by Dick Francis
‘Bon,’ Emil said, smiling. ‘Then, Tommy, your duties begin.’
Everyone picked up their travelling bags and in a straggle more than a group walked back towards the passengers’ assembly area. As we approached we could hear the real Chairman of the Ontario Jockey Club welcoming everyone to the adventure and we could see Zak and the other actors waiting for him to finish so that they could get on with the mystery.
Jimmy the actor was dressed in a maroon VIA Rail station uniform, Zak was intent, and Ricky, due on in gory glory at any moment, was checking in a small handmirror that ‘blood’ was cascading satisfactorily from a gash on his head.
Zak flashed a glance at the crew, saw me and gave me a thumbs-up sign. The Chairman wound up to applause. Zak tapped Ricky, who had put the mirror in his pocket, and Ricky went into the ‘I’ve been attacked’ routine most convincingly.
Emil, the crew and I wasted no time watching. We went on past and came to Gate 6, which was basically a staircase leading to ground level, where the rails were. Even though it was high morning, the light was dim and artificial outside as acres of arched roof far above kept out the Canadian weather.
The great train was standing there, faintly hissing, silver, immensely heavy, stretching away in both directions for as far as one could see in the gloom. In the Merry & Co office, I’d learned that each carriage (built of strong unpainted corrugated aluminium with the corrugations lying horizontally) was eighty-five feet long; and there were fifteen carriages in all, counting the horses, the baggage and the Lorrimores. With the engines as well, this train covered more than a quarter of a mile standing still.
Two furlongs, I thought frivolously, to put it suitably. Three times round the train more than equalled the Derby.
There was another long banner, duplication of the one in the station, fastened to the side of the train, telling all the passengers what they were going on, if they were still in any doubt. The crew divided to right and left according to where their jobs were and, following Emil, I found myself climbing up not into the dining car but into one of the sleeping cars.
Emil briefly consulted a notebook, stowed his travel bag on a rack in a small bedroom and directed me to put my bag in the one next door. He said I should remove my raincoat and my jacket and hang them on the hangers provided. That done, he closed both doors and we descended again to the ground.
‘It’s easier to walk along outside while we are in the station,’ he explained. He was ever precise. We walked along beside the wheels until the end of the train was in sight and finally walked past the dining car and at the end of it swung upwards through its rear door into the scene of operations.
The special dining car lived up to its name with a blue and red carpet, big blue padded leather chairs, polished wood gleaming in the lights and glass panels engraved with birds. There were windows all down both sides with blue patterned curtains at intervals and green plants lodged above, behind pelmets. Ten feet wide, the car was long enough to accommodate six oblong tables down each side of a wide aisle with four chairs at each: forty-eight seats, as promised. All quiet, all empty. All waiting.
‘Come,’ Emil said, leading the way forward through the splendour, ‘I show you the kitchen.’
The long, silvery, all-metal kitchen was already occupied by two figures dressed in white trousers and jackets topped by high white paper hats: the diminutive lady chef from Montreal and a tall willowy young man who introduced himself as Angus, the special chef employed by the outside firm of top class caterers who were providing for this journey the sort of food not usually served on trains.
It seemed to my amused eyes that the two chefs were in chilly unfriendliness, marking out their territories, each, in the normal course of events, being accustomed to being the boss.
Emil, who must have picked up the same signals, spoke with a true leader’s decisiveness. ‘In this kitchen this week,’ he said to me, ‘Angus is to command. Simone will assist.’ Angus looked relieved, Simone resentful. ‘This is because,’ Emil said, as if it clinched matters, which it did, ‘Angus and his company have designed le menu and provided the food.’
The matter, everyone could see, was closed. Emil explained to me that on this trip the linen, cutlery and glasses had been provided by the caterers, and without more ado he showed me first, where to find everything and second, how to set a table.
He watched me do the second table in imitation of ‘his manner. You learn fast,’ he said approvingly. ‘If you practise, they will not tell you are not a waiter.’
