‘Now get him out of here. Go through the woods,’ ordered Charlie.
But as Michelle rushed up, followed by a limping Lester, Rafiq went berserk.
‘You stupid, stupid bitch!’ he yelled. ‘Why you bring him here and put that gag on him? He’s terrified of you anyway, ever since you hit him with a spade.’
‘I never,’ yelled back Michelle, ‘that horse is vicious.’
‘So is that gag, you torture him, don’t you ever touch him again.’
‘Don’t speak to a lady like that,’ howled Bolton. ‘He’s my ’orse to do what I like wiv. No good you sticking up for that brute, he’s going to the sales next week.’ Then: ‘Ouch,’ he screamed as Chisolm, drunk from hoovering up the cucumber and strawberries scattered round the Pimm’s stall, butted him in the groin.
As people picked themselves up and tried to assess the damage, the fête committee decided they were going to need a large cheque from Mr Bolton. The Major, however, found compensation in helping a sobbing Cindy to her feet.
Trixie was horrified how much she’d enjoyed being pulled out of danger and held against Seth’s hot, hard body. Tilda ditto, against Alan.
Furious calmed down and was practically nodding off by the time Rafiq had walked him home. Dilys was delirious with joy to see him. She was such a sweet sheep, so loving and so much less self-regarding and greedy than Chisolm. Rafiq fed them both and kept them in for the night.
At around four o’clock in the morning, however, Rafiq and Tommy were woken by hysterical and bewildered neighing.
First to reach Furious’s box in her nightie, Tommy opened the door to find Dilys lying in the straw, her coat soaked in blood, her head kicked in. Furious, wool in his teeth, was desperately nudging her, pitifully calling for her to wake up.
Tommy couldn’t stop crying.
Rafiq comforted her: ‘It must have been the fête and that gag that made him mad.’
When Marius returned from Cartmel the next day, he insisted Dilys be buried in the field behind the house alongside his great horses. After Josh and Rafiq had dug a grave, Furious refused to let them take Dilys away and stood over her, lashing out at anyone who came near. Rafiq had to lead him down the drive while they removed her body. When he was returned to an empty stable, he called for her endlessly.
Later Joey made a headstone: ‘Dear Dilys, Furious’s faithful companion.’
79
That was the end for Marius, who had been very fond of Dilys. He thanked Rafiq for his quick thinking at the fête. He fired Michelle. He agreed to buy back Furious and promptly entered him for a selling race at Stratford early in September.
Rafiq and Tommy were distraught. Rogue, Awesome and Amber all refused to ride him, not wanting to get carted, bucked off or savaged, so Marius allowed Rafiq a first and last ride.
Rafiq, however, had studied Furious and remembered his first and only win with Amber. He had reared up at the start because she tried to hold him up, and then carted her past all the other horses. Rafiq realized that Furious hated other horses so much that if he were allowed to escape from them and gallop flat out from the start, nothing could catch up with him … the answer was to make all.
It was a hot, muggy day. Furious worked himself into a state before the race, getting angrier and angrier, and when he couldn’t get at Rafiq he swung his head round, trying to bite the toes off the new boots Rafiq had struggled to pay for.
Rafiq, however, rode him with immense sympathy and kindness, giving him his head, so he hurtled straight into the lead, getting the stride right at every fence. Even when other horses challenged him in the straight, Rafiq didn’t pick up his whip but let Furious accelerate naturally. Winning by fifteen lengths, he contemptuously slowed to a trot as he passed the post.
The athlete in victory starts to die. In his moment of glory, Furious was put up for auction. He had never looked handsomer, chestnut coat gleaming, quarters and shoulders rippling with muscle, pink and black oiled hooves flashing in the sun, snow-white star giving his face a look of deceptive amiability and contentment. Tommy invariably won the turnout prize but never had she done one of her charges prouder.
A toff in a trilby with a microphone was revving up the crowd, which ringed the winners enclosure ten deep. Tommy walked Furious