by Anne Morice
“She has a point there,” Vi suggested.
“Oh, you bet, but from what I hear of Edna Mortimer, her contributions to the deserving charities wouldn’t cover a postage stamp. And she evidently can’t bring herself to part with any of her minks.”
“Now, you mustn’t get bitter about it, Tessa! We all know you have this Festival very much at heart, but carping doesn’t suit you, and Edna certainly isn’t worth it. She’s a silly, stuck-up, vain old woman, but quite unimportant.”
As comments went, this proved to be fairly wide of the mark and the one which followed from the back seat was a lot more constructive.
“There’s a horse called Bitter Aloes in the three-thirty,” Marge announced. “Never done the distance, but I think Tessa should back it, I honestly do.”
CHAPTER TWO
Edna Mortimer, immediately recognisable from the back of her portly form by the massive ankle-length mink and hideous green velvet turban, was just in front of me in the paying out queue. When she turned sideways to stuff a bundle of notes furtively into her crocodile bag, it was apparent that all this finery was proving a little too much for her on such a warm afternoon, although the purple flush and beads of sweat may have owed something to the triumph of watching Bitter Aloes come streaking in ahead of the field, at thirty-three to one.
“You were on it too, were you, Mrs. Mortimer?” I asked, catching her up as she plodded rather unsteadily towards the Members’ Enclosure.
“Only a flutter,” she said defensively. “I make it a rule never to stake more than a pound. Can’t imagine why they had to put the minimum up to fifty pence. Thirty each way suited me well enough.”
“Still, pretty good price, wasn’t it? Did you back it on a hunch?”
“No, through my grand-daughter’s fiancé. He’s a great friend of the trainer. Not that my family bothers to pass on information of that kind and Camilla’s the worst of the lot, as a rule, but she did happen to mention it this morning. Probably thought I wasn’t listening.”
We had entered the enclosure by this time and the first batch of riders for the next race was cantering past on their way to the start. On our left, the stands were already jammed with spectators, for this was the big event of the day, with Vi and Marge, field glasses at the ready, no doubt somewhere in the thick of it all, but it was impossible to pick them out.
Most of the wooden seats on the grass slope in front were also occupied by two or more people, but there was one, right out on its own, within yards of the rails and almost level with the finishing post, which for some reason had been neglected by everyone. Edna noticed it in a flash and lumbered towards it, evidently bent on getting possession before some rival claimant materialised. Having nowhere in particular to go, I followed her.
“What are you on this time?” I asked, striving to hit a chatty note, for in fact her appearance made me a little uneasy. The flush had deepened, if anything, and she was now mopping her forehead with a handkerchief.
The question prompted another resentful look from her watery pale blue eyes, but she was spared the necessity of telling me to mind my own business, and incidentally of asking where Toby was, by the fact that the unseen commentator on the roof had begun to bellow out names and colours of the runners. He did this in a very practised and professional way, which was just as well because we should have had almost as good a view of the race if we had been sitting in the next county. In the last few seconds, when his voice was drowned in the roars and exhortations of the crowd, we got a streaking glimpse of half a dozen jockey caps and then it was all over, explaining conclusively why the front bench had been ours for the taking.
I waited till the numbers went up, then read them out to Edna, but she made no response and gave no indication of intending to move, so I left her and went in search of my hostesses.
I found them in the paddock, marking their race cards with rings and crosses, as Marge called out knowledgeable comments about the horses on parade. She did this with so much authority and unself-conscious clarity of tone that I felt sure her remarks must be influencing countless spectators around her, who would discard their previous opinions forthwith and hurry off to follow her advice, quite unaware that when her turn came she was infinitely more likely to back the one whose name reminded her of a tabby cat she had known and loved as a child.
There was a ferrety looking young man standing between them, wearing a brown trilby hat a size too large, which he doffed when Vi introduced us and in doing so revealed himself to be an inch shorter than either of his companions.
“This is Bernard Plowman, Tessa, Camilla’s young man,” she said, giving me a smart rap on the arm, presumably as a reminder that Toby had intended to come with us, but had changed his mind at the last minute. “I don’t think you two have met, have you? This is Tessa Price, Bernard, who is Toby Crichton’s cousin and, whatever you’ve been up to, you’d better keep it dark because her husband is a policeman.”
“Oh really?” he muttered, glancing nervously around, as though expecting to spot a helmet somewhere in the crowd.
“He’s not here, though,” I explained. “He was hoping to come with us, but he got caught up with some criminals at the last minute.”
This flippancy earned me a scowl of disapproval from Vi, while Marge announced firmly:
“I must say, I fancy number eleven. He’s got a good back. Looks like a stayer. Wonder how much weight he’s carrying?”
“Funny sort of movement, though,” Vi said, keeping her end up. “You’d think he had corns.”
Whereupon, without another word and as though obeying some private summons from the Great Steward in the Sky, they both tucked their ballpoints into their bags and plunged away in the direction of the Tote.
Several other people around us Immediately followed suit, leaving me and Bernard temporarily isolated, leaning on the rail and watching the jockeys mount.
