Mount! (12 page)

All these horrors were so undeserved because Gala was a darling: big, brave, optimistic, intelligent with thick blonde curly hair, sleepy, kind dark eyes, a tawny complexion and an embracing smile. She also had a voluptuous body with big breasts, a big, uppity bottom and powerful thighs tapering down to slim ankles. Added to this was a frequent laugh and a lovely soft voice, like a warm breeze in the acacia trees.

Her once-happy life had now become unimaginably dreadful. She had lost all her money and, like many Zimbabwean women, found the only solution was to come to England and work as a carer, a job often satisfying but in Gala’s case so demanding and even harrowing, it almost blotted out some of the previous horrors.

In the five months she had been in England, Gala had looked after a retired Colonel with dementia, who one moment would be ordering her to get out because he was going to call the police, the next moment asking her when they were going to bed.

The next client was in a wheelchair, but trapped Gala in her bedroom, leering and masturbating in the doorway. He also steered her hand towards his penis every time she washed him.

She then moved on to a husband and wife, who never stopped
complaining about her excellent cooking and were terrible snobs. The husband, who had multiple sclerosis, was also a multiple groper. But when they had people to lunch, Gala was mortified to hear the wife saying, ‘Do you think
she
knows how to lay the table?’ And when once Gala had remarked that Princess Diana had been very beautiful, had snapped: ‘What do you know about our Royal Family?’

In fact, in Zimbabwe, Gala had had many of her own servants, and had taught African maids to cook, even delivering one of their babies single-handed.

In each new place, as a carer, it was a panic to locate the potato peeler, the tin opener, where to put everything as you unloaded the dishwasher and not to drive people crackers asking questions all the time.

One crotchety old lady kept looking for things for her to do, dispatching her to clean the car or weed the garden when she should have been taking a two-hour break, expecting her to make a pint of milk last a week and complaining that she was using too much lavatory paper – ‘you only need two squares at a time.’

Unlike other carers, Gala couldn’t storm out as she had nowhere to stay in England except where she was employed. Gala’s parents were both dead, but she had an older sister Nicola, who was married with three children, lived in Cape Town and was often tapping Gala and Ben when he was alive for money. It was Nicola with whom Gala stayed when she was doing her week-long training to become a carer. This included how to use hoists to lift disabled clients, how to make them comfortable, give them their pills on time, and to ignore frequent abuse, because the old and, particularly those losing their minds, tend to lie or to forget, or say the first thing that comes into their heads.

The other problem was although the hours were punishing with only a two-hour break in the middle of the day, Gala had to spend long periods watching, with these clients, television programmes in which she had no interest. This left her too much time to mourn the devastating loss of her handsome, noble Ben, her beautiful farm, her lovely animals and Pinstripe
her zebra, who had pulled a cart.
Why, this is hell, nor am I out of it
.

Somehow, she managed to hide her panic attacks, and smiled and smiled, repeating that she was ‘fine, fine, fine’. Zimbabweans are a naturally kind and happy people, and if you were called out so often in the night, at least it cut short the terrible nightmares.

Gala was currently working for a mad old woman in the depths of Gloucestershire, filling in while their permanent carer was on holiday. By day, the old woman stood by the window, saying: ‘When is Mummy coming to take me home?’ By night, the big house creaked and groaned in the wind and the old woman laughed madly like the first Mrs Rochester.

Gala was therefore passionately relieved when the agency rang her about a possible next post.

‘Could you pop in on your break?’

Gala borrowed the family car, then, after Zimbabwe’s wide straight roads, terrified herself driving along narrow, winding, high-banked lanes and negotiating roundabouts and one-way streets through towns.

Mrs Summers at the agency, however, cheered her up with strong black coffee, chocolate biscuits and the words: ‘You’ve been doing really well in some challenging jobs, so here’s something more exciting. The job is at Penscombe, home of Rupert Campbell-Black and his wife Taggie. She’s an angel, the sweetest woman you could ever meet. Rupert’s tricky, likes to call the shots, but he’s pretty attractive.’

‘Pretty?’ Gala couldn’t believe her ears.

‘They’ve got masses of horses and dogs. You OK with animals?’

For a moment Gala couldn’t speak, overwhelmed by visions of Dobson and Gregory, her Staffies, and Wilson, Ben’s black Labrador, hanging from those poles gushing with blood. Could she bear animals again?

