“Is that a promise?” she said, laughing.
“Absolutely,” I replied, stroking her hand across the table.
We sat and finished our meals in contented silence, perhaps not wanting to break the spell, until a waiter came over to collect our empty plates. We ordered two coffees, and I poured the last of the Chianti into our glasses. Neither of us gave the outward impression that we wanted to rush back to her flat and put my promise to the test. So much for outward impressions. Inside, I was desperate.
“So what are you playing in Chicago?” I asked her, putting my desperation back in its box.
Her face lit up. “Mostly Elgar. We do his first symphony, and also the variations, which I love. There is also some Sibelius in the program. His fourth symphony, to be precise, but I’m not as keen on it, I find it too heavy. Very dark.” She screwed up her face.
“Who chooses what is played?” I asked.
“The directors and the conductor, I suppose,” she said. “I don’t really know. I expect the Americans had something to do with it too. I suppose the Elgar is there, as it is quintessentially English. And, of course, there’s the anniversary of his birth.”
Of course, I thought.
“Surely Sibelius wasn’t English,” I said.
“No,” she said. “Finnish, I think, but I’m not sure. But the Americans seem to like his stuff. Must be something to do with all that hardship and living in log cabins.” She laughed. “Far too dark and gloomy for me.”
“Like treacle,” I said.
“Exactly, but less sticky.” She laughed again. An uninhibited, happy laugh.
“But it will be worth going just for the Elgar,” she said. “‘Nimrod’ was one of the pieces I had to play for my audition to the Royal College. I adore it, and I play it every time I need some comfort in my life, which I have to tell you, has been quite often. My music, and especially my viola, has been a huge support to me at times.” She stared somewhere over my head, but she wasn’t really looking. “I love my viola so much that I couldn’t possibly live without it.”
I was jealous. It seemed silly. Of course Caroline loved her music. After all, I loved my cooking. Could I live without that? No I couldn’t. Well, then, I told myself, stop being jealous of a viola. It was an inanimate object. I tried hard not to be, but with limited success.
In time, we walked back arm in arm to her flat and both went eagerly to her bed, where I strived to make good on my promise.
She didn’t exactly say that it was better than Tchaikovsky’s 1812, but she didn’t say it wasn’t. Viola, eat your heart out.
13
W e woke early and lay dozing side by side in the bed, just touching occasionally. I rolled over and cuddled her, but she didn’t respond, and I sensed that she was troubled.
“What’s the matter?” I asked her.
“Oh nothing,” she said. “I was just thinking.”
“About what?” I asked.
“Nothing important,” she said. But it clearly was.
I started to explore her body with my hands, but she sat up. “Not now,” she said. “I want some tea.” And she proceeded to get up, put on her dressing gown and go down the corridor to the kitchen. I lay back on the pillow and wondered if I had said or done something wrong.
She returned with two steaming mugs of tea and got back into bed, but she did not remove the dressing gown.
“Was I that much of a disappointment?” I said, propping myself up on an elbow and sipping my tea.
“Oh no,” she said. “In fact, quite the reverse. That’s part of the problem.”
“So what is the problem?” I said. “Tell me.”
She leaned her head back against the wall with a sigh. “I can’t come and live in Newmarket,” she said. “I need to live in London for my job.”
I laughed with relief. “I’m not asking you to live in Newmarket,” I said.
“Oh,” she said rather gloomily. “I had thought you might.”
“Well, I might,” I said. “But I will probably be coming to live in London.”
“That’s all right, then,” she said with a big smile. “But when? What about your restaurant?”
“It’s not certain when,” I said, “and I don’t want my staff to know yet, but the plan is to open a new restaurant in London sometime later in the year.”
“Oh goodie,” she said with excitement.
“Am I right, therefore, in thinking that you are throwing yourself into my life on a permanent basis?” I asked.
“Maybe.” She shrugged off her dressing gown and snuggled down next to me in the bed.
“That is definitely all right, then,” I said.
AT LUNCHTIME, we caught the train to Virginia Water and took a taxi from there to Smith’s Lawn, the home of the Guards Polo Club. Neither of us had the faintest idea of what to expect, but we had chosen to dress for all eventualities. Caroline selected a black-and-white floral-print dress that seemed to me to touch her in all the right places, show off her considerable natural attributes and turn many an eye on the train. Over the dress, she wore a fitted tweed coat, with brown fur around the collar and the cuffs. If she had brought a deerstalker and magnifying glass with her, I couldn’t see where she’d hidden them. Meanwhile, I had decided on a blue blazer, gray flannel trousers, with a white shirt and a striped tie. Uniform, I reckoned, for any self-respecting off-duty Guards officer.
We both opted not to wear green wellies, not least because we would have had to buy them first. The weather forecast for the day had improved as the weekend had progressed and the promised rain was not now due to arrive from the west until the following day, so I wore my usual slip-on black brogues while Caroline picked a pair of sensible knee-length black patent leather boots with low heels.
Having been brought up in the world of horse racing, where any physical contact between the competitors was frowned upon and where even the slightest bump between participants could result in the loss of a race in the stewards’ room, I was unprepared for the roughness, almost violence, perpetrated on the polo field.
Players were permitted to “ride off” an opponent even when he was not in possession of the ball. Riding off involved crashing one’s pony into the flank of an opponent’s mount and pushing with the knee and the elbow to change the direction of travel. The players all wore big thick kneepads for that very purpose, along with spurs, which, I was reliably informed, were not actually permitted to be dug into an opponent’s leg, although, it appeared to me, that they were.
I knew that the aim of the game was to hit the little white ball with the mallet between the goalposts to score. But that is to simplify what seemed to me to be a hybrid cross between hockey, croquet and American football, all played at high speed on horseback.
It was clearly hugely exhilarating both for the players and for the spectators. There was lots of shouting between the team members, and appeals to the umpire for some penalty or other to be awarded. I knew from my brush with the fifty-page rule book that the game would be more complicated than just riding down the field and slotting the ball between the goalposts. However, in play, it had a simplicity I had not expected, and both Caroline and I were soon caught up in the excitement on the members’ grandstand.
We had arrived at the grounds, as they were referred to, to find that there was a members’ area for those who are, and the remaining space for those who aren’t. The “members” was where I wanted to be. There was no point in being there at all unless I was able to ask my questions of those in the know.
We had hung around a bit in the members’ parking lot until a group of five others had arrived in a Range Rover. Caroline and I had simply attached ourselves to the rear of the party as they were waved through past the gateman. I decided not to push my luck by trying to bluff my way into the holy of holies, the two-story Royal Box, with its colonial-style verandas and red tile roof, together with neatly tended window boxes and a white-picket-fenced lawn in front.