until Meerkat’s feet were resting on the ground.

There was an aghast pause.

‘At last you’ve got a horse the right size for you,’ mocked Tarqui.

‘Get up, Quickly!’ screamed Meerkat.

Jockeys and loaders were crying with laughter as Quickly took a pick of grass, decided it was muddy and, closing his eyes, pretended to go to sleep. The only answer was to open the gates and let the other runners go.

The dark-brown I Will Repay bounded away to finish four lengths in front of Roddy Northfield’s Red Trousers, and notching up yet another win for Roberto’s Revenge. Valent was livid. Etta, who’d had several glasses of champagne, got the giggles.

‘Quickly reminds me of a lovely children’s book by Beverly Nichols called
The Tree That Sat Down
,’ she said, and got a murderous look from Rupert. Turning on Gavin, he snarled: ‘I thought you said that horse needed the run.’

Roddy Northfield was in heaven.

‘Pity Campbell-Black let the day down. He shouldn’t spend so much time abroad – loses track of things.’

Everyone else thought it hilarious. The press had a field day.

‘Great White Hype,’ said the
Sunday Times
.

‘Belly Flop,’ said the
Racing Post
, adding that ‘Master Quickly enhanced neither the reputation of his sire nor his dam when he refused to start at Rutminster.’

Lark was in despair; Gav, hiding his bitter disappointment, resisted having a drink and went back to the drawing board.

In his second race at nearby Bath, in front of a much smaller crowd, and having bitten several loaders, Quickly decided to run. Meerkat had been told to stay at the back and move up slowly, using Quickly’s turn of foot to pick off the leaders.

This time, an over-excited Quickly, battling for his head, fighting an impotently hauling Meerkat, set off like a rocket, until the rocket ran out of fuel at the furlong pole and Quickly out of puff. Stopping dead, shooting Meerkat over his head and on to the rails, he started to graze as all the other runners overtook him.

‘Don’t you ever feed him?’ tweeted Cosmo.

With poor Meerkat sidelined with a cracked wrist, and constant pleading from Gala and Taggie, Rupert agreed to let Eddie ride Quickly at an evening meeting on the All-Weather track at Wolverhampton.

The journey was worthwhile because in later races were entered Touchy Filly, who was no longer a maiden, and a two-year-old called Dick the Second, whose chestnut coat had a roan tinge like King Richard II’s horse Barbary. Rupert would miss the race because he was in America.

Lark was thrilled. At last she would lead up Prince Charming on his white charger. Frogmarched into Cheltenham by Marketa, she had been persuaded into the skinniest jeans and a clinging turquoise T-shirt.

After a sleepless night, she rose at four to wash her hair. In the lorry, Dora, Marketa, Lark and Eddie, who’d had a row with Trixie because she’d forgotten it was his big day and asked him to pick up Hereward from nursery, sat behind Gav, who was reading
War and Peace
, and the yard driver, Bobby Walker.

Lark dropped off the moment the lorry left Penscombe, falling across Eddie, and only waking as they approached Wolverhampton to find him laughing down at her and stroking her face.

‘If I win, will you sleep with me?’ he murmured.

‘Shut up, Eddie!’ snapped Gav, Dora and Bob in unison as a horribly embarrassed Lark shot bolt upright.

A glorious day cheered them all up. Wolverhampton is a much prettier course than it looks on television. The leaves of the cherry trees, lining the course, danced in the June sunshine. At the top of the course was a large pale-blue factory which evidently cleaned trains.

‘Pity it can’t clean trainers,’ said Dora, glaring at dodgy Brute Barraclough, who was running a very ugly liver chestnut colt called Geoffrey, which Brute had managed to flog to some dotty old lady, Mrs Ford-Winters, when he’d visited her at the same care home that had kicked out Old Eddie for pouncing on residents. Brute’s sweet-faced wife, Rosaria, who did all the work at the yard, was devoted to Geoffrey and believed he had great potential. Brute, who bullied Rosaria and cheated on her the whole time, was a lover both of Janey Lloyd-Foxe and Bethany Latton.

Will I ever go to the races and find someone who’s not slept with Bethany? Gav thought wearily.

The entrance to Wolverhampton Racecourse lay through the foyer of a big hotel, and in the lift to the various racecourse boxes, restaurants and trainer and owners stands, one passed floors full of bedrooms. These were often occupied by professional punters, but it was also where Brute Barraclough was alleged to have pleasured Celeste several times. Tonight he was planning a romp with his Head Lad, Alison.

Valent had also booked a room for himself and Etta, so they
could either celebrate or drown their sorrows, depending on the result of the race.

