'Thank God for that.' Charlie collapsed into a chair. 'I need something to lift the gloom. Lucinda is heavily into the
Canterbury Tales
and won't see me. It's the first time I've been passed up in favour of a bloke who's been dead for nine hundred years. Oh, bugger.'
'What?'
'Over there. Ned Filkins – and Drew and Maddy's new gardener, Vincent. They're real bosom buddies these days. I don't think Ned's the best companion for him.'
'Ned's not the best companion for anyone.' Matt drained his glass. 'Maybe someone should warn him before it's too late.'
Charlie swirled the remainder of his gin, before swallowing it in one go. 'I've tried. Mind you, I picked a bad moment. I walked in on the mother and father of all rows.'
Matt raised his eyebrows. He loved gossip. Charlie always had some titbit. 'What? At Peapods? With Drew and Maddy?'
'Nah. Maddy and Vincent. Seems he'd completely wrecked her walled garden. You know, the one she's been nurturing ever since Mrs F took up permanent residence in the Channel Islands? He'd pulled out all the roses, and some cottage garden plants that had belonged to Maddy's gran and, well, practically everything. The whole place looked like it had been napalmed.'
'Christ.' Matt gathered up the empty glasses for refilling. 'A bit of an odd thing for a gardener to do. Did he know what he was up to?'
'That's more or less what Maddy was asking – in no uncertain terms.' Charlie grinned hugely. 'Then Vincent said that he'd discovered that all the plants had lumbago root rot or some other crap, and they had to go. He said he'd turn it into a Japanese garden, all concrete and stunted growth, until the soil was clear of infection.'
'Oh.' Matt was a bit disappointed. He'd expected more. He stood up, ready to head for the bar. 'And was Mad happy with that?'
'Dunno. She looked bloody murderous. The next day it was all down to paving slabs and stunted growth. Oh, shit – Ned's spotted you.'
'Hello, Matt.' Ned was calling to him across the pub. 'Quite a little coup you an' the ole cow struck this afternoon by all accounts. I was just telling Vince here all about it, wasn't I, Vince?'
Vincent nodded. Matt greeted them both briefly and turned his attentions to the Cat and Fiddle's landlord.
Picking up the drinks and heading back to the table, he groaned.
Ned and Vincent had vacated their own table and were chattering to a thunder-faced Charlie.
'Hurry up, Matt, lad!' Ned patted the seat beside him. 'Come and sit down. Ole Vince here is a right babe-in-arms when it comes to matters of the turf. I told him, there's no one better than you and Charlie to give him a few tips.'
'Jemima! Mum's not ready to go yet, and she says can you meet her in the summerhouse, and Zeke poked his head round the door of the flat. 'Oh, bugger. Sorry.'
The head disappeared and the door closed. There was then a polite knock before it reopened. Zeke grinned. 'I always forget that bit. Yeah, anyway, Mum says she'll be about another ten minutes. Hey, you look really nice.'
'Thanks.' Jemima flicked her hair behind her ears and burrowed under the sofa for a stray canvas boot. 'Suitably dressed for a picnic, do you reckon?'
'Nah. Too grown-up. Anyway, picnics are for kids – not for old people. Old people grumble about dog poo and getting ants in things and they always see wasps that aren't there and complain about grit in the sandwiches and –‘
Jemima laughed. 'Cheers. I can see I'm going to have a really nice time. At least it hasn't rained this week, which means we won't all have to sit on our pac-a-macs, will we?' She found the boot and laced it. 'There. Now, shall we go and chivvy your mum up a bit?'
The summerhouse was in a state of chaos. The June sun, blazing through the windows, illuminated the debris with halogen brilliance. Gillian, looking wonderful in a silver silk trouser suit, languidly cleared a space on one of the chairs. 'Sit down. I won't be a tick. Just a few bits and bobs to put away.'
'Isn't five o'clock a strange time to be going on a picnic?' Watching Gillian's leisurely tidying-up process, Jemima ran her fingers through her hair again. It hadn't quite reached an acceptable level of tousledom. 'Shouldn't we be taking our own contribution of egg sandwiches and a flask? Oh, I can't get my hair right! And you look sensational – I'm nowhere near as posh as you. What exactly should I be wearing?'
'No to the time, and no to the sandwiches, and your hair looks lovely.' Gillian paused.
'Yes?' Jemima frowned. 'But?'
'That dress – it's absolutely gorgeous. Perfect. You look very Renoir. Laura Ashley, isn't it?'
