'You can. Oh, you can.' He had managed to get himself anchored in the gap between the seats. Most of his weight was pinning her down. His free hand was scrabbling at her skirt, trying to yank it past her knees. 'See – it's not that bad.'
'Bloody pack it in!'
Oddly she was far more concerned about the outside light illuminating the sordid scene to the entire Hutchinson family, than she was about Matt violating her body. She'd had enough experience of gropers in Oxford to know she could handle him.
'There! Is that nice?'
It wasn't. She wriggled towards the passenger door, turning her head away from his probing mouth. 'It's damned uncomfortable. Look, stop playing silly sods and come indoors. At least we'll be comfortable in there.'
He turned her face towards him again. 'And you'll let me stay the night, will you? Even though I'm a jockey?'
'It's got stuff-all to do with you being a jockey.'
Hallelujah! She'd managed to find the door-catch. Fiddling with it, the door suddenly sprang open and they both tumbled sideways. The Vicarage drive was wet and pebbly.
From Here to Eternity
it wasn't.
Jemima scrambled to her feet and ran towards the house. Matt, panting slightly, followed her. Where was her bloody key? Why could she never find it? Ah! She shoved the key into the lock.
'Well?' Matt, looking dishevelled, stumbled on the doorstep. 'Am I coming in?'
She knew she should say no. She didn't want to sleep with him. If she slept with him, it would move things in a direction she really didn't want to go. On the other hand, if she said no, she'd feel like a complete cow. Maybe she could make him the offered coffee, and they could sit and listen to some music, talk. It might calm him down. She almost laughed. She'd actually
wanted
him to behave like this, hadn't she?
'If you promise not to leap on me again. If we can just sort a few things out. I'm not a lump of meat, Matt. Nor am I some sixteen-year-old who enjoys a quick grope and fumble. Yes, okay – but only if – oh, God!'
She stopped and looked at him. He was crying.
Handing over five thousand pounds in cash to anyone would be a bit risky, Vincent felt. Handing it over to Ned Filkins in the windswept darkness of the Downs was downright insanity.
'That's it, Vince, mate.' Ned flicked through the collection of fifty-pound notes. 'Your pension. Your security for your old age – or not-that-much-older age, come to mention it. Only another five months to go, then think of the bonuses you'll pick up in April. Better 'n any bloody Tessys or Peppas.'
'And it's guaranteed? Safe?'
Ned tapped the side of his nose. 'Safe as the Bank of England. Have I ever let you down?'
Vincent had to admit that he hadn't. The stakes may have got increasingly high, but the returns had grown to reflect them. He'd got no complaints. Well, not about the money. But as gambling went, it was a bit boring, if he was to tell the truth. Half the fun of betting was making your selection, piling on the dosh, and then sweating through the race, living or dying on the result.
Gambling on horses was all about being there at the race meeting, sharing the excitement, soaking up the atmosphere. The smug feeling you got watching the real mugs waving their tenners at the bookies, knowing that they'd made the wrong choice – and that your horse would be romping home to glory ahead of theirs. Watching their faces as they ripped up their betting slips while you queued at the pay-out bag for yet another wad of crumpled notes.
With the selective memory of all addicted gamblers, Vincent only ever remembered the winners.
This handing over of cash with no idea how it was being spent, and then being clinically paid the winnings days later, took the edge off the fun. Still, he couldn't complain about the income his outlay generated. The stash under the mattress made it difficult to sleep at night.
'Couldn't we have done this in the pub?' Vincent queried as they picked their way unsteadily down the bridle track in the pitch dark. Milton St John, emblazoned by a thousand pinpricks of light, curled far below them. 'Do we really have to be this furtive all the time?'
'Fewer people who knows, the better.' Ned's voice was whisked away over his shoulder on the reed-whistle of the wind. 'But now you've brought it up, I've got a little surprise for you. No – leave your car here. It's well hidden. We'll take mine. I think it's time you got involved with the big boys.'
Vincent, climbing into Ned's leatherette seat, had dire feelings of foreboding. The big boys didn't sound like the collection of grouchy stable lads he'd already met. They didn't sound much like jockeys on the take either. They sounded scarily like the huge men with fur collars and padded shoulders with whom he'd had dealings in the past. He never wanted to become involved with them again.
