"I didn"t know he"d be here," she protested.
"No, but he is. It"s time to be practical."
No one pointed out that if she had had known he"d be there, she would have sent everyone with even more zeal. known he"d be there, she would have sent everyone with even more zeal.
"Do you have any ideas?" Malcolm asked me hopefully.
"Yes, I do. But we have to have Joyce"s help, plus her promise of silence."
My mother was looking less than her normal commanding self and gave a.s.surances almost meekly.
"This is not a private bar," I said, "and if any of the family have bought Club pa.s.ses, they may turn up in here at any moment, so we"d best lose no time. I"m going to leave you both here for a few minutes, but I"ll be back. Stay in this corner. Whatever happens, stay right here. If the family find you, still stay here. OK?"
They both nodded, and I left them sitting and looking warily at each other in the first tete-a-tete they"d shared for many a long year.
I went in search of the overall catering director whom I knew quite well because one of his daughters rode against me regularly in amateur races, and found him by sending urgent messages via the manager of the Members" bar.
"Ian," he said ten slow minutes later, coming to the bar from the back, where the bottles were, "what"s the trouble?"
He was a company director, head of a catering division, a capable man in his fifties, sprung from suburbia, upwardly mobile from merit, grown worldly wise.
I said the trouble was private, and he led me away from the crowds, through the back of the bar and into a small area of comparative quiet, out of sight of the customers.
My father, I told him, badly needed an immediate inconspicuous exit from the racecourse and wanted to know if a case of vintage Bollinger would ease his pa.s.sage.
"Not skipping his bookie, I hope?" the caterer said laconically.
"No, he wants to elope with my mother, his ex-wife, from under the eyes of his family."
The caterer, amused, agreed that Bollinger might be nice. He also laughed at my plan, told me to put it into operation, he would see it went well, and to look after his Rosemary whenever she raced.
I went back through the bar to collect Malcolm and to ask Joyce to fetch her car and to drive it to where the caterers parked their vans, giving her directions. The two of them were still sitting alone at the table, not exactly gazing into each other"s eyes with rapture but at least not drawn apart in frost. They both seemed relieved at my reappearance, though, and Joyce picked up her handbag with alacrity to go to fetch her car.
"If you see any of the others," I said, "just say you"re going home."
"I wasn"t born yesterday, darling," she replied with reviving sarcasm. "Run along and play games, and let me do my part."
The game was the same one I"d thought of earlier in the changing-room, modified only by starting from a different point. It was just possible that the wrong eyes had spotted Malcolm in his brief pa.s.sage outside from the exit door of the Directors" rooms to the entrance door of the bar, but even if so, I thought we could fool them.
In the quiet private s.p.a.ce at the rear of the bar, the catering director was watching the large chef remove his white coat and tall hat.
"A case of vintage Bollinger for the caterer, a handout for the chef," I murmured in Malcolm"s ear. "Get Joyce to drop you at a railway station, and I"ll see you in the Savoy. Don"t move until I get there."
Malcolm, looking slightly dazed, put on the chef"s coat and hat and pulled out his wallet. The chef looked delighted with the result and went back to slicing his turkeys in temporary shirtsleeves. Malcolm and the catering director left through the bar"s rear door and set off together through the racecourse buildings to go outside to the area where the caterers" vans were parked. I waited quite a long anxious time in the bar, but eventually the catering director returned, carrying the white disguise, which he restored to its owner.
"Your father got off safely," he a.s.sured me. "He didn"t see anyone he knew. What was it all about? Not really an elopement, was it?"
"He wanted to avoid being a.s.sa.s.sinated by his disapproving children."
The caterer smiled, of course not believing it. I asked where he would like the fizz sent and he took out a business card, writing his private address on the back.
"Your father lunched with the Directors, didn"t he?" he said. "I thought I saw him up there." His voice implied that doing favours for people who lunched with the Directors was doubly vouched for, like backing up a cheque with a credit card, and I did my best to reinforce further his perception of virtue.
"He"s just bought a half share in an Arc de Triomphe runner," I said. "We"re going over for the race."
"Lucky you," he said, giving me his card. He frowned suddenly, trying to remember. "Didn"t Rosemary tell me something about your father"s present wife being pointlessly murdered some weeks ago? His late wife, I suppose I should say. Dreadful for him, dreadful."
"Yes," I said. "Well... some people connected with her turned up here today unexpectedly, and he wanted to escape meeting them."
"Ah," he said with satisfied understanding, in that case, I"m glad to have been of help." He chuckled. "They didn"t really look like elopers."
He shook my hand and went away, and with a couple of deep breaths I left the Members" bar and walked back to the weighing-room to pick up my gear. There was still one more race to be run but it already felt like a long afternoon.