It was. It was also her best going-out frock. 'There's still a but, isn't there?'
'Not a huge one.' Gillian laughed. 'But I'd advise against wearing the black knickers under it.'
'Christ!' Jemima hurtled out of the summerhouse.
Back in the sanctuary of her bedroom, she changed into white knickers, added an ankle-length cotton petticoat for good measure, and wondered how many times she'd displayed her underwear in Oxford. She had always worn the Laura Ashley – minus petticoat – to Bookworms functions. Why hadn't anyone ever had the balls to tell her before? Probably, she thought, because Gillian was rapidly becoming something she hadn't had for a very long time. A close friend. In fact, Milton St John was making a rather lovely habit of giving her things she had thought she'd have to live without. Like friends, like a social life, like a future, like a father...
She was delighted that Vincent was here. She had seen him three times since he'd surprised her in the Munchy Bar: twice in the Cat and Fiddle and once here at her flat when she'd cooked him a meal. She loved him to distraction, and was so pleased to see the pallor subsiding, and his muscles beginning to fill out – but she still didn't trust him an inch.
He was so damn plausible. Always had been. Gillian and Glen had thought it was wonderful that Vincent was living in the village, and couldn't understand her reservations. But how could she tell them? She had learned very quickly that in Milton St John, if you sneezed at one end of the High Street, someone immediately said 'Bless you' at the other. And Vincent
might
really have turned over a new leaf. If so, she didn't want to put any doubts in Maddy and Drew's mind. It was so long since anyone had given him a chance – and she was blowed if she was going to be the one that ruined it for him.
She had ordered him back issues of all the gardening magazines, guiltily aware that she was now compounding his felony, and advised him after that first fiasco to check with Maddy on exactly what she wanted pulled up or pruned. Typically, he'd got away with that desecration – and Maddy had been into the Munchy Bar singing Vincent's praises and raving about her new low-maintenance Japanese walled garden. Jemima had warned him that he'd never get away with it twice.
At least, she thought, as she inspected the Laura Ashley in the mirror for total opaqueness from every angle, there was one good thing about tonight's picnic: she'd checked with her father and he wasn't going. Meeting a few chums, he'd said, in the pub. Much more fun. She hoped it would be. She just hoped his fun didn't involve gambling – the betting shop in the village would be closed, wouldn't it? And he didn't have transport to get to the bigger ones in the nearby town. She'd just have to trust him....
And his absence did have a further plus point: whatever lies he'd invented for his CV, at least she wouldn't be expected to agree with his fabrications tonight. She could enjoy a village evening out without having to worry about a thing. Grabbing her ethnic mirror-glass shoulder-bag and locking her door, she almost skipped down the staircase.
Gillian still wasn't ready. Jemima leaned against the desk and tried to read some of the sheets spewing from the printer.
'Oh! You were quicker than I thought you'd be.' Gillian switched off all the equipment, and gathering the A4 sheets together in an untidy bundle, stuffed them into a drawer. 'Stand up against the light. Oh, yes. That's much better.'
'I'm still not sure I should be going with you. I know Maddy invited me, but I think she meant me and a Significant Someone. Shouldn't this be a romantic evening out for you and Glen?'
'He wouldn't have wanted to come even if he hadn't already had a prior engagement with the Parish Biddies' Clean-Up Campaign,' Gillian said. 'It isn't his sort of thing at all. And you really don't know that many people yet, do you? It'll be a great opportunity to circulate away from the Munchy Bar.'
'And you're sure it's safe to leave the twins to their own devices?'
'Stop chucking in obstacles. Glen's having his meeting here. He's rescheduled from the Cat and Fiddle. The twins will be chaperoned by Bathsheba Cox and Bronwyn Pugh and the rest of the village's sturdy-ankle brigade.'
The invitation to Maddy and Drew's picnic had, as far as Jemima was concerned, been a mixed blessing. True, it would remove her from the Vicarage on Bathsheba's anti-sleaze campaign night which meant that, yet again, she wouldn't have to admit to ordering Fishnets, but it also meant that most of her fellow guests were going to be connected – however tenuously – with horse-racing.
Gillian delved into her bag and sprayed on scent. 'It's going to be an ideal opportunity to introduce you to some men. And don't look like that. I know what you're thinking. You've gone all wrinkly-nosed which means you're getting sniffy about the company. It'll be a complete mixture of people. They won't all be from the stables. I'm not asking you to announce your engagement to Charlie Somerset or anything —'
'Who?'
