'You're not supposed to, I agree.' Drew's tone was bitter. 'Although some people seem to manage it. Gillian, for one, seems to have kept milord here secret from Glen. And Maddy isn't doing too badly either, is she? Or am I the only one in the whole fucking village who doesn't know what's going on?'
And kicking Solomon into a lung-splitting canter, he disappeared towards Milton St John.
Fifteen minutes later, back in Peapods' yard, Charlie swung himself from Bonne Nuit's saddle and stormed through the melee of lads and horses, and into Solomon's box. He was rugged, but not sponged.
'Drew!' Charlie removed the rug and briskly rubbed the flecks of foam from Solomon's quivering body. 'Drew! Where are you?'
'He's giving instructions to the first lot,' Frank, the yard's head lad poked his head round the door. 'Do you want me to do Bonnie?'
'Please. Ta.' Charlie continued ministering to Solomon. Poor bloody horse. What the hell was Drew playing at? Charlie had – briefly – been around trainers who didn't care and only saw their animals as money-making machines. But Drew had never been like that. He loved them, for God's sake!
Once Solomon was warm and dried, calmed and babied, and eating his head off, Charlie bolted his door and stood in the yard. The first lot had vanished into the early morning, already winding their way up on to the gallops. Vincent, who had now added yardman to his various duties, was sweeping up the stray bedding which had wafted from the stables, watched with lazy curiosity by the indolent cats. The dogs were chasing imaginary rats in the food store. The smell of bacon wafted from Peapods' kitchen, and the blackbirds were trilling from the roof of the clock arch. It was all so normal.
'Did Drew go out with the first lot?' Charlie called across to Vincent.
'No. He's in the tack-room. Least, that's where he went – I guess he's still there.'
'Cheers.'
Charlie practically kicked open the tack-room door. Even at this hour it was fustily warm, with the rays of the sun gleaming from the leather. Charlie inhaled the smells; it was even better for relaxation than that lavender-oil rub that one of his ex's had experimented with when she was on an aromatherapy course. Mind you, it wasn't half as much fun....
'Drew!'
'Don't shout.' Drew emerged from the saddle room. 'What's up?'
'Solomon. I've seen to him.'
'Jesus!' Drew smacked the palm of his hand against his forehead. 'I'd forgotten –'
Charlie, who was all fired up to yell, took one look at the despair in Drew's eyes. 'He's fine. Warm, dry, fed and watered. Are you going to tell me what's going on? Is it this place? Are you going bust? I thought Kit and Rosa –'
'Maddy.'
Charlie blinked. He loved Maddy. Awful things like terminal illness flashed through his head. He coughed. 'What? Is she ill?'
'Of course she's not ill.' Drew clutched a light-weight racing saddle against his chest as if he wanted to choke the life out of it. 'She's never ill. She's going to leave me.'
Charlie laughed. Afterwards, he realised he was damned lucky that Drew hadn't punched him, but really – it was ludicrous. 'Of course she isn't going to leave you. What the hell gave you that idea?'
'I overheard this conversation ... She was talking to Suzy ...' Drew slumped on to the bench, not bothering to clear away the debris. Cups and packets of biscuits, crash hats and gloves all tumbled to the floor.
'Is that all?' Charlie said when Drew had finished. 'That's all you heard? And you haven't asked her?'
Drew shook his head. 'It's not just that. And no, I haven't. I don't want to hear the answer. She's changed. I know she doesn't want to marry me. She's not happy. And don't make some fucking fatuous remark about her being worried over money. I tried that one, but it didn't fit. Maddy has never given a toss about money. What would you do?'
'Ask her,' Charlie said. It seemed relatively easy. Mind you, he'd never felt about any woman the way Drew did about Maddy. Maybe that made things a bit more difficult, but even so ... And the conversation with Suzy could have been about anything. Women always had such heavily coded communication systems. No man was ever supposed to understand what they were talking about.
He picked up a bridle and ran it through his hands. Automatically, he reached for the saddle soap the way he would once have reached for his cigarettes. Poor Drew. Bottling it up for God knows how long, letting the fear fester. He tried to make a joke of it. 'So? What other evidence have you got? You only need to worry when she turns her back on you in bed.'
'She does.'
Holy shit. 'What? Since when?'
