Vincent walked back into the shop. Whatever Jemima might say – and she was a perfectionist, his daughter – it looked pretty damned good to him. The shelves were lined with books, all the packaging had been dumped in the skips in the yard, publishers' posters adorned the walls, the chairs and tables were set out in the browsers' corner, and there were beanbags for the kiddies. He couldn't see that there was much left to do. Jemima, obviously felt differently.
She dropped the pile of paperwork she was carrying and hugged him. 'Sorry to sound like a nag. You're lovely to offer to help. I know you've been working all day.'
He was delighted that she'd asked him. And work was becoming a pleasure, although he was a bit worried about Maddy. Since the débâcle with the walled garden, he'd studied books, magazines and television programmes. He'd managed to introduce a child-safe waterfall to Maddy's pond, and successfully pruned a few small fruit trees. The sit-on mowing machine was a breeze and satisfied his Formula One fantasies, and he now had commissions for his special brand of low-maintenance Japanese garden from three other trainers in the village.
'What do you want me to do next?'
'The stationery.' She picked up several boxes and deposited them in his arms. 'Could you put it away, please.'
'I thought I had. About half an hour ago.'
'You did. In the store-cupboard. It needs to be under the desk.'
'Yes, ma'am!'
He balanced the boxes in a neat stack and carried them across the spotless sisal floor. He hoped Maddy was okay. From years of practice in the bedsit, he had learned to take very little notice of what other people were doing, but he couldn't help being rather concerned about the atmosphere at Peapods. He had toyed with the idea of mentioning it to Jemima, but decided against it. She might get worried that he was about to lose his job – and that would never do. Just so long as Jemima and everyone else thought that his sole income came from Drew Fitzgerald's pocket, then no awkward questions would be asked.
Still, it didn't stop him fretting about Maddy. He'd become very fond of her. She seemed listless these days, and she wasn't quite as chipper with him – or with anyone else as far as he could see – as she had been. And Drew – well, he was almost morose. Which, as Ned said, with the new horse in the yard – and apparently owned by one of the princes from an oil-rich country – was altogether odd.
And Vincent hadn't heard Drew and Maddy laughing for ages. And they didn't sit together in the garden any more and giggle with the baby and the animals. Knowing how painful his own marriage break-up had been, he hoped upon hope that there weren't any problems of that nature.
He had, on the QT, mentioned it to Maureen in the Munchy Bar. He liked Maureen a lot. He thought that her Brian was a bit of a knob to be away on his long-distance lorry-driving lark, leaving her alone all the week. He and Maureen had shared one or two vodka-and-limes in the Cat and Fiddle of an evening, and very enjoyable they'd been, too.
Maureen had definitely no-no'd the idea of any marital problems at Peapods. She would have heard, she'd said, if there was anything wrong in that department. Mark her words, duck, she'd said, Bathsheba and Bronwyn would be straight on the case. Money worries – yes, but they were, according to the grapevine, on the up now. No, Bathsheba and Bronwyn were still fighting their anti-porn campaign and worrying over Lucinda who seemed to be having a lot of sleep-overs with her girlfriends, and still had several A-level exams to take. There was not a whiff of things not being as they should be at Peapods.
It hadn't stopped Vincent worrying, though. Secretly he looked on Maddy as a surrogate daughter, and sometimes wondered if he should ask her if everything was okay. She'd paid him at the end of the month, and thanked him for fixing the gutters, and for the waterfall, and for putting up a new security lighting system in the yard. She hadn't smiled at all.
Vincent had pocketed the money – he'd asked for cash because he said he hadn't got his bank account sorted out yet – and thanked her effusively. Her mouth had smiled then, he'd noticed, but her eyes had remained blank.
As well as being paid by Maddy, he had earned himself a nice little bonus. Not, of course, that the bonus came from gardening, as such. Ned Filkins certainly knew a thing or two, and now that Jemima was walking out with Matt Garside – Vincent had had to pinch himself when she'd told him – the future looked very bright indeed.
'Dad! You're day-dreaming!' Jemima's tone was mock-severe. 'Where've you put the stationery this time?'
'Cupboard under the desk – as instructed.' Vincent dug his hand into the pocket of his corduroys and pulled out a fistful of notes. 'But this is more important than your invoices and headed notepaper.'
