Well Groomed (80 page)

‘Good luck.’ She was out of the door in a flash.

They walked to the yard in silence.

India was still hosing Hunk’s leg when Tash got there. The place was buzzing with activity as horses were prepared for the gruelling challenge ahead with boots and bandages and all manner of tack being strapped to their excited frames. Tash felt another twinge of regret that she had been denied the full excitement of the day.

Ted was walking Betty Blue around with a waterproof sheet over her sweat-rug to cool her off without letting the driving rain chill her too quickly.

‘How did Kirsty do?’ Tash asked him, trying to be as cheerful as she could.

‘Two refusals and a stack of time faults,’ he groaned. ‘And hers is one of the best rounds so far – she’s in the TV tent with Penny. Gus is out on phase A. Sorry to hear you had to pull out. Gus was trying to track you down earlier to commiserate. And the MD of Mogo has been prowling around.’

‘God!’ Tash groaned, wandering into the stalls to say hi to Jenny and Snob. He was looking spectacular, his red coat gleaming like old gold, muscles shifting and glimmering beneath his skin.

‘He looks wonderful,’ Tash congratulated Jenny.

She pulled a face. ‘He’s almost had my arm off twice – look.’ She showed a couple of blackening bruises. ‘And it’ll all go to rot the moment he’s out in the rain. Brian’s first ride, Babe Magnet, slid right into the Huntsman’s Hangover like a duck on a frozen pond. They think he’ll lose his eye – the vet’s with him now.’

‘No!’ Tash shuddered, suddenly feeling uneasy. She watched as Snob smacked his lips and lunged at Jenny’s bottom while she struggled to screw in a stud. He was looking as bullish and cocksure as ever. She hoped to God Hugo could hold him.

He was still in the yard, talking seriously with Brian Sedgewick who was as white as a sheet beneath his thick splattering of mud. From their grim expressions, Tash guessed that the horse’s eye hadn’t been saved. She felt sick with nerves.

‘Bloody mess,’ Ted tutted, walking Betty past her. ‘It’s the worst wash-out on record. Julia Ditton says it’s even wetter and more perilous than ninety-two. The riders keep being stopped out on the course because of accidents. It’s a wonder there haven’t been any deaths.’

‘Don’t say that!’ Tash crossed her fingers tightly. ‘I’m going to find Penny.’

She couldn’t bear to be near brave, excited Snob any longer. It would be unthinkable to pull him out just because she was a coward, she realised, but she still felt like a mother leaving her Christian son at the gates of the Colosseum on lion-feeding day. Not saying a word to Hugo, she raced towards the TV tent. As she trotted past the packed trade stands – which were doing a roaring trade in wellies and waterproof wear – she was almost brought down as a small child grabbed her coat hem, shrieking excitedly.

Looking down, Tash saw an exquisitely pretty black-haired girl dressed from head to foot in the latest Barbour childwear.

‘Lotty!’ she cried delightedly, stooping down to pull her delighted, giggling niece into a hug.

‘Where is that revolting child?’ quacked an angry voice as Sophia emerged from a stand selling novelty umbrellas. ‘One looks away for a split – Tash!’

‘Hi.’ Tash let Lotty to the ground and noted that her sister was wearing an identical outfit to her daughter’s. Waddling on child-reins beside her was Josh, also decked in Identikit attire. Only Ben, who staggered out of the stand a moment later carrying a wailing Henry, was dressed in his usual tatty old drover’s coat and an unspeakably ancient Australian bush-hat that made him look like a village idiot.

‘Think the young chap’s just done one,’ he was saying as he held his son at arm’s length.

Sophia ignored him, and gathered her children close as she kissed Tash on the cheek.

‘Have you seen Daddy and Henrietta?’

‘No.’ Tash’s heart sank. She had forgotten that they’d said they would pole up and offer support. She wasn’t sure she could face either of them in her current state of flux. ‘Are they here?’

‘Supposed to be, but we were an hour late to meet them. This weather’s such a bore – multiple pile-up on the M5 slowed us down, which was highly annoying. They originally said they’d meet us by your sponsor’s stand, but we keep going there and they’re nowhere to be seen. We haven’t been anywhere near the course yet. Are you going there now?’

‘The course?’ Tash looked at her rather blankly. ‘Actually, I’ve already—’

‘No, silly, your sponsors – Mogo, isn’t it?’ She examined Tash’s coat for a label. Tash backed away.