'Months. Weeks – oh, I don't sodding know!' Drew stood up as suddenly as he'd sat down. 'I can't even remember the last time I actually saw her naked!'
Charlie blinked again. Drew had never discussed the intimacy of his relationship with Maddy. He loved and respected her far too much.
'I'm going to get a cup of coffee.' Drew kicked at the door and stomped into the yard. 'And apologise to Solomon. I don't want you to breathe a word of this to anyone, okay?'
'You don't think if I had a word with Maddy ...?'
'No, I bloody don't!'
They'd exercised the third lot together; put Bonnie over half-a-dozen hurdles, and had breakfast in Peapods' kitchen with Vincent and Holly and most of the lads who just happened to drop in. Maddy, with Poppy Scarlet under one arm, had kissed Drew on the forehead in a sort of distracted manner and gone to work. She looked okay, Charlie thought. But she was – well – distant. Maybe he could have a word with Fran or Gillian or one of her other friends. Maybe she'd said something to them.
It was still playing on his mind when he drifted into the bookshop just before lunch-time. There were a handful of customers looking round the shelves, a couple sitting reading at the table while their children romped on the beanbags, and Jemima was serving someone at the counter.
'Lucinda's just popped into the Munchy Bar for sandwiches,' Jemima said across the head of her customer. 'Go through and put the kettle on.'
Charlie did. Jemima treated him as part of the furniture now, and much as he hated to admit it, he actually liked being in the shop. The books had a distinctive smell, and the brightly coloured jackets were fascinating. How on earth did publishers keep coming up with something different? And it was successful – well, so far, at least. The trade, Lucinda said, was steady and Jemima, getting towards the end of her first month, was confident about her figures. Despite his early misgivings, he could now see the appeal of a place like this in Milton St John where, by necessity, most leisure-time was active. Like Jemima, the bookshop was serene ... Serene – he mulled over the word as he spooned coffee into three mugs. Yeah, it was a good word for her: she seemed to glide, with those long skirts, and her eyes were always calm behind her glasses, and her voice was soft.
The customer had gone when he carried the tray back to the counter. Jemima, who was running a Stanley knife through the tape sealing a box of books, pushed her hair out of her eyes. 'Cheers. You're a star. Were you taking Lucinda out – or did you intend – um – staying in?' She was laughing. 'Oh, hell – you know what I mean.'
'We're staying in. Fully clothed.' Charlie grinned back. 'Here, you have your coffee and I'll do that.'
He had almost expected her to refuse the offer, to become all feisty and feminist and insist that she could manage. Instead she smiled, handed him the knife, and sat on the high stool behind the counter, lifting her skirt and curling her legs round beneath her as she watched him. Slicing the tape on the first box, Charlie nearly had his fingers off. Those legs! Wow! Why the hell did she keep them hidden?
Stephen Fry's voice flowed quietly from the audio system and, apart from the occasional turning page, the shop was silent. After the rigours of the morning, Charlie wallowed in the tranquillity. Course, he thought, lifting the first armful of books from their confines, it wouldn't always suit his mood to be this quiet. Some days a blast of Judas Priest would please him far better than the mellifluous Mr Fry – but right now it was pe
rfect.
'Where do these go?'
'Over there.' Jemima leaned from her stool and pointed. No jewellery, he noticed. But scarlet nail varnish. 'Adult Fiction. Just dump them anywhere. I'll sort them later.'
'I can put them away. I do know my alphabet.'
'Really? Okay. Go on then.'
He started pushing Venice de Bono and Star Windsilver and Emmanuelle Synclaire – God! the names these authors dreamed up! – on to the shelves. The books were all the same: shocking pink covers criss-crossed with black – like fishnet – and their titles ...
'They're porn!'
'No, they're not.' Jemima giggled. 'They're erotica. Female writers writing for the enjoyment of female readers. Don't be so sexist.'
Charlie was shocked rigid. He couldn't wait to read one. 'Do they sell well?'
Jemima uncurled her fabulous legs from the stool and padded across the shop. 'This is my first consignment. We sold Fishnets in my previous shop in Oxford and they went very well – but we'll have to wait and see.'
Bathsheba Cox and the Ladies' League of Light – or whatever they called themselves – would have a multiple heart attack. Charlie finished unpacking the first box. He picked up the top book from the next. Spanky Panky by Bella-Donna Stockings. Fucking hell! 'Can I read this?'
