Wild Oats

by Veronica Henry

  Convinced that the Sedgeleys had cooked up some evil plot between them, Jack had gone searching for clues. By ten o’clock, he could hear the clerk of the course announcing the imminent start of the warm-up laps. Time was running out.

  Finally, someone admitted to seeing Claudia and Olivier head off towards her Winnebago the evening before. Jack set off determinedly across the field. Behind him, competitors were warming up their engines, reminding him that if he didn’t track Olivier down in the next ten minutes, they’d be out of the running.

  At last, he arrived at the Sedgeleys’ trailer. The door was unlocked. He wasn’t quite sure what he expected to find as he opened it tentatively, but it certainly wasn’t a naked Olivier handcuffed to the bed with a G-string wrapped round his willy.

  Olivier didn’t think he had ever been so humiliated.

  ‘In the fruit bowl. The keys are in the bloody fruit bowl.’

  Jack groped amongst the satsumas and found the key. He undid the handcuffs, finding it very hard not to laugh or make a facetious remark. As soon as he was freed, Olivier leaped off the bed and grabbed his clothes.

  ‘Do you want to tell me…?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘I thought the little monkey was up to something.’

  ‘Little monkey?’ Olivier was incandescent with fury. ‘I’m going to bloody kill her. I’m going to pull her pink fingernails out one by one, then her toenails –’

  Jack put a placatory hand on his arm.

  ‘Do me a favour. Don’t do that. At least, not until you’ve won the race.’

  ‘Isn’t it too late?’

  ‘Not if you get your skates on.’

  Olivier started pulling on his jeans. Moments later, he was fully dressed and flying out the door of the Winnebago, a bemused Jack in his wake. Beads of sweat were breaking out on his forehead as he reached the paddock. As he raced towards his car, he saw Claudia pulling on her racing slippers, lithe in her brand new shiny red quilted overalls. He tapped her sharply on the shoulder. She looked up, startled for a moment, but in a flash she had recovered her equilibrium.

  ‘Oh – hello,’ she said nonchalantly. ‘Did you sleep well? I was just about to come and let you out.’

  ‘Sure you were.’

  Claudia widened her eyes.

  ‘Of course I was. It wouldn’t be a fair race otherwise, would it? I just wanted to teach you a lesson.’ She narrowed her eyes and pushed her face towards him. Olivier thought she looked like a spiteful little snake. ‘No one accuses me of buying my way in. If I get that trophy, it’s because I’m a better driver than you.’

  Olivier grabbed her wrist and looked at her watch. He had ten minutes to get his car past the scrutineer and lined up for the start of the practice race.

  ‘We’ll see.’

  As he stalked over to his car, he saw Ray Sedgeley. He looked him boldly in the eye and received a conspiratorial smile in return. He was obviously still under the impression that their deal was on, totally oblivious to his daughter’s own attempts to sabotage the race.

  Olivier jumped into the driving seat and started up his engine. The rumble fired up his adrenalin as he edged the car carefully through the crowds to the scrutineer.

  He was going to show those Sedgeleys how to win a race fair and square.

  Nolly Deacon had worked part-time at Havelock House for the past five years. She pushed the tea trolley round, dishing out the cheap, synthetic cakes that the owner bought in bulk. She always had time for the patients, and would often stay on for an extra half hour or so, painting fingernails or reading snippets of news from the paper, on the basis that she hoped someone would do the same for her one day. Not that she’d be able to afford a room at Havelock House. It was outrageous what they charged per week, considering what she was paid and the corners that she knew were cut. Little services that were added to the bill but whose benefits the patients rarely saw. Like charging them for newspapers, which they often only got on the days their relatives visited. Nolly knew there was no point in trying to draw anyone’s attention to any of this, but she tried to do her little bit to brighten their lives.

  She’d arrived for her shift that morning and had nearly been knocked flying by Jamie Wilding rushing out of the front entrance, tear-stained and wild-eyed. Nolly knew at once who Jamie had been visiting, and had gone to investigate. She found Rosemary lying in an exhausted heap on the floor at Hamilton’s feet, while he slept the sleep of the blissfully unaware.

