will mind if it’s a bit run-down and Shade’s taken away all his horses?’ she added anxiously.
‘Course not,’ lied Alan, drawing up outside Little Hollow. ‘Give him more time to concentrate on Mrs Wilkinson. Oh look, here’s my daughter.’
Trixie was sitting on the doorstep, smoking, reading the Racing Post and brandishing five beautiful bright pink roses.
‘Angela Rippon,’ said Etta in amazement. ‘Where did they come from?’
‘Josh and I are on again,’ said Trixie happily, ‘so he leaned over Direct Debbie’s wall when he was riding out this morning and picked them, then he came over in his break this afternoon to give me them and tell me the latest gossip. It’s all in the Post about Shade taking his horses away but they haven’t got the whole story.’
‘I should hope not, poor Marius,’ said Etta indignantly.
She put her key in the door to find Gwenny sitting on the red armchair, Chisolm, having jumped through the window, on the sofa and Mrs Wilkinson peering round the mature hedge, knuckering imperiously.
‘You can all wait,’ she pleaded, ‘just let me get everyone a drink.’
‘I’ll get it,’ said Trixie, taking a bottle of white out of the fridge. ‘I know your priorities, Granny: Wilkie, Chisolm, Gwenny and no doubt Seth’s greyhound Priceless before long,’ she added, winking at her father, but he was too busy reading about Marius in the Post to notice.
‘How did you get on with Marius?’ she asked, as Etta began to cut up an apple.
‘Well, he’s agreed to take on Mrs Wilkinson, which is wonderful. Such a sweet man, he looked shell-shocked.’
‘Not that sweet,’ said Trixie, filling up three glasses. ‘Shade and Olivia have been having a relationship for ages. She evidently adored Shade’s jet, which is not just a fast plane with no people, it’s got chairs, leather sofas, a gambling table and beds in butter-scotch leather. Well, Olivia said she didn’t like the colour and Shade changed it to cream, so he must be keen.’
‘Golly,’ said Etta, handing a piece of apple to Chisolm and leaning out to hand another piece to Mrs Wilkinson, who was listening to every word.
‘Anyway,’ went on Trixie, ‘it emerges that Marius felt rejected by Olivia and boosted his ego by shagging a stable lass called Michelle, the little tart.’
‘Which one’s she?’ Alan looked up from the Racing Post.
‘The red-headed bitch nympho – Meesh-hell, they call her. When Marius tried to break it off, she promptly blabbed to Olivia. Michelle was fed up with shovelling shit, so she pretended she was pregnant. “I’m soooo sorry, Mrs Oakridge.”’
‘Olivia was madly jealous, apparently. I bet she never passed on Shade’s message to Marius, that I’d have liked a holiday job in the yard. Anyway, Marius when confronted said it hadn’t meant a thing.
‘“Maybe not to you,” snapped back Olivia, “but it meant a great deal to me and Michelle.” It was just the trigger Olivia needed.’
‘Golly,’ repeated Etta, opening a tin of sardines for Gwenny.
‘According to Josh,’ went on Trixie, ‘Olivia hasn’t had a holiday in yonks, and she’s fed up with making ends meet and exhausting herself. Shade’s probably great in bed in a revolting sort of way and he won’t have any difficulty paying school fees.’
‘The Fat Controller,’ said Alan bleakly. ‘He won’t like Olivia’s terriers scrabbling all over the leather in the jet.’
Back in the kitchen at Throstledown, Marius poured himself another glass of whisky and confronted his bleak future. Not only had he lost a wife to whom he had been unable to express his great love, but with her had gone his child, his beloved terriers and twenty horses, whom he’d taught to jump and had been nursing to perfection to ignite the forthcoming season. These included little Gifted Child, Stop Preston and Ilkley Hall, whom he’d particularly adored and who certainly would not get the same love and attention at Harvey-Holden’s.
Marius had also flogged his BMW last month and taken out a large mortgage on Throstledown in order to pay his dwindling staff and feed his horses, who’d soon be coming in from the fields and eating their heads off. He hadn’t been in the money since March, which meant no tips or bonuses for the lads, so morale was rock bottom. Cruellest of all, Shade had dropped him a line, saying he was no longer prepared to guarantee Marius’s crippling overdraft as he’d only kept his horses with Marius so long because of Olivia.
Wandering into the hall, Marius was confronted by a lovely family portrait in a field