“I’ve just been talking to Camilla’s grandmother,” I told him.
“Step, if you don’t mind!”
“I don’t mind at all, except that step-grandmother does make rather a mouthful. You’ll be interested to hear that you’re in high favour.”
“Me? That’ll be the day!”
“I think she cleaned up quite a bit from that tip of yours in the third race.”
He shook his head, looked both puzzled and faintly uneasy.
“Not me, lady. I never gave anyone a tip in my life.”
“You’ve not heard of a horse called Bitter Aloes? I understood the trainer was a friend of yours?”
“Sorry,” he said with a tight-lipped smile, “I don’t know any trainers. My mother has a few friends in that world, but this is the first time I’ve been on a race course since I was dragged to the Derby at the age of fourteen; and I don’t much care if I never see another one.”
“Why are you here to-day, then?”
“Usual reason. Step-gran had a whim to come, but couldn’t manage on her own, so Camilla jumped in and told her we were going anyway and she could come with us. My God, she even insisted on lumbering me with this ghastly hat, which belonged to her father or something,” he said disgustedly, raising his right hand to push the offending hat further back on his head, where it looked more ridiculous than ever, and I noticed that he was wearing a flashy and expensive looking gold watch, with a brilliant sapphire blue face, which told me something else about him. I enjoy collecting such small and seemingly trivial insights; they rarely prove rewarding in themselves, but I regard the exercise as good practice and a way of keeping my hand in.
“What’s so special about wearing a hat?” I enquired.
“God knows. I suppose Camilla was afraid the old tartar would turn up her nose at a bareheaded member of the hoi polloi. I feel like a perfect Charlie, I don’t mind telling you. In fact this would be a good moment to go and lose it in the Gents, while I’ve got the chance.”
“Where is Camilla?” I asked, as we walked away.
“Oh, somewhere
around. She keeps bumping into people she knows, so I expect she’s having a nip with some of them. It’s the social side which mainly appeals to her, as you can probably imagine.”
I responded to this with a non-committal nod and then, having no winnings to collect from the last race and no inspiration for the next one, made a fanning out movement and entered the peaceful caverns of the Ladies Cloakroom. Bernard’s remark had given me the idea of dispensing with my coat, though remembering to draw a large cross on the last page of my race card as a reminder to retrieve it again before we left.
I noticed, while waiting at the counter for my ticket, that a lot of other women had had the same idea and there was a rackful of coats and macintoshes stretching right back to the wall. Some had even discarded their hats and there were about half a dozen of these on a shelf above, one of them, I was interested to see, being a squashy green velvet turban, suggesting that Edna too had succumbed and divested herself of some of the trappings of grandeur.
This was not so, however, for when I rejoined Vi and Marge for the last race we were able to find three places in the centre of the stand and, looking down on the scene below, I saw Edna, still fully clothed and back on her lonely bench out in front. So a possible answer was that some other woman, mortified at finding herself wearing the identical hat, had bundled it out of sight with all speed. I was about to pass on these conjectures to Marge, who might have appreciated them, but at this moment the off was announced on the loud speaker and we stood up as one man and peered into the distant view, while the crowd below us started moving down towards the rails. It was not until it was all over and the ground was emptying again that I noticed that Edna still made no movement, but remained seated in her isolation, like a sagging, fur covered Rock of Gibraltar.
CHAPTER THREE
The journey ended with lovers meeting in the car park, although neither of them looked particularly ecstatic. They were drooping over a small and shabby looking car, which was one of only half a dozen left by then, two minor hitches having delayed our own departure.
The first came about through Vi and Marge both having picked the last winner of the day, which unfortunately had been the favourite and had therefore been obliged to queue up behind at least twenty other people who were waiting for the pay-out. Having emerged, triumphant but apologetic from this ordeal, they gathered me up at the exit, where I had been waiting in a somewhat martyred attitude, at which point I tossed my race card into the litter bin and was simultaneously struck by a mental picture of the large cross on its end page. There followed a general reshuffle of the martyred and apologetic expressions and I cantered away to collect my coat.
It was remarkable, in view of the rapidly dispersing crowd, how many outer garments still languished in the cloakroom, but I concluded that there must be other people in the world just as forgetful as myself, among them, apparently, the owner of the green velvet turban, and I could not resist dallying still further, to ask the attendant whether many articles were left unclaimed for all time.
“More than you think,” she replied, so she must have been a mind reader.
“Isn’t that Camilla and Bernard over there?” Vi asked, unlocking her Rover. “They look stranded. Something gone wrong with the car, do you suppose?”
“I only got ninety pence on the last one,” Marge said, pursuing her own train of thought. “I should have backed it for a win only. All the same, I reckon I’m about two pounds up on the day, which is pretty good going.”
“Did you deduct the price of the drinks?” Vi asked.
“Certainly not, I count that as expenses.”
“Well, I don’t and I’m about two pounds down on the day, so that works out quite satisfactorily.”
“And I’ve probably done better than either of you,” I admitted. “What with good old Bitter Aloes and the fact that neither of you would have another drink.”
