We set off homewards fortified by tea, scones and whisky, with Oliver and Gordon at the end competing over who thanked whom most warmly. Ginnie gave me another but more composed hug and begged me to come again, and Judith kissed her and offered female succour if ever needed.
‘Nice child,’ she said as we drove away. ‘Growing up fast.’
‘Fifteen,’ I said.
‘Sixteen. She had a birthday last week.’
‘You got on well with her,’ I said.
‘Yes.’ She looked round at Pen and Gordon, who were again sitting in the back. ‘She told us about your little escapade here two months ago.’
‘She didn’t!’
‘She sure did,’ Pen said, smiling. ‘Why ever didn’t you say?’
‘I know why,’ Gordon said dryly. ‘He didn’t want it to be known in the office that the loan he’d recommended had very nearly fallen under a lorry.’
‘Is that right?’ Judith asked.
‘Very much so,’ I admitted wryly. ‘Some of the board were against the whole thing anyway, and I’d have never heard the end of the horse getting out.’
‘What a coward,’ Pen said, chuckling.
We pottered slowly back to Clapham through the stop-go end-of-Bank-Holiday traffic, and Judith and Pen voted it the best day they’d had since Ascot. Gordon dozed, I drove with relaxation and so we finally reached the tall gates by the common.
I went in with them for supper as already arranged, but all of them, not only Gordon, were tired from the long day, and I didn’t stay late. Judith came out to the car to see me off and to shut the gates after I’d gone.
We didn’t really talk. I held her in my arms, her head on my shoulder, my head on hers, close in the dark night, as far apart as planets.
We stood away and I took her hand, lingering, not wanting all contact lost.
‘A great day,’ she said, and I said ‘Mm’, and kissed her very briefly.
Got into the car and drove away.
October
Summer had come, summer had gone, sodden, cold and unloved. It had been overcast and windy during Royal Ascot week and Gordon and I, clamped to our telephones and pondering our options, had looked at the sullen sky and hardly minded that this year Dissdale hadn’t needed to sell half-shares in his box.
Only with the autumn, far too late, had days of sunshine returned, and it was on a bright golden Saturday that I took the race train to Newbury to see the mixed meeting of two jump races and four flat.
Ursula Young was there, standing near the weighing room when I walked in from the station and earnestly reading her race card.
‘Hello,’ she said when I greeted her. ‘Haven’t seen you for ages. How’s the money-lending?’
‘Profitable,’ I said.
She laughed. ‘Are you here for anything special?’
‘No. Just fresh air and a flutter.’
‘I’m supposed to meet a client.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Time for a quick sandwich, though. Are you on?’
I was on, and bought her and myself a thin pallid slice of tasteless white meat between two thick pallid tasteless slices of soggy-crusted bread, the whole wrapped up in cardboard and cellophane and costing a fortune.
Ursula ate it in disgust. ‘They used to serve proper luscious sandwiches, thick, juicy handmade affairs which came in a whole stack. I can’t stand all this repulsive hygiene.’ The rubbish from the sandwiches indeed littered most of the tables around us... ‘Every so-called advance is a retreat from excellence,’ she said, dogmatic as ever.
I totally agreed with her and we chewed in joyless accord.
‘How’s trade with you?’ I said.
She shrugged. ‘Fair. The cream of the yearlings are going for huge prices. They’ve all got high reserves on them because they’ve cost so much to produce — stallion fees and the cost of keeping the mare and foal to start with, let alone vet’s fees and all the incidentals. My sort of clients on the whole settle for a second, third or fourth rank, and many a good horse, mind you, has come from the bargain counter.’
I smiled at the automatic sales pitch. ‘Talking of vets,’ I said, is the Pargetter murder still unsolved?’
She nodded regretfully. ‘I was talking to his poor wife in Newmarket last week. We met in the street. She’s only half the girl she was, poor thing, no life in her. She said she asked the police recently if they were still even trying, and they assured her they were, but she doesn’t believe it. It’s been so long, nine months, and if they hadn’t any leads to start with, how can they possibly have any now? She’s very depressed, it’s dreadful.’
I made sympathetic murmurs, and Ursula went on, ‘The only good thing you could say is that he’d taken out decent life insurance and paid off the mortgage on their house, so at least she and the children aren’t penniless as well. She was telling me how he’d been very careful in those ways, and she burst into tears, poor girl.’
Ursula looked as if the encounter had distressed her also.
‘Have another whisky-mac,’ I suggested. ‘To cheer you up.’
She looked at her watch. ‘All right. You get it, but I’ll pay. My turn.’
Over the second drink, in a voice of philosophical irritation, she told me about the client she was presently due to meet, a small-time trainer of steeplechasers. ‘He’s such a fool to himself,’ she said. ‘He makes hasty decisions, acts on impulse, and then when things go wrong he feels victimized and cheated and gets angry. Yet he can be perfectly nice when he likes.’
I wasn’t especially interested in the touchy trainer, but when I went outside again with Ursula he spotted her from a short distance away and practically pounced on her arm.
‘There you are,’ he said, as if she’d had no right to be anywhere but at his side. ‘I’ve been looking all over.’
‘It’s only just time,’ she said mildly.
He brushed that aside, a short wiry intense man of about forty with a pork-pie hat above a weatherbeaten face.
‘I wanted you to see him before he’s saddled,’ he said. ‘Do come on, Ursula. Come and look at his conformation.’
She opened her mouth to say something to me but he almost forcefully dragged her off, holding her sleeve and talking rapidly into her ear. She gave me an apologetic look of long-suffering and departed in the direction of the pre-parade ring, where the horses for the first race were being led round by their lads before going off to the saddling boxes.
I didn’t follow but climbed onto the steps of the main parade ring, round which walked several of the runners already saddled. The last of the field to appear some time later was accompanied by the pork-pie hat, and also Ursula, and for something to do I looked the horse up in the race card.
Zoomalong, five-year-old gelding, trained by F. Barnet.
F. Barnet continued his dissertation into Ursula’s ear, aiming his words from approximately six inches away, which I would have found irritating but which she bore without flinching. According to the flickering numbers on the Tote board Zoomalong had a medium chance in the opinion of the public, so for interest I put a medium stake on him to finish in the first three.
I didn’t see Ursula or F. Barnet during the race, but Zoomalong zoomed along quite nicely to finish third, and I walked down from the stands towards the unsaddling enclosure to watch the patting-on-the-back post-race routine.
F. Barnet was there, still talking to Ursula and pointing out parts of his now sweating and stamping charge. Ursula nodded non-committally, her own eyes knowledgeably raking the gelding from stem to stern, a neat competent good looking fifty in a rust-coloured coat and brown velvet beret.
Eventually the horses were led away and the whole cycle of excitement began slowly to regenerate towards the second race.