George and Jo were there when I came out carrying saddle, helmet, whip and holdall, saying they"d thought they"d catch me before I left.
"We"ve decided to run Young Higgins again two weeks tomorrow at Kempton," Jo said. "You"ll be free for that, won"t you?"
"Yes, indeed."
"And Park Railings, don"t forget, at Cheltenham next Thursday."
"Any time, any place," I said, and they laughed, conspirators in addiction.
It occurred to me as they walked away, looking back and waving, that perhaps I"d be in Singapore, Australia or Timbuktu next week or the week after; life was uncertain, and that was its seduction.
I saw none of the family on my way to the exit gate, and none between there and my car. With a frank sigh of relief, I stowed my gear in the boot and without much hurry set off towards Epsom, a detour of barely ten miles, thinking I might as well pick up my mail and listen to messages.
The telephone answering machine did have a faculty for listening to messages from afar, but it had never worked well, and I"d been too lazy to replace the remote controller which, no doubt, needed new batteries anyway.
With equally random thoughts I drove inattentively onwards, and it wasn"t until I"d gone a fair distance that I realised that every time I glanced in the rear-view mirror I could see the same car two or three cars back. Some cars pa.s.sed me: it never did, nor closed a gap to catch up.
I sat up, figuratively and literally, and thought, "What do you know?" and felt my heart beat as at the starting gate.
What I didn"t know was whose car it was. It looked much like the hired one I was driving, a middle-rank four-door in underwashed cream; ordinary, inconspicuous, no threat to Formula One.
Perhaps, I thought sensibly, the driver was merely going to Epsom, at my own pace, so at the next traffic lights I turned left into unknown residential territory, and kept on turning left at each crossroads thereafter, reasoning that in the end I would complete the circle and end up facing where I wanted to go. I didn"t hurry nor continually look in the rear-view mirror, but when I was back again on a road - a different one - with signposts to Epsom, the similar car was still somewhere on my tail, glimpsed tucked in behind a van.
If he had only a minimal sense of direction, I thought, he would realise what I had done and guess I now knew he was following. On the other hand, the back roads between Sandown Park and Epsom were a maze, like most Surrey roads, and he might possibly not have noticed, or thought I was lost, or ...
Catching at straws, I thought. Face facts. I knew he was there and he knew I knew and what should I do next?
We were already on the outskirts of Epsom and almost automatically I threaded my way round corners, going towards my flat. I had no reason not to, I thought. I wasn"t leading my follower to Malcolm, if that was what he had in mind. I also wanted to find out who he was, and thought I might outsmart him through knowing some ingenious short cuts round about where I lived.
Many of the houses in that area, having been built in the thirties without garages, had cars parked permanently on both sides of the streets. Only purpose-built places, like my block of flats, had adequate parking, except for two or three larger houses converted to flats which had cars where once there had been lawns.
I drove on past my home down the narrow roadway and twirled fast into the driveway of one of the large houses opposite. That particular house had a narrow exit drive also into the next tree-lined avenue: I drove straight through fast, turned quickly, raced round two more corners and returned to my own road to come up behind the car which had been following me.
He was there, stopped, awkwardly half-parked in too small a s.p.a.ce with his nose to the kerb, rear sticking out, brake lights still shining: indecision showing all over the place. I drew to a halt right behind him, blocking his retreat, put on my brakes, climbed out, took three or four swift strides and opened the door on the driver"s side.
There was a stark moment of silence.
Then I said, "Well, well, well," and after that I nodded up towards my flat and said, "Come on in," and after that I said, "If I"d known you were coming, I"d have baked a cake."
Debs giggled. Ferdinand, who had been driving, looked sheepish. Serena, unrepentant, said, "Is Daddy here?"
They came up to my flat where they could see pretty clearly that no, Daddy wasn"t. Ferdinand looked down from the sitting-room window to where his car was now parked beside mine in neat privacy, and then up at the backs of houses opposite over a nearby fence.
"Not much of a view," he said disparagingly.
I"m not here much."
"You knew I was following you, didn"t you?"
"Yes," I said. "Like a drink?"
"Well... scotch?"
I nodded and poured him some from a bottle in the cupboard.
"No ice," he said, taking the gla.s.s. "After that drive, I"ll take it neat."
"I didn"t go fast," I said, surprised.
"Your idea of fast and mine round those G.o.ddam twisty roads are about ten miles an hour different."
The two girls were poking about in the kitchen and bedrooms and I could hear someone, Serena no doubt, opening doors and drawers in a search for residues of Malcolm.