I practised on about half of the remaining tables while the two other dining room stewards, the real regular service attendants, Oliver and Cathy, set the rest. They put things right with a smile when I got them wrong, and I fell into their ways and rhythm of working as well as I could. Emil surveyed the finished dining room with a critical eye and said that after a week I would probably be able to fold a napkin tidily. They all smiled: it seemed that my napkins were already OK, and I felt quite ridiculously pleased, and also reassured.
Outside the windows, the red hat of a porter trundling luggage went by, with, in its wake, the Lorrimores.
‘They’re boarding,’ Emil said. ‘When the train departs, our passengers will all come here for the champagne.’ He bustled about with champagne flutes and ice and showed me how to fold a napkin round the neck of a bottle and how to pour without drips. He seemed to have forgotten about only letting me loose on water.
There were voices outside as the train came alive. I put my head out of the rear door of the dining car and, looking forward, saw all the passengers climbing upwards into the sleeping cars, with porters following after with their bags. Several people were embarking also into the car behind the dining car, into the car which comprised three bedrooms, a bar, a large lounge area and an upstairs glass-domed observation deck, the whole lot known, I’d discovered, as the dome car.
Forward by the gate through which the passengers were crowding, Nell was doing her stuff with bandages on the convincing bloodiness of Ricky. The little scene concluded, she walked aft, looking inward through the windows, searching for someone, who in fact turned out to be me.
‘I wanted to tell you,’ she said, ‘the Conductor – he’s like the captian of a ship – knows that you’re our security guard, sort of, and he’s agreed to help you with anything you want, and to let you go everywhere in the train without question, including the engines, as long as the two engineers – they’re the train-drivers – permit it, which he says they will once he’s talked to them. Say you are Tommy, when you see him.’
I gazed at her with admiration. ‘You’re marvellous,’ I said.
‘Yes, aren’t I?’ She smiled. ‘Bill Baudelaire did ask about you. I said you were here and you’d boarded early. He seemed satisfied. Now I’ve got to sort out all the people who persist in putting themselves into the wrong bedrooms …’ She had gone before she’d finished the sentence, climbing into the sleeping car forward of the kitchen and vanishing from view.
Filmer’s bedroom was in that car.
It had been easy to get myself moved away from sleeping next door to him: it had happened naturally with my demotion to crew. However much I might want to keep tabs on him, bumping into him several times a day in the corridor hardly seemed the best route to anonymity.
People started coming into the dining room and sitting at the tables regardless of the fact that we were still in the station.
‘Where do we sit?’ a pleasant faced woman asked Emil, and he said ‘Anywhere, madam.’ The man with her demanded a double scotch on the rocks and Emil told him that alcohol was available only after departure. Emil was courteous and helpful. I listened, and I learned.
Mercer Lorrimore came through into the dining car followed by his wife, who looked displeased.
‘Where do we sit?’ Lorrimore said to me, and I answered ‘Anywhere, sir’ in best Emil fashion, which drew a fast appreciative grin from Emil himself.
Mercer and Bambi chose a cent
rally located table and were soon joined by their less than happy offspring, Sheridan audibly saying, ‘I don’t see why we have to sit in here when we have our own private car.’
Both mother and daughter looked as if they agreed with him but Mercer, smiling round clenched molars, said with surprising bitterness, ‘You will do what I ask or accept the consequences.’ And Sheridan looked furious but also afraid.
They had spoken as if I weren’t there, which in a way I wasn’t, as other passengers were moving round me, all asking the same questions. ‘Anywhere, madam. Anywhere, sir,’ I said, and ‘I’m afraid we can’t serve alcohol before departure.’
Departure came from one instant to the next, without any whistles blowing, horns sounding or general ballyhoo. One moment we were stationary, the next sliding forward smoothly, the transition from rest to motion of a quarter of a mile of metal achieved as if on silk.
We emerged from the shadow of the station into the bright light of noon, and Daffodil Quentin under her sunburst of curls made an entrance from the dome car end, looking about her as if accustomed to people leaping up to help.
‘Where do we sit?’ she asked, not quite looking at me, and I said ‘Anywhere, madam. Wherever you like.’
