EIGHTEEN
He took my breath away. Oh my Christ, I thought. Bloody bingo.
Talk about the sun coming out. So simple, so easy. Why hadn’t I thought of it myself.
‘Your shares in the Towncrier…’
‘Yes,’ Hugh said. ‘They were left to me by my grandfather. I mean, I didn’t know I had them, until I was twenty-one.’
‘In August.’
‘Yes. That’s right. Anyway, it seemed to solve everything. I mean it did solve everything, didn’t it? Maynard Allardeck looked up the proper market value and everything, and gave me two or three forms to sign, which I did, and then he said that was fine, we were all square, I had no more debts. I mean, it was so easy. And it wasn’t all of my shares. Not even half.’
‘How much were the shares worth, that you gave Allardeck?’
He said as if such figures were commonplace, ‘Two hundred and fifty-four thousand pounds.’
After a pause I said, ‘Didn’t it upset you… so much money?’
‘Of course not. It was only on paper. And Maynard Allardeck laughed and said if I ever felt like gambling again, well, I had the collateral, and we could always come to the same arrangement again, if it was necessary. I begged him not to tell my father, and he said no, he wouldn’t.’
‘But your father found out?’
‘Yes, it was something to do with voting shares, or preference snares or debentures. I’m really not sure, I didn’t know what they were talking about, but they were busy fending off a takeover. They’re always fending off takeovers, but this one had them all dead worried, and somewhere in the Towncrier they discovered that half of my shares had gone, and Dad made me tell him what I’d done… and he was so angry… I’d never seen him angry… never like that…’
His voice faded away, his eyes stark with remembrance.
‘He sent me here to Saul Bradley and he said if I ever bet on anything ever again I could never go home… I want him… I do… to forgive me. I want to go home.’
He stopped. The intensity of his feelings stared into the lens. I let the camera run for a few silent seconds, and then turned it off.
‘I’ll show him the film,’ I said.
‘Do you think…?’
‘In time he’ll forgive you? Yes, I’d say so.’
‘I could go back to just the odd bet in cash on the Tote.’ His eyes were speculative, his air much too hopeful. The infection too deep in his system.
‘Hugh,’ I said, ‘would you mind if I gave you some advice?’
‘No. Fire away.’
‘Take some practical lessons about money. Go away without any, find out it’s not just numbers on a page, learn it’s the difference between eating and hunger. Bet your dinner, and if you lose, see if it’s worth it.’
He said earnestly, ‘Yes, I do see what you mean. But I might win.’ And I wondered doubtfully whether one could ever reform an irresponsible gambler, be he rich, poor, or the heir to the Towncrier.
I drove back to London, added the Hugh Vaughnley tape to the others in the hotel’s care, and went upstairs for another session of staring blindly at the walls. Then I telephoned Holly, and got Bobby instead.
‘How’s things,’ I said.
‘Not much different. Holly’s lying down, do you want to talk to her?’
‘You’ll do fine.’
‘I’ve had some more cheques from the owners. Almost everyone’s paid.’
‘That’s great.’
‘They’re a drop in the ocean.’ His voice sounded tired. ‘Will your valet cash them again?’
‘Sure to.’
‘Even then,’ he said, ‘we’re right at the end.’
‘I suppose,’ I said, ‘you haven’t heard any more from the Flag? No letter? No money?’
‘Not a thing.’
I sighed internally and said, ‘Bobby, I want to talk to your father.’
‘It won’t do any good. You know what he was like the other day. He’s stubborn and mean, and he hates us.’
‘He hates me,’ I said, ‘and Holly. Not you.’
‘One wouldn’t guess it,’ he said bitterly.
‘I’ve no rides on Tuesday,’ I said. ‘Persuade him to come to your house on Tuesday afternoon. I’m schooling at Wykeham’s place in the morning.’
‘It’s impossible. He wouldn’t come here.’
‘He might,’ I said, ‘if you tell him he was right all along, every Fielding is your enemy, and you want his help in getting rid of me, out of your life.’
‘Kit!’ he was outraged. ‘I can’t do that. It’s the last thing I want.’
‘And if you can bring yourself to it, tell him you’re getting tired of Holly, as well.’
