Mount! (37 page)

‘Not too legless,’ said Rupert. ‘You’ve got the One Thousand Guineas tomorrow.’ He drew a wad of notes from his wallet. ‘Go and get yourselves a decent dinner – see you all when I get back from Hong Kong.’

Gala felt really low. Why had she jerked her head away, sure in that moment that he wanted to kiss her? But she loved Taggie too. Depression is supposed to be 80 per cent tiredness, she recalled, and she hadn’t had much sleep recently.

She was woken next morning with her clothes still on, and Marketa chucking the
Racing Post
on her bed.

M
ASTERLY
Q
UICKLY
, shouted the cover. ‘The King is back and a cat can look at him,’ was the caption beneath an adorable picture of Purrpuss on Quickly’s back, gazing up at a jubilant Rupert.

‘I know it’s a bit OTT,’ confessed Valent as his private jet took off from Heathrow, ‘but, chasing deals, I never saw enuff of my first wife Pauline. I’m determined not to make the same mistake this time.’ Proudly he patted the butterscotch-coloured upholstery. ‘Means I can spend as little time in the air and get back to Etta as quick as possible.’

Opening another can of beer, he waved at a hovering steward to pour Rupert more whisky. A wonderful smell of beef, wine and garlic wafted from the kitchen.

Their euphoria at Quickly’s victory doubled with the news that Valent’s son Ryan’s football team had triumphed at Wigan.

‘Etta’s such a sweet woman,’ sighed Valent. ‘All my kids love her. Ryan even sent her a Mother’s Day card. Etta burst into tears, bless her.’

‘Nice,’ said Rupert, who was looking at his iPhone. ‘Tag’s a marvellous stepmother too. Bloody hell, Ladbrokes have got Quickly evens for the Derby, and 5–1 for the Triple Crown. Nothing could have beaten him today.’

‘That Gala’s done a good job.’ Valent glanced out of the window as London gave way to fields, emerald green from summer rain. ‘Attractive woman.’

‘Very,’ agreed Rupert.

‘She got anyone else?’

‘Not that I know of,’ said Rupert, surprised how little he liked the idea. ‘She obviously thought it was sexist of us to bugger off to Hong Kong and miss Touchy Filly in the Guineas.’

But the possibility of Fleance notching up £600,000, if he won the Hong Kong Queen Elizabeth Cup, and meeting up with Genghis Tong had seemed more important.

‘I’ve got a couple of cracking bottles of red to go with the beef,’ said Valent, ‘but we mustn’t get too hammered. Genghis Tong, despite his foony ways, is shit-hot businesswise.’

Mr Tong was a very powerful aeroplane billionaire who had capitalized on the ever-increasing disposable income of the Chinese middle classes. As wealth increases, so does travel.

In the hope racing would finally take off in China, Mr Tong wanted to get in at the start and was planning a yard and a stud farm with a hundred racehorses, fifty brood mares and a couple of stallions. One of Mr Tong’s latest inventions was a little green plane with a powerful engine called the Green Galloper, into which you could load one horse and three or four humans, and which Rupert and Gav, who had pilot’s licences, could fly.

‘Tong wants to sell it worldwide. We can help with the publicity,’ said Valent.

This, Rupert believed, might be the answer for taking Quickly overseas.

‘Christ, I’m hungry,’ he went on, as two plates of chips and large steaks swimming in dark-red sauce arrived.

‘You taste the wine,’ said Valent. ‘I’m no good at that sort of thing.’

‘Bloody marvellous,’ said Rupert. ‘We are going to get hammered, we’re going to be hongover with Genghis Tong in Hong Kong. Wasn’t Quickly marvellous?’

‘I’ve never seen the poison dwarf more outraged,’ said Valent, smothering his chips in tomato ketchup. ‘Tong is very status conscious. He’s got eyewatering sums of money, but he wants to strut his stuff at Royal Ascot and meet the Queen and Prince William.’

‘Better stop butchering white rhino then,’ said Rupert.

‘Don’t think he does,’ said Valent. ‘I had dinner at his place in Beijing. To impress guests, you pass the white Ferrari, the
blue Rolls-Royce and the Galloper in its hangar on the way to the house.’

At the Races
had just established a link screening online into China. Rupert was planning to flog Mr Tong a horse in Hong Kong tomorrow which would enable him to wow his guests even more. By switching on the television in Beijing, he could then watch his horse racing in his own colours in England.

‘It would blow him away,’ said Valent.

‘I can’t sell him a complete goat,’ said Rupert. ‘He might come over and expect it to win at Royal Ascot.’

