“Sure, Mr. Clery”-and yet I couldn’t resent him. Couldn’t even resent the admission that he had forced out of me. Water torture. New variety. “Who turned you off?” That was what Marchmount had done, wasn’t it? He’d turned me off sex. Well?
Rafe pushed his arms into a thick toweling pullover, which, to my unsurprised notice, bore an intricate RC on the breast pocket in red embroidery floss.
“You warm enough, Nialla?” he asked courteously as he sat down on the glider.
I guess I’d been tense with anticipation of that beautiful body near mine, but he had evidently turned off that considerable sensuality of his. I might have been seated next to my father. The man was centaur, sybarite, rouй… a chameleon. I gave up then, but he didn’t know it. Nor did I.
“Yes, thank you,” I replied with the same degree of courtesy. The sun was slanting in over the top of the motel now and warming me.
“ ‘Yes, thank you,’ “ he mimicked. “Take off that bloody stupid cap.” Only he reached over and flipped it off.
“ ‘Sure, Mr. Clery.’ “ And I giggled.
“That’s right. Giggle for your breakfast.” Oh, Mr. Clery, could the impossible be remotely probable? Even passing-fancy probable?
I assumed that no one else was awake and eating in that motel complex, to judge by the speed with which breakfast appeared for us by the pool. I was wagging my head from side to side with silent facetious “Sure, Mr. Clery” and “Thank you, Mr. Clery,” while the waiter, Renzo, duck-toed around the pool and out of sight.
Then I tucked into that hearty executive breakfast with an appetite not a bit curbed by my six-o’clock snack. Before the first pool-monopolizing family of kids could invade the area, we had eaten, dressed, and were on our way back to the grounds.
Pete emerged from the dark shadows of G-Barn, nodded to Rafe Clery and me, and ambled off, marking his passage with neat squirts of tobacco juice. Did or did not Rafe Clery believe that glib tale of kid vandals?
“I’ll be cheering in the bleachers at one, Nialla. Thanks for the company.”
“Sure, Mr. Clery.”
When I was safely in the barn, I let out an exasperated sigh, part tears, part frustration, but mostly anger, with myself.
By eleven I’d washed and ironed both shirts, sponged my breeches, shined my boots, brushed my hard-top, groomed both horses again, straightened my trailer and the wagon, saddle-soaped the saddle and Orfeo’s bridle, locked away all unused tack, and developed a bad case of jitters. So much depended on winning the jump prize money. I knew that Rafe Clery had been honest about the Tomlinson entry. But was there other strong competition that he didn’t know about? And why, if not for nefarious purposes, was he making such an effort to be kindly, but scarcely avuncular, to Nialla Donnelly-Dunn.
I’d gone over every word we’d exchanged, conjured back every expression in his repertoire, felt his body against mine and absorbed the shock again, the delight that I had then suppressed. His beautiful, beautiful body-so unlike that bony hard filth that had stolen from me what I could never give again and wished so much I could still bestow. Oh, impossibility!
Marchmount punishing himself! The revulsion of his flabby thin flesh pressing against me. The pain; the sound of his hoarse, piteous exhortations, the slaps, the curses and promises, the demands for compliance. For me, to help him! Those ghastly sobs when he fell to one side of me, mouth agape, eyes closed, sunken into his head. I’d escaped him then. Gathered my clothes up, dressed hastily in the dark hallway, wanting to kill him! Wanting to die so I could forget the shame, the degradation.
And I was the girl who’d always been thrilled to see a stallion mount a mare, thrilled and stirred by his bugling, amused by the mare’s coquetry and surrender. There’d been a dignity about such couplings that had been totally absent in my experience.
If that was what it was for humans, I didn’t want any part of it. I’d crept away from Marchmount’s so deceivingly elegant house. I’d packed as much of my belongings as I could cram into two bags. I’d’ve had to vacate the cottage anyway as soon as the new trainer came. The horse trailer and the sedan were Dad’s. The tack was his and mine, and so was Phi Bete. And the price of my virginity? Now both Donnellys had sullied reputations!
I’d considered going to some of Dad’s friends south of the border. But Marchmount could find me too easily there, and so could Galvano. So I turned north, crossed the Rockies at the Donner Pass, and headed east.
The sedan died in Kansas, and I picked up the battered station wagon. I’d stayed at a farm long enough to get a Kansas driver’s license and let Phi Bete rest her legs after the constant swaying of the small trailer. The farmer offered to buy her from me.
By the time I’d crossed the Mississippi, I knew I couldn’t go back to the Lexington area either. Marchmount would be likely to turn up there, looking for yearlings. About then I remembered that one of Mrs. du Maurier’s stockmen, whom Dad had always liked, had taken a position in Pennsylvania for a DuPont stable. The Poiriers took me in, no questions asked. I paid my own way, helping exercise and train the stock, helping Jean Poirier in the house. Jack had been very helpful in suggesting which shows would be best for me, and in February I’d turned myself, Dice, Phi Bete, and Orfeo south toward Florida and the first of the horse shows, and here I was. And where was I?
The PA system blared out the call for the Jumpers’ Class. Pete appeared in the yard to give me a leg up. He made the victory sign, a toothy grin, then shuffled off, spitting.
Twelve horses were competing, most of them veterans of show rings, judging by their manner. A little fidgeting, bridle-shaking, anticipatory bad temper. They were in this for the money; $350 was a good prize for such a small fair. There were some riders I hadn’t seen before, so I guessed that they had come in for this class alone. I saw the Tomlinson mare, too, Mrs. T. up, and she smiled at me. Funny how her freckles didn’t show when she wore a hard-top.
The bleachers were nearly full. Well, one o’clock of a fine June Sunday. With church over, there were no guilty consciences, and people were still pouring in.
As we filed into the ring, the announcer was twanging out all the vital statistics about horses, riders, owners, and trainers; and finally he got around to the rules of the jump course. Twelve jumps, one for each of us, I thought to myself, eyeing the angle of the nasty water gate, the course laid out in a rough figure eight. We could inspect the jumps, on foot; then we were to retire from the field, return on call, position decided by our competition number. There was a time limit for the run, with one fault for every two seconds over the limit. Lowest score determined the winner. In case of ties, there would be a shorter course run with a stricter time limit. We were dismissed to wait our turn.
I’d had a look at the jumps as they were setting them up, because I jolly well had no one to hold Orfeo. We sat in the hot sun and waited while the others had their look-see.
Just before the first contestant was called, the announcer abjured the audience to remain silent until the rider had completed the round. Anyone disobeying would be removed from the bleachers by the stewards. He meant it. There were a lot of kids in the audience, and hoody types. A sudden noise during a jump could put a nervous horse off his stride.
From where I waited with Orfeo, I couldn’t see too well. But three horses racked up enough faults to be disqualified completely. Orfeo jumped as if he were on a Sunday amble in a park, completing the circuit exactly within the time limit.