‘No, I’m not going there.’ She glanced guiltily around in case there were any Mogo employees on the prowl. She’d lose the contract if she was spotted like this, or snapped by a journalist, she realised. She ducked her head beneath the lapels like a spy and buried her hands in the pockets, which were full of horse treats and other rubbish.

‘Daddy and Henrietta are very keen to talk to you about the wedding, Tash – and so am I come to that.’ Sophia was looking around the stands again. ‘Drat, where’s bloody Bernadette got to now? I bet she’s having a sly fag.’

‘I’m going to the tent to watch the cross-country on CCTV.’ Tash started to back away. She certainly couldn’t face talking about the wedding today. She hadn’t even let herself
think
about the wedding today.

‘Is it dry?’ Sophia sniffed, looking up at the dark, squally sky.

‘It’s competitors and owners only,’ Tash apologised. This wasn’t strictly true but she had a dread of Sophia’s long-suffering au pair nappy-changing in the middle of it.

‘Oh.’ She looked rather miffed.

‘Think this chap needs changing, Sophs.’ Ben was getting increasingly desperate as he waved Henry around like a loaded gun about to go off. ‘You been round yet, Tash old thing?’

With enormous relief, Tash spotted Henrietta in the distance, tripping over a dog in her haste to catch up with James, who was marching ahead with his usual military gait.

‘Look, there’s Daddy,’ she pointed out to Sophia and, the moment the Merediths started waving and shouting to attract his attention, dashed towards the TV tent. In her haste, she failed to see the elegant, slim woman stalking alongside Henrietta, her wide-brimmed leather hat tilted to shield her face from the rain.

Penny had left the tent to cheer Gus through the steeplechase, but Kirsty was still inside and looking after Beetroot, who was stuffing her face with Lucy Field’s unwanted hot dog.

‘Well done for getting round,’ Tash greeted her.

‘Bad luck for no’ getting the chance,’ Kirsty said. She had put on a coat over her cross-country shirt, but her sharp-featured face had the tell-tale splattering of mud that separated those who had been round from the hopefuls still awaiting their start time. Many of the competitors in the tent were fresh-faced and scrubbed-cheeked. Tash found herself in the unique position of being halfway between the two.

She took hold of Beetroot’s lead and sat between Kirsty and Glen Bain as she watched a few rounds, including Stefan’s, on the television monitors. Julia Ditton and her camera crew were roaming around outside to wait for competitors who had just finished, sucking up to the very few who had done well in order to chat to them, and pouncing on the majority who had been the victims of crashing falls to ask what had gone wrong. Every so often the camera loomed into the tent to focus on the white, nail-chewing faces of the current leaders as they watched their positions slide ever-downwards in the wake of better rounds. Kirsty, who was still sitting in fourth place despite her cricket score, received the odd close up while Tash tried to cower out of shot to hide her jacket. In the end she discarded it altogether, pushing it beneath her to act as a cushion, The tent – damp, moist and muggy from so many sweating bodies – was too warm to need it.

Finding that she was sitting on a lump, Tash pulled the coat out from under her and fished in its pockets. Inside one were a packet of sweets and an old leather credit card case filled with Hugo’s plastic – gold Amex, banker’s card, Visa, memberships to various clubs. Tash flipped idly through them, surprised that someone as punctilious as Hugo had left them lying around in a spare coat.

‘He rode out in it this morning.’ Kirsty was watching her. ‘That is Hugo’s, isn’t it?’

Tash nodded.

‘He rode out in it – I saw him,’ Kirsty said. ‘And that must be his wallet thing.’ She took it from Tash and flipped through. ‘Look, photos – ah! He’s got one of Bod. And this must be his father, I take it . . . Christ, I recognise this!’ she shrieked with amazement.

‘What?’ Tash dragged her eyes away from the screens, which were showing Stefan and Happy Monday squelching through the mashed-up Quarry. Looking at what Kirsty had in her hands, she almost passed out.

It was one of the kinky Polaroids of her that had been stuck to the Valentine’s card she had intended for Niall. Hugo had cut it down to fit into the wallet so that thankfully only her face and shoulders showed, but the picture still made it pretty clear how little she was wearing and how pleased she was with herself.

‘How can that have got there!’ Tash whipped it back and threw it into the pocket it had come from, determining to extract it later and burn the photograph. Her face was on fire. ‘Look, poor Stefan’s had a stop at the Cross Questions.’

