Score!

Traditionally in racing yards, the grooms have Christmas Day off. It was a matter of pride for Jake to do the horses with Isa, just to show everyone that polio hadn’t got the better of him. Outside he noticed the wind had scattered ivy-mantled branches all over the fields, clearing out the dead wood. Like me, he thought, with a shiver.

The only way he could relieve his pain-racked leg and back was to soak in a boiling bath, but he returned home to find Tab had used all the hot water. He found her in the kitchen, hugging the Aga, clean, pale hair flopping over her ashen face, her long turquoise eyes angry and bloodshot. Exactly like her father, thought Jake savagely, and as capable of causing havoc.

Poor Tory, attempting to cook Christmas dinner for the family and the grooms, was also trying to get to know her daughter-in-law.

‘I have no idea how to change a nappy,’ Tab was saying disdainfully.

‘They use Velcro now. It’s as easy as putting a bandage on a horse,’ said Tory encouragingly.

Picking up Jake’s hatred, Tab escaped to pack her presents, stopping on the way upstairs to pinch Tory’s sellotape and a pile of newspapers because she’d forgotten to buy wrapping paper. The whole thing took ages because she kept stopping to read. There was a huge piece, in the Telegraph colour mag, about eventing stars destined for the next Olympics. Tab was not even mentioned, which made her feel more of a failure than ever.

Turning to the Sunday Times she found a lovely picture of Rupert and a piece saying how well he was doing. Tearing it out, she fought back the tears. The blue sky outside reminded her not of Mary’s robes, but of Rupert’s eyes. The bells pealed far more sweetly at Penscombe.

Remembering the mountains of presents, the banks of holly, the huge fires, Taggie’s goose, her parsnip purée, and the brandy round the Christmas pudding, which flamed longer than the Great Fire of London, Tab forgot the earth-shattering rows with which she and Rupert had disrupted the entire household. The last one had been because Rupert had only bought her a Golf GTi convertible for Christmas, instead of paying forty thousand for The Engineer, for which Rannaldini had forked out later in the year when he’d married her mother. God, she had taken her wonderful family for granted.

‘Can’t you ever forget about being a bloody Campbell-Black?’

Isa had walked in and caught sight of the piece in her hand. Sharon, stretched out on the bed, scattered receipts as she waved her tail.

‘Have you been ransacking my mother’s tights drawer?’

‘Hardly be tight on me,’ snapped Tab. She’d got so thin she could jump through the hoop of the sellotape hanging from the bedside table.

‘I was looking for a thick jersey,’ she went on, ‘which one certainly needs in this house. The only thing I could find was Pond’s Vanishing Cream. Your mother could start by using it on her hips.’

She thought Isa was going to hit her.

‘You been drinking?’

‘Of course not. I promised.’

Isa wasn’t sure. Like most drinkers, Tab went through three stages: clinging and filled with anxiety when she woke up, incredibly cheery after the first few slugs, then punchy and belligerent when she was coming down. It looked as though she’d reached the third stage. But he didn’t want to upset his mother, so he asked if Tab would come downstairs to open the presents.

‘The gritters are out,’ he added, gazing at the lights flashing along the horizon. ‘We’re in for a hard night.’

‘People use them on their teeth round here.’

The Lovells were frugal, short of money and had allotted one present to each person. Tory had gone to a lot of trouble to track down an early history of eventing in a second-hand-book shop for Tab. Isa had rather pointedly given Tab some scent called Quercus, so she wouldn’t nick his CK One any more, and a rather ugly gold locket.

‘I’m going to put your picture in one side,’ said Tab, hugging him, ‘and Sharon and The Engineer in the other.’

Used to Penscombe prodigality, where everyone received presents from every dog, horse and human, and in anticipation of a fat Christmas cheque from Rannaldini, Tab had rolled up with a crate of champagne and a side of smoked salmon for the Lovells. Her individual presents were less successful and all wrongly labelled. Tory opened a red fishnet stocking of dog treats, destined for Sharon, then some boxer shorts.

‘Sorry, they’re meant for Isa, although I suppose Sharon could wear them if she was a boxer not a Labrador.’

Isa, thinking of their bank account, grew increasingly tight-lipped as he opened a silver-topped whip, two beautiful dark blue cashmere jerseys, ‘because I’m always nicking yours’, and a camera, when he’d already got four.

Tab herself was desperately disappointed to have nothing from Rupert and, even more worryingly, no fat cheque from Rannaldini. Instead, he and Helen had given her a royal blue vase edged with gold and decorated with a pastoral scene.

‘Very pretty,’ said Tory.