  Gently, she helped Rosemary up. The poor woman was still shuddering with dry sobs. Nolly wrapped her up in a comforting hug.

  ‘There, there. I know.’

  ‘No, you don’t. You’ve got no idea. Nobody has,’ wailed Rosemary.

  ‘Yes, I have,’ Nolly contradicted her. ‘I know very well indeed.’

  It was well over forty years since Nolly had first come face to face with John Deacon. She knew who he was, of course. The Deacon brothers were notorious. And in her opinion John was by far the most handsome. With dark, chiselled features and a powerful physique courtesy of his job as slaughterman at the local abattoir, he was quieter than the rest. His younger brothers had a tendency to show off and mouth off, but John had a brooding quality. Those who knew him best weren’t fooled; John was a force to be reckoned with, as anyone who’d ever crossed his family could tell you.

  When he came into Rashwood Brothers, Nolly was intrigued. What would a Deacon be doing in a gentleman’s outfitters? She treated him with the same courtesy she would any other customer, and was touched by his self-conscious embarrassment as he asked to hire a dinner suit. Swiftly, she put him at his ease, measuring him up with the minimum of fuss, and kitted him out from top to bottom. When he stood before her in the changing room, she had to admit that he looked the part, his broad shoulders filling his jacket, the white of his shirt dazzling against his skin, dark from the recent haymaking on their farm. Impishly, she gave him her seal of approval, and was rewarded with a glimmer of a smile as he counted out his wages to pay for the hire.

  By the end of the day, when three other customers had been in for various accessories, she surmised that he had been invited to the social event of the summer. Louisa Partridge, daughter of a local landowner, spoilt, beautiful and wild at heart, was to be eighteen that weekend, and was having a huge party in a marquee in the grounds of Bucklebury Farm. Nolly found it strange that John Deacon should be asked – the guests were largely made up of pillars of local society, and pillars of society the Deacons were not.

  Curious, Nolly asked around her friends that evening and got her answer – the word was that Louisa and John were in the throes of a passionate affair, supposedly secret up until now but to be made public that very evening. Nolly couldn’t help nursing a fear that it was all going to end in tears – the apparently black-hearted villain she’d dressed up to the nines had shown a vulnerability that touched her. She suspected that Louisa was toying with him – she’d seen the girl in town on several occasions and felt instant dislike, not through jealousy of the difference in their fortunes, but through feminine instinct that this was a creature who got what she wanted through means that were not always fair.

  When John came back to Rashwood Brothers the following week to return his suit, the evening’s events had already become local legend. No one quite knew how or why, but during the speeches the Deacon brothers had released their prize-winning Gloucester Old Spot sow into the marquee, with ensuing chaos. Lucky Pig had a very sweet tooth, and nothing was going to stand between her and Louisa’s beautiful pink-iced birthday cake.

  John had been the soul of discretion as he handed back his suit, his dark features completely inscrutable, but Nolly had sensed deep hurt under his bravado. It was the end of a long, hot day, and impulsively she asked him out for a drink down by the river. He surveyed her gravely for a few long moments before nodding his agreement.

  That drink turned into a courtship that delighted both of them with its simplicity. Nolly and John were a perfect
match: the handsome, taciturn slaughterman and the bubbly, vivacious shopgirl. Before six months were out they were engaged to be married. It was only a week before their wedding that Nolly finally managed to extricate the truth about Louisa’s birthday party from her fiancé.

  Louisa had begged and pleaded with him to come, and against his better judgement he had finally agreed, though the prospect filled him with dread. Despite Louisa’s protestations, he knew he would stick out like a sore thumb, that people would be laughing at him behind his back. But he’d swallowed his pride to please her, because he’d thought he loved her. He’d turned up early, dressed in his hired finery, to meet her by prior agreement in the hayloft that had been their secret love nest for the past few months. Only to find Louisa, her bespoke pink silk ballgown pushed up round her waist, with Hamilton Drace between her legs. Hamilton Drace, whose engagement to Rosemary Cole had been announced in the local paper only the week before…

  Now, Nolly Deacon remembered her husband’s painful, faltering revelation as she stood gazing at the distraught Rosemary. She pressed her lips together. It was over forty years later, Louisa had been cold in her grave nearly a year, and she was still wreaking havoc and misery. The likes of John had had a lucky escape, though she knew the scars of humiliation were still buried deep inside him. Poor Rosemary had undergone a lifetime of suffering; her entire marriage had been undermined by the whims of the capricious Louisa.

