‘I didn’t go to the party,’ Orkney said calmly. ‘Too bad he was killed.’
‘You knew him well?’ I asked.
‘Pretty well. We weren’t close friends, of course. Just had the mutual interest in horses.’
Orkney’s voice clearly announced what his lips hadn’t said: Larry Trent hadn’t been, in Orkney’s estimation, Orkney’s social equal.
‘So... er...’ I said, ‘you didn’t go to his place... the Silver Moondance?’
The faintest spasm crossed Orkney’s undemonstrative face. ‘I met him there, once, yes, in his office, to discuss business. We dined afterwards. A dinner dance, Larry said. Very loud music...’ He left the sentence hanging, criticism implied but not uttered.
‘What did you think of the wine?’ I asked.
‘Wine?’ He was surprised.
‘I’m a wine merchant,’ I said.
‘Oh, really?’ Wine merchants, it seemed, were in Orkney’s world provisionally O.K, ‘Interesting. Well, as far as I remember it was perfectly adequate. For a dinner dance, of course.’
Perfectly adequate for a dinner dance brilliantly summed up the superior plonk in all those suspect bottles. There wasn’t any point, I thought, in asking Orkney about the scotch; he was a gin man himself.
The horses for the third race emerged onto the track and cantered past the stands. Orkney raised a massive pair of binoculars and studied his fancy, a flashy looking bay with a bounding impatient stride like an impala and sweat already on his neck.
‘Fighting his jockey,’ Orkney muttered. ‘Losing the race on the way down.’ He lowered the race-glasses and scowled.
‘Larry Trent sometimes bought horses at the sales,’ I said casually, watching the runners. ‘Not for you?’
‘No, no. For his brother.’ Orkney’s eyes and attention were anywhere but on me. ‘Horses in training. Three-year-olds, or four or five. Shipped them abroad, that sort of thing. No, no, I buy yearlings... on bloodstock agents’ advice, of course.’
Flora, listening, wore an expression that changed rapidly from surprise to comprehension. The disappearing Ramekin had been explained in the most mundane unmysterious way. She wasn’t exactly disappointed but in the comprehension there was definite anticlimax.
‘Look at that!’ Orkney exclaimed crossly. ‘The damn thing’s bolting.’
His fancy had won the battle with his jockey and was departing into the distance at a flat gallop. Orkney raised his binoculars and folded his mouth into a grim and almost spiteful line as if he would have wrung the jockey’s neck if he could have caught him.
‘Did you know Larry Trent’s brother?’ I asked.
‘What? No. No, never met him. Larry just said... Look at that! Bloody fool ought to be fined. I saw Larry buying a good horse for around fifty thousand at the sales. I said if he had that sort of money, why did he prefer leasing? It was his brother’s cash, he said. Out of his league. But he could pick horses, he said, and his brother couldn’t. The one thing his brother couldn’t do, he said. Sounded envious to me. But there you are, that’s people. Look at that bloody boy! Gone past the start. It’s too bad! It’s disgraceful!’ Ungovernable irritation rose in his voice. ‘Now they’ll be late off, and we’ll be rushed for Breezy Palm.’
Thirteen
He was right. They were late off. Orkney’s fancy finished dead tired and second to last and we were indeed rushed for Breezy Palm.
Orkney was seriously displeased. Orkney became coldly and selfishly unpleasant.
I dutifully walked Flora down to the saddling boxes, though more slowly than our angry host had propelled his lady. (‘You didn’t mind him calling you my walker, did you, dear?’ Flora asked anxiously. ‘Not at all. Delighted to walk you anywhere, any time.’ ‘You’re such a comfort, Tony dear.’) We reached the saddling boxes as the tiny saddle itself went on over the number cloth, elastic girths dangling.
Breezy Palm, a chestnut with three white socks, looked as if he had a certain amount of growing still to do, particularly in front. Horses, like children, grew at intervals with rests in between: Breezy Palm’s forelegs hadn’t yet caught up with the last spurt in the hind.
‘Good strong rump,’ I said, in best Jimmy fashion.
The brisk travelling head lad, busy with girth buckles, glanced at me hopefully but Orkney was in no mood for flattery. ‘He’s coming to hand again at last,’ he said sourly. ‘He won twice back in July, but since then there have been several infuriating disappointments. Not Jack’s fault, of course...’ His voice all the same was loaded with criticism. ‘... jockeys’ mistakes, entered at the wrong courses, frightened in the starting gate, needed the race, always something.’
Neither the head lad nor Flora looked happy, but nor were they surprised. Orkney’s pre-race nerves, I supposed, were part of the job.
‘Couldn’t you have saddled up sooner?’ Orkney said crossly. ‘You must have known the last race was delayed.’
‘You usually like to see your horses saddled, sir.’
‘Yes, yes, but use some commonsense.’
‘Sorry, sir.’
‘Can’t you hurry that up?’ Orkney said with increasing brusqueness as the head lad began sponging the horse’s nose and mouth. ‘We’re damned late already.’
‘Just coming, sir.’ The head lad’s glance fell on the horse’s rug, still to be buckled on over the saddle for warming muscles on the October day. There was a pot of oil also for brushing gloss onto the hooves... and a prize to the lad, it said in the racecard, for the best turned-out horse.
‘It’s too bad,’ Orkney said impatiently. ‘We should be in the parade ring already.’ He turned away sharply and stalked off in that direction, leaving Isabella, Flora and me to follow as we would.
Isabella looked stoically unaffected. Flora began to scurry after Orkney but I caught her abruptly by the arm, knowing he’d think less of her for hurrying, not more.
‘Slow down, slow down, the jockeys aren’t out yet.’
‘Oh. All right, then.’ She looked guilty as much as flustered, and walked with small jerky steps between the long-legged Isabella and myself as we joined Orkney in the parade ring, no later than any other owner-trainer group.
Orkney was still in the grip of his outburst of bad temper, which failed to abate when Breezy Palm finally appeared in the ring looking polished. The jockey, approaching it seemed to me unsmilingly out of past experience, was sarcastically told not to leave his winning run as bloody late as last time and not to go to sleep in the stalls, if he didn’t mind.
The featherweight jockey listened expressionlessly, his gaze on the ground, his body relaxed. He’s heard it all before, I thought, and he simply doesn’t care. I wondered, if I’d been a jockey, whether I would have ridden my heart out for owners who spoke in that way, and concluded that possibly not. Breezy Palm’s uncertain prospects developed a certainty for me at that moment: and I wondered what Orkney would be like in defeat when he was so obnoxious in hope.
The bell rang for the jockeys to mount. Breezy Palm’s jockey nodded to Orkney and went away with Orkney still telling him that if he used his whip too much he’d have him up in front of the stewards.
Flora was standing so close to me she was virtually clinging on. When Orkney turned away and strode out of the parade ring without waiting for Isabella or to see his horse mounted she said to me shakily, ‘Jack manages him, but I can’t. Jack stops him being so rude to the jockeys. One of them refused to ride his horses... can you imagine?’
‘Mm,’ I said. ‘Do we have to go up to the box to watch the race?’
‘Oh, my goodness, yes,’ she said emphatically. ‘At least... I mean... you don’t have to... I could go alone.’