Lucinda sipped her coffee and ran cool fingers down his cheek. 'I'm off at two. Are you free this afternoon?'
'Sorry, I've got a pressing solo engagement with my Wallbank-Fox.'
Jemima chuckled in the background. Charlie looked at her in surprise.
Lucinda was frowning from one to the other. 'Come on, then. Give. Who's Hellbent-Fox? Another one of your model friends, I suppose.'
'It's a bed.' Jemima bit into her sandwich. He couldn't watch. 'A very swish bed. It's a very close-run thing between that and a Staples as far as I'm concerned.' She licked mayo from the corner of her mouth and smiled demurely at Charlie. 'I did have a life before I came here, you know.'
Charlie suddenly didn't doubt it. He winked at Lucinda. 'That's it. I'm getting some kip. I've been up on the gallops since before it was light. Even superstuds need their sleep.'
'Which excludes you then.' Lucinda was still miffed.
Sliding his arm around her shoulders he kissed her. He didn't want to upset her. 'You could always come and tuck me in –'
The arrival at the counter of two of the browsers, ladies from the new estate, each carrying a book, interrupted the flow. Jemima, putting down her sandwich, slid from the stool and did the business, closing the till with a satisfying clunk.
'Mind, I'd've probably had two or three more if the prices weren't so high,' the elder of the two said a bit sniffily. 'They're half the price in Tesco.'
Jemima nodded. 'True. But I can't compete with their bulk-buying. And you don't get a sit down and a cup of coffee for free in Tesco, do you? And then there's the travelling ...'
Slightly mollified, the ladies shuffled out. Smart move on Jemima's part, Charlie reckoned. But they had a point. Most of the stable staff were poorly paid, and their families didn't have much left over for luxuries.
'Maybe you should run a library as well. Sort of... I don't know ... If they buy one book they can borrow another two for – say – fifty pence each for a couple of weeks. Have a special section or something.' He stopped, aware of their stares. 'Oh no, tell me to shut up. I'd hate anyone to tell me how to ride horses.'
'Someone needs to.' Lucinda grinned.
But Jemima wasn't laughing. 'Do you think it would work? Wouldn't I be clashing with the mobile library van?'
'Oh, that disappeared with the council cuts in April.' Lucinda had entwined her arms round Charlie's neck. He kissed the soft underflesh by her elbow. She shivered. 'Ma said it was a good thing. She reckoned the Mills and Boons were becoming salacious.'
Jemima slapped her hands on the counter. 'You know, I think I'll give it a try. Lucinda – your man's a genius!'
'I do know.' Lucinda shivered again as Charlie nibbled her arm.
'I was thinking more on a cerebral level, actually.'
Bloody hell! Charlie made a mental note to check up on cerebral in Holly's dictionary when he got back to Peapods. He flicked at Lucinda's plait. 'I'm always glad to be of service. Look, sweetheart, how about us all going out one night? Into Upton Poges or somewhere? Me and you, and Jemima and Matt?'
'Super.' Lucinda snuggled closer. 'What do you reckon, Jemima? How about Saturday night?'
Jemima, who seemed to be miles away, looked at Charlie for a second then shook her head at Lucinda. 'Nice idea, but I don't think so. I don't want to become embroiled in the racing scene, you know that. And after all, he's a jockey.'
'So's Matt,' Charlie protested.
Jemima shrugged. 'Not as far as I'm concerned.'
It had been a long day. Charlie just wanted to sleep. Tina, firing on all cylinders and illegal substances, didn't. Having seen action, the Wallbank-Fox was silent. While Tina frolicked in Floris foam, Charlie sneaked into the sitting room. Jesus. It was gone midnight. He'd been awake for twenty-two hours. No doubt Drew would be thundering on the door again in a minute, ready for the next day. Christ – was it all worth it?
He poured three fingers of whisky. As both he and Tina were on starvation diets, they hadn't eaten. Charlie knocked back the whisky in one go. He knew exactly how many calories it contained. He reckoned Tina had just rid him of four times that amount. He sank into the deep-cushioned sofa, his eyelids drooping.
'Oh, no, you don't.' Tina, almost wrapped in one of his scarlet towels, dripped suds across the wooden floor. Her wet bleached hair was slicked back close to her head and looked black. Her slanting eyes were predatory. She sat astride him. 'There's no way you're going to sleep, sunshine. I haven't seen you for weeks. I haven't had my money's worth yet.'