'Nothing's more important than – bloody hell! Where did you get that from?'
'I've been paid. Now,' Vincent licked his forefinger and thumb and began peeling off fivers, 'I owe you for all the time in the bedsit, plus the twenty you loaned me, plus the cost of the magazines, plus a bit extra for being a star and not abandoning me.'
'I can't take all that. I don't want it. I didn't expect –'
'Take it.' Vincent pushed it into her hand. 'Please, Jem. For the first time for ages I can actually do this. Please take it. I'll be very hurt if you don't.'
Jemima smiled, looked at him with those huge eyes behind her glasses, then threw her arms round his neck. 'You're great. Oh, I always knew you'd do it. All you needed was trust and a fresh chance and some time to gain your self-respect.' She leaned away from him. 'I'm so proud of you. And yes, okay. I'll take the money. I'll save it, just in case you ever need –'
'I'll never need again,' Vincent said, feeling slightly uncomfortable. Why did Jemima always manage to find that one tender spot in his conscience? 'I'm getting myself straight now. I thought I might even buy myself a little car.'
'God – I'm impressed.' Jemima had returned to the book-shelves just inside the door with the banner proclaiming
'New Publications!'.
'Maddy and Drew must be paying you megabucks.'
Vincent back-pedalled. 'Well, I won't be buying anything straight away. I just meant that I should be able to afford something sooner rather than later, you know.'
Jemima nodded, and fiddled again with the rainbow rows of new books. Whoops, Vincent thought, not very clever of him. He'd promised Ned Filkins that he wouldn't throw his money around.
'Best not draw attention to anything, Vince, mate,' Ned had said. 'Keep the bunce under your mattress and sleep on it, eh?'
In the four weeks since the race meeting at Windsor, when he and Ned had met up in the deserted Cat and Fiddle and then driven into the wilds of Berkshire in Ned's Cortina, Vincent had made more money than he would have believed possible. That first night, his stake had – by necessity – been very small, and Ned had trebled it for him. Since then, the stakes and the earnings had grown.
'Best not get involved with anything in the village yet awhile,' Ned had advised, that first night in the tiniest pub Vincent had ever seen. 'Keep the shit off your doorstep, so to speak. There's a lot of money to be made on the network.'
The network, it appeared, threaded itself through every stable in the downland area. Lads who were underpaid, lads with a grievance, lads who had been sacked from yards, lads who had all manner of pressing financial problems – they were all there with information available for a price.
'Listen and learn,' Ned had said, as they'd sat in a very dark and grimy corner. 'I knows them and they knows me. You're new. They won't trust you for a bit. We'll just go halvers. Okay?'
Vincent had said okay, and felt dubious. But not for long. There were things he'd heard that night that made his hair stand on end. Good God – how was any honest punter ever expected to make a profit? Was everyone on the fiddle?
Not everyone, unfortunately, Ned had said. If they were it'd have made his game a lot easier. Most yards were dead straight and had watertight security, and the racecourses were red-hot on dope-testing, so any betting coups had to be pretty clever to beat the Nanny State. Vincent, fiddling with his pint, had stated categorically that he had no wish to become involved in anything at all which would lead to injury of either horse or jockey.
Ned had looked at him with disdain. 'What we do don't hurt no one – except in their pocket.' He'd thrown back his Guinness with alacrity. 'Don't you worry about it, Vince, mate. Just get ready to count the lucre.'
And Vincent had. The first few tips he and Ned had shared had been for last races on cards at far-flung meetings. Hot favourites had proved to be lukewarm, and nicely-priced outsiders had romped home. Luck of the draw, Ned had told him, deftly stripping off the outside layer of a roll of banknotes. Nothing iffy about it at all. Information available to anyone with a pair of eyes what could see and a set of ears what worked.
They weren't always successful, of course. But for the first time since Vincent had started gambling in his teens, he was winning far more than he was losing. And the buzz was back. The sheer surge of excitement when he tuned into the racing results, or looked at the evening paper. The adrenalin-rush high that simply couldn't be beaten when he saw his selection at the top of the list.
Ned always placed the bets, and at first he'd assumed they were with one of the local betting shops. Vincent, whose mind could work out odds quicker than a calculator, was always surprised at how much return he'd got for his money. Had Ned, he'd enquired, got special rates at Ladbrokes?