  She took Rosemary kindly but firmly by the arm.

  ‘Come on. Come with me, love. I’ll make you a cup of tea.’

  She led Rosemary into the little room where matron saw relatives of the inmates, whenever she wanted a private chat about their antisocial habits or needed to add yet another costly service on to their bill. Nolly slipped her a couple of tablets, the ones they gave the patients when they became too obstreperous. They might not take away the pain, but they’d help her cope. Rosemary gulped them down gratefully, washing them down with a cup of tea.

  ‘He did love me,’ she said to Nolly defiantly. ‘He always said he loved me in his own way. It was just that he loved her too. And it was the love he gave her that I wanted. The passion. The excitement. The… sex thing. He loved me like I love my dogs. Very much. But who wants to be treated like a faithful pet? Patted on the head, given an affectionate tummy rub every now and again.’

  Nolly put a comforting hand on her shoulder, feeling it was best not to say anything, just listen. Rosemary sniffed. She seemed a little calmer now.

  ‘His heart never leaped when I came into the room. I know it didn’t. But whenever she was around… you could see it in him. His eyes never left her.’ Her pale blue eyes filled with tears again. Nolly was afraid the colour would be washed away for ever. ‘And now look at him. Even after she died, she wouldn’t let me have him. She’s taken him with her.’

  She sobbed quietly into her handkerchief for a few moments. Then she seemed to gather herself together. Gone was the hysterical, wronged wife, and in her place was the composed gentlewoman, stalwart of the WI and the PCC. She gave an apologetic smile.

  ‘I’m so sorry. I… quite forgot myself for a moment.’

  ‘There’s no need to apologize. It’s what I’m here for,’ Nolly reassured her.

  ‘I’m sure it’s not. But thank you anyway. You’ve been most understanding.’

  Minutes later, Rosemary scurried away, still clutching Hamilton’s pyjamas. Nolly followed at a safe distance, making sure she had got into her car and driven away, before she marched determinedly back to Hamilton’s room and stood in front of him.

  ‘Look at me, Hamilton. I want a word. I know what this is all about and I think it’s about time you snapped out of it.’

  Caught unawares, Hamilton looked up at her in surprise, and she knew she’d put her finger on it. For Nolly was firmly convinced that Hamilton hadn’t had so much of a stroke as a breakdown, and that he could be brought back from the brink. His reaction told her he was salvageable. If he’d been beyond redemption, there would have been no response, just the usual catatonic stare. But he hadn’t been able to hide his shock at her confrontation, which spurred her on.

  ‘I know you’ve lost Louisa. I know life doesn’t seem worth living without her. But as one of my sons is so fond of saying – get over it.’ To punctuate what she was saying, Nolly plumped up two pillows and shoved them behind Hamilton’s back. ‘I don’t know if you’ve realized it yet, but I’m afraid life isn’t fair. Sometimes we get dealt cards that are out of our control. As another of my sons is fond of saying, shit happens.’

  She tried to suppress a smile at the look on Hamilton’s face. But it was a minor triumph. At least he was showing some emotion.

  ‘But the rest of the time, when the shit isn’t happening, we’re in control,’ she carried on. ‘So – you can sit here and moulder in this home till the day you do die – which could be years, because you’re a healthy bugger, despite all the efforts you go to to convince everyone otherwise. And by doing that, you’ll cause distress to all those who love you. Not to mention waste a huge amount of money on the bills. It costs nearly five hundred quid a week to keep you in here. And I’m sure Christopher could think of better ways of spending that money. All you’re doing by sitting in here sulking is lining the pockets of the smug, fat bastard who owns this place. Who incidentally pays me the princely sum of three pounds fifty an hour for wiping the dribble off your chin.’