‘No. How can I? I love her so much… I couldn’t make it sound true.’
‘Bobby, nothing less will bring him. Can you think of anything else? I’ve been thinking for hours. If you can get him there some other way, we’ll do it your way.’
After a pause he said, ‘He would come out of hate. Isn’t that awful? He’s my father…’
‘Yes. I’m sorry.’
‘What do you want to talk to him about?’
‘A proposition. Help for you in return for something he’d want. But don’t tell him that. Don’t tell him I’m coming. Just get him there, if you can.’
He said doubtfully, ‘He’ll never help us. Never.’
‘Well, we’ll see. At least give it a try.’
‘Yes, all right, but for heaven’s sake, Kit…’
‘What?’
‘It’s dreadful to say it, but where you’re concerned… I think he’s dangerous.’
‘I’ll be careful.’
‘It goes back so far… When I was little he taught me to hit things… with my fists, with a stick, anything, and he told me to think I was hitting Kit Fielding.’
I took a breath. ‘Like in the garden?’
‘God, Kit… I’ve been so sorry.’
‘I told you. I mean it. It’s all right.’
‘I’ve been thinking about you, and remembering so much. Things I’d forgotten, like him telling me the Fieldings would eat me if I was naughty… I must have been three or four. I was scared stiff.’
‘When you were four, I was two.’
‘It was your father and your grandfather who would eat me. Then when you were growing up he told me to hit Kit Fielding, he taught me how, he said one day it would be you and I, we would have to fight. I’d forgotten all that… but I remember it now.’
‘My grandfather,’ I sighed, ‘gave me a punchbag and taught me how to hit it. That’s Bobby Allardeck, he said. Bash him.’
‘Do you mean it?’
‘Ask Holly. She knows.’
‘Bloody, weren’t they.’
‘it’s finished now,’ I said.
We disconnected and I got through to Danielle and said how about lunch and tea and dinner.
‘Are you planning to eat all those?’ she said.
‘All or any.’
‘All, then.’
‘I’ll come straight round.’
She opened the Eaton Square front door as I braked to a halt and came across the pavement with a spring in her step, an evocation of summer in a flower-patterned jacket over cream trousers, the chintz band holding back the fluffy hair.
She climbed into the car beside me and kissed me as if from old habit.
‘Aunt Casilia sends her regards and hopes we’ll have a nice day.’
‘And back by midnight?’
‘I would think so, wouldn’t you?’
‘Does she notice?’
‘She sure does. I go past their rooms to get to mine – she and Uncle Roland sleep separately – and the floors creak. She called me in last night to ask if I’d enjoyed myself. She was sitting in bed, reading, looking a knock-out as usual. I told her what we’d done and showed her the chest of drawers… we had quite a long talk.’
I studied her face. She looked seriously back.
‘What did she say?’ I asked.
‘It matters to you, doesn’t it, what she thinks?’
‘Yes.’
‘I guess she’d be glad.’
‘Tell me, then.’
‘Not yet.’ She smiled swiftly, almost secretly. ‘What about this lunch?’
We went to a restaurant up a tower and ate looking out over half of London. ‘Consommé and strawberries… you’ll be good for my figure,’ she said.
‘Have some sugar and cream.’
‘Not if you don’t.’
‘You’re thin enough,’ I said.
‘Don’t you get tired of it?’
‘Of not eating much? I sure do.’
‘But you never let up?’
‘A pound overweight in the saddle,’ I said wryly, ‘can mean a length’s difference at the winning post.’
‘End of discussion.’
Over coffee I asked if there was anywhere she’d like to go, though I apologised that most of London seemed to shut on Sundays, especially in November.
‘I’d like to see where you live,’ she said. ‘I’d like to see Lambourn.’
‘Right,’ I said, and drove her there, seventy miles westwards down the M4 motorway, heading back towards Devon, keeping this time law-abidingly within the speed limit, curling off into the large village, small town, where the church stood at the main crossroads and a thousand thoroughbreds lived in boxes.
it’s quiet,’ she said.
‘It’s Sunday.’
‘Where’s your cottage?’
‘We’ll drive past there,’ I said. ‘But we’re not going in.’
