‘Where’s Tilda?’ asked Painswick.
‘Coming,’ said Pocock. ‘She’s got a lot of lessons to prepare.’
Inadvertently, Tilda had recently upset both Romy and Carrie, telling the former that Drummond was developing into a bit of a bully, and his language should be watched.
‘Doesn’t get that from our house,’ Romy had snapped. ‘Must be listening to my mother-in-law’s builder friends.’
Tilda had been coaching Trixie, and told Alan that the child was desperate for her mother’s approval. ‘She’s really clever, she just needs a reason to succeed, some interest in her future, not just rants when she fails.’
Alan, in a row last night, had been unwise enough to pass this on to Carrie.
‘Doesn’t Wilkie look well,’ said Valent, as she nudgingly followed him round.
‘I think the feng shui in the office really worked on her,’ Etta couldn’t resist saying.
Valent grinned. ‘Bonny says I have an excess of Yang.’
‘They try to tell us we’re too yang,’ said Etta. ‘Do you remember? Sung by Jimmy Young, or Yang?’ she giggled. ‘How is Bonny? I’m so sorry about the chilli.’
‘It was fine, it’s a lovely party.’
Looking round his field he could see Niall, back from Matins, sitting on the grass with Woody and talking to Joey and Chrissie. Chris was opening bottles and buttling.
Valent next questioned Painswick about the yard. ‘Marius has gone to Uttoxeter,’ she said. ‘He works so hard, but he’s so thrilled about Furious.’
So was Valent, who’d secretly bought him.
Direct Debbie even congratulated Etta on her garden.
‘To grow those plants with so little sun is impressive. I’ll give you my scarlet kniphofia Percy’s Pride to brighten things up a bit.’
Rafiq, still dazed from having such a long and encouraging conversation with Valent, lay on his back looking up at lemonyellow flowers of traveller’s joy. Josh, handsome, tanned and just back from a week in Portugal, didn’t know how to handle Trixie, who he had to admit was looking well fit. Lester was bending the Major’s ear.
‘I want Mrs Wilkinson in my Godiva film. If she can canter around the orchard, she can carry Cindy for a week or so.’
Seth was talking to Trixie.
‘Valent is too old for jeans,’ he was saying dismissively, ‘particularly with those great muscular footballer’s thighs.’
‘He looks pretty cool for a coffin-dodger,’ said Trixie, who was looking at Josh and deciding she was still mad about him.
Etta poured drink after drink, continuing to apologize for the chilli. At least everyone loved her crumbles and the salads had gone down well.
She felt suddenly deflated when Valent came up and said he had to go.
‘I’ve got to be in Shanghai for a meeting first thing.’
‘You came all the way for Wilkie’s party?’
‘More or less. Bonny’s in London doing a television programme. I’ll be back later in the autumn and we’ll get Wilkie up and running. How’s Alan getting on with her biography?’
‘Not much to write about.’
‘He can write about today, it’s been a great party.’
He kissed her on the cheek and she resisted the urge to cling to him. ‘Thank you for the lovely champagne and being so sweet to everyone.’
‘Hetta!’ Lester Bolton accosted her five minutes later. ‘Will you introduce me to Valent?’
‘I’m so sorry, he’s gone.’
Bolton looked furious. ‘We need to have a serious talk about the syndicate,’ he said ominously.
Etta was relieved to be distracted by the arrival of Dora, who had passed all her GCSEs and had spent a lot of the holidays teaching Mrs Wilkinson new tricks.
Mrs Wilkinson frequently stuck out her tongue when she was trying hard in a race, or, knowing it would get a laugh, for a Polo. She had now learnt to make faces. When asked to do her John Prescott face, she would screw her mouth and nose up, but, much more dangerously, when asked to do her Tilda Flood face, she
curled her lip and stuck out her top teeth, which had people in stitches.
Alas, Trixie in a brief attempt at conciliation had told her mother, Carrie, about this trick. Increasingly irked by the closeness she saw developing between Alan and buck-toothed Tilda, and punchy on too much champagne, Carrie asked Dora to make Mrs Wilkinson do her Tilda Flood face.
Not realizing that Tilda, who’d been dealing with a hot water failure upsetting the holiday-letters in Shagger’s cottage, had just wandered in late to the party, Dora and Mrs Wilkinson obliged at length, to screams of laughter.