Valent had been doing business with Genghis Tong for several years. To ease negotiations, Rupert had invited Tong’s twenty-one-year-old son Bao over to Penscombe to work in the stud and the yard this summer.

The following morning, which was Queen Elizabeth Cup day, Rupert and Valent went down to the racecourse stables at Sha Tin to meet up with Roving Mike, Louise and sweet Fleance who had travelled, eaten up well, and was looking sleek and ready to race.

They were soon joined by Genghis Tong, looking small, rotund, and rather incongruously dressed in a loud check suit and a large flat tweed cap. Exuding amiability, he liked dealing with congenial star signs and was delighted Rupert, like him, had been born in the Year of the Snake, that most energetic, ambitious of signs and Valent in the Year of the Strong Willed Dragon.

‘Although I’ll be breathing drink fumes, rather than fire, over him this morning,’ groaned Valent, his face glowing redder than a Dutch cheese. ‘Christ, I feel rough.’ Irritating that Rupert, who had put away even more than him, still looked marvellous, towering above the gathering crowd, who all took pictures of him. Valent only gained the ascendancy by being able to converse with Tong in Chinese, albeit in a broad Yorkshire accent.

If Mr Tong was anxious to buy a flashy horse to race in England, the limiting factor was that he only liked large horses who talked back to him, and who were born in the Year of the Ox, who got on with Snakes.

Other dealers were also anxious to sell to Mr Tong. Louise and Roving Mike were wetting themselves as one hopeful horse after another was led up to him, only replying to his cries of ‘Hello, Horsey,’ with the odd snort.

Mr Tong looked wistfully at Fleance the trier, only to be told he was taken. Happily out of the next-door box hung a white-faced bay called Beijing Bertie, who had been found for Rupert by his friend and ex-jockey Teddy Matthews. As Mr Tong moved down the row, Louise, primed by Rupert, appeared behind him brandishing a bowl of nuts, whereupon Beijing Bertie launched into a concerto of joyful whickering, nearly nudging off Mr Tong’s cap.

‘Hello, hello, Horsey’ – and the deal was sealed. Vocal Beijing Bertie would fly back to Penscombe with Fleance, and Quickly could jet around the world in the Green Galloper.

The cake was then iced by Meerkat and Fleance resisting all challenges in order to take the £663,000 Cup: only to be topped by the 1000 Guineas back at Newmarket. The favourite, Cosmo’s Violetta’s Vengeance, was coming into season and played up at the start. Tarqui, who had had enough tongue-lashing from Cosmo, clouted her with his whip. Whereupon Violetta’s Vengeance sulked and refused to get out of a canter for her bully of a rider. The equally moody Touchy Filly, given a dream ride by Eddie, won by a length. This meant three Group One wins for Love Rat’s progeny, pushing his earnings so early in the year past the three-million mark for the first time.

‘Can it get any better?’ whooped Rupert. ‘You and I are going to have another hangover tomorrow morning.’

They dined with Mr Tong in his beautiful apartment looking over skyscrapers and a rippling green ocean of trees. Here they met his pretty, much younger second wife, Aiguo, who didn’t seem very interested in her stepson Bao coming to spend the summer at Penscombe.

Mr Tong, clad in a salmon-pink smock, took Rupert on to the balcony to discuss logistics.

‘You must make Bao work very hard, Rupert. When I start my racing yard here I want him to run it. He is good boy. He miss his mother, who has married again. New, very powerful
husband doesn’t make things easy. He will enjoy family perhaps with you. He is very good pilot and will fly your planes for you. You take Beijing Bertie back to England to run at Loyal Ascot, and fly him there in Green Galloper.’

‘Of course,’ agreed Rupert, reflecting he’d probably have to carry Bertie over the line.

Back in the drawing room, Aiguo Tong was reading Valent’s palm, and Valent, with his wrecked goalkeeper’s knees, was wondering how he’d ever get up from the very low yellow sofa.

‘Is that Bao?’ he asked, pointing to a photograph on the red carved desk. ‘Good-looking boy.’

‘No, it’s my brother,’ snapped Aiguo, who later preferred holding Rupert’s hand and foretelling the future of those born in the Year of the Snake.

‘Expect an exciting year, not necessarily for the faint of heart. You must have the courage to face emotional truths and still be true to what your heart tells you.’

‘The snake’s fate is mine
and
your husband’s,’ said Rupert. Looking at her cold, beautiful face, he found his thoughts drifting to Gala and how nearly he’d lost it and kissed her after the Guineas.

C
AMPBELL
-B
ACK
trumpeted the
Racing Post
next day, above pictures of Quickly, Touchy Filly and Fleance all winning.

