Well Groomed (44 page)

Tash, who had an early cross-country draw, walked the course one last time before taking Snob out for a pipe-opener and some basic schooling to calm his nerves.

Wet, muddy and cast in early-morning shadows, the fences looked even less appetising than they had the day before. One fence particularly worried her – a sunken road that one had to jump in and out of before coming straight up against the narrowest of arrow heads. Coming near the end of the course, it required a die-straight line with no room for error. Combined with the wet, slippery ground it would be like trying to sword dance barefoot on an ice rink.

‘Bloody nasty object.’ Lucy Field, the diminutive blonde eventer, caught her up as she stared at it. ‘I’m going the long way. My nag’ll glance off that in this weather.’

Imagining the speed at which she and the headstrong Snob would be travelling by the time they reached it, Tash decided she should play it safe too. Going early, they had little chance to see how other riders tackled it. Their draw also meant that the ground would be very slippery. The more horses that went around, the more cut up and grippable it would become. Tash and Snob followed fewer entries, so would be galloping on something close to an oil slick.

Back at the make-shift wooden stables that had been erected for the weekend, it was all activity. Snob didn’t have to be pretty and plaited for the two phases that came that day, but he had been shampooed anyway, to remove his stable stain, and was sulkily allowing himself to be vigorously rubbed by Ted, looking like a young rugby player, furious that his mother was washing away the mud from his first ever scrum.

‘Hugo’s still in bed.’ Ted dodged Snob’s snapping teeth. ‘Says he doesn’t need to walk the course again. Now Bod’s been scratched, he doesn’t have to ride until after lunch.’

‘Lucky for him.’ Tash watched as Snob tore a piece out of Ted’s denim jacket. ‘He in a good mood?’

‘You mean Snob or Hugo?’

‘Both.’

‘No.’

To prove his point, Snob smashed his way around the show-jumping course that morning like an over-sprung pin-ball, demolishing two flower arrangements and splitting a pole with his hind legs as he kicked back so hard at the final fence that Tash left the ring with her chin between his ears.

Later, she finished her cross-country round with aching arms, a red face and a pounding heart. They had survived by the skin of their teeth, although Tash was amazed that she had any teeth left, she had gritted them so much on the way round.

Huddling in wax coats and bush hats, Ted and Stefan were whooping their support and congratulating her as she slithered to a halt close to the weigh-in trailer, but she knew that, despite the clear, she hadn’t ridden at all well. Most of the round had been spent trying to pull Snob’s head up from between his legs as he fought to get away from her and go faster. He was wearing one of the strongest bits available and yet she was a hair’s breadth away from losing control. She had schooled and schooled him for weeks to no avail. He was simply too strong and she was in despair. He might love and honour her, but, like an errant husband, he no longer obeyed.

At least the weather was on her side. Half an hour after she weighed in and cooled Snob off, the rain was coming down in sheets, jumping high off the horse-box roofs and driving into the entrances of the few trade stands that had turned up for the day.

Changing into dry clothes, Tash was fairly certain that her bad show-jumping would have left her unplaced, and she would have liked to box up and head home to Fosbourne Ducis and a few snatched hours with Niall, but they had to wait for Hugo and Stefan to finish.

Trying to make up for his appalling dressage of the day before, Stefan rode as though he had the devil at his back, securing the fastest clear round of the day, although he took some near-suicidal risks to achieve it. He was the first rider of the day to tackle the direct route of the sunken road, riding it as though it wasn’t there, which belied the tremendous skill involved in jumping it.

‘My heart was jumping higher than the horse,’ he confessed to Tash as he crashed around the box afterwards peeling off his wet clothes. ‘That fence won’t give you an inch, and the arrowhead is straight on top of you as you jump out of the road. Yeach!’ He shuddered, wandering around in his underpants. Stripped off, he was incredibly thin and bandy, like a long strip of trailing ivy.

Despite a commendable clear round at show-jumping, his dressage had been so bad that he, too, was unlikely to be placed. Once he was dressed in an Asterix sweatshirt and old navy cords, he and Tash cracked open a couple of cans of Tango and huddled together in the tented competitors’ area to listen to the commentary and smoke lots of nervous cigarettes. They knew that they had both been lucky to get around. The weather and the tricky course were causing havoc among less experienced competitors, and riders were being stopped out on the course over and over again as it had to be rebuilt, or the ambulance had to trundle over to collect a broken-boned competitor.