On the way in, Gav saw a loader from Quickly’s second race who turned pale at the thought of loading him again. Lark, who had groomed Quickly earlier, had only to give him a brief body brush and rub him over with a wet tea-towel to make his coat gleam like glass.

‘He looks wery well,’ cried Marketa. ‘Go and get changed, I’ll look after Quickly.’

Celeste had been known to spend over an hour to tart herself up before leading up horses but Lark took only a few minutes to brush her teeth and wriggle into her new jeans and turquoise T-shirt, which clung excitingly over her new Wonderbra.

‘You look stunning, wery woluptuous,’ said Marketa as she powdered Lark’s nose and applied a dab of green eyeshadow and mascara to her pale lashes.

Etta and Valent stood in the centre of the parade ring. Both too nervous to have any lunch, they were planning dinner in the reputedly wonderful restaurant upstairs. A bottle of Bollinger was already on ice so they could watch later races on a television set at the end of their table.

With Rupert away, Dora had marshalled the press to witness Eddie’s first ride back on the flat. Towering above the other jockeys, he looked much more glamorous, Rupert’s sapphire and emerald colours bringing out the brilliant blue of his eyes and, despite the dramatic weight loss, he still had long legs and broad shoulders.

Brute’s colt Geoffrey, with his huge flopping donkey ears and half-closed eyes, was certainly the plainest in the parade ring.

‘That ’orse ain’t a two-year-old,’ shouted a wag in the crowd. ‘’E’s an old age pensioner!’

Wincing at the guffaws, Rosaria, who was leading him up, patted Geoffrey protectively.

Gav, standing with Etta and Valent, was briefing Eddie.

‘Ride him positively, try and sit behind and move up near the end. He can get through any gap.’

But he’d lost Eddie, who was looking at Lark as she led up a jig-jogging Quickly.

‘Wow,’ said Eddie. ‘You should’ve won the best-turned-out prize. You’ve definitely got to promise to sleep with me if I win.’

‘Shut up, Eddie,’ snapped Valent and Gav as the latter legged him up.

Lark waited near the finish, clutching Marketa’s hand, glued to the big screen. ‘Oh please, please dear God.’

Gavin had gone down to the start with Quickly, walking him round quietly, away from the other horses. Quickly rolled his eyes but decided to behave. Having gone straight into the stalls, even though not jumping out as fast as some, he clearly hadn’t listened to Gav’s instructions and went straight to the front to avoid having grey grit, known as kickback, in his pretty face.

As they hurtled round the course, it could be seen how brilliantly Eddie rode and how his body seemed to melt into Quickly’s. Although Quickly hung right and interfered with several horses, including Geoffrey, he didn’t run out of puff and scorching past the post an amazing ten lengths clear, he ran halfway round the course again before Eddie could pull him up.

Back at Penscombe, as the bell rang out for a win, yard and stud were yelling their heads off, particularly Jemmy who had put all his wages on Quickly.

‘Thank God we persuaded Rupert.’ Taggie and Gala were hugging one another. ‘Let’s go and take carrots to Love Rat.’

Even though it was only £1,000 prize money and only 10 per cent for Eddie, it was his first win on the flat in England.

Camera crews and journalists centred on Quickly’s overjoyed stable lass racing up the course, particularly when Eddie bent down and kissed her, on and on until Quickly bit her to break them up.

‘Nice one,’ observed Trixie, who was awaiting the results of her A-level retakes and who’d been so engrossed in a piece she was writing for the
Guardian
that she’d only just remembered to switch on the television.

Touching his hat in the same nonchalant way that a snoozing Forester flicked his tail an inch upwards when Taggie entered the room, a grinning Eddie acknowledged the applause as he
rode into the winner’s enclosure. Noticing the tears pouring down Lark’s cheeks and the heaving prettiness of her breasts in that T-shirt, he slid off, shook hands with an ecstatic Valent and Etta, unsaddled Quickly, weighed in and after returning for a joyful photograph, took Quickly’s reins and threw them at Marketa. Then, ignoring a battalion of press, he whisked a besotted Lark out of the winner’s enclosure and into the hotel.

‘Where are we going?’ she gasped.

‘For a victory shag. Stupid Brute dropped his key card – I overheard him telling Alison which room he was in.’

‘We can’t,’ cried Lark. ‘Trixie! Quickly!’

But Eddie shut her up, kissing her all the way up in the lift. Brute’s card slid easily into the door. Inside was a huge double bed and a lovely view on to the course.

‘Eddie, we can’t – you’ve got to collect your prize.’

‘You’re my prize. Etta and Valent will collect it.’

‘I’ve got to hose Quickly down and walk him round till he stops blowing. He needs me.’

‘Not nearly as much as I do.’

‘What about Dick the Second? He’s in the next race.’

‘It’s the one after next, we’ve still got time.’