'If you pay for it and then only when you've finished the shelf-stacking.'
Charlie did both. Jemima was just sliding the Fishnet into its green-and-gold bag when Lucinda returned with lunch.
She stared at the bag. 'Is that a present for me?'
'Charlie's suddenly developed a taste for literature,' Jemima said, her eyes innocent behind the spectacles. 'No doubt he'll share it with you later.'
She took a round of tuna salad and returned to the stool. Charlie, drooling with starvation, dragged his eyes from the Munchy Bar's squishy delight and watched as, unself-consciously, she lifted her skirt and curled her legs again. Matt Garside was a lucky bastard.
Lucinda sipped her coffee and ran cool fingers down his cheek. 'I'm off at two. Are you free this afternoon?'
'Sorry, I've got a pressing solo engagement with my Wallbank-Fox.'
Jemima chuckled in the background. Charlie looked at her in surprise.
Lucinda was frowning from one to the other. 'Come on, then. Give. Who's Hellbent-Fox? Another one of your model friends, I suppose.'
'It's a bed.' Jemima bit into her sandwich. He couldn't watch. 'A very swish bed. It's a very close-run thing between that and a Staples as far as I'm concerned.' She licked mayo from the corner of her mouth and smiled demurely at Charlie. 'I did have a life before I came here, you know.'
Charlie suddenly didn't doubt it. He winked at Lucinda. 'That's it. I'm getting some kip. I've been up on the gallops since before it was light. Even superstuds need their sleep.'
'Which excludes you then.' Lucinda was still miffed.
Sliding his arm around her shoulders he kissed her. He didn't want to upset her. 'You could always come and tuck me in –'
The arrival at the counter of two of the browsers, ladies from the new estate, each carrying a book, interrupted the flow. Jemima, putting down her sandwich, slid from the stool and did the business, closing the till with a satisfying clunk.
'Mind, I'd've probably had two or three more if the prices weren't so high,' the elder of the two said a bit sniffily. 'They're half the price in Tesco.'
Jemima nodded. 'True. But I can't compete with their bulk-buying. And you don't get a sit down and a cup of coffee for free in Tesco, do you? And then there's the travelling ...'
Slightly mollified, the ladies shuffled out. Smart move on Jemima's part, Charlie reckoned. But they had a point. Most of the stable staff were poorly paid, and their families didn't have much left over for luxuries.
'Maybe you should run a library as well. Sort of... I don't know ... If they buy one book they can borrow another two for – say – fifty pence each for a couple of weeks. Have a special section or something.' He stopped, aware of their stares. 'Oh no, tell me to shut up. I'd hate anyone to tell me how to ride horses.'
'Someone needs to.' Lucinda grinned.
But Jemima wasn't laughing. 'Do you think it would work? Wouldn't I be clashing with the mobile library van?'
'Oh, that disappeared with the council cuts in April.' Lucinda had entwined her arms round Charlie's neck. He kissed the soft underflesh by her elbow. She shivered. 'Ma said it was a good thing. She reckoned the Mills and Boons were becoming salacious.'
Jemima slapped her hands on the counter. 'You know, I think I'll give it a try. Lucinda – your man's a genius!'
'I do know.' Lucinda shivered again as Charlie nibbled her arm.
'I was thinking more on a cerebral level, actually.'
Bloody hell! Charlie made a mental note to check up on cerebral in Holly's dictionary when he got back to Peapods. He flicked at Lucinda's plait. 'I'm always glad to be of service. Look, sweetheart, how about us all going out one night? Into Upton Poges or somewhere? Me and you, and Jemima and Matt?'
'Super.' Lucinda snuggled closer. 'What do you reckon, Jemima? How about Saturday night?'
Jemima, who seemed to be miles away, looked at Charlie for a second then shook her head at Lucinda. 'Nice idea, but I don't think so. I don't want to become embroiled in the racing scene, you know that. And after all, he's a jockey.'
'So's Matt,' Charlie protested.
Jemima shrugged. 'Not as far as I'm concerned.'
