Naked, white-skinned, utterly gorgeous, her dark hair tickling his belly, she kissed him everywhere, her tongue as delicate and subtle as a lurcher’s.
‘Oh, my angel.’ Wriggling down, he slid inside her, hearing her gasp of joy, as he warmed her with his body and constantly moving hands.
‘Oh, Rupert, Rupert, Rupert.’
‘Rupert, Rupert, Rupert!’ Taggie’s voice had suddenly got deeper, and was accompanied, he realized, by someone hammering on the door, and then — good God — opening it.
‘Rupert, I’m really sorry to bother you. Oh, Christ!’ Lysander clapped his hands over his eyes. ‘I mean really sorry, but I think Arthur’s been nobbled. He keeps yawning and he hasn’t eaten his last feed.’
‘I’ll nobble you, you little fucker,’ howled Rupert, scooping up a shoe from the carpet and hurling it in Lysander’s direction. ‘Get out, get out. Arthur’s exhausted because you keep waking him up to see if he’s OK, and he’s not hungry because the entire Press have been stuffing him with Polos.’
In the end, chivvied by Taggie, Rupert tugged on a pair of jeans and ran barefoot across the parched lawn to the yard. In his box, he found Arthur lying flat out, waving a huge foot in the air, snoring loudly, one eye open. Seeing his tormentor, however, he lumbered up and hid behind Tiny shivering with terror in the corner, his newly washed coat, and particularly his mane, once more stained with green.
‘Oh dear,’ Lysander blushed. ‘He’s made a lightning recovery. I do think,’ he went on hastily, ‘Arthur ought to have a security guard tomorrow. Pridie’s got a guard and closed-circuit television in his box, and The Prince of Darkness’ll have all Rannaldini’s hoods around him.’
‘He’s got Tiny,’ said Rupert, avoiding the Shetland’s darting teeth and deciding not to blow his top. ‘Now will you please stop wasting my time.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Lysander hung his head. ‘I gather all this Isaac Lovell business has upset you. Bloody unfair. Can’t make head nor tail of it myself. Who is Isaac Lovell anyway?’
‘His father ran off with my first wife.’
‘Bastard!’
‘Like you want to run off with Kitty Rannaldini,’ said Rupert, bolting the half-door.
‘Not at all,’ said Lysander indignantly. ‘Rannaldini’s an utter shit, and a bully who beats up horses and women and never stops humiliating poor darling Kitty by screwing around. You were never like that.’
‘Hum, your faith in me is touching. You didn’t know me in the old days.’
‘Old days is old days.’ Lysander blushed again. ‘I used to be a bit of a stud myself in the past. But I want you to know you and Taggie have really restored my faith in marriage as an institution.’
‘Ta very much,’ said Rupert. ‘I had better go back and — er — institute it. What are you going to do with yourself this evening?’
‘Watch the video of last year’s Rutminster again, and then play poker with Danny and Dizzy. We’re teaching Tab.’
‘She’ll beat you all,’ said Rupert. ‘But I want you in bed early.’
Lysander slept fitfully and woke at a quarter-past three. In twelve hours exactly, if by some miracle he got to ride, they’d be lining up at the start. In twelve hours, ten minutes, it would all be over. And after tomorrow, would Rupert kick him out? Despite his misery over Kitty, he’d been happier living at Penscombe than anywhere else. Desperate for some sign of rain, he opened the window, and was mocked by a million stars. The lawn was lit by daffodils and a clump of white cherry trees already in bloom, it had been so mild.
The constellation of Leo the Lion was romping off to his lair in the west. But any moment Lysander expected his great shaggy face to appear back over the top of Rupert’s beechwood to bite the Great Bear in the bum. Longing as never before for Kitty’s arms, he collapsed into an armchair.
He must have drifted off again, for the next minute he was galloping up Rupert’s track, and Arthur was going gloriously, and he could hear, far more menacing than Rannaldini’s tympani, the thunder of hoofs behind him. But no-one was going to catch Arthur. The stands were rising to cheer him.
‘Go on, go on, go on,’ yelled Lysander.
‘Lysander, Lysander, wake up! It’s tipping down.’ It was a few seconds before he realized Tabitha was shaking him, and the thunder of hoofs was torrential rain, machine-gunning the roof.
Leaning out of the window into Niagara, he could see the downpour flattening the daffodils, stripping the white cherries, flooding the gutters, sluicing the valley.
‘Yippee, yippee, Arthur’s in with a chance.’ Lysander let out a great Tarzan howl, hugging Tab until she screamed for mercy and Jack began yapping with excitement.
‘When you come back to earth,’ announced Tab, ‘the tooth fairy’s been.’
Under Lysander’s pillow, still in its polythene wrapping, lay a vast blue rug, braided with emerald green and with the initials RC-B which always brought bookmakers out in a cold sweat, embroidered in the corner.
‘Daddy had it made up specially. Any of the normal rugs look like saddle blankets on Arthur.’ Then, as Lysander buried the balls of his thumbs in his eyes, ‘It’s OK, Daddy really likes you, Lysander.’
Few would have thought it later in the morning, as Rupert shouted at everyone in the yard. Danny was throwing up in the 100. Even Bluey was silent and preoccupied during the gallops, on which Rupert had insisted, to give an air of normality to the day. Only Arthur was unmoved, as he breakfasted on carrots, oats and a handful of dandelions newly picked by Taggie.
‘Have you got Arthur’s passport and your medical card?’ nagged Tabitha.
Lysander was packing his bag, putting in pain killers because his shoulder was still giving him hell, and his own beautiful colours, which he’d chosen himself: white sleeves, black-and-white body and brown cap, because they were the same colours as Jack. He was wearing his Donald Duck jersey, which Taggie had finally dragged off his back yesterday and hand washed.
The morning seemed endless, but at last the lorry containing Penscombe Pride, Arthur, Tiny and three younger horses splashed down the drive, splitting the pack of Press outside the gates with their Barbours over their cameras.
‘Charlie’s going to do a runner,’ said Tabitha, as they passed Penscombe’s betting shop. ‘Everyone’s put so much money on Pridie, and on Arthur for a place, his odds have shortened from 200 to 100-1, and you should see the champagne they’ve got on ice for a mega piss-up this evening at The Goat and Boots.’
‘I’m going to be sick again.’ Hanging out of the window, Danny came back inside absolutely drenched. ‘If it rains any more it’s going to be too wet for Pridie.’
Water was pouring in a tidal wave down the High Street.
‘Ouch,’ grumbled Lysander, as he bit his cheek instead of his chewing gum. ‘I’m injured before I get to the course.’
He felt even worse as he read the horoscopes in the Sun.
‘Arthur’s going to have a good day for shopping.’
‘I hope that isn’t a misprint for stopping,’ said Tab.
61
The ancient town of Rutminster, with its splendid cathedral and russet Queen Anne close, lay in a bowl of hills covered in thick, rain-drenched woodland. In a sensible marriage of secular and ecclesiastical, the racecourse was only divided from the cathedral water meadows by the River Fleet, which was rising steadily as Rupert and Lysander walked the course.
Despite the relentless downpour and the lurking fog, it was very mild and the ground was already filling up. Helicopters were constantly landing and the bookies were doing excellent business under their coloured umbrellas. Lysander never dreamt the fences would be so huge. Not for nothing was the Rutminster called the Grand National of the South.