'Congratulations!'
Five glasses were raised in salute: one in acknowledgement. The Vicarage flat, awash with wine bottles of varying degrees of expense, and one of Pol Roger courtesy of Charlie, had its windows open to the warm August night. The Verve symphonised quietly from a corner, hardly able to make themselves heard above the waves of laughter.
Jemima, who couldn't remember the last time she'd had a girls' night in, hung her legs over the arm of the sofa and tried to think where she'd put her spectacles. It didn't really matter. Someone would probably sit on them later. Anyway, even if she could find them they wouldn't be much use, everything would be blurred.
'Another toats – er, toast –' Gillian staggered to her feet, scattering cigarette ash. 'To Lucinda! Again!'
They dutifully raised their glasses. 'Lucinda!'
Three As at A-level was as good as it got, Jemima thought, basking in reflected glory and feeling almost motherly.
Lucinda, who had escaped her parents' planned celebratory dinner at her Aunty Brenda's, was blasé. 'Ta. English and history were a breeze. I was a bit screwed over sociology. I did hardly any revision – thanks to Charlie.'
'You'd have got a triple A with a gold star if it had been biology.' Suzy squinted through her wineglass.
Lucinda squinted back. 'Charlie says I did, actually. Still – here's to freedom!'
Southampton University, Jemima thought as she leaned across the sofa and practically squeezed the dregs from the nearest bottle, probably wasn't everyone's idea of freedom – but it was far enough away from Bathsheba to warrant celebration. She had been surprised at Lucinda's readiness to spend her evening of glory in the flat. She'd been pretty sure that Lucinda would have rather been whooping it up with her schoolfriends or Charlie, but apparently not. St Hilda's successful sixth-formers would be out clubbing on Friday night, Lucinda told them, and Charlie was away until Sunday. He'd got something planned for then.
'I'll bet he has.' Suzy, looking like a fragile porcelain doll despite her spiky white hair and rather bizarre outfit of satin vest, pedal-pushers and boots, rolled her eyes. 'Won't you miss him when you go to university?'
Lucinda looked as though the idea had never occurred to her. 'Dunno. Shouldn't think so. It's not until October. We probably won't be together then, anyway. You know what he's like.'
'Yeah. Bloody incredible.' Suzy sighed happily.
Jemima felt very old suddenly. Lucinda was just eighteen, Suzy only a year older. She probably looked younger than either of them, but between them they knew more and had done more than she'd managed to~ achieve in her nearly-thirty years.
'I'll miss Jemima, though,' Lucinda said. 'Still I can always come back and work at the shop in the holidays, can't I?'
'Course you can.' Jemima was touched. 'It won't be the same without you.'
Finding her glasses perched on a bottle of Sauvignon looking like a Hitchcock caricature, she at last managed to focus. Well, almost. She beamed happily around at everyone: at Suzy, and Maddy, and Maddy's best friend Fran, and of course Gillian, who had all seemed delighted to accept Jemima's invitation in spite of the differences in age and status.
Lucinda handed her a bottle. 'Can you get the top off this one? Gillian can't find the opener.'
Wrestling with the fastening on the bottle of Lambrusco Rose with her teeth, Jemima realised with a jolt that in fact they did all have something in common. Bloody horse-racing. All except her. Suzy was a jockey and lived with a jockey; Fran was married to a jockey; Maddy lived with a trainer; Lucinda had Charlie – and Gillian owned a racehorse. While she-
Jesus! She
was
one of them! The realisation made her sit up suddenly, and the pale pink bubbles cascaded over her fingers. She was considered one of the crowd – because she was going out with Matt. But she
wasn't.
Since Windsor, she'd never been near a racecourse, and she took no notice of the strings as they sashayed past her bookshop on the way to the gallops each morning. And she and Matt never discussed anything to do with racing. She would never, ever be one of them.
'You okay?' Maddy was looking at her with some concern. 'Did you say something?'
Had she? 'Oh, yeah. Fine. Really, thanks.'
She sloshed back a quarter of the glass. Would they all be here tonight if it wasn't for her relationship with Matt? Did they all think that, despite her protests, she'd joined the club?
'Can I ask a question?' Gillian waved her hand in the air. Fortunately it wasn't the one with the glass in it. 'Can I ask Lucinda a question that's been bugging me for absolutely ages?'