Having knocked out just one fence during his show-jumping round, Hugo was in with a far better chance than anyone could have anticipated the evening before. With multiple faults and high finishing times, most finishers had three-figure penalties, and the dressage score was a far less significant factor than usual. If he went clear and fast across country, Hugo had a good chance of being placed. To qualify Surfer for Badminton, he absolutely had to go clear.

But the ground had turned into a quagmire by the time he and Surfer were due to set out. Their start had been delayed over and over again by the stoppages on the course, and Surfer was as wound up as an over-twisted coil.

Tash and Stefan wandered to the start to offer support, but Hugo was in no mood to take it. The ribby liver-chestnut was dancing around excitedly, eyes bulging, rabbit ears twitching. He looked far too eager and fresh, whereas Hugo looked jaded and preoccupied.

‘I feel like shit,’ he muttered through clenched teeth, leaning down to steal a puff from Tash’s cigarette. ‘I think I’m coming down with something.’

‘Alcohol poisoning,’ Stefan looked up at him with a sly grin. ‘Christ knows why you got so smashed at your party.’

‘Lost my heart over a woman, haven’t I?’ Hugo hissed, looking to the starter who was counting him down. Surfer gave a flurry of half-rears like a small child trying to see over heads at a football match.

Delighted, Stefan caught Tash’s eye and mouthed, ‘Lisette!’

Tash glanced up at Hugo. His beautiful, angular face as grey as the sky, he looked truly ill. He could ride better than anyone she knew across country, but even a virtuoso violinist couldn’t play in tune if he’d put on a pair of gloves.

‘Go safely,’ she urged him. ‘Don’t take any risks in this weather.’

For a moment he looked down at her as though noticing her for the first time, eyes raking her face, but then he resumed his visored look, and ignored her as he waited for the starter to shout: ‘Go!’

Thundering out of the start box, Surfer’s studded shoes kicked up such enormous divots that the starter got a mud cake right in the face.

‘Typical Hugo,’ Stefan laughed, watching the combination streak for the first fence as though riding the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

As soon as he was off, it was obvious that safety was well down on Hugo’s list of priorities. He was clearly attacking the course with the same intention that Stefan had – trying to make up for his abysmal dressage with a fast time and the quickest routes.

Surfer was a gutsy, athletic horse with a lion’s heart in his narrow, ribby chest. But he had been bred and trained in Australia where the ground was hard and dusty, the light searing, the air dry. The gloomy, slippery sludge of England confused him and snatched at his confidence. Of all the riders in competition, Hugo was the bravest and most inspired. He could see a line from half a mile away, could judge pace and attack like no other. But his eyes were pinched by a hangover, his reactions dulled, his body sweating as he detoxified from two days of very heavy drinking. He couldn’t rely on his usual second-sight judgement. But still he tried, convinced that he knew the course too well to be fooled by a bit of wet weather. His arrogance was his undoing.

Listening to the tannoy, Tash, Stefan and Franny waited in the shelter of the riders’ tent with bated breath as reports came back of Hugo clearing fence after fence in record time. He went over the bullfinches without breaking Surfer’s stride, it was reported, and the tiny, malevolent crowd around the river fence were to be disappointed as the combination streaked through it without a slip.

Two easy galloping fences later and they were just four from home and well within the time limit – unheard of on such a wet day. Even Stefan, who had been the fastest so far, had been ten seconds over it.

‘If he goes clear, how close to winning will he be?’ Tash asked fretfully.

Pushing back her baseball cap, Franny looked at the board. ‘Well, Graham’s ahead by a mile, and Becky Holdsworth looks pretty unbeatable too. You’re fifth. If he gets inside the time, he’ll sneak ahead of you, I’m afraid.’ She rolled her dark-rimmed eyes.

‘Great,’ muttered Tash. ‘I hope he falls off. No one should ride that well after drinking that much.’

It was a feeble, bad-spirited joke made in a weak moment. The second she said it, she regretted it and was grateful to the others for letting it pass. It was only when the next tannoy announcement came through that she felt her heart kick out at her ribs in shame. It was the first of many, many moments in which she would re-live her bad sportsmanship and cruel wish with deep regret.

