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‘How did you discover it was Grant passing on the information?’

‘Maurice Kemp-Lore found out while he was working on one of those programmes of his. Something to do with how professional backers work, I think it was, and he found out about Grant more or less by accident. He told me very apologetically, and just said it would be wiser not to let Grant know too much. But you can’t work properly with a jockey and keep secrets from him, it’s a hopeless set-up.’

‘What did Grant say when you sacked him?’ I asked.

‘He denied the whole thing very indignantly. But of course he would. No jockey would ever confess to selling information if he wanted another trainer to take him on.’

‘Did you talk to the professional backer in question?’ I asked.

‘Yes I did, as a matter of fact,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want to believe it, you see. But it was open and shut. I had to press him a bit, because it didn’t reflect well on him, but Lubbock, the professional, did admit that Grant had been tipping him off over the telephone, and that he had been paying him ever since he had started to ride for me.’

It seemed conclusive enough, but I had an elusive feeling that I had missed something, somewhere.

I changed the subject. ‘Going back to Art,’ I said, ‘why was he always having rows with Corin?’

‘I don’t really know,’ James said reflectively. ‘I heard Corin say once or twice that Art didn’t ride to orders. Perhaps it was that.’ He neatly passed two slow lorries on a roundabout, and glanced at me again. ‘What are you getting at?’

‘It seems to me sometimes that there is too much of a pattern,’ I said. ‘Too many jockeys are affected by rumours. You said yourself that there seems to be a hoodoo on the whole tribe.’

‘I didn’t mean it seriously,’ he protested. ‘You’re imagining things. And as for rumours, what rumour made Art kill himself or broke Pip’s leg, or made Grant sell information? Rumour didn’t make Cloony late either.’

‘Danny Higgs doesn’t bet heavily,’ I said, feeling I was fighting a rearguard action, ‘and Ingersoll rides as honestly as anyone.’

‘You can’t know about Higgs,’ he pointed out, ‘and Ingersoll, let me remind you, was called in before the stewards last week for easing his mount out of third place. John Ballerton owned the horse and he was very annoyed about it, he told me so himself.’

I sighed. Tick-Tock’s version was that since Corin had told him not to overwork the horse, which was not fully fit, he had decided that he ought not to drive the horse too hard just for the sake of finishing third. Better to save the horse’s energy for winning next time, he had thought, adopting a view commonly held and acted on by at least half the jockeys and trainers engaged in the sport: but owners and members of the public who had backed the horse for a place were liable to disagree. After the enquiry, changing with the wind as usual, Corin had been heard condemning Tick-Tock for his action.

‘I may be quite wrong about it all,’ I said slowly, ‘I hope so. Only...’

‘Only?’ he prompted as I paused.

‘Only,’ I finished lightly, ‘if you ever hear any rumours about me, will you remember what I think... and make utterly sure they’re true before you believe them?’

‘All right,’ he said, humouring me. ‘I think it’s nonsense, but all right, I’ll agree to that.’ He drove in silence for a while, and then said with an impatient shake of his big head, ‘No one stands to gain anything by trying to ruin jockeys. It’s nonsense. Pointless.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘Pointless.’

We changed the subject.

Christmas came, and during the week before it, when there was no racing, I spent several days in Kensington. My parents greeted me with their usual friendly detachment and left me to my own devices. They were both preoccupied with crowded Christmas schedules, and my mother also spent each morning working at her piano on a new concerto which was to have its first performance in the New Year. She started daily at seven punctually, and played with short interruptions for coffee and thought until twelve-thirty. I awoke as so often during my life to the sound of warming up chromatics and wrist loosening arpeggios, and lay lazily in bed listening to her pick her way phrase by phrase through a dissonant modern score, repeating and repeating each section until she was satisfied she knew it, until the notes flowed easily in their intended order.

I could picture her exactly, dressed for work in a cashmere sweater and ski pants, sitting upright on her special stool, with her head thrust forward as if to hear more from the piano than the notes themselves. She was digging the bones out of the piece, and I knew better than to interrupt her. Digging the bones, the essence, the composer’s ultimate intention: and when she had these things firmly in her mind, she would begin the process of clothing them with her own interpretations, sharpening the contrasts of mood and tone, until the finished conception emerged clear and shining and memorable.

My mother might not have been a comforting refuge in my childhood nor take much loving interest in me now I was a man, but she had by her example shown me many qualities to admire and value. Professionalism, for instance; a tough-minded singleness of purpose; a refusal to be content with a low standard when a higher one could be achieved merely by working. I had become self-reliant young and thoroughly as a result of her rejection of motherhood, and because I saw the grind behind the gloss of her public performances, I grew up not expecting life’s plums to be tossed into my lap without any effort from me. What mother could teach her son more?

Joanna’s time was tangled inextricably with several performances in different places of the Christmas Oratorio. I managed to hook her only for one chilly morning’s walk in the Park, which was not a success from my point of view since Handel easily shoved me into second place for her attention. She hummed bits of the Oratorio continuously from the Albert Gate to the Serpentine, and from the Serpentine to Bayswater Road. There I put her into a taxi and gave her a Christmassy lunch at the Savoy, where she appeared to restrain herself with difficulty from bursting into full song, as the acoustics in the entrance hall appealed to her. I couldn’t decide whether or not she was being irritating on purpose, and if she was, why?

She was definitely a great deal less serene than usual, and there was a sort of brittleness in her manner which I didn’t like and couldn’t understand, until when we were half-way through some excellent mince pies it belatedly occurred to me that she might be unhappy. Unhappiness was not a state I had seen her in before, so I couldn’t be sure. I waited until the coffee came, and then said casually, ‘What’s up, Joanna?’

She looked at me, then she looked round the room, then at me again, then at her coffee.

Finally she said, ‘Brian wants me to marry him.’

It wasn’t what I expected, and it hurt. I found myself looking down at my own coffee: black and bitter, very appropriate, I thought.

‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said. ‘I was content as we were. Now I’m unsettled. Brian keeps talking about ‘living in sin’ and ‘regularising the position.’ He goes to church a lot now, and he can’t reconcile our relationship with his religion. I never thought of it as sinful, just as enjoyable and fruitful and... and comfortable. He is talking about buying a house and settling down, and sees me as the complete housewife, cleaning, mending, cooking, and so on. I’m not that sort of person. The thought appals me. If I marry him, I know I’ll be miserable...’ Her voice trailed off.

‘And if you don’t marry him?’ I asked.

‘I’ll be miserable then, too, because he refuses to go on as we are. We’re not easy together any more. We nearly have rows. He says it’s irresponsible and childish not to want to marry at my age, and I say I’ll gladly marry him if we live as we do now, with him coming and going from the studio when he likes, and me free to work and come and go as I please too. But he doesn’t want that. He wants to be respectable and conventional and... and stuffy.’ The last word came out explosively, steeped in contempt. There was a pause while she stirred her coffee vigorously. There was no sugar in it. I watched the nervous gesture, the long strong fingers with the pink varnished nails gripping the spoon too hard.