‘No, I’ll be fine.’

‘There are cleaners, a PA and masses of staff in the yard and the stud, so you may end up cooking breakfast for the stable lads, but your main job will be caring for Rupert’s father, whose
dementia is advancing. He was quite a celebrity himself in a television programme called
Buffers
.’

‘
Buggers?
’

‘No,
Buffers
. Old generals and admirals arguing about military campaigns, so if you chat to him about the war, you’ll be well away. Don’t think you’ll be called out much in the night. Frankly, Taggie needs a carer more than Eddie.’

When Taggie met Gala at Cotchester station, both were impressed by how attractive the other was.

Here’s surely one Rupert won’t object to, thought Taggie, praying on the other hand that Old Eddie wouldn’t get carried away too soon. Taggie, in fact, looked shattered, her big silver-grey eyes reddened from seeing so many of her beloved foals setting out, all glossy, plump and unaware of their futures, to the sales. But she was still as beautiful and slim as the brindle greyhound, who rattled his tail and laid a comforting chin on Gala’s shoulder as they drove back to Penscombe.

‘Forester’s rescued so he hates being left behind,’ explained Taggie. ‘I’m sure you’ll like Eddie, he’s very affectionate but a bit wayward, unless you grab each of his hands with one of yours. Nearly there,’ she added, swinging into Rupert’s chestnut avenue, passing a sign saying
Visiting Mares
, which to Gala sounded rather like Jane Austen.

She had Googled the house beforehand but never expected it to be quite so large or impressive. Her room looked south over a wooded valley, but with the leaves off the trees there seemed an almost African amount of cloudy sky reflected in Rupert’s blue and white lake.

Braving the cold, leaning out of her window, she gasped at the extent of the operation. To the right was a huge yard for the horses in training and half a dozen distinctive royal-blue lorries, entitled
Rupert Campbell-Black Racing
and decorated with galloping emerald-green horses. Beyond, carved out of the wood, was the stud, where his stallions strutted their stuff. There were barns for the visiting mares and cottages for the staff, a tangle of flat and downhill gallops for every trip and surface imaginable, salt- and fresh-water swimming pools,
and everywhere else lush fields full of glorious horses in royal-blue rugs.

‘Oh wow, treble wow!’ sighed Gala, shutting the window.

Her room enchanted her almost more with its palest pink walls, rose-red curtains, violet and pink checked counterpane, and paintings of flowers in different seasons. There was a dull red desk with Chinese carvings on the lid for her to write letters on, and to add to her comfort, a television, a little radio, and an electric blanket which she hoped she wouldn’t fuse with her tears. On the bedside table were a tin of shortbread, a vase of pink geraniums and copies of
Tatler, Country Life, Dogs Today
and
The Lady
for her to read.

‘Oh, quadruple wow!’ Taking a piece of shortbread, Gala found it still warm from the oven.

The only downside was that the room was at the top of the house, which meant lots more steps for aching legs accustomed to Zimbabwean one-storey houses. Old Eddie’s room was just below on the next floor. Taggie introduced him to Gala downstairs. He was wearing a tweed jacket with a badge on the lapel saying
Old Men make better lovers
, and acorn-brown cords with three fly-buttons undone. He was also sporting a green woolly hat, and carrying a brick on a plate, from which he attempted to cut her a slice.

‘I’m fine, thank you,’ said Gala. ‘I’ve just had a delicious piece of Mrs Campbell-Black’s shortbread.’

‘This is Gala,’ said Taggie. ‘She’s going to look after you from now on, instead of Marjorie.’

‘Marjorie’s gorn orf,’ said Eddie, ‘but we’re not divorced. ’Spect she’ll want half the house.’ Then, seeing how young and luscious Gala was, his eyes gleamed. ‘You can stay in my half if you like.’

But apart from the odd lunge and having to watch lots of military and sporting programmes, and locate occasional porn channels and then scarper, Eddie and Gala got on famously. Every day he liked her to read him
The Times
’ Death Column, to see ‘who’s pushed orf and check I’m still alive’.

He then insisted she took him down to the stud to see Love Rat, who always trotted over and laid his great white face
against Eddie’s before accepting several Polos. She was soon taking Eddie on jaunts, including a first visit to Tesco’s where, seeing a small boy and his sister riding in their mother’s trolley, he exclaimed: ‘Good God, do they sell children as well?’

