Oliver Quigley at that point inserted a chair where there was hardly enough space for it between Evelyn and myself and behaved in general as if the military police were hot on his trail for unspeakable offences. Did the man never relax?
‘I wanted to say to you,’ he more or less stuttered into my lunch, ‘that I had a sort of pamphlet in the post yesterday from a new sort of organisation that offers... er, well, I mean, it’s worth a try, you know...’
‘Offers what?’ I asked without pressing interest as he rambled to a halt.
‘Well... er... a personalised reading of the weather.’
‘A private firm?’ I asked. ‘Is that it?’
‘Well... yes. You give the... er, by e-mail of course... the time and place where you want to know what weather to expect and you get the answer back at once.’
‘Fascinating,’ I said dryly.
‘Haven’t you heard of it? Bit of competition for you, isn’t it?’
If he’d had more courage, what he’d said would have neared sarcasm. As it was, I finished the excellent grouse and fried breadcrumbs and smiled without annoyance.
‘You go ahead and sign on with them, Mr Quigley,’ I said. ‘Fine.’
‘I didn’t expect you to say that!’ he exclaimed. ‘I mean... don’t you mind?’
‘Not in the least.’
Robin Darcy leaned forward and asked me from across his wife and the shaky trainer, ‘How much do you charge Mr Quigley for saying to run Caspar’s filly on Friday?’
Oliver Quigley might be nervous, but not stupid. He listened, and understood. He opened and closed his mouth and would, I knew, continue to tap me for accurate gen that he didn’t have to pay for.
Robin Darcy, with seemingly genuine interest then asked me politely when I’d first become interested in the weather, and I told him, as I’d explained a hundred times before, that I’d watched the clouds since I was six, and had never wanted a different life.
His amiability, I thought, was built on his certainty of his own mental superiority. I had long ago learned to leave that sort of belief unchallenged, and had received a couple of advancements in consequence. Only to myself could I admit my reprehensible cynicism. And to myself, often enough, I could also, with humility, admit that I’d more than met my match. I smiled weakly at Robin Darcy and couldn’t decide where his cleverness ended — or began.
Evelyn asked, ‘Where did you go to learn meteorology? Is there a special school for it?’
I said, ‘It’s called standing out in the rain.’
Kris, on the move back to the buffet, overheard both question and answer and replied to her over his shoulder, ‘Don’t listen to him. He’s a physicist. Dr Perry Stuart, no less.’
Robin yawned and closed his myopic eyes, but somewhere in that sharp brain there had been a quickening. I had seen it and could feel it, and didn’t know why he wanted to hide it.
Oliver Quigley hastened to assure me with many a quiver that he hadn’t meant to insult me by considering an outside firm better, when we both knew he had come darned near to it. The difference was that although he appeared vastly disturbed by it, I didn’t care at all. If Oliver Quigley would only take his shivery nerves and dump them on someone else’s doorstep, I would be delighted.
Caspar Harvey played the genial host faultlessly to give his guests good memories, collecting me from table, taking me in tow and introducing me to everyone in turn, persuading them to let me take their photo. Those who disliked the idea were overridden: Caspar offered refilled glasses, and got his way.
I snapped Quigley and Loricroft together, the pair of racehorse trainers topping up on crisp roast potatoes and pausing briefly in passing to discuss their trade. I heard snatches of Quigley — ‘he never pays on time’ — and then Loricroft — ‘my runner at Baden-Baden got bumped at the start.’
Loricroft’s bosomy wife confided proudly to others at the table, ‘George goes to Germany often and wins races there, don’t you, George?’ But Loricroft, coldly undermining her enthusiasm, cut the ‘often’ to ‘only once’ during the past season. ‘I win far more races in France, but I can’t expect my dear wife to get things right.’
He looked around to gather sympathetic responses and smiled with superiority down his nose. I thought Glenda a pain but her dear George an agony.
The splendid lunch narrowed down to coffee and worthwhile port and eventually, with regret, the guests began to leave. Kris and I needed transport back to the Cherokee, though, and Bell was nowhere to be seen.
Caspar Harvey himself put an end to my hovering on one foot by halting in front of me and saying decisively, ‘While you’re here in Newmarket you may as well take a peek at my filly. Take her photo, too. Then you’ll know what’s at stake when you’re looking at Friday.’
He put a tugging hand on my arm and made it downright rude for me to pull away: but I had no reason not to see the filly, if that was what he wanted, and felt it a small enough courtesy after such a lunch, if Kris were not pressed for time for flying home before dark.
It wasn’t time that upset Kris, but the realisation that he was expected to travel in the Land Rover again with Bell. There seemed no logical reason for four of us to travel in two cars to see the filly, but that was clearly what Caspar Harvey wanted; and when he’d cordially waved a temporary adieu to Oliver Quigley, his last departing guest, that was what Caspar Harvey got.
He drove out through the front gates, following Quigley’s pale blue Volvo, and leaving behind Kris for his daughter to bring in the Land Rover.
With a journey of only six or so miles to go, Caspar Harvey lost no time in saying what he’d manoeuvred me into hearing.
‘How unstable is your friend Kris?’
I said vaguely, ‘Um...’
Harvey announced, ‘I don’t want him as a son-in-law.’
‘At the moment,’ I said, ‘it doesn’t look probable.’
‘Rubbish! The girl’s besotted. A year ago they fought like cats, and I’ll tell you, I was glad of it. Not that he’s not a brilliant forecaster; he is. So I went on acting on his weather advice and he’s saved me thousands, literally thousands.’
He paused, finding the question difficult, I guessed, but asking it just the same.
‘Can you tell him to leave my daughter alone?’
The short answer was of course no, I couldn’t. It didn’t seem to me, though, to be the right question.
When I didn’t answer at once Harvey said, ‘A year ago she was spitting mad. She went off and got a job in Spain. Then six weeks ago she came back wanting me to arrange today’s lunch and not to tell Kris she’d be here, and I did it for her, God knows why, thinking she’d thoroughly got over him, and I was wrong. She hasn’t.’
He paused gloomily, his big car purring, eating up the miles. ‘He asked if he could bring a friend to navigate today and when I saw you... and you’re obviously sensible — not like him — I thought of getting you to tell him not to upset Bell all over again... but I suppose you’ll think it was a bad idea...’
I said a shade helplessly, ‘They’ll work it out for themselves...’
It wasn’t what he wanted to hear, and we finished the six miles in mutually unsatisfied silence.
Oliver Quigley’s stable-yard, it transpired, was on the far side of the town where shops and hotels gave way to the essential business of the place, to boxes for polished horses, and to the Heath galloping grounds where they could practise winning and turn their gloss into procreation.
Quigley the trainer drove his pale blue Volvo into his own domain, and even there he looked ill at ease. The big quadrangle stable-yard was alive with lads fetching hay and water to each horse, and putting the straw floor-covering clean and comfortable for the night. The lad in authority — clearly the foreman, the head lad — was doling out scoops of food for each horse. Some of the stable boxes had open doors, some had interior lights on, some were altogether closed and dark. There was an air of wanting to finish the Sunday afternoon programme and get off as soon as possible for more enjoyable pursuits.