She was puzzled, and, it seemed, disappointed, looking across at me lengthily. ‘Why not?’
I explained about the break in, and the police saying the place had been searched. ‘The intruders found nothing they wanted, and they stole nothing. But I’d bet they left something behind.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Creepy-crawlies.’
‘Bugs?’
‘Mm,’ I said. ‘That’s it over there.’
We went past slowly. There was no sign of life. No sign of heavy men lying in the bushes with sharp knives, which they wouldn’t be by then, not after three days. Too boring, too cold. Listening somewhere, though, those two, or others.
The cottage was brick-built, rather plain, and would perhaps have looked better in June, with the roses.
‘It’s all right inside,’ I said.
‘Yuh.’ She sounded downcast. ‘OK. That’s that.’
I drove around and up a hill and took her to the new house instead.
‘Whose is this?’ she said. ‘This is great.’
‘This is mine.’ I got out of the car, fishing for keys. ‘It’s empty. Come and look.’
The bright day was fading but there was enough direct sunlight to shine horizontally through the windows and light the big empty rooms, and although the air inside was cold, the central heating, when I switched it on, went into smooth operation with barely a hiccup. There were a few light sockets with bulbs in, but no shades. No curtains. No carpets. Woodblock floor everywhere, swept but not polished. Signs of builders all over the place.
‘They’re just starting to paint,’ I said, opening the double doors from the hall to the sitting room. ‘I’ll move in alongside, if they don’t hurry up.’
There were trestles in the sitting room set up for reaching the ceiling, and an army of tubs of paint, and dustsheets all over the flooring to avoid spatters.
‘It’s huge,’ she said. ‘Incredible.’
‘It’s got a great kitchen. An office. Lots of things.’ I explained about the bankrupt builder. ‘He designed it for himself.’
We went around and through everywhere and ended in the big room which led directly off the sitting room, the room where I would sleep. It seemed that the decorators had started with that: it was clean, bare and finished, the bathroom painted and tiled, the wood-blocks faintly gleaming with the first layer of polish, the western sun splashing in patches on the white walls.
Danielle stood by the window looking out at the muddy expanse which by summer would be a terrace, with geraniums in pots. The right person… in the right place… at the right time.
‘Will you lie in my bedroom?’ I said.
She turned, silhouetted against the sun, her hair like a halo, her face in shadow, hard to read. It seemed that she was listening still to what I’d said, as if to be sure that she had heard right and not misunderstood.
‘On the bare floor?’ Her voice was steady, uncommitted, friendly and light.
‘We could, er, fetch some dustsheets, perhaps.’
She considered it.
‘OK,’ she said.
We brought a few dustsheets from the sitting room and arranged them in a rough rectangle, with pillows.
‘I’ve seen better marriage beds,’ she said.
We took all our clothes off, not hurrying, dropping them in heaps. No real surprises. She was as I had thought, flat and rounded, her skin glowing now in the sun. She stretched out her fingers, touching lightly the stitches, the fading bruises, the known places.
She said, ‘When you looked at me at the races yesterday, over those cups, were you thinking of this?’
‘Something like this. Was it so obvious?’
‘Blinding.’
‘I was afraid so.’
We didn’t talk a great deal after that. We stood together for a while, and lay down, and on the hard cotton surface learned the ultimate things about each other, pleasing and pleased, with advances and retreats, with murmurs and intensities and breathless primeval energy.
The sunlight faded slowly, the sky lit still with afterglow, gleams reflecting in her eyes and on her teeth, darknesses deepening in hollows and in her hair.
At the end of a long calm afterwards she said prosaically, ‘I suppose the water’s not hot?’
‘Bound to be,’ I said lazily. ‘It’s combined with the heating. Everything’s working, lights, plumbing, the lot.’
We got up and went into the bathroom, switching on taps but not lights. It was darker in there and we moved like shadows, more substance than shape.
I turned on the shower, running it warm. Danielle stepped into it with me, and we made love again there in the spray, with tenderness, with passion and in friendship, her arms round my neck, her stomach flat on mine, united as I’d never been before in my life.
I turned off the tap, in the end.
‘There aren’t any towels,’ I said.
‘Always the dustsheets.’