That was one of the tragedies of being a widow, not being able to tell Ben things that had made her laugh. But at least James Benson, the Campbell-Blacks’ smooth, still-handsome doctor, supplied Eddie with sleeping pills, which ensured that Gala’s nights were usually uninterrupted, except by her own nightmares.

For Gala, the best part of the job was getting to know Taggie. Over a wonderful dinner of moussaka on her first night, Taggie confessed how she loathed the foals going off to the sales, and how, because she couldn’t read or write very well, she dreaded coping with Christmas cards. She and Rupert got thousands and had had one printed this year with Love Rat, rearing up noble and unusually virile on the front.

The house seemed to swarm with impossibly spoilt children. Gala, used to Zimbabwean children, who didn’t answer back and stood up when grown-ups came into the room, was shocked. Dogs were also everywhere: Rupert’s black Labrador Banquo, two Jack Russells, Cuthbert and Gilchrist, nicknamed the Brothers Grin, and the ex-racing brindle greyhound Forester, who chased anything that moved and kept taking single shoes into the garden. One morning was spent searching for Eddie’s teeth, until Banquo wandered downstairs clacking them. On another occasion, Forester dropped them in the drive and a horsebox ran over them.

Desperately missing her Staffies, and Wilson, also a black Labrador, Gala palled up with Banquo, who was missing Rupert and barked every time a door banged or a car drew up on the gravel.

‘Your master’s coming home soon,’ she kept reassuring him.

Meanwhile Taggie had so much to do and Gala didn’t think
Rupert’s PA, Geraldine, who’d clearly like to be the next Mrs Campbell-Black, protected Taggie enough. Gala therefore took over the job, seeing off the vicar, for example, when he tried to persuade Taggie to read one of the Nine Lessons for a carol service. She was also soon helping Taggie out with Christmas cards – ‘if only people would put in their surnames’ – feeding and getting the children to bed, feeding and walking the dogs.

But reciprocally it was Gala’s special kindness that touched Taggie. She would find her bed made, or wander wearily upstairs at night to find it turned down and a light on. Gala always left the kettle full up, and put back plugs if she’d pulled them out.

When Taggie staggered home from a punishing afternoon Christmas shopping in Cheltenham, during which she had bought Gala four thermal vests, several pairs of thick socks and some dark-brown Uggs, she found Gala had cooked her a wonderful Zimbabwean dinner.

‘This is so gorgeous,’ enthused Taggie, embarking on a second helping of chicken breasts cooked with mustard and honey. ‘Did Eddie have some?’

‘He did, he seemed to like it.’

‘Must be in heaven. Marjorie never flavoured anything. To wind her up, Rupert once put a salt lick in Eddie’s bedroom. I had to pretend it was for Mildred – that was Eddie’s pet rubber sheep, which naughty Forester shredded. You must keep those Uggs away from him.’

‘They’re bliss,’ Gala stretched a foot out, ‘but I’ll never take them off, so Forester won’t get them. In Zimbabwe we lived on the edge of a conservation area where animals wandered in and out. You’d find elephants in the swimming pool, and monkeys were always pinching eggs. One day Ben came home and found a baboon sitting on a chair in the kitchen eating a banana.’

Rupert was always so busy, particularly since he’d become obsessed with nailing Leading Sire. Even when he was at home, he’d spend the evenings planning who would ride what horse and which races they’d run in, and watching re-runs of races at home or abroad so he could blast the jockeys next day. Taggie
found it lovely to have another person to talk to, not a demoralizer like Janey, Helen or Geraldine or even her own mother, Maud.

Gala revealed very little about her terrible past, but showed Taggie a photograph on her mobile of the handsome, rugged Ben, displaying marvellous legs in khaki shorts and hugging a baby rhino.

‘He was a Rhodi,’ said Gala, ‘which means very straight, macho, chauvinistic and conservative, but he was a total softie around animals.’

‘He’s absolutely gorgeous. Does it get any easier?’

‘Not really, but it’s not unrelenting, you do have sudden moments of happiness,’ Gala smiled at Taggie, ‘like now. I love being here.’

The cold, however, got colder and Gala put on even more jerseys, an overcoat with a hood, three pairs of socks tucked into her Uggs, and was passionately grateful for the electric blanket and assorted dogs who, with Rupert away, took every opportunity to get into bed with her.