Wearing a seraphic smile, Gillian nodded dutifully. Really, Jemima thought in irritation, she was in serious danger of turning into a Stepford Wife.
Drew seemed relieved. 'Look, I've got to get Blue Ruin into the parade ring for the first race. There are bloodstock sales at Newmarket in a couple of weeks so I'll get Tattersalls' catalogues and ring you. We'll both have to fabricate some reason for being away from the village at the same time.'
'And we'll invite Charlie,' Gillian said happily. 'I want Charlie to ride in the National on my horse – so I guess he ought to have a say.'
God, Jemima thought, the whole thing was growing more bizarre by the moment. She almost expected Mike Leigh to come striding through the crowd and yell, 'Cut! It's a wrap!'
'Do you want me to tell Charlie the good news?' Drew had ducked back under the rails.
'Please.' Gillian beamed. 'You're far more discreet than me.'
Understatement of the year, Jemima thought. 'As you've both obviously got millions of things to discuss, I think I'll go back now.'
Drew bit his lip. 'Sorry – we're being rude. Tell Mad we'll be along in a moment.'
Gillian fluttered her fingers in a little wave. 'Didn't I tell you it was exciting, Jemima? I know you've only seen the sordid side of racing until now –'
'Gillian!'
'Oh, yes.' She cast a sideways glance at Drew. 'Sorry. I forgot. Let's talk later? On the journey home?'
Jemima turned away and started to push through the crowds. She could hear Gillian laughing behind her and Drew's answering chuckle. Feeling paranoid, she hoped they weren't laughing at her. No, they'd probably already forgotten her existence. They'd be heavily into fetlocks and hocks, or whatever it was that Vincent used to blame when a horse didn't win, for ages yet.
She forced her way further through the swelling crowd. Neither Drew nor Gillian – and she'd honestly expected more from Gillian with her religious connections – had a clue about their responsibilities. Didn't they realise what they were doing? Some poor horse was going to be bullied into submission and asked to jump mountains while throughout the country people would pile money they could ill afford on to it. And these same people wouldn't care about the horse when it fell and broke its neck. Why should they? All they'd care about was the fact that the rent money had gone down the drain.
She paused and squinted against the sun. The area beneath the trees seemed to be a mass of tents and she headed hopefully towards them. One of them must be Maddy's. She needed a drink. She wanted to go home. She didn't belong here among these hardened racegoers.
'Ouch!' She glared at the man who had just stamped on her canvas boot.
'Christ. Sorry. Didn't see you. It's so crowded.'
She carried on glaring. Her toes hurt. She was cross with Gillian, and she was at a bloody racecourse. She sighed. 'It's okay. I wasn't looking either.'
He smiled as he walked away. He was quite pleasant, she decided. Not a ten-plus, devastating, havoc-making, pulse-racer like Charlie Somerset, or drop-dead gorgeous like Drew, but nice. Still, he was at a race meeting which meant he was a gambler, and therefore strictly off-limits.
She skirted the spaghetti junction of guy ropes round the Peapods marquee and wished she'd leased her bookshop in the middle of an urban sprawl that had no interest in horse-racing whatsoever.
'Hi,' Maddy said as she sat down. 'Did you find Drew? Where's Gillian?'
'They're – er – still talking.' Jemima thought it best not to say anything else. If Glen and Gillian didn't share secrets, then possibly Drew and Maddy didn't either.
There seemed to be even more people gathered around the bar than before, and she felt the usual rush of panic. Grow up, she told herself silently. Don't blush. Don't stutter. You own a bookshop. In less than a month these people will be your customers.
The thought cheered her considerably, so much so that when Maddy waved the wine bottle in her direction she accepted the offer of a refill. 'It was kind of you to ask me to come this evening.'
'Even though you're not keen on racing?' Maddy looked amused.
'This isn't like I'd imagined racing,' Jemima said slowly, careful not to offend her hostess. 'This bit here is really nice. But I'm not going near the course or the bookmakers.'
'Famous last words.'
'No, I mean it.' Jemima twirled her glass.
'I used to think like that. Very much the outsider looking in. And now,' Maddy grinned as she looked round the marquee, 'I'm so steeped in it that I can't imagine any other way of life. You'll probably change your mind when you've been in the village for longer. I think most non-horsy people feel the same way at first. Anyway, you obviously don't want to talk about horses, so tell me about your shop. I can't wait for it to open. I read all the time – well, when Drew and the animals and Poppy and my work allow me to. Are you having an opening party?'
