Score!

The cold spell continued. There was no racing, which made Isa very twitchy and cross because neither he nor Jake were making any money. The horses grew bored and restless. Pipes froze, so Tab, who’d forgotten to stop the milk, bathed in it instead.

Rupert beat the chill factor by taking Taggie, Xav and Bianca skiing. Tab ground her teeth over their photographs in the paper.

Fighting hangovers, and sickness, she still staggered up to do The Engineer every morning because she couldn’t bear him to get closer to one of Rannaldini’s grooms than herself. Then she returned to the vodka, which she found increasingly difficult to buy because she had no money. Several of her Christmas cheques bounced, before she discovered Rannaldini had stopped her allowance as well.

Isa doled her out pocket money for housekeeping, but grudgingly. It would be much more sensible, he said, for her to wheedle some serious dosh out of Rannaldini, which was why she had accepted the invitation to Riverdance on Isa’s birthday in January. At the last moment, Isa had cried off in a rage. Tab had a maddening habit of always borrowing his jackets. Grabbing his Puffa from the back of the bedroom door, he had found all the Christmas cards to his owners unstamped and unposted in the pocket.

Which was why Tab had a lone evening with an amused but utterly unyielding Rannaldini.

‘Isa is a successful jockey. You have a charming, free cottage, and if you bothered to check, you ungrateful child, you’d discover the Sèvres vase I gave you for Christmas was worth a few bob. Young people should make their own way.’

He wouldn’t even lend her a grand or two to appease Isa and the bank manager.

The coupling of an alcoholic and a workaholic is not a happy one. As Isa worked endlessly to keep the show on the road and compensate for lack of support from Tab, he had less and less time to spend with her, which lowered her confidence and made her drink more out of loneliness.

Isa was so cool he fell asleep in the middle of a row, and she could never tell, behind that expressionless face, what he was thinking. In fact, throughout that long, hard, cruel winter, Peppy Koala, the chestnut colt, so charming, so idle, so uncompetitive, had never been far from his thoughts.

He was just making plans in late February to fly out to Australia when Mr Brown, Peppy Koala’s owner, suddenly called him. He was in England, taking over some Bristol electronics firm. Was Isa free tomorrow evening?

Mr Brown also wanted to see Jake’s yard, and having read about Isa’s wedding in Hello!, said he’d sure like to shake hands with the new Mrs Lovell, who looked a beaut, so perhaps they could have dinner at Isa’s place.

Switching off his mobile, Isa looked round at Magpie Cottage. God, it was a tip! The ravishing little chest of drawers Taggie had given them for a wedding present was already covered in drink rings, like a pond in a rainstorm.

Knowing there was no way he could bring Mr Brown back here in its present state, Isa swallowed his pride and a large whisky and rang Helen. Could he borrow Mrs Brimscombe, Betty and Sally tomorrow morning to blitz the place? Then all Tab had to do was collect some precooked food from Waitrose and make herself look beautiful.

As luck would have it, in lieu of payment, one of Isa’s owners had given him a brand-new Jaguar XK8, which was being delivered to the cottage that afternoon. If money ran out he could flog it. For the meantime it would impress Mr Brown.

The three-month ban on sex was now up, but the cold war seemed to have set in too hard for Isa to placate Tab by making a move on her that night. Tab had stopped being sick, but instead when she opened her mouth a stream of resentment came out.

On the morning of Mr Brown’s visit, however, she was full of good intentions: no booze, and wifely behaviour. By midday a tight-lipped Mrs Brimscombe and a giggling Betty and Sally had made the cottage look wonderful and set the table.

‘Why don’t you buy some daffies for that lovely blue vase?’ suggested Betty.

Tab had been just off to Waitrose when she went to Isa’s chest of drawers to borrow a pair of socks. Rooting round under the lining paper she found a lovely laughing picture of Martie, his Australian girlfriend. He’s still in love with her, she thought in terror, he’s going to leave me.

When the telephone woke her, it was dark. Isa wanted to know if everything was on course. Mr Brown had been impressed with Jake’s yard. They’d be back around six thirty.

‘What have you bought for supper?’

‘It’s a surprise,’ bleated Tab.

‘Shall I get red or white?’

‘Both, I should think. See you later.’

Whimpering with panic, Tab looked around her. How could she have made such a mess? An empty vodka bottle and fragments of the royal blue and gold vase Rannaldini had given her for Christmas littered the floor. She’d better go and buy the food for dinner; then she could tidy the place and herself while it was heating up.