Between Vic and Fynedale themselves things were no better. Under Constantine’s faithful umbrella Vic had disowned his former lieutenant and had been heard to say that if he had realised what Fynedale was up to he would of course have had nothing to do with it. Antonia Huntercombe and the breeder of the Transporter colt would have been interested.
Probably the fact that Fynedale had two directions for hatred exhausted him to immobility. He stood about looking dazed, in a trance, as if Vic’s perfidy had stunned him. He shouldn’t have been so surprised, I thought. Vic always lied easily. Always had. And had always had the gift of the good liar, that people believed him.
On the Saturday afternoon River God won the novice chase by a short head thanks entirely to Nicol’s riding. I watched the triumphant unsaddling party afterwards and noted that Vic was there too, oozing bonhomie in Nicol’s direction and being very man-of-the-world with Constantine. His big boyish face was back to its good-natured-looking normal, the manner easy again, and confident. Kerry Sanders patted his arm and Constantine’s heavy black spectacles turned repeatedly in his direction.
All sweetness and light, I thought uncharitably. Vic would always bounce back like a rubber ball.
From habit I went to watch the next race from the jockeys’ box, and Nicol climbed the steps to my side.
‘Well done,’ I said.
‘Thanks.’
The runners came out into the course and jauntily ambled down in front of the stands. Eight or nine, some of them horses I’d once ridden. I felt the usual tug of regret, of nostalgia. I wouldn’t entirely get over it, I thought, until there was a completely new generation of horses. While my old partners were still running, I wanted to be on them.
Nicol said with surprised discovery, ‘You wish you were still riding!’
I mentally shook myself. It was no good looking back. ‘It’s finished,’ I said.
‘No more crashing falls. No more booing crowds. No more bloody-minded trainers telling you you rode a stinking race and engaging a different jockey next time.’
‘That’s right.’
He smiled his quick smile. ‘Who’d wish it on a dog?’
The runners assembled, the tapes flew up, the race went away. They were experienced hurdlers, crafty and fast, flicking over the low obstacles without altering their stride. Even though I dealt mostly with young stock for the Flat, I still liked watching jumpers best.
‘If I suggested to Father I would be a pro, he’d have a fit.’
‘Particularly,’ I said, ‘If you mentioned me in connection.’
‘God, yes.’
The runners went down the far side and we lifted race-glasses to watch.
‘Vic looks happy today,’ I said.
Nicol snorted. ‘Father told him to go to the States after Christmas and buy Kerry some colt called Phoenix Fledgling.’
‘With her money?’
‘Why?’
‘He was saying yesterday he was cutting down. So today he has a hundred thousand quid lying about loose?’
‘So much?’ He was surprised.
‘It could be even more.’
‘Would Father know?’ Nicol asked doubtfully.
‘Vic would,’ I said.
Nicol shook his head. ‘I don’t know what they’re up to. Thick as thieves again today.’
The runners turned into the straight. Positions changed. The favourite came through and won smoothly, the jockey collected, expert, and totally professional.
Nicol turned to me abruptly.
‘If I could ride like that, I’d take out a licence.’
‘You can.’
He stared. Shook his head.
‘You do,’ I said.
Crispin had been sober since the fire. Sober and depressed.
‘My life’s a mess,’ he said.
As usual during these periods he sat every night in my office while I got through the paperwork and did the inevitable telephoning.
‘I’m going to get a job.’
We both knew that he wouldn’t. Those he wanted, he couldn’t keep. Those he could keep, he despised.
‘You can have one here,’ I said. ‘At this rate, I’ll have to get help with the paperwork. I can’t cope with it all.’
‘I’m not a bloody typist,’ he said scornfully.
‘You can’t type.’
‘We all know I’m absolutely useless. No need to rub it in.’
‘You can keep the accounts, though. You know all about figures.’
He thought it over. Unreliable he might be, but not untrained. If he wanted to he could take over the financial half of the office load and do it well.
‘I’ll see,’ he said.
Outside in the yard the demolition work was nearly finished. Plans for the new stables lay on my desk, drawn up at high speed by a local architect from the scribbled dimensions I’d given him. Depending on the time it took the Council to pass them, I’d be open for business again by the summer.
The rebuilding of the roof of the house was due to be started the following week. Rewiring from stem to stern had to be done after that, and there were several fallen ceilings to be replastered. Despite day and night oil heaters astronomicalising my fuel bills in every room, the damp and the damp smell persisted. Repainting lay a long way ahead. It would take almost a year, I reckoned, to restore in full what had been done to intimidate me.
Vic had not seen the damage he’d caused and maybe he could put it comfortably out of his mind, but I came home to it night after night. He might forget, but he had made sure that I didn’t.
Sophie had had two weeks of night shift, telling departing freight flights where to get off.
‘What are you doing tomorrow?’ she asked on the telephone.
‘Day or night?’
‘Day.’
‘Damn.’
She laughed. ‘What’s wrong with the day?’
‘Apart from anything else... I have to go to Ascot Sales.’
‘Oh.’ A pause. ‘Couldn’t I come with you?’
‘If you don’t mind me working.’
‘I’d love it. See all the little crooks doing the dirty. And Vic Vincent... will I see him?’
‘I’m not taking you,’ I said.
‘I won’t bite him.’
‘Can’t risk it.’
‘I promise.’
When I picked her up at nine she was still yawning from five hours sleep and a system geared to waking at noon. She opened her door in jeans, sweater, toast and honey.
‘Come in.’ She gave me a slightly sticky sweet-tasting kiss. ‘Coffee?’
She poured two cups in her tiny kitchen. Bright sunshine sliced through the window, giving a misleading report of the freezing day outside, where the north-west wind was doing its Arctic damnedest.
‘You’ll need warm boots,’ I said. ‘And sixteen layers of insulation. Also a nose muff or two and some frostbite cream.’
‘Think I’ll stay at home and curl up with a good television programme.’
When wrapped up she looked ready for Outer or even Inner Mongolia and complained that the padding made her fat.
‘Ever seen a thin Eskimo?’
She tucked the silver hair away inside a fur-lined hood. ‘So everyone has problems.’
I drove to the Ascot sale ring. Sophie’s reaction, although forewarned, was very much like Kerry’s.
‘Ascot,’ she said.
‘At least today it isn’t raining.’
She huddled inside the fat-making layers. ‘Thank God you insisted on the igloo bit.’
I took her down to the stables where there were several horses I wanted to look at, the underfoot conditions that day rock hard, not oozing with mud. She dutifully stuck her head inside each box to look at the inmates, though her claim to know less about horses than quantum mechanics was quickly substantiated.