Mount! (32 page)

‘I hadn’t the heart to tell her it was the wrong Yeats,’ sighed Declan in his world-famous, husky smoker’s voice. ‘I’d probably have done better if I had written about horses.’

He’d have to work to the day he dropped to support his extravagant wife and children, and to stop them tapping Taggie, who hated squandering Rupert’s money.

Now in Rupert’s office, his vast hand curled round a dark glass of whisky, studying his son-in-law’s bleak, handsome face as he scoured the monitors for worldwide wins by Love Rat’s
progeny, Declan was reminded of Yeats’ poem to Maud Gonne:

Cracking Leading Sire was Rupert’s Troy. But would being abroad so much destroy his marriage?

Declan then chided Rupert that Taggie was looking desperately tired, that the family descended the moment Rupert went away and that Gala seemed to be spending more and more time in the yard. Despite a part-time carer coming in every morning from the village, an increasingly dotty Old Eddie hadn’t taken to her, and poor Taggie was having to look after him. Yesterday she’d lost him in Waitrose, and tracked him down at the checkout, asking the girl there to cut his nails. Only that very morning, Old Eddie had driven the whole household demented by vanishing for two hours and being found sleeping peacefully in his beloved Love Rat’s box.

‘If he’d chosen Titus Andronicus, that might have sorted all our problems,’ growled Declan. ‘You need a proper full-time carer.’

Oh God, not another ‘treasure’, jerking off about making a difference, thought Rupert. But hearing how well Gala was doing with Quickly and Touchy Filly, and what an asset she was already proving in the yard, he was very reluctant to order her to spend more time with Eddie. He therefore rang Mrs Simmons at the carers agency.

‘I don’t know how you’d feel about a male carer?’ she said.

‘Well, at least my father wouldn’t goose or rather geese him. He’s jumped on so many.’

‘Oh Mr Campbell-Black! A very nice South African called Jan, pronounced Yan, Van Deventer recently arrived in England and has just joined our agency. He’s an ex-army officer, so he
can talk to your father about army things, and he’s an experienced carer.’

Thinking of Charlie in
Casualty
, Rupert said: ‘Send him over.’

Valentine’s Day dawned. Out of a pale-green sky flecked with sooty black clouds shone a silvery Venus.

The Planet of Love is on high, thought Gala.

She hadn’t felt so happy since Ben died as, oblivious to an icy cold wind, she cantered Master Quickly, his blond mane caressing her face, marvelling at the power of his acceleration, amazed by the speed with which he made up ground. Too fast for any of Rupert’s other horses, he had to be sent up the gallops on his own. There was talk of trying to steady him by using his beloved Safety Car as a pacemaker.

The rest of the yard were not fans, having been nipped by Quickly too often, but he’d been sweet to Gala, not biting her at all. Missing Lark, Dave and Gav, he’d transferred his affection to her, crying like a baby when she returned to the house to look after Old Eddie at lunchtime. He and Purrpuss were also devoted to one another. The moment Quickly returned from the gallops, Purrpuss would be waiting in the manger to wash Quickly’s face and thoroughly clean his ears before settling on his back. At night when Quickly lay down to sleep, Purrpuss curled up, a hot water bottle against his belly.

Last night too, Gala had been cheered by such a long chat with Rupert about the horses, particularly the next lot he’d be taking to Dubai for the World Cup in March.

It was a beautiful day. The birds were singing their heads off.
Rupert’s lawn was edged with yellow aconites, with their little green ruffs of leaves, and drifts of snowdrops. Daffodil buds were turning downwards as the red postman’s van staggered up the drive, weighed down by everyone’s Valentines. Returning to the yard office, Gala was thrilled to have one from Palm Beach:
Hi, sexy, missing you, not long now
, which meant Gav hadn’t taken offence at her last letter. She also got a Valentine from Gropius – must be from Rupert. The Planet of Love was on high, but she must stop her thoughts straying in his direction, particularly as he’d got hundreds and hundreds of Valentines.

‘Won’t even bother to open them,’ grumbled Geraldine, gathering them up.

If Rupert got hundreds, Taggie got ten. The one in a pale-blue envelope without a stamp, bought at the airport, containing the words:
To my only darling
, was from Rupert. The rest, she immediately shoved under the blue and white striped lining paper in a kitchen drawer, in case Rupert saw them and had a tantrum. It was a comfort, she told herself, that he minded so much, particularly when Geraldine that very morning had remarked what a nice change it must be for Rupert, having someone in the house with whom to talk horses.