“You can pay on the toll bridge going home; but it looks as though Bernard and Camilla are coming over, so we’d better wait and find out what’s up. Anything wrong, Camilla?”
“Nothing serious, thanks, except that Bernard and I are stuck here, waiting for Edna. You wouldn’t know where she’s got to, I suppose?”
“Not a clue, I’m afraid.”
“She probably had some winnings to collect and it always seems to take her longer than anyone else. She keeps dodging in and out of queues, whenever she sees a chance of getting ahead, and it never works.”
“I do that in the Post Office,” Marge admitted, “and it never works there either. I wonder why?”
Camilla did not offer any explanation, but smiled broadly, showing a lot of teeth and gums. She tended to do this rather indiscriminately, sometimes as a substitute for the spoken word, although whether from stupidity or indifference was uncertain.
She was a thin, vapid looking blonde, the same age as myself, whom I had known for years, without ever becoming close friends with, for we had been flung together willy nilly, when I was taken as a child to visit my cousin Toby at Roakes Common. Too many adults suffer from the illusion that a pair of children need only to have been born within months of each other to become inseparable friends on sight, which is certainly not a rule they would apply to their own contemporaries and, in the case of Camilla and myself, our age and sex were about the only two factors we had in common.
I feel sure the antipathy had been entirely mutual, but I still maintain that I had more excuse, for not only had she been orphaned at the age of six, which in those days I regarded as the most romantic and enviable state on earth, but she was also reputed to be sole heiress to her grandfather’s vast fortune, which in some ways was even better. Moreover, she was sickeningly well behaved, clean and tidy and ingratiating to her elders.
These days, however, I was usually able to return her vacuous smile without rancour, for such qualities cease to be so despicable in one’s twenties and furthermore the vast fortune had now passed into other hands. Benjamin Mortimer, the grandfather who had amassed it, had upset everyone’s calculations by marrying a widow he had met on a Greek cruise and on his death, a year or two later, it was revealed that his entire property had been left to her, to dispose of as she saw fit. Unluckily for Camilla, disposing of it was the last thing she had in mind.
“Perhaps the system worked this time, though,” Bernard said, reverting to the theme of the missing step-grandmother, “and she was in and out of there before anyone saw her. Probably counting up the loot in the Ladies Cloakroom.”
Vi glanced at me enquiringly and I shook my head:
“No, she wasn’t in there. I haven’t seen her for at least half an hour.”
“She can’t have been taken ill or anything,” Camilla said, striving, I imagine, to keep a note of disappointment out of her voice, “because they’d have taken her to the first-aid post and put out the news on the loud speaker by now. Oh well, I suppose she’s met a friend or something.” There was a brief pause while the rest of us considered this improbable solution and then Camilla added:
“Well, no need to hold you lot up. Bernard and I will just have to stick it out until she elects to come.”
“The only thing is,” Bernard said hesitantly, “what about poor old Tilly?”
“I know, but it can’t be helped.”
“What has Tilly got to do with it?” Vi asked.
“Waiting for us at the roundabout,” Bernard explained. “She’s been shopping and what not, in the town, and we’d arranged to pick her up half an hour after the last race, so we’re running late already.”
The poor old Tilly thus referred to was Matilda Prettyman, who over the years had become the prop and mainstay of the Mortimer household, having first entered it as Camilla’s governess. When Camilla was promoted to a boarding school Tilly had stayed on as housekeeper to old Mr. Mortimer and latterly as Secretary-Companion to his widow. However, since Edna’s correspondence was virtually restricted to turning down requests for money and her need for human companionship pract
ically nonexistent, Tilly naturally had time to carry out a number of more menial tasks than the title implied.
“Tilly won’t mind waiting,” Camilla said airily, “she’s quite used to that sort of thing.”
“Except that she may think we’ve forgotten and driven home without her. Or is she quite used to that sort of thing too?”
“Stop bickering, children!” Vi said. “There’s no need for it, no problem at all. Tell us which roundabout and we’ll collect Tilly and take her home. It’s perfectly simple.”
Camilla supplied the details and two minutes later we were on our way, me in the back seat for the return journey.
The immediate destination was about ten minutes’ drive from the course, during which Vi and Marge kept up a rattling non-stop dialogue. It is rarely easy to keep track of a conversation between close relatives when they really go at it, and was made harder still this time by their having their backs to me, so that I really had to strain to catch every word.
“Not a very happy pair of lovebirds this evening,” Marge began by saying.
“No; pity if that’s breaking down. Seemed such a good idea at first. Nice, dull, well connected local boy; reasonable sort of prospects; and high time he cut loose from his mother’s apron strings, as we’ve all been saying these many years. Probably be the making of him. Even old Edna approved, so I can’t see any reason for these clouds on the horizon, can you?”
“Unless it’s because, despite having given them her blessing, Edna has not been handing out any lolly and has made it clear that she doesn’t intend to.”
“How do you know that?”
“Told me so herself. Said she believed in young people making their own way in the world. Learning the value of money before they got their hands on it, all that guff. As though anyone could find out the value of money until they’ve got some!”