They all looked at her doubtfully, with the exception of Fran, who was sitting cross-legged on a Buffy the Vampire Slayer bean-bag nicked from the twins, and was singing along quietly with the Verve. Lucinda shrugged. 'Not if it's sociology.'
'I want to know,' Gillian sat on the arm of the sofa and spoke very carefully, 'what you think of Tina Maloret. And I want to know how you can bear to share Charlie with her. I think, in your position, I'd be forced to violently remove at least one set of those spiky eyelashes.'
Jemima closed her eyes. It had bothered her, too, although she would never have dared to ask.
'They're real,' Lucinda smiled. 'The eyelashes. And the hair. And definitely the finger-nails – I've seen the scars. And I don't share him, Gillian. We're all free, grown-up, independent people. Anyway, if there's any division of spoils being done, then Tina is sharing him with me. She was there first. I'm the other woman – or one of them. So it's not a problem. See?'
'Not really. I mean, I'm an old married woman and of course I don't – er – fancy Charlie or anything like that,' Gillian paused to glare at Suzy who had screamed with laughter, 'but surely, it must hurt to know that he's – um – well, with someone else?'
Lucinda seemed to find this amusing. 'Nah. Not at all. Maybe it would be different if Charlie and I were in love and committed – but we're not. We're just having fun. Charlie Somerset might be just the most gorgeous man in the world – but he's also monumentally unfaithful. No woman would ever take him seriously. Not unless she wanted to end up getting hurt. Which I don't.'
Christ, Jemima thought, impressed. How cool. Had this girl ever been young? She seemed light-years older than anyone she'd ever met. She peered at Lucinda. Was she telling the truth? It appeared she was. She'd immediately returned to laughing over something with Suzy. Gillian was looking quite pink. Whether from wine or shock or lust for Charlie it was impossible to tell. Jemima somehow couldn't imagine them asking her the same probing and intimate questions about the stoical Matt.
'How's Matt?' Maddy must have read her mind. 'Working hard on Dragon Slayer's prep?'
His what? Jemima blinked.
'She means,' Gillian leaned across and managed to slide gracefully on to the sofa without disturbing either her wine or her cigarette, 'how is he coming along in his preparations for the National?'
Jemima tried to concentrate. It was very difficult as Lucinda and Suzy were now behaving like proper teenagers for once by shrieking loudly and anatomically about Charlie and Tina. 'I've no idea. Why? Is it important?'
'She's hoping you'll drop a few pearls,' Gillian continued, speaking in the careful way of someone who is surrounded by far too many empty wine bottles and knows that there's still a fair bit of evening left. 'You know, you and Matt – pillow talk. Something she can go back and tell Drew. Him and Kath are going to be all-out battlers at Aintree, and any bits of information regarding Dragon Slayer's condition and performance will be gratefully received.'
Jemima's mind was blank. Surely they'd only just had the Grand National? Did it all start again straight away then, like the Eurovision Song Contest or the Olympics?
Maddy shook her head. 'I wasn't fishing, Jemima, really. Don't listen to her. Just because we've got Bonnie in the yard doesn't mean that I'm on a spying mission. I was just being nosy about Matt. I mean, when I first met you, you were so anti-jockeys, and now –'
'I still am. Matt isn't like a jockey –'
The Verve had it to themselves. The flat was silent. Everyone stared at her.
'Well, I mean – we don't actually discuss horses or anything –'
'Old Matt got hidden depths, has he?' Suzy stretched across the floor towards another bottle. 'Too busy demonstrating his stud value to discuss horses, is he? I've always wondered what he was like in bed.'
'I wouldn't know. We don't do that, either.' Christ. Why had she said that? Now they were all looking at her with expectation.
'To be honest, I've never quite figured out what you two
do
do together,' Gillian said. 'I mean, I know he never stays over when he comes here because I watch him leave from our window. And you don't stay at his house. You must have something in common – and as it's obviously not sex or horses, I'm baffled. Is he into train-spotting or stamp-collecting? Come on, Jemima, tell us what you and the mysterious Matthew get up to in your spare time.'
Jemima pulled a face. What exactly did they do? Well, they talked, and went for meals – not all that successfully because Matt only ate naked salad – and they went to the cinema. It was pretty boring, looking at it like that. 'Not a lot, really. He's just a friend.'
'Holy hell.' Suzy sat up, and having lost her glass under the sofa drank straight from the bottle. 'That's a bit unusual in this place. Being friends first. Usually no one makes friends until after they've been to bed.'