Wasn't he getting a bit out of his depth here? He shook himself No – it'd be all right. Course it would. If Ned was to be believed, then this scam would bring in far more than he could have hoped to have earned in a lifetime's hard work. There would have to be some risks. It wouldn't be half so exciting without them, would it?
Ned didn't turn the engine on, and freewheeling, they bumped down the bridle track in darkness. Ned had left the car's headlights switched off, too. It felt a bit like plunging down a lift-shaft – not knowing when you were going to hit the bottom. There were still dozens of things Vincent wasn't too clear about, and Matt Garside was top of the list. Ned had got very cagey when he'd mentioned him.
'No sweat, Vince, old chum. Don't even think about old Matt He's a good 'un.'
Was he? Vincent sincerely hoped so. He still wasn't sure how Jemima felt about the lad. They'd been seeing each other for some time now, so she must feel
something
for God's sake. He'd swing for anyone who hurt Jemima, so help him.
Ned had become a touch more brittle when Vincent had mentioned that he and Maureen had spotted Matt hobnobbing with Ned on bank holiday Monday.
'Ah – right. Yeah... Bit of unfinished business. Lancing Grange business, if you get my drift. Mizz Seaward, the ole cow, hadn't paid me everything I was owed. Matt was sorting it out for me. What? No, nothing to do with our bit of business, Vince, mate. Nothing at all.'
Vincent hadn't believed a word of it.
They'd reached the web of single-track roads now, and Ned switched on the headlights. Dipped. Tunnel vision. They didn't show anything other than the dank October hedgerows and a sweeping arc of blackness where the night sky dissolved into the downland horizon.
Ned's car didn't have the luxury of a heater and Vincent pulled his padded jacket more closely around him. And now there was this other thing with Matt. It had bothered him a great deal. Maybe if he'd spent more time with Jemima they'd have had the free-and-easy father-daughter relationship you saw on the telly. As it was, despite loving her to distraction, he was a little in awe of her. She'd grown up without him. She was a woman, for heaven's sake. She could sleep with whom she liked.
Vincent winced. He closed his mind to that side of Jemima's life. It was just that he was sure – dead sure – that Jemima wasn't in love with Matt. And that seemed to cheapen it somehow.
He hadn't believed it at first when Maureen had told him. She'd got it second-hand from Gillian Hutchinson. Matt's car had been parked outside the Vicarage
all night
after Bathsheba's meeting! First time ever! And Matt had slunk away, bug-eyed, the next morning. Obviously hadn't slept a wink, Gillian had told Maureen. And Jemima had been over half an hour late opening up the bookshop.
Bout time an' all,' Maureen had said to him. 'Not natural.
Lovely young girl like Jemima. Maybe we'll have two weddings to look forward to, now, eh, duck?'
Vincent doubted it. Drew and Maddy's wedding preparations were all-invasive at Peapods. But it was great to hear Maddy singing again, and to hear the shared laughter. Pregnant! That was what the trouble had been! Silly figgit! Why, in his day very few people got married until the lass was three months gone – and these days no one bothered at all. He couldn't understand the fuss.
No, the Peapods wedding would be the talk of the village for months to come. He couldn't somehow see Matt and Jemima treading the same path. And, to be honest, he couldn't swear that he'd seen Jem and Matt together much since the village hall meeting. If Matt had spent the night with her, then there hadn't been a repeat performance – or maybe they'd just been discreet. Not that she'd said anything – but then she wouldn't, would she? Jemima still carefully guarded her privacy – she'd be mortified to think that he'd joined in the village speculation. And he could hardly
ask
her, could he? It wouldn't be proper.
'Okay, Vince?' Ned broke into his train of thought. 'You're very quiet. Don't fret, me old mate. Your money's quite safe. And after tonight, if all goes according to plan, I think you might plan a little excursion to the races. Just to watch our investment grow, so to speak. You've been very patient. And loyal. I likes to reward me mates. Especially the loyal ones. Loyalty counts for a lot in this game.'
Vincent perked up. He hadn't set foot on racing's hallowed grounds for months. Even Jemima believed him now and didn't ever quiz him about gambling or racecourse visits. He'd ask her to come with him. Just to prove that he could be trusted. She might even enjoy it. Especially now she and Matt were – well, um – together. It still seemed incredible to Vincent that his daughter could have a close relationship with a jockey and pretend that he worked in a biscuit factory or whatever it was she did. There'd be women out there simply gagging to walk in her shoes.
