‘You sound like my mother,’ Millie laughed. ‘After I lost Douglas she was always saying, You people nowadays – you don’t observe the mourning periods properly. Mark my words, you’re only storing up trouble for yourselves.’
‘Well, she was right in her way,’ Alice replied. ‘I know mourning is old hat, and the Victorians did take it too far, et cetera. But there was a sort of sense to it all. A period of mourning is sensible. It’s not just out of respect to the person you’ve lost – it’s out of respect for yourself and your own feelings. Nowadays everyone thinks you should be up and running within a couple of weeks of the funeral.’
‘You’re absolutely right, of course. As always.’
‘It all changed with the First World War when the losses were so huge and came so quickly, there was literally no time for mourning. So all the old customs were thrown to the wind, and then when the Second World War came, well – same old, same old, really. Only worse. War isn’t just about loss of life, though God knows that’s horrific enough,’ Alice continued. ‘You lose so much more as well, as our parents did; and yet our generation always seems so cheerful. Despite the war and rationing and all that austerity, and bringing up our children with next to no money, as well as looking after our husbands full time, with no time off for good behaviour.’
Millie was about to reply when the parrot interrupted her.
‘Hello, sailor!’
‘Shut up, you, or I’ll turn you into an oven glove,’ Millie grumbled. ‘Anyway – to get back to what we were talking about. What were we talking about?’
‘You were saying something about my not having to do something or other,’ Alice replied. ‘Though don’t ask me what it was.’
‘Oh, yes. I just wondered if you’d like to come racing tomorrow,’ Millie said, removing a cheese sauce from the stove and pouring it over the chopped chicken and ham, before sprinkling it with grated cheese.
‘Racing?’ Alice frowned. ‘Racing?’
‘It’s perfectly legal,’ Millie reassured her, straight-faced. ‘Truly, a lot of respectable people do it.’
‘I really know absolutely nothing about horses.’
‘That goes for most people who go racing, sweetie. Particularly the trainers. Actually, that’s why I’m going tomorrow. The Dear Departed had this rather useless horse with this very nice trainer. They were army bods together – and after the Dear Departed handed in his dinner plate I was going to sell said horse, but Anthony, the trainer, offered to keep the horse in the yard at prix d’ami which was jolly fair of him. Anyway, said horse is running tomorrow, at Sandown Park of all places. He usually runs at places like Catterick and Newton Abbot, so I just thought it might be a bit of fun. For us both.’
‘I really don’t know a thing about racing, Millie. I’ll say all the wrong things, and do all the wrong things, and generally make an ass of myself.’
Millie laughed. ‘You don’t have to pass an exam at the gate, duck. No one’s going to ask you testing questions – such as where would you find a fetlock, or what’s the difference between a standing and a running martingale, et cetera. It’s not like the Pony Club. There are no tests, and you don’t have to go to camp. Besides, I’ll tell you all you need to know – and introduce you to the excitement of the Tote Double and the Dual Forecast.’
‘Heavens above,’ Alice said solemnly. ‘And to think I was hoping that you might be about to start trying to lead Sam and me astray.’
‘Listen up, sugar plum – the Tote Double can lead a nun astray.’
Chapter Seven
A Day at the Races
The following day was bright and dry, with a freshly raised zephyr changing the going on the racecourse from good to soft to good. As always there was a large crowd for this particular meeting, a mixture of visitors from the country and the regular racegoers.
As soon as they arrived Alice found her spirits rising, charmed by the setting of the lovely Surrey course, so well laid out in parkland that it provided possibly the best viewing anywhere in the country. Here was something altogether new and different. Walking from the car park to the course, as the mix of colours and the constant flow of people became a heady kaleidoscope of ever-changing patterns, Alice realised she had quite lost her feeling of being more than a little grey around the gills – or perhaps, almost shockingly, she realised just how grey about the gills she had actually become. Here, she realised, she was stepping into a shower of experiences that promised, over just a few hours, to make her a part of something both exciting and risky.
‘Is this right?’ Alice asked as Millie headed them towards the members’ enclosure. ‘I’m not a member, for a start.’