‘Pity someone can’t put a cross noseband on that poisonous bitch to keep her mouth shut,’ observed a passing Dora.

After that, Valentine’s Day went even more downhill for Taggie. A man coming to service the burglar alarm was even more alarmed to find a naked Old Eddie masturbating on the stairs. Then the part-time carer rang in with a migraine and Taggie managed to say, ‘Poor you,’ before slamming down the telephone, and saying: ‘Oh fuck.’

By the time she had led Eddie upstairs, washed and dressed him and given him his breakfast, new puppy Gropius had chewed up one of Rupert’s loafers and Forester had gone awol. Oh, how she missed darling Lark, who had so often walked the dogs in her break, and kept an eye on them in the yard. With all those lorries delivering mares and leaving gates open, Taggie was terrified Forester might have sloped off hunting.

Next moment the telephone rang. It was an hysterical Constance Sprightly from the vicarage. Forester had chased
her tabby cat up a tree and was furiously barking at the foot. Not stopping to put on a coat, Taggie rushed out, ignoring the wolf whistles of traffic-jammed lorry drivers as she hurtled across the fields. However, by the time she reached the vicarage, Forester had moved on without mishap and disappeared at a brisk trot towards the village.

Another of Forester’s maddening habits was that the louder you called him, the faster he tended to run away. Only when he couldn’t see Taggie did he get curious and deign to come back and look for her. The hedges on each side of the road had been hacked back. Taggie was feeling so sorry for the young shoots and buds that would never realize their promise, when she also realized that in her haste, she’d left Forester’s lead behind. Taking cover, she removed her white bra. Unable to see her, Forester, pink tongue lolling, totally without contrition, decided to return.

Taggie’s now heaving, famously beautiful breasts which had never dropped with feeding children, were enhanced by a pale-grey T-shirt. Her pale cheeks were flushed from running. Walking home leading Forester by her bra, she was overtaken by a car. Inside was a suntanned, incredibly good-looking man with close-cropped hair the rich red-brown of the rain-soaked beech leaves carpeting Rupert’s woods. Laughing brown eyes and a wonderfully smiling mouth with a jutting pillow of lower lip were enhanced by very white teeth and dark designer stubble.

Taggie was five foot ten and looked down on most men, particularly jockeys, but the man who jumped out of his car was broad-shouldered and at least three inches taller than her.

Could she tell him the way to Penscombe Court?

‘Just up the road and turn left – no, I mean right,’ she stammered in her deep, growling voice. ‘I’m Taggie Campbell-Black. See you up there.’

‘I’m Jan Van Deventer, mam, and I love your lead.’

On arrival, clocked by a gawping Marketa, Louise and Clover, who were just riding in from fifth lot, Jan was taken by a thoroughly over-excited Geraldine to meet Rupert. If taken aback
by such an Adonis, Rupert was too proud to show it, even when Jan picked up Taggie’s photograph on a nearby table and congratulated Rupert on having such a beautiful daughter.

Less cool than he makes out, thought Rupert, noticing with satisfaction how Jan’s hand shook as he smoothed his hair.

‘Wonderful picture,’ observed Jan, looking up at the Stubbs. ‘Not meaning to be personal, sir, but that handsome guy looks just like you.’

‘He was an ancestor; the horse was Leading Sire of his day.’

‘Gather Blood River’s standing here – magnificent animal, saw him win the Cape Derby.’

As Geraldine shimmered in with a latte from their new machine for Jan, a very black espresso for Rupert and a plate of chocolate biscuits, Rupert noticed that she’d put on lipstick, done her eyes and was wafting J’Adore.

Jan proceeded to tell Rupert he was thirty-nine, and had spent ten years in the army – ‘mostly to stop blacks killing blacks, they’re so tribal’ – before becoming a golf pro at which he was a great success, particularly, he didn’t tell Rupert, with the ladies, who wriggled back against him when he put his arms round them to demonstrate a golf shot.

‘Feeling there was more to life,’ he went on, ‘I decided to become a carer, and found the job immensely satisfying. My parents are Afrikaners of Dutch Huguenot origin.’

Getting up with a surge of energy to glance out of the window – ‘Beautiful place, sir’ – he caught sight of photos of Xavier, Bianca and Feral, and raised an eyebrow.