'Charlie Somerset. You mean you've never heard of Charlie Somerset?'
Jemima put on her glasses. 'I think I might have done. Isn't he a jockey?'
'He's sex on legs.' Gillian gathered up her handbag. 'But don't tell Glen I said so.'
'Where exactly are we going?' Jemima asked as Gillian eased her elderly Triumph away from the twisty Berkshire lanes and headed for the M4.
'Windsor.' Gillian concentrated on the road ahead.
'Really?' Jemima swivelled round. 'As in the castle?'
'Not exactly. It's not a royal command – but close – yes ...'
Windsor. Wow! Jemima wriggled happily in her seat. Life was very definitely on the up. She stared out of the window, completely relaxed. The sensation of bowling along with her bottom about six inches off the road, made her feel silly and giddy and eighteen again – and took away the weight of responsibilities which for so long had threatened to overwhelm her.
The journey across Berkshire went very quickly. 'Heavens!' Jemima looked around with total surprise as they bumped across cattle grids. 'Is it a stately home? It's beautiful. And all these cars! It must be a very big picnic.'
'Huge,' Gillian said quickly, as they scrambled from the Triumph beneath a canopy of chestnut trees. 'Drew Fitzgerald and Maddy are well-known for their hospitality – but, of course, not all these people are their guests.'
'They're not? Is it a sort of communal thing, then?' Jemima followed Gillian in the direction of a shingle path running alongside various single-storey buildings which were labelled with notices saying 'Stables', 'Visiting Lads', and 'Permit Holders Only'. The penny took a second to drop. 'Bloody hell! It's a bloody racecourse!'
'Jemima, look, I was going to tell you, but I talked it over with Maddy, and we knew you weren't too keen on racing and we thought that you'd change your mind once you were here and –'
'You thought wrong then.'
The still-warm sun filtered in dappled patterns through the trees as crowds of other early racegoers, all decked out in their summer finery, tramped past them. Horses whinnied from behind the high walls. Jemima, incensed by Gillian's duplicity, stopped walking.
Gillian cannoned into the back of her. 'I'm sorry if I wasn't exactly truthful about the venue, but I'm sure you'll enjoy it
'And I'm sure I won't.'
'I had no idea that you were
this
anti.' Gillian sighed heavily. 'I thought we were friends. I thought I knew everything about you.'
'No one knows everything about anyone.' Jemima sucked in her breath. She should have explained the situation to Gillian ages ago. It was her own fault. She had always, through force of habit, kept things to herself. 'My parents divorced because of racing. We never had any money because my father was addicted to gambling. He lost his business and our home because of horses, dogs, cards, dice – two flies crawling up a window. Have you any idea what it's like to be scared of the postman? Or terrified of a knock on the door?'
Gillian shook her head. 'Oh, God. I had no inkling –'
'That's why my father lived in a sordid bedsit. And why my mother has a live-in job in a hotel. Nothing to do with the recession. Nothing to do with being made redundant. Because, thanks to my father's gambling, they lost everything and neither of them will ever be off the blacklist.'
'Oh, Jemima – you poor thing. You should have told me –'
'Well, now I have.' She swallowed. 'I would be very, very grateful if you never mentioned this to another soul. And definitely not to Drew and Maddy. I really don't think they'd want an undischarged bankrupt – not to mention an addicted gambler – living on their property and working for them.'
'Of course I won't breathe a word to anyone.' Gillian still looked pole-axed. 'I'm so sorry. But Maddy and I – well, we honestly thought it was some animal-rights thing ...'
'It's that as well. But it's mainly the gambling.'
Gillian pulled a face. 'Then this is about as insensitive as taking an alcoholic's family on a day-trip to a distillery, isn't it?'
'On a par, yes.'
A doubt was wriggling through Jemima's mind. Vincent must have known the picnic was on a racecourse. Working at Peapods he couldn't possibly not have known. So why – in the name of all the saints – when he had a bona-fide reason to come racing, had he chosen to remain in Milton St John?
'Do you want to go home?' Gillian was pushed against her by a tide of ladies in hats. 'I'd totally understand if you did.'
'And spoil it for everyone? No, I'm here now. After all, I suppose I've been lucky so far – living in Milton St John and not getting even a whiff of a jockey. But don't expect me to enjoy it. I promise not to be po-faced for the entire evening, but it'll cost you. I'll think of something really awful for you to do in return. And don't expect me to be nice to anyone – because I won't.'