She found two seats free not far from the Lorrimores and, putting herself on one chair and her handbag on the other, said with bonhomie to the elderly couple already occupying the table, ‘I’m Daffodil Quentin. Isn’t this fun?’ They agreed with her warmly. They knew who she was: she was yesterday’s winner. They started talking with animation, like almost everyone else in the car. There was no cool period here of waiting for the ice to break. Any ice left after the previous day’s racing had been broken conclusively in the scenes out in the station, and the party had already gelled and was in full swing.
Emil beckoned me towards the kitchen end, and I went up there into the small lobby with a serving counter, a space that made a needed gap between the hot glittering galley and the actual dining area. The lobby led on the left to the kitchen and on the right to the corridor to the rest of the train, along which desultory passengers were appearing, swaying gently now to the movement of gathering speed.
Behind the counter, Emil was opening bottles of Pol Roger. Oliver and Cathy were still taking glasses from a cardboard container and arranging them on small trays.
‘Would you mind polishing some of these smeary glasses?’ Emil said to me, pointing at a trayful. ‘It would be of great help.’
‘Just tell me,’ I said.
‘Polish them,’ he said.
‘That’s better.’
They all laughed. I picked up a cloth and began polishing the tall flutes, and Filmer emerged from the corridor and crossed into the dining room without glancing our way.
I watched him walk towards Daffodil, who was waving to him vigorously, and take the place saved by her handbag. He had his back to me, for which I was grateful. Prepared for the closeness of him, I was still unprepared, still missing a breath. It wouldn’t do, I thought. It was time for a bit of bottle, not for knocking knees.
Every seat in the dining car filled up and still people were coming. Nell, arriving, took it in her stride. ‘Bound to happen. All the actors are here. Give everyone champagne.’ She went on down the car, clipboard hugged to her chest, answering questions, nodding and smiling, keeping the class in order.
Emil gave me a tray of glasses. ‘Put four on each table. Oliver will follow you to fill them. Start at the far end and work back.’
‘OK.’
Carrying a tray of glasses would have been easier if the floor had been stable but I made it to the far end with only a lurch or two and delivered the goods as required. Three or four people without seats were standing at the far dome car end, including the actress Angelica. I offered them all glasses as well, and Angelica took one and went on bellyaching to all around her about how Steven had let her down and she should never have trusted the louse, and it was a tribute to her acting that there was a distinct drawing aside of skirts in the pursed mouths of those around her who were fed up with hearing about it.
Oliver, on my heels, was delivering them solace in Pol Roger’s golden bubbles.
I came with acute awareness to the table where Filmer was sitting with Daffodil and, careful not to look directly at either of them, put my last four glasses in a row on the tablecloth.
At once Filmer said, ‘Where have I seen you before?’
CHAPTER SEVEN
About fifty conclusions dashed through my head, all of them disastrous. I had been so sure he wouldn’t know me. Stupid, arrogant mistake.
‘I expect it was when we were over in Europe and went to the Derby Eve dinner in London,’ the elderly woman said. ‘We sat at the head table.… We were guests of dear Ezra Gideon, poor man.’
I moved away sending wordless prayers of thankfulness to anyone out there listening. Filmer hadn’t even glanced at me, still less had known me. His head, when I’d finally looked at him, was turned away from me towards his companions, as was Daffodil’s also.
Filmer’s own thoughts must anyway have been thrown in a tangle. He was himself directly responsible for Gideon’s suicide, and now he found himself sitting with Gideon’s friends. Whether or not he felt an ounce of embarrassment (probably not), it had to be enough to make him unaware of waiters.
I fetched more glasses and dealt some of them to the Lorrimores who were an oasis of silence in the chattering mob and paid me absolutely no attention: and from then on I felt I had indeed chosen the right role and could sustain it indefinitely.