They talked about the bookshop, and Georgia and Rosa, Fran and Lucinda, joined in. They seemed genuinely delighted about the shop opening, and advised her on the books they liked – and those they didn't. The men, like all men at functions the world over, Jemima thought, were still at the bar. In her element at last, she began to relax.
Sadly the relaxation coincided with the multicoloured arrival of Suzy, Luke and Richard prior to the first race, and Jemima found herself almost drowning in a sea of garbled introductions and excited forecasts.
She studied them from behind her spectacles. Suzy was bird-thin and gorgeous, Luke Delaney was simply beautiful, and Richard wasn't, but was very sweet. She'd always believed that jockeys would be snarling and surly. They always looked so skeletal and dour on the television when Vincent was watching Channel Four.
She glanced over at Charlie Somerset. Nothing dour about him. He was welded to Lucinda now, licking trickles of wine from her shoulder, and hadn't even appeared to notice her – not that she was surprised. She'd known a lot of men like Charlie Somerset in Oxford. Truly fabulous-looking men whose vanity would only allow them to date equally physically perfect specimens. Jemima, pretty sure that she fell short on all counts, had never had the confidence to be interested.
Once the jockey trio had trooped off to claim their mounts, Maddy tipped her chair back and blinked into the sunshine. 'Oh, great. Here they are at last. Oh, hell, Drew, what's wrong? Is it Blue Ruin?'
'Yeah, the bloody thing has spread a plate in the parade ring and no one can find the sodding farrier. Who'd be a trainer, eh?'
'Probably ninety per cent of the people here,' Gillian said, still, Jemima noticed, beaming like an idiot as she sat down. 'They think it's all champagne and roses.'
'More like shit and heartache,' Drew said, kissing Maddy briefly. 'Can't stop, sweetheart. You okay?'
'Fine. We'll start dishing up the food after the first race. And don't shout at the horse, Drew. I'm sure he couldn't help it.'
'I never shout at horses, dogs, cats, children – or you.' Drew's eyes crinkled at the corners. 'Don't make me out to be an ogre.'
'Want some help in rounding up the farrier?' Charlie Somerset unpeeled himself from Lucinda, and drifted across from the bar. He kissed Gillian in passing. 'Enjoying yourself?'
Gillian flushed with pleasure and kissed him back. 'Of course. Charlie, have you met Jemima?'
Jemima thought that whatever else they did, the racing fraternity did a hell of a lot of kissing. And it wasn't just luvvie air-kissing either, it was the real McCoy.
But Charlie Somerset, who was even more stunning close to, didn't attempt to kiss her. Instead he stretched out his hand. 'I've been avoiding you like the plague, actually. I know you're an Oxford bluestocking and own the bookshop. I think with my IQ being in minus figures and my preference for stockings being black, it rather puts me out of your league. Anyway, it's lovely to meet you.'
Clever, Jemima thought grudgingly. Very clever. She tried to think of something equally witty to say in reply and couldn't. Charlie Somerset – she
had
heard of him. Of course she'd heard of him. 'And you. I know where I've heard of you before. You fell off in the Grand National, didn't you?'
'I did. Thanks for reminding me.'
'Ouch.' Gillian looked at her reprovingly as Charlie ducked beneath the awning in Drew's wake. 'That was a bit unkind.'
'I thought it was pretty cool, to be honest.'
The voice came from behind her. Jemima turned her head.
The man who had trampled on her foot was laughing. 'If I'd known we were in the same party, I'd've helped you hobble back. It was nice to see Charlie put in his place for once. He's used to women swooning at his feet – and all points north.' He plonked himself down beside her. 'You don't look at all like a swooner to me. I'm Matt Garside. And you must be Jemima. I've heard all about you from your father.'
Dear God! Jemima tried to yank her brain into gear. 'Really? When?'
Maddy, however, forestalled any further conversation by clapping her hands, then giggling. 'God, sorry. I do this so often with Poppy. I've started to assume everyone is about a year old! Drink up and we'll go and watch the race. It's bound to be delayed by at least fifteen minutes now – especially if Drew can't find the farrier.'
