It seemed to me that on the whole it was Nolan who had caused the trouble, but I didn’t say so.
‘Well,’ Tremayne said, shrugging, ‘it happened in this house but it doesn’t directly concern my family, thank God.’
Mackie looked as if she weren’t so sure. ‘They are our friends,’ she said.
‘Hardly even that,’ Perkin said, looking my way. ‘Fiona and Mackie are friends. That’s where it starts. Mackie came to stay with Fiona, and I met her in Fiona’s house...’ he smiled briefly, ‘and so, as they say, we were married.’
‘And lived happily ever after,’ Mackie finished loyally, though I reckoned if she were happy she worked at it. ‘We’ve been married two years now. Two and a half, almost.’
‘You won’t put all this Nolan business in my book, will you?’ Tremayne asked.
‘I shouldn’t think so,’ I said, ‘not if you don’t want me to.’
‘No, I don’t. I was saying goodbye to some guests when that girl died. Perkin came to tell me, and I had to deal with it, but I didn’t know her, she’d come with Nolan and I’d never met her before. She isn’t part of my life.’
‘All right,’ I said.
Tremayne showed no particular relief, but just nodded. Seen in his own home, standing by his own fire, he was a big-bodied man of substantial presence, long accustomed to taking charge and ruling his kingdom. This was the persona, no doubt, that the book was to be about: the face of control, of worldly wisdom and success.
So be it, I thought. If I were to sing for my supper I’d sing the songs he chose. But meanwhile, where was the supper?
‘In the morning,’ Tremayne said to me, changing the subject and apparently tired of the trial and its tribulations, ‘I thought you might come out with me to see my string at morning exercise.’
‘I’d like to,’ I said.
‘Good. I’ll wake you at seven. The first lot pulls out at seven-thirty, just before dawn. Of course at present, with this freeze, we can’t do any schooling but we’ve got an all-weather gallop. You’ll see it in the morning. If it should be snowing hard, we won’t go.’
‘Right.’
He turned his head to Mackie, ‘I suppose you won’t be out for first lot?’
‘No, sorry. We’ll have to leave early again to get to Reading.’
He nodded, and to me he said, ‘Mackie’s my assistant.’
I glanced at Mackie and then at Perkin.
‘That’s right,’ Tremayne said, reading my thought. ‘Perkin doesn’t work for me. Mackie does. Perkin never wanted to be a trainer and he has his own life. Gareth... well... Gareth might take over from me one day, but he’s too young to know what he’ll want. But when Perkin married Mackie he brought me a damned smart assistant, and it’s worked out very well.’
Mackie looked pleased at his audible sincerity and it seemed the arrangement was to Perkin’s liking also.
‘This house is huge,’ Tremayne said, ‘and as Perkin and Mackie couldn’t afford much of a place of their own yet we divided it, and they have their private half. You’ll soon get the hang of it.’ He finished his drink and went to pour himself another. ‘You can have the dining-room to work in,’ he said to me over his shoulder. ‘Tomorrow I’ll show you where to find the cuttings, video tapes and form books, and you can take what you like into the dining-room. We’ll fix up the video player there.’
‘Fine,’ I said. Food in the dining-room would be better, I thought.
Tremayne said, ‘As soon as it thaws I’ll take you racing. You’ll soon pick it up.’
‘Pick it up?’ Perkin repeated, surprised. ‘Doesn’t he know about racing?’
‘Not a lot,’ I said.
Perkin raised ironic eyebrows. ‘It’s going to be some book.’
‘He’s a writer,’ Tremayne said, a touch defensively. ‘He can learn.’
I nodded to back him up. It was true that I had learned the habits and ways of life of dwellers in far places, and didn’t doubt I could do the same to the racing fraternity at home in England. To listen, to see, to ask, to understand, to check; I would use the same method that I’d used six times before, and this time without needing an interpreter. Whether I could present Tremayne’s life and times in a shape others would enjoy, that was the real, nagging, doubtful question.
Gareth at long last blew in with a gust of cold air and, stripping off an eye-dazzling psychedelic padded jacket, asked his father, ‘What’s for supper?’
‘Anything you like,’ Tremayne said, not minding.
‘Pizza, then.’ His gaze stopped on me. ‘Hello, I’m Gareth.’
Tremayne told him my name and that I would be writing the biography and staying in the house.
‘Straight up?’ the boy said, his eyes widening. ‘Do you want some pizza?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Ten minutes,’ he said. He turned to Mackie. ‘Do you two want some?’
Mackie and Perkin simultaneously shook their heads and murmured that they’d be off to their own quarters, which appeared to be what Gareth and Tremayne expected.
Gareth was perhaps five foot six with a strong echo of his father’s self-confidence and a voice still half broken, coming out hoarse and uneven. He gave me an all-over glance as if assessing what he’d got to put up with for the length of my visit and seemed neither depressed nor elated.
‘I heard the weather news at Coconut’s,’ he told his father. ‘Today’s been the coldest for twenty-five years. Coconut’s father’s horses have their duvet rugs on under the jute.’
‘So have ours,’ Tremayne said. ‘Did they forecast more snow?’
‘No, just cold for a few more days. East winds from Siberia. Have you remembered to send my school fees?’
Tremayne clearly hadn’t.
‘If you’ll just sign the cheque,’ his son said, ‘I’ll give it to them myself. They’re getting a bit fussed.’
‘The cheque book’s in the office,’ Tremayne said.
‘Right.’ Gareth took his Joseph’s coat with him out of the door and almost immediately returned. ‘I suppose there isn’t the faintest chance,’ he said to me, ‘that you can cook?’
Chapter 4
In the morning I went downstairs to find the family room dark but lights on in the kitchen.
It wasn’t a palatial kitchen like Fiona’s but did contain a big table with chairs all round it as well as a solid fuel cooker whose warmth easily defeated the pre-dawn refrigeration. I had been hoping to borrow a coat from Tremayne to go out to watch the horses, but on a chair I found my boots, gloves and ski-suit with a note attached by a safety pin, ‘Thanks ever so much.’
Smiling, I unpinned the note and put on the suit and boots and Tremayne, in a padded jacket, cloth cap and yellow scarf came in blowing on his bare hands and generally bringing the arctic indoors.
‘Ah, there you are,’ he said, puffing. ‘Good. Bob Watson brought up your clothes when he came to feed. Ready?’
I nodded.
‘I’ll just get my gloves.’ He checked also that I had gloves. ‘It’s as cold as I’ve ever known it. We won’t stay out long, the wind’s terrible. Come along.’
As we went through the hall I asked him about the feeding.
‘Bob Watson comes at six,’ he said briefly. ‘All horses in training get an early-morning feed. High protein. Keeps them warm. Gives them energy. A thoroughbred on a high-protein diet generates a lot of heat. Just as well in weather like this. You rarely find a bucket of water frozen over in a horse’s box, however cold it is outside. Mind you,’ he said, ‘we do our best to stop draughts round the doors, but you have to give them fresh air. If you don’t, if you molly-coddle them too much, you get viruses flourishing.’