Bonecrack

'But stayed a while.'

'I'll grant you.'

'So what do you want?' I asked. 'Would you rather be married?'

She smiled contentedly. 'We'll go on as we are- if you like.'

'I do like.' I switched off the light.

'As long as you prove it now and again,' she added unnecessarily.

'I wouldn't let anyone else,' I said, 'hang pink and green curtains against ochre walls in my bedroom.'

'My bedroom. I rent it.'

'You're in arrears. By at least eighteen months.'

'I'll pay up tomorrow- Hey, what are you doing?'

I'm a business man,' I murmured, 'getting down to business.'

Neville Knollys Griffon did not make it easy for me to start a new era in father-son relationships.

He told me that as I did not seem to be making much progress in engaging someone else to take over the stable, he was going to find someone himself. By telephone.

He said he had done some of the entries for the next two weeks, and that Margaret was to type them out and send them off.

He said that Pease Pudding was to be taken out of the Lincoln.

He said that I had brought him the '64 half bottles of Bellinger, and he preferred the '61.

'You are feeling better, then,' I said into the first real gap of the monologue.

'What? Oh yes, I suppose I am. Now did you hear what I said? Pease Pudding is not to go in the Lincoln.'

'Why ever not?'

He gave me an irritated look. 'How do you expect him to be ready?'

'Etty is a good judge. She says he will be.'

'I will not have Rowley Lodge made to look stupid by running hopelessly under-trained horses in important races.'

'If Pease Pudding runs badly, people will only say that it shows how good a trainer you are yourself.'

'That is not the point,' he said repressively.

I opened one of the half bottles and poured the golden bubbles into his favourite Jacobean glass, which I had brought for the purpose. Champagne would not have tasted right to him from a tooth mug. He took a sip and evidently found the '64 was bearable after all, though he didn't say so.

'The point,' he explained as if to a moron, 'is the stud fees. If he runs badly, his future value at stud is what will be affected.'

'Yes, I understand that.'

'Don't be silly, how can you? You know nothing about it.'

I sat down in the visitors' armchair, leant back, crossed my legs, and put into my voice all the reasonableness and weight which I had learned to project into industrial discussions, but which I had never before had the sense to use on my father.

'Rowley Lodge is heading for some financial rocks,' I said, 'And the cause of it is too much prestige-hunting. You are scared of running Pease Pudding in the Lincoln because you own a half share in him, and if he runs badly it will be your own capital investment, as well as Lady Vector's, that will suffer.'

He spilled some champagne on his sheet, and didn't notice it.

I went on, 'I know that it is quite normal for people to own shares in the horses they train. At Rowley Lodge just now, however, you own too many part shares for safety. I imagine you collected so many because you could not bear to see rival stables acquiring what you judged to be the next crop of world beaters, so that you probably said to your owners something like If Archangel goes for forty thousand at auction and that's too much for you, I'll put up twenty thousand towards it. So you've gathered together one of the greatest strings in the country, and their potential stud value is enormous.'

He gazed at me blankly, forgetting to drink.

'This is fine,' I said, 'As long as the horses do win as expected. And year after year, they do. You've been pursuing this policy in moderation for a very long time, and it's made you steadily richer. But now, this year, you've over-extended. You've bought too many. As all the part owners only pay part training fees, the receipts are not now covering the expenses. Not by quite a long way. As a result the cash balance at the bank is draining away like bathwater, and there are still three weeks to go before the first race, let alone the resale of the successful animals for stud. This dicey situation is complicated by your broken leg, your assistant being still in a coma from which he is unlikely to recover, and your stable apparently stagnating in the hands of a son who doesn't know how to train the horses; and all that is why you are scared silly of running Pease Pudding in the Lincoln.'

I stopped for reactions. There weren't any. Just shock.

'You can on the whole stop worrying,' I said, and knew that things would never again be quite as they had been between us. Thirty-four, I thought ruefully; I had to be thirty-four before I entered this particular arena on equal terms. 'I could sell your half share before the race.'

Wheels slowly began to turn again behind his eyes. He blinked. Stared at his sloping champagne and straightened the glass. Tightened the mouth into an echo of the old autocracy.

'How- how do you know all this?' There was more resentment in his voice than anxiety.

'I looked at the account books.'

'No- I mean, who told you?'

'No one needed to tell me. My job for the last six years has involved reading account books and doing sums.'

He recovered enough to take some judicious sips.

'At least you do understand why it is imperative we get an experienced trainer to take over until I can get about again.'

'There's no need for one,' I said incautiously. 'I've been there for three weeks now-'

'And do you suppose that you can learn how to train racehorses in three weeks?' he asked with reviving contempt.

'Since you ask,' I said, 'Yes.' And before he turned purple, tacked on, 'I was born to it, if you remember- I grew up there. I find, much to my own surprise, that it is second nature.'

He saw this statement more as a threat than as a reassurance. 'You're not staying on after I get back.'

'No,' I smiled. 'Nothing like that.'

He grunted. Hesitated. Gave in. He didn't say in so many words that I could carry on, but just ignored the whole subject from that point.

'I don't want to sell my half of Pease Pudding.'

'Draw up a list of those you don't mind selling, then,' I said. 'About ten of them, for a start.'

'And just who do you think is going to buy them? New owners don't grow on trees, you know. And half shares are harder to sell- owners like to see their names in the race cards and in the press.'

'I know a lot of business men,' I said, 'who would be glad to have a racehorse but who actively shun the publicity. You pick out ten horses, and I'll sell your half shares.'

He didn't say he would, but he did, then and there. I ran my eye down the finished list and saw only one to disagree with.

'Don't sell Lancat,' I said.

He bristled. 'I know what I'm doing.'

'He's going to be good as a three-year-old,' I said. 'I see from the form book that he was no great shakes at two, and if you sell now you'll not get back what you paid. He's looking very well, and I think he'll win quite a lot.'

'Rubbish. You don't know what you're talking about.'

'All right- how much would you accept for your half?'

He pursed his lips, thinking about it. 'Four thousand. You should be able to get four, with his breeding. He cost twelve, altogether, as a yearling.'

'You'd better suggest prices for all of them,' I said. 'If you wouldn't mind.'

He didn't mind. I folded the list, put it in my pocket, picked up the entry forms he had written on, and prepared to go. He held out to me the champagne glass, empty.

'Have some of this- I can't manage it all.'

I took the glass, refilled it, and drank a mouthful. The bubbles popped round my teeth. He watched. His expression was as severe as ever, but he nodded, sharply, twice. Not as symbolic a gesture as a pipe of peace, but just as much of an acknowledgment, in its way.