  Again, Hamilton looked shocked. Nolly moved in for the final kill.

  ‘You should count your blessings. You’ve got a wife who loves you. A son who’s struggling to keep his head above water because of the mess you’ve left him in. And two wonderful grandchildren who deserve to have happy memories of you. It’s up to you.’ She looked at him slyly. ‘Of course, if you really want to end it all, and put everyone out of their misery, including yourself, I can arrange that too. I could, accidentally on purpose, leave a little bottle of something lying around. I’m sure you’d be more than capable of getting the lid off.’

  She fixed him with an arch look, eyebrows raised, to show that she meant it. That should call the old bugger’s bluff, she thought.

  ‘Right, now. Elevenses. Flapjack or cherry slice?’

  There was a moment’s silence, which to Nolly seemed to go on for ever. Then he spoke.

  ‘Flapjack, please,’ said Hamilton, very meekly, his voice hoarse from lack of use. And as Nolly went to fetch his tea, she gave a little skip of triumph. She wasn’t going to let Louisa Partridge get away with ruining yet another marriage from beyond the grave.

  30

  As usual before a race, Olivier couldn’t face food. And judging by Jack’s attitude towards him, he hadn’t yet found out about his altercation with Jamie. He must have hotfooted it to Sapersley before Jamie was even up. But Olivier felt sure it was only a matter of time before Jack was party to the truth about his betrayal, and in the meantime he was eager to put as much distance between them as possible. He felt awkward in Jack’s company, knowing what he had done, so he took himself off for a walk in the grounds to psych himself up before the start.

  As he walked through the cool of the oak trees, Olivier looked again at the photo of Eric he’d found in the barn – hair swept back, laurels round his neck, laughing in victory as he held up the Corrigan Trophy he’d won all those years ago. He looked carefree, not the cynical old miser he had become. Olivier was determined to prove that he could do as well as his father, if only for himself.

  He’d excelled himself during the practice laps. His car was running well, and he remembered the foibles of the circuit quite clearly from his outing earlier that year, so he’d found himself coming in first, earning him the honour of pole position. The practice had demonstrated there was no real competition out of the fifteen entries. There was a magnificent Bentley whose power easily matched that of the Bugattis, but the driver was inexperienced and somewhat lacking in bottle. By contrast, a feisty little Morgan three-wheeler was being driven by a young go-
karting champion with an intrepid determination and no fear, but the car didn’t really have the power. The only real threat was Claudia. She’d come fourth in the practice, but Olivier suspected that perhaps this was tactical, that she’d worked out how easy it would be to catch him up once the race proper had started.

  At last it was time for the race. Feeling like a total heel, Olivier let Jack think that his detachment was down to pre-race nerves, as his mentor talked him through his tactics and gripped his shoulder in a final gesture of support. As Olivier slid his car into place at the front of the grid, he had to resist looking back at Claudia in triumph. He might have the advantage at the moment, but he hadn’t actually won yet. She was three places behind him, the Bentley and the Morgan in between them. Anything could happen. Otherwise there would be no point in racing.

  As the rest of the cars lined up, big, fat drops of summer rain started to fall. Olivier looked up at the sky anxiously – there was plenty of blue amongst the clouds, so it was probably only a shower. They would have to wait a few minutes for it to pass before they started. He tutted to himself in irritation. The track would be wet and greasy, which put a whole new slant on the way he would be able to drive. Risks he had taken in the practice would have to be reconsidered. Swiftly, he reassessed his strategy, knowing that this was when the benefit of experience came into play, experience he didn’t have. But then, this was a novice race. That was the whole point.

  Behind him, Claudia cursed the impromptu rainfall. She thought she was going to explode with frustration. She just wanted the race underway, to be able to focus on what she was sure would be her victory. It was even more important to her now to win. Olivier had given a look of pure disdain earlier that had cut her to the quick. She wasn’t going to go crawling to him. She’d rather die. The only way she could think to regain his respect was by winning fair and square, then embarking on some sort of damage limitation exercise.