‘It’s only metal,’ said Mr Brown soothingly. ‘Don’t blame the little lady.’
He thought Tabitha was wildly exciting.
‘I’m sorry you won’t be able to enjoy any home cooking,’ mumbled Tab. ‘I’m not only off my trolley, I seem to have lost it as well.’
She ended up trying to write a cheque for the Chardonnay with her toothbrush, and Mr Brown swept them all off to the Old Bell for dinner. Despite Isa hissing at Tab to keep her fucking trap shut, she and Mr Brown got on famously. She was soon telling him about her Olympic hopes for The Engineer, and he was telling her all about Peppy Koala. ‘Prettiest little horse you ever saw.’
‘If you brought him over to Paradise, he and The Engineer could meet,’ said Tab, whose eyes were sparkling at the sight of the bottle of Moët arriving in an ice bucket.
‘Aren’t you rather isolated in that little cottage?’ asked Mr Brown.
‘I’m Isa-lated,’ giggled Tab, ‘because my husband is always late home.’
Mr Brown thought it a very funny joke.
Isa wanted to throttle his wife, but if he could stop her doing anything frightful, Mr Brown’s obvious infatuation might just work to his advantage. By the time they had all ordered lobster with moules marinières to start with, Mr Brown was talking about when he brought Peppy Koala to England rather than if.
‘If you run him in the Derby this year,’ Isa was saying, ‘he’ll get a seven-pound allowance because, as a southern hemisphere horse, he’ll be so much younger than the others.’
Tab sloped off to the ladies. On the way, wondering whether to pack in a quick vodka at the bar, she caught sight of a tank of lobsters. She hadn’t realized they weren’t born red. Black, already in mourning, they waited helplessly, their claws tied together with elastic bands to stop them killing each other so that they could be boiled alive and intact.
Tab was so distraught, she up-ended a nearby ice bucket on the floor, scooped up as many lobsters as it would hold and fled into the street. Outside, in her thin jersey and jeans, the cold hit her like a left hook. If she could reach the sea she could set them free.
Isa and Mr Brown caught up with her on Rutminster bridge crying hysterically, trying to hitch a lift. When Isa tried to snatch back the bucket, she emptied the lobsters into the river.
Although the young lady was a handful, Mr Brown admired her spirit and was horrified by the way Isa tore into her.
‘Don’t you understand, you stupid bitch? They can’t survive in fresh water.’
‘Like me,’ sobbed Tab. ‘I can’t survive in the wrong marriage any more.’
After a week of cold war, Isa flew to Australia on the pretext of winding up the yard he had started with Martie. As March came in, bringing days of torrential rain and flooding, Tab died of every kind of jealousy. Looking out listlessly one morning she noticed the sun had broken through. The stream that flowed past the cottage had also broken away from its course into lots of smaller streams, glittering like a crystal lustre as they danced down the valley to join the river Fleet. We’re free to make our own way in the sunshine, they seemed to sing to Tab.
‘Your future godmother, Lucy, won’t like it, Little Rupert,’ Tab told the baby inside her, ‘but you and I are going hunting.’
Tab had always hunted, until Lucy had persuaded her it was cruel. But so many foxes escaped, and a ropy old pack like the Rutminster Ramblers never caught anything anyway, and the poor Engineer was so bored of dressage it would pep him up to have a day out.
Gold catkins lit up the valley like Tiffany lamps. As The Engineer floated over the fences, Tab had never been more conscious of owning an Olympic horse. She was so enjoying herself she didn’t notice a strand of wire. Next moment The Engineer turned over on top of her.
It didn’t hurt at first. She was conscious only of her white breeches turning red with blood, and screaming, ‘The baby! Please save the baby!’ before she passed out.
By the time Isa had flown home at vast expense, mother and horse were doing well, but little Rupert had died.
Tab was utterly devastated, sobbing and sinking into despair. Isa, who loved children, was determined not to show he was equally devastated. He never reproached Tab, because he knew in his heart that it had been his fault. He had longed to take her in his arms, but such was his loathing of the Campbell-Blacks, he couldn’t convince himself he hadn’t unleashed some gypsy curse. Instead he had gone to Cheltenham, won a big race on a horse of Baby’s and not come home that night.
Rannaldini, delighted at the turn of events, had been playing Iago. Clive, who had let himself into Magpie Cottage with Rannaldini’s master key, had been responsible for putting Martie’s photo in Isa’s sock drawer. He also tipped off Rannaldini when Isa was away, enabling him to ring Tab and drip poison into her ear.
‘Isa is finding it so difficult to break with Martie. She was so capable, and they were together seven years and he is seven years older than you.’ Which was vilely hypocritical of Rannaldini, who was intending to move in, despite being nearly thirty years older than Tab himself.
He would play the same game with Isa, telling him how wild Tab was, how young and unstable, how late coming home, how not always alone, how fond of the bottle. Subtly, slowly, treacherously, the same shoulder Rannaldini was providing for them both to cry on was the wedge he was driving between them. He encouraged Tab to use his indoor school and have a cross-country course built on the estate. Her suspension would be up in August in time for Gatcombe. But he still hadn’t given her any allowance. Let her beg for it.
The National Hunt season was nearly over. Isa’s winnings were shoring up Jake’s yard so money would grow even tighter. Playing his usual cool waiting game, Isa had not pestered Mr Brown about Peppy Koala.
Finally, Mr Brown rang him. ‘I’m dead choked your little Tabitha lost the baby. How is she?’
‘Pretty depressed.’
‘Not surprising, the way you treat her. If you can’t be nice to a pretty lady like that, how can I trust you with my little horsy?’
‘That’s crazy,’ said Isa sharply. ‘No-one fusses over horses like my father. Where were you thinking of sending him?’
‘Well, Sir Roberto Rannaldini’s offered me so much dosh I nearly sold to him, but in case Peppy’s that good I’m giving him to your other father-in-law, Rupert Campbell-Black.’
If Isa couldn’t blame Tab for losing the baby, he could, and certainly did, for the loss of Peppy Koala.
The following day Rannaldini and a suicidal Tab rode round Paradise. A big red sun was disappearing into the mist like the brake light of Apollo’s chariot, putting a pink rinse on the bare trees and a rose flush along the horizon. Conscious that they were about to be invaded by far more famous singers, robins and blackbirds were carolling their heads off.
‘I’ve had some lovely letters about the baby,’ muttered Tab, ‘from Lucy in Belgium, Meredith, Mr Brown, and even from that glamorous French director you invited to our wedding. He sent me a lovely poem about Little Rupert really existing and being a plant of light.’ For a second, her stony little face softened.
That one would have to be knocked on the head very quickly, thought Rannaldini.
‘Mrs Brimscombe told Isa how sorry she was about the baby,’ he said idly. ‘Isa said, “At least it’s given Tab something new to grumble about.”’
‘The bastard,’ gasped Tab.
‘I suggested you get a part-time job.’
‘And what did Isa say?’
As the sun sank, all the birds that had been singing so madly went silent. As the glow in the west became an orange fire, Rannaldini noticed a little adolescent moon turning her slim back on such ostentation. She reminded him of Tabitha.