Ned had guffawed loudly at such innocence. The winnings, it transpired, passed down a fairly long chain. From the course and through several pairs of hands. No tax to pay, no one any the wiser. Ned had tapped the side of his nose several times to indicate that there was no more to be said. Vincent, who had a thousand pounds now under his mattress in the Peapods cottage, was delighted to remain dumb.
Small beer, mate, Ned had said. Now we trust each other, we're going to move up into the big time.
'Dad!' Jemima said again. 'Dad? What do you reckon?'
On the corners of the counters she'd just arranged big vases of golden flowers – despite his heavy horticultural reading Vincent couldn't have told you their name for a king's ransom – with trailing dark green leaves. They looked very swish.
Rosemary had always had a good eye for colour, and even when they'd been living without any money, she'd managed to pull all their bits and pieces together to look stylish. Jemima had inherited her flair. He blinked.
'Very nice,' he said gruffly. 'Lovely, Jem. It looks a million dollars and so do you. That young man of yours has put the sparkle back in your eyes.'
'The shop has done that.'
'Maybe – but he's a nice bloke.'
'Yes,' she grinned, 'I suppose he is. For a jockey.'
It was still a surprise to him that Matt Garside and Jemima were accepted as an item in Milton St John. He hadn't questioned her very closely about how it had happened and, when he'd made some joke about naming the big day, she'd gone rather frosty on him, and said that they were just friends – and that Matt was good company – despite his career status. And, no, she had no intention of going racing, even though the meeting at Windsor had been much nicer than she'd expected.
She would never change her mind about racing – or gambling – and although she had to concede that all the people involved were lovely, she would never become one of them, or take part in the racing scene. Matt, apparently, had told her how much he respected these views, and even admired her for holding them.
Matt, Vincent reckoned, was a pretty clever bugger.
She had gone so far as to explain to him – not that it was necessary, but he'd remembered to listen – that as Matt was a jump jockey, and Kath Seaward was taking a short break in the Isle of Man, which was as far abroad as she ever ventured, then he was at a bit of a loss during the height of the flat season. No doubt, she'd said, when they got back into the swing of things for their jumping or whatever technical term they called it – then she wouldn't see Matt for dust. Until then, it was rather nice to have company; someone to go to the cinema with, and to share a meal, a drink, that sort of thing, as long as he didn't mention horse-racing. Did he understand now?
Vincent had said he understood perfectly. After all, it was more or less what he and Maureen were doing – and he hadn't as much as held her hand.
Still, Ned Filkins had been very enthusiastic about Jemima and Matt – although Vincent had said there was no way on God's earth that he'd involve either of them in anything even slightly unsavoury on the betting front.
'Well, no, of course not, Vince, mate.' Ned had looked quite affronted. 'But she might just let slip a little snippet – you know, something useful that we can turn into hard cash.'
Vincent had laughed. Ned didn't know his daughter. Jemima, he was sure, preferred to think of Matt Garside as a farmer's son helping out in a stables – rather than as the top-flight jump jockey that he really was. If Matt Garside gave her a sure-fire millionaire-making tip, Jemima, even if she recognised it, wouldn't pass it on. And certainly not to him. Why should she? He was a reformed character as far as she was concerned.
'You'll be at the opening?' Jemima checked the books again for the umpteenth time. 'Tomorrow morning? Maddy will let you off, won't she?'
'Course she will. She'll be here herself – well, everyone will who can, love. Maureen's even closing the Munchy Bar for a couple of hours. And apparently old Bronwyn next door is leaving her Bernie in charge of the shop so that she can be here. Don't worry. The whole village is behind you.' He kissed her. 'I'm so proud of you. I only wish your mother could be here tomorrow –'
'Don't. I phoned her and told her. She sent me a congratulations card.' Jemima sketched a smile. 'I told her you were here, too, and that I was keeping an eye on you.'
Vincent sighed. She wouldn't care, he knew that. 'She didn't – um – say anything about me?'
Jemima shook her head. 'Sorry, Dad. I tried. I don't blame her, though. Not really. She's made a new life, like we have. She's using her maiden name now. I don't think either of us figure very much any more. Still, she's well and happy – and so are we. We can't ask for any more really, can we?'