Witnessing everything, utterly mortified, Tilda clapped her hands over her teeth. Instantly the laughter petered out. Looking round, Dora felt as though she’d missed a step in the dark.
‘I’m so sorry, Tilda,’ she wailed. ‘It’s only a silly joke.’
‘Come on, Tilda,’ called out Carrie. ‘Can’t you laugh at yourself?’
But a sobbing Tilda had fled up the road, back to School Cottage. She must somehow scrape together the money to get her teeth fixed. She’d been home for the weekend to a mother with eyes full of questions, who so longed for a grandchild to boast about at bridge parties. Learning Tilda was coaching the ravishing Trixie, one of the Greycoats teachers had asked her if she was coming out at last.
Back at the party, this was definitely a Miss Bates moment as an outraged Alan bawled Carrie out for being an absolute bitch.
Carrie was not the only bitch. As Trixie was clearly having a row with Josh in the orchard, Seth returned to the cool of Etta’s bungalow with Romy.
‘Move, dog,’ she ordered Priceless, who ignored her, so she had to sit very close to Seth. Opening the last bottle of Valent’s champagne, he filled up their glasses.
‘Awful she hasn’t got a single photograph of Sampson here,’ chuntered Romy. ‘There’s one of Trixie and that ghastly goat and Mrs Wilkinson and Valent, but none of Drummond and Poppy.’
‘She sees enough of them,’ said Seth reasonably. ‘Sampson sounds a brute.’
‘He was Yang personified.’ Then Romy added roguishly, ‘Have you noticed my mother-in-law has such a crush on you she gave you the biggest mountain of chilli and she trembles every time you speak to her?’
Seth was transfixed by Romy’s smiling, full, red lips and the warm brown softness of her cleavage. Were her breasts brown all over? Very tanked up, he murmured that he had a confession to make.
‘I intended to ask you to lunch back in July, but Stefan by mistake took my letter to the wrong Mrs Bancroft.’
Romy couldn’t stop laughing, peal after peal worthy of Tower Captain Pocock.
‘Etta thought you were madly in love with her? Oh Seth, how
priceless
.’ She gave the dog a light tap. ‘She does give herself airs. Did you explain you meant me?’
‘I couldn’t disillusion her.’
‘That isn’t fair, leading her on, letting her look after your dog all the time.’
‘“I do love nothing in the world so well as you,” ‘ murmured Seth, taking her hand. ‘“Is not that strange?”’ Then, when Romy raised an eyebrow: ‘
Much Ado
– Act 4. I’m devoted to Etta, she’s terrific for her age and must have been stunning in her youth. It was a genuine mistake.’
‘When are you going to come and watch Martin’s DVD?’ asked Romy.
‘When he’s out,’ murmured Seth, running an idle finger down her cleavage.
Next moment Trixie had stumbled past them, tears pouring down her face, and locked herself in Etta’s bedroom.
Hearing cries, lots of laughter and whooping outside, Seth went to the window and groaned.
‘Oh God, the fair Weatheralls have arrived.’
‘Oh, it’s little Phoebe,’ cried Romy, leaving her champagne and running outside.
‘Promise not to say anything to Etta,’ Seth called after her, then turning back, hearing sobbing, he banged on the bedroom door.
‘You all right, lovely?’
‘Bugger off.’
‘What you need is a large glass of champagne.’
Catching sight of his reflection in Etta’s mirror, Seth was faced with a dilemma. He wanted to look younger, and if he cut his hair short and spiked it upwards with product, he’d look trendy. This, on the other hand, would reveal the lines on his forehead and round his eyes, which would be covered if he combed his hair forward like Mark Antony.
‘Come on, babe.’ He banged on the door again.
‘How are you, how are you, long time no see.’ An ecstatic Sethfuelled Romy pushed Debbie aside and was hugging Phoebe.
‘Shagger and Toby are dropping off our stuff, but I wanted to come straight over,’ cried Phoebe, who was wearing a grey and white striped smock.
‘Have a glass of bubbly,’ said Romy.
‘No, no, just a glass of orange squash.’
‘Have you had a good summer?’
