The only person in the yard not overjoyed was Rupert. ‘How many times have I told you to get past before you start waving your arms about like a fucking politician,’ he yelled at Lysander as he caught up with him on the way to the winner’s enclosure. ‘And where was your head during the first circuit? Between Mrs Rannaldini’s fat legs, I suppose.’
A very nasty punch-up was averted when a pretty brunette from The Scorpion shoved her tape recorder under Rupert’s nose.
‘Is Penscombe Pride going to beat The Prince of Darkness on Saturday?’
‘Not a question of whether he’ll beat him,’ snapped Rupert, ‘but by how many lengths.’
‘Is he the best horse you’ve ever had?’
‘Yes, now buzz off.’ The prettier the reporter, the more Rupert distrusted them.
‘We do have another runner in the race,’ protested Tabitha indignantly, as she gave Hopeless a congratulatory hug.
‘Oh, right, King Arthur, 200-1.’ The brunette consulted her notebook. What had Timeform said about him that morning: ‘Campbell-Black’s white elephant, gigantic grey gelding of little account.’
‘Fucking hell!’ Lysander, on his way to being weighed in, swung round glaring at the brunette over Hopeless’s saddle. ‘How dare they?’
‘He’s your horse, Lysander,’ she said slyly. ‘How d’you rate his chances?’
‘Negligible if he rides like he did just now,’ snapped Rupert. Then turning to Lysander. ‘Piss off and get weighed in.’
‘People are saying the Rutminster’s a grudge match between you and Rannaldini,’ the brunette quailed slightly under Rupert’s chilling ice-blue glare, ‘for taking Lysander under your wing.’
‘So?’
‘You were in Monthaut with Lysander and Kitty Rannaldini.’
‘Don’t you say anything against Kitty,’ said Lysander coming back again.
‘Fuck off,’ hissed Rupert.
‘Why are you entering Lysander on a no-hoper just to irritate Rannaldini?’ asked the brunette, delighted at what she’d stirred up.
As Lysander opened his mouth, desperate to think of a really crushing reply, Rupert spoke first.
‘Arthur isn’t a no-hoper,’ he said coldly. ‘He’s a stayer. He stays even longer than my mother-in-law.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Tabitha whispered to Lysander. ‘Daddy’s always in strop before a big race.’
Daddy got stroppier. On the last gallops before the Rutminster, little Penscombe Pride was so well and above himself that he carted Bluey off the end of the all-weather track across two fields of barley on to the Penscombe-Chalford Road in the rush hour. Arthur, by contrast, didn’t try at all, slopping along at the back of the field, listening to the larks singing in a cloudless sky. He was still outraged that because caffeine was a banned substance, Rupert had stopped his morning cup of coffee. Far worse, having despatched Lysander to the dentist yesterday to get his tooth capped, Rupert had taken the opportunity to sharpen Arthur up himself, giving the old horse a good hiding when he refused to jump a row of fences at the gallop.
Lysander was in despair as he rode back to the yard. The cracks in the paths were as bad as last summer. Rain, which would make the going soft enough for Arthur, had been forecast for days, but showed no sign of appearing. Wild garlic was spreading over the floor of the wood like a thousand green hangover tongues. Lysander hadn’t had a hangover since the morning after Valentine’s Day. Nor a drink, nor any dope, nor magic mushrooms, nor even a fuck. Last night he had reached his target weight of nine stone six, but what was the point of all this self-denial if Rupert wasn’t going to declare Arthur? He glanced at his watch. It would be too late in half an hour. In the distance he could hear Tiny yelling her head off because Arthur had deserted her. She’d give him hell when he got back.
‘Can’t someone strangle that fucking Shetland?’ Rupert stalked into the kitchen where Taggie was turning sausages and frying eggs.
‘There are about thirty press messages on the machine,’ she said desperately, ‘asking if you’re going to run Arthur.’
‘Not after the way he went this morning,’ snapped Rupert, pouring himself a cup of black coffee and disappearing into his office.
The morning’s papers didn’t make Lysander any happier. There was a lot of guff about Rupert’s ‘Rutminster raiding party’ and how many winners he would get during the meeting. The tabloids all concentrated on the contrast between Penscombe Pride and Arthur. ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ said the Mail. ‘David with an Exocet faces Goliath with a sling,’ quipped the Sun. ‘Why do the handsomest men choose the ugliest horse?’ wrote the brunette from The Scorpion.
‘How dare they pick on Arthur?’ Lysander was practically in tears. ‘I’ll sue them.’
‘Hush.’ Shoving a piece of fried bread spread with marmalade into Lysander’s protesting mouth, Taggie led him to the door of Rupert’s office. ‘Just listen.’
‘It’s Race 31161,’ Rupert was saying in his flat drawl, ‘Rutminster Gold Cup, King Arthur, owned by Lysander Hawkley, ridden by Lysander Hawkley — that’s right. You still don’t know who’s riding The Prince of Darkness yet?’
Coming out of his office on his way to a Venturer board meeting back at the house, he found Lysander leaning against the wall, fighting back the tears again.
‘Thank you, Rupert. I won’t let you down.’
‘I’ve declared him, but I won’t run him unless it rains. And go and have a haircut. You can’t ride in the Rutminster with a pony-tail.’
Everyone grew increasingly tense. Danny, Penscombe Pride’s Irish lad, had been throwing up all morning, even Taggie was shouting at the Press. Rupert, in his board meeting, was trying to concentrate on plummeting advertising revenue, when there was a thundering on the door and Lysander barged in, white-faced.
‘Oh, Rupert, Arthur’s lame. He’s going short on the off-fore.’
‘Probably knocked himself this morning, just poultice him. Now get out,’ said Rupert curtly.
‘Just come and see him. Per-lease.’
So the entire board trooped down to the yard to have a look, only to find Arthur dramatically recovered.
‘He’s winding you up,’ Dizzy chided Lysander. ‘He does it to get sympathy and Polos now.’
Although the yard was running down at the end of the season, and most of the young horses had been turned out, Rupert hadn’t wanted to waste a valuable stable-lad on Arthur. To keep Tabitha out of mischief, he let her do the horse. She had proved both responsible and efficient.
Wearing a navy-blue jersey, which brought out the famous Campbell-Black eyes, but was already coated with white hairs, she stood on a bucket that afternoon to wash Arthur’s mane.
‘We’ve got to stop you rolling and getting yourself mucky before tomorrow,’ she told him, as Arthur nudged her jeans’ pocket hopefully looking for Polos.
Lysander, sitting on the edge of a stone tub of white narcissi, holding Arthur’s lead rope with Jack on his knee, had been laboriously reading Ivor Herbert’s life of Red Rum to inspire Arthur, but had given up with the effort. Trapped in her stable, Tiny watched them beadily.
‘Arthur has a look of Rummy,’ said Lysander. ‘I wonder how many more stable-boys The Prince of Darkness has eaten. I tried to help one of the grooms at Valhalla clip him once. Jesus, he went ape-shit. I jumped on to the manger. The groom shot out of the door. I want to know who’s going to ride him. I bet Rannaldini’s got some nasty surprise. God, I hope he lets Kitty come to Rutminster tomorrow.’
He was really upset that, unlike most of Paradise, Kitty hadn’t sent him a good-luck card. He had even driven over to Magpie Cottage in the lunch hour to check.