‘Is that legal?’ Gay asked.
‘Yes, completely legal. It’s simply the trainer playing the handicap system to his advantage.’
I looked across the table at Alfie Hart. He was one of the best exponents of the practice.
‘How fascinating,’ Gay Smith said, but I feared I was boring her as she turned away to talk to the person on her far side.
I finished my shrimps and turned back to Henri, but she was chatting away merrily to another lady beyond her, so I spent some time studying the afternoon’s racecard. I noticed that Bill McKenzie was still down to ride two horses, one of them in the first race and the other in the fourth.
‘Trying to pick a winner?’ Henri said. ‘Do tell.’
‘Don’t ask me, I’m hopeless at choosing winners,’ I said. ‘My best tip of the day is to keep your money in your pocket.’
‘Boring!’ Henri said loudly. She received a stern glare from her uncle on the other table.
She blushed.
‘Now look what you’ve made me do,’ she said to me.
‘Don’t blame me,’ I said.
‘Why not?’ She smiled. ‘Are you married?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘Are you gay?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Most men I know of my age are either married or gay.’
‘Well, I’m neither,’ I said. ‘How about you?’
‘That’s a secret.’
She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. I’d already checked.
She opened her racecard. ‘Come on, pick me a winner.’
‘Autumn Statement,’ I said, ‘in the second.’
She looked down at the printed race details.
‘Why that one?’ she asked, clearly unimpressed by the horse’s lowly status.
‘He ran on Tuesday at Southwell. I was there and watched the race. He was only beaten a short head by a very good horse that’s not running today. His rating is sure to rise considerably this coming week but he can still run today on the old rating, which means he’s very well handicapped.’
‘I thought you said you were hopeless at picking winners.’
‘He hasn’t won yet and he’ll probably start at fairly short odds.’
‘How about in the first race? Do you fancy Medication? He’s the favourite.’
‘I’ve no idea but you had better be quick if you want to make a bet because they’re already at the start.’
She stood up and rushed out of the box, along with some of the other guests.
I looked up at the television screen in the corner of the room. Bill McKenzie was indeed riding as advertised, which meant that he wasn’t concussed. I wondered if the confusion he had exhibited in the medical room the previous evening had been because his mind had been on other matters — like how long he would be banned from riding if anyone knew he had lost the race on purpose.
Autumn Statement won the second race by two lengths at the surprisingly long price of six-to-one. Obviously the betting public hadn’t appreciated his potential as much as I had.
‘Three hundred quid!’ squealed Henri as we watched the finish on the television in the box during our dessert. ‘I’ve just won three hundred quid.’
‘How much did you put on?’ I asked.
‘Fifty quid, on the nose.’
‘You’re crazy,’ I said. ‘Either that or you’ve more money than sense.’
‘Maybe I am a bit crazy,’ she said, laughing. ‘And what if I do have more money than sense. You’re the one who tipped it. Surely you backed it as well.’
I hadn’t. In fact I very rarely had any bet at all. Even though there was no rule actually preventing me from gambling on the races, I was concerned that some people might think there was a conflict of interest if I wanted one horse to win more than another. The Authority was meant to be impartial in all matters.
Or maybe it was because my tipping skills were generally so poor and I didn’t like losing my hard-earned cash.
‘Actually, no,’ I said. ‘But I’m pleased for you that it won.’ I smiled at her.
‘You’re a strange bird, aren’t you?’
‘Am I?’ I said, slightly taken aback. ‘In what way?’
‘Do you always live within the rules?’
‘Rules or laws?’
‘Both,’ she said. ‘The laws of the land and the rules of convention and polite society.’
‘Are you implying that you don’t?’
‘Dead right, I don’t. But I’m on my best behaviour today. I was warned by Uncle Richard not to make, what he calls, a scene. Otherwise he’d be bloody cross and take me straight home.’ She mimicked an angry male voice.
‘And would he then spank you for being a naughty girl?’
She blushed again and, I dare say, I did as well.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I mumbled, hugely embarrassed. ‘I’m not sure what came over me. It must be the champagne. Please forget I ever said that.’
‘My,’ she replied. ‘You’re even stranger than I thought.’
How could I have said it? It was so out of character. Had I been trying to break away from the live within the rules of polite society classification in which Henri had so accurately placed me? Or, maybe I was just frustrated. Either way, I’d made a complete fool of myself.
I stood up. ‘I think I had better be going.’
‘Don’t go,’ commanded Gay Smith from my other side, turning briefly towards me. ‘I haven’t spent enough time talking to you. And we haven’t had our coffee yet.’
I sat down again slowly and, to add to my discomfiture, Henri was shaking from a fit of giggles.
‘Stop it,’ I said to her quietly.
She took a deep breath and stopped laughing.
‘And what are you going to do if I don’t? Spank me?’
She started giggling again immediately, this time twice as badly. And giggles are highly infectious. It was as much as I could do not to join in.
The rest of the lunch was a torment as I tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to ignore Henri, who went on sniggering throughout.
Although, to be honest, part of me didn’t want to ignore her at all.
I watched the third race from the balcony with Gay Smith and then made my apologies and left, going down to the weighing room and the paddock, to my more familiar surroundings on a racecourse.
‘Do come back for tea after the fifth,’ Gay had said as I departed. But we’d only just finished an enormous lunch. Many more days like this would see my waistline expand, but I suppose it was better than spending every day trying to keep one’s body weight at twenty pounds below what was natural, as Dave Swinton had done.
Even six days after the event, the main topic of conversation was still his suicide. He had been expected to ride Ebury Tiger, the red-hot favourite in the Tingle Creek Chase later in the afternoon, having ridden it on each of its nine previous victories over hurdles and fences.
There was a general acceptance that it had been a good thing for the racing authorities to have cancelled all race meetings for the following Monday, the day of Dave’s funeral, as a mark of respect for the loss of one of the sport’s greats. Very many racing fans had lost their hero and the Morning Line on Channel 4 that day had broadcast such a gushing obituary that all the presenters had been in tears.
I, meanwhile, was not feeling quite so reverential about the late champion jockey but, there again, he had tried to kill me. And I was still having nightmares about my time in that sauna.
I stood by the rail gazing at the horses for the fourth race as they circled in the parade ring, but my thoughts were in a different place. The mounting bell was rung and I found myself looking across as Bill McKenzie was given a leg-up onto a horse called Lost Moon. No sign of confusion now, I thought, as he gathered the reins and placed his feet in the stirrup irons.