When everyone was served, Zak the investigator appeared like a gale force wind and moved the mystery along through Scene Two, disclosing the details of the attempted kidnap of one of the horses and leaving a tantalising question mark in the shape of which one? To the amusement of the audience, he quizzed several of the real passenger owners: ‘Which is your horse, sir? Did you say Upper Gumtree?’ He consulted a list. ‘Ah yes. You must be Harvey Unwin from Australia? Do you have any reason to believe that your horse might be the target of international intrigue?’
It was skilfully and entertainingly acted. Mercer Lorrimore in his turn and with a smile said his horse was called Voting Right, and no, he’d had no advance notice of any attack. Bambi smiled thinly, and Sheridan said in a loud voice that he thought the whole thing was stupid; everyone knew there hadn’t been any goddam kidnap attempt and why didn’t Zak stop messing around and piss off.
Into a gasping horrified silence while Mercer struggled for words, Zak smiled brilliantly and said, ‘Is it indigestion? We’ll get you some tablets,’ and he patted Sheridan compassionately on the shoulder.
It brought the house, or rather the train, down. People laughed and applauded and Sheridan looked truly murderous.
‘Now, Sparrowgrass,’ Zak said, consulting his list and very smoothly carrying on, ‘who owns Sparrowgrass?’
The elderly gentleman sitting with Filmer said, ‘I do. My wife and I.’
‘So you are Mr and Mrs Young? Any relation to Brigham? No? Never mind. Isn’t it true that someone tried to burn down the barn your Sparrowgrass was stabled in a month ago? Could the two attacks be linked, would you say?’
The Youngs looked astounded. ‘How ever did you know that?’
‘We have our sources,’ Zak said loftily, and told me afterwards his source was the Daily Racing Form, busily read recently for background help with his story. It impressed the passengers most satisfactorily.
‘I’m sure no one’s trying to kidnap my horse,’ Young said, but with a note of doubt in his voice that was a triumph for Zak.
‘Let’s hope not,’ he said. ‘And finally, who owns Calculator?’
The actors Walter and Mavis Bricknell put up their hands in agitation. ‘We do. What’s wrong with him? We must go at once to make sure. The whole thing’s most upsetting. Have you proper guards now looking after the horses?’
‘Calm down, sir, calm down, madam,’ Zak said as to children. ‘Me
rry & Co have a special horsemaster looking after them. They will all be safe from now on.’
He concluded the scene by saying that we would soon be stopping at Newmarket, but that British owners shouldn’t get off the train as they would find no races there. (Laughter.) Lunch was now on its way, he added, and he hoped everyone would return for drinks at five-thirty when there would be Interesting Developments as per their printed programmes. The passengers clapped very loudly, to encourage him. Zak waved, retreated and set off down the corridor, flat-footed almost at once after his bounce in the dining car, and already with drooping shoulders consulting his notebook about what he needed to do next. How often, I wondered, had he had to deal with the likes of Sheridan? From his demeanour, often enough.
Emil told me to collect the champagne glasses, pour the water and put a pot of breadsticks on each table. He himself was opening wine. Oliver and Cathy began bringing plates of smoked salmon and bowls of vichyssoise soup on trays from the kitchen and offering a choice.
The seating problem more or less sorted itself out. Mavis and Walter, pretending ‘their horse’s welfare meant more to them than eating’, set off up the train to eat in the racegoers’ dining car, and so did Angelica, ‘too upset to sit down’. A few others like Raoul, Pierre and Donna, left discreetly, until Nell, counting heads, could match all paying passengers with a place. Giles-the-murderer, I was interested to see, was still in the dining room, still being overpoweringly nice: it was apparently essential to the drama that he should be liked.
We stopped at Newmarket briefly. No British owners got off. (A pity.) The soup gave place to a fricassée of chicken with lemon and parsley.
I was promoted from Aquarius to Ganymede, forsaking water for wine. Emil quite rightly didn’t trust me to clear dirty plates, which involved fancy juggling with knives and forks. I was allowed with the others to change ashtrays, to deliver maple hazelnut praline mousse and to take tea and coffee to the cups, already laid. Filmer ignored my presence throughout and I was extremely careful not to draw his attention by spilling things.