third on numerous occasions. Heartbroken when little Gifted Child had been taken by Shade to Harvey-Holden, he had transferred his affections to Mrs Wilkinson. Now they called and called to each other when separated. Mrs Wilkinson knew Sir Cuthbert’s approaching footsteps from twenty other horses and set up a din. Once united they would spend hours kissing and grooming each other. Count Romeo, looking on longingly, was occasionally let into the circle. Horace the Shetland, given to Romeo as a friend, had got a crush on Chisolm, who butted him away with her horns less and less.
‘Love is in the air,’ sang Rafiq.
As the weather grew colder, Mrs Wilkinson was stabled with Cuthbert and Romeo on either side.
‘It’s so sweet the way she pushes her hay through the hole in the wall to Sir Cuthbert when he’s hungry,’ Tommy told Etta. ‘And when she’s hungry she scrapes her food bowl up and down the wall or drops it and rattles her empty water bowls.’
Adoring making people laugh, Mrs Wilkinson started doing the tricks Dora had taught her for the lads: pulling faces, shaking hooves, unpeeling a banana before eating it, curtseying and playing football with Chisolm.
‘Next time we play football against Rupert Campbell-Black or Harvey-Holden, she and Chisolm better be in the side,’ said Josh.
‘We’ll need them anyway,’ said blonde Tresa gloomily. ‘If Marius lays off any more people we won’t be able to field a team.’
Etta, now visiting most days, was making friends, particularly with Rafiq, Tommy and little Angel, at sixteen the youngest member of the yard.
‘I love working here,’ Angel told Etta. ‘I rode out two lots this morning and had a shag in the tack room.’
‘Really,’ said Etta.
There was a lot of yard bitching about Michelle, who was getting more and more up herself.
‘When I go inside to pray, Michelle say, “Why don’t you ask Allah to teach you to ride?”’ stormed Rafiq.
Michelle, who clearly resented the fact that Rafiq didn’t respond to her charms, never stopped bitching at him. Every time there was a reference to terrorism in the papers, she’d say, ‘Oh, that’s your lot again.’
‘And she put poor little Angel, because she’s young and pretty, on the most difficult horses,’ raged Rafiq, ‘and she cheeky Collie the whole time, and he’s her boss. Collie complain to Marius who always defends Michelle.’
The morning after this conversation, the entire yard heard raised voices coming from Marius’s office. Next moment Mistletoe the lurcher shot out and took quivering refuge in the tack room between Tommy’s legs.
‘There isn’t any more fucking money to give you,’ Marius was shouting.
Collie had started as a boy, looking after the hunt horses when Marius’s father was Master, and had worked his way up to the glory years when the Throstledown flag was always flying. Marius had then made Collie head lad and given him and his wife a four-bedroom house as a wedding present with only £40,000 of mortgage left to pay.
Having for years invested his heart and expertise in nurturing Ilkley Hall, Gifted Child, Preston and most recently Bafford Playboy, Collie, although not showing it, had been devastated when Shade took these and his other horses away. He hated seeing them at the races, hepped up, unsettled, calling out to him, but now winning glory for Harvey-Holden, who was going from strength to strength and continually sneering about Throstledown’s decline.
Collie was accustomed to running a winning ship, and bringing peace and harmony to the yard. Olivia had been his great pal and he missed her too. In turn Collie worried about Rafiq, who every night rolled up his mattress and rode it, practising changing his whip from one hand to the other, obsessively watching videos of Rogue Rogers, Killer O’Kagan and Bluey Charteris. Rafiq had a very short fuse and had nearly lost it the other day, when Michelle threatened Furious with a pitchfork. Something must explode soon.
Marius, meanwhile, was impressed with Mrs Wilkinson but wasn’t having much success in teaching her to load or accept a male rider on her back. She did, however, tolerate Rafiq with his soft voice, silken hands and fluid body. But Marius was no more ready to allow Rafiq to ride her in races than Amber Lloyd-Foxe, even though Amber was so determined to become a professional that she’d taken a foundation course at the British Racing School. Now qualified as a conditional jockey, she was allowed to carry 7 pounds less in races until she’d notched up