‘My children,’ explained Rupert, interested in how Jan would react, ‘both adopted from Colombia. They always fought like cat and dog, so you would have been useful in the old days, stopping black killing black. The boy with Bianca is a footballer called Feral Jackson, bloody good, plays for a top team in Perth. You like football?’

‘I prefer rugby, sir.’

Gazing round Rupert’s office, and seeing so many paintings and photographs of great horses, Jan commented bitterly that 326,073 gallant horses had died in the Boer War.

‘I know,’ said Rupert.

Jan, who had a loud voice with a strong Afrikaans accent, then told Rupert that he came from Port Elizabeth which, because of the number of horse casualties, boasted the first great memorial to animals in war.

‘A kneeling soldier,’ he explained, ‘holds up a bucket of water to a horse, with the inscription: “The greatness of a nation consists not so much in the number of its people or the extent of its territory as in the extent and justice of its compassion”.’

‘Right,’ said Rupert, suppressing a yawn and irritated by a picture in the
Racing Post
of the great mare, Darkness Visible, arriving at Valhalla. He was desperate to get on with his day.

‘You married?’ he asked.

‘Divorced, but amicably, sir. I’ve two kids in South Africa, Boetie and Beulah. I Skype them every day.’

Rupert was just wondering how wise it would be to let a stud like this loose in Penscombe, when as if reading his thoughts, Jan said: ‘I’m gay, sir. But not broadcasting the fact. Not a great idea to come out in South Africa. Afrikaners are particularly homophobic, and my parents couldn’t cope.’

‘How many caring jobs have you had?’

‘About eight, sir.’

‘Think you’ll be able to cope with my father? He’s pretty eccentric.’

‘I like feisty old people. Looked after a splendid old lady who cut her head after a fall. When she had to go to hospital she refused to let them give her any blood, insisting: “I’ve got my own blood and it’s blue”.’

‘You should get on with my father, who’s mad about the Army.’ And with that voice, reflected Rupert, at least an increasingly deaf Eddie would be able to hear what Jan was saying.

‘When can you start?’

‘Straight away, sir.’

‘You’d better come and meet my wife and my father and our present carer.’

‘She won’t be upset?’

‘Not at all. She wants to work in the yard. Loves horses. All hers were butchered in Zimbabwe, farm burned to the
ground. Husband and dogs all slaughtered at the same time.’

‘Omigod, poor lady. Lots of that going on in South Africa.’

Gala had returned to the kitchen, unable to resist telling Taggie she’d had a Valentine from Gav.

‘How lovely.’ Taggie was delighted. ‘I hope he’s OK there, he’s so shy. Young Eddie’s coming back next week, I’ve missed him so much. Oh hell.’ She took a plate out of the washing up machine and examined it. ‘It hasn’t washed it at all.’

‘I never had a dishwasher in Zim,’ said Gala sanctimoniously.

‘Oh gosh, we’re so spoilt in England.’

Gala laughed. ‘I had a maid instead. What am I going to give Eddie for lunch?’

‘There’s plenty of smoked salmon and the remains of a fish pie. I wonder what that incredibly good-looking man was coming to see Rupert about? I know a tan helps, but he was gorgeous.’ Taggie peered out of the window. ‘Look at the stable girls sweeping a perfectly clean yard to catch a glimpse of him. Oh gosh, Rupert’s bringing him over here. Am I very shiny?’ She peered in the kitchen mirror.

Gala proceeded to peel off all her layers, to reveal a clinging orange T-shirt bearing the words:
I know I’m perfect, I’m also Zimbabwean
.

‘I must look like nothing on earth after riding out,’ she wailed, fluffing up curls, flattened by her hat.

‘This is Jan Van Deventer,’ announced Rupert, leading Jan into the kitchen.

Jan, who Taggie now noticed was wearing a thick grey gilet over a brown and white check shirt, brown cords and a seriously large Cartier watch on his big tanned wrist, smiled in amusement at Taggie and Gala, admiring them both as he said: ‘What a terrific kitchen.’

‘Great news,’ said Rupert briskly. ‘Jan’s starting tomorrow as Eddie’s full-time carer.’

‘He what?’ cried Taggie and Gala in horror.

‘Gala wants to work full-time in the yard,’ continued Rupert. ‘Jan is free and Eddie could do with a slightly firmer hand, having spent the morning in Love Rat’s box.’

Taggie looked from Gala to Jan in dismay.

‘But it’s so sudden! I’m sure you’ll be marvellous,’ she added, blushing, to Jan, ‘but do you really want to go, Gala?’