While Rupert’s and Valent’s fortunes were being told by Aiguo, Taggie and Etta were flown back to Penscombe in Rupert’s helicopter. The moment they landed, the dogs came racing down the grass to meet them: Forester flashing his teeth in a silly grin, whining with delight and batting his head against Taggie’s thighs. Little Gropius, the slowest and last to arrive, slunk back in disappointment to find no Gala.

‘She’ll be back in a few hours, darling,’ Taggie comforted him.

They found the yard
en fête
, as they awaited the return of Gala, Marketa and Cathal with the horses. Balloons and streamers adorned the stables, particularly the boxes of Quickly and Touchy Filly. They had just seen Fleance’s triumph in Sha Tin and a great party was in train, as Pat and Gee Gee tearfully
recalled a sleepless night waiting for Fleance to be born.

‘Little pet came out with his ears pricked,’ sighed Gee Gee.

Having popped in with Etta to congratulate everyone, Taggie said she had better get home to relieve Jan who’d been holding the fort for so long. As Rupert, not Etta’s greatest fan, was away, Taggie wondered whether to ask her to supper. She felt guilty that, without realizing it, she’d done her face and slapped on some Issey Florale in anticipation of seeing Jan. And there he was, in a new speedwell-blue denim shirt, a huge happy smile spreading across his face as he took both her hands.

‘It’s so great to see you, mam, we’ve all missed you so much.’

Taggie blushed and stammered it was lovely to be back and removed one hand because Etta was behind her.

‘Congratulations, Mrs Edwards. You must have heard our cheers in Newmarket when Quickly won.’

‘I was wondering, if it’s not too much trouble, if Mrs Edwards could stay for supper?’

‘Nothing’s too much trouble. I’ve taken your bags upstairs. I’ll get Mrs Edwards a drink.’

‘Granny, Granny,’ Sapphire hurtled in. ‘Did you bring me a present?’

‘I did.’ Taggie got a red parcel out of her bag.

‘What do you say?’ demanded Jan.

‘Open it,’ ordered Sapphire.

Then as Etta and Taggie smiled, Jan snapped, ‘Don’t be so rude. Where are your manners, young lady? Say sorry and thank you. At once!’

For a second Sapphire looked mutinous, then mumbled, ‘Sorry and thank you,’ and fled.

‘Bedtime,’ Jan shouted after her, ‘and your own bed tonight. She was missing you, mam, and a bit lonely and she loves your old bear, so I let her sleep in your bed last night, but I’ve changed the sheets.’
That’s where I’d like to sleep
, said his eyes.

‘You are wonderful.’ Taggie tried to ignore the message. ‘I must get out of these boots.’

Going into her bedroom, Taggie gave a cry of delight, for propped up in a blue and white striped armchair was a beautifully framed photograph of Love Rat, with his huge dark eyes
peering out of a gleaming blond mane, noble head raised like a creature of fable. Forester, lying on the bed, eyeing up Taggie’s bear, thwacked his tail.

Kicking off her boots, Taggie ran down the passage and found Jan reading Sapphire a story: ‘“And Good Dog Tray is happy now, he has no time to say Bow Wow!”’

‘Oh Jan, it’s genius. How did you get Love Rat to pose like that?’

‘It took a bit of time, mam, getting him out in the sun with his hair tidy. You can’t get horses to say “cheese”, I suppose they say “feed”. But I think he looks every inch a Leading Sire.’

‘It’s beyond beautiful. Rupert’ll be knocked out.’

For a moment Jan looked vulnerable. ‘I’d like him to like it, mam. I know he finds me a nuisance round the place.’

‘Of course he doesn’t,’ blustered Taggie. ‘He’s been under a lot of pressure recently, everything getting on his nerves, but this weekend’s changed all that. Funny how it all happened when he wasn’t wearing his lucky shirt. He’ll probably never take off that green gingham he was forced to buy. Honestly, he doesn’t think you’re a nuisance. Goodness, that picture of Love Rat is beautiful, thank you so much.’

As she went downstairs, she thought how tidy the place looked after an invasion of grandchildren laying waste to it. No half-eaten apples in all the chairs or half-drunk glasses of Ribena or all the televisions locked into some game or strange DVD.

She found Etta on the terrace rhapsodizing over the beauty of the Cotswold spring with wild garlic flowers starring the woodland floor, white cherry blossom, greening cow parsley, and the soapy smell of hawthorn sweeping down the valley.

‘Aren’t we lucky to live here?’ said Etta.

‘Look what Jan’s done.’ Taggie held out the photograph of Love Rat.

‘Oh,’ gasped Etta, ‘that is amazing! How could Mrs Wilkinson not have fallen in love with him?’