We took our bed apart and dried ourselves, and got dressed, and kissed again with temperance, feeling clean. In almost full darkness we dumped the dust sheets in the sitting room, switched off the heating, and went out of the house, locking it behind us.
Danielle looked back before getting into the car. ‘I wonder what the house thinks,’ she said.
‘It thinks holy wow.’
‘As a matter of fact, so do I.’
We drove back to London along the old roads, not the motorway, winding through the empty Sunday evening streets of a string of towns, stopping at traffic lights, stretching the journey. I parked the car eventually in central London and we walked for a while, stopping to read menus, and eating eventually in a busy French bistro with red checked tablecloths and an androgynous guitarist; sitting in a corner, holding hands, reading the bill of fare chalked on a blackboard.
‘Aunt Casilia,’ Danielle said, sometime later over coffee, her eyes shining with amusement, ‘said last night, among other things, that while decorum was essential, abstinence was not.’
I laughed in surprise, and kissed her, and in a while and in decorum drove her back to Eaton Square.
I raced at Windsor the next day, parking the car at the railway station and taking a taxi from there right to the jockeys’ entrance gate near the weighing room on the racecourse.
The princess had no runners and wasn’t expected: I rode two horses each for Wykeham and the Lambourn trainer and got all of them round into the first or second place, which pleased the owners and put grins on the stable-lads. Bunty Ireland, beaming, told me I was on the winning streak of all time, and I calculated the odds that I’d come crashing down again by Thursday, and hoped that I wouldn’t, and that he was right.
My valet said, sure, he would return me to the station in his van – a not too abnormal service. He was reading aloud from the Flag with disfavour. ‘Reality is sweaty armpits, sordid sex, junkies dead in public lavatories, it says here.’ He threw the paper on to the bench. ‘Reality is the gas bill, remembering the wife’s birthday, a beer with your mates, that’s more like it. Get in the van, Kit, it’s right outside the weighing room. I’ve just about finished here.’
Reality, I thought, going out, was speed over fences, a game of manners, love in a shower: to each his own.
I travelled without incident back to the hotel and telephoned on time to Wykeham.
‘Where are you?’ he said. ‘People keep asking for you.’
‘Who?’ I said.
‘They don’t say. Four fellows, at least. All day. Where are you?’
‘Staying with friends.’
‘Oh.’ He didn’t ask further. He himself didn’t care. We talked about his winner and his second, and discussed the horses I would be schooling in the morning.
‘One of those fellows who rang wanted you for some lunch party or other in London,’ he said, as if suddenly remembering. ‘They invited me, too. The sponsors of Inch-cape’s race, last Saturday. The princess is going, and they wanted us as well. They said it was a great opportunity as they could see from tomorrow’s race programmes that we hadn’t any runners.’
‘Are you going?’
‘No, no. I said I couldn’t. But it might be better if you came here early, and do the schooling in good time.’
I agreed, and said goodnight.
‘Goodnight, Kit,’ he said.
I got through to my answering machine, and there among the messages were the sponsors of Icefall’s race, inviting me to lunch the next day. They would be delighted if I could join them and the princess in celebrating our victory in their race, please could I ring back at the given number.
1 rang the number and got an answering machine referring me on, reaching finally the head of the sponsors himself.
‘Great, great, you can come?’ he said. ‘Twelve-thirty at the Guineas restaurant in Curzon Street. See you there. That’s splendid.’
Sponsors got advertising from racing and in return pumped in generous cash. There was an unspoken understanding among racing people that sponsors were to be appreciated, and that jockeys should turn up if possible where invited. Part of the job. And I wanted to go, besides, to talk to the princess.
I answered my other messages, none of which were important, and then got through to Holly.
‘Bobby spoke to his father,’ she said. ‘The beast said he would come only if you were there. Bobby didn’t like it.’
‘Did Bobby say I would be there anyway?’
‘No, he waited to know what you wanted him to say. He has to ring back to his father.’
I didn’t like it any more than Bobby. ‘Why does Maynard want me?’ I said. ‘I didn’t think he would come at all if he knew I’d be there.’
‘He said he would help Bobby get rid of you once and for all, but that you had to be there.’