‘If you have a runner you get free admission,’ Millie explained, picking up her complimentary tickets. ‘And I have a runner, remember?’
‘This is going to be fun,’ Alice decided.
‘If you can still recognise fun,’ Millie agreed, picking up on it. ‘You’ve spent so much of your life making sure everyone else was all right, I bet you’ve quite forgotten what you actually like.’
‘All too true, I’m afraid, Millie. I seem to have fallen right out of touch with myself.’
They had arrived at the rails and were watching the horses being led round.
‘Goodness, aren’t they a picture?’
‘They’ll look even more of a picture when you see your pick running up the hill clear of the rest of the field, with your quid about to become twenty.’ Millie laughed. ‘While on the other hand …’
‘If the one you picked is trailing in last …’ Alice said.
‘Now looks like a dog, and you can’t understand why you liked it. So, no taste in nothing as they say, sweetie, and racing’s no fun without a little flutter, so what’s your pick of the paddock?’
‘I wouldn’t know where to begin. Will you help me?’
‘Of course.’ Millie opened her racecard. ‘First race, drop a finger, look at a name you like. Anything’s as good as anything else when the sun shines.’
Alice hesitated before she even began to consult her own card. She hesitated because of the money she had been foolish enough to advance to Christian on the way down, and the cheque she had recently handed over to Georgina to help with the children. She hesitated as she thought of the gas bill, the rates, her weekly household expenses; and the more she thought the more she realised that the very last thing she could afford to do was to lose money on a horse, however small the sum.
And yet a second later she thought, What the heck? This is not a race for the faint-hearted, and this is a one way ticket to ride. Above all, just remember – it’s the soul afraid of dying who doesn’t want to dance. So do it. Better to do something than to stay grey at the gills. What was it Alexander used to say – yes, ‘Follow your bliss.’
‘Yes, of course,’ she suddenly said a little too loudly, making Millie turn and stare at her. ‘You bet I’m going to have a bet, or else – else I’ll never be able. Of course I must have a bet, or else I shall never be able to face myself in the mirror again. OK – so what do we do? Lead on, Mrs McDuff.’
‘God forbid a name such as that,’ Millie sighed. ‘I could not imagine being a Mrs McDuff, could you?’
‘I’m beginning to imagine all sorts of things, Millie, do you know that? Up to and including winning this famous Tote Double thing.’
‘You’ve got a little time yet, sweetie,’ Millie informed her, steering her friend towards the Tote. ‘First what you are going to do here is buy a ticket for however much you want to put on the horse – or horses – of your choosing. You can back them to win, or come into a place, or both. And the very best of British. I know what I’m going on.’
While Millie bought her tickets, Alice played eenie-meenieminie-mo with the runners in the first race, coming up finally with two horses.
‘You can back them separately, as I told you,’ Millie informed her. ‘Which I should do, seeing they’re both decent prices – in fact why not do a forecast?’
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‘A forecast?’
‘A dual forecast, for them to come first or second, in either order. One never knows, does one?’
Alice duly followed Millie’s recommendations even though she was still not sure what they meant, then went up into the stand to watch the race – or rather not to watch it.
‘I can’t bear it,’ she said from behind hands shielding her eyes. ‘I didn’t know they were going to jump things.’
‘Yours is ahead!’ Millie yelled at her over the increasing din. ‘Yours is only leading – and your other one too!’
‘They can’t both be ahead,’ Alice replied, still not daring to look.
‘Oh yes they can!’ Millie screeched. ‘In fact they’re first and second! Oh my God! You have only got the first and the second!’
‘What does that mean?’
‘You had a forecast, yes?’ Millie laughed, waving the tickets in Alice’s astonished face. ‘The winner was ten to one, and the second sixteen to one, so chances are you are going to be one rich bunny! Come on!’
Grabbing Alice’s hand Millie tugged her all the way down the grandstand steps and back to the Tote, this time to the Pay window, where once the winner was weighed in the announcer declared the Tote dividends.
‘What?’ Alice cried in astonishment. ‘That isn’t me, is it? I can’t have won that sort of money!’
