I telephoned. He was affable and far more spontaneous than usual. ‘Do come,’ he said, and we made a date for the following Sunday.
I told Gordon I was going. We were working on an interbank loan of nine and a half million for five days to a competitor, a matter of little more than a few telephone calls and a promise. My hair had almost ceased to rise at the size and speed of such deals, and with only verbal agreement from Val and Henry I had recently on my own lent seven million for forty-eight hours. The trick was never to lend for a longer time than we ourselves were able to borrow the necessary funds: if we did, we ran the risk of having to pay a higher rate of interest than we were receiving on the loan, a process which physically hurt Val Fisher. There had been a time in the past when owing to a client repaying late he had had to borrow several million for eighteen days at twenty-five per cent, and he’d never got over it.
Most of our dealings weren’t on such a heavy scale, and next on my agenda was a request for us to lend fifty-five thousand pounds to a man who had invented a waste-paper basket for use in cars and needed funds for development. I read the letter out to Gordon, who made a fast thumbs-down gesture.
‘Pity,’ I said. ‘It’s a sorely needed object.’
‘He’s asking too little.’ He put his left hand hard between his knees and clamped it there. ‘And there are far better inventions dying the death.’
I agreed with him and wrote a brief note of regret. Gordon looked up from his pages shortly after, and asked me what I’d be doing at Christmas.
‘Nothing much,’ I said.
‘Not going to your mother in Jersey?’
‘They’re cruising in the Caribbean.’
‘Judith and I wondered...’ he cleared his throat, ‘... if you’d care to stay with us. Come on Christmas Eve, stay three or four days? Just as you like, of course. I daresay you wouldn’t find us too exciting... but the offer’s there, anyway.’
Was it wise, I wondered, to spend three or four days with Judith when three or four hours at Ascot had tempted acutely? Was it wise, when the sight of her aroused so many natural urges, to sleep so long — and so near — under her roof?
Most unwise.
‘I’d like to,’ I said, ‘very much’; and I thought you’re a bloody stupid fool, Tim Ekaterin, and if you ache it’ll be your own ridiculous fault.
‘Good,’ Gordon said, looking as if he meant it. ‘Judith will be pleased. She was afraid you might have younger friends to go to.’
‘Nothing fixed.’
He nodded contentedly and went back to his work, and I thought about Judith wanting me to stay, because if she hadn’t wanted it I wouldn’t have been asked.
If I had any sense I wouldn’t go: but I knew I would.
Calder Jackson’s place at Newmarket, seen that next Sunday morning, was a gem of public relations, where everything had been done to please those visiting the sick. The yard itself, a three-sided quadrangle, had been cosmetically planted with central grass and a graceful tree, and brightly painted tubs, bare now of flowers, stood at frequent intervals outside the boxes. There were park-bench type seats here and there, and ornamental gates and railings in black iron scroll-work, and a welcoming archway labelled ‘Comfort Room This Way.’
Outside the main yard, and to one side, stood a small separate building painted glossy white. There was a large prominent red cross on the door, with, underneath it, the single word ‘Surgery’.
The yard and the surgery were what the visitor first saw: beyond and screened by trees stood Calder Jackson’s own house, more private from prying eyes than his business. I parked beside several other cars on a stretch of asphalt, and walked over to ring the bell. The front door was opened to me by a manservant in a white coat. Butler or nurse?
‘This way, sir,’ he said deferentially, when I announced my name. ‘Mr Jackson is expecting you.’
Butler.
Interesting to see the dramatic hair-cut in its home setting, which was olde-worlde cottage on a grand scale. I had an impression of a huge room, oak rafters, stone flagged floor, rugs, dark oak furniture, great brick fireplace with burning logs... and Calder advancing with a broad smile and outstretched arm.
‘Tim!’ he exclaimed, shaking hands vigorously. ‘This is a pleasure, indeed it is.’
‘Been looking forward to it,’ I said.
‘Come along to the fire. Come and warm yourself. How about a drink? And... oh... this is a friend of mine...’ he waved towards a second man already standing by the fireplace, ‘... Ian Pargetter.’
The friend and I nodded to each other and made the usual strangers-meeting signals, and the name tumbled over in my mind as something I’d heard somewhere before but couldn’t quite recall.
Calder Jackson clinked bottles and glasses and upon consultation gave me a Scotch of noble proportions.
‘And for you, Ian,’ he said. ‘A further tincture?’
Oh yes, I thought. The vet. Ian Pargetter, the vet who didn’t mind consorting with unlicensed practitioners.
Ian Pargetter hesitated but shrugged and held out his glass as one succumbing to pleasurable temptation.
‘A small one, then, Calder,’ he said. ‘I must be off.’
He was about forty, I judged; large and reliable-looking, with sandy greying hair, a heavy moustache and an air of being completely in charge of his life. Calder explained that it was I who had deflected the knife aimed at him at Ascot, and Ian Pargetter made predictable responses about luck, fast reactions and who could have wanted to kill Calder?
‘That was altogether a memorable day,’ Calder said, and I agreed with him.
‘We all won a packet on Sandcastle,’ Calder said. ‘Pity he’s going to stud so soon.’
I smiled. ‘Maybe we’ll win on his sons.’
There was no particular secret, as far as I knew, about where the finance for Sandcastle had come from, but it was up to Oliver Knowles to reveal it, not me. I thought Calder would have been interested, but bankers’ ethics as usual kept me quiet.
‘A superb horse,’ Calder said, with all the enthusiasm he’d shown in Dissdale’s box. ‘One of the greats.’
Ian Pargetter nodded agreement, then finished his drink at a gulp and said he’d be going. ‘Let me know how that pony fares, Calder.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Calder moved with his departing guest towards the door and slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Thanks for dropping in, Ian. Appreciate it.’
There were sounds of Pargetter leaving by the front door, and Calder returned rubbing his hands together and saying that although it was cold outside, I might care to look round before his other guests arrived for lunch. Accordingly we walked across to the open-sided quadrangle, where Calder moved from box to box giving me a brief resumé of the illness and prospects of each patient.
‘This pony only came yesterday... it’s a prize show pony supposedly, and look at it. Dull eyes, rough coat, altogether droopy. They say it’s had diarrhoea on and off for weeks. I’m their last resort, they say.’ He smiled philosophically. ‘Can’t think why they don’t send me sick horses as a first resort. But there you are, they always try regular vets first. Can’t blame them, I suppose.’
We moved along the line. ‘This mare was coughing blood when she came three weeks ago. I was her owner’s last resort.’ He smiled again. ‘She’s doing fine now. The cough’s almost: gone. She’s eating well, putting on condition.’ The mare blinked at us lazily as we strolled away.