As everyone scrambled out of the marquee, Jemima remained rooted in her chair. What the hell was she supposed to do now? Be polite and join in? Stick to her principles and remain seated? Gillian, the turncoat, had already gone, her arm round Lucinda Cox's well licked shoulders.
'We'll be along in a moment,' Matt Garside said to Maddy. 'I need a drink first.'
'Don't wait for me,' Jemima said, when he'd returned with two Diet Cokes and a lot of ice. 'I'm not going.'
'I didn't think you would, somehow. Vincent said you weren't keen. That's why I was surprised to see you here.'
'Really?' What else had Vincent made public about her? 'How do you know my dad?'
It wasn't quite as awful as she'd expected. Nowhere near as bad, really. They'd met in the Cat and Fiddle. Become drinking chums. Her father seemed to have given Matt the authorised, sanitised version of the Carlisle story. She had no intention of enlightening him.
There had been one heart-stopping moment when Matt, chuckling, had said that Vincent had claimed to have been trained in gardening at Bisley. Easy mistake to make, Matt had said, but Vincent had insisted that, no, it was no mistake. He had the Royal Horticultural Society certificates to prove it. Some wag in the Snug of the Cat and Fiddle had suggested that he must have been taught to shoot high-velocity seeds into the soil.
Apparently Vincent had got quite uppity at that point, and had said he'd go back to his cottage to get his paperwork if his word was going to be doubted. The whole pub had been in uproar, Matt told her, arguing over Wisley or Bisley. The landlord had prevented it from becoming a full-scale punch-up by producing his
Guinness Book of Knowledge.
Vincent had said of course he meant Wisley – easy mistake to make – especially after several pints....
Jemima didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
'He's a gem, your father.' Matt drizzled more Coke over her glass of ice. 'You must be proud of him.'
'Very,' she said shortly, racking her brains to find another topic. She'd kill Vincent, of course. But not until after she'd killed Gillian.
Matt didn't seem in any hurry to rush off to join the others to watch the race. The delay was still being announced over the Tannoy. Spreading a plate sounded fairly terminal.
'What does that mean? Does it hurt the horse?'
'No more than you chipping a finger-nail, but it's a damn nuisance. It means losing a shoe. At least it was in the parade ring. Sometimes it happens down at the start – that really dogs everyone off. Don't look so confused – it'll all become crystal clear in time.'
Jemima knew that it wouldn't, thankfully. 'It's a whole new language. And I was never any good at those.'
'Do you want to talk about it? Why you don't like racing?'
'Not really.'
'Okay, then.' He leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. 'Let's find something we can discuss without coming to blows. Politics? Religion? Music? Art? Not food, because I know you work in the Munchy Bar and I'm constantly starving. I know, literature. Tell me about books.'
He was wonderfully easy to talk to. He had none of the hormone-stirring appeal of Charlie, and Jemima, recognising a kindred spirit, relaxed again. They talked at length about the bookshop – he was well read and enthused over a range of authors – and it was only when an enormous cheer shattered the background hum that she remembered where she was.
'Sounds like they might be ready for kick-off at last. Do you want to watch?' Matt asked. 'It might help. I mean, I'm not sure why you don't like racing, but I guess it's pretty boring if you're not involved.'
Oh, God. Which way should she leap this time? She muttered about being an animal lover and hating to see such glorious animals so cruelly treated.
'No cruelty involved,' Matt said, standing up. 'Honestly.'
'But the whips –'
'Whips are part of the tack. They have to be carried. It's in the rules. Racing is an archaic game – nothing much has changed for centuries. You'll notice that most jockeys only use their whips to keep the horse in a straight line – just flicking them alongside in their eye-line. It's for balance. Good jockeys can ride a horse with their hands, their heels, their knees, and their brains. And,' he finished, 'there are dire penalties for those jockeys who abuse the whip.'
'I had no idea. I didn't even know there were rules. I suppose I shouldn't criticise something I know nothing about.' Jemima was floundering. Why couldn't she tell him the truth? He seemed so nice. So understanding. 'Go on then, yes – I'll watch from a distance – but... but would it be okay if we didn't go anywhere near any bookmakers?'
'Fine by me.'
They crossed the soft, mossy grass towards the parade ring. Away from the shade of the marquee and the umbrella of trees, the sun still scorched from a flawless sky. The pre-parade ring was now empty and the horses were being led lazily round the larger circular paddock, while their jockeys huddled in a rainbow clump in the middle.