Ferdinand shrugged, seeing my unconcern. "He hasn"t been here at all, has he?" he said.
"Not for three years."
"Where is he?"
I didn"t answer.
"We"ll have to torture you into telling," said Ferdinand. It was a frivolous threat we"d used often in our childhood for anything from "Where are the cornflakes" to "What is the time" and Ferdinand himself looked surprised that it had surfaced.
"Mm," I said. "As in the tool shed?"
"s.h.i.t," Ferdinand said. "I didn"t mean ..."
"I should absolutely hope not."
We both remembered, though, the rainy afternoon when Gervase had put the threat into operation, trying to make me tell him where I"d hidden my new cricket bat which he coveted. I hadn"t told him, out of cussedness. Ferdinand had been there, too frightened of Gervase to protest, and also Serena, barely four, wide-eyed and uncomprehending.
"I thought you"d forgotten," Ferdinand said. "You"ve never mentioned it."
"Boys will be bullies."
"Gervase still is."
Which of us, I thought, was not as we had been in the green garden? Donald, Lucy, Thomas, Gervase, Ferdinand, Serena - all playing there long ago, children"s voices calling through the bushes, the adults we would become already forming in the gangling limbs, smooth faces, groping minds. None of those children... none of us none of us... I thought protestingly, could have killed.
Serena came into the sitting-room carrying a white lace negligee and looking oddly shocked.
"You"ve had a woman here!" she said.
"There"s no law against it."
Debs, following her, showed a more normal reaction. "Size ten, good perfume, expensive tastes, cla.s.sy lady," she said. "How am I doing?"
"Not bad."
"Her face cream"s in the bathroom," Serena said. "You didn"t tell us you had a... a ..."
"Girl-friend," I said. "And do you have... a boy-friend?"
She made an involuntary face of distaste and shook her head. Debs put a sisterly arm round Serena"s shoulders and said, "I keep telling her to go to a s.e.x therapist or she"ll end up a dry old stick, but she won"t listen, will you love?"
Serena wriggled free of Debs" arm and strode off with the negligee towards the bedrooms.
"Has anyone ever a.s.saulted her?" I asked Ferdinand. "She has that look."
"Not that I know of." He raised his eyebrows. "She"s never said so."
"She"s just scared of s.e.x," Debs said blithely. "You wouldn"t think anyone would be, these days. Ferdinand"s not, are you, bunny?"
Ferdinand didn"t react, but said, "We"ve finished here, I think." He drained his scotch, put down his gla.s.s and gave me a cold stare as if to announce that any semi-thaw I might have perceived during the afternoon"s exchanges was now at an end. The ice-curtain had come down again with a clang.
"If you cut us out with Malcolm," he said, "you"ll live to regret it."
Hurt, despite myself, and with a touch of acid, I asked, is that again what Alicia says?"
"d.a.m.n you, Ian," he said angrily, and made for the door, calling, "Serena, we"re going," giving her no choice but to follow.
Debs gave me a mock gruesome look as she went in their wake. "You"re Alicia"s number one villain, too bad, lovey. You keep your hooks off Malcolm"s money or you won"t know what hit you."
There was a fierce last-minute threat in her final words, and I saw, as the jokey manner slipped, that it was merely a facade which hid the same fears and furies of all the others, and her eyes, as she went, were just as unfriendly.
With regret, I watched from the window as the three of them climbed into Ferdinand"s car and drove away. It was an illusion to think one could go back to the uncorrupted emotions of childhood, and I would have to stop wishing for it. I turned away, rinsed out Ferdinand"s gla.s.s, and went into my bedroom to see how Serena had left it.
The white negligee was lying on my bed. I picked it up and hung it in its cupboard, rubbing my cheek in the fabric and smelling the faint sweet scent of the lady who came occasionally for lighthearted interludes away from a husband who was all but impotent but nevertheless loved. We suited each other well: perfectly happy in ephemeral pa.s.sion, with no intention of commitment.
I checked round the flat, opened a few letters and listened to the answering machine: there was nothing of note. I spent a while thinking about cars. I had arranged on the telephone two days earlier that the hotel in Cambridge would allow my own car to remain in their park for a daily fee until I collected it, but I couldn"t leave it there for ever. If I took a taxi to Epsom station, I thought, I could go up to London by train. In the morning, I would go by train to Cambridge, fetch my car, drive back to the flat, change to the hired car and drive that back to London. It might even be a shade safer, I thought, considering that Ferdinand, and through him the others, would know its colour, make and number, to turn that car in and hire a different one.
The telephone rang. I picked up the receiver and heard a familiar voice, warm and husky, coming to the point without delay.
"How about now?" she said. "We could have an hour."