It had been a long day. Charlie just wanted to sleep. Tina, firing on all cylinders and illegal substances, didn't. Having seen action, the Wallbank-Fox was silent. While Tina frolicked in Floris foam, Charlie sneaked into the sitting room. Jesus. It was gone midnight. He'd been awake for twenty-two hours. No doubt Drew would be thundering on the door again in a minute, ready for the next day. Christ – was it all worth it?
He poured three fingers of whisky. As both he and Tina were on starvation diets, they hadn't eaten. Charlie knocked back the whisky in one go. He knew exactly how many calories it contained. He reckoned Tina had just rid him of four times that amount. He sank into the deep-cushioned sofa, his eyelids drooping.
'Oh, no, you don't.' Tina, almost wrapped in one of his scarlet towels, dripped suds across the wooden floor. Her wet bleached hair was slicked back close to her head and looked black. Her slanting eyes were predatory. She sat astride him. 'There's no way you're going to sleep, sunshine. I haven't seen you for weeks. I haven't had my money's worth yet.'
August
Chapter Seventeen
'Congratulations!'
Five glasses were raised in salute: one in acknowledgement. The Vicarage flat, awash with wine bottles of varying degrees of expense, and one of Pol Roger courtesy of Charlie, had its windows open to the warm August night. The Verve symphonised quietly from a corner, hardly able to make themselves heard above the waves of laughter.
Jemima, who couldn't remember the last time she'd had a girls' night in, hung her legs over the arm of the sofa and tried to think where she'd put her spectacles. It didn't really matter. Someone would probably sit on them later. Anyway, even if she could find them they wouldn't be much use, everything would be blurred.
'Another toats – er, toast –' Gillian staggered to her feet, scattering cigarette ash. 'To Lucinda! Again!'
They dutifully raised their glasses. 'Lucinda!'
Three As at A-level was as good as it got, Jemima thought, basking in reflected glory and feeling almost motherly.
Lucinda, who had escaped her parents' planned celebratory dinner at her Aunty Brenda's, was blasé. 'Ta. English and history were a breeze. I was a bit screwed over sociology. I did hardly any revision – thanks to Charlie.'
'You'd have got a triple A with a gold star if it had been biology.' Suzy squinted through her wineglass.
Lucinda squinted back. 'Charlie says I did, actually. Still – here's to freedom!'
Southampton University, Jemima thought as she leaned across the sofa and practically
squeezed the dregs from the nearest bottle, probably wasn't everyone's idea of freedom – but it was far enough away from Bathsheba to warrant celebration. She had been surprised at Lucinda's readiness to spend her evening of glory in the flat. She'd been pretty sure that Lucinda would have rather been whooping it up with her schoolfriends or Charlie, but apparently not. St Hilda's successful sixth-formers would be out clubbing on Friday night, Lucinda told them, and Charlie was away until Sunday. He'd got something planned for then.
'I'll bet he has.' Suzy, looking like a fragile porcelain doll despite her spiky white hair and rather bizarre outfit of satin vest, pedal-pushers and boots, rolled her eyes. 'Won't you miss him when you go to university?'
Lucinda looked as though the idea had never occurred to her. 'Dunno. Shouldn't think so. It's not until October. We probably won't be together then, anyway. You know what he's like.'
'Yeah. Bloody incredible.' Suzy sighed happily.
Jemima felt very old suddenly. Lucinda was just eighteen, Suzy only a year older. She probably looked younger than either of them, but between them they knew more and had done more than she'd managed to~ achieve in her nearly-thirty years.
'I'll miss Jemima, though,' Lucinda said. 'Still I can always come back and work at the shop in the holidays, can't I?'
'Course you can.' Jemima was touched. 'It won't be the same without you.'
Finding her glasses perched on a bottle of Sauvignon looking like a Hitchcock caricature, she at last managed to focus. Well, almost. She beamed happily around at everyone: at Suzy, and Maddy, and Maddy's best friend Fran, and of course Gillian, who had all seemed delighted to accept Jemima's invitation in spite of the differences in age and status.
Lucinda handed her a bottle. 'Can you get the top off this one? Gillian can't find the opener.'
Wrestling with the fastening on the bottle of Lambrusco Rose with her teeth, Jemima realised with a jolt that in fact they did all have something in common. Bloody horse-racing. All except her. Suzy was a jockey and lived with a jockey; Fran was married to a jockey; Maddy lived with a trainer; Lucinda had Charlie – and Gillian owned a racehorse. While she-
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