But she had. The Tote paid out handsomely on the two long-priced horses, particularly when coupled in a forecast, which was how Alice found herself staggering away from the window with nearly two hundred and twenty-five pounds in her wallet.
‘But how come it’s this much?’ she asked Millie in amazement. ‘Really? You only put on – what? Two pounds or something for me, didn’t you?’
‘Two pounds fifty to be exact, duck. One pound to win on horse number seven, fifty pence each way horse number ten, and a one pound forecast the two.’
‘Yes, but two hundred and twenty-four pounds?’
‘The Tote’s not the same as the bookies,’ Millie explained in a patient voice, leading Alice off to a nearby members’ bar and ordering them both whisky and ginger ales. ‘All the money goes into a pool and you get paid out according to how many tickets were on what horse, et cetera. Obviously a lot of people didn’t have horses seven and ten in a forecast, because that alone paid out over a hundred and fifty pounds.’
‘I still don’t understand,’ Alice objected, trying to work out how she could possibly have come to win so much money for such a small outlay. ‘Are you absolutely sure they’ve got this right?’
‘Absolutely!’ Millie laughed. ‘In fact I’m so sure, you’re going to buy the next round – while we choose the object of your next betting coup!’
Alice won again, this time at fourteen to one.
‘I don’t think I should bet any more today, actually,’ she muttered after she had walked away from the Pay window clutching yet another handful of ten pound notes. ‘What do they say? Always stop when you’re ahead.’
‘Nonsense,’ Millie retorted. ‘What sort of stuff are you made of, Mrs Dixon? You have the winning touch today, so to stop now would make the gods angry.’
‘Seriously, Millie—’
‘You can’t lose, honey! If you keep betting only a couple of quid on each race as you’ve been doing, you’re still going to come out way on top – so live a little! You’re having fun, aren’t you?’
‘Well – yes. Yes, I suppose I am really,’ Alice admitted. ‘Yes, I am.’
‘So go for it, as they say, sweetie. And have some more! Now I promised Rory I’d meet him at the saddling-up boxes, and since I have no idea where they are – why don’t we ask that chap over there?’
Having been directed to an area adjacent to the paddock proper Millie soon found Rory Rawlins on his way to saddle up his runner. With little or no knowledge of what trainers looked like, other than a very occasional glimpse of one on television, Alice had formed the image of a red-faced middle-aged man dressed in tweeds and one of those heavy military-type overcoats. Instead she found herself being introduced to a young man who had more the look of a scholar or even an artist about him than of a racehorse trainer, a tall, slender, thoughtful and handsome young man, his dark hair worn at a length that showed under the baker’s boy tweed cap he sported – instead of the sorts of battered brown trilbies worn by most of the other trainers around them – and his faded tweed coat cut with a decidedly dashing look to it. All in all, Alice decided, if she was going to use one word to describe Rory Rawlins it would be Florentine, and only the fact that he carried a saddle cloth and a racing saddle over his arm, and had a large, old-fashioned pair of racing binoculars slung over one shoulder, suggested what his profession might actually be.
As Millie introduced Alice he nodded at her, and put the saddle and number cloth down on the ground by the corner of an empty box. Then he turned to look at the rugged up horses who were being led round the pre-parade ring by their lads and lasses.
‘He’s got a bit of a chance at the weights,’ he told Millie, his eyes running over the horse. ‘Probably best chance he’ll ever have. If he’s ever going to win, or go close, today might actually be the day.’
‘The sooner the better,’ Millie replied. ‘Otherwise we’ll have to change his name to Also Ran.’
‘As it happens,’ Rory continued, as the horse walked past them for a second time, ‘he did a decent piece of work a couple of days ago. Galloped all over Goldenhawk who’d run a horse called Makeshift to a short head at Ascot a week before, and Makeshift’s a decent sort of horse. So you never know. Funnier things have happened. And if you’re in the betting mood, girls, Harry Jenks’s horse is meant to go close in the next, but don’t go putting all the housekeeping on it. Might be worth a bit each way. I’ll see you in the paddock proper in about twenty minutes.’