‘Hugo Beauchamp and Surfer are down at the Sunken Road in what looks like a nasty fall. They tried for the direct route and failed to make it. Horse and rider have still to get up . . .’ The microphone was muffled and, after a moment of crackling interference, fell silent.

While Franny raced out of the tent, Tash and Stefan waited for a few more seconds in case there was another announcement, but, after a long break, the PA crackled into life to warn of yet another course stoppage, inducing impatient, exasperated groans amongst those waiting for the final score.

Tash and Stefan legged it out of the tent to be met by Ted bolting the other way. He was carrying Surfer’s headcollar and a waterproof woollen blanket in anticipation of collecting him.

‘D’you know what’s going on?’ he panted. ‘I’ve just come from the stables.’

‘Hugo’s down and they’ve stopped the other riders on the course,’ Tash explained, her throat cramped with fear.

‘I know that, idiot,’ he snapped. ‘They’ve just called for the course vet – he was looking at Bod’s pastern again. Sounds like Surfer’s more than just winded.’

‘Shit!’ Stefan rubbed his spiky wet hair nervously.

‘What about Hugo?’ Tash muttered, feeling bile rise in her mouth.

But Ted and Stefan were already heading out on to the course. She raced after them, heart crashing in her chest like a hammer against an anvil.

Together they ran and stumbled towards the fence, which was almost half a mile away. There were very few spectators around as the weather was too wet and the competition too unglamorous, but those that were there were knowledgeable and experienced. They mostly knew Tash and Stefan, shaking their heads when asked whether they knew what was going on, offering concern and sympathy. An older woman with a fat spaniel on a lead was walking from the fence as they approached it, face ashen beneath her battered waterproof hat.

Lagging behind the others because she couldn’t run as fast, Tash watched as Stefan paused for a second to speak to her while Ted dashed on. As she caught up, she heard the tail end of a sentence that seemed to drain the blood from her face as surely as if her throat had been cut.

‘—lost his footing and fell back in. Smashed his spine, I think. Poor lad.’

Whimpering, Tash bolted past them, tripping on a divot and crashing to her knees in her haste, her cold face feeling more and more numb.

She could see the cluster of people around the fence now, heads bowed, shoulders slumped, an air of desolation permeating the wet air. Several course Land-Rovers and an ambulance were parked nearby. She couldn’t see Hugo anywhere.

Slithering past the deserted steward’s chair, she found Ted talking to the course organiser. His usually merry, ladsy face was a mask of tightly controlled pain as he fought tears.

‘Surfer’s had to be destroyed.’ He turned to her, eyes dead with sorrow. ‘They came at the fence too fast and he slipped. He had no hope.’

‘And Hugo?’ She could barely get the words out, her eyes darting madly around the faces nearby for his.

‘Not a scratch on him,’ Ted hissed. ‘Bastard!’

Tash burst into tears, as instant a response as screaming when one felt pain. She was deeply ashamed of her reaction but couldn’t help herself, dissolving into Ted’s arms.

Closer to the fence, there was an air of menace and misery. Officials, spectators and organisers milled around despondently. A clerk of the course was barking into a walkie-talkie and glancing at his watch.

Already on the scene, Franny was totally inconsolable. At last catching up, Stefan found her being patted rather ineffectually by a St John’s Ambulance volunteer just beside the jump, which had been screened off with make-shift wicker fencing while a tractor backed its trailer close enough to collect Surfer’s huge, motionless body, now covered with a tarpaulin. Tash looked away, her chest so heavy that it seemed to creak under the strain. Her tears now at the gulping stage, she left Ted and Stefan comforting Franny and searched for Hugo.

Even though they were thick with mud and rain, his red eventing colours stood out like a splash of blood against the sludgy landscape. Sheltering under a tree, his shoulders hunched, head hanging, he was talking quietly with two officials and a fence steward, drawing on a borrowed cigarette. She could hear the accusing tone of the officials’ voices, and the monotone bleakness of Hugo’s replies, but couldn’t make out the words. He seemed to be getting a very severe dressing down and precious little sympathy. Whatever had happened to make Surfer fall, it seemed that Hugo was being entirely blamed by those who had witnessed it.