‘Acting up head lad,’ growled Valent. ‘She’s lippy, bitchy, she can’t ride. She hardly ever gets up to ride out, the others have to do five lots sometimes. She cheeks Miss Painswick. All the staff except Josh and Tresa are scared of her and she grasses to Lester Bolton too much.’
‘You’ve been in China,’ exploded Marius, ‘how d’you know all this?’
‘Phone works in China too. I ask questions and I learn a lot. You orta sack Michelle.’ Valent thought Marius was going to hit him.
A diversion was then caused by Chisolm running into the office pursued by Horace the Shetland. Having done a lap, scattering magazines and papers, they ran straight out again.
Marius looked at Valent, and they burst out laughing.
I’ve never let anyone bawl me out like this, thought Marius as he got up to refill his drink. But I trust this man, he’s straight.
Valent in turn was wistfully thinking how handsome Marius was and how elegantly he was built. If he looked like that, Bonny wouldn’t be giving him the runaround and always bullying him to lose weight. Last night, Valent had nearly fallen off the heart-shaped bed, which ought to have seat belts, and the mirror on the ceiling only showed how out of shape he was.
‘What’s your take on Mrs Wilkinson?’ he asked.
Marius shrugged. ‘Not great. Charlie X-rayed her again today. The fracture isn’t as bad as we thought but she’s terribly low. She’s a mare who suffers from depression, tough as hell but easily cast down.’
‘We don’t want to lose a bluddy good horse,’ said Valent. ‘I’ve got a plan. Send her back to my place to convalesce. Trixie, Dora, Poppy and Drummond will all be home for the holidays, and Wilkie loves children.’
Marius was dubious and said he’d have to ask Charlie Radcliffe.
Getting up, Valent thought how pretty Marius’s garden looked, with foxgloves, pinks, alstroemerias, delphiniums and roses jostling for position in the beds and spilling over emerald-green lawns. A white rose had been grown up the office wall and peered in, pale and lovely as Bonny.
‘Looks good. Place looking much better, but you’ve got to get rid of Furious.’
‘Not mine to sell. I can’t afford to buy him back.’
‘He’s not going anywhere and Bolton will sue you if he does any more damage.’
‘He’s been better since Rafiq came back.’
What Rafiq hadn’t told Marius was that when he came back from the course to get a licence up in Doncaster, which he’d really enjoyed, Furious had greeted him with every affection until he’d entered the box, whereupon Furious had picked him up by the ribs, thrown him into the corner so he couldn’t escape and kicked him in the back of the head.
Reluctant to show the terrible bruising, Rafiq had made excuses not to sleep with Amber when she needed him, the night after Wilkie broke down. It had not improved their relationship.
Despite 120 get-well cards from the children of Greycoats, Mrs Wilkinson was not responding, and after a week Charlie and Marius agreed to Valent’s plan.
Gleefully Valent rang Etta.
‘Mrs Wilkinson’s coming home to Badger’s Court.’
‘But she’s not allowed out.’
‘She can start in her old stable. Tommy and Rafiq aren’t busy. With so many horses turned out, they’ll lend a hand.’
‘But that’s your lovely office,’ said Etta, aghast.
‘I’ve decided to turn the cockpit into my office,’ said Valent. ‘Octagonal shapes are considered very auspicious and it’s more peaceful away from the house.’
He didn’t add that Bonny, on her latest feng shui kick, had junked the £9,000 wallpaper and redecorated his office in flesh-coloured paint to balance the flow of positive and relaxing energy. Then she’d littered it with seashells and joss sticks, and hung his white kaftan on the back of the door. On the windowsill she had placed a yellow teapot, which according to feng shui encouraged stability in relationships, and given him an orange chair to provide the fire element to boost his career.
Worst of all, she’d thrown out his microwave because electro-magnetic waves weren’t friendly, so, if he was hungry, he could no longer chuck in a pizza at one o’clock in the morning. She’d also covered the television in the bedroom and his Lowry with throws because they acted as mirrors, which was bad feng shui.
According to a gleeful Joey, who reported all this to Etta, the mother and father and baby bear of all battles had followed.
Bonny was incandescent with rage. She’d earmarked the cock-pit for herself, as a quiet room for learning lines and meditation,