Harry Jenks’s horse did not in fact win. Under a sterling ride by the amateur Mr Theodore ‘Tog’ Ogilvy, it just failed to catch the Queen Mother’s horse at the post, the two horses battling it out up the famous Sandown hill.
‘I followed the trainer,’ Millie sighed, tearing up her Tote ticket. ‘Idiot that I am. How about you?’
Alice managed to look embarrassed. ‘I don’t know.’
‘What do you mean, you don’t know, love? What did you back?’
‘I think I might have backed the winner.’
Alice showed Millie her ticket.
‘Another winner?’ Millie exclaimed, her eyes widening to their maximum as she looked at the ticket and heard the result and starting prices being announced.
‘And I put five pounds on it this time.’
‘You’ve not only got another winner, duck, but another long price one! Ten to one? What is it about you today? Come on, let’s go and see how much the Tote are paying out.’
The Tote paid out odds of nearly fifteen to one, so for her five pound bet Alice got a few pence short of seventy-five pounds. Millie shook her head and laughed so much when she saw Alice’s expression as she collected her winnings that several racegoers stopped momentarily to stare at the sight of two middle-aged women beside themselves with laughter.
‘The gods of punting are smiling on you, Alice Dixon – they really are,’ Millie avowed as they walked to the unsaddling enclosure so they could watch the horses coming in. They stood by the white rails in front of the weighing room, admiring the winner and the two runners up, the steam rising off them, their mouths flecked with white, their flared nostrils reddened and dilating while their lads expertly swung sweat sheets over their heaving frames, as the jockeys, having already unfastened their saddles, girths and weight cloths and swung them over one arm, tipped their caps to their connections and hurried off to weigh in.
‘Time to go and see our horse,’ Millie announced as the unsaddling enclosure emptied of people. ‘See if they managed to screw all four legs on in the right order, for once.’
Even to Alice’s unschooled eyes Millie’s horse was an unprepossessing anim
al, what would professionally be described as a lightly furnished chestnut with big floppy ears and an odd uneven gait.
‘That’s called stringhalt,’ Millie explained as they walked into the middle of the paddock, a space reserved only for owners, trainers and officials. ‘Funnily enough once he’s cantering it disappears so it doesn’t affect his racing prowess at all. Prowess? What am I talking about? Anyway, as a last resort Rory’s running him in blinkers for the first time. Not that apparently he particularly believes in the shades, as they call them. But you know – any port in a storm.’
‘I feel rather self-conscious standing in here,’ Alice muttered. ‘I mean, I don’t really have any business being here at all.’
‘Nobody’ll notice you, honey,’ Millie reassured her. ‘They’re all too busy pretending to look at the horses, but as everyone in racing knows, all they really talk about here in the ring is who did what, when and with whom.’
Rory arrived, looking nervously round at the opposition with an expression of near doom.
‘Cheer up, Rory,’ Millie said. ‘Silly old horse has got his donkey look on, which usually means he’s at the races, doesn’t it?’
‘At the races?’ Alice frowned. ‘So where else would he be?’
Rory smiled at her bewilderment.
‘Façon de parler, Mrs Dixon,’ he said. ‘Racing jargon. Means he’s feeling fit and ready to go.’
‘Think he’s got an each way chance, Rory?’ Millie wondered.
‘Don’t see why not,’ Rory replied, before departing to leg up an over-tall jockey who was standing by the horse, tapping his leg nervously with his whip. ‘As I said, he’ll never have a better chance. But don’t put the mortgage on him.’
Yet in spite of his professed caution, and most unusually for him, Rory himself had placed a large bet to win only, a wager he could really ill afford given not only his own financial position but also the family situation. He knew that should anything happen to his father he would need every penny he had in order just to keep afloat, yet he had placed the largest bet he had ever made on a horse that had always been considered by everyone concerned as a no-hoper. But Rory had somehow convinced himself, the way those who back horses so often do, that the information he had as to how the horse had worked and how well he was in at the weights was enough to all but guarantee the animal’s not only coming in first but easing up and still being, as they say, on the bridle. What he really couldn’t afford to do, other than actually place the bet, was contemplate losing.
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