Bang, I thought, goes any advantage of surprise. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘Tell Bobby to tell him I’ll be coming. At about four o’clock, I should think. I’m going to a sponsors’ lunch in London.’
‘Kit… whatever you’re planning, don’t do it.’
‘Must.’
‘I’ve a feeling…’
‘Stifle it. How’s the baby?’
‘Never have one,’ she said. ‘It’s the pits.’
I collected all four recorded video tapes from the hotel’s vaults and took them with six others, unused, to Chiswick: and kissed Danielle with circumspection at her desk.
‘Hi,’ she said, smiling deeply in her eyes.
‘Hi, yourself.’
‘How did it go, today?’
‘Two wins, two seconds.’
‘And no crunches.’
‘No crunches.’
She seemed to relax. ‘I’m glad you’re OK.’
Joe appeared from the passage to the editing rooms saying he was biting his fingernails with inactivity and had I by any chance brought my tapes. I picked the four recorded tapes off Danielle’s desk and he pounced on them, bearing them away.
I followed him with the spare tapes into an editing room and sat beside him while he played the interviews through, one by one, his dark face showing shock.
‘Can you stick them together?’ I asked, when he’d finished.
‘I sure can,’ he said sombrely. ‘What you need is some voice-over linkage. You got anything else? Shots of scenery, anything like that?’
I shook my head. ‘I didn’t think of it.’
it’s no good putting a voice-over on a black screen,’ he explained. ‘You’ve got to have pictures, to hold interest. We’re bound to have something here in the library that we can use.’
Danielle appeared at the doorway, looking enquiring.
‘How’s it going?’ she said.
‘I guess you know what’s on these tapes,’ Joe said.
‘No. Kit hasn’t told me.’
‘Good,’ Joe said. ‘When I’ve finished, we’ll try it out on you. Get a reaction.’
‘OK,’ she said. ‘It’s a quiet night for news, thank goodness.’
She went away and Joe got me to speak into a microphone, explaining who the Perrysides were, giving George Tarker a location, introducing Hugh Vaughnley. I wanted them in that order, I said.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Now you go away and talk to Danielle and leave it to me, and if you don’t like the result, no problem, we can always change it.’
‘I brought these unused tapes,’ I said, giving them to him. ‘Once we’ve settled on the final version, could we make copies?’
He took one of the new tapes, peeled off the cellophane wrapping and put it into a machine. ‘A breeze,’ he said.
He spent two or three hours on it, coming out whistling a couple of times to see if the station chief was still happy (which he appeared to be), telling me Spielberg couldn’t do better, drinking coffee from a machine, going cheerfully back.
Danielle worked sporadically on a story about a police hunt for a rapist who lurked in bus shelters and had just been arrested, which she said would probably not make it on to network news back home, but kept everyone working, at least. No Devil-Boys, no oil fires that night.
Aunt Casilia, Danielle said, was looking forward to tomorrow’s lunch party and hoped I would be there.
‘Will you be going?’ I asked.
‘Nope. Aunt Casilia would have gotten me invited, but I’ve a college friend passing through London. We’re having lunch. Long time date, I can’t break it.’
‘Pity.’
‘You’re going? Shall I tell her?’
I nodded. ‘I’m schooling some of her horses in the morning, and I’ll be coming along after.’
Joe came out finally, stretching his backbone and flexing his fingers.
‘Come on, then,’ he said. ‘Come and see.’
We all went, the station chief as well, sitting in chairs collected from adjoining rooms. Joe started his machine, and there, immediately, was the uncut version of the television interview of Maynard and his tormentor, followed by the list of firms Maynard had acquired. At the end of that the tape returned to repeat the interviewer’s outline of Metavane’s story, and then came my voice, superimposed on views of horses exercising on Newmarket Heath, explaining who Major and Mrs Perryside were, and where they now lived.
The Perrysides apeared in entirety, poignant and brave; and at the end the tape returned to the television interviewer again repeating the takeover list. This time it stopped after the mention of Purfleet Electronics, and then, over a view of madflats in the Thames estuary, my voice introduced George Tarker. The whole of that interview was there also, and when he said in tears about his son wiring himself up, Danielle’s own eyes filled..