‘Heavenly. We had such a great time staying with the Lennoxes. Such a beautiful house. Do gather round, everyone, I’ve got such lovely news for you all. I’m expecting a baby in February. If it’s a boy that’ll mean another willow in the churchyard. I want all the syndicate to be honorary godparents.’ Then, as Romy, Debbie and even a newly arrived Cindy hugged her: ‘I know you’ll all be there for me.’
‘Roughly translated as free babysitting and presents Christmas and Easter,’ murmured Alan to Etta.
‘Must go to the lav,’ said Phoebe, adding, as Mrs Wilkinson wandered up to her, ‘Hello, Wilkie. So glad you’re out and about again.’ She patted her pink nose. ‘How soon can we come and see you racing?’
Toby, hugely congratulated by everyone, was whinnying with nervous laughter.
‘Shagger’s going to be chief godfather,’ he said.
Despite discovering Tilda crying her eyes out at School Cottage, Shagger hadn’t stayed to comfort her. Etta’s free drink was too important to miss.
Tilda wept on, not answering door or telephone. ‘In loveless bowers, we sigh alone.’
Much later, there was another knock. Creeping downstairs, Tilda found a vast bunch of white flowers on the doorstep. Someone must have stripped Etta’s garden.
‘Darling Tilda,’ said the scrawled note, ‘so very sorry. We all love you. All love, Mrs Wilkinson.’
The syndicate grew increasingly restless. So many had seen Mrs Wilkinson cavorting around at Etta’s party, why couldn’t she run sooner? Bolton was the chief stirrer: if the mare wasn’t race-fit, she could at least play Lady Godiva’s horse. This would merely entail a week or so’s filming, carrying a naked Cindy through some deserted town with only Peeping Tom as a witness.
But to Bolton’s rage, Marius flatly refused. Mrs Wilkinson must concentrate on getting fit, not star in some grubby porn film.
An apoplectic Bolton proposed a motion of no confidence in Marius and demanded a meeting in the skittle alley of the Fox the following Saturday evening, the first in October, coinciding with the beginning of the winter game. Bolton’s mood was not improved when Joey greeted him with the news that Furious had ‘pissed all over the three fifteen at Fontwell’ that afternoon.
All the syndicate were present except for Alban, who’d gone to a charity dinner in Oxford, Trixie and Dora, who were at school, and Tilda, who had a PTA meeting and anyway only owned half a share with Shagger. He was already banging out ‘Horsey, Horsey, Don’t You Stop’ on the skittle alley’s ancient upright.
The Major and Cindy, quickstepping round the floor to much laughter, did nothing to dispel the underlying tension. Feeling hillocks of silicone pressed against his Rotary Club-blazered breast, the Major shuddered. What if he were to lose Cindy and his Portuguese villa? Somehow he must ensure victory.
The syndicate sat round a table, armed with drinks and mocked by hunting prints on the walls of fit horses hurtling across country. Willowwood rugger team, who’d thrashed Limesbridge that afternoon, were getting drunk downstairs.
Chrissie, who couldn’t bear to miss a chance of smouldering at Joey and learning the outcome of the meeting, was serving drinks in a little bar in the corner.
In his pursuit of the patrician, Bolton was looking particularly absurd in a new mauve cashmere jersey which fell to his calves. His face was bronzed by fake bake, which made him look more like a red squirrel than a grey one. He kicked off, saying he was fed up with Marius’s appalling rudeness.
‘He insulted my wife Cindy by suggesting she would take part in anything other than a tasteful erotic fantasy, and now he’s denying Mrs Wilkinson a chance to star. And what is more, our producer was prepared to offer five grand for Mrs Wilkinson to take part, which would mean around four hundred to each share-holder, which I’m sure you would all appreciate.’
The syndicate agreed they would.
Then Phoebe spoke. In a billowing flowered smock, she was playing the pregnancy card for all it was worth, making everyone carry her glasses of orange squash and even her mobile, on which there was already a message: ‘This is the voicemail of Toby, Phoebe and Bump.’
‘While we were in Scotland,’ she began, ‘we met the most charming man called Henry Ponsonby, who runs the most wonderful syndicates. He knows all about horses so he’s great at handling trainers, which you aren’t really, Normie. They’re getting loads of winners and seem to have such fun. Last open day at Nicky Henderson’s they had the most delicious lunch and met loads of famous horses, jockeys and owners.’