But Kirsty was still staring at her, her damp red hair falling across her eyes as she cocked her head with a funny half-smile.

‘It all makes sense now,’ she murmured softly. ‘I canna believe I was so thick.’

‘What do you mean?’ Tash pressed her cold hands to her hot face in an attempt to ease the burning. She was uncomfortably aware that Glen Bain was pretending to watch the monitors, but listening in avidly.

‘He never wanted me to go to the house where we could be private,’ Kirsty breathed as though thinking it through for the first time. ‘He used to want to come down to the farm. And he always asked after you – used to like me to tell him wee stories about how funny you were when you fell off or gave all the horses the wrong feeds or whatever. And he loved hearing about the times Niall couldn’t get away from work to see you. In fact, he talked about you a lot – I always wondered why he bitched so much. Now I know.’

‘Know what?’

Kirsty gave her a sarcastic look. ‘Don’t be thick, Tash. He even dragged me with him to try and persuade you to come to the New Year’s Eve party.’

‘Penny asked him to,’ Tash remembered.

But Kirsty shook her head. ‘It was Hugo’s idea. As soon as you and Niall announced you were getting engaged, he went right off me. Couldn’t wait to get rid of me. Christ! This woman Stefan was going on about Hugo adoring is
you
, Tash. It’s you!’

There was a huge groan in the tent and Kirsty turned to look at the monitors. ‘Has Stefan fallen?’ Her face started to drain of colour.

‘No.’ Lucy Field was swigging ready-made gin and tonic from a can even though she had yet to ride. ‘Happy put in another stop and he’s retired.’

‘But he was almost at the end!’ Kirsty wailed, standing up and heading for the tent exit to go in search of him hacking back off-course.

‘Kirsty!’ Tash tried to call her back, but she was already through the door and hunching against the rain.

Tash watched a few more rounds without really taking them in, mindlessly chatting to the other competitors as she alternately congratulated and sympathised, although she got even that wrong, finding that she was giving a comforting hug to a New Zealand friend who had just clocked the fastest clear of the day.

People keep telling me how Hugo feels, she thought giddily, and I keep ignoring them and carrying on as though this is some dumb crush.

Grinning from ear to ear, she decided that she had better go and locate her family supporters to steer them to the start of the course where they could watch Gus and then Hugo set off.

Wandering out of the tent and shrugging Hugo’s coat back on – snuggling happily into it like a dog in a basket – she bumped into Kirsty and Stefan coming back the other way. From the way he had his arm around her, she realised why Kirsty hadn’t seemed too upset by her discovery in the wallet earlier.

‘Congratulations, Stef,’ Tash said rather vaguely and headed out into the rain.

‘She okay?’ Stefan watched her go with concern. ‘She looked a bit spaced.’

‘She’s just found out Hugo fancies her rotten.’

‘Oh, she must know that by now,’ Stefan sighed despairingly. ‘He’s been after her for years.’

Taking in the crowds properly for the first time that day, Tash was amazed by the moving, sludgy sea of waxed coats, hats and green wellies. Golfing umbrellas danced through the neap-tide like floating debris, along with weaving dogs, brightly dressed toddlers and the air-borne litter of fast-food containers, paper napkins and dropped programmes, buffeted around by the wind.

Because of the awful weather, the sheltered trade stands were packed while out on the course the crowds were far thinner than usual on endurance day, spectators walking at hunched angles as they battled against the wind and rain. Umbrellas, hoods and dogs’ ears were inside out and coats full of air as the onlookers squelched gallantly through the mud, eager to see their favourite combinations ride round.

Tash tracked Sophia’s mob down at a trade stand decked with novelty sweatshirts featuring three-dimensional sheep and fat Friesian cows with udders that dangled like silk fingers from the embroidered design.

She was almost mown down by an elegant figure in a leather hat racing up to hug her.

‘Tash darling! Henrietta and I are so, so cross with you that I should be in an awful sulk but I’m far too pleased to see you. Have you been round yet? Are you leading? Gosh, that’s a nice coat – is it new? You could have done with a smaller size.’

Tash backed away to see her mother’s exquisite, wide-eyed face looking at her anxiously.

‘I’m no longer in the competition, Mummy,’ she sighed, trying to answer the most important question first. ‘And what on earth are you doing here? I thought you and Pascal were coming over next week.’