Joe left the shot of George Tarker’s ravaged face running as long as I’d taped it, and then there was my voice again, this time over a printing press in full production, explaining that the next person to appear would be the son of Lord Vaughnley, who owned the Daily and Sunday Towncrier newspapers.
All of Hugh’s tape was there, ending with his impassioned plea to come home. On the screen after that came a long shot taken from the cut televised version of How’s Trade, of Maynard smiling and looking noble. The sound track of that had been erased, so that one saw him in silence. Then the screen went silently into solid black for about ten seconds before reverting to snow and background crackle.
Even though I’d recorded three of the main segments myself, the total effect was overpowering. Run together they were a punch to the brain, emotional, damning the wicked.
The station chief said, ‘Christ’, and Danielle blew her nose.
‘It runs for one hour, thirteen minutes,’ Joe said to me, ‘if you’re interested.’
‘I can’t thank you enough.’
‘I hope the bastard burns,’ he said.
In the morning I went to Wykeham’s place south of London and on the Downs there spent two profitable hours teaching his absolute novices how to jump and refreshing the memories of others. We gave the one who had fallen at Ascot a pop to help him get his confidence back after being brought down, and talked about the runners for the rest of that week.
‘Thank you for coming,’ he said. ‘Good of you.’
‘A pleasure.’
‘Goodbye P… er… Kit.’
‘Goodbye Wykeham,’ I said.
I went back to London, showered, dressed in grey suit, white shirt, quiet tie, presenting a civilised face to the sponsors.
I put one of the six copies Joe had made of the Allardeck production into a large envelope, sticking it shut, and then zipped a second of them into the big inside pocket of my blue anorak. The other four I took downstairs and lodged in the hotel vault, and carrying both the envelope and the anorak went by taxi to Eric Olderjohn’s terrace house behind Sloane Square.
The taxi waited while I rang the bell beside the green door, and not much to my surprise there was no one at home. I wrote on the envelope: ‘Mr Olderjohn, Please give this to a Certain Person, for his eyes only. Regards, Kit Fielding’ and pushed it through the letter-box.
‘Right,’ I said to the taxi driver. ‘The Guineas restaurant, Curzon Street.’
The Guineas, where I’d been several times before, was principally a collection of private dining rooms of various sizes, chiefly used for private parties such as the one I was bound for. Opulent and discreet, it went in for dark green flocked wallpaper, gilded cherubs and waiters in gloves. Every time I had been there, there had been noisettes of lamb.
I left my anorak in the cloakroom downstairs and put the ticket in my pocket, walked up the broad stairs to the next floor, turned right, went down a passage and ended, as directed, at the sponsors’ party in the One Thousand Room.
The sponsors greeted me effusively. ‘Come in, come in. Have some champagne.’ They gave me a glass.
The princess was there, dressed in a cream silk suit with gold and citrines, dark hair piled high, smiling.
‘I’m so pleased you’ve come,’ she said, shaking my hand.
‘I wouldn’t have missed it.’
‘How are my horses? How is Icefall? How is my poor Allegheny? Did you know that Lord Vaughnley is here?’
‘Is he?’
I looked around. There were about thirty people present, more perhaps than I’d expected. From across the room Lady Vaughnley saw me, and waved.
‘The Towncrier joined forces with the Icefall people,’ the princess said. ‘It’s a double party, now.’
The Icefall sponsors came to bear her away. ‘Do come… may I present…’
Lord Vaughnley approached, looking blander than bland.
‘Now, everybody,’ said one of the sponsors loudly, ‘we’re all going into another room to see films of our two races, both won by our most honoured guest, Princess Casilia.’
There was a little light applause, and everyone began to move to the door. Lord Vaughnley stood at my elbow. The princess looked back. ‘You’re coming, Kit?’
‘In a minute,’ Lord Vaughnley said. ‘Just want to ask him something.’
The princess smiled and nodded and went on. Lord Vaughnley shepherded everyone out, and when the room was empty, closed the door and stood with his back to it.
‘I wanted to reach you,’ I said; but I don’t think he heard. He was looking towards a second door, set in a side wall.
The door opened, and two people came through it.
Nestor Pollgate.
Jay Erskine.
Pollgate looked satisfied and Jay Erskine was smirking.