Still, things might improve now. Jemima appeared to have settled into Milton St John's horsy environment really well. Yes, he'd ask her to come racing. And then they could take Maureen with them as a threesome and that might stop the tittle-tattles too.
Ned was thundering the car at a steady fifty across what appeared to be a field. Total blackness swooshed past the windows. Vincent clung gamely to his seat belt. Maureen hadn't repeated the August Monday stop-over offer. Not that there'd been an awful lot of opportunity. Her Brian had given up his transcontinental trucking for a while and was on short hauls.
'You never know, duck,' she'd said with a sigh, 'when he'll be home these days. More's the pity.'
Maureen, together with Drew and Maddy, had transformed his existence, he thought. Maddy had given him a job which he'd been frankly crap at, and had been so patient with him while he learned; and they'd given him the cottage which was as snug a home as any man could wish for, and Drew had extended his duties to take in all the yard work. He'd even shown him how to muck out and feed and groom the horses for when they were short-staffed.
Vincent, who had lost entire fortunes on horses' noses, had never been within touching distance of them before. At first the horses had frightened him – he'd had no idea they were so huge and powerful – but gradually they'd built up some mutual trust. Now he'd go into the boxes to rake out the soiled straw and move half a ton of animal with no more than a sharp and friendly slap on the rump.
And Maureen ... Well, Maureen had simply made him forget about Rosemary for days – and nights – on end. He could pay her no greater compliment.
'Here we are,' Ned said, slamming on the brakes, and sounding rather relieved. 'You all right, Vince? The suspension's not what it was.'
Vincent muttered that he was fine, just fine, and scrambled out into the night. He gazed around him with disappointment. They were outside the back-of-beyond pub. He thought Ned was taking this clandestine stuff a bit too far. Few people even found their way here by road – he was pretty sure there had been no need to take the cross-country route to shake off any followers.
'Will – er – the big boys be waiting for us inside?'
'Dunno.' Ned panted as he fitted a Heath-Robinson type immobiliser from his steering wheel to the accelerator.
Vincent thought this was right over the top. Ned's clapped-out Fiesta was hardly the sort of car any self-respecting joy-rider would be seen dead in.
Eventually they shuffled inside. The pub was empty. The laconic barman was sitting on his stool still reading the
Sun.
Our Winnie's culinary delights had been wiped from the blackboard.
'A pint of Guinness, please, landlord.' Ned approached the bar with an immense stage wink. 'And a vodka-and-lime for my friend.'
'Bitter,' Vincent said quickly. 'A pint of bitter.'
Ned raised weaselly eyebrows. 'Oooh, pardon me! I understood it was always vodka-and-lime these days.'
Vodka-and-limes were associated with Maureen. He couldn't possibly sully the memories.
They sat in morose silence in the window-seat. Vincent flexed his fingers in anticipation; Ned smacked his lips noisily; the landlord crackled the pages of the
Sun;
the clock ticked and the dog snored.
The door flew open. 'Sorry I'm late.' Matt Garside poked his head into the bar. 'Have you been waiting long?'
Vincent was sure his mouth was gaping as he tried to smile. Aware that he looked like the village idiot, he stopped. Ned had got to his feet and was ushering Matt towards a free chair.
'Good evening,' Vincent said as Ned returned to the bar for Matt's Diet Coke and their refills. It seemed stupidly formal but he was very out of kilter here. Was Matt racing's Mr Big, then? Or had he just popped in for a drink? He'd have to be very careful. 'Nasty night.'
'No frost, though,' Matt said, not meeting his eyes. 'Should be okay for racing tomorrow.'
Vincent trawled round for something else to say. 'Er – Jemima not with you, then?'
'No.'
Vincent exhaled. For the first time he wished Ned would come and join them and take up the slack. Matt dissected a beer mat. The dog rolled over, stretched, and slept again.
'Riding tomorrow, are you?'
'Yeah, at Towcester.'
Vincent swallowed the last dregs of his bitter. This man might one day be his son-in-law. It was not an auspicious start to family outings. Thankfully, Ned arrived back then, carrying three glasses. The atmosphere chilled a bit further.